Free Yourself

Come and listen to our Host, Gia-Raquel Rose, in “Speak Up & Stand Firm” Podcast Mini-Series.

This powerful series is all about finding your voice, trusting your truth, and having the courage to stand firm in what matters most. We’ll explore what it means to speak with confidence, create healthy boundaries, advocate for yourself and others, and stop allowing fear, guilt, or the opinions of others to silence you.

Through honest conversations, real-life stories, and practical wisdom, we’ll encourage DIVAS to step into their power—not by being the loudest person in the room, but by being confident enough to know that their voice matters.

Whether you’re learning to say “no,” having a difficult conversation, standing up for yourself, or finally speaking the truth you’ve been holding inside, this series will remind you that your voice has value, your boundaries deserve respect, and your story deserves to be heard.

Gia-Raquel Rose, owner of Airs Above Yoga, LLC and a real estate sales associate in Tewksbury, New Jersey has had a love for horses stemming from early childhood. Growing up in “horse country” afforded her the privilege of beginning to ride from the tender age of four. It was a childhood illness, which brought her riding aspirations to an abrupt halt. It took twenty years before she was able to reunite with her long lost passion for horses and their ability to heal. In that time, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Corporate Communication from Arcadia University and became a twice two hundred hour certified yoga instructor in both Hatha and Vinyasa. It was the loss of her mother, Rose, to breast cancer, which ultimately shifted her trajectory from the corporate world to the internal work for which yoga, as a practice, is renowned.

• women’s voices and the long history of silencing and oppression
• throat chakra blockages, energetic debris and possible ancestral patterns
• balancing speech and silence, intuition and discernment as the real skill
• a mindset shift from “respect is earned” to respect as inherent while trust is earned
• meditation setup options for sitting, reclining, savasana and legs up the wall
• breathwork and grounding through points of contact with the earth
• blue light visualization to clear stuck energy and expand your voice
• noticing images, memories, sensations or silence as valid inner guidance
• linking throat, heart and third eye so truth carries wisdom and kindness
• sealing intentions, gratitude practice and practical aftercare like water and notes

For more Divas That Care Network Episodes visit www.divasthatcare.com

Transcript

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Welcome And Network Mission

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's Divas the Care Radio. Stories, strategies, and ideas to inspire positive change. Welcome to Divas the Care, a network of women committed to making our world a better place for everyone. This is a global movement for women, by women, engaged in a collaborative effort to create a better world for future generations. To find out more about the movement, visit divas that care.com after the show. Right now, though, stay tuned for another jolt of inspiration.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Namaste, and welcome to the Divas That Care Network. I'm your host, Jira Kell Rose, owner of Airs Above Yoga, and you are listening to Above the Ground Podcast. If this is your first time tuning in, our network is in its 16th year and listened to in over 30 countries. I would like to personally thank you for giving me the gift of your time. As always, it is my honor to hold space with and for you. And as we move through our series on standing in your truth, speaking your truth, using your voice, hearing your voice, knowing your voice, using your voice, being and embodying your voice, it's a it's a trigger, I think, for a lot of people. I really believe that, um, especially as women. And I will kind of die under that flag. Um, and I will say it in every episode where I, as a woman who identifies as such,

Why Women’s Voices Get Silenced

SPEAKER_01 1:35

um, and without any shader, resentment, or judgment of anybody else who chooses or feels a certain way within themselves, I have nothing but respect for you and your choices. But there is an inherent latent ancestral, uh, I hate to say it, but victimization of women, of the divine feminine, of the female body, mind, spirit, it's just, it's there. Um, and so when I talk about this, I don't ever want to speak from a place that alienates anyone else who feels a way within themselves. But I will say that if you were born a woman with female organs, female hormones, if you are a female, if you were born with the genetic markers of a woman, historically, we have been both vilified and victimized. Um, our voices have been silenced. These are kind of irrefutable truths. It's very upsetting to see that even now we still live in, there are still plenty of societies that still do this outright. Um we happen to be, if you live in all if you live in certain parts of the Western globe, if you live in the United States, if you live in Canada, if you live in certain areas, um, I guess we're we're luckier, Western Europe, parts of Europe, we're luckier. We are the luckier women in certain respects, um, but also sometimes not. Um, and so this episode is a meditation, but I have to preface it because I know that there are you know so many underlying themes and people can get caught up in them. And I as a I'm a woman, I identify as a female woman, I respect you as however you identify, however, as a woman, I will always stand first for the rights of other women. I always will, and I will speak for the pain and suffering that our section of the species has been forced to endure over millennia, and I will never not do that. So anyone can enjoy this meditation. This is a meditation

