Childhood Grief, Emotions, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Mind/Body Wellness, Pespective, Podcast |
Maha Bodhi | A Quest for Inner-Peace & Freedom
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Were you born and raised in the land of the free and home of the brave, the United States of America?
This week’s episode reminds me that oppression and enslavement are not only in Yemen, where this week’s guest was born but also in the free world. It just looks different from what Maha experienced.
Ironically, Maha fled Yemen, where she experienced oppression, enslavement, arranged marriage twice that included violence and rape, and two civil wars in search of a better (more free) life in America. A life where she could purchase a dress for the first time and make everyday decisions for herself without her father’s dictatorship and abuse from her mother.
This episode begs the question: Where is freedom truly found; is it a state of mind? Or is it simply where your feet touch the ground?
It depends on who you ask. Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl said: “It is not freedom from conditions, but it is the freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.”
Maha took a stand against her conditions. And we all have that power to do so, particularly within the confines of our minds.
Follow Maha’s journey from oppression to freedom when she became a U.S. citizen in 2018. Today, she truly is an unleashed heart, sharing her gifts, wisdom, and experience with all who are open to receiving her message.
There’s a story behind her name. Listen to learn the depth of her name and, more importantly, what it has meant to her as she’s reinvented herself as a free Maha.
The degree of your surrender is the degree of your success. – Maha Bodhi
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Victoria Volk 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today my guest is Mahabodhi. And after surviving a brutal upbringing of being enslaved as a female in Yemen, forced into an arranged marriage twice, surviving multiple death threatening situations, and two civil wars before arriving in the US, Maha found her freedom and true self through the practice of ancient Yogic and modern neuroplasticity techniques. She is a living example of the hero’s journey and is dedicating her entire life to spread the transformational texts techniques that have saved her life. Thank you so much for being Yoona.
Maha Bodhi 0:41
Thank you for having me, Victoria, thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here.
Victoria Volk 0:45
And I initially met, I had gone to a Women’s Business Summit, and you were one of the presenters. And you had shared your story, and I was just captivated by your story. And I thought, Gosh, I need to have her on the podcast. And here we are.
Maha Bodhi 1:00
Yes, here we are. Yes, thank you for having me. I, it was so just so refreshing to see you in that summit, and to see all the incredible women and the incredible work that that organization is doing, you know, I was just really impressed.
Victoria Volk 1:17
And so you tour the country, and go all over speaking and things like that. But that wasn’t always your life. And I imagine what shaped your life in the work that you’re doing today has been your life experience? And can you take us back in time?
Maha Bodhi 1:34
Absolutely. Like you mentioned Victoria, in your intro, I did come from a very kind of traumatic background, my both of my parents are from Yemen. And it’s a very poor and undeveloped country, you know, 50% of the population and lives below the line of poverty. You know, they don’t even most people don’t even have access to clean water or basic human necessities, any sort of appropriate health care. And women are treated very, very poorly in terms of their goal, the purpose of a female really in that country is to serve her husband and, and a man is allowed to have up to four wives. They call them like Sister Wives and they all live in the same house. And arranged marriage is very common in that region. And not only nemenhah Multiple Muslim countries, and even till this day, it’s still practice that arranged marriage were really the kind of your parents, mostly the father, it’s the male dominant culture, the father owns the daughter, and then potential husband will come and propose and it’s kind of like a business deal. They shake hands. And there’s a dowry involved a lot of money that the potential husband pays the father and then the father hands off the female, his daughter or to the new husband. In most cases, they don’t even ask the woman permission, if you call her consent, if she wants to marry this man, you know, they show her a photo and this is who you’re gonna marry, and they meet for the first time in their wedding night. And so a similar, you know, scenario happened to me not once, but twice. And it was very traumatic, you know, one of the husbands was very violent and tried to kill me. And because I came from a very unstable family I also there was abuse in my home. So we the whole country of Yemen is a very, there’s a lot of turmoil, there’s a lot of civil wars, there’s Tribal Wars, there’s international wars, there’s like five different wars going on at the same time. And, and in addition to that, there was violence inside of our home, my mother was extremely violent physically, verbally, you name it. And so I was used to violence and it was kind of my normal. And so when I married the especially the second husband, and I was forced into that marriage, and he was violent, and he was trying to kill me in a machine gun in my head and a sword in my throat and these like dramatic scenarios that you only see in you know, Hollywood movies. And for me, I you know, it wasn’t that extreme, because I was like, Okay, do I go back home and, you know, somebody’s gonna kill me there. Do I stay here and die here. So those were kind of were my options. So it was a very extreme, extreme situation. But in that moment, when you’re in it, it’s now that I look back now that I’m here and I’m safe, and I’ve healed and I’ve matured, I look back and it literally feels like it happened to somebody else that feels like a movie. What I went through and I don’t like the human spirit is just so incredible and so resilient and and I look at myself and like wow, how did I survive that you know, and, and still move on and still come here. And you know, it’s a long story. My father was a diplomat. So we there that was kind of my key my window to freedom because because of his job as a diplomat official, his job required him to travel and to move Every four years to a different country, so we would kind of go back and forth. I was born in Russia, and we lived in Rome in Italy. That was my upbringing. And we lived here in Washington, DC, and my father worked for the embassy there for four years. And so kind of had a taste of what life outside of Yemen looks like. And that’s why I kind of, I knew inside of me that there’s another way, there’s another way of living.
Maha Bodhi 5:26
And, you know, eventually my father had to retire, I went to school in Romania, and I decided to, he was supposed to retire. And the last station that he was as a deployment was in Bucharest, Romania, and I knew that this was, if I go back to Yemen for good, you know, I will die, either somebody will kill me or I will kill myself. And so I decided to start applying for graduate school here in the United States, I saw some of my Romanian classmates do that. And it was like, A ha, that’s my key to freedom. And I just started applying, and I got accepted. And, you know, it was truly nothing short of a miracle. That, you know, I had convinced my dad to let me go to come here and get my master’s degree in organizational behavior, you know, really used school as an excuse, and, and he was able to let me go, and I came here, and I knew, you know, the moment I landed, the moment I stepped on American soil, was the first time in my life that I was free that, you know, I didn’t have to answer to anybody, I didn’t have a curfew, and I was in my 20s. And as like, no one’s calling me, no one is looking over my shoulder, I can go wherever I want, I can wear whatever I want. And that’s kind of where my healing journey began.
Victoria Volk 6:43
Hard to believe that, that still happens, or is still happening to people to women. And I can’t imagine the person that you’ve become right like, how, what did that look like for you? What did that healing look like? And also, I’m also curious, how old were you when you were first? Sold for marriage? Like, what is the typical age?
Maha Bodhi 7:06
Yeah. So you know, I was 19 my first arranged marriage, but Truly Victorian, mentally, I would say I was 10 years old, because of the lack of education, the lack of exposure, the lack of maturity, there’s there was zero sexual education, I did not know what sex was or how it works, or what a man and a husband doing the bedroom. And so I literally was a child in my head, even though I was 19, I was so scared and terrified, all they told us, it’s gonna hurt a little bit, but then it’s gonna be okay. And eventually, you’re gonna love him, and you know, just have kids right away, and especially have a boy because that will increase your value. And literally, that was all the sex education that I got. And so I was terrified. And also, I’m with a stranger all of a sudden, and there’s a complete, like, segregation between the sexes, in that culture, men and women do not socialize whatsoever. You know, they cover up the woman from head to toe, and then all of a sudden, on your wedding day, here you go, this is your husband, you know, go and be intimate with Him. And it was it was just like, insane. And so that was that was that was a lot. And then it was two years apart between my first thing so literally, the first arrangement, I only saved 30 days, and I was playing hide and go seek with this man. For those 30 days, I was sleeping most of the nights in the bathroom floor locking myself, you know, because I did not want to have sex with him. And I never did. I just hid in the bathroom for 30 days. And then eventually I ran back to my parents house. And then they locked me up because now I brought shame to the family because that’s so taboo in that culture and, and I attained like the whole family reputation. And, and that was this. I was locked up for one year, and there was a negotiations of the divorce, they were trying to bully me back into the marriage. And I really was fierce, you know, now looking back, I was standing up to the most powerful men and a corrupt country, you know, that man that I married, his father was the prime minister of our country, and, you know, in that kind of corrupt environment, and I was saying no to those men, I’m like, I’m not going back. I don’t know where I had that ferocity from, and I and so they locked me up in my parents house, literally solitary confinement, and for one year, I could not even see my own sisters that lived in the same house with me. At one point, I remember I opened the door to go to the bathroom and I see my little sister. And last time I saw her she was crawling. She couldn’t even walk yet. And now she was like, bouncing around and walking. She’s grown and I didn’t even recognize her and we live in the same house. And so I was losing my mind and I was literally starting to hear voices in my head and And then after the divorce was finalized, it took a year, they forced me into an a second arranged marriage, like right into it. And at that point, I was so desperate that I thought, okay, maybe it’s better, you know, to get out of this, you know, jail that I’m in, and maybe maybe this guy will love me and be kind to me, and I’ll have a better life than I’m having right now. And so I was kind of optimistic about this one. And he ended up being extremely violent, he was the one with the machine guns and the swords and locking me up. And, and that was where sexual abuse came in. And he because I just tried to do the same thing that I did with my first husband and avoid, you know, sexual relations with him, and he wouldn’t have it. So he was forcing himself on me and was pretty much right. You know, even though we, you know, we were married, if you will, but I wasn’t, you know, I didn’t consent to this marriage. And then same thing, I stayed there, I stayed with him for 40 days, because, you know, I gave him 10 days more, because I was just so terrified of, you know, doing it twice. And but it really was death or life in the situation because of the, how violent he was. And I was like, you know, what, if I’m gonna die anyway, you know, just, I’m just gonna go back to my parents house and see what happens and, and that’s when my father, it’s interesting, I call this divine intervention, because my father was supposed to retire. He was at the end of his career traveling was over and we were in Yemen and, and all of a sudden, my dad gets one last final diplomatic mission to go on it to go to Romania in Bucharest, and, you know, be the ambassador of for our country in that in Romania. And my dad, just because the situation was out of control, my dad just grabbed me and he said, Come on, just I’m gonna go to Romania to come with me.
Maha Bodhi 11:52
And so that’s how I went to Romania. And I started going to college because I wasn’t doing anything. I wasn’t going to school. You know, I was just being bought and sold left and right. And locked up. And so I started going to school, I went to business school and things kind of slowly began to lighten up for me, I went to school. And then the final year when my father was this time, for real, he was supposed to retire. I applied for graduate school and came to the United States. And you asked me, what was this healing journey and you see me now, you know, doing the work that I do when touring the country, like you said, and I’m writing my memoir, and I’m leading yoga retreats, and I, you know, work with Fortune 105 100 corporations. It’s not overnight, you know, and I know our culture has this, like, quick fix this before and after picture. It’s not like that. It was a process. It was years and years of intense healing therapy, yoga, meditation, inward reflection, and a lot of self study. I came here you know, I had to figure out who is MMA outside of all that chaos. I never had a moment to know who I am. I never made one decision in my life up to that point I was 25 years old when I came to the United States and I never you know bought a dress or never, you know, get got to decide the you know where to go or what to eat. Or, you know, my bedroom. I remember we would like because we were traveling a lot like I can I choose my room like now you don’t get to choose your room. You don’t get to choose and everything is thought for you. Everything is decided for you. Even my hair cut even like the littlest thing, every decision was made for me. So here I am a grown women. Now I’m in the land of the free. Everything is supposed to be amazing, right? But no, because internally, I don’t know how to make the simplest decision. I don’t know how to process information. I don’t know how to behave like a grown woman. I remember I had to buy a mattress because right I just moved here. That’s the first thing you do you buy a mattress to sleep on. And I did not know how I’ve never had a bank account in my life. I did not know how to pay for the mattress. The cashier had to show me how to write a check. And he would tell me like paying the order right here, sign here, put the date here. And I was so proud of myself. When I did that. I thought I achieved something incredible. And I didn’t know how to put gas in my car, all these things. So I had to learn step by step by step and yoga played a big, big role in my healing. And it really changed my life. And that’s why now I’m so passionate about helping other people and sharing the techniques that helped me because they work if it worked for me, literally coming from under a rock. English is not even my first language. And now I’m doing what I do. I think anybody can do it. If you have Well, if you have the determination, and you put in the work, it is possible.
Victoria Volk 15:07
Wow, it was like you were a 25 year old infant, I’m sure. It felt like ways Yes. And really vulnerable to being manipulated and taken advantage of again. And so did you. Like where? How did you even know where to find support? As when you first came here? Like, how, what did that look like?
Maha Bodhi 15:29
You know, I was so excited. And so I fell in love with America and American culture. And because of when we were traveling with my father, one of our stops was in the United States was in Washington, DC. And we lived there for four years. And I started kindergarten there, and I studied up to third grade. And me and my sister was me and my older sister, were kinda like two years apart, we got hooked. It was our favorite country of all the countries that we lived in. And we just fell in love with America. And then when we had to move away, because, you know, my dad continued to travel, we were heartbroken. And we never got over it. It was like falling in love, and you never get over it. And so we would move to other countries. And we would watch, you know, American sitcom Saved by the Bell, full house, all these things. We were so immersed in American culture, and so kind of resisting. You know, we were in Saudi Arabia, and we were resisting that culture. Were like, no, America is like so much better. And so we always were dreaming of like, America was the dream. And so when I came here, it was literally like, I remember I called my sister, I just landed. And I was in San Francisco, and I called her I’m like, I’m in San Francisco. And she’s like, whoa, you did it. And she’s like, just live the dream live the dream for both of us, because she got arranged marriage, you know, and into that, you know, path and she already had two kids and, and so she was like, you know, just do it, do it for the both of us. And so what motivated me when you said, like, how did you feel I was so excited. I was literally living my dream. And I was like, I’m here. And anything is possible here. You know, all those restrictions and chains that I had, were gone. And I realized, now it’s up to me. Now, it’s, you know, me and me. All the excuses that I had are gone. So it’s up to me what I do with this freedom, what I do with this opportunity, and so I just, you know, saw, you know, therapy. That was number one, I would say number one was therapy. I knew I needed healing, I would have terror nightmares. You know, I suffered dramatically from PTSD. I mean, I didn’t even know I had PTSD, I would just have these nightmares. And so I went to therapy. And and it went from there. You know, therapy really, really helped me break down how your past, you know, is still showing up in your future and kind of shapes the lens of how you view your world and your life. Right. Dr. Gabor Mate said it. He’s an incredible physician and therapist in his holistic his work is incredible. But he says,
Maha Bodhi 18:04
Your mind shapes your world. But before that your world shaped your mind. And so that’s why you know, I talk a lot about manifestation and manifesting your best life and my work, but unable to tap into your innate power of manifestation become the creator of your life experience, you have to undo you have to unlearn you have to heal. What was done to you, especially if it was a negative thing, the old tape, the old limiting belief, all my life, I was told that I was unworthy, my mom would literally step on me, I’m like, in a fetal position when I was young, and she would put her foot on my back and tell me like, you are worthless, you are nothing, you know, and I’m being like, I’m not I’m trying not to be BullGuard, they’re on your podcast, but she would say a lot of more aggressive things than just that. And so those things shape your mind. And I carry that with me all my life that I am worthless, like, who’s gonna want to look at me who’s gonna want to hear me who’s gonna want to be my friend who’s going to give me a job, all these things, I carry those with me. And then they impact all the other, you know, areas of development in your life, your career, your finances, your relationships. And so therapy helped me kind of see that. But I felt like I plateaued. I reached a point where I just felt like I wasn’t progressing at the rate that I wanted to. And that’s when yoga kicked in, because I love therapy so much, but you’re only dealing with the intellect part of us. And there’s a whole other part that is the body that is not tapped into therapy, unless it’s a Holistic Therapist. But that’s where yoga really came in. What does it feel like to feel safe in your body? How does it feel in your belly? How does it feel in your heart? How does it feel in your legs? eggs. And so those things to embody to be in body to feel the qualities that you want to cultivate. And the beautiful news is that, you know, it’s possible you can cultivate those qualities just through your intentions. And being mindful. The brain is malleable, the brain is plastic, it’s a muscle just like any other muscle. And we know now through research through neuroplasticity, a lot of studies have been done in Harvard, at the Lazar lab, the impact and benefits of yoga and meditation and what it does to the physical structure of the brain, they take the brain and they scan it before and they scan it after, you know, an intensive yoga and meditation program. And they saw that you increase gray matter through these modalities and through these practices. And what does that mean, what is gray matter mean? You know, I’m a little nerdy, and I don’t want to confuse people. All that means is that you activate parts of the brain that correspond to hope, optimism, joy, and you just start to make different decisions, and you start to have a different view of life.
