How A Near-Death Spiral Became A Spiritual Awakening And A Path To Service

Alyssa shares her story of recovery, healing, and coming back into the body — from early addiction and violence, through sobriety, somatic repair, and spiritual integration.

She speaks openly about a teenage descent into substance use, relationships shaped by trauma, and the moment that interrupted the cycle and opened a different path. From there, Alyssa reflects on the role of 12-step recovery, the slow rebuilding of self-worth, and the realization that healing is not about fixing the self, but learning to relate to it differently.

The episode weaves Jungian shadow work, ancestral healing, and somatic practices that support the nervous system in completing what survival once interrupted. Alyssa shares how community, ceremony, and earth-honouring rituals helped repair the isolation trauma creates, and how breathwork became a bridge back into safety, agency, and embodiment.

She also speaks to the reclamation of anger — not as danger, but as a clean boundary and source of truth — and how this restored confidence, direction, and the ability to build a practice rooted in service rather than performance.

Throughout the conversation, Alyssa explores the why beneath each tool: somatics for stress completion, ancestral work for inherited patterns, and breath as a way to soften the mind’s grip and return to the body. This episode offers grounded reflections and practical insights for anyone navigating trauma recovery, sobriety, and spiritual growth without bypassing the body.

If this resonates, consider subscribing, sharing with someone who may need it, or leaving a review — it helps these conversations reach those they’re meant for.

What part of this journey speaks to your own?

Alyssa's IG: @wildfemininerise

Work With Alyssa:

The Calling —A 9 Month Initiation Into Your Soul's Assignment

In Service— 1:1 Soul-Led Leadership Mentorship

The Awaken Experience— 7 Day Retreat In Costa Rica with Alyssa & Dr. Jesse

Free Meditation —Positive Timeline Activation

Watch Alyssa's episode on Lead With Heart

Transcript

Mission And Grounded Spirituality

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Welcome to the Body Wisdom Rising podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa, and my intention here is to deliver grounded embodied insights alongside practical tools and resources to help you heal, awaken, and remember your sacred nature. This is rooted spirituality, bringing people back to their bodies, back to their roots, and back into connection with the ancestral ways that have always carried us, not spiritual fluff, not disconnected theory, weaving together the best of ancient wisdom and modern science, living, breathing practices and conversations that integrate healing, wellness, earth-based wisdom, and conscious growth. Each week I share space with experts in trauma recovery, holistic health, and ancestral ways of knowing, as well as voices with lived experience and powerful transformational stories. Together we explore what it truly means to rise rooted, embodied, and whole. And if you enjoy this episode, please take a moment to leave a five-star review as it helps these conversations reach the people who need them most. And let's get into the episode. So before we get into today's episode, I just want to take a moment to thank you all so much for the reviews, for the support. It means the world to me. You're really helping this podcast grow and reach more people. And I appreciate you all so, so much. Everyone who's taken the time to leave a review, I yeah, I see you guys. I love you guys. Thank you so much for it. And if you hadn't had a chance to review the show yet, and if you are getting value from it, um, it's a really incredible way to support the show. I, of course, don't uh make any money off of these shows. And yeah, I put a lot of time and intention into it. So it's a way that you can give back if you are receiving value. And uh just a reminder that I have the breathwork session that I'm offering February 11th coming up right away. So if you haven't had a chance yet, you

Gratitude And Reviews

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can sign up. It's only $44 to join, and you will get the recording. So it's a two-hour long journey. So we start off, you know, just really grounding and dropping into our bodies and setting our intention and going over the technique. And then it's an hour-long inward journey with the breath, which really gives you an opportunity to get out of your mind, into your body, move through any unprocessed emotions, clear out any stagnant energy through your body with the breath, and calling in what you're wanting to receive during the second half. So the second half is breathing in through the nose, slow nostril breathing, calling in what we're wanting to, you know, create in this world. And so it's a really great opportunity to process what we haven't had a chance to process and move through and also reclaim and call back in what we're wanting to create and wanting to receive, to receive a lot of downloads, insights, and clarity for you know the next steps on our path. So if you feel called to join, you can find the information in the show notes. And

