On the Spectrum with Sonia Krishna Chand

When Your Inner Child Drives Your Success Bus with Andrea Andree

• Sonia Krishna Chand

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Andrea Andree takes us on a transformative journey from being a corporate Engineer to becoming a leadership and embodiment coach for high-achieving women who want to get out of their heads and into their bodies.

• Former project manager with two engineering degrees who felt unfulfilled despite checking all the boxes of success
• High achievement often stems from childhood wounds and patterns of seeking validation or attention
• Achievement becomes an identity and unconscious driver when it's how we learned to receive love
• 90% of our behaviors are driven by unconscious patterns that manifest as physical sensations in our bodies
• Learning to identify and sit with bodily sensations rather than automatically reacting to them breaks unhealthy patterns
• Generational and even past life trauma can create fears and behaviors that don't make logical sense in our current lives
• Transforming achievement means moving from pain-driven to aligned, intentional success
• Working with the body through embodiment practices helps access and clear unconscious programming
• Holding a positive perspective is possible even while processing difficult emotions

If you are interested in working with Andrea or wanting to even have a consultation with Andrea, she could be found on LinkedIn Andrea Andree and through her website https://andreaandree.com/


Remember to rate, review and subscribe to this podcast. My book "Dropped in a Maze" is available at all major book retailers online. If you write a review on Amazon, I'll read it out loud on future episodes.


Speaker 1:

Hello everyone and welcome to today's episode of On the Spectrum with Sonia, a podcast where we discuss autism spectrum mental health challenges and highlight stories of anybody who's overcome any adversity to leave our audience feeling connected, inspired, empowered and filled with love. And speaking of love, love is what drives humans at the end of the day. Everybody wants to feel loved. Even animals want to feel loved. But when we don't feel loved, especially from people who were supposed to love us, this is where it becomes very demoralizing, very demeaning. You know, and everybody copes in a different way with this, but one guest in particular Andrea Andre. She used her feelings of never feeling good enough or loved enough to drive her success, which is something people don't talk about enough. That's why I am so blessed and honored to have Andrea Andre with us today, and she's here to describe her story, her journey, and it is a story that I feel so many of us can resonate with on certain levels, but we don't talk about it enough, and for that let's please welcome Andrea.

Speaker 2:

Yes, thank you. Thanks, sonia, for having me Thank you for being here.

Speaker 1:

So, andrea, tell us a little bit about you, tell us about your journey a little bit, tell us who you are.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely so. Currently, my current state is I am a leadership and embodiment coach for high achieving women, I like to say, many of us. We've lived all of our lives in our heads, which is I know it will unpack a little bit in this episode too. And the next level of leadership for me in my world is really getting down into our body and learning how to better understand, better manage the impulses that all of us feel on a daily basis, minute by minute basis, because I believe that the more that we can be in our body and not let those impulses control us, then the more control we have over how we show up in the world.

Speaker 2:

So I didn't start here. I've had a journey through corporate. I have two engineering degrees and, yeah, I don't know how far to go back, but I'll just say when I was in corporate, what I was was a project manager. I did process improvement, so I led teams. We worked on helping systems be better and more efficient and how work flowed through the system. So I did work in the healthcare space, in the insurance space, and eventually I got to a point where that just wasn't feeling good anymore and I was feeling a different sort of calling. Calling was more to know myself internally, and as I got to know myself, I realized some of the things I was learning about myself including being a high achiever are things that I could turn around and help other women move through and get past as well, and so I'll leave it there and figure out where you want to unpack and where you want to go from there.

Speaker 1:

So it seems like you really went on a journey. Not only you know within yourself, but also your career has also been quite a journey, because it's a jump to go from now being once in corporate, being a project manager and having engineering degrees to now being a coach for high achieving women. So can you tell us a little bit about what drove you to make the change?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I, like I mentioned, I was in corporate and also this was around the time I had my first kid. So I have got two kids now, a daughter and a son. My daughter is almost 10. So I guess we're going back eight, nine, 10 years now.

Speaker 2:

But after I had her I had everything that was on my checklist that I thought I wanted that was supposed to make me happy. So I had the marriage and the kid and the master's degree and the house and the job and I finally I'm looking around and I'm realizing I'm not happy, I'm actually burnt out, but I'm bored. I was also just bored Like I was going through the motions of life, but there was nothing interesting or exciting about life. It was just rush out the door, take my daughter to daycare, go to this job that I don't like, rush to pick her up from daycare, to get through dinner and go to bed and like repeat, and that just wasn't very exciting to me. And so that was sort of my first awareness of this isn't really what I want to do with myself. And then I was starting to get just unhappy at work too, and starting to get these inner messages that were telling me if I stay on this corporate path, then I wasn't going to live up to my fullest potential. And, of course, high achiever I'm like, well, what does that mean? Because I, of course, want to do what I'm here to do and do it very well. And so then I started unpacking that and I didn't quit my job right away. I was certainly. I switched jobs into something that was a little bit more supportive for me, but it just kept going on this inner journey.

