Childhood Loss, Career Change, and Teaching Abroad with Tammie Vecchiarelli

Tammie Vecchiarelli shares her experience of growing up through loss, family change, and career shifts, and how those experiences shaped her later decisions.

She talks about losing her grandmother at a young age, followed by her parents’ divorce and the transition into blended families. She reflects on taking on a protective role within her family and navigating those changes without much emotional support at the time.

After completing a degree in interior design, she worked in several roles before deciding to change direction. She moved into early childhood education, completed a master’s degree, and later took opportunities to teach abroad, including in Sweden and Poland.

Alongside her professional path, she began exploring meditation, essential oils, and energy-based practices, which developed through personal experience and experimentation.

This episode touches on topics including grief, family dynamics, career change, teaching abroad, spirituality and personal exploration over time.

Key Takeaways

• Early stability can come from extended family, not just parents 
• Multiple major life changes in a short period can affect emotional development 
• Children may take on protective roles without realizing the long-term impact 
• Lack of emotional support or language can shape how experiences are processed 
• Career paths can shift after repeated misalignment, even after formal training 
• Therapy and medication can affect people differently and may not feel like the right fit for everyone 
• Exploring new environments (like living abroad) can create both challenge and growth 
• Interest in spirituality or alternative practices can begin informally and evolve over time 
• Personal experiences often guide what tools or practices resonate 
• There is no single structured path when it comes to self-exploration or personal development

About: Tammie Vecchiarellii supports women in building a balanced spiritual practice that helps them understand their intuitive gifts, connect with their guides, and heal past relationship wounds. She's passionate about supporting women to break free from societal and familial expectations that confine them, empowering them to become unblocked and live fully aligned lives. Her intent is to guide women in embracing their intuition as a powerful compass for clarity, confidence, and authentic living.

Website, FB, IG

Transcript

Intro and questions for listeners

Regina Sayer 0:00

Thanks everybody for joining us again on Wisdom Without the Guru. This week's guest was such fun to interview. She's so buoyant, her personality. She's got this very joyful aura to her that comes across. We had so many points of connection that also enabled me to tell you and share a little bit of my own background and my own story as it related to our guest whose name, and I hope I'm going to pronounce it right. Tammie Vecchiarelli or Tammie Vecchiarelli. Ay, ay, aye. You'll find out in the podcast how it's supposed to be pronounced. I'm so sorry, Tammie. We recorded this back in, I think, August of last year, and she was transitioning from going from Poland where she had been teaching, to Italy. And I think she's there now. Hope that she'll comment on the podcast and in the comments on our social media and let us know what you're doing, Tammie. But Tammie's story is, I think, one that many of us can relate to when we have lost somebody who is so precious and close to us, somebody who was maybe our safe place to go to when we were young. And for both of us, that was our grandmothers. And you know what happens when as a child you lose that precious person? What do you do? And then on top of it, what happens when your family seems to also fall apart and restructure in ways that seem so foreign to you? So I know this is so common. Even though it's common, we don't necessarily talk about it, and we don't necessarily understand the dynamic that happens and the way that a young person can feel when this is happening within their own family. And especially when it's just like one transition after another with no stop. Transition in school, transition in family, transition to do with illness in the family, transition to do with moves. So there's a lot in here, but I think it's recounted in a way that's very uplifting and I think inspires people as well. Tammie's story is one that really it's courageous. It really is to do what she has done, to go and live in a foreign country. And yeah, I'm speaking from experience because I uplifted roots and I went from living in the United States to living in France, barely speaking the language. You know, I've done that several times, but when I did that, I did that on my own. The other times I've moved, I was married and I moved with my husband, and then later also with my young son. Yeah, it can be really interesting and it can be scary sometimes when you go to a new place that you don't know anything about and you don't speak the language, but you survive and you learn a lot of stuff and you have fun and you meet a lot of people and you learn about that culture. And it really, I think, changes who you are, and it changes how you interact with people and how you see the world. And I think that it's very evident in the conversation with Tammie, how it has so much broadened her scope, it's broadened her experiences, and it's opened her up to possibilities that she never probably knew existed before until she made that step. So maybe if you're listening to this, you're thinking about moving, you're thinking about transitioning to a different job, you're thinking about transitioning to a different country. Maybe it will inspire you and give you some ideas. So enjoy the podcast. And if you feel so inclined and you like what you hear, I hope you'll leave us a feedback on whatever podcast platform that you listen to, or follow us on social media, or leave a comment, or better yet, share it to someone you think could also hear the message. Thanks everybody. Hi everybody, and welcome back to another episode of Wisdom Without the Guru. I'm your host, Regina. So before you hear today's story, I want you to imagine this. What if the one person who made you feel completely safe, the anchor of your childhood, was suddenly gone, and you had to grow up in the chaos that followed? What if the grief you carried for over a decade was finally answered, not in a therapy session, but in a moment of meditation with a voice you thought you'd never hear again. And what if that moment didn't just heal you? It set you on a path to pack your life into a suitcase, cross an ocean on three weeks' notice, and eventually find yourself building a business you'd only seen in a vision. Today's guest, Tammie Vecchiarelli, ooh, and I hope I pronounced that right, Tammie.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 5:14

Awesome! Oh my goodness, you Italian line everything.

Regina Sayer 5:19

All right, so today's guest, and I won't push my luck, today's guest, Tammie, has lived all of that. She's been a sister's protector, an interior design graduate who got fired three times, a preschool teacher who fell in love with the classroom, a student teacher in Sweden, who barely had time to book the flight, and now an international school teacher in Poland on the verge of moving to Italy. Along the way, she became a spiritual mentor and author, guided by what she calls downloads, moments of clarity so sharp they've helped her write books in a single weekend. This is a conversation about the way grief can shape you, the way risk can transform you, and the way your life can open up when you start listening to the quietest voice in the room, your own. So welcome, Tammie.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 6:13

Hi. Oh my gosh, I love that introduction. I feel like you just said my life in such a poetic way. Oh my goodness.

Regina Sayer 6:23

Okay, we're done with the podcast. We're all done. It's there. Tammie is in Poland, and I'm in Belgium, but I am on the verge of 34 degrees Celsius weather, and she tells me she's at something like 23 or 24. So let's switch places, please.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 6:41

Actually, you're wrong. I'm actually in Austria right now. I was in Poland. I've moved on to Austria.

Regina Sayer 6:46

Okay, well, we'll find out about that story. She's making her way gradually to Italy. We just had a huge internet problem, a huge internet outage. And you know, this is the thing when you are recording podcasts, you just have to not be a control freak because the internet service provider is the one that can go down, and it's not necessarily your problem. And we're having, I think, such high heat that our internet service provider, we just looked at their rating and they were in the red for everything. So they completely went down. So fingers crossed that we will make it to the end of this podcast. We'll do it. We'll be good. Anyway, welcome, Tammie. So happy to have you. So it's very interesting your story. Um, and you're so near me, yet you came from so far, I guess. Yeah. And then you're almost like returning to your roots, pretty much. Yeah. It's almost a little bit like you're coming full circle in a way, you know?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 7:47

It is. It's been an interesting journey of life. Because also I'm part Polish too. So it was like going there was a different. Yeah. It's been like returning to places of my heritage at the same time. Yeah.