Throat Chakra Blocks And Ancestry

SPEAKER_01 4:32

about your voice, this is a meditation about your truth, this is a meditation about freeing your voice and freeing your truth. If you have not gone back and listened to last week's episode called Clear the Crap, um, I talk about as a Reiki master, how I often come across blockages, staggered energy, what looks like what looks like cobwebs, what looks like static, what I mean, depending on on the client, and I won't go into details obviously out of respect for their privacy, but most female clients that I work with have some form of debris blockages, energetic or otherwise, in their throat chakras. So why is that? It's personal for everyone, but there can be an element of systemic oppression passed down through generations. If you believe in that, I do. You don't have to, and I won't make you. But I happen to believe that it comes down in our genes, it comes down in our bloodlines, it comes down through what our mothers and their mothers and their mothers have endured. So there's something about the DNA code, and that can be latent in there as well. I'm not going to get into things that I can't explain, but I will say that this meditation is for anyone, not just women, anyone and everyone, no matter your identification, no matter what you align with. And I will not say that there aren't men who men who have suffered, that there are not men's who whose voices have not been heard, that there are not men who have been oppressed. That is clearly true. So I take nothing away from others. I simply speak to what I know because or what I've experienced, so that I can speak as informed as I possibly can. And again, I wish to alienate absolutely no one. This meditation is for everyone, but it is coming from a place of you know divine feminine rising, not gonna lie, it is, and it's coming from a place of self-empowerment, of first, as I said last time, there is a way to speak your truth from a place of kindness, and sure, we may mess that up. I've messed it up. I messed it up recently, and I usually be try to be very, very precise with my words because words are they are as sharp as a knife, they cannot be taken back. And so I always make an effort to be very conscientious about my speech. However, I'm gonna speak my truth in what I have just said, and I'm also going to share that this meditation is to help you free your truth,

Balance Your Voice With Discernment

SPEAKER_01 7:23

your voice, whichever you need. It might be different for everyone. You may have no problem, you may have an overactive throat chakra, right? Like you may speak a lot, you may have diarrhea of the mouth. Um, that's an imbalance too. That's not what we're going for. We're going for balance. So it may not be freeing your throat chakra that we're looking for for someone, anyone watching watching or practicing this meditation. It may be balancing. Silence is as much knowing what not to say, knowing when not to speak, not disturbing the silence is as important as speaking sometimes, knowing when, tapping into that intuition, understanding where your power really lies. Sometimes silence is louder than speech. Oftentimes it can be. So, this again, as with every meditation I ever do, it's about tapping into your intuition. The channel that I bring to you is a way for you to tap into yours. I'm tapping into mine to share with you a way to tap into yours so that when you make these decisions, they're coming from you, not from me, not from my higher self, but from your higher self, from your soul's connection to the divine, from your whatever you want to call it. I don't like labels. I don't love them, if you couldn't tell. Um, so with all of that being said, if it's not, some people do struggle with their voice. They struggle with standing up for themselves, they struggle, they struggle with speaking up for themselves. If that's not you, then I hope this meditation helps you find whatever truth needs to be brought into your awareness now, whatever truth belongs to you in this moment. And your truth is subject to change day to day, minute to minute, moment, moment to moment. It's it's true. What is true for you now may not be true for you tomorrow. So allow that to be okay. And I am not excusing fickle, flighty behavior, as I said in my last episode, but there is an element of growth in understanding. And I will share something that I had said throughout my life, and it was a belief, I suppose. I always said that respect was earned, that was respect was earned. And I can't remember who it was that I saw. So forgive me for not giving credit where it was due. But someone said that respect's inherent, and they use the metaphor of a child not wanting to be touched or not wanting to be interacted with in a certain way. And that is the respect of that child's autonomy over their body, right? And as we're talking about our voice and speaking up for ourselves and standing in our truth, that is another way to process this information and this idea of respect that it's not earned, it is inherent. The respect of, you know, walking up to a dog on the street and sticking your hand out, you're not respecting that dog. You are thinking of you wanting to pet that dog. That is a you problem, not the dog's problem. There is an element of respect of boundaries, respect of the other in a dog, in a child, in an adult, in another person, in another car driving down the road who has road raid, raise your hand, this girl right here. So if respect, if I was wrong in my belief system for many, many years that respect had to be earned. When I started to process, oh, wait, that's true. Like that child does deserve to be respected with

