As the New Year unfurls its blank canvas, we resist the urge to splatter hurried resolutions, choosing instead to embrace the transformative art of pacing ourselves. With introspection and self-compassion as our brushes, we paint a picture of deliberate change. Our guest, Lauren Leduc, yoga teacher and beacon of resilience from Kansas City, shares her profound journey from the depths of anorexia to the peaks of healing through yoga and intuitive work. Her narrative weaves through our discussion, shedding light on the strength found in vulnerability and the pursuit of an integrated life.
Delving into the realm of the sacred feminine, we recount personal spiritual evolutions, transitioning from rigid frameworks to embracing a tapestry of practices like meditation, Gnostic insights, and goddess worship. Lauren and I reveal how the energy of Lakshmi revolutionized our understanding of abundance, and how alternative healing—Reiki included—opened our eyes to the power of holistic wellness. This chapter of our conversation is a testament to the balancing act of masculine and feminine energies within and around us, inviting listeners to find their own equilibrium in spirituality's dance.
Motherhood, with its paradigm-shifting capabilities, sits at the heart of our heart-to-heart. We reflect on the intricate dance of personal stability and professional life amidst the hormonal symphony of bringing a new soul into the world. Lauren offers her wisdom on syncing with natural rhythms and stepping into the embodiment of one's inner goddess through a guided seven-week journey, illuminating the path to radical wholeness. We cap off our session with a grounding meditation, harnessing the breath to anchor us in the power of now. This episode isn't just a conversation; it's a journey to the core of presence and self-discovery.
Please note that we do not necessary agree with all the views on this podcast and leave listeners to make their own mind up with what they do or don't agree with.
As the New Year unfurls its blank canvas, we resist the urge to splatter hurried resolutions, choosing instead to embrace the transformative art of pacing ourselves. With introspection and self-compassion as our brushes, we paint a picture of deliberate change. Our guest, Lauren Leduc, yoga teacher and beacon of resilience from Kansas City, shares her profound journey from the depths of anorexia to the peaks of healing through yoga and intuitive work. Her narrative weaves through our discussion, shedding light on the strength found in vulnerability and the pursuit of an integrated life.
Delving into the realm of the sacred feminine, we recount personal spiritual evolutions, transitioning from rigid frameworks to embracing a tapestry of practices like meditation, Gnostic insights, and goddess worship. Lauren and I reveal how the energy of Lakshmi revolutionized our understanding of abundance, and how alternative healing—Reiki included—opened our eyes to the power of holistic wellness. This chapter of our conversation is a testament to the balancing act of masculine and feminine energies within and around us, inviting listeners to find their own equilibrium in spirituality's dance.
Motherhood, with its paradigm-shifting capabilities, sits at the heart of our heart-to-heart. We reflect on the intricate dance of personal stability and professional life amidst the hormonal symphony of bringing a new soul into the world. Lauren offers her wisdom on syncing with natural rhythms and stepping into the embodiment of one's inner goddess through a guided seven-week journey, illuminating the path to radical wholeness. We cap off our session with a grounding meditation, harnessing the breath to anchor us in the power of now. This episode isn't just a conversation; it's a journey to the core of presence and self-discovery.
Please note that we do not necessary agree with all the views on this podcast and leave listeners to make their own mind up with what they do or don't agree with.
Hello everybody, I'm your host, the Gentle Yoga Warrior, and this is Awakened Conscious Conversations podcast, and we are now in season 15. We're talking about great guests, self-hosted episodes and tons of inspiration For this first quarter of the year. We're going to start it out the right way. Forget, as I said before, putting everything into January a long list of New Year's resolutions, only to fail and instead use January to plan and implement your changes right At a pace that is right for you. If possible, we're going to try and work to the end of January before we actually implement any big changes. So if you already started doing changes and work for you, please carry on. As always, let's start off a deep breath together, just to get ready for the episode, to take a nice deep inhalation and sigh anything out. Let's do another one Calmly inhale, exhale through the nose this time and now just take a slow deep breath and then begin to breathe normally again. If you're interested in kickstarting your New Year and you want a long distance energy healing session or in-person shamanic healing session, then go to our website, shamanichealingserf, and we'll be able to help you there In a moment.