Breathwork Session Invitation

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yeah, this episode is uh me sharing a lot more about my personal experiences, which I'm gonna be doing a lot more of. So I'm gonna be what you can expect in the show is uh me sharing a mix of personal experiences, sharing a mix of teachings, practical tools, resources, energy updates, uh, all the good stuff. So hope you enjoy this episode. Welcome back to another episode. So today's episode is going to be a little bit different than the past, I guess, several episodes. I'm actually going to share my own personal journey, my own personal awakening, what was actually the catalyst for my awakening, and then, you know, my experiences that actually led me to doing the work that I'm doing now. Many of you have been curious to hear more about that. And I realize that I haven't, in the recent episodes, gone really deep into it. I always want to make sure that I'm

Why Share My Story Now

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providing, you know, practical resources for all of you. I'm a teacher at heart, right? That's that's how I like to guide these episodes, is give you as much practical tools and resources as possible. I spent a lot of time, you know, putting together these episodes. I'm very intentional about them, about what I want to include. And, you know, I'll usually spend a few hours making notes. But this time I'm just going to wing it and I'm going to share my story. And uh, because I know, you know, you'll be able to see, I'm sure, a lot of your partly parts of your life in my journey, not necessarily the details, but maybe the the kind of the core emotional themes that happened. And um yeah, so let's just get into it. You know, I always want to make sure that when I'm sharing, I'm sharing from wisdom, not the wound. And when I do share my story, you might be a little bit surprised because it's a very intense story. I have a very intense past. There is not emotional charge when I share my story anymore. I've shared it in a lot of different communities. I've shared it with so many people that I've worked with over the years, and I've done a lot of work healing and integrating those parts of myself. And I have so much love and compassion for the past versions of myself. And I've learned so much. You know, I'm on the

From Sensitivity To Teenage Addiction

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other side of it. I've really been able to transform my wounds into wisdom. I've really been able to alchemize that pain. So if you don't hear a whole lot of emotional charge from me, it's not because I'm not being vulnerable. I'm just able to share it now from a very grounded place. And I think that's the most supportive, you know, being a teacher and being a guide is being able to share the wisdom, you know, not the emotional reactivity. Of course, we still go through things. Of course, I'm still navigating life and going through challenges. Uh, but this piece of my life, you know, this past part of my life, I've really done a lot of work around over the years. And yeah, it's it's almost like speaking of a friend that I know really well or a family member that I know really well, but that it isn't me, which is is strange to think and to say. But, you know, we really do um go through profound rebirths, you know, throughout our lives. And there is the potential to be able to heal from really traumatic pasts, you know, we don't have to carry the heaviness or the wounds around our entire lives. We can transmute it, we can move it through our bodies. And so what I would like to just start with um is sharing, I guess starting back in my teen years was when it really started to escalate. So many people, you know, they listen to my podcast, they just came across my work. They may assume that I've been doing this work for a very, very long time. Um, and, you know, I have been on this healing path for this deep, deep, sincere healing path devoted to this work over the past eight years. But prior to that, my life was a mess. Like I never went to university. I always considered myself, you know, not intelligent, which is crazy. You know, I'm so sad to look back at how I looked at myself back then, you know, how low my self-worth was. I never would have seen myself doing the work that I'm doing today. And so, you know, like many people who go through spiritual awakenings, there's often a catalyst that leads us there. And so I'll share with you a bit of the catalyst that led to that breaking point without going too much into the details, but just really pulling the parts out that I feel are going to be the most useful for you. So, you know, during my childhood, I was a very sensitive child. I was very empathic. Like many people who listen to this podcast, I know many people that I work with are also very sensitive beings. You know, I felt the world deeply and it was so overwhelming that I would get crippling social anxiety. You know, going out into public at school, I had migraine headaches at such a young age, just very, very overwhelming. And my nickname was Mouse because I never talked. I was very, very quiet. I had such a fear of speaking to anyone, you know, a fear