Regina Sayer 8:01

Well, let's start with that then. So talk about your childhood, how you managed to be part Polish and part Italian. Um, like how you grew up and what it was like when you grew up, you know, who was your safe place and what were some issues that you had. And, you know, try to do it through the eyes of child, because, you know, when we look back as an adult retrospectively, we can always say, oh, yes, that was happening, that was happening. But when we actually try to stick ourselves in our child self, we see through the eyes of that child what's going on. And I always think that this is quite interesting for listeners to be able to see through that eyes of the child because it might be they saw something similar, or it might be their child that they have now that could be facing something similar.

Early childhood and living with her grandmother

Tammy Vecchiarelli 8:51

Sure. So in my early childhood, I feel like it was fairly normal. My parents owned um a condo. We lived there until I was about two, and then some family stuff happened, and we ended up leaving the condo and moving in with my grandma. And I lived with her from when I was two until ten. And when I say live with her, she had like a mother-in-law suite in the basement. Not only were we living with her, but she also was the person that took care of me. Like when I got home from school, she was, like you said, my safe space. She was my person, she was the person that gave me safety and stability. I absolutely loved having her around. And then um during that time in my life, my sister was born when I was seven, and life shifted a little bit. Because, you know, a sibling comes in when you're seven years old, and why are you here? What's going on? You know? Um, now I'm obviously thankful that she's here. But at a seven years old age, everything has shifted. You've, you know, been an only child for seven years. You know, how do you deal with that kind of thing? And then um when I was 10, parents got like a new home. It was actually literally diagonally behind my grandma's house. So it was like we moved away, but not that far away. And um yeah, we stayed there until I was 18 during that time. Um when I was

Regina Sayer 10:23

So wait, so wait, back up. Who's the Polish and who's the Italian?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 10:28

Yeah, so my mom is Polish, but she's also a mutt. There's so much in there. And my dad is Italian.

Regina Sayer 10:37

And I just want to comment because, you know, whenever I have guests on, there's always some points of connection. And for me, my grandmother lived next door to us. And, you know, my dad was gone because he was a merchant marine officer, so he was gone for months and months and months at a time. And I was the youngest of four kids, and my mom would go off to work every day. And so it was my grandmother who ended up taking care of me a lot, you know, and I'd go around to her little coffee tea parties with her really older friends, you know. But I mean, I can I can relate to that person being the the safe place and the person who was like there, always there, you know.

Loss, divorce, and changing family dynamics

Tammy Vecchiarelli 11:20

Yeah, exactly. I mean, even after we moved out of her house when I was 10, I still like went over her house and she still took care of me for a while until she ended up getting sick, and then things gradually slowed down with her taking me. It's when I started watching my sister after school. So it was like I went from this very stable place to this person that I love that I adore that's been taking care of me, is slowly physically diminishing.

Regina Sayer 11:50

Was she quite older when you were young?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 11:54

I don't remember how old she was, to be honest, but she ended up passing away from cancer.

Regina Sayer 11:59

So you as a child saw that deterioration?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 12:02

Yeah, I did.

Regina Sayer 12:03

And did anybody try to explain to you what was happening?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 12:07

Yes. Um, it's so funny. I remember because this was around the time that my parents were separated. It became this thing that I knew whenever my parents came together and like we had lunch together kind of thing, something was like about to happen, like something in my life was an important conversation. So yeah, I feel like they tried to explain it to me, but I mean as a child, it was I don't want this person, and I'm getting emotional talking about it. I don't want this person I love to get sick. I don't, and I could see the complete shifts that happened within my family because this is my um dad's mom. So his dad had passed away when he was nine. So like it was like my grandmother was the glue that held the whole family together. She was the matriarch of the family, so it rocked everyone in my family, including me.

Regina Sayer 13:05

How did that affect you outwardly?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 13:09

Yeah, you know, thinking about it, it's probably when I started to get really sad and not understand those emotions. And you know, I don't think that there was anyone around at the time that could really help me with those emotions. And that's probably because they were going through their own emotions at the time, too. But yeah, I feel like it was really big shifts and really big changes were happening in my life all at one time.

Regina Sayer 13:37

So your grandma passed away when you were 12, and then not too long after that, your parents divorced. And then not rather quickly after that, your dad remarried. So talk about this whole new dynamic that you're in, part of two families, because I think that probably affected you too.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 14:02

Oh my gosh, yes, it did. So, yeah, as my grandma was sick, my parents' relationship was slowly disintegrating, which I remember going to a neighbour at the time who was a friend and telling her, you know, I just want my parents to be happy. I just want if that means them separating, that that's what I want. Yeah, so December of 2004, I was 12. Grandma passed away in December, and then April 2005, so I would have been 13. Um, my parents got divorced, and then October of 2005, my dad got remarried.

Regina Sayer 14:41

And how did they explain all of this to you and your sister, if at all?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 14:46

That's such a good question. I don't think they really did. Um I think it was that they were unhappy and they just made decisions that were a line to them. I remember being at some point in like a kid's therapy group. I don't really remember much of it to be honest. I think that was their way of like trying to help things, but I don't know if those conversations really truly happen in talking about feelings and you know how everything works, you know.

Regina Sayer 15:25

The kids' therapy group for what, for divorced parents or yeah. Well, they kind of tried, I guess.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 15:34

I mean, they kind of tried for sure. So yeah, at that time it was not only had my grandma passed away, not only had my parents separated, not only had my dad got remarried, but when he got remarried, my family expanded. So it was when my dad remarried my stepmom, I also gained a stepsister and a grandmother, so my step-grandmother. And then about a year later, my mom also got into a relationship with a man who also brought in two other kids that are around our age. So it was like I went from a family of four to multiple family dynamics at one time, on top of the grief and loss of my grandmother.

Regina Sayer 16:17

And how did that work out? I mean, were you angry at your parents or did you get along well with your stepbrothers and sisters, or and then what was happening with your sister, the dynamic with your sister who you were a bit about first coming into the world?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 16:33

Yeah, oh my gosh, so many relationship dynamics. Oh my gosh. So yeah, I feel like when kids go through a divorce, um, they often choose a parent that's like the good parent and a parent that's like the bad parent. So the good parent to me was my mom, just because I felt like she needed more love and support. When it came to my relationship with her, it continued to be strong. With my dad, I already kind of had, I think, some internal resentment towards him because of the divorce and everything like that. Um, that he was like the bad one. So in turn, my stepmom, my stepsister, all of those people became the bad people. And it wasn't because they necessarily did anything. I mean, there were obviously things that happened that made me feel that way, but it was just a melding of families, you know, it was a melding of relationships that were really hard at the time. And then when it came to my mom and the extension, her um boyfriend at the time and his kids, her boyfriend also became like the good person. He came like a second father to me. Me and his kids did not get along, however. It was really interesting because with my dad's side of things going on, my stepsister had always wanted siblings. So she really tried hard with the relationship and I rejected that. And then with the other side, with my mom's, his kids really didn't like us and didn't want anything to do with us, and that caused friction there. And then with me and my sister, my biological sister, I tried to do my best when it came to the relationship. I loved her, and even today you can still, I feel like, feel that love, but it almost became internalised that I became parentified over time, where I overdid it in the older sister role.