Speaker 1:
Joining us, I believe from Kansas City, is Lauren Ladouk, and Lauren is an author, yoga teacher, intuitive and mother. Looking at Lauren's details, you describe as a visionary yoga teacher, intuitive, mentor and mama, and has a special gift of cultivating community, so I really like that idea of cultivating community. Lauren has taught thousands of students with her approachable and intelligent methodology. A little bit of backstory is that in 2017, lauren was diagnosed with anorexia, which spouted into a decade of anxiety depression. With a great deal of support from family loved ones, lauren discovered the tools and methods to heal herself and tap into her gifts.
Speaker 1:
There's been a lot of positive things said about her, and one of the people said Lauren is embodying her own teaching and healing from that space. Rather than being an authority figure with a destination in mind, she is here to guide you home to yourself. Love that. So, without further ado, please welcome Lauren Ladouk. Lauren, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, jane. Oh, we are very, very welcome. So I understand that you're joining us from Kansas City, but it's in two states. Could you please clarify for our listeners that don't know the geography of that area?
Speaker 2:
Yes, Most people in the United States don't quite understand the geography of this area. But there's Missouri and Kansas. They share a border and Kansas City is on the border. So I'm on the Missouri side and there's a fun little rivalry, I think, between sides. I don't really care, but this is the side that I grew up on.
Speaker 1:
Thanks for clarifying that and I'm really pleased that you're joining us today. And, as we were just talking earlier, it's very snowy and cold there. Even cold weather is here in London at the moment. So well done for joining us today on this cold morning. Hopefully it's well for any dear listeners. So joining us from somewhere cold will kind of warm up with our good advice today.
Speaker 1:
And so today we're going to talk about radical wholeness to warm into the new year, and the reason I really want to particularly speak about this today is, I have to say, that January comes and people are quite cruel to themselves, thinking, oh yes, I need to change everything about myself and do it now, and it's kind of a cold time of year for some, it can kind of be quite difficult. So I thought, listening to you and what you've done in the past and your wonderful book, which we're going to talk about as well embodying your inner goddess, you are the best person to speak today about this to us. So, lauren, first of all, would you mind sharing with listeners a little bit about your journey and your own life experience on your path so far?
Speaker 2:
Sure, I know that you introduced me already, but at present day, I'm a mom and a business owner. I own a yoga studio here in Kansas City and teach yoga as well as do like one on work with people as far as intuitive work goes and some spiritual coaching and mentoring, and I have a daughter who's three. So a lot of my life revolves around being a mama and I love this sort of integrated, messy, lovely life of doing all the things all at once. I think, like right now I'm on a podcast and my daughter is here playing and it's all happening at the same time. Yeah, before that, I would say that, like many people, I came to this realm of yoga and healing and spirituality from a place of pain and from a place of seeking.
Speaker 2:
At age 17, I was diagnosed with anorexia and I was hospitalized for about a month with this eating disorder, and before then I was a very high, achieving good girl great grades, extracurriculars, always in church, all the things that were expected of me. It started to feel too constrictive, I think, and I wouldn't have put it this way at the time, but it's as though I burnt out and had to start fresh and really figure out what was true for me and what I kind of needed to let go of, I think, from my childhood, and I went on about a 10 year journey of really figuring all of that out at that point, a journey of a lot of self discovery, a lot of self harm as well. It took quite a long time for me to heal and it took me getting out of my hometown, really exploring different parts of the country, eventually the world. Figuring out what to do career wise was very difficult for me, and really just learning who I was and what I believed. About 10 years into that, I got really into my yoga practice.
Speaker 2:
I was in a place where I had moved back home and I was receiving a lot of support from family and I was able to access this regular yoga class and I suddenly started feeling a lot better. I suddenly felt connected to my body and myself again in a way I hadn't in a long time maybe in a new way actually and it really started laying the breadcrumbs for me to eventually have this life that I do now, where I do feel this sense of wholeness. I feel a deep sense of purpose and actual self-love, which is something I did not have access to for a long time that I didn't feel it felt elusive in a lot of ways. So that's a really brief overview of my story. But it definitely has taken two plus decades to get to where I am now from this broken place of pain and the lessons that I've learned along the way have been extremely valuable, and so many of them I've put into my book, maybe to shorten the distance between there and here for some people.