Loss, Pregnancy, And First Wake-Up Call

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of rejection, um, a fear of judgment, just so much anxiety around it. And so in my teen years, I came across alcohol. And alcohol became my first friend because it helped me relax and it helped me become more sociable and it helped me make friends. And so, unfortunately, one thing led to another. And, you know, that led to starting to use drugs at the age of 15 years old. I was using hard drugs and ended up becoming addicted to cocaine. Um, by the age of 16, I was using it very regularly. And so my teen years were very much a blur. You know, a lot of traumatic stuff happened during that time. I was hanging out with a friend group that was involved in a lot of criminal activity. My boyfriend was actually uh my drug dealer that I started dating. I think it was around 17, 18. That was a few-year relationship. So things really escalated from there. And, you know, like any addiction, if you know anyone who struggled with addiction, I just became a shell of a person. I everything was a lie in my life. Um, every single day, my the only thought that went through my head was, how am I going to get drugs today? Like that was it. It's a horrible way to live. It's completely like torturing anyone who's experienced addiction. And so at the age of 20 years old, I actually ended up losing my best friend in a car accident. And she was the only person, like only girl that I was very, very close to, you know, throughout my whole teen years. Uh, she was my grad date. I ended up reading her, writing and reading her eulogy at her funeral. And so that was a wake-up call. And then a month later, I got pregnant with my daughter, um, who's obviously been the greatest blessing and gift of my life, but it sent shock waves through my body. Like it was, it was a massive awakening for me during that time. And so I ended

Toxic Love And Escalating Abuse

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up getting rid of my phone. Um, I was single at this time, so I had my daughter on my own. I got rid of my phone. I isolated myself in my room and I read a lot of spiritual books, self-help books during that time. Never uh, you know, went and searched for any type of mentorship or any actual support to guide me through that process. I never focused on, you know, healing my addiction or getting to the root cause of it. Um, just isolated myself and like read books during that time. Um, and then I had my daughter, and you know, she really was a catalyst for change for me. And I wish that I could say that, you know, I was on a good path right from there. But like I mentioned, I never did any of the deeper work to heal my trauma. So, sure enough, in my 20s, I was still drawn to the same type of relationships that I had always been drawn to in my teenure. So, like very dangerous relationships, I confused stress arousal with attraction. And because it felt also familiar to me too, right? We're drawn to what feels familiar, and I couldn't tell the difference between, you know, danger, stress arousal, and actual physical attraction. And so I ended up getting into relationships with, you know, just really um unhealthy partners. I was also unhealthy at that time, right? So, of course, I was in these relationships because I myself wasn't whole, healthy, and happy. And so I got into a relationship when I was 27 with a man who actually was a war veteran. So he did two tours in Afghanistan and he struggled with his own trauma, PTSD. And there were so many red flags that, you know, I ignored, I overlooked during that time. And we moved really fast. And I moved in with him really quick, and it became very, very violent. So we ended up drinking together all the time. It was really fun, it was really passionate at first. I thought this was the love of my life. And yeah, eventually it became just extremely uh scary, like a straight out of a horror movie. And there were weapons involved. And um, you know, often he was threatening to take his own life. There were times where I woke up with him sitting on my chest with a gun to his head. There were multiple times where I'd be in the fetal position for eight hours uh at a time with him waving a gun or a knife. It was very traumatic. And keep in mind that during this time I was drinking a lot. It was like psychological torture. His story was always different the next day. It, I lost all sense of reality, really. I didn't know what was true. It was, yeah, psychologically, um, emotionally, and physically abusive.