Regina Sayer 18:37

Like, explain that. What were some of the symptoms of that?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 18:40

Yeah, some of the symptoms of that was just being very protective of her, trying to um make sure that she didn't see all of the different dynamics in their relationships, which I'm sure she did in her own way. But, you know, when my parents are going through their separation, um, I remember a fight that had happened and like they were screaming and yelling, and I turned the TV up all the way, and I literally covered her ears so she couldn't hear it. So it's I feel like that's a really good representation of what I mean when I say like I try to protect her.

Early religious upbringing

Regina Sayer 19:12

I think it's quite interesting what you're saying, and I don't think actually, because I had an older sister and two older brothers, and I didn't realise until much later in life the things that my sister had done to protect me from what was happening to her from my father. I mean, that's going down a different tangent, but just to say that in terms of sibling relationships, we never really know what that dynamic was unless we talk about it much later. So if you have a sibling and you're out there, please talk to them. I've just kind of reconciled with my older brother, so I'm saying that now before it's too late. Anyway, just a little side note. But um, how were you continuing to, excuse me, how were you continue to dealing with the loss of your grandmother? And also, were you brought up in any kind of spiritual or religious type of background so that there was this idea of, you know, your grandmother will always be there, you can always talk to her, or you know, she's she's passed, that that's it, she's gone for good.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 20:16

Yeah, so it's funny when it comes to the religious side. Um my mom was many different religions, but she started out as a Methodist, and my dad's side of the family is Catholic. So my mom converted when I was young to Catholicism, and that's what I was raised in at the same time. It was something that I never resonated with. I remember having a specific conversation with my mom because I didn't want to go. There's like the church classes that you go to, they're called CCD. And I remember going to those, and it was always like there was questions that I had that if they were answered, and that's a big if, if they were answered, they were answered in a way that didn't resonate with me, that didn't feel right within me.

Regina Sayer 21:05

Can you think of what one of these questions would be?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 21:08

I just think it was like talking about abortion and you know, family rights and like these different types of things, which I know is like a hot topic, but it was just overall, anytime I felt like I spoke up, it wasn't appreciated. It was like, no, you need to tamp yourself down, you shouldn't have a voice, kind of thing. Which I really ended up having an issue with in the end. But yeah, I was raised when it comes to my grandmother that there is a heaven, that you know, she is on the other side, she's there with you. I was raised in that way.

Regina Sayer 21:42

Me too. I was raised as Catholic as well, and I used to have arguments with my mother because I would just logically argue this point that the fact that like people down in the Amazon or indigenous tribes in different places who are who didn't have access to Christianity or the idea of you know what God is for Christians, that um they were going straight to hell because they didn't know who God was. And I wow, I just couldn't get my head wrapped around that one. And I used to go to church quite frequently. I even used to read, you know, and I used to help the priest and everything, but always in side of me I was like, why do we have to go to church? Why do I have to dress up to go to church? Why do I have to be here at a certain time to speak to God and yeah...

Tammy Vecchiarelli 22:31

So Oh, yes, I totally resonate with that, especially because my family, so like I said, they are Catholic, but at the same time, they're the type of Catholics that like only go when like you're really supposed to go. So it was like I was raised in this religion, but at the same time, they didn't even fully follow the values of that. So I'm like, why am I doing this? I don't believe in this.

Regina Sayer 22:54

And because where I grew up in the Bahamas, we actually used to have a whole bunch of tourists that would just show up in shorts for the service. I'd be like, Why can't I come in shorts? They're in shorts.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 23:04

Why? Exactly. Oh my.

Regina Sayer 23:06

But having said all that, I mean, I'm not Christian bashing. I really don't want it to come across that way. I mean, I do have, you know, I don't always jive with the beliefs of what was the Catholic faith. But when I went to university, I did hook up with, and that was a Methodist university, and I did hook up with a young group of people with a very dynamic minister who was much more open to a lot of things and having those types of conversations. So, you know, it really depends on, I guess, the institution that you're going to and the people around it.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 23:39

Yes, I agree with that.

Regina Sayer 23:41

Okay. So were you talking to your grandmother all this time then? I mean, as your life was progressing, did you sort of talk to her about what was happening on a daily basis? Like, you know, I really don't want to deal with these half-brothers and sisters or these stepbrothers and sisters that I have and trying to ask for her advice. And I'm asking this because it comes up later.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 24:01

Yeah, so it's really funny. It took me years to realise this. When my grandma passed, she actually came to me in spirit and told me, I'm leaving. I love you, goodbye, kind of thing. I now have like remembered because I think trauma like kind of blocks things, and like you're not really sure about your gifts, kind of thing. But I remember that night, knowing that she was like she had passed on, and then my parents sat me down and told me she had passed on. So it was like I knew before I'd actually been told it had happened. And yeah, throughout the years I definitely talked to her and asked her for advice and asked her for help. But I think I was just so stuck in all of the things, all of the noise that was happening in life that I think she was speaking to me, but I couldn't hear her.

Regina Sayer 24:55

Yeah. It's interesting what you say about her coming to you because the 24 hours before my mom finally passed away, I had this dream that she was telling me, What are you doing? You haven't picked out my dress yet for the coffin. Hurry up and pick it out. And I woke up straight up and I was like, because I knew that was it. But anyway, so pay attention to people when you have dreams like that.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 25:21

Mm-hmm.

Regina Sayer 25:22

So let's see, you went to elementary school, which was pretty stable for you, and you were involved with the Girl Scouts, like a lot of people. And talk about this whole school dynamic and friendship dynamic at that time and what was happening there.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 25:39

Yeah. So during elementary school, things I feel like were good. Things were stable. I had a lot of fun. I, you know, like you said, I was in Girl Scouts, I did gymnastics. I feel like it was like the typical cookie cutter, like elementary school. You know, I had lots of friends, everything was great. It was once I got to middle school that things really shifted for me in life.

Regina Sayer 26:01

Why?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 26:02

One, all of that stuff I just talked about like happened during my middle school years. But also, when I went to middle school, I'm from a very big district that I think it was like five different elementary schools coming into one middle school. So it was like, you know, those are really formative years for you. And like to have your friends now introduced to like a whole other group of people, it was like the stability that I had then from my elementary school years had kind of been ripped away. And I had to create other friendships because of that. So that on top of all of the personal stuff that was going on with my family, was a tumultuous time.

Regina Sayer 26:47

And how did you deal with that? Did you have any safe space that you went to? Any teacher or particular friend or anybody you could speak to about it, or you just didn't think to do that?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 26:58

I don't think I thought to do it, and I don't think I had anyone anyone around at the time.

Regina Sayer 27:04

And now you say that you actually developed a good relationship with uh your step-grandmother.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 27:10

That wasn't until years later at that time. I feel like I slowly started to develop a relationship, but there was resentment there because she had a better relationship with my biological sister, and that's because she was younger. She was like the cute little you know what I mean?

Regina Sayer 27:26

She could still be melded.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 27:29

Exactly, exactly. So I loved her, but I and it was also hard because there was a language barrier there. She spoke Spanish. My stepmom, stepsister, all of them are from Colombia. So she didn't speak English very well. So it was also that was a factor in thing.

Regina Sayer 27:46

Ooh, but she must have made really good food.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 27:48

Oh yes, oh my goodness. Oh yes, a rape boss. Oh my god, uh, yes.