Speaker 1:
I like that. So what an extraordinary story and what a beautiful thing to share with people. Everyone also thinks that we have to kind of be perfect all the time and everything always falls into place with people, but for my opinion it feels like the pain that you've unfortunately gone through is kind of made you who you are today, and by that you're able to reach and help so many people in an authentic way, and that's a really beautiful gift to give to the world and also this wonderful book that you have written and our dear listeners as well. There's a lovely cat that's joined us those of you who are just listening there's a beautiful cat that's joined us as well. I've never seen someone amazed me how animals kind of get into these things and they join us. So welcome, dear cat, there as well.
Speaker 1:
This is Lulu. Hi, lulu. So Lulu's joined us today as well. So that's fantastic. So we're going to ask for a radical wholeness to warm into the new year. I know your book focuses a lot on the inner goddess. Could you explain to our listeners what an inner goddess is and how we can access that?
Speaker 2:
Yes, here comes my little goddess right now. She was feeling jealous of the cat, oh bless. So radical wholeness is really who we are at our core and being aware of that and embracing that. It's kind of like if you think about the moon and we see the moon, we see the moon as new and we see it in all of its phases, but the whole moon is there all the time and it's always holding this lightness and this darkness.
Speaker 2:
I think a lot of times in spirituality we focus on the light, but we all have this darkness within us as well, and when I say dark, I don't necessarily mean evil or bad or any way. It's just what's below the surface. I think we're all these complex beings with many different parts and finding radical wholeness is sort of stepping back, being aware of all of these different parts of ourselves and holding them with deep compassion and love and acceptance. I think for so many of us there's a lot inside of us that we don't really want to look at. A lot of times it might be pain, it might be things that we think are weaknesses or things that we've been told aren't strengths, that aren't welcome to the table, but in fact they can be our superpowers if we really take the time to dig them out, to excavate them, to hold them with compassion and to transform them into something special. So that's it. I think the secret of it all is that we're all already whole. It's not something to seek, it's something to remember, it's something to uncover.
Speaker 1:
I love that. So it's something to remember and to uncover and to kind of accept the whole aspects of ourselves, dark and light as a wholeness, and to use what we perceive as darkness but superpowers are absolutely fantastic. So in that so that would be what I would say then is what radical wholeness is. Is there anything else that you would like to add to what radical wholeness is?
Speaker 2:
I guess I'll share maybe a story that might illustrate what it is for me and I often use a lot of metaphors when I'm talking about these types of things but it is important, I think, to have these concrete stories that illustrate these concepts. And forever I've been really sensitive. My daughter is the same way. She's expressive with her emotions and it wasn't always welcome as a kid. You know our parents tell us to be quiet, or they say don't cry, or you show big emotions and you're sent to your room to be alone and that signals that we are not OK.
Speaker 2:
So this sensitivity, which is this deep access to emotions and also just feeling like my senses are turned on in a way that can be overwhelming at times, like hearing and tasting and all of that, I always thought it made me, I thought it was a liability, I kind of pinpointed it at a certain point. Okay, this is the reason I have a hard time living my life in the way that I thought I could live it and in the way that I see many other peoples living it, where they're on this very normal trajectory of what I had seen and what I thought my life would probably be like, of you go, you know, you finish high school at least in the US and then you go to college or university and then you get married and have a job and you have kids. And it all happens, you know, by a certain age. You know I've had a hard time. Even just being in like a desk job or a normal working environment. I couldn't figure out, you know, how to like, harness this sensitivity.
Speaker 2:
And one day in my later 20s I was just trying to find some answers and feeling really frustrated and I actually Googled.