Victoria Volk 21:10
So much came up for me as I was listening to you and I, my eyes started to well up when you were talking about what you said, your sister had shared with you. And I just thought, oh my gosh, like you’re not only in a foreign country, or you were familiar with America, but you left your family, your grind everything behind that you knew solar’s I have a two part question. If you don’t mind going there. But did you ever think about changing your name? is Maha Bodhi your birth name, first of all? And then secondly, are you still in relationship with your family?
Maha Bodhi 21:46
I’m glad you asked that question, because a lot of people asked me that question. So my first name Ma is my given name. It’s a very common name in Middle Eastern countries and Arabic speaking countries. And it was, it means in Arabic, it translates into big, beautiful eyes. And that’s why my parents named me Maha. And so when I came fast forward to the United States, and I’m actually in my yoga teacher training, and it’s my first day of teacher training. And the teacher asked me, Can you introduce yourself to the group and I said, Hi, my name is Maha. And he said, Do you want to tell them what Maha means? And I said, Oh, it means the beautiful eyes. He’s like, yes, but in Sanskrit, it means the great. And I had no idea Victoria, that it meant that in Sanskrit, or it had a meaning in Sanskrit. And everybody looked at me, and they were like, Whoa, you were destined to be a yogi. And you know, it’s like Mahatma Gandhi or Maha Yoga, it’s a means the great. And so that was kind of one of those, you know, universal signs that I like, I feel like the universe gives us clues clues, clues like this is to nudge us in the right direction. And so that was the first thing. My last name was my family name, which is I’ll call it D. And I did change it when I became a US citizen. And so I became a US citizen in 2018. And I didn’t have any intention to change my name. And I was getting naturalized. And my immigration lawyer, she told me, I was filling up the form. And she said, click here, do you want to change your name, and I said, Oh, and she said, This is the easiest way to do it. Like the fastest and easiest way, just check that box and write whatever name you want. And I was like, I actually do want to change my last name, because I felt like I was a completely different person. I had just completed my yoga teacher training. And I became this Yogi and I, and you know, when you when, when you are expecting a baby, you have like nine months to figure out what you want your baby’s name to be, or some people even know that beforehand. They really thought it through. They did research. And I didn’t have time and it was like that moment. And I just like came to me just Bodi came to me. And Bodie means the enlightened ones. It’s the Bodhi tree where the Buddha sat under the tree and he became awakened. And I felt like I was at that moment, I was going through these journeys, and I was having these awakening experiences that were so so powerful, and I would share them with with my colleagues during Teacher Training. I like did you feel that did you and they’re like, What are you talking about? We didn’t feel any of these things that you’re talking about. And so I felt like I was having a unique experience. And so I literally just wrote down. Bodie, not honest, I like I said, I didn’t have a lot of time to think about it. And now so then my friend told me, she’s like, Oh, so now you are the great enlightened one. I’m like, Oh, my God. No, like that’s That sounds very egotistical. I don’t see myself that way. You know, I’m just a human and progress like everybody else. But you know, I think it called me the name kind of called me.
Victoria Volk 24:58
I’d actually looked your name up before Are ya Business Summit? Yeah, cuz I was curious of the, I figured there was some sort of meaning behind. Yeah. The other part of my question too was, Are you still in communication with your family?
Maha Bodhi 25:12
You know, unfortunately, no, I had to sacrifice that relationship and able to move forward in my life. It was very difficult. I slowly be transformed. You know, I call, I call myself there was Yemen Maha. And then there was American Maha, and then there was yo Hema. And the transitions were very extreme. And it was difficult for me, I would talk to my parents initially when I first moved to the United States, and I would call them and I would talk to my sisters and talk. And what I realized is that every time I spoke to them, I have to pretend that I’m still that old MA for them. And I had to really hide who I am. And it was painful. It felt like self betrayal. And, you know, also, it was reminding me of, you know, the past traumas. And I was on this healing journey. And so I realized that if I really, really want to heal and become my fullest expression of my fullest potential, that there’s a sacrifice that needs to be made. And I did. And it wasn’t easy, but I believe that it was it had it was necessary.
Victoria Volk 26:23
And that’s a part of grief that a lot of people resist is creating those boundaries. And yes, really being able to have the, to feel empowered enough to say, No, I need to walk away from this relationship. It’s not serving me.
Maha Bodhi 26:42
Yeah, absolutely. Wow.
Victoria Volk 26:45
So tell us about the work that you’re doing now. And your mission?
Maha Bodhi 26:51
Yeah, you know, when I came here, I just wanted to be an American, just like everybody else. So I’m like, Okay, what do Americans do Americans get a job and, you know, work in corporate America. And so that’s exactly what I did. And I just got a, you know, I studied, I got my master’s degree in organizational behavior. And after I graduated, I found a job. I worked in the headquarters here in Los Angeles for DirecTV. And I worked as a leadership development trainer and coach and I was delivering, like classroom style trainings. And I liked it, you know, I didn’t mind it. So I just, I kept going, and I kept doing what I was doing. But yoga was always my happy place. So I realized, like, after work, you know, I was still copying whatever American culture was doing. So after work, everybody goes to happy hour, everybody. And I liked that for a little bit. But then I realized that you know what, I’d actually rather go to yoga. After work. Instead of that happy hour, I feel better, I sleep better, I wake up better. And so yoga was always my happy place. And then I just kept going for years and years, until one day, I decided just to take it to the next level. And I was like, You know what, I’m gonna go to a yoga teacher training. And I signed up, and I thought it was gonna be a hobby. I thought I was going to teach a yoga class at the park on a Sunday. That was really my intention. But then the first day, Victoria promised to the first I stepped into that room, I knew I knew that I was in the right place, that I belonged, and that my life was going to change. And for the first time in my life, I felt understood, I felt that this is a language that I speak. And I just knew that this was what I was meant to do and who I was meant to be. I was never good at school. And I struggled a lot with, you know, academia. And when I was in yoga teacher training, I was the smartest girl in the training. And I never and it was so refreshing and surprising at the same time. Like when a teacher asks a question, I’m the one raising my hand, you know, I always say like, Monica from my friends, like, I know, I know. I’m, like, I’m that annoying student. And I never was that student, I started to realize that the other trainees were coming to me for advice, and were telling me oh, you’re the best one only you can do this, can you please teach me and it felt like I have something to offer the world I have value, like for the first time in my life, and it was very rewarding that I have something I can be of service to others, and I can help make a difference. And and I never looked back. And you know, I would I will say that I probably wouldn’t have the courage to completely quit my job and just become a yoga teacher. But what happened was, that’s another clue from the universe that I got certified. mid December, it was December 17. And then January 1, like two weeks later, I got certified I got my yoga teacher certification. And then two weeks later, I got a notice from my company that I’m being laid off. And the whole team is being laid off, not just me. They lay off a lot of people it’s part of their downside was a process. And it was just our time, you know? And everybody was crying for my team, what am I going to do? Oh my God, my job, you know, they have mortgages, they have an I was relieved and I knew I was like, I see you universe, I see what’s happening here, I know that you’re telling me to go this way. And I never shed a tear. I never was upset, I felt so light.
Maha Bodhi 30:24
And you know, they give you a severance and they I’m like, I I’m like, All right, I just took that severance. And I ran and I never looked back. And I started building my yoga business and building my work and, and it just unfolded. You know, I just started just teaching yoga and yoga studio in a classroom. And then because I had a huge corporate network, you know, for my corporate life, my friends were uh, what is this yoga you speak of? Like, what are you teaching? Can you come into our company and maybe talk about it and, and share it. And as you know, my my background, being the leadership development, training, trainer and holding, you know, that classroom type of training. So I kind of bridge those two worlds together. And I created my own formula, which is, you know, just from different schools of thought. So I combined the ancient wisdom, healing yogic techniques, with the corporate, you know, cutting edge best practices and efficiency and agility. With the science of neuroplasticity, I created my own formula, I call it the high performance mind. And now I you know, I go to corporations, and I deliver trainings, I do one on one coaching, and I do inspirational, speaking engagements, where you saw me at the Women Business Summit, where I just talk about my background, and my experience. So that’s kind of how it’s shaped. And it’s, you know, from from trauma from a very intense, you know, difficult situation. So that’s why I always say, you know, these traumatic experiences, they can break you down, or they can break you open. And it’s really up to you. It’s your decision, what you make of it, the poet Rumi said, The wound is where the light enters you. And so are you going to open to the learning, instead of slipping into victim and being Why did this happen to me, you know, which one is better, like, think about it for a moment?
Victoria Volk 32:16
Well, and you might be there for a time, and it’s exactly what you’re, you’re gonna sit with all of that and the overwhelm of it all, but not to stay there. And, you know, just wake up and just choose better for yourself.
Maha Bodhi 32:29
It’s just what you touched upon what we call in yoga, a spiritual bypass, we don’t want to bypass that trauma or that difficult experience, you actually want to hold space for it and be a container. So you’re not dismissing that pain or dismissing that part of you, that’s when we create disconnect, you actually want to integrate all parts of you that it all belongs the wounded part of you, and the and the the inner child, part of you, you know, and even the parts of you that you don’t really like, you know, maybe it’s anger or jealousy, or you know, that part of you also belong, and the loving part of you and the light part of you all of it. And once you become whole, and that’s really when you tap into your full power and you’re able to live your whole life.
Victoria Volk 33:15
Do you seem to draw people to your work that have experienced trauma? And is that a big part of your yoga practice today? Like, do you work one on one with a lot of trauma?
Maha Bodhi 33:27
You know, it’s interesting, I’m not a therapist. So I don’t think it’s my place to do that. But I do notice that people gravitate towards me that not just people who went through trauma, anybody who wants to reach their fullest potential and highest expression, you know, the dreamers, you know, the rebels, the people who want to follow the path of least resistance, which I call like, go with the flow, you want to be in alignment with yourself, you want what you feel is in aligned with what you say, and what you do show up as your best self. And so those are the kinds of people you’d like I said, I’m not a therapist, even though I understand trauma very well. And I see I can see it very clearly in people but I don’t have the skill set to walk somebody through it in depth, they probably will be better served by seeking a professional.
Victoria Volk 34:14
I know that you you did a piece in an HBO documentary, do you want to speak to that a little bit?
Maha Bodhi 34:15
You know, that was kind of part of it’s still in production. It’s not out there yet. But what happened is that I did one of my inspirational speaking engagements in Beverly Hills and they there was a lot of media there and you know, production companies follow me and there are females on there called CTV and they reached out to me and they said, We want to film your story and they’re doing the HBO documentary, which is every episode is focused on one story, and they came to me and we filmed it and I don’t know where it is right now. It’s kind of still in production.
Victoria Volk 34:54
Well, if it comes out before you know the your episode actually airs. I’ll put that in the show. Let’s but yeah, please keep me up to date on that. Yeah, great. And what’s next for you.
Maha Bodhi 35:04
You know, I’m just, you know, I’m continuing to evolve and grow. In my work, I’m leading international yoga retreats, which are tremendously transformational, because you kind of step away from the noise of your day to day life. And you know, a retreat is to retreat within. And so we are away from all of that, and you’re in a new environment, and we do yoga twice a day. And I really have seen people transform in front of my eyes. And it’s truly magical, if you if you’re willing and open to allow healing to occur to allow transformation to occur. And I always say like, the more you’re willing to surrender, the degree of your surrender is equal to the degree of your success. And so the more you resist, you know, the more you get stuck, you know, emotions are energy in motion, right? They’re designed to come pass through and let go. And it’s when we hold on, it’s when we resist. And when we grip, and we become identified by that story in that pain, that’s when we get stuck. And really yoga is Mo moving your body, you’re literally expanding your body or stretching yourself. Because when you are in pain, you contract the body, right, you physically contract the body, you can see it, you make a fist with your head, you close your ribs, you’re fidgeting, you’re tensing the body, so the energy is not able to flow freely in the body. And yoga is kind of a counter for that. So you’re stretching your body, you’re breathing through the practice. And so you’re kind of releasing that energy. Now the breath is flowing in your body, now the blood is flowing in your body. When you’re doing that downward facing dog, your head is lower than your heart. So you’re kind of reversing the blood flow, the effects of gravity. And what happens is literally you’re optimizing all the systems in the body, you’re optimizing your nervous system, you’re optimizing the blood flow, the bread we talked about in the brain, the heart, all these things. And then when you’re in that state of expansion, you liberated that energy because it takes so much energy to kind of be caught up in your stress and in your pain and in your story. And when you freed up that energy, literally, I talked about embodying and now you’re embodying freedom in your in your body, you can do so much with that liberated energy and use it in a very useful way that benefits you and really benefits everyone around you in the greatest good.
Victoria Volk 37:35
Love. Do you offer online classes?
Maha Bodhi 37:39
I do Insight Timer on Sundays. That’s a year Neoga de stress and deep stretch. That’s the That’s my online class. And I do the high performance mind, you know that my my leadership trainings, I do that with corporations, but I also offer free master classes on a monthly basis. So every month we meet, and I give them kind of like a snippet of the highperformance mind masterclass. It’s all on yogimaha.com.
Victoria Volk 38:05
Okay, I will put that link in the show notes too. But I kind of want to dip back into the serious stuff a little bit again. I’m curious because of your experience with the traumatic experience that you had with marriage and being in that environment of arranged marriage. And so how has that shaped and I know that you’re a completely different person now than you were then. And so I think sometimes what happens is, well, what I’ve seen even for me personally, and people I’ve worked with and through grief, once you have dealt with all that emotional stuff and the trauma, you are changed by it right for the positive and you seem to then attract more of the same to you. Yeah. And so how has because I imagine if I would have experienced something like that, I would have been very cynical about love, right? Like, so how has that shaped you today? And how you know, and love and marriage.
Maha Bodhi 39:04
It does shape and I just want to say that when you heal, it’s not that that is completely gone. It’s not like that it’s disappeared. It’s just that you learn how to like we said hold space for it. So it’s not kind of blurring your vision. It’s not dominating your decision mechanism. So it’s not leading the way so you kind of see it you observe it, it’s there. I see you I know you’re still there. But but it’s okay. Kind of like a little child but it’s okay, we got this we can do this together. So I think that’s what’s healing. It’s that integration, that sense of wholeness. I did struggle a lot with relationships, you know, I’m not gonna lie to Victoria. I struggled a lot with intimacy, love and relationships, especially when it comes to dating. There is this kind of like fear but, you know, I think if you have to choose between love and fear, I think when in doubt, always choose love and always open up to love you can Can’t go wrong with love.
Victoria Volk 40:01
There’s the show, I’ve been kind of watching just like my secret indulgence, if you will, you know, it’s like this not trashy TV, but reality TV. But it’s called Love is blind, and I just find the, the, it’s an experiment in love, but you, you don’t meet the people, you just talk. And you build this emotional connection before you ever see them. And it really highlights how superficial of a society we really are, when we’re looking at appearances. And you can’t you don’t make a decision on love based on on, you know, race or background or any of those things. It’s just purely an emotional connection. And so can you speak to that for someone who may be struggling to build that emotional connection with someone? That’s a good lead to, by the way?