Rock Bottom And The Decision To Live

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And so I got to a point where I did hit such a rock bottom. I ended up having a bad fall, um, was badly injured. I was in a wheelchair for a month and the abuse just escalated. And I knew that I had to get out. I knew that I had to leave because I was gonna die there, you know, either from that relationship or from my addiction. And I remember just being in that wheelchair and like ordering alcohol when he would be at work and like chugging the bottle so that he didn't know that I was drinking when he was gone. I um, you know, even like when I wasn't in the wheelchair, I would be outside that liquor mart at 10 a.m. every single day, waiting for it to open. Like it was a full physiological addiction. And at that point, I hated drinking. I wanted to get sober so bad. I never saw myself getting, you know, to that point with alcohol, but I did. And so I thank God that eventually I hit such a rock bottom that I knew I needed to get out of that relationship and I needed to get sober. So as soon as I was out of the wheelchair, I did end up leaving that relationship. I moved into an empty apartment with no belongings. Like I left with nothing, I had no furniture. And a month later, I ended up losing my job because my uh work performance was really suffering during that time. Obviously, I wasn't showing up very well, you know, trying to recover and trying to heal from all that abuse and addiction. And so I ended up losing my job. And so that was like super shocking. And I ended up relapsing and I went on a bender for it, it was about a week-long bender. And I um ended up, you know, in the backseat of my car one day. This is in the middle of winter. It was 40 degrees out. I couldn't get out, and I left my car running all night. And I thought I was dying. I really thought I was dying. And about 12 hours later, I was able to drive, get home, still went back into my backseat because I felt so sick and I stayed there for another few hours and eventually made it into my apartment. And the suicidal thoughts were so intense. The withdrawal was so unbearable. I couldn't even handle it. And so I thought there was no choice but to actually take my life, to jump out my apartment window. And I ended up, thank God, calling my brother, calling my dad, because I was scared. I really thought that I was going to end my life. It was like this part of me that completely took over that just wanted to put out that pain and that suffering so, so badly. It was overwhelming. I couldn't even handle it. It was absolute torture. And so my dad ended up coming over. And um, before he got there, I just heard this voice in my head, like one voice telling me to go jump out the window. And there was another voice that said, just wait, Alyssa, just be still, just hold on a little bit longer. Thank God I listened to that voice. And so I listened to that voice that was telling me to surrender. I lied down and I just like dropped into like this like deep surrender. And all of a sudden, I felt this overwhelming sense of peace, of calmness take over my whole body. All of a sudden, that voice that was telling me to jump up my window just completely disappeared. It was just complete calm. It felt like heaven. It felt just so peaceful. And I knew at that point that I was never going to touch alcohol again. And that was the beginning of my spiritual awakening. That was my first spiritual experience that I really had. This oversense, this overwhelming sense of peace and love that just took over my body. And so that was the last time I touched alcohol, which I know is

Sobriety, 12-Step, And Jung

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unheard of. You know, often when we hear um addiction stories, it's not like that. Like I realized that, you know, for many people, it's, you know, a lifelong struggle of, you know, working to get sober. And um, that was just my story. Like it was completely miraculous. And I'm so grateful for that because I still had to do a lot of work. That being said, I still had to do a lot of work to heal and to recover. So I just knew at that point that I was never going to touch alcohol again. And then I ended up going to 12-step meetings right after. So the 12-step meetings that I went to, uh, they actually it was a a step class and they actually read a lot of Carl Jung's work. And so that was my first introduction into Carl Jung. And so it really intrigued me because everything that they were sharing, I resonated deeply with. I resonated with, you know, so much talking about the ego and um how the ego goes both ways. So the ego can either be very inflated or deflated. And often when we hear the ego, we think of it as like believing that you're just better than everyone else. But the ego also believes that it is less than, right? It's either super inflated or deflated. That spoke so deeply to me because I didn't realize that my, you know, my self, low self-worth, my low self-esteem was very much my ego. And so that actually led me to start to dive deeper into Carl Jung's work and shadow work. And there's a saying that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. So I started just binge watching YouTube videos,