Speaker 2:

And I like to say in the beginning everyone says follow your passion. I'm like I didn't. I had no idea what I was passionate about, because there was no passion in my life. And so another tip that I heard was just follow your curiosity. And so I just started getting curious and I was like what is this energy thing that people keep talking about and how do people learn, how to tap into their psychic and intuitive abilities and how are people becoming better parents? And I know all of those sound really random, but those are the curiosities that led me to, eventually, what I'm doing right now. But I just kept following those and following those until at some point something clicked and I realized I was learning all of that. That was my highest path, and it wasn't in corporate. It was somehow doing my own thing in a way that I could bring those out to people into the world. So eventually I made the jump and have been working on my own ever since.

Speaker 1:

And what have you found to be the most rewarding, now that you're doing what you're doing?

Speaker 2:

Yes, I would say one of the most rewarding things is everything is my own decision. Whether it's a good decision or a bad decision, at least it's mine. And there's just something about being in control, Although that was also scary in the beginning because, again, as a high achiever, you also kind of are a high achiever doing what other people tell you to do at least I was and so it was good and bad in the beginning that I had total control over myself. So that was just something I had to learn and stabilize, but I love it now. I love that I get to choose how I run my business. Do I want to offer this or that? Do I want a podcast? Do I want a video? Who do I want to talk with? I love all of those things.

Speaker 2:

And then I'd say the second part that I really love is I've gotten more out into the community lately in the last few years. So I live in Madison, Wisconsin, so not too far from Chicago, where you're at, and before my community was daycare parents or school parents or work co-workers, but now just getting out into the community meeting other people doing either similar things or they have their own business or they're building things, whatever it is. It just feels so much smaller and so much more like home to me Madison I'm not from here it didn't feel like home until just these last couple of years when I started actually meeting people, and so that's been really rewarding as well.

Speaker 1:

Yes, in fact Andrea and I have met at the One Stories event that Wendy Babcock hosted in Brookfield, wisconsin, about last month, and it was amazing to hear it, you know, and Andrea actually went in front of the room and spoke about her story, her journey, and I remember I was getting so emotional listening to your story and I felt like I was there with you. And you know you mentioned that word achievement quite a bit. So you know, kind of tying it all in a little bit, what was your relationship to achievement and where did that relationship begin?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, great question. So school, certainly I was a straight-A student in school. I actually loved school. I had perfect attendance from fifth grade through 12th grade, so I didn't miss a single day of school in, however many years that is. I was always the teacher's pet, I was the valedictorian, and so I learned very early on that I took on that identity of the smart one and the achiever.

Speaker 2:

And I know that there was some pressure to achieve from my parents at home and I think from their perspective, they pushed me because they knew I was capable. They weren't pushing my brother and sister as much as they were pushing me, and I believe it was because, you know, they saw my brother as the athlete and so he got pushed a little bit more that direction. So I think from their perspective, it was meant to push me and to drive me, but I internalized it completely differently and I internal from their perspective, it was meant to push me and to drive me, but I internalized it completely differently and I internalized it as oh, that's how I'm getting attention, that's how you know, that's my role. To shine in this family is to be the achiever, and so that must be what I need to do to, you know, get the attention that all kids we're all looking for love and attention from those around us. And so and school is a very easy place to get it because it's measurable.

Speaker 2:

Whether that's good or bad, you know, I have different opinions about it now, but in school it's measurable, and so you can very clearly see how you're measuring up to some standard and how you're measuring up compared to other people, and so that was a very easy place for me to, I would say, harness or direct. This achiever in me was something that I could measure myself against myself, against other people, and that just became my motivation. That then I took into the workplace and took everywhere else I went, because once it's in you, unless you learn to look at it and shift it, it's going to find its outlet some other place, and so the Achiever had been born and created, and so then I took it into work and my parenting and everything else that I did after I was in school.

Speaker 1:

What was the one thing that you were looking for then, while you were busy being like, even in the school right, you were perfect attendance. You are straight A student. What was the one thing you were really craving that perhaps you felt was missing?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'd say making my parents proud was something that was driving me and it never came from a place of like I felt that they weren't proud of me necessarily. But again, I don't know where that came from. That was just the behavior that I adopted and the motivation that I had that kept me going.

Speaker 1:

And when you look back at it and looking at that, you know always driving to achieve something, always wanting to prove something or show for something. If you could look at that younger Andrea self, if you could go back into that inner child, if you will and go to that younger self, what?

Speaker 2:

would you tell, let's say, the fifth grade Andrea? Yeah, fifth grade Andrea. That was awkward, andrea. Yeah, fifth grade Andrea had glasses.