Maha Bodhi 40:59
That’s a very interesting question. You know, it’s kind of what you mentioned, this show that they kind of connect on an emotional level before they see each other before on a physical level, which is kind of like the opposite of what’s happening with dating apps these days, dating apps is purely based on looks purely based on that snippet like swipe, swipe, swipe super fast make that decision, I do think that I personally am that kind of person. With the advice that I can, I’m the kind of person that I would like to connect more like, I’d like to know someone more, it’s easier to open up. Because if you have these trust issues, like that’s what I struggled with, it’s when you have that background, like similar to me, what happens is that you don’t trust people, because the people that were supposed to love you unconditionally violated that trust. And then as you grow as an adult, it’s really difficult for you to, to find that trust again. Especially, you know, with a complete stranger, you know, if my parents didn’t love me and take care of me, how is a stranger gonna love me and take care of me. So I better watch out, right? That’s the mindset for me, if that’s something you’re struggling with, probably the dating apps are not going to be beneficial to you, I would say friendships, you probably want to lean into it through a friendship through somebody, you know, doing what you love. So when you do what you love, and you follow your bliss, like Joseph Campbell said, you’re gonna put yourself in situations to be surrounded with like minded people, and you’re going to attract like minded people. And so you’re going to meet those people. And it could start off as no colleagues or you know, friendship, like I said, and you start to have conversation, I feel that creates a safe environment, to open up to somebody and be more trustful. And I know that’s a slower pace than, you know what our society teaches us the swipe, swipe, swipe, but I think it’s a very healthy way. And it’s also more authentic, and it’s probably going to be a more lasting relationship. You know, when I started I, I was working right in the corporate world, and I wanted and I just decided to be a yogi and I just made this huge transformation that literally my friends were worried about me, they were, you know, they were doing interventions like what are you, okay, like, who leaves their corporate job with all the benefits and the big salaries in the fancy offices, and you know, and health insurance and all that stuff, and then you just go live on a yoga teacher salary, and they thought I was crazy, right? They were worried about me, are you okay? Literally, I would get text message, are you okay? And that was a little bit isolating for me, you know, I felt like no one understood me. But when you chew, and it takes a lot of willpower, because the calling was so big for me, like my North Star was so big that the obstacles were small in comparison to the North Star. And so I followed through my passion. And, you know, I started to share it with the world and I start to use my voice and speak up, even though it was a big risks. You know, everybody’s telling me, I’m crazy. And I’m going out there and sharing it with the world. What happened is that people that are like me, started to see themselves in me and started to rally around me. And so that’s called community. So I started to build community. And I started to be surrounded by like minded people, just because I decided to do what I love. And I followed my calling. So the goal was not to meet people. The goal was not to create community. I just felt this calling and I followed my bliss. And then that cascade leads to other things, that leads so that’s kind of my advice to people is just do what you love and the right people will find you
Victoria Volk 44:41
Follow what lights you up. Right? Exactly. Well, that’s a great tip that takes care of that one question I was going through all of this, what is your grief taught you?
Maha Bodhi 44:51
You know, I like I said, my parents are still alive. But what I had to learn is I had to learn on how to support myself, I had to learn how to self regulate. And what you know, that’s me. And then literally, I had when you have nowhere to go, you go inside, that’s what happened to me like my when your face is like in the wall, there was nowhere to go but inside. And so I went inside, and I did the self work. And I did the self study, which allowed me to learn how to be my own best friend, and be my parent that I never had, and be my greatest coach and be my best friend, and be my greatest lover. So I was able to be all these things. And it’s not an easy journey. But it is such a powerful journey, the results are truly incredible. And so that’s when you become whole. And that wholeness allowed me to be a better friend for other people, a better lover for another person. And so now I have because my cup is so full, I’m able to give from my overflow, when your cup is empty, you’re no good for anybody around you. And so now I’m able to be compassionate, really, and see people when they’re suffering and just hold space for them, and not try to fix it really, I try not to slip into preacher or teacher mode or try to, you know, I’ll show you how to fix this, you know, just by holding space for somebody, people want to be seen people want to be heard. People want to be valued. And so I would say that’s what it taught me. And I think that’s a very powerful capability to have.
Victoria Volk 46:41
Absolutely agree. What gives you the most joy and hope for the future for your future.
Maha Bodhi 46:46
I feel I’m on the right path, I feel I’m on the right place and at the right time. And I feel the more I do this work, the stronger my relationship with my gut feeling is. And so sometimes it doesn’t make sense the decisions that I make, like from an external perspective, from an intellectual perspective, which our culture is very intellectual, and I know that my gut will never lie to me. And so I feel very optimistic because I see that relationship continues to grow and grow. And I trust it more. So I’m really looking forward to the future.
Victoria Volk 47:20
And I think that happens as we start to dig away and just clear away all of that stuff. We win
Maha Bodhi 47:28
The noise and the stories. Yeah,
Victoria Volk 47:31
A lot easier to tap into our intuition when we are able to do that. I think
Maha Bodhi 47:36
I’m writing my memoir, like I mentioned, and that’s been such a cathartic experience for me. And I’m really excited to share that with the world. Do you have a launch date? Yeah, no, I think by end of this year, okay. Yes.
Victoria Volk 47:50
I’m really excited about that for that. Yeah. Is there anything else that you would like to share?
Maha Bodhi 47:55
I don’t, I want to say to people, don’t give away your power, you are so much more powerful than you think you are. And if you don’t believe me, just sit quietly and listen, listen to the voice that is inside of you. And, you know, I’m a meditation teacher, and a yoga teacher and all these tools and techniques. They’re all just designed to quiet down the noise in your head. So you’re able to see things clearly to hear things clearly. And that alone is such a powerful technique. You know, Victoria, I just saw this documentary. It’s an old documentary, there’s this experiment in a prison in Atlanta or Alabama, I’m sorry, one of those. It’s a prison. It’s a maximum security prison. And it’s like the most the worst prison in the United States. And they started to deliver Vipassana meditation, which is a silent 10 day meditation. It’s it’s the most intense program that anyone can go through to be silent for 10 days. And they did it in Alabama. And you know, it’s a it was a very Christian place, and there was a lot of resistance. But, you know, somehow, you know, they rolled out the program. And these prisoners are murderers are the worst kind of people you can imagine did horrific things. And they did this 10 day meditation of being silent and completely transformed. Like you can see their faces light up, you see them talk before how angry they were. And then there’s just like this pure peace in their face, just because they were able to quiet their head and drop into the body and identify the sensations of the body that are invoking this kind of reaction, this reactive place. And so they just learned how to be in their body and how to manage their body and manage their reaction and realize that it’s just a chemical reaction and I have the power. You know, I own my body. My body doesn’t own me. I own my brain. My brain does An own mean, I own my emotions. My emotions don’t own me. So that’s a very empowering tool. And your listeners are no, they’re not murderers, they’re not you know, so their journey can be so much easier and they don’t even need to do a 10 day silent meditation. Just sit quietly five minutes a day, 10 minutes a day journal, reflect, go inside self study, the more you get to know yourself, the better you’re able to serve yourself and serve other people.
Victoria Volk 50:28
Yeah. Kristin Sherry has said she’s one of my mentors. She said, the more you know yourself, the more the less you look to others to tell you who you are.
Maha Bodhi 50:37
Exactly. The less validation you need from others.
Victoria Volk 50:41
Yeah, I’m going to try and find that documentary you’re talking about and
Maha Bodhi 50:45
it’s on YouTube yet. Okay, too. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 50:49
I’ll have to look that up. Thank you so much for sharing your story, which is incredible. We truly live in a very blessed country. And it we are so lucky that I take it so for granted. Yeah, sure. Yes. Thank you so much again, and you’re welcome idea. And remember, when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.
Educational, Grief, Grief Tips, Mind/Body Wellness, Resources |
In this article, we will discuss survivor’s guilt, what it is, and potential treatments that can help those experiencing it.
Though survivor’s guilt has always existed in some form, the term itself was used to describe the feelings of those who had survived the holocaust during World War Two. It refers to the complex range of emotions experienced by people who have survived a severe accident, attack, natural disaster, or illness where others have died. It is often found among armed forces veterans who have served on active duty.
Those with survivor’s guilt cannot explain why they have survived while others haven’t. They might not feel worthy or despair at the situation’s unfairness. If you’ve been in an accident or an attack where a loved one has died, the condition can feel even more intense as you may feel as though you should have died instead of them.
Rather than being a disorder, survivor’s guilt may be categorized as a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), but these are not mutually exclusive. PTSD is often treated with talking therapies, EMDR, and self EMDR in addition to any recommended medication.
Symptoms of Survivors’ Guilt
The severity of the symptoms that come with survivor’s guilt are wide and affect people to a greater or lesser extent and can manifest as both mental and physical signs, including:
- Flashbacks
- Guild
- Intrusive thoughts of the event or situation
- Feeling unworthy
- Feeling helpless
- Mood swings
- Suicidal ideation
Physical symptoms include:
- Changes in eating habits
- Headaches
- Nausea
- Insomnia
- Palpitations
Survivors’ guilt can leave you with complex feelings about yourself and others. For example, you might obsess over the event, convincing yourself that you were to blame or that you should have been able to influence the outcome.
If you’ve survived a serious illness, you might feel like you weren’t worthy and that much better people than you who died should have lived.
Even if you’re usually a well-balanced person who can put things into perspective, survivor’s guilt can cause you to question everything about yourself and the world. You might even blame yourself for it happening, even if there was no way for you to have influenced or prevented events.
Who Can Develop Survivor’s Guilt?
Anyone can experience survivor’s guilt after an accident or illness. It depends on the circumstances and severity of the situation and your mental state. Researchers have linked the development of survivor’s guilt to a person’s ‘locus of control.’ This describes how much control over their lives people believe they have. If you don’t believe that things are ‘just meant to be’ or beyond your control, you might find it easier to accept the situation.
If you believe that all circumstances and situations can be anticipated and controlled, then you might be more inclined to blame yourself.
Other indicators could include:
- Previous history of trauma or experience or a similar situation (with or without PTSD)
- Poor self-image and low self-esteem
- Existing mental health conditions such as depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder
- Poor access to mental health support
- Lack of social network and support
Treatment for Survivors’ Guilt
Those experiencing this condition can have serious mental health issues, affecting all aspects of their lives. It is often also accompanied by PTSD and other parts of psychological and physical trauma.
Any treatment plan must consider all of these factors to be effective. A mental health professional can use a range of treatments, including:
Individual or group therapy sessions include other people who have survived similar situations.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) can be used to identify negative thought patterns and learn to replace them with others to change thought patterns and assess the situation realistically.
In some situations, your doctor might feel you would benefit from taking certain medications such as anti-depressants or sleep aids to help with insomnia. This can be done alongside other types of treatment and therapy, and it may take a combination of treatments to help put you on the track to recovery.
Conclusion
Surviving an accident, illness, or traumatic event is liable to make anyone feel guilt or ‘why me?’ thoughts. For many people, these thoughts eventually go away or are manageable, but for some, they can affect the quality of life and leave a lasting mark on your mental health and well-being, which is why it’s essential to seek help as soon as you can.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Mind/Body Wellness, Pespective, Podcast, Spirituality |
Michelle Marsh | Flipping the Script on Loss During Covid
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
In the grief recovery programs, one way we describe grief is that it is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations. This description of grief, in this way, has not been better understood by society as a whole more than it has since 2020 with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As society begins to emerge from the darkness Covid brought to so many lives, we start to see ourselves and others in a new light. We have started to see the impact of the past two years on the psyche of millions, its global economic impact, and deeply feel the ripples in our individual lives.
In this week’s episode, my guest, Michelle Marsh of Western Australia and @aromanosis, shares the ripples Covid-19 created in her life. Burying a loved one is never easy. Burying a loved one during a pandemic, well, it can be downright traumatic, elevating the emotions of everyone involved and leaving a lasting imprint.
Additionally, and not often talked about, are the secondary losses during Covid-19 due to government mandates, which Michelle also experienced in regard to hopes and dreams she had before the pandemic.
Michelle shares a few lessons she’s learned from her Covid-19 experience. And, how she’s managed to get to the other side of the darkness that was Covid-19 (and still is creating ripples in some ways).
For a long time, I have shared the expression “Covid Ruins Everything.” Well, one thing I believe it hasn’t ruined and perhaps has maybe strengthened, is the human spirit in the lives of millions.
May we all carry the lessons we’ve individually learned from Covid-19 into our future selves and be better for it.
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Victoria Volk 0:00
Hi this is Victoria of theunleashedheart.com and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss. As a 30 plus year griever in advanced Grief Recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate grievers and non grievers like spread hope and inspire compassion towards those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with yours in this platform, grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather? Let’s get started. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I am your host Victoria Volk of The Unleashed Heart and today my guest is Michelle Marsh. She studied Reiki one and two as a teenager which began her journey into wellness. And after leaving school, she went into Registered Nursing where she learned the pros and cons of western medicine. After getting frustrated with the system, she left and began down a path of learning and natural health and hypnotherapy soon moving into coaching. Recently, Michelle has studied creative therapies and this year is delving deeper into alcohol herbalism and your Aveda. Now a mom of three and wife to a wonderful tolerant husband, Michelle describes herself as a highly sensitive person who loves to experience life to the fullest. In a nutshell, Michelle works with nature and creativity to help others grow and create change. Thank you so much for being my guest today. Michelle.
Michelle Marsh 1:52
Hello, thank you for having me.
Victoria Volk 1:55
We know each other to your friends for like two years. And this is the first time we’re actually recording. And I’ve been trying to pin you down for quite some time. But I think it’s perfect timing just given all of the change and transformation that I know you’ve gone through in the past two years. But more importantly, how that change has transpired probably in light in a lot of ways because of COVID. And so excited to see where this conversation goes today. But can you share a little bit about the Michelle before COVID and the impact that has had on your life in the Michelle after COVID? And just to clarify, she lives in Western Australia?
Michelle Marsh 2:42
Yes, it is. Although I think you’re the one with a funny accent. Okay, so Michelle. Oh, so that’s a doozy. Deezy Deezy question. Michelle, post COVID is much more accepting of the grayness of the future. So I think that’s probably the biggest change than the uncertainty of everything that’s kind of gone on here, has given me in the sense that before COVID, I really like to plan before COVID, I would always have a future vision of how everything is going to be. And with so many changes, and so much potential for change occurring. And there were you know, there’s been quite a few things in my life that I would I was doing that has been well felt like it was ripped beneath my feet. And all of a sudden, the trajectory I was on and my husband was on, career wise, family wise, all sorts of things disappeared. And in the past, when I’ve come across those kind of uncertain moments or you know, when big changes come into life as it does one of my biggest strategies for dealing with that would be to sit down and and replan and re visualize something into the future because knowing where you are going gives you a sense of purpose and hope. And so the last two years, particularly this this past year, it’s like, we don’t know what’s going to happen next and how well there’s a lot of freedom has been changed here, where I live and and so it’s like it was about six months ago, I had had a moment of going been so frustrated because I kept planning and it kept kind of falling apart. Just one little announcement and it would just crumble down again and this frustration and then wanting to plan but being afraid to Take the next step in a plan as well because of that, and I was sitting there and I was in a meditation and it was like, there was just this gray fog. And it’s like, well, I can’t just keep standing here where I’m at. Because you can’t do that for life. Like that’s, that’s the path we’re staying still to, to misery, right, we have to move forward. That’s where the growth is. But the fear of stepping into sight is the great unknown. So it’s, it’s not that I don’t dream and plan now. I do. But it’s with the knowledge that it can be. It can disappear at any moment. And I think now in hindsight, I look back. And I think how funny because it’s not like that was ever different. Life could always change on a dime, yet, your plans could always change. But I had a false sense of security, pre 2020. Whereas now, it’s like my eyes have been opened as to the true changeable nature of life. And, you know, it was terrifying at first. And in some days, it still is, and some days, I really feel the loss of that that certainty. On the other hand, what a gift because it’s kind of exciting, as well like to go the potential, you know, instead of knowing where you’re going, knowing the end of the story, it’s like a great book, where anything can happen. Like, yeah, hope that answers.
Victoria Volk 6:34
And I want to, I want to touch on that a little bit and go a little deeper on what you said, when you talked about the possibility because there I think there’s so many people that could think, like the negative, right, like, this isn’t going to work out. It’s like the worst possibility rates, so many people have that knee jerk reaction to think of the worst case scenario. Yeah. So what have you learned through the grief that this has brought you to? Because it is grief changing pattern patterns of behavior and your life and plans that gets swept from under you? What have you learned in how have you been able to reframe your positive goal of possibility instead of fear? Really?