Ancestral Healing And Patterns

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you know, looking up shadow work during this time because that resonated deeply. And I came across this woman on YouTube who I resonated so deeply with. She was very much a teacher. She speaks a lot about the stuff that I speak about. I learned so much from her. But she was sharing so much about her story and her spiritual awakening. And it was exactly what I was going through, like everything I was experiencing with my spiritual awakening during that time, you know, starting to have these really intense signs and synchronicities and feeling like I had been guided. You know, I had this profound encounter. I've shared it in past videos with this great-horned owl. And that came to me right at the beginning of my awakening. And the number synchronicities were like so intense. And I understand now that it was, it was happening because I needed that support. It was like this divine intervention, um, this divine grace that I had been gifted and blessed with. You know, when I hit such a rock bottom, it really truly saved my life. And it was like this this divine support that just came in to help guide me when I actually needed it the most. And so I came across this girl who was sharing her experiences. And so she spoke a lot about um Carl Jung's work, a lot about that, and also about ancestral healing. And that really was what introduced me to the whole world of ancestral healing, which has been such a huge part of my healing process as well. You know, I speak a lot about uh that work and I have a whole program dedicated to it as well. You know, it majority of our stuff didn't start with us. And all of our in unfinished, you know, the unfinished, unprocessed pain of our ancestors doesn't just disappear. It gets passed down. And it made so much sense because so much of what I had gone through, I knew didn't just start with me. Like it had happened generations back. My parents never drank, but still, you know, their parents, um, addiction has run in my family like deep down the line for for quite some time. And so that introduced me to the whole world of ancestral healing.

Discovering Somatics And Nervous System Repair

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And um, you know, from there, what eventually led me to somatics was I actually came across Peter Levine's work. So if anyone's familiar with Peter Levine, he's the founder of somatic experiencing. And I believe I came across one of his videos, but he was just sharing about how, you know, animals in the wild, when they experience something traumatic. So say they get attacked. So say a Nepala gets attacked by a lion, what ends up happening is, you know, they've been running. So they're in that fight or fight response uh fight or flight response, and then they end up dropping to the ground if they can't escape. So all that energy gets trapped in their body when they're in that fight or flight response when they were running. And so what happens is they collapse so they don't feel the perpetual pain of being ripped apart. And um what happens is often the lioness will think it's dead and then it'll go and get its cub so it can finish making the kill. And then what happens during that time often is the impala will get up, it'll shake. So it'll come out of the immobility response, it'll shake, so it'll finish that energy discharge cycle because it was running and it had all of that, you know, energy coursing through its body. And then it returns to community. And when I heard him share that, that resonated so deeply, so deeply to me because what I had been through in that relationship was very, you know, traumatizing, obviously. Um, you know, my life was threatened multiple, multiple times. And so that very much was what I had experienced like this overwhelming sense of fear being trapped inside of my body with nowhere to go. And, you know, I didn't discharge the Energy. I didn't return to community and to the herd. You know, we need we need community to heal. I was very much isolated in my trauma. And so the symptoms I had been experiencing during that time of feeling very kind of disconnected and dissociated. I felt like I was never in my body. I was floating, floating outside of my body. I was going through a lot of uh psychosomatic symptoms. So just horrible migraine headaches during this time, body aches, just chronic pain for a long period of time, chronic fatigue. There were days where I felt like I was going to pass out, like I couldn't even get out of bed. And this went on for quite some time. So coming across as work, it just made so much sense to me. So I actually started exploring uh somatics and even just, you know, just doing a lot of the exercises that I learned online, just literally sitting in my bathtub. I remember getting up at like 4 a.m. because I had such bad insomnia, I couldn't sleep. And so I would just sit in the tub and I would do these somatic practices. And obviously, ideally, we want to do this with other people, but keep in mind during this time I had no money. I had lost my job. I was completely isolated. Like I didn't know what to do. And it was, it was so overwhelming. I didn't know who to turn to. I didn't have emotional support during this time. Um, I didn't ask for it, right? I didn't know how to ask for help because my whole addiction, I never asked for help. It was like such a secret. I was so used to hiding these parts of myself and not sharing them. So this continued on. This was such a pattern for me to not ask for help when I was suffering. I would just keep it all to myself. Um, but these tools still helped me during that time and it helped make sense of what I was experiencing. And that was the biggest thing, right? I understood that I wasn't