Speaker 2:
I was about to Google why do I hate myself? Because I just had this difficult relationship with myself for so long. But something inside me asked me to change that around and what I Googled instead was why am I so sensitive? And what I found was this beautiful book the author's name isn't coming to me right now, but it's called the Highly Sensitive Person and it described me to a T of how I feel, my sensory relationship with the world. And in understanding that, I suddenly saw this sensitivity as something I could harness into my career, into my life, that I would just have to build a life that looks different in order for it to be a strength. So you know, teaching yoga, being an intuitive being, an artist. In some ways writing, being a mom like that sensitivity comes in handy, and I see it as like I would never give it up now, whereas I probably would have when I was younger, because I didn't understand it, it was still lurking in the depths or in the shadows of my wholeness.
Speaker 1:
I love that. It kind of built your life around your sensitive nature and seeing those gifts Because I've had that said to me. Well, kind of people said to me before I'm too sensitive, like I'll grow back for no, or like, oh, like, just you know, and I've got to the point in my life I'm just thinking actually I'm just going to be who I am, this is, you know, I'm not going to try and pretend not to be centred just to impress other people. So I really like the fact you've dug in and you found those beautiful gifts like creativity and motherhood and running your own yoga studio and helping all those people through yoga. So that's a fantastic gift, Lauren, to give to the world, absolutely joyful. And this kind of brings me into the next part. What we're going to talk about Because you're describing it to me anyway is sacred feminine and that and that, the word sacred feminine, how it has a place in all our lives. Would you care to share about that?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely I would, and you just said it. It has a place in all of our lives and that's absolutely true. While I think a lot of women are drawn to this work, the sacred feminine lives within everyone and everything. So this is important work, I think, for everybody to access. And it is this more yin, more receptive, more wild side that lives within each one of us and you know, my background is through yoga and energy work as well and when I am looking at the energy body, there are these two different channels inside each of us. One is masculine and one is feminine. Wherever they cross becomes a major chakra. I work a lot with the chakras, so this feminine is flowing within each and every one of us.
Speaker 2:
Because of our culture being so predominantly masculine for the last 2000 plus years, for the patriarchy you know, there are these parts of all of us, I think, that we suppress. So it's what happens on the macro level happens on the micro level. So these more sensitive parts, these more receptive parts, these more creative parts, these softer parts, you know, become dominated by what is considered more masculine. So doing this work for the sacred feminine helps bring more balance into each of us as an individual, but into the world as well and I was introduced to it through really learning about goddesses and different cultures. That was not something I grew up with. I grew up in a strict evangelical church environment where God is a man, where the religion is a patriarchy. And while I had heard of like Greek or Roman mythology and maybe had a small exposure to Indian culture, asian cultures that have goddesses, still it just wasn't really in my awareness. When it did become part of my awareness, I was amazed at, I think, how complete my spirituality started to feel in embracing both the masculine and the feminine and in the wide spectrum of energies and personalities that these different goddesses hold. And I don't really see them as these deities like floating in the sky outside of us. I see them as different aspects of who we are and when we get to kind of awaken to these different energies of the goddesses, we get to awaken more to our wholeness of these different parts of ourselves, some that might shine more than others, and really get to know ourselves better. So I think it's such a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:
Again wasn't in my consciousness probably for 25 years the first 25 years of my life and it was brought to my awareness actually because I was having a lot of issues with money. I had accumulated a lot of student debt. You know university colleges. It cost a lot of money in the US and many of us take out tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in loans, and I just didn't see how I was ever going to make enough money.
Speaker 2:
My parents fought a lot about money and it was something I couldn't fully grasp or understand, and I knew that there was deep spiritual healing that needed to happen. I just had this feeling that I needed to heal that emotional and spiritual side of money before I could really just get into the black and white of things, into the more masculine side, and I found a chant to the goddess Lakshmi, who I'd never heard of before, but she's the goddess of abundance, of luck. She bestows abundance upon her devotees. That's how she's known, and I was willing to try pretty much anything. So I started chanting to her and while it didn't fix my money problems right away, it opened me up to this energy of goddess and of goddess as abundance and money not being an evil thing too, but something that's just a currency and something that could be even celebrated.
Speaker 1:
It sounds like through your kind of trying to get the student loans are ridiculous. It's like I don't care. That's ridiculous. It was at your access point into spirituality via the deities, through the Asian system, would you say. Then that was your access into spirituality. And then how did yoga? Like? I know there's eight limbs of yoga, but the yoga concept of teaching and asana and all that how did that come into being? What was the link between that and how the yoga came about?