Speaker 2:

She just got her period, so that was a really fun time in my life, but I would tell her that she's enough just as she is. She's enough without having to prove she. You know I love her, even if she doesn't get good grades, and I love having her around. I love seeing her heart, I love hearing what makes her tick and just helping her feel loved outside of her achievements, I think, is something that you know. When I do my own inner child work that's typically what I do is I help my inner little girl feel like she's loved just as she is.

Speaker 1:

And that is so powerful. I feel like we don't get that message enough, that we are enough and people don't. You know, because you know society, you know, is filled with what does it mean to be enough? And we're constantly inundated. Right, you have to live in this kind of a home, you have to drive this kind of a car, you have to carry this kind of a luxury bag or wear this kind of watch or be this kind of be in this kind of job or whatever. Right, have these many followers now on social media, because that's also another measuring stick people have gone to.

Speaker 1:

Now, right, it's all about numbers. Or having this many people subscribe to your podcast, whatever, it is right. It's like we're so caught up on metrics almost to kind of define whether we're enough or not, and I think people have lost sight of the fact that your worth has already been predetermined for you because you are worth it, because you're alive, right, exactly, it's non-negotiable, it's unchanging right. And that's one thing I work on when I do self-esteem building with my clients is, you know, we talk about this idea that you are enough as you are. Those other things are just add-ons.

Speaker 2:

Right, yep, they're made up measuring sticks that someone decided at some point, and then we all just grabbed on to.

Speaker 1:

Right. Have you noticed a theme, though, with the people you're working with now? Do you notice like there are similar patterns and stories that are that kind of resonate with your own, about like people being high achieving and, you know, driven for success? Do you notice that with the clients you work with that perhaps maybe they too are like searching for something and they're searching for that validation, that love they feel that they need to show for something. And how do you feel like you find that synergy, then, with the people you work with?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's a lot to unpack here. One thing I will say that I found in the client so I tend to attract also high achievers, the type A, and some of the things that have come up recently, as these are the things that we're starting to get into now is how exactly, like you said, how their current behaviors might mirror something from their childhood. And so I know I talked about in my situation. I was the achiever looking to make someone you know, looking to make my parents feel proud of me, and so that was always this inner motivation that I had, although it wasn't my parents. It became my boss, it became my coworkers, it became, you know, other people took on those roles, but that motivation stayed the same.

Speaker 2:

I had another client who, when we went back to her childhood, one of the things she felt unseen by her parents and she noticed as a kid her parents were always commenting on oh, look at that person, oh, look at your sister, oh, and so she never felt like they were paying attention to her certifications, where she has her own business and she has all of these achievements and certifications and things, and I remember taking her through an exercise where I wanted her to look at those and be proud of all those. And I said, when you look at all those things, what do you see? And she said I did all of those trying to be seen. And again, she's trying to be seen. As a kid it was by her parents, and as an adult it may not consciously be. Hey, I'm trying to get mommy and daddy to look at me, but that energy is still alive inside of us and so other people kind of take on those roles, and so it might be her industry peers or people in her network or you know, people that are around her that are taking on the quote unquote role of mommy and daddy, where she's doing all of those things and taking all these things on trying to be seen. You know, I've had clients on the flip side where there was one where she had to be perfect and quiet, right, she had to show up perfectly, she wasn't allowed to act a certain way or say a certain thing, and so then as an adult, she felt like she couldn't use her voice and her voice wasn't welcome.

Speaker 2:

And so a lot of these patterns that many of us learned as kids and this can be in any childhood, this can be even in a good childhood. I think they're just the level of consciousness we have now around how to raise kids. It's so different than our parents' generation, and so I don't ever blame our parents. They just they did the best they could with what they knew.

Speaker 2:

But what they didn't understand was some of these inherent needs that kids have, which is I want to feel unconditionally loved, I want to feel seen and accepted for who I am, and those sorts of things. If we inherently didn't get them, we found ways to get them, or we developed all these false motivations to try to get them, and then they drive us. And so one of the patterns that I've noticed is these high achievers. Many of us are driven from this pain, from this pain of not being seen and not feeling like we were enough, and so I actually like from the outside we get all of these accolades and raises and awards and everything, but I really feel like a lot of that is fueled from a pain, whether it's a conscious pain or we don't know that it's there. But I think a lot of the high achiever archetype is fueled by whatever we didn't get as kids. Now it's coming out into our adulthood.

Speaker 1:

And I'm very glad that you said this because it's so true and we don't talk about this enough. We really don't. And you know, I also can resonate on some level with all of this as well, because a lot of my achievements is also driven from pain as well. Yeah, you know, and I guess you, I guess there's a big power to when you are dismissed when you're younger, right, when you are rejected, when you're ostracized, when you weren't given the kind of emotional support you needed or given the right kind of environment where you can grow and thrive.

