Birgitta Visser – Healing Trauma from the Heart

We’ve all heard the idea that it’s not about what happens to you, it’s about how you deal with it. This is especially true for anyone who’s had to grapple with something devastating that happened to them, whether it’s an illness or event that was thrusted upon them. Very often, even after the acute pain of the event has passed, it’s left its mark upon us in the form of sadness or self-limiting beliefs that disempower us.

     Soul Empowerment Coach Birgitta Visser found a way to successfully overcome traumatic experiences in her life and shares her techniques for healing on this episode. Birgitta talks about:

·      The unseen impact of trauma

·      How technology plays a role in how we deal with unpleasant events

·      The power of self-love

·      How to shift our thoughts to promote healing

·      The spiritual connections that lead to healing

·      The best practices for lessening the impact of trauma

I don’t know anyone who’s lived a life without trauma at some point. Whether you’ve suffered in the past or are dealing with pain now, don’t miss this empowering episode of Dream Power Radio.

Birgitta Visser is Soul Empowerment Coach, Divine channel and Light Language Healer, delivering messages from the many Light Beings to the aid of humanity, in the hope that people will awaken to what life is all about. She has a profound knowledge of ancient wisdom that has over the years bubbled from deep within and has emerged as an inspirational channel having been submerged in her own traumatic experiences and having chosen to overcome these.   
     She is a Dutch mutt, living with her dog, a black mutt, she rescued from the streets in Florida. She’s travelled the world rather extensively, having moved more times than her age, as being somewhat of a nomad is in her blood. She’s held down many a job, from being a model, bartender, promo girl, dog walker, healer, web designer, created her own organic soap line, designed jewelry, taught many holistic workshops, and maneuvered herself to holding a demanding job in the corporate industry. In other words, she’s an excellent all-round chameleon.
      She is simply here to offer her words as food for thought in unlocking our own potential and be-com-ing authentically ourselves, while journeying back to the unfolding of the beautiful lotus of the light of who we are.
      Life is like the sound of music. You've got to dance before the music stops and live a little before life is over.

Website:www.powersoulhealing.com

Chapters

• 4:17 The impact of technology and social media on human connection
• 8:11 The importance of self-love
• 10:52 Healing from traumas
• 13:14 Traumatic experiences and seeking help
• 14:04 Healing through holistic practices
• 15:02 The power of nightmares for healing
• 25:44 Birgitta's Introduction to Channeling

Transcript

Announcer (00:00:04) - This is Dream Power Radio, the place where your dreams turn into reality. Here is your host, Debbie Spector. Weisman.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:00:13) - Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, certified Dream Life Coach, Debbie Spector Weisman. This is a place where we talk about dreams, both daytime and nighttime dreams, and how you can use them to make the internal shift to a life you love and rediscover the truth of who you really are. The sad fact is that all of us have suffered from trauma at one point in our lives. It may have been a sudden event, an accident or an illness that turned our lives upside down, if only for a little while. More likely than not, though, it was a hurt to our mental state, either outright abuse or insults or negative words that we took to heart, and which caused these feelings to fester into limiting beliefs about ourselves. To this day, these types of traumas may be keeping us from living our dream lives. And even sadder, truth is that we may be affected by these internal blocks without realizing it.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:01:14) - While we go about our daily routines. What may seep into our consciousness, however, is a vague feeling of loss or incompleteness that we just can't quite put our fingers on. So if you found yourself overcome at times with sadness, anxiety or a low-level stress, it just never seems to go away. There is a way out of it. We're going to talk about how to do this with my guest, Soul empowerment coach Birgitta Visser. Birgitta overcame her own set of traumas and is committed to showing others how to take back their power. Birgitta also holds workshops and is the author of the book Becoming Authentically. Welcome to Dream Power Radio Birgitta.

Birgitta Visser (00:01:59) - Hi, Debbie. Thank you so much for having me.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:02:02) - Oh, it is my pleasure to do so because it's such an important topic that we're going to be talking about because Birgitta, so many people seem to be suffering these days. Depression is on the rise. Suicides are a big concern, and so many people just feel that that sense of disconnect. Is this just a sign of our times or in the age of social media, or are we just more aware of individual traumas?