Speaker 2:
Yeah. So I would say Christianity was my first glimpse into spirituality or my first access to it. It didn't feel complete to me Around the time I had the eating disorder. I realized that it wasn't for me anymore. But I had started learning about Gnostic Christianity because I wanted to get to the root of things. I'm like where did this actually come from and what was this before? The government and the church got ahold of it, and it ended up being quite similar to the more Eastern philosophies that I started learning about. So this is in my late teens, early 20s. I'm just starting to be exposed to it.
Speaker 2:
Along with that, I had started experimenting with my friends doing some psychedelics every once in a while and that really I wasn't doing it in the conscious way that a lot of people now. It was more just for fun or a different experience. But it did bring me into this conscious space of the now, of what is it to be present? Because I think a lot of us live our lives without really that awareness of being here now. We're always stuck in the past, we're always future-tripping. What is it to truly enjoy the present moment? So that was sort of my first real potent experience with that, and so I was playing with meditating. I was actually introduced to yoga while I was in the hospital, so I would do dabble with yoga here and there. I had like VHS tapes. It was in a different era where it wasn't just available on YouTube. It was something you had to really seek out, and anything in person was way beyond my budget. So I had those experiences sort of linking up and I was.
Speaker 2:
I grew up performing.
Speaker 2:
I was in a show in my late teens, early 20s, and I had hurt my neck and one of my castmates was a Reiki practitioner.
Speaker 2:
I had no idea what that was, but he offered to work on my neck and back and it felt so much better afterwards.
Speaker 2:
I had no idea what happened or how it worked, but I knew there was something to it. Several years after this, I saw an advertisement for Reiki training near where I lived at the time and I just felt that little voice inside of me saying like you should do it, just do it Like it's not to like start a new career necessarily or anything, but like you have a lot of stuff you need to work out and maybe this will help. So that was about in my mid 20s as well, probably around the time that I was in the hospital and then a couple of years after. That was when I started this regular yoga practice and where I got to know these goddesses a lot better. So I'd say it wasn't really a straightforward path into spirituality, rather a lot of different, like breadcrumbs that I had had followed over time and they had really lit this path for me in a time that otherwise I think was really steeped with a lot of pain.
Speaker 1:
What a wonderful story you're sharing and your honesty. I really admire that. I think all these components I think spirituality isn't always a straightforward path and all these different components has kind of brought you to this place today. And I know when I was reading about your book, you were saying that being a mum really was a good thing, Because while you were kind of caring for your daughter, you managed to write this book. Would you share a bit about how motherhood helped you with that? Yeah, I'm so happy to share.
Speaker 2:
So I think part of what was difficult for me earlier in my life was this failure to find consistency and stability. I could do it when I was little, but it was like when I hit puberty that things changed and one of the things I've become awakened to really like only in the last less than decade is the power of the menstrual cycle, and I really realized that part of the reason I didn't feel consistent is because I'm not. My body wasn't made that way. My body has a different hormonal system Every single day and it cycles through this every 30-ish days or so. So learning about that and how it syncs with the moon like that was this initiation I wish I would have had into womanhood many years ago and into this self-understanding and my understanding is myself as an animal Like how does this animal work? It works with the moon. But I found more consistency and structure through entrepreneurship in the last decade and I got to a pretty good point where career is going well and I had a lot of things delegated out. I finally really found the systems that worked for me and for my body and for my business. I decided it was a good time to bring a baby into the world. I feel like I have a hold on some things. Now it feels like the right time to step into this journey of motherhood.
Speaker 2:
What happened was we got pregnant with her in March of 2020. What happened? Pretty much right when the world was shutting down, I had to completely change my business to a fully online model. He has a restaurant, so he also had a lot going on with dealing with the pandemic and different restrictions and things like that at the time. She was born in November of 2020.