Mother's cancer diagnosis and early challenges

Regina Sayer 27:54

Okay, so at age 18, you said your mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and this was right during your high school graduation transition. So that was a blow.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 28:04

Yeah. Uh uh I like to do transitions like all at the same time. This is just this has continued in my life. Um, yeah, so when I was 18, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. And at the same time, I obviously was finishing up high school and deciding, you know, where I wanted to go to college. And my mom had approached me at the time and said, I think I want to move to Tennessee. Would you like to come with me or would you like to stay here in New Jersey with dad? And I did look at schools in both places in the end because my mom was going through cancer, because I also didn't something was telling me, I don't even know what it was, it was some internal thing, was telling me, you know Tennessee is free, New Jersey isn't. So at that time when my mom was going through breast cancer, I also transitioned to a whole other state with my mom, my sister, and my mom's uh ex-boyfriend at the time, leaving behind my dad and the rest of all of my other family in New Jersey.

Regina Sayer 29:06

Okay, so if anybody outside of the United States doesn't realise the kind of, shall we call it, cultural differences between New Jersey and Tennessee, you talk about it because you went from one to the other.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 29:21

Yeah, talk about a cultural difference if you're not from the States. I mean, it's kind of like if you think about the States like Europe, each state has like its own kind of culture to it. And the South and the North are completely different. The north is, you know, um, people usually go to college, like work on their career a little bit, and then they eventually like get married and settle down and stuff compared to in the south. It's very much you go through high school, you meet your high school sweetheart during that time, you get married during college, have kids very early on. So it was like this very interesting transition in life because as I lived in Tennessee for 11 years, there were multiple times where my mom was asked by people that were from Tennessee, like, How old is your daughter? Oh, she's 25. She married and have kids yet. Mom's like, no. So very, very different cultures.

Regina Sayer 30:20

And then something really, excuse me, shitty happened because your mother's boyfriend abandoned your family after she recovered from cancer.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 30:31

Yeah. So, um, words to say. Yeah. Um, when I was 18, my mom had breast cancer, and I'm very grateful because it was such a transition in my life. He did stay with us, he helped her through the cancer, all those kinds of things. And when he moved with us to Tennessee, his kids stayed in New Jersey with their mother. At one point, it had been like a while because he had been taking care of my mom and I was going to university at the time. That he's like, Oh, I'm gonna go visit my kids for two weeks. Two weeks became three weeks, three weeks became a month until it the time just kept getting pushed back. And my mom was like, Well, just don't come back. And then he didn't for a very long time until they got back into contact again, and it was a lot of back and forth relationship where he would enter our lives and then leave again. It was never something stable again.

Regina Sayer 31:32

Have you ever talked to him to understand why? Because I mean, I know that when you're the caregiver and you go through something like that, it's also very stressful for the caregiver as well. And sometimes marriages and relationships actually do end for that very reason because it's so hard on the caregiver as well. So I don't know, I'm just curious.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 31:55

We never had that conversation, and I guess I had never thought about it that way until this very moment when you said that. But what I more so had an issue with for me was that, like I said, he was like a second father to me. And when he left, our relationship got cut off. So it was like you were this person in my life for years, and then there was no communication. And then you would come back in again and be like, hey, I'm back, I'm here again, and then you would leave again. So there it was more so the relationship with me that you didn't continue to foster.

Regina Sayer 32:36

Okay. And did you improve your relationship with your biological father?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 32:42

Yes, thankfully. Um, him and I are very close now. I'm so thankful. It was like um the teenage years are rough and into like the early 20s. Um, when around my 20s, like year age 20, I realised like, wow, that was a lot of stuff to go through. Like that was a lot of emotional stuff. So I went to therapy at the time. And when I did, I feel like some of my relationship with my dad improved, but I also feel like I got older, I understood situations more. So from there, our relationship has definitely improved, and I'm so thankful for that.

University, career struggles and therapy

Regina Sayer 33:18

So, what did you actually go to university to study?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 33:21

So the first time from my undergraduate, it was interior design.

Regina Sayer 33:25

And why was that? Why interior design?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 33:27

Yeah. So when I was in high school, I um took an interior design class and I loved the teacher. I actually took four different classes from her. She did like um a combination of like home ex stuff with interior design and then child development stuff. So I loved her as a teacher, and she inspired me to want to be an interior design teacher. Doesn't really exist in university, so I just ended up picking interior design over education.

Regina Sayer 33:55

And then what happened? Did you continue with it? Did you get your degree in that? Mm-hmm.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 34:00

Yeah, I went for four years, and I feel like there were so many things like internally going on at the time when it came to processing all that trauma that I had been through, on top of the fact that during this whole time in my life, I felt as though I wasn't chosen in like a romantic sense, that I've started to start looking for a romantic partner. And from there, as all of this is happening, I have a lot internally going on that by the time I finished my degree, I was really questioning if this was something that was for me. But I thought to myself, I've been, I put four years into this, I'm finishing this. Like, I'm not getting out of this with nothing. I even had my dad in the back of my head saying, like, are you sure this is gonna work? Are you gonna do this? It's like that kind of thing. And then from there, once I graduated, I tried, I think it was like three different interior design jobs, and I got fired from all of them. So it was like that external to the internal, like, this isn't working. Something needs to change.

Regina Sayer 35:07

But before we talk about that, let's just go back to the fact you said that around the age 20. So that's about the time you're finishing in your third or fourth year of university, I think. So that's when you got the treatment. That's when you went for therapy.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 35:20

Yes.

Regina Sayer 35:21

And they prescribed you antidepressants, but you had something strange happen with that.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 35:27

Yeah. So I'm a very naturally happy happy, bubbly person. And when I started taking the medication, it was like a I think this will help you try it out. We'll see if it works. If we need to work with the dosage, we'll work with the dosage kind of thing. And I didn't really know how it was gonna affect me. I didn't even realise that it had changed my personality until one of my cousins came to me and said, What's going on with you? Like, why is your personality not the same? I just was like a toned-down version of myself. And it was then it started to click to me, and I started to realise that that was the case. And at that point, I thought I was healed. I thought I was healed and I didn't need to go to therapy anymore. And um didn't feel like the medication was right for me because, like he said, so I stopped everything after about a year.

Regina Sayer 36:22

Without checking in with the therapist.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 36:25

With the therapist, it it felt like I had worked through because I mainly went for that relationship with my dad. It felt like I had solved everything that I needed to, and then I was just done.

Kundalini Awakening and Spiritual Experiences

Regina Sayer 36:39

Okay. So going back then to the fact that you said that you also developed physical tremors.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 36:49

Yes. Oh my gosh, I forgot about that. Yes. I mean, I didn't forget about it, but yes. Um so after all of that had happened, um, if you're in a spiritual space, you'll understand what I'm kind of talking about. Um, I started to do drawing a lot because I was in interior design school. And I looked at my hand at one point in time. And as I was holding a pen or a pencil at the time, I don't remember which one it was, my hand started to tremor. And I was like, this is weird. I even took a video of it to like show what it was. And over time, it started to develop more, where it would be, it would start out in my hand, it would go all the way up one arm, down one leg, down the other leg, across my arm, up to my head. And when it happened, it looked similar to a seizure, but I when people are in seizures, they aren't always coherent. And I was completely coherent the whole time. I could talk, I could have a full conversation until the point where it was happening and we didn't understand why that I was taking an ambulance and they couldn't figure out what was going on, that I went to a neurologist and they said it's a manifestation of your depression. And um, it wasn't until years later that I realised what was happening was a kundalini awakening.