Birgitta Visser (00:02:30) - I love that you asked that question. I don't often I don't ever get asked that. So and it is very, very important. You know, we live in very transformational times. The tides are shifting. People have become more aware; People have been awakening. And I mean, I think we live in beautiful times, but because people have been so accustomed to living a certain way, remaining stuck in their conditioning, it's hard for them to embrace that change. But when we look back, I mean, not just now, I mean, even prior previous years, I mean, suicide was on the rise. Depression was already on the rise. And it's all because let's face it, Debbie, our soul was not designed to live this way. What do we do? We get up in the morning, we go to work, we're stuck in a system. You can call it The Matrix. I call it a societal paradigm. It's all the same thing. We're stuck in a system, and we are actually we've got to work to live.

Birgitta Visser (00:03:39) - But is that actually why we're here?

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:03:43) - It's a very important question. And I'd also like to add on top of that, the whole age of technology. Yes, because I'm old enough to say I was around before computers, before smartphones. I remember when my daughter was in her early teens, we got her a pager because that was the great thing. That's how we can keep connecting through a pager. So but all these leaps in technology, it has to have a shift on our brain and our consciousness in a way that just adds to that disconnection.

Birgitta Visser (00:04:17) - Absolutely. Back in the 80s, because I grew up in the 70s and 80s and. People spoke to one another. They connected from the heart space. When you wanted to talk to somebody, you'd call them up via the landline or you knock on the door, you drop by. These days, everything is done through technology, social media, and it's been designed that way. So do we really communicate from the heart? No, because we very much disconnected.

Birgitta Visser (00:04:50) - When people ask me, for instance, and I'm sure the same with you a minute, many listeners, they will go, how are you? But it's just a phrase, does it really mean anything these days? No, not really. Not like back in the 1970s or 80s or even prior to that time when I wasn't even born. But it's that disconnect that we have. And I say that is done by design because we're so dumbed down. When you hop on the train or the bus or anywhere in in public places, you sit in a restaurant, what do people do? They're on their phones. What if you were to take that away from them? If you were to take away all the technology, what would happen to them? They're so addicted. It's become so normal. They don't know any different. And that is that shift away from. From actually delving into who we really are. And then people ask, well, why do we suffer so much? Why is this so much disease? I never call it disease.

Birgitta Visser (00:06:00) - It's a disease within ourselves because we don't feel peachy in our own skin. And that is often due to a lack of love, self-love. People always say, Yeah, but it's selfish to love yourself. No, actually it's not. It's very important to have that relationship with yourself, and people don't have that anymore. Honestly. It's like in a way, the world's falling apart. And yet right now everything has to be broken down brick by brick in order to rebuild it. As you may say, the new golden age it is.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:06:38) - And it's sort of irony that people think, oh, I've got this phone, I'm connected to the world, I can get in touch with anybody and do anything and get anything. But really, there's this loneliness that's come over them because they don't have that heart connection with other people.

Birgitta Visser (00:06:55) - That is correct. And mind you, Debbie, I'll be very honest, I have. The same. It's not like when I was living in different places in the world, if I can. Even in 1990s when life was very different, you know, you'd meet up. Now everything is done via text. And let me say something when even when it's texting, emailing, social media, when everything is typed out, things can be miscommunicated or misunderstood. That is often the case.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:07:28) - Oh, very, very much so. I mean, when text became the thing to do, emojis had to get there because the feeling was not in the words and even emojis you could misread. And it just makes that disconnection even worse because you're not having that talk in that back and forth and that real heart to heart communication that you're talking about and talking about. What you touched on briefly, the idea of self-love. Yeah, you're right. People say, oh, love loving myself. Oh, that sounds selfish. It's not. It's. Can you expand more on the difference between selfishness and selflessness?

Birgitta Visser (00:08:11) - Yes. Yeah, that's funny. I taught you on that in my book quite a bit. But yeah, selfishness is when we have the ego involved.

Birgitta Visser (00:08:22) - Many people live. Very much from the ego. We live in a very competitive world, very comparable. I call that everyone compares themselves to one another. And. That's not important. Honestly, what is important is how you feel about yourself and that you appreciate yourself and that you love yourself. And loving yourself is selfless, as I said, because you have to have a relationship, a loving relationship with yourself first and foremost, if you want to make the world a better place, you have to start with yourself. It doesn't come from without. Everything comes from within, and that is because we are energy. Debbie. And when people say, well, what do you mean we're energy? Well, in very layman terms, when you hop into the shower and it steams up and you wave your hand through the steam, that, as I say, is energy moving. We are all energy and thus we create everything. That's basically what we think we create and thus manifest in the outer world. But when the ego is involved, and we don't heal, and we continuously hold our soul hostage whilst our soul is going.