Speaker 2:
It was just a time where I couldn't find my step completely. I couldn't find the sense of consistency because the world wasn't consistent. I didn't know what to expect from day to day. But I will say, once I had her, there's just something about the devotion of motherhood that is so powerful. I learned about devotion and yoga. It's a huge ton of yoga as discipline or devotion, but having a tiny human being dependent on me really took that to the next level. I truly can't go a day without making sure that all of her needs are taken care of.
Speaker 2:
That created more of a rhythm of consistency in my day to day life and an acceptance that, while we have this rhythm and while I'm devoted, that some days are going to be hard and some days are going to be easy. A lot of days are in between or vacillate between those two things a thousand times. I can consistently accept that. I think what that's done for me is I've been able to really take on some really big things because I know I can do this. At least, if I can do this, I can sit down and write for 20 minutes a day, or I can show up for my yoga practice. Maybe it's not going to be 90 minutes like it used to be, but it can be 30 or basically for as long as she can tolerate.
Speaker 2:
While we're together, I found out that showing up in small ways every day can build mountains. Rather than having this all or nothing mentality that I think I used to have because, again, I just didn't quite understand how I operated I didn't have this thing that's so precious to me that I truly have to keep alive and happy, and that's part of my Dharma. I hope that answers your question. I feel like to me, the career and the motherhood are so woven together you answered it really well.
Speaker 1:
I do think we have to do long practices or do this and do that, and it sounds like you've got the strength from caring for your daughter and the motherhood journey and all the beauty of that to realise that you can show up and do all these other things, and I think that's going to really help our listeners. So thank you for sharing about that. Would you mind speaking a bit more on about embodying your inner goddess a guide to radical wholeness? Because I was reading this earlier and I love how you've done it and how you've done it over a seven week journey and stuff, but I'll go over to you so you can share.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, because when I was designing the book, exactly what I was just talking about is what I was holding in my heart and in my mind. It is hard for me to read a whole book right now. It might take me a couple of months to do so. It's at the end of the night, when she's sleeping and you know. But, like I said, I can show it for myself in these small ways, consistently every day. Okay, you might give it a go. It's amazing what that can build or what we can tap into with these small moments of mindfulness and of connection with ourselves. Yes, the book Embodier and Ergotus A Guided Journey to Radical Wholeness is designed to be savored over a seven-week period.
Speaker 2:
I'm a course creator. That's part of my job. I lead yoga teacher training and have other courses. I really like when things are set up in a way that it's not just sitting and reading. It's very experiential.
Speaker 2:
I designed the container of this book to be seven weeks. We spend one week in each energy zone or chakra of the body and each day in some sort of aspect of this chakra which is anchored in with an affirmation. Each day I share a short reading which might be kind of a channeled reading. It might be things that I've learned through yoga, spirituality, through this journey, and also stories from my own life. It's written in this really encouraging tone because I want to cheer everyone along.
Speaker 2:
It's not an easy journey to take, I think, because we're turning over stones and looking at certain things that might be really hard at times. We journey seven weeks through the chakra system. By the end, we've really gotten to look at and love on so many different parts of what make us who we are, from our most foundational and human to our most spiritual and absolutely everything in between. Not only are we reading it each day, I have reflection questions. I really encourage everyone to journal along to this book. Journaling is so potent and important, I think, in self-discovery, self-awareness, self-love, then an embodiment practice. How do we bring this information into our beings? How do we put it into action? How do we let it change our vibration? It's my hope that people don't have to do it the way that I've set it up. Some people love to jam through a book. I hope that for women who feel overwhelmed because that's me too, I feel overwhelmed a lot of times that it's still accessible and that it still can make a beautiful change.
Speaker 1:
You've offered a way for the readers to show up for themselves every day by doing the crumbs, as you said, bringing all the different parts. That's what I really like about your book, dear listeners. I highly recommend it. It shows you how you can show up for yourself every day and working through the chakra systems reflections. You haven't written it in a way that has a sense. It's full of rich with wisdom and learning, but it has a sense of ease, in a way that it feels really accessible. That's what I really like about it Rich with wisdom but beautifully written. Sometimes it's hard for people to write in a way that has a sense of ease. Sometimes we can overcomplicate things. In a way, I think you've done it in a really beautiful wholeness kind of way. If I'm a listener and I want to get a copy of your book, lauren, I'm guessing it's on Amazon Worldwide Where's the best place that people can pick it up?