Respect Versus Trust And Boundaries

SPEAKER_01 10:56

their own wishes about their own body, right? That doesn't mean that every child that screams out, I want a cookie, that that's respecting the child. So again, discernment, right? Reality, rationality. But then I had to redefine my belief that it wasn't respect that had to be earned, that it was trust. And that trust and respect are two pillars, I believe, in any relationship with any other human being and potentially any other animal. So an animal, an animal, especially, I think it's more tangible or more easy to be understood when you're talking about an animal, animal because they can't speak, right? So you have to that earning an animal's respect is or trust, I should say, earning an animal's trust is a beautiful thing. Um, because it's it's just soul to soul. You can't communicate with them, and it makes it pure. Whereas earning a human's trust, unfortunately, people can lie. Trust is easily broken. And an animal can break your trust too. You can train a puppy to not pee on the carpet, and then they're gonna pee on the carpet a year after you thought they were done, right? So there's a there's an element of that as well. But the bottom line is that the change in belief structure is what I mean when I talk about what's true for you one day may not be true for you another day, and let that be okay without giving you letting that be carte blanche for you not keeping your word and not remaining in integrity. That is not my point. It's just an example. So as I've gone through all of the lead up, I will now share what I share every time we go through

Set Up Your Meditation Posture

SPEAKER_01 12:46

a meditation. I I invite you to meditate with me. I always invite you to set yourself up comfortably in the most important thing. So every episode, every meditation episode, I do the same thing. I give you this time right now, this is your moment to set yourself up in meditation in a place that is comfortable. I will now go through the different ways that you can do this. If you can sit comfortably upright, either in a cross-legged seat or in a chair with your back supported and your feet grounded, those are seated options for you. Traditionally, obviously, meditation is done cross-legged or in lotus position if you really have happy, happy knees and ankles, you can sit in lotus. Otherwise, you can sit cross-legged, otherwise, you can sit in a chair comfortably with your back supported and your feet on the ground. I personally, as long as you can do so without falling asleep, because we don't want you to fall asleep necessarily. Relaxation is good. Unconsciousness is the opposite of what we're going for in a guided meditation. So if you can remain comfortable in a reclined position without falling asleep, then I oftentimes meditate in a recline position. It is not traditional. Technically, your chakras are still in alignment and technically they're still grounding down into the earth beneath you. So I hope that you know the ascended masters that were meditating before I was, you know, ever incarnated in this body will forgive me for saying that I am a fan of reclined meditation because I think it allows people to really settle in and be completely supportive and at ease and in comfort. And that is how I believe you are best able to really align with your higher self and your connection with the divine and experience the meditation because you don't you're not being taken out of your focus by pains and you know discomfort in the body. If you do choose to lie down, a few options for you. You can take if you have a yoga mat, let's pretend you have a yoga mat, you can take your edges of the feet to the edges of the mat. You can allow your knees to rest in on each other. If you need to press into the feet, tilt the tailbone underneath and roll the lumbar spine out, that'll give you a nice long reduction in the curve of the lumbar spine. This is a nice sacral release. It allows, it should be comfortable if you don't have access to blocks, blankets, or bolsters to prop the knees. Sometimes legs outstretched can cause some tension in the lower back for some people. If that doesn't for you, that's the other option for you. You can lay out in a traditional shivasana position with your palms faced up at either side or face down if you need more grounding and allow your toes to fall out to the sides with legs outstretched, if that is something that is accessible and comfortable to you. Lastly, and one of my favorites, however, it is the least grounding of all of the meditation options because it would be legs up the wall. You know, legs up the wall has a whole host of health benefits. It's one of my favorite postures to be in, no matter what. That being said, if you're talking about meditation and grounding, your legs being up the wall and your feet aiming at the ceiling, not so much with the grounding. So one way that you can get around that is by placing either a you, depending on your level of OCD, you can place an eye pillow, maybe with a towel around it, or a very floppy pillow that's not going to fall off your feet and land on your face mid-meditation, but that can kind of ground and support your feet and give you that kind of third point of contact to feel that sensation of groundedness while still getting the health benefits of the decompression of the legs, the blood flow restoring back to the heart, etc. So now I hope I have given you ample time to set yourself up in some fashion that is going to be sustainable and comfortable for you as we proceed through this meditation.

Breath And Grounding Into The Body

SPEAKER_01 16:30

And with all of that being said, I invite you now to gently lower your gaze or close your eyes.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

And as always, we begin every meditation by drawing on our our awareness into our bodies by connecting with our breath. And as you breathe, simply allowing your breath to flow into all the points of contact between yourself and the earth beneath you. In an effort to bring your awareness to that natural love and flow. Feel that sensation of groundedness, of heaviness, of complete relaxation of every muscle in your body. Notice how the air feels with each inhale. And with each exhale. Does it feel cooler as the breath travels in from outside the body? Does it feel warmer as the breath releases anything stuff or stacking from within the body? There is no right or wrong. There is no judgment. Only awareness of your experience. Almost in alignment with your ears. Or do you feel like the breath that the base of your throat are in alignment of your collarbone to the exhale?