Birgitta Visser (00:09:48) - Excuse me, please excuse me. Please, you know, want to be in the driver's seat. And the ego is like, Will you just shut up already? And all the while the mind's been fed and fed and fed and the ego is just sitting there really bullish in the driver's seat. And but that's why we're here. We're honestly, Debbie, we're here to return to a love for ourselves because if we love ourselves, if we come from a place of love, that fear just dissipates. All the negative dissipates, and we learn to love ourselves except ourselves. But we also learn to love others and accept them the way that they are. Right? And that's so important.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:10:32) - Don't believe that you can love unconditionally unless you love yourself.

Birgitta Visser (00:10:39) - Yes. Yes. And for that, we need to heal our traumas. And that's one of the things that people do these days because things are shifting. And it's like, no, no, I don't want to deal with that. So I'm going to whack a mole.

Birgitta Visser (00:10:52) - Check out whack a mole, all these emotions back into place. And what happens eventually you become like a bunny boiler and everything just, you know, it erupts because it's got to come out somewhere. And that's why when something pops to the surface, because we're all beautiful reflections of one another, we're all teachers of one another. Mm Well, when we see it from that perspective. Okay, well, what are you trying to teach me? Why am I triggered? How can I heal? What do I need to do? That's what you analyze it. You evaluate that?

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:11:28) - Yes. And you actually overcame your own set of traumas? Yes. So much. When was it when you realize that there was a way to get out of this misery that you had created?

Birgitta Visser (00:11:41) - Sometimes for me, it was one step forward and two steps back. I had to go through a lot of trauma and even in my childhood. Because I was abused in my childhood as well and did starve myself in my teens and very much into my early 40s.

Birgitta Visser (00:11:59) - To be honest, I'm not anymore. But I think it was I had a turning point in 2009 that was a first turning point. That doesn't mean that prior to that I didn't have healing done. I did through NLP neuro linguistic programming, but that didn't work for me. So I always say this to people What works for some may not necessarily work for others, but you have to do whatever agrees with your spirit. But for me, 2009, that was a turning point because I hit the bottom of that rock and I really had to climb that climb up because my ex was a crack addict at the time, and I didn't know that. And I must say he's doing very well for himself now. He's turned his life around many years later. But he landed in bed with the Crips in Holland, and I have my life threatened and my mom got me out of Holland. He was held for ransom by the Crips because he owed them money. And I helped the police and saved his life. And he was deported back to the US.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:13:10) - And so hard to cope with that.

Birgitta Visser (00:13:14) - It was yeah, it was difficult. And mind you, you know, when my stepdad passed away in 2000, I had my stint with drugs for several months. It was more recreational, but one night I took too many E's and I suffered from blackouts and could have killed myself at that time. But you live and learn. I always say there's no right or wrong in how you decide to experience life. But for me, I tried to. My mom got me out of Holland in the space of several days, and I tried to take my own life just downing a whole box of ibuprofen. And that, of course, mean all I had was a really good night's sleep for like 12 hours and woke up without a headache. But I decided, yeah, I can't go on like this. And my mom just said to me, why don't you go see a counselor? I did, Debbie. And it's hit or miss. I'm not saying that all counselors are bad.

Birgitta Visser (00:14:04) - There are good ones out there. But this one was terrible. She just said to me after I told her my story. Oh, Birgitta, you're going to be fine. You're strong enough. And I just sit there, okay? And I left and I thought, you know, I want to get better. I cannot go on like this. So I looked up a Reiki, I looked for a Reiki practitioner and I found one. So I ended up going to holistic route and I studied Reiki as well. But that was, as always, say it was my saving grace. And I think sometimes we have to go through very traumatic experiences and understand that there are opportunities for you to heal and just peel back the onion layer bit by bit. And the only way you're going to get back to a more authentic version of yourself is when you take the route to heal.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:15:02) - Absolutely. That is such powerful advice you just said. And I talk about two and I talk about dreams and nightmares and how nightmares are so awful, but they're really the basis for healing.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:15:16) - Because when you do understand what the nightmare is telling you, that's your opportunity for growth, just like what you're saying. We are going to talk more about healing with Regina Vizier. And we'll be right back. 

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Announcer (00:16:10) - Welcome back to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:16:17) - Yes. Welcome back to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. And we're talking about the path to healing with Birgitta Visser. Well, Birgitta, you call yourself a soul empowerment coach now. So what exactly does that mean?