Breathwork As A Doorway Back To The Body

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broken. And so from there, I actually came across uh a guy named Stephen Jaggers, the founder of uh Somatic Breath Works. And I ended up doing one of his breath work sessions online. And it was the first time in a long time that I was actually able to get out of my head, drop into my body and feel so much peace. And honestly, that practice, like going through that experience, it was massive for me. Like I actually felt such a deep connection to my body and was able to really drop in, hadn't been able to do that in so long. So I knew that there was something there, there was a calling there. And so then from there, I actually went and I found um a breath work, an in-person breath work session that I decided to go to. And that was one of the most powerful experiences for me because I hadn't been, you know, in a community, in a ceremonial type, you know, setting like that. And it very much was. And I had never been like vulnerable like that in front of a group of people. I shared, you know, in um our 12-step meetings, but there wasn't the emotional vulnerability. And so I went to this breathwork uh session. It was, you know, a long, almost a two-hour journey. And during the session, I literally felt my heart crack open. And the woman came over, she was so incredible. The space felt so, so safe. I felt so, so supported. Um, you know, there's so much, so many people talking about, you know, when it comes to breath work, there's so many different modalities and so many different techniques. What I really realized is it has nothing to do with the technique. It has everything to do with the practitioner holding the space. And they created such a safe environment that all my walls were able to come down. I felt my heart crack open and she just held me when I cried. And it just felt so incredible to be held and supported in that way, to actually receive support, like feeling her hand on my back and allowing myself to actually receive it. And that was huge. And so from there, I actually flew out to Austin, Texas, and I got uh certified in somatic breath work out there, had a

Befriending Anger And Restoring Agency

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very, very powerful experience during that session. And I'll I'll share a bit um with you right now. So I flew out to Austin, Texas, and I was going there to get certified in somatic breath work to become a practitioner. And I didn't realize the healing that I would actually experience during uh during that time, during that weekend. And so during the session, you know, we were all practicing expressing anger. And so anger for me was clearly very triggering. So when people were yelling in the room, my hands started shaking. Not because cognitively I felt unsafe. I knew that I was safe in that environment, but um, my body didn't know that because, you know, my past experiences with my partner, you know, anger was danger. And anger was never expressed in a healthy way. So I had never seen a healthy expression of anger. And so my hands just started shaking to the point where I actually had to leave the room. And um, you know, one of the um the co-founder actually came out fish and he spoke to me and he said, Have you ever uh expressed anger in that way? And I'm like, I can't, like I can't bring myself to do it. And he's like, if it feels right, like I invite you to express if you feel called to. Because we never want to force catharsis, right? We always want to work with what's naturally arising. But sometimes people just need permission and an invitation. Sometimes that's all we need. So the next day during one of the sessions, again, people were yelling and my body started shaking. And all of a sudden, I just felt this fire in my body, in my chest, and like this desire to scream. So it didn't feel forced. It felt like it was naturally arising within me, like it wanted to come up. So I listened to that part of me and I actually allowed it to come up. And I flipped over and I started yelling and screaming. And all of a sudden, I just felt an overwhelming sense of calm and peace in my body, and the shaking actually stopped. So, and I remember just lying there and just feeling the color, like just my soul drop back into my body. And people said to me after, like, the color just came back into your body. So that was such a profound experience in my um, an opportunity for me to befriend my anger, to no longer suppress it. And, you know, when we have a healthy relationship with anger, it often leads to a sense of empowerment, restoring