Visualise Blue Light Clearing Stuck Energy

SPEAKER_02 22:02

As you breathe while continuing to visualize this light, notice for you if it changes in size, in shape. Allow the breath to flow over this light like water over a rock illuminated by the sun. Inhale and exhale, washing away, clearing any stock or stagnant energy. Set the intention for yourself now to allow your breath to create this release of anything stuck, anything trapped, anything buried, anything under the surface. Set the intention for your inhales to wash the space in and around this light free of anything holding it back. And allow your exhale to begin to uncover, release, urge, and set free. Anything keeping this light small, whether it's a color, whether it looks like wisps of black or gray smoke, whether it looks like water heavy and dirty being rinsed away, whether it looks like fire burning, clearing and purging, allow whatever visualization comes through for you to feel and be exactly what you need in this moment. And as you continue to breathe, start to allow each inhale like a bellow to increase the size of this spark of light within your throat. Allow it to brighten the color. Allow every breath to expand this part of you. Allow it to reshape if need be. Allow it to become so big that you can look within it as you would through a microscope. And as you do, allow it to show you what it is you need to see. Do you see it

Listen For Truth And Body Signals

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with your mind's eye now? Is it a truth that you have had trouble facing or expressing? Is it an image from your past that has created a blockage? Is it a container allowing you to bring balance to an overly expansive leak of the energy from your throat chakra? What can you see within the expanse of this blue light in your throat? Or what can you hear? What does your own voice have to share with you? Do you feel a blockage, a tickle, difficulty swallowing? These are all sensations and ways that your body can communicate with you if visualizing is a challenge. Or if all you hear is silence. Breathe here in this space. Allowing the light of your voice to expand. Take up space.

Link Heart Third Eye And Throat

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Allow its light to begin to extend. Down into the space of your heart chakra and up into the space of your third eye. Allow this connection between the green blue below and the indigo blue above. To allow your voice to be blessed with divine wisdom and truth that is universal and softened by the kindness of your heart so that when you speak, it is with weight and love. Allow this integration with your permission to move through you. Allow your throat chakra to be both open and balanced. Whether

Declare Freedom Seal The Intention

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self-imposed or externally imposed upon you, to be cleared and removed permanently from your voice, from your throat, from any and all physical, mental, emotional, etheric, energetic and spiritual locks. Declare your voice free now. Set the intention again. I am free. At any given moment, and I speak with balance, compassion, and unyielding discernment. Palms to the front, fingertips to the back, seal this intention in. Bringing your palms then to your heart center to ground your voice deep within your well of compassion and self-love. Bringing your palms to the middle of the forehead, sealing this intention in truth and divine law, and then releasing your palms wherever they fall comfortably as you gently begin to breathe in a sensation of gratitude for your freedom of expression. Gratitude for the self-love that you have gifted to your body and your voice and your truth on this day. Most of all, gratitude for your own conscious discernment, knowing that when you speak it carries weight, and knowing that when you choose when, how, and why you speak

Gratitude Grounding And Closing Tips

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from a conscious, gracious place, trusting in your discernment, trusting in your intuition, trusting that your voice speaks for your highest and best good. Even when that highest and best good is silence, being grateful for the silence that speaks even louder than your words. Take another deep breath, focusing again on the blue light, the very center of your neck and throat. Say out loud the words thank you, and then begin to breathe deeply through that blue light into all of the extremities of your body, your fingertips, your toes, all the points of contact between yourself and the earth beneath you. Ground your truth back into your body, breathing balance into this light within you, breathing space in and around your throat chakra, breathing your awareness and consciousness back fully and completely into your body with the intention of an open, balanced, expressive and conscious voice, which belongs only to you. And when you feel called, gently open your eyes. Make sure to ground yourself fully and completely before coming out of the meditation. Even though I may end this practice now, you may stay as long as you feel called. Continue to breathe and be in your truth in this moment and in all moments. Bringing your voice with the discernment and knowledge of when to use it, how to use it, and when silence speaks louder than your words ever could. Make sure to drink water. Make sure to take any notes that you feel called to take about what came up for you in this meditation. If you need extra grounding and you are not allergic, dark chocolate is very helpful, or any small amount of food after a meditation practice. Again, make sure to stay hydrated, make sure to gently move yourself back into an upright position if you were reclined. Again, as always, I want to let you know how much I appreciate each and every one of you for sharing this space with me. And I ask that you please feel free to share the same with your loved ones. For more goodness, follow me on all the socials at Above the Ground Podcast and visit my website, airsaboveyoga.com. Don't forget to check out all of my other episodes and my amazing sisters at the divas.care network. You can find us on Spotify, Apple, Odyssey, Amazon, iHeartRadio, Usprout, and YouTube or anywhere else that you may feel guided. Again, my name is J. Raquel Rose, owner of Airs Above Yoga, and you are listening to Above the Ground podcast where every day is a good one.