Michelle Marsh 7:19
Yeah, that’s definitely been been grave. So saying that I’ve had in my head since I was a kid, I don’t know where it came from, is there’s always a way you just have to find it. And I’ve, I’ve always believed that, except for when I haven’t. Sometimes you forget, right. But it’s always kind of been there in the back of my mind. So one of the things that happened towards the end of last year in, in studying creative therapies at uni, is that I had a trajectory from going from this postgraduate diploma that I’m doing into the Masters, which would then take me into the system have been registered and been able to mingle with, you know, in the, in the medical world and things kind of in the system, I suppose. Because I, I fell in love with it. And I’m good at it. You know, they try to say that in the most non egotistical way, but you know, when you just go, oh, yeah, like, it all makes so much sense to me. And I find that quiet, it’s a lot of work but quite easy at the same time to understand. And so it was like, having this baby kind of gifted to me, and I was, I was just in love, and I was committed to it. And, and it was just such a beautiful gift. Because I had originally said, I’m going to do this, and I’m going to integrate it into like, my coaching and consulting that I do, what I learn, and, and then I had this whole new vision and pathway that I was going to go on. And then there was announcements at the end of last year that said that you have to be vaccinated to practice as as that kind of registered practitioner and we had chosen as a family not to go down that road health wise. And it was just dream shattered in a moment. And that really, it and I know I spoke to a lot about this at the time, you know, talk about a loss of hopes, dreams and expectations. I had such a strong vision of once I had that masters what I was going to do with it and it it felt so real. It felt so aligned and even talking about it now I can feel that emotion kind of coming up. And it was like, oh, what now and I did just throw my hands up and kind of say if you world and I don’t understand. And this felt so right, I felt so aligned, like, you know, my, the spiritual side of me was really well, the side of me trying to understand the spiritual side of me was very confused. Because I live my life like that I follow my intuition. That loss made me feel very lost in myself. And it made me question everything in the sense of, you know, I follow these, this path of of, like, following the whispers I call it the, you know, that intuitive following what feels good following what feels aligned, and here are here it was, I felt like the universe was just slapping me across the face and going, haha, just jokes, you know, give me the Give me Give me that beautiful baby back, take it away from night just took it straight back. And all the work that I’ve done and the sacrifices that I’ve made, you know, financially timewise to do that study, because, you know, it’s been a couple of years that I’ve been in, it really hurt, really, really hurt.
Michelle Marsh 11:14
And then at the same time been so aware of so many people in the world suffering so much more, you know, that there are there are bigger losses out there. And it could be so much worse, but then it felt like my heart was being tested that it’s such a funny thing, when you have a have a loss like that, because it’s what I was grieving was was never actually a reality in the first place. So going back to that, that same, there’s always a way, you just have to find that, you know, that was still in the back of my head. And gradually, I realized that what I have learned so far is still mine, I have not lost the last two years of study, it’s still in my mind that still integrated into how I work with people in the capacity that I work with people now. And then I found another way, then I said, I don’t need the approval of that organization over there, to to still study and learn what I love and to integrate it into what I offer into the world, nobody can stop me from offering my skills, I’m just not allowed to use certain words, you know, and it’s, there’s, there’s always a way, there’s always a way. And and it can be really hard and frustrating when you don’t have the support that you thought you were going to have on that journey. But then there’s, you know, six months on from that, so many gifts in that as well that have kind of come from that big shake up of that expectation. Now what I’m doing is so much more expansive, that it would never fit in that tiny little box of where I thought I was going. So I guess moving through it one foot in front of the other. With that mantra going through my mind, there’s always a way, I just need to keep moving forward, until I find that way, knowing that I’ll probably go this way and then that way and up and down and around in circles quite a few times before I feel like I’m sort of tracking forward maybe and that’s okay. That’s the other mantra in my mind. It’s okay. It’s all okay. Every emotion every, every wrong turn every, every every right. It’s all okay, it’s all perfect. So I suppose I have a much deeper trust and faith these days than I used to. Because I can’t plan.
Victoria Volk 13:59
Well, and again, like we’ve like so many of us get reminded it’s you can plan until you’re blue in the face, but not at all there’s an expression God will laugh at your plans anyway or something like yeah, as the last laugh. I just filled out a survey not that long ago or not a survey a questionnaire to be on a podcast and the question was something to the effect of when was a time in your life that you had failed? And you know, what, what did you learn from it? And like the old me, before I really started my journey of personal development, especially the last probably, like pre grade recovery me would have would have looked at that and and answered probably in the way of really looking down on myself. Right and really, I could have probably thought of things left and right to put in there. But my perspective of failure now. I don’t know if you I know from what I know of you I’m thinking you share the same thinking is that there is no failure. It’s all learning the perspective of how I look at failure like there, there is no failure. And I used to, you know, we are our worst critics, our own worst critics. And that used to be a really one of the things that brought me down the most, and my self confidence and, and my worth, and all of that. So I think it’s really important that we look at failure, and really dig deep into it. Of what how we want to reframe that. So how do you? What is your stick on failure these days?
Michelle Marsh 15:45
It’s a really good question, because it’s not something I really think about anymore. Because it’s kind of like you, I used to think about how many failures I’ve had. And just as you’re talking there, I’m like, Well, I guess what’s happened is I don’t see them as failures anymore. They seem as launchpads I see them as my biggest moments of, of growth. Because I’ve, I’ve had plenty of things which people could label us as failures if they wanted to. But if those things hadn’t occurred, I would not be the person I am right now. I would not feel the expansiveness and love and everything that I have hearing my heart so solidly these days, I wouldn’t have any of that. Because I wouldn’t have learned how to come come through. And so I suppose in the in the sense of how I saw things as failures in the past. Whereas now I don’t, I see them as growth opportunities now, which means I move through things a lot quicker. I think if like that example that I gave with my study, if that had happened, say three years ago, it probably would have taken me maybe a year, two years to get over it, you know, not over it, too. We don’t get over things, we integrate them. And we grow from them with without any kind of trauma or grief, or occurrence. And so I think it’s a reframe into a growth opportunity, instead of it being a failure. And the best thing we can do is to fail again, and again, and again and again. And I used to read books saying that, and I would think, yeah, because then you learn how to do it right, and you don’t fail anymore. You know, those Harar kind of books, like, you know, learn how to do it wrong. So then you know how to do it, right? It’s such a load of crap, get comfortable with it, and know that it’s an opportunity. And yes, it’s an opportunity that hurts like hell, and I can’t ever see myself seeking that out and saying, Oh, I hope this is one of those moments of
Victoria Volk 17:55
Great, right, we don’t ask for it.
Michelle Marsh 17:58
Every endeavor every step of the way, I’m hoping that things go smoothly and well, and that it feels so flow when you know all the rest of it, that when ultimately the pain does come along, it’s that knowledge in the back of your mind that that you can get through it. And it’s the previous failures or growth opportunities. And having come through those and then being able to see those in hindsight. That gives you the courage to know that no matter what happens into the future, and I suppose this is where getting comfortable with that greatness in front of in front of me has come from no matter what’s thrown at me, I will find a way through it, I’ll find a way to integrate that I’ll find a way to find meaning in it, which I think is is a big part of, you know, coming through trauma coming through grief is, is having some sort of meaning attached to it, not to dispel the pain. Because it’s so important, I think to to honor that and integrate it, but that the meaning gives us a sense of purpose and understanding of why we experience it in the first place, which to me is then that Launchpad into the growth in our future and into better experience.
Victoria Volk 19:22
I know because we’re friends that you experienced a loss during that transition of trying to understand that what you wanted to the stream that you were hoping to build and launch wasn’t going to happen, at least for the time being, but you did have a loss of someone you loved during that time as well. And
Michelle Marsh 19:42
Yeah, so that was my my grandfather and it happened quite quickly and suddenly, I mean, he was gosh, I should know this. I think he was 96 but he was still living alone and looking after himself. And you know, I’ve completed sound mind and he had a fall and within weeks he he had died. And in that time, we thought he was going home as well, because he, he was healing and then all of a sudden he crashed the night before of the funeral. There was there was an announcement we had really strict borders in, in Western Australia. And we hadn’t had COVID in in our state. And so they, there was one case that that came through. And so they locked everything down based on one case who was in isolation, and they’d identified everybody that had been in contact, which was nothing to do with me or my family or anything near near us. But they locked down everything and said that, so like lots of rules changed. One of them been at funerals, that you can only have 10 people attend, and mums, one to five children. So with partners, you know, she could attend with her her brothers, but none of us cousins and you know, there’s a there’s a big bunch of us cousins, and we’re a very, very close family. It was a grieving of not just the loss of my grandfather, but but from the head of the family. We lost my Nan, you know, 20 odd years ago. So it was this this fear then of is our family still going to come together? Or is it like all of it changed every dynamic of what had been a really solid foundation for all of us in, in that family. I remember, I was already grieving all of that. And then to have here this announcement that I can’t go to the funeral, yet the football was still going ahead was so discombobulated like the grief then that came up from that, and so that night, like and they said, Oh, you know, we’ll live stream and like, okay, okay. But it was kind of like a bit. But it was so hard to really comprehend the feelings that that were going on inside. And I don’t think I’ve ever really thought about how important funerals were. And so in the end, we made a decision, I think I was lying in bed awake at it, I couldn’t sleep, and just so much fire so much anger towards this politician made this decision that made no sense to me, no sense, you know, the rest of the world by then was kind of getting on with things and, and will freaking out a by one case, you know, and yeah, I just hit me, I’m like, No, I’m getting up and getting dressed. Because all of that process of getting dressed to go to the funeral, there’s like ritual in it. And and, and the kids are having the day of school, and they are getting dressed too. And so is my husband, and I’m taking my laptop. And we’re going to drive wasn’t strictly allowed, but we did it. We’re going to drive, we’re going to sit outside on the road in our car, of where I know, they are. So I can see the hearse drive in. So I can I can watch it on on the computer and as close as I can to that.
MIchelle Marsh 23:35
And it ended up being this beautiful on one hand, and then still so much anger and grief on the other side to have not been in the chapel because we turned up there. And I’ve spoken to my three siblings, and they decided they would do the same. So we were turning up but none of us has spoken to our cousins, because we’re a little like, you know, bit worried about what each other would think about breaking the rules to that extent, but we’re like, we’re safe. We’re in our cars where you know, because we weren’t supposed to say anyways, we get there. And the majority of my cousins had decided to do the same thing. And it was so incredible. Watching all of these cars line up on the side of the road with the same idea. They’d all had the same inspiration when I spoke to them later, you know, they’d had the same kind of thing where they’d stayed up all night I couldn’t sleep and angry and then you know, they got this idea to come and I so feel like my granddad went to each of us and gave us that inspiration. And so that was really beautiful. And it was a real kind of connecting moment. But then on the other hand, yeah, it was that there was so much anger because I felt like I’d been told I can’t grieve how I want to grieve and and I realized how important it is. is, you know, after a funeral, when a family comes together for the weight and the telling of those stories and the hugs and the the weird feeling of it all that you don’t have, you know, the grandfather there who’s who’s always been, like, the reason why we get it not the reason but you know that it’s, we get around. And so we didn’t have that. And, and there was a, we were kind of like, Oh yeah, well, once the lockdowns over we’ll, we’ll have awake and all the rest of it. But there was just this fizzling off. And then no one could kind of rally themselves to kind of come together and do that. And I still feel the desire for it. But when I spoke to the rest of my family, they’ve moved past it. So it was so yeah. Yeah, no, I still kind of can’t put a lot of words to it all and explain it because it was, as I was saying to you, before, we jumped on to record this anger on one side, which really made me want to jump into action and be vocal on what was going on over here and all the rest of it. And then the grief, which just felt like, cold, still depression. I can’t move. I give up. What’s the point? You know, and then then what’s the point was tied in with with the grief of what was going on with my grandfather, and then with the grief of everything that I was seeing kind of occurring around me and how much people were getting suppressed? And yeah, it just really made me flake. But then the anger. Good. I’m out in rage every now and then. Such an interesting, interesting process yeah.
Victoria Volk 27:04
Very much a roller coaster. And feeling the weight to have what you see. Right happening with people, you know, and love. It’s not just what’s happening with you. But, you know, friends who maybe lost their jobs because of their points of view, or yeah, you know, situations like that of losing loved ones. Due to but maybe not even getting to see them. Yeah, for they passed away.
Michelle Marsh 27:35
Yeah. Yeah. Dad’s not been able to be with their wives while they’re giving birth. Again, because of a Health Choice. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s a carry on at the moment, which is just ludicrous. Yeah, so there’s a lot of pain and grief that you hold for other people with that with. And I think when there’s a when you feel because again, this comes down to personal point of view. But when you feel like people are experiencing grief or additional grief, for no reason, or it seems pointless, because there’s a rule. It’s, it’s really hard to kind of integrate that. You know, it’s different when someone gets hit by a car, and you go through that grieving process and everything, but it’s, it’s almost like the cars been driven purposely or that person has been told to stand on the road or something. And it’s just like, it’s so frustrating. There’s this desire to scream, but you’ve got to let go of it all. Because you have no choice but to yourself, or the world, or your, your own family. And I think after holding that frustration, and for other people, for myself, for the world as a whole, I was crunching in on myself and I am a hermit anyways, but not in a good way. I lost all motivation to to share any any of the messages that I have. And I was I was really struggling with that. And, and I was snapping at my children and my husband and I even though we’re on the same page, we’re starting to get narky at each other. And it’s because it’s the frustration of what’s happening out here that is out of your control, and you’re seeing all these people in pain and you know, I’m that person that my friends call to tell me when they know Yeah, my husband’s just lost their job or and I’ve got a friend and they’ve got an amazing electrical business that and I know how hard her husband’s worked to build that up and employees and things like that. And then these are these crazy rules come in that don’t make sense. And and and then like, how do we navigate this and you know, that feeling that terror of your heart. And it’s, what ends up happening is that your suffering, and your children are suffering because of it, because you’re taking it all in. And it’s because the lack of feeling of control. So at some point, it was like, How do I not dissociate from this? Because that’s not healthy? How do I keep my eyes open and aware to the truth and be okay.
Victoria Volk 30:32
And as a highly sensitive person, and that’s kind of what I’m getting at to conversation, being a highly sensitive person. So what would you suggest to people who may be feeling that way, whether they’re identify as a highly sensitive person or not
Unknown Speaker 30:49
Think this is where your self care behaviors are so important. So as you know, I have been practicing Kundalini, religiously, every every day Kundalini yoga, for over a year now. So those kinds of practices and journaling and meditation, reading a book, all of those things, well, I suppose let me categorize it. So there’s some self care behaviors, like yoga, meditation, that are like muscle strengthening, emotional resilience strengthening, so they do help you to release and let go and integrate different things. But one of the really big things about them is that they are, they are building a strength a core like inside like this. And, and it’s so that when everything is swirling around in a storm around you, you can you can feel your center, still, instead of just been swept around in the storm. So those things, I think it’s really important to have a practice. And that’s hard to do, especially when you’re not feeling great. But that’s where self discipline comes in. And that’s having self integrity, and thinking you’re worth that time and that effort. And children and your family. Yeah. Sorry.
Michelle Marsh 31:07
Can I ask you a follow up question to that? Before I forget, because I think it’s really important, I actually want your thoughts on this. So just it’s come up recently in conversation. So like you can be you can have a yoga practice, let’s say you have a daily yoga practice, and Kundalini, whatever it is, and it’s a practice of being with your body, like being present with your body in your body, feeling safe and supported in your body, right? But what if it’s not, you’re not really with your feelings? Because there’s a difference in with your body. But if you’re not in or with your feelings, is it in a way, a form of spiritual, spiritual bypassing? Or could you be thinking that you’re addressing your grief or your emotions with this practice, but yet, it almost becomes a STERB. Like in grief, we call it a Short-term Energy Relieving Rehaviors.
Unknown Speaker 33:20
It can be a step. Yeah. Yes, this language through so you know what? Yeah. But that Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 33:28
What do you say to that? Like, yeah, you can have a yoga practice, but it’d be within your body, but how do you sit, be in with your feelings at the same time?