Birgitta Visser (00:16:32) - Soul empowerment coach. It's exactly what it says. It's returning from that state of disempowerment because we often give our power away to people, and that's why we huff and puff and we know why does this person do this? Why do they do that? And it's really taking back control, taking back your power and realigning your soul within the grid of yourself so that you feel comfortable within your own skin rather than feeling at a dis ease within yourself. And again, that's where the healing comes in.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:17:13) - Well, often though when we're trying to get our power back and let go of behaviors that don't serve ourselves anymore, we're so deeply programmed. We talked about that earlier, how that programming is just there within us. How do we break that cycle and we empower ourselves and get our power back?

Birgitta Visser (00:17:33) - I think the most important thing is that we take accountability for our lives regardless of what has happened to us, even though it was not by a folder through a folder of our own.

Birgitta Visser (00:17:47) - You have to learn to forgive. If you really want. To move forward in life and to progress. Then you have to alkermes your experiences. It's very, very important. And we can and you're right, many people are very deeply programmed. And it's like, But I can't. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Which it's a choice at the end of the day, Debbie. It is a choice. Do you want to heal? Do you want to? Do you want to improve your life? Or would you like to remain where you are, where you're at and, you know, stay in that victimhood?

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:18:25) - I'm so glad that you talked about forgiveness, because I think it's such a powerful thing and people don't realize it because they may be so caught up in anger against somebody or themselves that they said, oh, it's not going to do any good to do that. But talk about how to forgive, how can you actually authentically forgive?

Birgitta Visser (00:18:47) - Oh, it took me many years. But now, honestly, now for me, it's very easy because I've come to that place. I come from a place of love. But for me, being abused in my childhood, even being assaulted in the modeling industry, being treated like a doormat by many, many people, even in relationships. But I took that accountability and through healing, through healing myself and by going to various healers, it's almost like I stripped back the layers of that conditioning. And once you take that responsibility and you look at life from a different perspective, you it's like you change your it's like you shift your mindset. There is the saying in quantum mechanics, change your thinking, change your life. That's a very simple motto, but it's all about shifting that consciousness or shifting your mindsets and that it's not easy, but you have to start somewhere. And that's the thing that I say to people. Doesn't matter what road you choose, but please take accountability and do something. Do something to change your life. For me, what worked for me as well is I love to meditate.

Birgitta Visser (00:20:08) - I stopped for a little while and now I've started again. And I wake up with so much more clarity. I do my meditation in the morning, 20 minutes and 20 minutes at night. It gets me back to that. I call it zero points in point. It just centers me. And that's just important.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:20:30) - It is so important. And like you said, there are many different ways we could do it. And if meditation doesn't work for you, there's something else that might work. Maybe Reiki would work or maybe Dreamwork would work. It's what works for every individual. I want to get back to what we were talking about briefly before, which was the whole idea of self-love, because it's not to me, I don't believe it's not as simple as just saying, okay, today I'm going to love myself. Oh, no. What advice do you have for people who want to reclaim their love?

Birgitta Visser (00:21:06) - I'm going to say something. Dad used to give me an exercise and we were kids. He’d say, stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself that you love yourself. And it was like, what? What? Because that's the hardest thing to do. It really is. And especially from, you know, for many, many years, I hated myself. But I'm okay with me now. I'm okay. It's not like I say it in the mirror every single day, but I accept myself as I am now. And that's very, very difficult for people. And how do you get there? It's by changing little things, doing things for you. If you're not happy within yourself, ask yourself why. That is very, very important because many people are not. And I would say in agreement with their lives, they're not happy within their lives. But do they ask the question, why am I not happy? No, because many people just keep going. And as I always say, if you cannot love yourself, how can you ever heal yourself? And if you will not heal yourself, how in heaven's name can you ever love yourself? It's got to start with you just making little changes for you and making the time for yourself.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:22:34) - And that is so important because, again, that gets into the question of time because people will say, oh, I don't have time. But when you think about what you do with your time, then you do realize that you do have time. And a couple of years ago I wrote a book about this called 101 Dream Dates, and the whole concept is that you spend it could be as little as ten minutes a day or it could be the entire day, depending on what it is. Doing something for yourself by yourself. That is something you don't normally do. And so I have 101 suggestions on things you could do to do this. But by doing this and making it a practice, you begin to love yourself because you're spending that time with yourself that you would never think that you did because you think, I don't have time to do this. But you spend that time, you realize, Hey, I'm not such a bad person. And you know, I'm kind of fun and I'm creative and I could do all sorts of fun things.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:23:31) - And you build on that, and you build on that, and that's when you get that self-love. And then you then you are free to go about loving everybody else.