Speaker 2:
Yes, they can find me at my website, laurenledukecom. If most of your listeners are in London or in the England area in the UK, amazon UK is a great place to find it. It is stocked there. If anyone's listening from the US or other parts of the world, amazon or through any bookseller really, you can order it. I'll also add that on my website. If you go to the page where I talk about my book, I also have lots of recorded practices. I made companion videos for tons of the chakra practices and the embodiment practices in the book, because I think it's one thing to write out a description of a yoga pose or meditation or whatever it might be. It's another thing to actually see it and hear somebody describe it. I wanted to again just make this as accessible as possible for people.
Speaker 1:
Useful, fantastic. What is your website? I'll put it in the show notes, but if you wouldn't mind sharing that as well, Sure, it's just my name, laurenledukecom.
Speaker 2:
Perfect, fantastic.
Speaker 1:
Is there anything else, Lauren, that you'd like to share with our listeners?
Speaker 2:
Thank you so much, first, for holding this conversation with us. There's so much grace because there's not just two of us talking, there's three. There's cats running around. It's wild over here at times.
Speaker 2:
I would say that if a listener is in this deep place of pain right now that there is a way forward, what is the quote? Something like the pain is where the light comes through, or something like that. It's absolutely true. Unfortunately, we can't just go from the pain straight to feeling good. There has to be a journey in between, with moments of light and love and also moments of discomfort and really feeling through things that maybe we don't want to feel. The journey is so worthwhile. I always think about these moments that are hard as this fertile soil for our growth. We have to go through the pardon my language, but shit, to create this fertilizer for ourselves to grow. I just want to give a lot of hope to anyone going through something difficult right now. There is another side and it takes work to get there and you can do it. You can do it. We are so strong and we are so resilient. We can do the hardest things and it is so worth it.
Speaker 1:
We are strong and that's a fantastic piece of advice for our listeners. Wow, I really enjoyed our conversation today. I'm going to order myself a copy of your book of Amazon as well, for what I've read from it, it's really beautiful and I can't wait to get into to read more of it. Thank you so much for joining us today, lauren. As always, listeners do stay tuned. This is a meditation inspired by today's show. Once again, lauren Ladouk, and thank you very much, and family, thank you for joining us on the podcast today. Thank you, jane.
Speaker 1:
What's promised here is your meditation inspired by today's show. Top tips for the meditation is either sit nice and cross-legged on the floor with a nice straight back always nice to sit on a block or a cushion, although that's not available for you. You sit in a chair with a back nice and straight. The important thing is you're not slouching, and if you're doing something that requires you concentration, all you need to do is just pause this and you can reconvene the meditation at a time that is good for you. If you're doing the meditation, let's begin.
Speaker 1:
So, for today's meditation, I feel a deep desire to help us connect more with the present moment.
Speaker 1:
That's what I really feel inspired to share after today's show and to be fully present, as we're just what we're not always doing. So hopefully this meditation will help you with that. So, as you inhale through the nostrils and you exhale through the nostrils, you keep the breath slow, calm, deep and even and to let go of that autopilot thing that we sometimes can seep into can you instead be fully aware of the breath as you slowly inhale and fully aware of the breath as you slowly exhale, not feeling as if you have to change or mend or do all these things, but instead can you allow yourself to simply breathe with each slow, calm, deep breath that you take with me for the next minute, if the mind's wandered, just come back and, again and again, in and out, can you feel the breath as it comes through the nostrils? Can you feel the breath as it exhales out through the nostrils? Can you just be with the breath the breath is your lighthouse into this present moment and as you breathe slowly, mindfully and with the sense of care and self-love for who you are, write this very moment.
Speaker 1:
This meditation is to connect you with the present moment, and if the mind has wandered, so be it, that's fine. Just come back to the breath again and you can just practice this. So we've done about a minute, but you can build the time up gradually if you want to do this as a daily practice, or any time during the day when you feel that you're not present, just come back to the tool of the breath and via that you will be able to connect with the present moment. So thank you again for listening, dear listeners.