Michelle Marsh 33:39
So I would say that if you’re truly with your body, you can’t not be with your feelings. At the same time, I would say, when it say a sturb. So, you know, people often use that a physical movement as in that way to bypass things and to use it as a healthier band aid than alcohol, but it’s still a band aid, right? And yes, it’s it’s spiritual bypassing, but you’re not when you’re fully embodied. The mind and body are one, your feelings and emotions. It’s all it’s all one thing. So if you’re truly, actually been embodied, and if you’re truly doing the practice of yoga, you will feel it. And I mean, this is this is why, you know, so often, like if I’m consulting with somebody, and they’re having difficulty getting in touch with their emotions and feelings, just just from talk, because it really works well that way. It’s okay, let’s move your body because there’s usually somewhere I can see in them that they’re holding on I’m like, Okay, let’s see what’s there. And once they start to move it, the emotion starts to come up. And so this is what’s supposed to be occurring within within yoga or any of these movement. practices. But there are ways like you say, where you can move your body, and even use the breath and use the mind to completely compartmentalize. And and you know, that’s it’s an incredibly clever thing to do. But humans are clever and and I’d say most people have the skill to actually do this. It’s almost like it gets boxed up and put somewhere, right. But if you’re actually doing the practice properly, and I think this is where intention comes into it, and you are to the best of your ability, because, you know, when we meditate, we all go off and think about dinner and all the rest of it, but you just keep bringing yourself back, you keep bringing yourself back, you keep saying, If I feel something, I will feel it. I give myself permission I although these things are really important, there is no use going through some yoga said, or, or even meditation, you know, in kundalini, we do a lot of chanting and things like that, you can get lost in them. And there is a certain sense of peace and goodness to that as well. But the attention should always be in the present moment. It’s not about escaping, it’s about coming in and feeling and saying, I will feel I will feel this pain, I will feel the light, you know that that means a physical pain and an emotional pain. So I think it comes down to intention as to the difference between both because yeah, know what you mean. And I know, we’ve had conversations about it before in the spiritual bypassing, and I’ve been extremely frustrated in the past, because some of the most what I would have in the past called the most spiritual people I know, like highly psychic people, and mediums and things like that, that I I have known personally, have screwed up what I would personally call personal life and relationships. And I’m like, How does this occur? And it’s because they’re actually not embodied. It’s because they are trying to live in this spiritual world, as an escape, just like drinking can be just like, exercise can be just like, six can be eating anything. It’s an escape from actually feeling and dealing with what’s occurring. So yeah, I think it really does come down to that the mindset and the intention.
Victoria Volk 37:42
What sparked that was I had a podcast guest who had grown up with Yogi parents, but he had never learned how to grieve. He had never had that emulated for him, or, you know, to really be with your emotions, and how to let them move through you and work through them. It was all just, it’s almost as if well, yoga was just this, you’re just going through the motions, right?
Michelle Marsh 38:08
Well, I think a lot of yoga is these days. Isn’t that let’s say it’s a stretching practice. I think the spiritual teachings, which is the spiritual side of of yoga, as a practice is about connection. Actually, I was just reading last night in because as you know, I’ve just started the the teacher training for Kundalini. And and it says in there, I wish I had my manual here, so I could read it out exactly. But it says Yoga is not all of these things that we’re kind of saying right now. It is a relationship. It’s about relationship, relationship to spirit relationship to self relationship to others, which means if you’re in true relationship, you cannot not experience great right, amongst every other emotion as well. So like, without knowing this, this person and his upbringing and what is your your parents are like, I mean, it’s quite possible that they actually never never spoke about that type of thing. Kundalini is quite different from other yoga practices, from what I can see it is all about being embodied, which embodied means experiencing the physical, emotional, and the etheric together as one. But yeah, it happens. And I do it too. I think we all do it.
Victoria Volk 39:33
Especially when life feels like a shitshow. Right? You’ve touched on this now, so let’s go there. Okay, because obviously, you must have some hopes, dreams and expectations or for the future with now Kundalini, but like you said, it’s whatever you go through in life, it’s education. It’s not failure, and no one can take it away from you whether it is a training program or it is a perceived failure perceived by others. So what gives you hope for the future.
Michelle Marsh 40:09
Is failing inside of me. It sounds so whoo and so I exam low, ugly, shy I have honestly come to a point in my own growth and development where I feel like I said, it’s, it’s that so I’ve done so much work on strengthening this inner core and being of myself that there is such a pleasant feeling there. It doesn’t mean I don’t get angry or scared, you know, just this morning, you know, I was, I was saying to my husband, you know, I had had a lot of anxiety coming up around, you know, finances and things because everything’s quite changeable still. But it all seems to work out in the end. And, and I think what gives me hope is that no one can take away this feeling I have inside, the only way it disappears is when I let it disappear, like I did for a moment this morning. So say, Everything’s gonna be okay. It’s all okay. And, and there’s always another opportunity. There’s always another. I’m constantly surprised and delighted life can can offer and deliver. So even if what I’m not envisaging in my mind doesn’t come to fruition. While I was still grief that because like you say, you know, I’ve got another vision in my mind now. Wow, I know, I would grieve that. I also know that whatever comes here has got opportunity for for delight and joy that I can’t even envision right now. And so whichever way it goes, it’s okay. And I think that’s where the hope lies. Now. It’s, which is a funny way to put it, but it’s, it’s, I guess, in the past hope has been in relation to wanting something so that I could be happy. That will make me happier once I have that. Whereas now it’s like there’s there’s a sense of, of joy and connect and contentedness. That’s a word in the now and but a hope for the sparks and joy that I kind of know are going to come anyways, I just don’t know what form along with the, the grief and the pain that I know will be in there as well. And it’s like, okay, let’s do it. Welcome to Life, welcome to Life, which then brings me back to like that Kundalini morning practice. That’s what that feels like, right? And it doesn’t have to be Kundalini Yoga, there’s so many different practices out there that you can get this from. It’s a mixture of this, it’s like your life, because it’s a mixture of intense pain when you have your arms out here for seven minutes. And it really hurts. But then it’s like, why would you do that to yourself. But then at the same time, there’s, like, this box of just moments where everything syncs together, or you get this higher state of awareness after a bit of breath work or meditation or, or, or at achievement, when the first time that you actually managed to keep your arms up there without flaking out. And, and that that willpower, I feel like I need to let my arm down, and then your mind is going, No, I’m gonna stay on that path. No, you’re not putting your arm down, and you just stay there and you stay there and you stay there. That’s the training, but it’s also the experience of so then when it happens in your like day to day life. It’s like, oh, no, I’ve come through that. How many times have I failed? Was my arms falling down? And then I got it. Right. You know, so it’s like, it’s giving you life experience. And I think that’s, again, like I said, those types of practices, training. And, man, I always think Imagine if we all grew up with that kind of training, like understanding not just the physical side of it, like, my teachers speaks wholly in a lot about what’s actually even occurring internally, you know, it’s like, sometimes I’ll be like, there and I’ll be sobbing and so angry. She won’t let me put my hands down Yeah, yeah.
Victoria Volk 44:45
Life training,
Michelle Marsh 44:47
Live training. Yeah, yeah. And there’s lots of ways to do it.
Victoria Volk 44:50
So if people want to learn your way, or want to connect with you, where can they find you?
Michelle Marsh 44:56
Aromalysis which is my business And that is a Romanisis.com.au. And, yeah, there’s a there’s a couple of different offerings in there. One which can be offered to anybody around the world is my wellbeing readings where I use my intuition as well as my knowledge in herbalism, and Western medicine and psychology and everything else that I’ve studied. And basically given an overview of, of your wellness is along with some different suggestions in your lifestyle diet. And really, when it comes down to it, a lot of the time it’s what people are experiencing physically comes down to the grief they are holding within the unprocessed unintegrated emotions. I give some some tips and kind of next steps around that. And then yeah, I also consult with people face to face as well when the opportunity arises.
Victoria Volk 45:57
And do you have two years you make teas as well? Right?
Michelle Marsh 45:59
I do. I do. Oh, thank you for saying, see there’s so many wonderful things in the world. I do I love I love my my teas and my herbs. My shop is not up yet. But it will be discoverable with through aroma Gnosis, so you can follow me on Instagram, I’m at aroma Gnosis as well. And I will have that shot up soon with all my medicinal goodies which I love to when I put them together, I only ever put my my herbals and medicinals together when I am in alignment in myself. And I also like to do it in alignment with the moon and the energies of the planets. And so all of that that’s where the alchemical herbalism comes in. It all comes in into play. And it’s such a beautiful expansive thing to do is to sit there chanting away as you’re as you’re preparing something or have steam, or whatever state of that.
Victoria Volk 46:59
Lots of love infused I do not doubt so much. And I will put the link in to all of your information in the show notes. And is there anything else you would like to share?
Michelle Marsh 47:11
Just deep gratitude for you, my friend, I have learned so much from you about grief. And the true nature of grief. I think it’s it’s we often label it so many other things. And when it comes down to it, it’s it’s it’s grief. And, and not being afraid of that. And yeah, understanding the nuances around it, and this podcast that you’ve been doing and have the most incredible guests on that I’m just like, so amazed that, that I am on here in in the presence of some pretty incredible people, you’re a true gift to the world. An absolute true gift. So thank you so much.
Victoria Volk 47:58
Thank you, thank you for being my friend. Oh, sister from another mother tidally. This has been so much fun. Thank you so much for sharing. I think the loss of hopes dreams and expectations is a loss that many people can relate to and experiencing loss during COVID as well. And so I appreciate you sharing your story. We didn’t even get into you map which oh, I want to try and weave that in there some way but didn’t didn’t quite fit. So maybe that’s another conversation for another time.
Michelle Marsh 48:28
Next time. Yeah. So much I could say about that that.
Victoria Volk 48:33
Anything like in a nutshell, like what it what it did for you.
Michelle Marsh 48:36
Yeah. So when you did that, now I’m trying to remember the timeline. But that’s when I was feeling kind of squeezed. And it was towards the end of last year. So it was kind of like when all the things were going on. And at the same time, I was like no, I’m gonna find my path. I will find that way, you know, determined and you you offered the umat to me surprised me most about it was really bringing to my attention, what my priorities were, what my values were. And so I made a decision. Actually, I do remember exactly. It was mid last year because it was when my grandfather died. It was at right at that point. And I remember I was trying to make decisions am I gonna do this, I’m never gonna do that. And when I saw my values written in kind of hierarchy, and and I made a decision to I’m going to live by those because it because you kind of realized that Oh, hang on. I’m putting all my attention into my fifth or sixth Valley. But about that top one that changed my behavior and my actions and still does that was a catalyst into this. This this alien of solid joy and knowledge and knowing that I’ve got that that rock hard feeling that chord that I was talking about. That was a catalyst doing that YouMap I couldn’t recommend it higher. Lay enough to people, it’s such a good way to get to know yourself. Especially if you have no idea, I think, yeah, it is true. If you’re feeling lost, actually, it doesn’t even matter how much you know yourself. I mean, I’ve been doing self development for years, I thought I knew I was like, Yeah, I already know where I’m at, there’s always more to discover it, put it in black and white in front of you, and then try and weasel your way into putting your head back in the sand, it’s really hard to do. So it’s a gift to have in front of you.
Victoria Volk 50:31
Yeah, and for people not familiar with it, I’ll link to it in the show notes. But just it’s a holistic picture of who you really are, that combines your strengths and your values and your skills and, and, and how you’re wired to create this, this map of of you, and it can really shape your path forward. And so thank you for sharing that little snippet of your experience with my listeners. So I’ll put the link to that in the show notes. And thank you again, so much, my friend. Thank you. Thank you. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life much love. From my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.
Addiction, Grieving Voices Podcast, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Podcast, Takeaways and Reflections |
Takeaways & Reflections | The Energy of Addiction
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Addiction isn’t just applicable to a substance use disorder. Often the anxiousness of learning to live life as a griever can lead to overdoing, busyness, workaholism, etc. We can become addicted to being busy in an effort to avoid feeling our feelings. “Keeping Busy” is actually one of the 6 Myths of Grief.
In this week’s Takeaways & Reflections episode, I reflect on alcohol and the other ways addiction may be impacting life as a griever. I also dig deeper into the energetics of addiction and emotions; sharing about a healing modality in which I recently got trained, too.
Shame and guilt are often two emotions associated with addictions of any kind. Participating in behaviors that are used in an effort to avoid only exasperating the guilt and shame that already existed. This cycle continues and makes it that much more difficult to get out of the pattern of addiction.
Of course, addiction can become a mental health disorder; however, an important question to ask anyone who is struggling with addiction of any kind is: “What happened to you?” The origin of addiction often can be traced to something that happened, a circumstance, or a situation the person was exposed to long-term. And for so many, memories of pain often stem from childhood.
To break the patterns and cycle of addiction, one must be honest with themselves and others, expose the shame and guilt for what it is so the emotion loses its power and grip, and take positive action with support.
If you are struggling with addiction, substance use disorder, or another mental health challenge, I’ve recently added a “Mental Health” resources tab on my website. If you are a Military, Veteran, or First Responder, there’s a section just for you as well.
RESOURCES:
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NEED HELP?
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you or anyone you know is struggling with grief, substance use disorders, or a mental health challenge, free resources are available HERE and HERE.
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The Energy of Addiction
Looking at using alcohol in my early 20s as a way to cope and numb out and band-aid my emotional pain. But we don’t typically connect the dots of our present-day experience, to grief and to trauma, and things that we’ve experienced, likely as children, we really don’t think about either the environment that we grew up in as being the catalyst for our behavior as adults, which our childhood environments directly impact our belief system and how we cope with adult life. And we learned from our parents how to do that. And it can be unhealthy, or it can be healthy. But for the mass majority of us, our parents did not receive healthy coping skills, either. And so these patterns and the cycles of unhealthy coping continue through the ages, through lineages through generations. Today, I’m also going to dig deeper into the energy aspect of addiction. And that will be the focus of today because it’s really important that we look at our emotional and physical bodies as it pertains to energy as an energetic beings we are energetic beings.
Healing Modality Training “Biofield Tuning”
Recently, I completed a new healing modality training called biofield tuning. And so this episode is very timely in what I’ve been learning about energy, and particularly are biofield or the energy that extends five to six feet all the way around us. And it’s like this toroidal shape. So if you were to slice an apple in half that is what our energy fields are biofield looks like. And we have this earth energy that’s below our feet that helps us to stay grounded and feel grounded and connected to the earth energy. And we have this energy center at the top of our crown that connects us to the sun’s energy and is all about our relationship to time in nature. And connecting to this power source, the positive power source, whereas you the earth energy is this negative terminal. And so if we think about ourselves like a battery, that’s essentially what I’m saying here is that we are like a battery. And just like you plug in an electric car or any device to charge, or you have to charge your battery on your car, there’s a positive and negative terminal.
Our bodies are energetic bodies or act in the same way. And so if we are not grounded and are not centered, this energy flow that goes all the way down the center of our bodies that down our spine are meridian. And if this is all new or unfamiliar to you, I’ll just briefly explain what these points are down in Meridian and they’re called the chakras and at the Root Chakra. That is where the base of our spine is the root chakra. Moving up, the next point is the sacral chakra, which is a few fingers below the navel. The next chakra up is just a few fingers above the navel is the solar chakra or the solar plexus. The next chakra up is the heart chakra, then the throat chakra. The third eye chakra is above the brow, and then the crown chakra is above your head. And so we have these chakra points all the way down in Meridian, but we also have chakras in our hands. And our feet are like her ankles, knees. In other points, we call them half steps in biofield tuning. And so that’s what we are looking at and addressing when we are giving a biofield tuning session.
What is Biofield Tuning?
The term biofield actually refers to our body’s electrical system in its entirety. So as I kind of described earlier, it’s both the electrical current that runs through our bodies and also the magnetic field that surrounds it, that toroidal shape that I had mentioned biofield tuning. It’s a sound therapy method that works directly with the system as it’s connected with our conscious and subconscious minds, including our memories, and the theory of it is that our memories aren’t actually stored in our minds. They’re stored in our biofield and the biofield informs the body and the body informs the biofield. So all physical, mental, and emotional disorders can be perceived as dissonance in our electrical system.