Regina Sayer 38:08

Okay, so let me just jump in here and give my two cents because I have had similar weird stuff happen to me. And I've had them like in the middle of a yoga session where I suddenly release, like there's like a release of energy. And there has been another guest that was on here that's that spoke about this. And she had something similar. She actually was having seizures, but then she was starting as she was doing her healing, she started to have these type of tremors like that. And I would I'd get them too. I would get them when I would do... Anytime I ever go to anybody like a chiropractor, an osteopath, anybody who does any kind of body work on me, I have to warm them. So I'm always very careful about who I choose that I go to because um they can almost like trigger point therapy. You know, you can hit certain triggers in the body, and then maybe it activates memory or energy or something, and then it just goes through my entire body in this type of trembling kind of format. And yeah, through the arm, through the leg, especially one of the legs, and my back will arch sometimes, and they know the good ones know not to touch me while that's happening. And then I get back and they're like, Oh well, your spine's readjusted on its own. So yeah, so I do when you say from a spiritual space and from a kundalini aspect. I understand I've had similar things happen. So she is not crazy. These things do happen. It's happened to me and it's happened to other guests that I've spoken to as well. But at the time it must have been a bit scary because you didn't know.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 39:45

It was, it was so scary because I had no one in my life that like, one, could understand physically what was going on with me, and two, like, understand the, you know, physically with the movement, but also physically in the sense that it almost felt like there were times where it would be happening and I could in my mind say stop, and it felt like I could almost stop it. I can inform could inform my body what to do. No one understood that. And also at the time, it felt like there was no discussion around this. I couldn't find any forum or anything to explain what was happening to me.

Regina Sayer 40:20

Yeah. Yeah, I had the same thing. People were afraid of me sometimes if I told them that. I said, Oh, you better go and find somebody. That sounds scary, you know. And that, you know, they would always equate it to like something very evil or bad was happening, but it wasn't. I never felt that. I don't know about you, but did you ever feel like you sort of just your consciousness just sort of like stepped back out of your body and just watched what was happening?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 40:45

Yeah, it was a very weird feeling. I could feel like something was going on outside my body, but I didn't know what it was and I didn't know how to express it at the time.

Regina Sayer 40:57

So it's interesting that they describe it as a symptom, a manifestation of depression. I mean, have did they know that you had been that you were being treated for depression?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 41:07

This was after I was being de treated for depression. They knew that, and they were like, this is the reason as to why. Which I mean, going to a neurologist, like, what? Yeah.

Regina Sayer 41:18

Yeah, it's not what you expect them to say.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 41:20

Yeah.

Regina Sayer 41:21

But did they give you anything to help manage it? Or what did they tell you to do? Nothing. They just said, oh, just take some antidepressants or something and you'll stop shaking.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 41:32

Pretty much. So like, yeah, it's a manifestation of your depression. Like they might have said to go to therapy, something like that. But there was no treatment plan. There was nothing whatsoever.

Regina Sayer 41:41

And did you try to seek out anything for yourself at that time? Or you just said, okay, well, it'll just happen and that's it?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 41:48

Pretty much, yeah. Which then eventually it just disappeared over time. Which is wild.

Regina Sayer 41:54

And how long did it take before it disappeared?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 41:56

I don't remember. I wanna say somewhere between six months to a year, I wanna say, but I really don't remember. Because it also wasn't like it happened every day. It was like sporadic.

Regina Sayer 42:09

It's interesting how things manifest in the body, isn't it? Yes. So let's go back to this interior design saga. Yes. Well, what happened there? Why what why did you get fired from three different jobs? What what was the dynamic that was not working there?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 42:28

I wish I knew fully. I don't. I think it was that I was going down a path at the time that I wasn't meant to go down. And it was one of those things where Spirit was like, this is not the route for you. We're gonna keep locking you until you change your direction. But it was like I would try my best in the circumstance and ask for extra help and like ask, what can I do? That and that was never really welcomed in that environment. It was almost like you had to know what you had to do without be given any instruction whatsoever.

Regina Sayer 43:07

Well, you must have been somewhat good because you got hired by three different firms. So there must have been something going on.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 43:13

There must have been. I don't know what it was.

Regina Sayer 43:15

And then you said you were in a pretty toxic relationship at the time as well.

Toxic relationships and self-view

Tammy Vecchiarelli 43:20

Yeah, I was. So right as that transition was happening, it was my last year of schooling into the transition right after I uh graduated. I was in a toxic relationship where I don't feel like I was the best version of me by any means. And I feel like he had his own stuff going on at the same time that he wasn't the best version of him. So because of that, we weren't able to be in a healthy relationship. And this was also a time where like I was being rebellious to a degree, because you know, I went through it in my 20s instead of in my teenage years, like most people. Um, about four months into our Our relationship, I without even asking, essentially moved him into the house of my mom and my sister. And it was, yeah, it was like, I'm moving him in, you're gonna be okay with this. And they knew that, like, if they weren't okay with it, then our relationship would kind of struggle because of that. And also, my reasoning behind this was back up before I was born. My parents were together in their teenage years. My mom's mom was living in one area in Jersey and said to my mom, Hey, I'm moving to South Jersey. You can come with me or not. If you don't want to, okay, cool, figure something out. Because she was with my dad at the time. I think she was 16 or 17 at the time. And my mom ended up moving in with my dad and my grandmother. So it was like I was repeating that pattern almost in my own way.

Regina Sayer 44:55

Did they finally say "we told you so" when you broke up?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 44:58

No, actually, they didn't. They didn't. Um, they were very supportive. It was, I remember the day it happened. Uh, me and my ex had gone into a huge fight. My mom is an in-home health care person. She was working with someone across the street. We, me and my ex had the biggest fight that we had ever had. It was, you know, like one of those fights where it's like everything that's wrong in your relationship and it all comes up in one fight. It was like that about how I didn't feel comfortable with his family. And like it just felt like he wasn't fighting for the relationship. And I was like, is this the end? Like, is this it? And he was like, Yeah, this is kind of it. And I said, Okay, pack your stuff and get out. And literally, the next day, that was in the middle of the night the next day, he packed up his car and drove off. And my mom came outside from next door and said, Are you okay? And I just broke down in her arms and told her that we broke up.

Regina Sayer 45:56

Yeah. I could hear my mother say, I told you so.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 46:00

No.

Regina Sayer 46:01

Different parenting.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 46:03

Thankfully, my mom has been very supportive in a lot of ways. I later told my family they had no idea at the time that he had cheated on me a couple of times. Okay. Yeah. They were coming from an understanding state, and I think they saw to a degree how much I had been going through emotionally, that it wasn't like I told you so kind of thing.

Regina Sayer 46:26

And how was your self-confidence and you the way that you thought about yourself?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 46:30

Oh my gosh. So low. So beyond low. I think I went into the relationship with a low self-esteem and low self-confidence. And then going through that in a relationship just it destroyed me. It destroyed me as a person on top of the fact of all of the stuff with interior design and questioning what my life's purpose was at the same time. I felt like I completely lost myself and I didn't know who I was.