Speaker 1:

There's a lot of power that goes into how that affects a person Absolutely. You know, and you know, and here's the thing we, you know, when we see these high achiever archetypes right, this is what society celebrates, right, when we think about it, society puts this kinds on the pedestal and being like, okay, these are great examples and while it's true, it's very noble, you know it can drive anybody right, because you know, having something to thrive for, you know, can be a great asset for many people, right, but when it's coming from that source of pain, right, that's something it hits differently, it does.

Speaker 2:

Yep, and I like to sorry, I was just going to comment too I like to say that we know more now, and so I think we can look at it differently. Where we didn't know this before, and so I think, as women, we did what we needed to do to sort of bring ourselves to a different level, you know, out of the home and into the workplace, and so that made sense for a period of time, to work, to achieve. But now I think we know more and now I think that there are ways we can look at. Well, maybe it's not the achievement necessarily, that's wrong, but how can I do it? From power and not from pain, and how can I do it from a place of this is an aligned achievement and not from I'm trying to do this to get seen unconsciously by somebody?

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, it's about changing our perspective, right, because ultimately, ultimately, you know, your achievements are for you ultimately, right, your accomplishments are yours. Right, they're not about everybody else. And I feel like and this is what we say too, like you know what. I had a run coach who used to tell me this. She said one day she and granted, you know she's an elite runner, you know very, very fast runner.

Speaker 1:

She said, you know, sonia, ultimately, one thing to remember your running is for you, nobody else, right, and you know, after hearing that that also was just like the light bulbs went on and I'm like you know what it is for me, right, I don't have to, I don't owe anybody anything. Right, what I do is for me, right, I don't have to, I don't owe anybody anything. Right, what I do is for me ultimately. I mean not in a selfish way, I mean I do this to give back as well, don't get me wrong, I do things to give back as well. But how much of this are we going to allow the pain to be the bus driver? And then, versus, how do we shift to get the adult in us, that more healed version of ourselves, to take over and drive the bus?

Speaker 2:

Bingo. Yep, I love that. The running is for you. Yeah, too many people make that competitive. But really like what if you're running against the fastest person in the world or you're running against an average person? Like it says nothing about you if you come in first or second, like it's. You know you did your best and that really is what should matter, and so I love that. She said that.

Speaker 1:

Exactly and it's uh, so like when you're doing like the work with your clients and you say, like you mentioned, like how it feels in the body, where you feel things in the body. So when it comes to in as far as where things are stored, how people store things in their body and do the body work, what have you found and what kind of tips can you give other people today that may be trying to explore and try to maybe tap into this kind of area?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love this. So what I have found, first of all, is so many of us we've learned to live in our heads, and I think that's intentional, by design. We've got these cell phones, you know, we're always staring at a cell phone, always staring at a computer, always doing something. We're always busy. So we've forgotten to even know what sensations are going on in our body, to even know how that drives us. So that's number one. Number two, what I've learned when we talk about habits and behaviors, science says 90-ish percent of our day, of our actions, our behaviors, our words, they're driven from our unconscious, and so we're kind of moving through life and through the world unaware, in a way. It's like if you've ever driven somewhere and you go, I don't even remember driving here. It's sort of that whole idea is what part of me was driving on the road and what that is is there's an active version of you that's thinking about something. You've got that fight going on in your head or whatever it's going on. And then there's sort of the unconscious version of you that's like all right, I got this, I'll keep us safe while you're fighting your boss in your head or whatever it is. And so there's a version of us that's sort of coasting through life, and what I've learned about that version of us is much of it is driven by these impulses that we get through our body, through our unconscious. And so I like to say our unconscious does not just live in our head, it actually lives in our body, it's through the mental, emotional system that is in our body and we're always in response to that. And so some examples for one, one for me.

Speaker 2:

I remember during COVID early COVID, obviously a terrible time for everybody there was a period of time when after lunch I would just ravage and I was like I need sugar, now give me sugar. And I would go through the cupboards and I would just eat any terrible thing. I could find that was sweet and I couldn't figure out why I did that until I remember I paused my door is right there, right outside the door of my office, and I said, okay, where am I feeling this impulse in my body? And there was actually this like really nasty feeling in my gut and if I could give it an image, it was like a sludgy image and I was like that's what it is. Every time I feel that impulse, my unconscious has said I don't want to feel that, so eat sugar and it'll go away. And so when I sat there for just a couple minutes and I said, you know, I'm just going to feel it, and I felt the sludgy crap, whatever was in there, I realized a couple of days later I haven't craved sugar in like a few days and it's because the impulse was gone.

Speaker 2:

And so, for me, what I am trying to help people become aware of, is that we're always there's these, you know, our body is lighting up in different ways and different pressures and different impulses and, unconsciously, our unconscious doesn't want to feel that. It thinks feeling is death basically, which we know is not. It's death of the feeling, but it's not death of the self, but it does everything in its power to keep us from feeling those things. And so that's where we might overwork. So yesterday I was working with a client who's very new to this. She's like I want more body awareness. I feel like you know she lives in her head, and so I'm like all right, well, you asked for it, so we're gonna get into it.