Biofield tuning is able to locate, diminish and resolve this dissonance and in doing so alleviate and even eradicate the corresponding physical, mental, and or emotional symptoms like Reiki energy healing. Biofield tuning sessions can also be conducted from a distance. So during a session, if it’s in person or otherwise, the client is fully clothed on a treatment table or comfortably in their bed or in their chair. And the practitioner activates a tuning fork and scans the biofield slowly beginning from about six feet away because as I mentioned, our biofields extend five to six feet out from our physical bodies, what we’re actually listening for or feeling for is this resistance or turbulence in the biofield we’re listening for a change in the overtones and undertones of the tuning for and when we encounter a turbulent area, we continue to activate the tuning fork and hold it in that specific spot. And research suggests that the body’s organizing intelligence uses the steady coherent vibrational frequency of the tuning fork to literally tune itself just as we tune a piano or tune a guitar. So the dissonance resolves in the sense of resistance gives way. And this appears to correspond to the release of tension within the body. So people relax, they breathe more freely in the body enters into an increased flow state and that’s where the energy is actually flowing and moving where the body can function at its optimum.
As a result, clients often report that they have they feel lighter, they’re able to breathe more freely, and have a diminishment or resolution of their symptoms. If you’re familiar with other energy work or other healing modalities this might sound like it’s somewhat of a targeted nervous system, biofeedback, and the founder Eileen McKusick has come to see this process as consciousness hacking. It’s almost like a side door entry into the psyche working with what has been hidden in plain view, which assists people in making changes they otherwise could not on their own. Some conditions do respond very well to biofield tuning and others do not so much. But with these tools in our toolbox and practitioners who are sharing this with clients, we are increasing our voltage. We are increasing our body’s voltage as we do this work and as we address our energetic bodies, and so if we can clear that dissonance in our bio-field which informs the physical body, imagine how much better you can feel. Imagine the problems that you can solve just by laying on a bed or on a practitioner’s table. So I do encourage you to look into this more I will put a link to it in the show notes. I don’t have this just yet as of this recording on my website, but I do offer Reiki energy healing, I will be offering this soon to the masses. So stay on the lookout on my website if you are interested or reach out and I can connect with you once I get everything up and running. I do highly recommend the book tuning in the human biofield. It’s written by Eileen day, McKusick, the founder of biofield tuning.
The Energy of Addiction and Emotion
When we speak to the energy of addiction and emotion, any emotion we repress will suck a lot of juice out of us depleting energy from our body systems. And there is the energy of the emotion itself. And then there is the energy required to keep it repressed, right, it takes a lot of work to repress our emotions. And we often create these energetic walls, which appear to be like these high energy frequency barriers that block the perception of the conscious mind, from even going to that place, going to that emotional place. And so when we use sound, to deconstruct those constructs, and to free up that energy, and then we give it back to the system as a whole, we suddenly have reserves of energy that we didn’t have before to get things done. This is where often so many clients will report feeling not just lighter but have more energy, some people can experience some detox-like symptoms, like headaches or fatigue initially, and things like that in the first day or two. But that’s a good thing. Because detoxing is is good, it’s out rather than in we, you know, we want that stuff to come out rather than staying in.
And so once we’re moving that energy, and it’s coming out, that’s a good sign. That means the energies moving we’re getting clearing up those dissonances in our biofields. And so with substance use disorders and alcohol and things like that guilt and shame are often a huge aspect of addiction. The right side of the second chakra, which is the sacral chakra speaks of guilt and shame, guilt and shame are similar, but they are different. And the simplest distinction is reflected for guilt is I did something bad. Whereas shame says, I am bad. There’s a psychiatrist named David Hawkins. And in his book power versus force, he says that of all the possible human emotions shame is the heaviest and it’s the lowest on the frequency scale. Shame is a very difficult emotion to feel because it feels so terrible.
And so what a lot of people do instead of feeling that is we repress it, and then we displace it onto others through finger-pointing and blaming and blaming other people instead of feeling shame is a very common phenomenon, particularly among alcoholics. And there tends to be a lot of repressed emotions in that sacral chakra that second chakra, and it’s not uncommon to be jam-packed with a lot of stuff. But the root chakra and the second chakra are very much connected, everything is connected, but they tend to couple each other. So the result is either guilt and shame, driven, overdoing or frustrated nondoing, or a pattern of going back and forth between the two. Either way, people generally accumulate heavy imbalances in these parts of their biofield and these energy centers and because everything is connected, we can’t ignore the third chakra or the solar plexus when it comes to substance use.
Eileen’s Book Tuning the Human Biofield
‘I’m going to read a little excerpt from Eileen’s book tuning the human biofield because I think there is a very important aspect here and maybe, particularly for men but not always, but the right side of the third chakra relates to the father and one’s relationship with father and also to the emotion of anger and the liver stores and metabolizes anger. So many people who have had or still have a difficult relationship with their fathers, whether they’re a stepfather adopted father, or grandfather have a tendency to repress the difficult feelings associated with this by engaging in the consumption of what Eileen calls liver, pacifiers, such as sugar, excessive amounts of carbs, alcohol, chocolate, and dense dairy products, such as ice cream or cheese. And obviously, in small amounts, these substances are fine, but in excess, they have the effect of dampening or even eliminating our experience of anger, the angry drunk she calls it would be an exception to this. Eileen had discovered that there seemed to have been more father issues with clients than mother issues, and a lot of the fathers had been alcoholics or rageaholics or workaholics, emotionally unavailable in prison, or just not around or otherwise present to their child’s needs, and she adds the fundamental things that people seem to need from their fathers. acknowledgment, approval, and affection are rarely if ever received and this seems to give rise to some real problems for people now she’s not talking about she’s talking about people seeking help and dealing with issues not necessarily the population at large.
But in the absence of the reflection of our own inner brilliance that a healthy relationship with one’s father can provide. Many people end up unconsciously seeking to get these needs met as they go through their lives engaging in guilt-driven overdoing, experiencing feelings of low self-worth seeking approval, and routinely putting others’ needs ahead of their own. She adds that in Chinese medicine, the liver is seen as the general in the army, that is the body is responsible for overseeing all operations and pays attention to digestion, respiration, circulation, subtle energy flow, elimination, the immune function, and probably more also in Chinese medicine. It is said that the liver opens to the eyes and we say that the eyes are the windows to the soul. It is also the organ of discernment, it decides what in the self needs to be recycled, and what is to be disposed of. In her book, she also speaks of a term she coined purple washing, describing the tendency people have to gloss over, repress or deny uncomfortable emotions, usually by spiritualizing the situation or by being nice about it, and that’s an air quote. I’m going to read an excerpt from her book, where she describes what emotion is, and she says it’s an electoral chemical event in any emotion that is repressed or denied is repression and denial of one’s life force.
Neurologist Candace Pert has shown that different emotions have different chemical compositions. And when we experience any of these emotions, their vibrational and chemical counterparts are generated and circulate in our body. When any emotion goes unexpressed or unrecognized the body does not digest or recycle it, it stores it or as part says, emotions are buried alive, and never die, emotions always find a way of expressing themselves. What this means is that the energy of our emotions is always trying to be heard and expressed in some way, like anything buried alive might, if we don’t recognize them for what they are and find healthy ways to express them, they will find a way to express themselves anyway, in sickness or disease, tumultuous life situations, or eventual mental or emotional breakdowns, and quote, and I speak a lot to this in Grief Recovery.
We talk a lot about this we call them stirpes, short-term energy relieving behaviors, and we speak to the energy of the feelings that we hold in and repress and bury Grief Recovery is all about giving those emotions and those feelings of voice and biofield tuning is really addressing the event itself in an energetic level. And so I really feel like biofield tuning along with Grief Recovery, man, it’s transformational. And it has been transformational for me. Biofield tuning has helped me to understand the energy that is really stored in my own field when you see someone or you’re around someone, and you just feel like they give you a vibe like you just get maybe icky vibes from that person, your energy field, your biofield is kind of bumping up against if your antenna is sharp, and you’re tuned in to your antenna, you will pick up on what that person’s energy is trying to tell your energy, it’s your energy field, reading their energy field, we just don’t pay attention to that our antennas up but it’s discombobulated. And it’s got this film of yucky stuff on it. Because we are so disconnected and disassociated from our own bodies. We’re not even in our own bodies, because we’re so overwhelmed with emotion. And we’re using coping skills that are harmful, such as alcohol or other substances, and behaviors that only lead to more shame and guilt and all those in more emotions that just really exasperate and repeat the cycle. This is why it’s so difficult to get out of these patterns of behavior of addiction because the cycle just repeats itself over and over and over until you address the emotion itself. Read it, get it from the root and pull it out. That’s the only way the only way is it out is through just like the buffalo in a store.
A Lot of Things Can Be An Addiction
You can gambling shopping, again, refers back to the STERBS (short-term energy relieving behaviors) and I’m gonna link to the show notes in that episode where I talk about that but you can also have an addiction to doing this is probably more like me in different phases of my life where I’m overworking over busyness, which can be an addiction and it looks good. Right from the outside. It looks really good. You’re getting things done. You’re impressing people, and you’re keeping up with them but it’s I’m also handy because you don’t even need any substance, right? You don’t have to have wine or chocolate in the house, there’s no end to the ways that you can go off the rails with busyness I’m particularly prone to like I have a busy mind, I have a very busy mind. And I like the stimulation of the mind. And so it’s not a challenge for me to like, stop and pause. I meditate every morning and can really have swathes of inner peace, like noticeable feelings of inner peace within me, but my energy comes in bursts as well. But for someone who is doing in constantly doing it in order to not address their emotion, not to feel what they’re avoiding to feel that’s addiction. And when you’re so busy doing for everyone else, you’re not doing the things that matter, you’re not going to get your art or your music or your poetry is written your walks in nature, or even launched with your friends in liens, another book, Electric Body Electric House, she talks a lot about this, if you’re avoiding doing things that you enjoy, because you’re busy, because you’re busy doing other things you’re busy doing for everybody else, you get into this martyr, drudgery. She calls it the drone of must get everything done. And we don’t ask for help. And she calls this the doing virus and it has this isolating effect that makes it difficult for us to connect, and receive and especially in grief.
Actually, that’s one of the myths of grief is to keep busy. That’s so unhelpful when if you know someone grieving, don’t tell them to keep busy, that is not helpful. That is not doing them any favors. This ties into exactly what I’m talking about. It’s that propensity to keep busy in order to avoid the strong emotion that doesn’t serve someone from moving forward in their lives. Some people use alcohol, some people use food, but a lot of people in our culture use motion. We keep going so that our emotions never have a chance to settle. She goes on to say as long as you’re listening to the voice in your head and manically trying to make your way through the bottomless to-do lists. You don’t have to listen to the sound of your own pain. She adds a hyperactive mental body overrides the emotional body. This is a huge part of why people spin out in their heads. Many bodyworkers have noted a correlation between the right hip and the left shoulder the right hip imbalances of overthinking and overdoing are often the counterpoint to the issues of the left side of the heart chakra, which is where we hold unprocessed sadness, loss, and grief. She goes on to say when you start to quiet the mind and slow the busyness down, the feelings you’ve been avoiding will come up. And that’s a good thing. Because those emotions are stuck energy that’s creating resistance and drag in your field, your mind, and your life. It can be uncomfortable, and it does take a little time to settle back to neutral. But as you move through your own emotional backlog, you liberate a huge amount of your own potential you free up energy to be expressed in creative and fun and pleasurable ways you start to return to the juiciness and magic and depth of the moment that you are you were missing out on when you had the right side of your field all scrunched up in a bunch and quote, I absolutely love that because it really does truly speak to everything that we talk about. I talk about when it comes to Grief Recovery when it comes to our emotions and the energy that we contain within us that is stuck. That’s not going anywhere. It’s not being utilized. It’s stagnant.
When I Saw My Own Potential
And when I talk about my personal story about when I had finally addressed my grief when I addressed my emotional body and I addressed it and released it and that energy started to flow man I saw the potential I saw my own potential. I speak about that a lot at you see opportunity where you instead of lab you see your own potential where you would before say I can’t do that I don’t want to do that that resistance would come up so much resistance and I can spot my own resistance a mile away right now. In fact, my next newsletter is all about resistance because I’ve been resisting something. And that’s a video and I’m hoping to I mean I have a challenge right now to change that to show up on video more but we have to address our emotional bodies. And this is the thing if this message today gives you anything I hope it gives you hope itself that once you look at yourself as an electrical being there is nothing you cannot do or accomplish in your life. If you address your emotional body and the electrical stagnancy the stuck energy that is in your field and within your body because when we untangle that and clear up that dissonance it’s an amazing feeling.
My friend, I’ve personally experienced it I’m seeing my clients experiencing it. I’ve had to do a lot of I’ve done a lot of sessions with biofield tuning, incorporating Reiki and biofield tuning. As I’ve been learning and growing in this new modality I’m bringing to my clients and they’ve all loved it. They appreciate it so much because I don’t think I’ve had a client yet that hasn’t said they haven’t had more energy than I was actually using, there’s a new fork that I have that Eileen just recently came out with.
The 144 hertz
It’s the 144 hertz and its kind of like our belt sander of tuning forks, it gets to the nitty-gritty, and it digs deep. It’s the emotional grinder, and I was using it on my husband, which it should not be used if you’ve only had, shouldn’t be used on your first session. And it wasn’t but she calls it also the spring cleaning tuning fork and I kid you not the next morning after I used it the night before and my husband the next morning, the very next morning, I got out of bed at eight o’clock in the morning, I am not sitting on the couch, enjoying a cup of coffee and watching CBS Sunday Morning like I normally would. That’s been my routine for years. Like that’s my time I am cleaning, I put on some hip hop music and 90s Hip Hop 80s music and I started cleaning and I clean for the next seven hours straight and I’m talking deep cleaning, I scrub down like the kitchen cupboards, I went to town on deep cleaning my house, that has never happened, especially on a Sunday morning.
So it really truly is the spring cleaning fork. And I’m not the only person that’s reported that after using this fork, she said that herself. And actually, I was like halfway around my kitchen cupboards, scrubbing them down. And I thought I think she mentioned that this is the spring cleaning fork. And I actually had to go look for that where she said that. And she had shared that actually in our Facebook group, because I thought it was in the fork description, but it’s not she had shared it in the Facebook group. And I thought well, I’ll be darned. So this is amazing work, this energy work that is available to you. If you are struggling today, I encourage you to find a biofield tuning practitioner near you or reach out to me and we can set something up. But I’ve seen such fantastic results with this modality and I have no doubts, it will help you no doubts, you know, a lot of people are not ready for the really, really deep emotional stuff that comes with Grief Recovery. And I get that but with biofield tuning. It’s almost like this baby step. It’s just a baby step. And when you’re ready to really dig deep, then you can go into Grief Recovery. So I’m really excited to bring biofield tuning as another tool in my toolbox to my clients, whether it be addiction or trauma or just needing a reset to our adrenals because that’s actually something I can do as well.
P.S It’s there’s something called an adrenal rhythm reset, which is all about your adrenals because in our society today in our Western culture, it’s always like doo doo doo doo doo right and our adrenals get burned out and fried, which affects our thyroid, which no surprise thyroid medication is the number one prescribed medication in the United States today. Why is that? Because we are burning out we have so many things coming into our biofields, our systems from external influence, social media, the news, and so many toxins that are coming at us every single day in the homes in which we live neighborhoods or the environments. it’s really fascinating work again, checkout islands book, I’m going to put both books I’m going to put the links in the show notes and check out biofield tuning and reach out to me through my website.
If you want to hop on a session when I finally get it up, I can let you know. And check out episode 101 with Drew because we both talk about how our grief in childhood really did lead us down a path of using alcohol to cope. So whether it’s alcohol or shopping, or it’s food for you. I think this episode will be helpful and I hope this one was so please hold on to hope. Hold on to hope it’s there. And your actions today will determine what your future looks like. So I encourage you to take action today just a small action read her book checkout biofield tuning do something today to learn more about your energy field learn more about your emotional energy body and what your emotions are trying to tell you there is an alert system. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you found this helpful. And if you did, please share it subscribe, or leave a review. And remember when you unleash your heart you unleash your life much love.