Birgitta Visser (00:23:44) - Yeah, make a bucket list. I did that. I made a bucket list too because I'm an idiot like that. I love to challenge myself because I have a fear of heights. And so what did I do? I went skydiving. I jumped out of a plane, did that, and I was glad when my feet touched the ground again. But I did it and I did many other things. And the other the one other thing I did when my stepdad passed away in 2000, I promised him that I would run for charity because he passed away from cancer. And I never did for 16 years that I kept running in my head and eventually thought no. When I was going through such incredible growth and healing because I in Florida, I walked through the Akashic Records. So that was Akashic Healing. And it was very, very powerful for me.

Birgitta Visser (00:24:39) - And so I decided, no, I'm going to do stuff for me. And I started to run, and I ran many five Ks and sometimes ten Ks because I thought, you know what? I'm just going to do it.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:24:49) - And you did it.

Birgitta Visser (00:24:50) - Yes, but I will say one thing. What many people will do is, yeah, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And what happens? They want the phone and they're on their computers. And then it's like it's procrastination. It's like, switch off, switch off completely and go and do something for yourself. Even if it's reading a book or something that you've been wanting to do for a long time and just take an hour for yourself.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:25:17) - Absolutely. I want to switch gears for a little bit and talk about that. You act as a channel for wisdom from the ancient healers. When did you realize that you were able to do this and how do you access it?

Birgitta Visser (00:25:32) - So this was back. Oh, you know, I mean, I've always even since when I was a kid, I saw one of my guides and she was a teacher, and I was stuck on this very silver cord.

Birgitta Visser (00:25:44) - Remember that? I was about five years old. But I've had many things in between. But when it comes to channeling, that came to me in 2016. And my den mentor, Alana Starhawk, who does the Akashic records healing in Florida. She had a workshop, How to Become a Divine Channel and thought, oh, yeah, let's go. And it was a big group. And I was sitting by myself in a corner. That's just the way that I am. And she did a meditation with light language because she also speaks light language. And she had the singing balls and she counted to three. Boom was gone. Heaven knows where I went. And then half an hour later, she counted back from 3 to 1 and boom was back in the room. And everyone had seen the many masters, the archangels, their guides colors, got messages. Well, what did I get? Diddly squat? Nothing. Nada. And I was really upset. I was just sitting there, wiping the tears away with the sleeve of my vest and.

Birgitta Visser (00:26:53) - She gave an exercise and that's how she started to channel. And it's really easy. You just sit down with a notepad and a pen, and you say to Spirit or your guides universe, you say, I'm ready to receive. That's what she did. And I went home, ran out, that I ran out the word workshop. When it was done, got home, I hopped in my car. I went home and I did that exact same thing that night. And for me, that's how it started to flow. I think I was a little bit exasperated. I didn't even think my mind was just woosh. So it just flowed. And then I look back and was like, oh my gosh, this is old English. This is pretty cool. And so I continued doing that every single day because it's like riding a bicycle or going to the gym, you know, you have to do it regularly so that you become a pro at it. And then I started to use my Oracle cards to see who I would get, and I would just sit there with the card and ask them what it was in archangels and Master, you name it.

Birgitta Visser (00:28:02) - If they had a message to convey and if they could tell the tell me something about themselves and that's how I did it. And it works. Really works.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:28:13) - Yes, that is amazing. Birgitta, the time has flown. So my final question to you is how can people find out more about you and your work?

Birgitta Visser (00:28:23) - They can find me on my website, Power, Soul healing.com on Facebook and Instagram under Universal Light Warriors and on my YouTube channel, Power Soul Healing.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:28:35) - Oh, wonderful. Birgitta, thank you so much for being on Dream Power Radio today.

Birgitta Visser (00:28:40) - Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Debbie.

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:28:43) - We've been speaking about overcoming trauma with Birgitta Visser. I hope you've enjoyed today's program. If so, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Until next time, this is Debbie Spector Weisman saying Sweet Dreams, everybody.

Announcer (00:28:59) - You've been listening to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector. Weitzman. For more information on Debbie or to sign up for her newsletter, go to DreamPowerRadio.com.

Announcer (00:29:13) - This has been Dream Power Radio.