Speaker 2:

And just yesterday alone, our focus was on productivity and hustle. And why do you work so hard and why do you feel like you can't take breaks. And so three of the impulses we found, one was she needs to be the one in control, so that was one that was keeping her from being able to delegate things. She found one on what if I let people down and then I forget what the third one was. But then we tapped in and each of those she felt in a different place in her body. So there was an impulse in her chest for one of them, there was an impulse in her stomach space for one of them, and then an impulse in her back.

Speaker 2:

And so what we haven't realized is so many of us live in our heads. We just know we're uncomfortable, but we don't really know why. And then we take all these actions to try to ease the discomfort. But I'm saying no, let's get out of your head into your body, then you can get information from the discomfort and then the discomfort doesn't drive you. So now she has the tools to say you know what? I'd really like a break, but my body is feeling like it wants to keep going. Let's tune into my body and see where that impulse is coming from, and then let's do some simple breathing exercises to see if we can dissolve the impulse and then choose differently, where, again, most of us were just kind of moving throughout the day without really choosing or doing anything with intention. But the body has so much information and when you can learn how to read those impulses and then take control and not let those impulses control you, I feel like that's when people really start soaring in their life. So hopefully I answered your questions.

Speaker 1:

But this is amazing, thank you. Yes, and I feel like so many of us don't realize that it's our body speaking because it's craving something or craving attention. We think that we are going to quench it by, you know, maybe going and drinking that milkshake or eating that ice cream cone or whatever else, but in reality it's, you know, our body's telling us. The reason. It's telling us that is because it's maybe craving something different, absolutely, yep. And when you notice, you know in your case, you talked about going for all the sweets in the cupboards you know, at that time, what did you notice was the main thing that your body needed from you? What did it say, andrea, this is what we need, this is I want, how I want you to take care of me. What was it say, andrea, this is what we need, this is how I want you to take care of me. What was it telling you? What was the main lessons you were learning out of that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, this was an interesting one and again, I just trust my intuition and my ideas and the things that are kind of coming up, without judging them, even if I have no idea where it could have come from. And so one of the things and I really wish I remember what podcast I was listening to. This was years and years ago, but he was talking about how he was helping people try to lose weight but for some reason they just couldn't lose the weight. The diets didn't stick and all that stuff the weight, the diets didn't stick and all that stuff. And so what he found going back to their childhood, was weight was actually a protective mechanism for them, because something happened in their childhood where they were seen and it caused harm, and so then unconsciously they put weight on so that way they wouldn't be seen, because that was their body's way of not getting harmed, like if I'm big and unattractive, people aren't gonna be interested in me and hurt me in a way, like I'm being really sort of blunt in the words, but just so that way people kind of get what I mean.

Speaker 2:

And so honestly, for me that was the impulse that was coming up was like no, we need to eat sugar because it's unsafe to be skinny, or it's unsafe to be skinny, or it's unsafe to be seen, or it's, you know, some sort of mixture of that. And again, I know that we can carry this sort of patterning from our ancestors and so this isn't something that makes sense to me given my current life situation. But we carry so much from our ancestors too that, again, that's why I don't judge anything that comes up, because it's like all right's in my body. That means I need to take care of it. I have no idea where this came from, but it's here, so we're just gonna clear it out. So that was what that was kind of feeling like to me was you need to eat sugar because you can't be healthy, you can't be skinny, like that's an unsafe situation. So, again, doesn make sense. But I have notebooks upon notebooks of things that just don't make sense, but they just were there.

Speaker 1:

So there's like, well, generational trauma is a thing, right, there's a reason why people talk about generational trauma is because, in fact, it does get passed down. You know and I've even noticed this even within my own family right, things that people have gone through earlier generations that have gotten passed down, and you can see the effects too, you know, of how they were able to continue to hold on to certain things. And then you know, and having that mindset subsequently because of that right and it got passed down, right. So I think that you know there is a lot of truth to that and I feel like you know, generational trauma is also something that needs to be addressed, you know, with people, and understanding where their families came from also plays a huge role.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I heard someone at work once who was seeing a therapist and was bringing a fear up to the therapist and the therapist told him you have no reason in your life to have that fear. And I was like, well, that's a terrible thing to say like and an unhelpful thing to say like. You have the fear, like we can't. Why are we arguing with what is? Like? The fear is there. Let's treat it as if it's there. Let's not try to argue with it not being there. So I agree, I do think we need more of this conversation and just recognizing that all of us carry so much and it's not our fault, but if we have it and if we want to move beyond it, then we do have some level of responsibility to heal it on behalf of us and our generational line.