Learning, Mentors, And Building A Practice

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agency within our body. And, you know, after that experience, things really shifted in my life because I felt like I could finally step towards my purpose. I felt so stuck for so long. Like I would, I was felt like I was walking up a sandhill, like I couldn't really step towards the things that I was desiring. And being able to connect to that, that anger and that sense of empowerment really gave me a sense of confidence. You know, being able to connect with it in a really, really healthy way. And it, I was able to really utilize that. For, you know, the first few years of my healing journey, I invested in a lot of different, you know, programs when I started working again and was making money. I like invested all my money back into my healing with mentorship and um different somatic programs. I've taken so many, you know, I've just really devoted my life so many different um, you know, mentorship programs and trainings and certifications and really just embodying the work, like not just doing it to cognitively learn, but actually experiencing it myself. And, you know, I've been, I'm a lifelong student. I love to learn. I I love seeking knowledge. I love experiencing this work. I love feeling the full depth of what it means to actually be human. And it's my my deepest purpose and passion. And I could see that, you know, I felt this calling to step into this work. And from there, um, what I ended up doing was I ended up working with a mentor to actually start my online business. And so I knew that I was meant to do this work. There's so much fear that comes with stepping into this work. This work is like stepping into your purpose and your calling is so healing on its own, right? Like there's the one part of like, you know, working through all of our past, whether it's childhood traumas, ancestral traumas, like doing our own inner work is a huge piece to it, but also stepping into creativity, sharing your gifts, speaking, sharing your voice, sharing your experiences. There is so much that comes up, um, you know, when it when it comes to that. And so that was a lot that I had to work through as well. So starting to actually share my voice. I'm gonna do separate episodes that go deeper into this, like how to, you know, work through the fear of being seen, criticized, rejected. I think those are important topics. And I will go deeper into all this stuff. This is kind of just the overall story and my overall experience and what led me to the work that I'm doing today. And so I ended up working with uh this mentor and and um ended up working for him. So he saw something within me, which I'm so, so grateful for. And uh he wanted me to work for him. And it was a really beautiful opportunity. We ended up going separate ways because there wasn't a whole lot of alignment there. Um, you know, people, business partnerships, they um and relationships, like all relationships, not every single one is meant to be forever. And uh, you

Retreats, Ceremonies, And Earth-Based Ways

SPEAKER_00 31:11

know, one of um my mentors often says that, you know, relationships aren't fixed. They're always evolving, they're always shifting. And so sometimes we evolve together, sometimes we don't. And there were some things there that there, you know, I ignored that there wasn't a whole lot of alignment there to begin with. And I did feel like I was getting pulled off center. And so, regardless, no matter what, it actually helped me step into using my voice. It helped me get past the fear of rejection, the fear of being seen, and just get started and start putting myself out there. So that I'm grateful for. Um, I ended up actually uh being able to work for somatic breath work. So I still do. I still am a mentor in um their online community, which I'm so, so grateful for. And, you know, I got the opportunity, got invited into many other online communities that really gave me that confidence to lead groups of people and um really give me the confidence to do my own thing and and my own business. And um yeah, so from yeah, and it's important to mention, you know, that during this time, so when I actually did start stepping into the work that I'm doing, I was working multiple jobs. I had been going back to school, like literally all I devoted, you know, my life to this work. I didn't make money for a very long time. And I think often, you know, we see on the online space people talking about how lucrative it can be or it is. And honestly, I didn't make money for years. Like I devoted my life to putting this work out there and I loved it so much. And I think that's the difference of like, you know, telling people that, you know, um, you can start a business online and it's just gonna take off right away and you just have to follow these certain strategies. It's not true. Um, it takes work to build your confidence and to get really good at it. And I'm still not there, I'm still improving, I'm still getting better, you know, but um it's an ongoing process. But um yeah, I I just am such a firm believer that when you just take that step, the next step will be shown to you. And it really, truly has been. It's been completely miraculous. The doors that have been open for me, the opportunities. I ended up getting a call from uh Jesse Hansen, actually, I've had him on my podcast, inviting me to Costa Rica. Uh, so the Ottman retreat. So this was in 2024. And um I went out there and I had this profound healing experience working with uh somatics and psilocybin. So this is not me telling anyone to use plant medicines whatsoever. You definitely have to do your own research. It's it's not meant for everybody. So that's not me giving advice, medical advice at all, but it was really profound on my healing journey. So starting to actually work with psilocybin, I had been microdosing before that, uh, which I found super supportive. And yeah, actually doing a journey with a group of people was so, so profound and so,