Addiction, Educational, Grief Tips, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Resources |
Addiction can happen to anyone, at any time, and at any age. Even the most loving families often have members who are struggling and who turn to substances to help them to get through the day. Addiction is not a weakness, and it’s not something that you can wish away. If you are struggling with a substance use disorder, I imagine it’s all you can think about. If you have a family member who is dealing with this kind of pressure and stress, the best thing that you can do is learn how you can help them. Helping them through their addiction is the only way to get through it together, and that’s why you need to learn what to do next.
In addition to taking some steps to get your loved one into a treatment facility such as a place like Delphi Health Group, it’s important as a family member to have an understanding of addiction and how to continue to take care of your health while you are supporting them. Just because you’re not the one dealing with the addiction, doesn’t mean that you’re not dealing with the consequences.
Let’s take a look at 10 tips that can help you support someone struggling with substance use disorder.
- Read as much as you can. As somebody watching from a distance, it can make you feel very helpless to see somebody struggling so much and not be able to do anything about it. The thing is, you can do something, and that something is to educate yourself. Read as much as you can and learn as much as possible about addiction and what it means for your family member. You cannot experience addiction for them, but you can understand as best you can what they are dealing with, how they are feeling, and what they could be looking into for the future.
- Connect with your friends. It’s not easy to live with or support somebody who has an addiction to a substance, which means that as much as you want to be the support system, you need a support system yourself. Speak to your friends and see who you can get to help you with this situation so that you can at least feel like you have someone to lean on. Connecting with peers can very much be a lifeline for you. There are also support groups available, in some areas, for the families who care for someone struggling with substance use.
- Encourage family therapy. The problem with addiction is that the addiction itself is selfish. Your family member who is suffering is not selfish – I will just say that – but the addiction is inherently selfish because it pulls that person into it without guilt or consequence. Your family member wants to care for themselves but they cannot. Your family member wants to care more for you and their other family members. However, they can’t. Addiction is something that takes a lot of strength from a person, so encouraging family therapy is a good idea. You cannot shame somebody out of addiction, but you can find support for your family while you are going through it together. Also finding a treatment facility that not only addresses the addiction but any past trauma that may have led to addiction, like at Inner Voyage Recovery Center in Atalanta, GA.
- Do the little things. Well, they’re not little things. While you can’t pull somebody from an addiction, you can make sure their basic needs are met. Do they have clean clothing? Are they bathing and grooming themselves? Do they need access to food or shelter?
- Manage your personal expectations. When someone struggling with substance use disorder enters treatment, the whole family goes on this recovery journey. There is a sense of palpable hope that runs through the group, but you need to manage your expectations. Just because somebody enters into rehabilitation services, doesn’t mean they are going to be instantly better. This is going to take time. You need to be willing to see the whole thing through from rehab and beyond.
- Do things that make you happy. Your whole life cannot be about somebody else’s addiction. You have to be responsible for your own joy, and your own bliss. This means that every time you have somebody in your family who is recovering from addiction, you’re going to have to move the spotlight off of them occasionally and put it back onto yourself. While you are busy caring for another person, you have to remember to care for yourself.
- Make sure you exercise. Getting out of the house, getting out of a space with somebody who is addicted to a substance, and going out into nature can make a big difference to how you feel; it’s a benefit to your mental health and well-being. It is not easy to be one-to-one with somebody who cannot help but want their addiction and their substance. Get outside and breathe some fresh air; you need the break.
- Make sure that you’re getting sleep. If you want to help somebody in your family who is dealing with addiction, you have to help yourself first and foremost. It is not selfish to put yourself first, and that means making sure that you are sleeping. It may be helpful to work with a therapist who can help you emotionally cope with the circumstances at hand, to make sure that you are able to get as much sleep as you need to feel better within yourself.
- Attend therapy for yourself. Family and group therapies are not your only option. You can take yourself to a private therapist and talk to them about the struggle that you are having being a caregiver to somebody who is addicted to a substance. If you want to help someone struggling with a substance use disorder in your family, you have to ensure that you are well supported so that you are in the right frame of mind to do that. Addiction is not easy, and this is not something you should ever have to deal with by yourself. If you are getting somebody you love the help they need, you need to ensure you are receiving help, too. Imagine how much better the relationship could be if you both re-enter the relationship having addressed your “stuff” individually.
- Be their advocate. There is so much misinformation that surrounds addiction, and for some people, addiction is a weakness – somebody didn’t have the willpower to stay away from an escape. Addiction is chemical, and it’s not a weakness. If you want to help somebody in your family with their addiction, you must do what you can to advocate for them at all times. And, advocate for yourself within the relationship, too. Working with a therapist yourself can assist you in doing so without shaming the loved one who is struggling.
P.S. Do you need additional support or resources? Check out my recently added Mental Health Resources page!
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Mental Health, Mind/Body Wellness, Pespective, Podcast |
Wayne Forrest | Waking Up a C4 Quadreplegic: My Catalyst to Becoming
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
“Bang, I made a mistake!”
Those were the words, my guest, Wayne Forrest, described the moment that changed his life forever.
It was a chance happening (or was it?) that Wayne had some teammates out injured from his rugby team, and he filled in to play the game he loved.
One play during that game would have him waking up in a hospital bed five days later to realize he could not only move his legs but he couldn’t move his arms or hands. In an instant, Wayne became a statistic and a C4 quadriplegic.
I’ve always loved under-dog stories – always. It seems the people who have endured the most unfathomable circumstances often find a way a dig deep within themselves and turn a tragedy into gold.
Wayne is now a motivational speaker, coach, and TEDx speaker and has done more in his life while in a wheelchair than many of us who have full use of our limbs.
This is one of those stories I know I will come back to and play again when I doubt myself, feel like a Debbie Downer, or just need to realize how freaking blessed I am.
No matter what you’ve gone through in your life or are going through, I hope you listen to Wayne’s story. He shares three things that helped him get through his “dark night of the soul” and how he’s no one special – we are all capable of turning our lives around at any given point. It does, however, come down to deciding to do so; only then will you see yourself becoming – who you were always meant to be.
“Do something that scares you every day.” – Wayne Forrest
RESOURCES:
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- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
- Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor
If you or anyone you know is struggling with grief, free resources are available HERE.
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Victoria Volk 0:00
Hi this is Victoria of theunleashedheart.com and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss. As a 30 plus year griever and advanced Grief Recovery methods specialist. I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non gravers like spread hope and inspire compassion towards those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with yours and this platform, Grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather. Let’s get started. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, whatever time it is and wherever you’re listening from. Thank you for tuning in. And you might be wondering if you’ve been following my podcast for a while. Why this is not a takeaways and reflections episode this week after last week’s AMI Metcalf’s episode. And it is because I’m approaching episode 100. And I really wanted that episode to be a takeaways and reflections and just how my schedule when it didn’t work out that way. So I am putting Amy’s and Wayne’s episodes into one takeaways and reflections episode that’ll come out next week. And so in the meantime, this week’s episode is a treat. I absolutely love my conversation with Wayne. And it’s so inspiring even though it’s months later that it’s going live. I’m just as inspired by him and I can’t wait for you to listen. So without further ado, let’s get into this week’s episode. My guest today is Wayne forest. He is an international transformational speaker and Life Mastery consultant, certified by the brave thinking Institute in LA. He grew up in the community on the east coast of Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand, where he farmed for 25 years with 15 of these from a wheelchair. And he now lives more inland with his wife, Kathy on a small block. He has four children and three grandchildren. And he says that his sporting accident in 1995, leaving him a C five quadriplegic was the catalyst for his ongoing journey into personal development, which has given him the incredible life that he loves, and is very grateful for. Thank you so much for being here.
Wayne Forrest 2:41
It’s a pleasure, Victoria is an absolute pleasure.
Victoria Volk 2:45
It’s my honor to have you I absolutely love connecting with people in this way, one on one and diving deep into grief and hearing the ins and outs of other people’s stories of in your case transformation, which I am very excited to share with my listeners and hear more about. And so can you please take us back to that day when your life changed?
Wayne Forrest 3:10
Yes. It was rather a dramatic change. I was grew up in that physical world of farming. Right from an early age I was on on the front of my grandfather’s horse, out on the farm, immersing myself into it. And then one day I was told to go to school, which I didn’t really think was much chop at all. But school head sport so you know, very physical background. And as I grew up, I immersed myself into those kind of businesses even shearing sheep before my accident and had a couple of businesses going. And I was married and had two beautiful twin daughters of 16 months. And I played rugby for my local club. And we had a few members away and injured that week. And I was a senior member and I played a lot of rugby and making some rip sides that I have kept and before so it wasn’t unusual for me to be a leader of the team. And the game was just a typical tough physical game that we have here in New Zealand. It can be very physical, and we’ve we’re losing and with the lovely little move on as a team with the ball and I ended up receiving that ball and took it into contact with two of the opposition. And bang. I made a mistake. I ended up with my head under my shoulder rolling over onto my neck, which dislocated my neck, I couldn’t breathe. The pain was absolutely incredible. felt like someone was sticking a hot poker right into my neck. And it took about an hour or more for the emergency helicopter to arrive. And he asked me if I’d had any pain relief, I said, No, he gave me some medicine. And I passed out, I woke up five days later, in a hospital bed, honestly, I thought I was in the middle of a dream. And I couldn’t move. And I couldn’t move my hands or couldn’t move my arms, or my legs. And so I went from physical to not having any movement, physical movement are all so you imagine the shock and being a shy country boy and having to have nurses take me to the toilet, you know, do my toileting and feed me and things like that? It was terrible. And there was shame, there was a lot of emotions going around inside me and a lot of thoughts that were creating. You mentioned fear, and anxiety and all those emotions.
Victoria Volk 6:33
I can’t even imagine. I don’t know that anyone really can. But do you recall any conscious thoughts or, or like an experience of almost imagine it would be like this out of body? Like you’re looking at yourself? And like, like, do you recall that moment in that hour? After until you passed out? Or when you were starting to regain consciousness? Do you recall any aspect of that?
Wayne Forrest 6:59
Differently? That bad dream, you know, like, feeling like you’d wake up in a cold sweat afterwards, with a shock through the system of Ah, shit. I’m having a bad dream in your wake up? Oh, hell, no. It’s not a pipe dream. I’m actually in this. And you kind of wanted the wake up, you know, from from this experience and go, Oh, sure. That didn’t happen. But it did. And so you hit that kind of feeling. It’s quite interesting, because I had a friend staying with me that weekend that I’d met overseas a few years earlier, and his partner, and we were just having a quiet drink that night before. And an accident was shown on TV of a young fella who, out of 26 kids was one of two survivors. And he broke every bone in his body falling off platform overlooking a river out we’ve got beautiful country, and it was out in the, in the wilderness. And so about 23 Young people died, that are on that platform. And the sham follow was one of the only survivors. Now my friend visited me a couple of weeks later in hospital. And he said, Can you remember the conversation that we had that night? About the sham follow up? And I said no. And he said, Well, you said that you would rather be dead then have every bone in your body broken. And then this happens to the next day. Coincidence, I don’t know. But synchronicities. I ended up sharing the room with the same guy. And that thought never occurred to me until he brought it up. It’s quite funny. There’s something and that’s that strives not wants to die. I have that feeling of oh my god, I’d rather be dead. There was life seeking through me once I had my accident. Yes, a few of those thoughts came in later down the track where where, you know, you might have been going through a dark patch or a dark moment and this experience of like, talking months or even years later, and no because it’s now 26 years since my accident. So I’m kind of talking about the first five and Not once. In that first few weeks, did that thought come into my mind? It was about survival. It was about getting better. It was about how can I, you know, survive this. So it’s really interesting how you know, the conscious mind can say something the day before you have an accident that you’d rather be dead, then totally forget about that. And just concentrate on on survival. Interesting experience to go through.
Victoria Volk 10:36
Have you connected with that man since or did you stay connected with him? I’m just curious of the friend, the man that was in that shared the hospital room with you the gentleman that had that accident?
Wayne Forrest 10:50
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I have. I haven’t been in touch the last few years, he ended up with more movement than I did. Which is quite ironic. And I quite often, that’s my sense, humor. I laugh about these things. But it’s quite interesting how this journey seems to have fight or the synchronicities that are tied into the experience.
Victoria Volk 11:26
I absolutely believe in synchronicities for sure. I imagine with your children being so young, can you speak to that the grief of the family unit moving forward, and when did it feel like it was starting to maybe lift where you felt like you are more in control of your mindset around it?
Wayne Forrest 11:52
Might, that’s a big one. The twins, they now have been so young to and being your first children and having twins, you can imagine that I had no choice I had to be a full on dead and being physical. And being on the farm and outdoors, I often took one of them species, one that was a little bit more difficult with me. Anyone who’s had twins knows that they have their turns that been difficult, especially when they’re little. So I used to take one in particular with me out on the farm and out on jobs. So she spent a lot of time with dad. And then it was a good month, nearly three weeks to a month before she saw me again in that hospital bed because I was so far away from home, I remember her reaction, she saw me in the bed and pack the biggest wobbly, you could and lay down on the floor of the hospital kicking and screaming. And I knew exactly what you wanted me to
Wayne Forrest 13:12
Do, and I know the listeners might be able to see that I’ve got really emotional because it still hit me right in the guts. Because she wanted me to pick her up and out could wasn’t until she left that room with my family. I just broke down really, really hit me hard. And, you know, I know now that that’s part of the lesson. It’s part of a part of growing me from inside out. But But at that moment, that was gut wrenching. It really hit me home that my life has changed. Because I would pick her up, I would take her away from the situation. I would have, you know, soothed her in that way as a dad. And yeah, I couldn’t. And of course, you know, my first marriage, my wife had her own inner demons and you know, me not having that control. I always saw myself as a bit of a white knight on a horse. I know it’s a bit egotistical before my accident where I could control control and help people and my wife drank quite heavily. And so, you know, all of a sudden, I couldn’t control that anymore physically. And so there was a lot of that feelings of, of hopelessness of, of vulnerability of, to the point where at times, if she’d been drinking, I felt at a fear of my own life, you know, it wasn’t always the case. But I had those thoughts. So it took to answer your question, it took probably a good three years to five years for me to start really creating that physical control again, and control of my environment. And of course, in that process, our marriage didn’t survive, I knew enough that I wanted to create a strong relationship with and you can imagine nasty separations, she didn’t really want to be separated from me, but didn’t want to be with me. So I forced their shoes. So it did get a little bit messy, you know, and, sadly, kids got caught in the middle, I knew enough to make sure that I didn’t blame her for the separation, and I tried to keep tried to be the ground, and that, that relationship for them. And now, I’ve got a fantastic relationship, that 28 years old, they’re both kids have their own marriage, you know, so, and we’re very tight as a family. And as time has gone over, you know, the relationship with my ex wife has healed and, and, and we’ve created a bridge for them. So we know, so we can work for me is so they can have a life and not worry about mom and dad been in the same room.
Victoria Volk 17:18
That’s a beautiful gift to give them. A lot of ego having to be put aside and to work on daily to do that to imagine.
Wayne Forrest 17:29
Why ego no ego, put me in the position of broke my neck or dislocated my neck. Ego, you can imagine coming from that farming, sport, rugby, booed, man, no, drank too much party to hide background. And then having to there was a lot of ego even in my healing, there was a lot of ego. And that’s one thing that I’ve, I’ve learned just in recent years with my study around, there’s spiritual laws and, and principles of transformation, that recognizing that ego and the true us the soul or the love, and us, and I’ve done a lot of healing inward on that I’m good enough. Because that same paradigm put me in this position that I made that mistake and dislocated my neck. And I believe this no accidents.
Victoria Volk 18:54
What do you feel was the biggest catalyst in your healing, biggest nurturer of your healing? Maybe it was a resource or a person or what was the biggest? I think you know what I’m trying to say?