Speaker 1:

You know, I 100% agree with that, and you know the things are there for a reason, you know, and it's not, you know. Ultimately, fear, right. When we think about fear, when we look at the way our brains are developed, it's for safety, right? So a lot of these emotions like anxiety, it's there to keep us safe and, from the evolutionary standpoint, our brains were more susceptible to negative news, to bad things, to negativity, just because of when we were part of, like the hunters and gatherers. You know we had to be mindful of not being attacked or eaten by wild animals, right, like we had to be more. We had to be more discerning, you know we needed to know all who was in our tribe, things like that, right. So, like, this is all out of that same. You know the operation of, you know safety and the way that people define. You know how to keep themselves safe. The way people act, right, to keep themselves safe is going to look different for everybody, but what's keeping you safe versus what's keeping you hindered, right? There's a fine line in between.

Speaker 2:

There's a fine line in between. Yeah, yeah, and I like to remind people too when I think about safety, for me it's safety of the body, and I don't know what your sort of spiritual beliefs are or anything like that, so I'll just share mine, which are that when we're done with this body like our soul, if we want to call it soul moves on, and so there is no risk of harm to our soul, which is truly who we are. And again, just to get really dramatic and visual, like a bullet cannot injure our soul. Our soul does not die of starvation, you know, our soul cannot run out of money. Those are all body, you know they're, they think of the word, but they are against the body, but they're not against our soul.

Speaker 2:

And so I've taken that perspective too is oh, this is safety for my body, but I'm always safe. And so I also, sometimes, if I really need to and this I did early, covid too was tap into this feeling of I know I'm safe. I'm inherently safe, just like we're inherently worthy, we're inherently safe just because, literally, we are eternal beings and nothing can happen to me. Covid can attack me, you know this or that can attack me. And so I've started to look at that too, is the safety is, oh, it's trying to preserve my body. The brain is part of the body, but I am a wiser, more conscious being that can partner with the body, but I am also separate from the body, and so I'm always safe, and so that perspective has driven me a little bit too.

Speaker 1:

Right and I a hundred percent agree with you. So, um, my background is, you know, uh, and raised Hindu, and Hindus believe in reincarnation. I'm not very religious per se more spiritual than religious but we do believe in that reincarnation and the soul, and how you are born in your next life depends on how well you do in this life is how I was always taught, right and you know, and it's about learning lessons, right, and each lifetime that you are in it's to teach you something, right? So, and I, and I honestly believe in this too I do believe that souls do move on. I don't believe that, you know, because, after all, we are energy beings, right, ultimately. So I do believe that souls get reincarnated. I do believe that. You know what.

Speaker 1:

There's a reason why, and I personally believe this. I know I might sound crazy right now, but there's certain reasons why, when you go to certain places like I was just telling this to my best friend the other day there's this one restaurant in downtown Chicago that I've gone to to eat really great Italian food, and it's in my neighborhood and, honestly, every time that I've gone there, at the times I've done it, it's like I felt transported to, like a past life. Just because of the old school ambience, just because of the vibe, it was like I felt transported to another place. And you know and this is the thing I honestly do believe you know, and I know I'm an old soul, you know, I know this is not my first ride on earth here, so you know. So I mean, I feel like this, this does happen.

Speaker 1:

I feel like there's a reason behind it and I don't know if this has ever happened to you where you've gone to a place and you're like it takes you somewhere, where you're like, oh my gosh, like this kind of looks familiar, I don't know why, or this, this gives me a feeling of something and I don't. You know what I mean. I do.

Speaker 2:

I can't point to a specific instance for that. But going back to trauma, I know I've also cleared past life trauma too, so I didn't bring it up before I wasn't kind of sure where you sat. But now that you've said what you said, yes, I believe we also carry past life trauma, and so that's where some of these oh, that doesn't make sense. Yeah, that's because it came from a different lifetime.

Speaker 1:

Mm, hmm. And when you look into past life trauma, you know when you've done the, you know work on yourself and you've done that soul searching. You know what have you noticed that you still had to work on from past life trauma that you may have carried into this lifetime and that you're like sorting through? And how do you help your clients navigate with that aspect too?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, some of the things and I assume I don't get too much like is this past life or is this generational? But I have some feelings around certain things that feel past life. So one of them as a mom, I used to have this crazy fear that my kids were going to die, which is a normal fear, I think. For parents we're always like don't you know, don't stand on that, don't climb that, all the things. But for me it just it was all consuming. And I remember one day my daughter. We were playing with a friend and she was kind of kind of not feeling well and so we needed to come home early and so she slept all the way home and she went to bed really tired, and I had just done a clearing with someone else and someone completely different, not in my family, unlike a little five-year-old who had leukemia, and so for some reason, my daughter was also five at this time and something snapped in like oh yeah, your daughter has leukemia, that's why she's tired, and I literally cried for over an hour as if that was true and I had all of these images coming up for me and I know this sounds really intense, but this is how I use visualization to clear some of the energy. So some of the images that were coming up for me were like my current daughter in the hospital, like getting the diagnosis, then in the hospital bed, all the way to the point where she flatlined and died, and so I cried for an hour as if it was true, and then, almost as fast as it came on, it was like nope, that was past life, and then it was good again, and so that was so.