Regina Sayer 46:58

And you didn't decide to seek therapy then either, thinking, oh well, now is the point where I do need the therapy. Okay.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 47:05

Nope. But I also feel like, you know, at the same time, this was like 2014. I don't know if like therapy was really this big thing at the time. If like people were like, you should heal. I don't feel like maybe it was just in my field. I don't feel like that was a very big thing to do, you know. I knew at the time actually that my mom had tried therapy and gone through it a few different times, but I was also noticing the patterns that she was going through. And with that, I was like, okay, therapy like really doesn't work because she's still having these issues. So it was almost like I had a bad connotation with things.

The Journey into Education and Spirituality

Regina Sayer 47:49

Okay. And then for some reason, you started working at a preschool.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 47:55

Yeah, I did. So um, as all that happened and I was not sure what I was doing life, I was just applying to jobs as you do. And I applied to a preschool position because I loved education and said, why not try it? And fell in love with education.

Regina Sayer 48:13

What did you do at this preschool? And did you have to have any kind of teaching degree to work there? Or what was the deal?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 48:21

No, so in the states, for teaching little little kids, you don't. You can, but it's not necessarily required.

Regina Sayer 48:29

So is preschool kindergarten?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 48:32

No, no.

Regina Sayer 48:34

What is preschool?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 48:35

Preschool is before kindergarten. So three years I did uh two to three year olds, and then my fourth year there, I was a kindergarten assistant.

Regina Sayer 48:46

And you love children?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 48:48

I do. I love children so much. It was

Regina Sayer 48:51

Did you know before then that you did?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 48:54

Yes, I did. Um I uh you remember when I was in high school, I was debating between being an interior design teacher, like that kind of role. So I already knew I loved kids. I had babysat and all those kind of things, and it was just like a revival, I guess, of that part of me that had kind of been lost through the wayside over the years.

Regina Sayer 49:13

So despite being parentified quite young and having to take care of your sister, you still wanted to take care of young kids.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 49:20

Yeah, I mean, I still want kids now. Well, I don't kids, but yeah, I love kids. I I feel like you can learn so much from them. I feel like they're just fun.

Regina Sayer 49:29

So you completed a master's in education while working at the preschool. Then you started getting into your spiritual awakening and your healing journey. So talk a little bit about how that happened and what what um kicked that off.

Introduction to essential oils and self-exploration

Tammy Vecchiarelli 49:43

Yeah, so it's interesting how things happen have happened in my life because I worked at the preschool for four years. For the first two years, I kind of was just trying to figure out, you know, is this something that I want to do long term? What do I want to kind of do with my life? And they offered a program there where they would help subsidise some of your education. So that's why I went into the education background and went back for my master's because I knew I loved children. I knew I wanted to work in that space, so that's why I did that. And then when it came to the more spiritual side, I want to say it was about a year after working there. Um, I had a co-teacher that brought in a diffuser and was like, oh, these are essential oils, these are so cool. I'm like, what is this? I need to learn about this. So at that point was when I um researched essential oils myself and said, you know, I'm seeing that they have these different properties and that they can help you with anxiety and depression. So then I became an apothecary, whatever you want to call it, and started mixing them together. And with that, I started to feel less depressed. I started to feel less anxious, all because of essential oils.

Regina Sayer 50:59

And were there any particular essential oils that you could feel were giving that result?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 51:06

It was funny because as it was happening, I got like a whole container full of different types. So it would be like if I was feeling a certain way, I would take lavender and eucalyptus and tea tree oil and mix them together, and then if my energy shifted, I would put these together. So it was like I was using the properties of the different essential oils to help heal me based on the properties that they had.

Regina Sayer 51:32

Did you just read a bunch of books or did somebody or go to a training on it or what?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 51:38

I read a whole bunch of books. I read things online, and yeah, and then just trial and error, and also what smells I liked, and you know, I I think that's really when I started to tap into my intuition. I didn't really realise it because I whenever you do essential oils, you're supposed to have a carrier oil with it, like coconut oil or something like that. And I would be like, How do I know how many drops to put of this? And I was like, Oh no, let's do five. And I was just going based off of my intuition of how little and how much of each essential oil I needed.

Regina Sayer 52:10

Okay. And then you started discovering all sorts of other esoteric things like crystals and chakras and meditation and energy work. Yes. How did that exploration start and how did you spiral down that road?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 52:26

Yeah. So it started with the essential oils, and then as I was researching these things, it was, oh, and you can use them with crystals. And then I don't know why I did this. I had loved crystals when I was a kid, and I had kept them like throughout the years, and they were literally in a bag in my closet. And I was like, as I looked at crystals, I read something about chakras and how you could use crystals and essential oils on different chakras. So I started doing that and just placing them on my body in different places. And oh, but you can include that while you're meditating. So then I just would like sit there on my bed with, you know, essential oils and crystals and just meditate. And that is like the birth of my journey into spirituality, which led me to the place I'm at now and starting to have visions of, you know, past lives and things like that. It was not at all like led by someone specific or taking a course. It was just me like figuring things out by accident.

Regina Sayer 53:29

Did you find it difficult to meditate at first? I mean, what kind of meditations were you doing? Were you following guided ones you found online, or were you sort of just going into your third eye and sitting with it?

Meditation and past life discoveries

Tammy Vecchiarelli 53:41

Yeah, so I have always loved music. And it was just me putting on whatever music I liked at the time. I think I listened to a lot of sound bowls and just putting that on and just being like laying on my bed with it. That's all it was. It wasn't any kind of guided meditation, really. It was just purely listening to music and I guess sitting there with myself and feeling into myself internally. That's all it really was.

Regina Sayer 54:06

So you're talking about crystal healing bowls and Tibetan balls as well.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 54:11

hhmmm yeah

Regina Sayer 54:13

So when did you have this breakthrough experience that you had during a meditation? When did that happen?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 54:21

This was probably about two years after that initial like introduction into essential oils, where I was in my apartment at the time. I was renting an apartment with a friend, and I was meditating, and it was suddenly like there was this like darkness that I saw, like my eyes are closed, and then this very bright light that was almost blinding. And it was interesting because if you've ever meditated before, maybe you might understand what I mean. Where like your eyes are closed, but it's almost like you can open them while they're closed. I don't know if that makes sense at all. Maybe that's just me.

Regina Sayer 54:58

I have a vision of a zombie.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 55:02

Oh no.. No, but my I I don't know. You never know when it comes to spiritual things, if it's like just you or other people experience it too. Um and it was like uh the white light cleared away, and then I started to see like this field, and in this field there was a woman, someone who I think was her sister, and a little girl, and they were all kind of playing and run together, running around together, and it was very happy, it was very light, it was so it just felt like joy until all of a sudden it felt like the the first woman that I had mentioned, it kind of felt like I was connected to her, and I was her, so I was her in this instance, and then all of a sudden, it was like something happened to me, and as this woman, I lost my vision, I couldn't see anymore, and then with not being able to see anymore, I felt this sense of panic when it came to this little girl that I couldn't see her anymore, I couldn't touch her anymore, I couldn't be around her anymore, and it completely freaked me out. And then after that happened, it was like I was back there with them, the sister and the little girl, but it was almost like I felt like a ghost or a spirit, like a guardian angel watching over this child. And even in that space, I felt such a sense of longing, of sadness that I wasn't with this child anymore. And as I was in this meditation, I was literally sobbing. And I woke up, and when I woke up out of it, it was like I had a panic attack because the emotions were so strong. And I just sat there questioning myself over and over again: who was that little girl? Where is that little girl? I want that little girl, I want to be near her, but I couldn't get to her. It was an emotion and a feeling and this vision that sat with me for such a long time, and I had no idea what any of it meant. I didn't know that at the time I had remembered a past life by accident.