Wayne Forrest 19:11
That’s great question. Really great question. And there was a number of things, because it’s been a journey. Right? It was it just didn’t just happen. What I look back now and with my knowledge and what I teach and learn, and I practice these principles every day, and I look back now I think it’s having a vision, having a vision of what would I love, and I knew I wanted to go back to the farm because that was my first love. So I accidentally created a vision and that helped pull me into the becoming and of course I got better physically as well because I had a clear vision of what I wanted to be able to achieve. When I had my accent, I couldn’t move my arms and enhance, like I can now write. And so I worked diligently or hard. In other words, I don’t like that word has worked constantly getting stronger in those early days. And because I had a clear vision, things fell into place, like the right people, I lived in the watts or on a dirt road out in the middle of nowhere on the coast, yet one of the people that has passed now, but she came and helped me with getting up and making as a carer and she was a qualified physio, before she got married to a local farmer. And she was brilliant. She, I put down a lot of what I got back in those early years to her, because of her knowledge, her skill level, she kept me going, you know, and the rehab and, and kept me just inching forward. And I believe in that synchronicity, as we’re talking about before, that was because I had a clear vision of what I wanted to do. And I achieved that I ended up getting strong enough to drive again, within a couple of years that gave me freedom. It gave me independence, that also came in the ability to get something adapted for the farm. So I could get around the farm and start managing net again. And once I achieved that, all of a sudden, it was like, Wow. I want another call. And of course, be very careful listeners, what you asked for. Because, you know, I asked for something that was gonna challenge me. That was going to make me stretch again, just about the next day, I get a email from someone who had started up a pilot course of doing extreme outdoor activities for people with disabilities. No way. No way. All right. And I was like, Oh, shit, that’s scary. Because then we’re going to do and sailing, paragliding scuba diving. And I’m like, how the beep beep beep am I gonna do that? I’m a teacher pledge it with no balance. I’ve got no hands. How am I gonna climb a rope or, or get down a cliff or, you know, be underwater and be able to do these things. And it was perfect. And so I put my name down and in our and I’m a big scaredy cat, or not someone who really looks for danger or for things that are going to scare them. But Dave is aremy. So I did it. And I learned a lot from doing that. I ended up doing water skiing and London here and lake just out of London. I’ve I’ve done paragliding I’ve done scuba diving with the sharks and the Napier aquarium of paragliders off blimmin Cliff, you know, not on my own. But I’ve experienced all these sounds. Because of putting down that first vision. And if this vision then took me on a road of discovery, and you know, where my road was hitting before.
Wayne Forrest 24:07
We don’t know where that would have gone to before my accident. And where I am today. Oh my god, the polarity is so different. No, it’s just so hard to describe because it’s so different from where I was before my accident where I am today. And I’m more confident, I’m more happier with myself healed that I’m a not enough I’m still working on it. As we know. It takes time. But I have four kids now. I’ve got three grandchildren, you know, life is good, even from a wheelchair. And I’d so to answer your question that and this is what I teach quite often in workshops and stuff also is the power of having a great vision, and then deciding for that vision, you know, sometimes life gets difficult, it gets really tough. And I had to keep deciding for that vision when it was tough. When I didn’t feel like getting out a bit, when I wanted to just hide away from life, really, I had to decide and get up, get out and do what I had to do to help me create that next step into my vision. And the third one is sourcing that support. We’re not meant to do it on our own. Quite often our ego tells us that we have to do it on our own. But you know, without that support of that physio that was ended, was my neighbor, or the support of my now wife, that was the girl that came and helped me on the farm. You know, the support of the physios, the doctors, the occupational therapists, all those people, the coaches along the way. So they are three secrets, or three main secrets, I believe, is that clear vision of what you would love decision and creating that support system, finding and sourcing people that have already done it, or have the knowledge to help you achieve. Yes, sometimes you have to pay for that. But maybe it’s well worth every cent.
Victoria Volk 26:51
I love that. That is wonderful advice for anything that people are struggling with. And there’s tips there there’s advice, there’s ways that others supported you. You allow yourself to be supported. I think that’s often hard for people to is to allow themselves to be supported. Like to feel like you were worthy enough worthy of someone’s time and energy and effort putting being put into you. Now it takes a lot of inner work, I think to even get to that point to I remember there’s one podcast interview I did with someone a Griever. And she said something and I I’ve never forgotten it. She said, when you lay you decay, and you chose not to decay and get up every day, even when it was hard. And I imagine you did have days where you did just lay and you did have your pity party and feel down on yourself. And I mean, obviously it’s you’re gonna have days like that, right?
Wayne Forrest 27:51
Oh, totally. No, I was lucky. I had a family that was like, you know, they wouldn’t allow that to happen. They would like just hurry up and get out of bed. Come on. Get on with it. Typical farming folk, you know. Yeah, my father came up and it was just about snowing outside. And it comes in for a cup of coffee a cup of coffee, which he did it most mornings. And I it turns around to me this is whatever you move the ship yet. I’m like, dead. It’s bloody cold outside. But I know moving. Yeah. I’m gonna go once I warm up, okay. It was just like, come on. They they never saw me any different. You know what I mean? It was like, Don’t give me that crap that you’re in a wheelchair. Get out there and bloody dirt. We’re. So I grew up in that kind of attitude. And I think that helped. Helps in those dark days, because I knew I wasn’t gonna get any sympathy that you know, it was like, Come on, get out a bit. Or get moving, you know? So I forced myself to get out of bed before I was told if that makes sense.
Victoria Volk 29:16
I think what they gave you was love because they didn’t enable you to give up on yourself. Right?
Wayne Forrest 29:25
Yeah. Right from an early age right from day dot you know from Ben. young fella was Come on. You got this. All right. Get out. Go and do it. That’s right, that scab off you know. And
Victoria Volk 29:44
It served you Yeah, because look at all the adventures and different things you’ve probably just listening to you you’ve had more like adventurous fun experiences of you know, the parasailing and all of that stuff. I’ve never done any Have that you’ve done more? Even in a wheelchair than I’m I have as an able bodied person like I have fully functioning limbs in, what am I doing here? Right?
Wayne Forrest 30:13
As a quote that I actually found early on. And I can’t remember who said it, but it was like, do something that scares you every day. And no, because we’ve got this fear system that is ancient. It stems back to the caveman days when there was saber toothed Tigers that were about to pounce on us. So we had to be ready to run. And we call this the flight fright. Freeze syndrome, right? And we still have that same system, and our bodies, but we don’t have the saber toothed Tiger now, instead, we’ve got what does the neighbors say about us all? What does my family say? Or, you know, that is our fear system? Or what is that person in the office saying about me or whatever? Yeah, the ego of that, right? That’s our survival now is worried about what everyone else is, is thinking about us. And that fear isn’t often real. And we’ve learned in society these days are believed to, to live in their fear of what’s coming on time. And, you know, we’ve seen it in the media, we seen it in advertising. They know how our brain works. So that’s shoveling a whole lot of stress and fear, to get us to do what we need to do for society and their plan. Right. And we get manipulated by this idea of how our brain works through society. So, you know, we can look at something that seems to be Geary, and know that as a truth, is my life really in danger in this moment? If it’s not really in danger, then why can I step into it? And as we know, you know, going through a trauma like this, we’re talking about it earlier. This here, heaps of fear of the unknown. And that’s what all that’s what it is, it’s just fear of the unknown, because we haven’t experienced it before. And I love I think there’s a video of Will Smith jumping out of a plane and how, you know, he talked himself, just about out of that all night in a cold sweat, and then right to the next day, right up until he was about jump out. And, you know, he wanted to hang on, and when it didn’t want to do it, but he pushed himself through it. And as soon as he left that, that plane, he was calm, the fear gone. Because he was in the experience, and that’s when he should have had the fear because he was falling towards the earth, right. But the fear gone. So what does that tell us about our brain and how it works, you know, we allow our dreams to pass us by, because we’re scared of the unknown, of stepping into their dream, yes. Our dark nights or breaking my neck or, or whatever you’re going through that, that disease that you’ve got, or that whatever, you know, we have to face up to them. We have to, we can’t, can’t hope they’re gonna go away. We have to actually look at it. But we can also create a real clear vision of what we would love out of this experience. And start stepping into there with that fear.
Victoria Volk 34:32
And let me ask you about that vision. Because did you envision yourself doing the work that you’re doing today? Because I seriously just like, we’re done folks. Like, here’s Wayne forest, his TED talk. I mean, this is very inspirational to me. You’re very inspirational. I just feel it just out of your just through the screen. I can just feel your voice, the passion. I imagine it wasn’t always that way. And so What was the vision? Is it even better than you imagined?
Wayne Forrest 35:05
Maisie my own kind of brilliant life from a wheelchair. How does that work? And I, when I have my accident, I thought my life was over. Right? Because the one I knew up until that point was over, physically, you know, and so cracky How do I ask that question? It’s a great question. The first dream was to go back to their physical life, have fun, but once I achieved that, and you have to remember that farming was might love it was really, it still is I love farming. But once I achieved it, it was the journey of who I become, that created a new vision. And then, you know, I didn’t I wasn’t really clear like I am today. But that’s come with the journey and understanding that if I get really clear on what I would love, then wow. Those synchronicities when you start to get in alignment with who’s that is that your becoming? There’s a Hanton that for your listeners if they listen to that piece real Clifford. It’s who we become. We have to be who we become now, even though we haven’t become it. But when we do, our my golly, gosh, those synchronicities, really start to fall into place. And you end up having conversations like this one, that is just so bloody good. And that is the synchronicity I’ve been of just enjoying the journey and learning on the way by having a clear vision. Because once you achieve that vision, or that dream is always something even greater still, never settle. Never Settle.
Victoria Volk 37:06
I’m going to ask you a question. And I think anyone listening can apply it to them voice like, especially in grief that you know, there’s the event, this certain event, and I want my listeners if you’re listening to this think of an event in your life where that changed you significantly. Now I want to ask you Wayne, what would you say to version 1.0? Wayne 1.0. Knowing what you know now and I want my listeners to think of what what they would like to say to themselves because maybe this maybe an incident just took place for someone maybe they just had a loss that’s totally flipped their lives upside down. What do you want to say to yourself about your future? If you’re listening to this, and I want to ask you Wayne, what would you say to yourself? The Wayne version 1.0 being the version you are now today?
Wayne Forrest 38:12
it’s a beautiful question. And what comes to me is with a love loving heart and love I would give myself a huge hug and say you’ve gotten this you’ve gotten this each one of us has the same Bala that’s breathing us. I don’t care what you think. Or what you’re feeling. I know you’ve got this.
Victoria Volk 39:00
Think this is the most I’ve ever cried wipe tears away during a podcast interview. Oh says so much about your heart. Thank you so much for sharing. What has your grief taught you?
Wayne Forrest 39:19
To love myself more that grief is only there because there’s a part of you as her no one else has hurt you. It’s it’s it comes from a deep, painful scar. Have a young mind while young experience no other way It’s, we’re talking about the child in us. Their pain comes from an experience that we’ve had. And if you give that part of yourself more love you will start to heal that grief.
Victoria Volk 40:25
Do you still have bad days?
Wayne Forrest 40:28
Oh, I’ve totally man, I’m human. You know, I made a joke of that for the talk that I did a couple of days ago. You know, raise your hand. If you’ve had a challenge in life. If you’ve had a bad day in life, or half the crowd go put their hand up and ask them, Are you human? Raise your hand. Yeah, I knew there was a few that weren’t from this world, right? A few human going to have some bad days, as part of it. It’s not meant to be clean. Clinical, it’s meant to be messy, is meant to be messy. It’s, you know, where we’re all meant to do it messy. That’s the way we learn. Now, we’re all meant to fail. It’s as part of the process, they learn a lot from failure, you don’t learn a lot from success. As the failures you ask anybody that’s had incredible success in life. They’ve learned from their failures. And they’ve taken it on and keep failing until they’ve got it. Right. And it’s the same with trauma. It’s kind of be missing. Just step into it. Step into their miss, face up to it. Keep stepping into that unknown. keep stepping into it, because you’ve got a vision of heal, heal, that should be your vision of healing. What would that look like? What would that love look like for you? Create that strong, powerful vision and step into the unknown? Do it messy, do it ugly? Do it with tears. Do it with laughter do it with crying with yelling, do it with if you but do it.
Victoria Volk 42:41
So what does your work look like today?
Wayne Forrest 42:44
My this is what I teach. I love it. There’s nothing better than helping people heal and connect to their true self. I believe that each one of us is born genius. Each one of us has a skill sets something to give to this experience. And what I do is I help people get in touch in alignment with that, and start loving and to that and create a journey of a life that they can look back on and go. God I love my life. God, thank God for this journey.
Victoria Volk 43:30
Bless it right, bless ya. What gives you the most joy and hope for your future?
Wayne Forrest 43:41
Understanding now and that I have this incredible potential, and possibility I’ve got an incredible potential. Just like each age. So walking this earth, I’ve got incredible potential. That excites me, because my there’s a possibility of any thing could happen.
Victoria Volk 44:18
What is your vision look like now for the future? Do you want to share a goal of yours?
Wayne Forrest 44:26
Yeah yeah. What’s the latest one was the TEDx talk. And that was last year. This goal is to speak my truth to more people. And I and I don’t mind sharing this, but I want to speak to 1000s of people at one time, and I want people to to hear the message of my truth of that. You all have that same potential and possibility of having lives that you love. So I want to spread that message as big and wide as far and I believe it’s one that’s needed in this very crazy environment of fear leading us. I want people to, to create lives, they love, because I think that will help humanity go in a direction that we all want.
Victoria Volk 45:34
Never question for you. And I believe I already know the answer. But I want to hear how you answer it. If I had a magic wand, and I can reverse that day, and you would be that day would have happened like any other day, would you want me to reverse that day to change what happened?
Wayne Forrest 45:57
The ego does. With the level of awareness I have now I know that it’s even possible today for me to create
Wayne Forrest 46:12
That possibility, right? We know and quantum physics is possible. So don’t answer your question. I wouldn’t want to give up what I’ve learned. Because I know that now it’s possible that I can actually have have that miracle, or have that have that magic wand, as you said,
Victoria Volk 46:39
Oh, look at me putting limitations on you. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah, that’s, that’s me asking you does, right?
Wayne Forrest 46:49
Yeah, but it’s also give me the witness? Well, no, actually, I don’t need that limitation, you know. So you can’t put any limitation on me. Right. So so it’s not about the question or that limitation? Because none of us have, we’re only limited by the way we think. And I know there’s more in that. And there’s probably a whole new podcast for that that subject. But I know that I have that awareness of that consciousness now, then that I’m only limited by the possibility that I think. So if I expand that thinking, and that possibility, then there’s so much more potential.
Victoria Volk 47:40
I just want to give people this idea to this thought to think about this. You don’t have to have a tragic accident, right? To, to have a life that you love to have become the best version of yourself to step into fear and to step into failure and to do all the things and accomplish all the things that you’ve have. Because of that accident. That didn’t have to happen for you to be who you are today. But it did. And rather than laying and decaying, you’ve gotten up and transformed your life, despite of it. But yeah, so what are your closing thoughts on that?
Wayne Forrest 48:30
Well, I think that’s beautiful. The Divide? No, take on what you’ve heard today, and love it. And to do that my closing thoughts would be look for the magic in life, you know, stay curious question every belief, because our belief system is what is limiting us. And our potential belief is a crazy thing that separates as well. So, you know, question, any belief, because if you question your beliefs, you’re going to find your truth.
Victoria Volk 49:12
Do you have any resource that you could share leave people with today?
Wayne Forrest 49:18
Well, I’ve got I’ve got a Facebook group, a private group that I’ve created just recently, and I’ve got a few challenges happening in that. I’ve got one coming out. But that depends when this is aired, but you can always join that it’s called Turning disability into a life of possibility and reach out on Facebook. When first Instagram went first in Zed. And look, you know, on most I, I’ve been growing my platforms, but I’m around
Victoria Volk 49:55
In the shownotes. I’ll have all your links. But I do want to mention, do you still have the resource on Your website the dream life blueprint?
Wayne Forrest 50:02
Yes, I do. That’s also another result. Another one, it’s a 15 minute recording, where I recommend, you know, just couple of times a day, morning and night. It’s a fantastic. It’s a beautiful little, if you like my voice, well, you know, it’s meditation of sorts, but it’s got the three elements. And there’s the vision, and that forgiveness, and that decision.
Victoria Volk 50:32
I love it. Anything else you would like to share?
Wayne Forrest 50:36
My night? I think we’ve, we’ve given so much, but just know that you have genius in you. And step into the unknown.
Victoria Volk 50:53
I love it. Thank you so much for your time today. You’ve inspired me, You’ve left me better than I was before I sat in this chair. So thank you. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love. From my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.