Speaker 2:

My children dying has come up many times, and I feel like it was probably many different lifetimes, like my kids falling off of things and dying, or my kids drowning that's another one. I have reoccurring dreams of my kids going into water. And so those are things that, as they come up and again, if we have the energy in them, then we're going to project them onto our current situation, even if there's no danger in our current situation. And so, like again, if my kid is going through a normal cold or they're just a little tired, you know my body is projecting oh my gosh, she's got leukemia, she's gonna die because there's this old energy in my body that doesn't want to be seen or felt, and so it's making me project it outward, and so when I've learned to go inward and look at it, then I'm like no, then I can look at the situation with more of a rational brain and say, no, she's just sick. This is normal. You know, obviously we'll watch out and see if there's anything that does seem like maybe we need to go to the doctor or whatever, but otherwise we feel good and so as I clear some of those things, I feel like then I'm not driven by this constant need to protect them every second of the day, but I can come from a more rational perspective. So that was a big one for me as a mom.

Speaker 2:

That has come up and been cleared, and when I work through this with my clients a lot of it I'm just saying like, what's coming up for you? What triggered you? What made you upset? Maybe was there a moment you were embarrassed or you got mad, because typically all of those again, there's some sort of pressure in their body, there's some sort of feeling that doesn't want to be felt or seen, and so it has a coping mechanism for us. So, instead of me feeling this, I'm just going to yell and make it someone else's problem. Or instead of feeling this, I'm going to go hide in the corner and get myself out of this situation. And so I talk them through, those big emotional moments, and I swear there's always a lesson or always something that comes out of it.

Speaker 2:

That's really interesting, like I had another client who we were just talking through. She's like I yelled at my kid over spilled milk and I'm like, all right, well, let's go back and see what was coming up in your head as you were talking to him. And so we recreated that scenario and typically this works like if it's fairly fresh in memory. So I wouldn't go back one or two years, this was within a week. But we, I took her back to that scenario and I said what was going through your head in right after the milk spilled? And she said I was noticing that the milk was moving towards the puzzle and the puzzle was not done. And I'm the person that finishes things.

Speaker 2:

And so her inner child was like no, no, no, you're the one that finishes things right, and that puzzle is going to get full of milk and then we're not going to be able to fill the puzzle or finish the puzzle.

Speaker 2:

But because that was an uncomfortable feeling she wasn't aware of at the moment, what did she do? She yelled at her son and made it his problem, right, and those are the sorts of things that we do when we're unaware of what these impulses are through the body. So what we did then? So that was great information for her, and she was able to pick up other situations where maybe she hasn't acted in her own best interest, because she's the one that finishes things. So there's another example. She's like, oh yeah, like the time where I fell on the ice and got a concussion and my first instinct was I need to log into my computer and finish this thing instead of taking care of myself. And so those big emotional moments are really great ways where we can get information on patterns that are running us, and so I love to just kind of pick those apart with people, because then they really get to know themselves and their patterns really well, and then that's when they can choose how they want to show up differently.

Speaker 1:

And that's a very powerful way to transform as well and do that inner work and transform is by recognizing and really allowing yourself to sit with your feelings, to sit, and this is one thing I do also in my you know, in my line of work as well as a therapist, as we ask where does this come from, what are you feeling, what does this bring you back to, what does this remind you of? Right, and things like that and similar to what you're doing. And so you know, definitely I'm feeling the synergy here right now, but, yes, it's. You know, when we take the time to understand where our feelings are coming from, you know where triggers are coming from, right, because I feel like too many times people try to sugarcoat things, or not even sugarcoat, but they just want to like just wash over it, right, trigger. Oh, you know if it was easy, because a lot of times you'll hear people say, well, just get over it. Or you know what? You know, just go love yourself. Or you know, just like, kind of like a whatever attitude, right, and it's a very simplistic Exactly Just be grateful, just go love yourself, things like that. Truth of the matter is, things are more complex than that, right, and it's a very simplistic Exactly Just be grateful, just go love yourself, things like that.

Speaker 1:

Truth of the matter is, things are more complex than that, right, if things were so easy, there would be no reason for people like you or myself to have the jobs we have. Right, there's a reason why, right, if it was something was so simple to get over, why would anybody like to wake up and have flashbacks of trauma? Why would anybody want to be depressed every day? Why would anybody want to be anxious to a point where it's debilitating? You know, I mean, I don't think anybody ever wakes up and is like you know, I just want to be depressed today and feel really bad about myself and hate life.