Regina Sayer 57:27

It's so interesting, Tammie, because as you're talking, just before you said about the eyes, my eye started itching. I saw that. I don't know. Did you just see that?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 57:39

I saw that.

Regina Sayer 57:40

And it was starting just before you said that, and I thought, oh my god, I need to rub my eye, I need to rub my eye.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 57:47

Yeah.

Regina Sayer 57:48

And then you said that, and I thought, oh, that's just freaky.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 57:54

Yeah.

Regina Sayer 57:54

So did you think anything of it, or did you just sort of go, oh, okay, well, let's continue on and see if I get any more of these visions?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 58:02

It was more so that like I wanted to know who that little girl was that I saw because I felt that longing. But I didn't know where to go. I didn't know who to ask. I didn't know how to solve that. I didn't I was really, really struggling actually for I want to say it was maybe another year after I had that vision, just feeling this connection to this whole event, but not knowing how or what it was. And it wasn't until a friend went to an energy healer slash medium that I just had no idea what I had experienced. All I knew was there was this child that felt like they were my child, but I didn't know who they are or where they came from.

Regina Sayer 58:52

And so you went to uh an energy healer medium. And this was the first time you'd ever done that?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 58:58

Yeah. And it was such a profound experience in my life.

Regina Sayer 59:05

Um Were you very open to it or were you sort of guarded about it?

Session with a medium and connection to her grandmother

Tammy Vecchiarelli 59:09

Nope, I was very open. Um, with being raised Catholic and all that stuff, my mom also was very open to like psychics and mediums and all that kind of stuff. So um I went into it very, very open, especially because I um had been dealing with crystals and essential oils for a little bit. So I I felt I definitely felt open to it. So yeah, when I met her, it was like this, I don't know how to describe it. It was when I met her, I just felt this very good energy. And the session started out with her pulling cards and kind of talking about my life and about decisions that were about to be made during that session. Not only did I find out that it was a past life that I had experienced, that was my daughter in my in that lifetime. She was going to be my daughter in the future. Like now in this life, she was going to be my daughter. But I also was able to have communication with my grandmother that had passed away. So I was 27 at the time, and when my grandma passed away, it was I was 12. So do the math there and how many years that is, and I finally felt the grief release after all of those years.

Regina Sayer 1:00:19

You were speaking to your grandmother through this medium?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:00:22

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, when um I was talking to her, she started out by describing the spirit that she was seeing, and she talked about the red lipstick that my grandma wore and her brown curly hair, something that she shouldn't have known, you know, because I didn't describe to her what my grandmother looked like. And when she started to do that and talk about the personality traits, I knew it was my grandma that she was talking to.

Regina Sayer 1:00:47

And what did your grandmother have to say to you at this point?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:00:51

You know, I think it's funny. When someone passes away, there's always some kind of lingering energy that holds over. And for me, it was the question of is she proud of me? Is she proud of where I am in life and what I'm doing? And through this medium, I was able to get the answer of yes, you're more than I ever could have expected. And when that happened, I felt an energy release that had been holding me back for all of those years.

Regina Sayer 1:01:19

So you felt lighter after you came out of the session?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:01:21

Yes.

Regina Sayer 1:01:22

And so after that, did you study any kind of energy healing yourself?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:01:26

Not right away, years later.

Regina Sayer 1:01:27

Because then you decided you were gonna go teach abroad.

Teaching abroad - Sweden and transitions

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:01:30

Yeah, exactly. Because you know, my life is so interwoven. Yeah. So one of the questions that I had asked her in that session was actually, you know, I was kind of on the precipice of am I gonna go abroad? What am I gonna do? All that kind of stuff. And she kind of confirmed for me that yes, this is what you're meant to do. You're about to go through this whole life transition. And yeah, when I started my master's program, I knew that I wanted to eventually go abroad, or at least that's what I thought. It was around February, March, where I talk to my advisor and she's like, What do you want to do after you graduate? And I'm like, I want to go abroad. And she's like, How? I don't know. She's like, Well, we have this program, they can do it, but you know, you really should have signed up like a year ago. I don't think you're gonna be able to do it. So I went through the process in hopes that I'd be able to be able to go abroad and have this experience. And right around that time, like two or three weeks later, the school gets an email saying that they have an alumni that's now teaching in Sweden. And if anyone wants to teach their student teach, please come. So what did I but do? Say, yes, I want to come. Let me come. And I essentially place myself in Sweden, which no one had ever with this program, no one had ever placed themselves before, and no one had ever been to Sweden before. Talk about manifesting. Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:02:53

So how did that work out? Because you went there and you you had like three weeks' notice to sort yourself out.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:03:02

I got the information of yes, and then I had to go to a program in Indiana to kind of like train and prepare yourself for going abroad. And then it was like right after that, it was like two weeks after that, I had to start my first placement, which was in Tennessee, and I was there for two months, and then right after that I went to Sweden. So it was like this very quick process that happened compared to people who usually went to this event in Indiana like I did. They usually go like a year, year and a half before they go abroad. And I like went months before I was going. Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:03:38

And so you went to Sweden, and I hope you went in the summer and not in the dead of winter. Well, no, it's school. So yeah, you wouldn't have gone in the summer.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:03:47

Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:03:47

So you went for two and a half months. Is that it?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:03:51

Yeah, I was in Stockholm for two and a half months.

Regina Sayer 1:03:54

So talk about that whole experience because that is a great experience, but stressful as well.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:03:59

Yeah, it was. It was very stressful. It was a great experience. It was kind of like my practice run before actually moving abroad and kind of doing it in a smaller container to see if I could actually do it. It was amazing because it was the first time that I had really ever traveled for that long of a time by myself and lived in a whole other country and all those kinds of things. But it definitely had its difficulties because I was there for such a short amount of time. I didn't really make any connections with people. And then on top of that, when you're in the States and you're student teaching, you don't make money during that time. So it was like I didn't make money for the two and a half months or two, two and a half months before while I was in Tennessee. And then when I was in Sweden, I wasn't making any money. So it was like six months of having no income until the point where I was in Sweden. I was like, I am literally not going to be able to eat food. Mom, help me. I can't do this. I can't do it. What am I doing? What am I doing in my life? Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:05:02

You were teaching in an international school or in a local school?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:05:05

Yeah, an international school.

Regina Sayer 1:05:07

And then you came back. That was right into COVID.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:05:11

Yeah. Yeah. So while I was there, I am so grateful now looking back at how my guides orchestrated things. Because while I was in Sweden, I started applying to jobs in the States. And it ended up that first placement that I was at, they did a maternity leave with me from January until March. COVID hit. And then I was out of a job for a bit. But during that time in the States, we got stipend checks. So I was still being held in the container that I had financial support.

Regina Sayer 1:05:42

In Sweden, because you know they have Nordic mythology and their own practices, their own spiritual practices that are very much linked to the land. Did you experience any of that?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:05:53

You know, I don't think I knew at the time. I definitely had a lot of Gut issues and transitions when it came to that, but I was still super early in my spiritual practice and understanding what was going on, that I don't feel like I've fully encapsulated what was going on energetically.