Purpose, Risk, And Trusting Guidance

SPEAKER_00 34:14

so powerful. And I'll even do, you know, an episode two on going deeper into the ceremonial work, because the ceremonial work has been massive for me. Sweat lodges have been huge for me, like re-entering into the womb space, into Mother Earth's womb and singing and sweating and sharing and storytelling and you know, reconnecting back to our earth-honoring animist ways of being into right relationship with Earth has just been so profound on my path as well. I know I'm continuing to evolve and learn and grow. And I've had so many opportunities with such incredible mentors in my life and incredible experiences. I'm actually heading back to Costa Rica. I'll be going on uh Dr. Jesse Hansen's TV show that uh he just started. Um, so I'll be out there in a couple of weeks. So I'll share more of my stories on Instagram about that experience there. But, you know, I never would have imagined that I would have opportunities or experiences like this. Like I came from nothing. You know, uh eight years ago, I was living in an empty apartment with no belongings and no self-worth. And to go to a place, you know, get to a place where I'm doing what I absolutely love. Like I never feel like I'm working. I can put in 18 hours of work in a day and never feel like I'm working. Like I love what I do so, so much. I love creating, I love supporting people on their healing journeys, I love guiding others. Yeah, it's just so, so fulfilling. You know, I never would have imagined. And it wasn't an easy process. And I'm not gonna say that it was because it was really challenging. You know, there were many times where I doubted myself. I went through crippling uncertainty, not believing that any of this was actually going to work or pan out. You know, I took a leap of faith and I quit my corporate job in 2023, and it wasn't smooth sailing at first at all. And um, but you know what? When we take that step and we take that leap of faith, I fully believe that we will be caught and we will be supported and we will be guided. And it really is just staying in our heart center and getting to that place of surrender and that deep listening, like dropping into your body and deep, deep listening. Um, you know, it's we will be guided and my ego has gotten in the way. My ego definitely sneaks in there and it pulls me off center

Ongoing Devotion And Closing

SPEAKER_00 36:28

and it wants me to go in certain directions and it wants to be in control. And it's been an ongoing process of, you know, really connecting back to my heart, connecting back to my soul, and connecting back to my body and knowing that I'll be guided when I'm able to do that, when I'm able to get out of my head and into my body. And so that's been my journey that led me to doing this work today. Bear with you on all of this and to go deeper into all of it. But I just kind of wanted to give, you know, an overview of where I came from and what led me into doing this work. And, you know, it really has been personal responsibility, dedicating and devoting myself to doing my own work. You know, a healer doesn't heal anyone, they embody their own healing. And that's the one thing I've learned is uh, you know, in order to really step into my purpose, I have to devote myself to my own inner work and continue to do that. One thing I see so much in this industry is when practitioners actually become practitioners, they stop doing their own work. And for me, I've doubled down on it. You know, I do my sweat lodges every single week. That's something that's super supportive for me. I continue to invest in mentorship in containers. And um, I practice, you know, this work on a daily basis. Like I implement what I've learned into my life. You know, everything that I teach and I share, you know, comes from a lived experience. Like I don't just regurgitate stuff and share it. This is stuff that I've actually implemented and practice in my own life. You know, all of the mentors and the guides and the teachers and the books and the resources that I share with you, I've done all of that work and I continue to do that work. And there are things that have deeply impacted my own life and have helped me get to this place, you know, this place of being able to overcome the past that I had to this place where I'm actually guiding, leading, and teaching others. It's a miracle. It's completely miraculous. And I'm so grateful to have this opportunity and this second chance at life. I feel like I've had an opportunity to live two lives in one. I'm so, so grateful. And, you know, it was from actually doing a lot of this work. So I know that's kind of like an overview of this past, you know, my time on the planet, really, but like even just an overview of the work that I've gotten into over the past eight years, which obviously I go much deeper into in all the other episodes when I share more about how to actually tools and resources that you guys can actually use and apply in real life so that, you know, you're you're really getting a lot of value out of these episodes. So I promise, yeah, just to have these episodes a mix of like teachings, of tools, and sharing my own personal story because it's relatable, um, which is important. So thank you so much for yeah, tuning in and your continuous support. And until next time, I love you guys.