Speaker 1:

No, nobody does that. Right, and nobody, you know, wants to feel, you know, that pain, I mean, people don't want to feel pain most often than not, right, people don't, and that's why, right, why do you think so many people go to the bar and drink away stuff? Right, to try to just numb out, right? Or people who, you know, um, like, eat overeat? Right, nobody wants to, you know, because people want to run away from the feelings. But the real work is when you are able to sit with your feelings. It's not just about being positive all the time, right, I mean, should we aim for positivity, absolutely, but you know? But also recognizing invalidating emotions or feelings or triggers that don't make us feel good absolutely.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I like and I've just realized this recently too you can hold a positive perspective even if you're feeling really crappy in the body. So, like, even if I'm moving through something and allowing myself to sit in my feelings, I can still choose the perspective I'm taking. I can either say, oh, this is stupid, why am I doing this? I, you know, I should be over this already. Or I can say you know what? I know? Something better is on the other side and I'm just going to allow whatever shows up to show up. So I feel like you can hold a positive perspective even if you're moving through something really painful.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely and by holding a positive perspective. It's not just being like, let's just focus on the positive, it's more what's coming up for me, and let me embrace this right now. It's okay for me to feel sad. I'm just going through a moment, I'm going through something and I'm going to feel okay. Ultimately, let this time this is just a bad moment. It'll pass Right. Yes, now do you do also like any like kind of imagery with your clients? Like any imagery work Do you do? Cause I know like you go and you do the body work. You know where it's like. You know you kind of pinpoint where they feel it in their body. So are you doing any kind of like imagery as well, like kind of like guided meditation or just kind of body scan, or you know any of?

Speaker 2:

that as well. I do. I do. It depends intuitively what comes in for me for that particular client in the situation. So I remember one exercise that was really powerful for one of my first clients was we were.

Speaker 2:

She wanted to shift something in her life. I think it was how she was showing up in a particular relationship. It was something like she wanted to transition to something different, and so the image that I got to guide her through was let's imagine your current situation like you're really heavy, you're really constricted. I want you to come up with an outfit that represents that for you, and so it's typically a co-creation, and so I'm leading them, and then I forget exactly what she said, but it could. It was something like you know armor, like you know steel armor, like a knight, like I feel heavy, I feel constrict, and so then I guided her through okay, let's take it off and let's destroy it.

Speaker 2:

However feels good to destroy it. So some people, depending on what it is, they just want to destroy it and hit it and bury it or set it on fire. Sometimes things are like you know what? I can see how this served me. Let's give it a nice honorable, you know little funeral and I'll surround it with flowers. So I let them kind of come up with how they want to get rid of it. And then, in this particular case, we stepped into something new, and so, again, it's been a few years, so I forget what her one was, but sometimes, when I do this with myself, it's like this beautiful flowing gown or like this drapey cape or something that makes me feel, you know, it represents lightness and it represents who I'm becoming in this transition. And so, yes, certainly, if it makes sense and if I intuitively get guided to do that, I will use imagery to sort of help solidify either transitions or new energy that we're calling in, or new ways of being that we want to be.

Speaker 1:

That's absolutely amazing and I think imagery is so powerful as well. And I think also answering this question too, kind of going along with you know, like how you were describing like what do you want your future to look like, right, answering this one important question that people don't ask themselves what do I want? I feel like a lot of people don't ask themselves what do I want. I feel like a lot of people don't ask themselves enough of what they want. You know, and that is also something that get clear, you know just more clarity on and you know, for people as well, and you know it's just.

Speaker 1:

There's just so much that we can transform about ourselves when we get clear, you know, and, first and foremost, understanding that our achievements and what we want in our life is for us first and foremost not in a selfish way, but it's just for us and understanding that you know what the pain you had right can be used as a teaching tool instead of used as driving your bus yes, absolutely. And then also doing the inner work, and I really am so grateful for your story, grateful that you're sharing this and you know talking about the subject, and you're absolutely right we do need to keep having more conversations about this, because this is something that people don't recognize or acknowledge enough of.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I loved your questions. I can tell you're in the work. You asked some really great questions that I have never been asked before, so kudos.

Speaker 1:

Oh well, thank you. Thank you so much, andrea. Now, andrea, if people want to reach out to you to perhaps, you know, have like maybe a consultation with you, to maybe, you know, hire you for some work or you know where can we find you two E's at the end.

Speaker 2:

I'm one of the only ones out there, so it should be pretty easy to find and the other one would be my website. Again, my name AndreaAndreecom. So two E's at the end and then there you can find contact information and book calls and all the good things.

Speaker 1:

Well, this was really transformative and thank you so much for being here. And this wraps our episode today of On the Spectrum with Sonia. Remember to rate, review and subscribe to this podcast. Also, I wrote a book Dropped in a Maze and if you haven't already, please, please, please, get your copy. It's available at all major book retailers online. And if you write a review on Amazon, one thing I'm going to start doing is reading it out loud at the end of the podcast going forward live on these episodes. So, with that being said, thank you very much, andrea Andrews. Information will be in the show notes and we are ready to wrap, so talk to you all soon.