Self-exploration really begins with spiritual mentor

Regina Sayer 1:06:15

Okay. Okay. So coming back to after COVID, you said that you found a spiritual mentor and for four years you worked on yourself.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:06:26

Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:06:27

Why did you even think you need to work on yourself? Because, you know, it's it's takes usually a baseball bat before people think they need to work on themselves. You know, it usually takes something quite traumatic to happen, but nothing very traumatic happened to you. At that point. At that point, at that point, it just it had just been building up. What made you take that step and think, okay, I need to work on myself now and I need to find some help?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:06:54

Yeah, you know, it was that at that time, I it was this internal like, you have something to work on, you need to work on something, you need to figure out something, you need help with this. And it really felt like there was something that was holding me back from fully making that decision to go abroad. And I wasn't really sure why or what was going on. So I had a friend that was going to school to be a therapist and was looking into becoming a hypnotherapist. She's like, you know, you've been kind of in the spiritual space for a while. Like, why don't you try this? And I searched up different hypnotherapists in the area and ended up finding my mentor that was my mentor for four years.

Regina Sayer 1:07:37

And why a hypnotherapist?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:07:39

I had heard about past life regression before, and it really interested me, and she did that. So I was like, you know what? Let's just try. Because I also, like I had said earlier, had that past life memory. So I was like, I wonder if there's other things going on here, other memories that I was just really interested in past lives.

Regina Sayer 1:08:03

So you learned how to do past life regressions?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:08:05

I don't know if I would say I learned how to do it at that time, like to other people. It was more so that I was experiencing my own past lives and understanding how your past lives can influence your current life and how that energy works together.

Regina Sayer 1:08:22

And at any point, did you sort of think, nah, this is impossible?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:08:26

No, literally never. I think it was because, though, the experiences that I had were so real. Whenever I went into that hypnosis state, I feel like when you see it in movies, it's like you have the thing dangling in front of you, and then you know, have no idea what's going on. You're not at all conscious, and that's not what it was like at all.

Regina Sayer 1:08:50

No, not at all.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:08:52

I t was like um, I was almost either watching a movie or in the movie, but I knew that that was happening, and I was able to communicate as that was happening. And yeah, I feel like all of the different past lives that I remembered from then, even all the way to now, because I'm still remembering them, just felt like more of an understanding of who I was deeply, like at a soul level. I feel like that's what I started to learn.

Regina Sayer 1:09:21

And how are you able to relate those past lives to the situations that had come your way in this life?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:09:28

My gosh. We don't I don't think I have enough time for all of that, but give me an one example, one example then. So many stories. The example from when it comes to um traveling abroad, the thing that was holding me back was in a past life. I was living in Ireland, England kind of area, one of the two. It was one of those situations where some form of nobility, and I was being married off to someone else. And I ended up in Spain, and I was very close to my parents. They were like the epitome of love. I loved my parents, they loved each other, and I had found out that my father was very, very sick. So I got on a boat and I didn't make it in time. So that was influencing things on top of another lifetime where I think it might have been during like World War One or Vietnam, one of those times where I was very, very young, like maybe somewhere between two and five. And my mom answered the door in the middle of the night, and there were men in military uniforms. I was holding a bunny rabbit, like a stuffed bunny rabbit. And they were telling my mom that my dad had passed away in war. So it was both of those instances that with the connection that I have with my dad in my current life and the ups and downs that we've had, it felt like I couldn't leave him because when we had been separated in the past, he had passed away. I couldn't do anything about it.

Regina Sayer 1:10:58

So anybody listening to this is probably thinking, oh, past lives, just a load of garbage. But I've had my own experiences. And honestly, I don't, for myself, I don't like to say they're past lives because I think that we actually do not know anything about time. And that it's it could be past life, it actually could be a future life, it could be parallel life. I don't know what it is. It's another life somewhere in time and space. For myself, I had a huge energy awakening, huge when I was in Singapore. It was very, very physical. And for some reason, before it happened, I had actually booked one of these past life regression sessions with this German woman who was well known for them. It was like a three-hour session. I had, I mean, I was literally by like standing like this vibrating in front of people when it happened. And I went to this session, and normally the woman, she she recorded the sessions, but she didn't record my session because she said it was just too awful. The floor around me, because I was lying on the floor, turned hot. I mean it literally turned hot. And she kept having to come up and put her hand underneath my the back of my head because I kept arching my body and throwing my head back and going into positions I only wish I could have done in yoga and protecting my head from going back too hard. I was seeing like all of these things. It was interesting because after that, you know, I didn't actually need to be in a past life regression. I would just be crossing the road and see a Buddhist monk and just suddenly just start that kind of tremor that we talked about. And know in that instant, I just feel like I would step outside of my actual physical body and that whatever was happening happened. But then know that in that instant I had seen a bunch of monks massacred. And that's all I could tell you. So I often had instances like that that would happen to me. And um, I remember going to see Lucy Cavendish, she's the Oracle card designer. She's done various, like with Jasmine Beckett Griffith, she's done several different Oracle decks. She used to come to Singapore quite often, and she told me once that she thought that I had PTSD from all the things that had happened to me in other lives because I would have such fierce reactions to things. And I even did a, I tried to, but then I left early, - but that's another story - With Dolores Cannon, she came to Singapore and she did past life regression, but she and I didn't see eye to eye. So I left early. But I think that you need to be careful who you go to for a past life regression because, and I'm sure you're aware of this, because sometimes people lead you and they lead you in a way that you can sort of be led to and visualise things by the words that they are saying. So you have to be very, very careful. I mean, I don't know how it was for you, but like the woman who I went through, she did nothing she said put me in the direction of where I was showing up at that time.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:14:14

Yeah, no, I completely agree with you when it comes to that, and I think that's the reason why I stayed with my mentor for so many years, is because she does did resonate with me, and the way that she went about it was like she went through the hypnosis state with you, so that you came to the energetic place, and then she just posed to you, what are you seeing, what are you feeling, and then from there it just kind of came up. It wasn't like she was the only time she I would say would be leading you is asking clarifying questions about what was going on. It wasn't like her trying to instruct you on what was happening.

Regina Sayer 1:14:52

Yep, yeah, yeah. And a lot of times, um, I'm always a bit um, I question people when they always come back and they tell me, Oh yes, I had a past life as, you know, a princess, or I was um, you know, some special person. You know, sorry, but you know, weren't you just like a janitor or you know, normal person, or you know, like a homeless person, or you know, sometimes when people say they have past life regression and they come back and they they tell stories like that, I'm always thinking, oh, I wonder who they went to because I wouldn't trust that person. Because I just think, you know, that's trying to like kind of like build up your ego a lot. And you know, when you think about it, you have so many different lives. Why is it that the one with the princess is the one that comes out? Or I'm a Egyptian goddess or something, or you know, something, whatever. Anyway, so you worked with that person for four years, and then you decided after all that work and all that healing had been happening. Actually, before I ask you this question, what was the hardest part of doing that work?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:15:56

I think it was not seeing the past lives, not remembering what happened, but there was through this time, there were souls that I remembered that are meant to come into my life during this lifetime that haven't come forward yet in this lifetime. So it was knowing them on a soul level, but not knowing them quite yet on a 3D level. That was the biggest thing for me.

Regina Sayer 1:16:26

Okay, you need to clarify what you mean by 3D people, three 3D level for people who don't know what that means.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:16:31

3D level is like you and me talking right now.

Regina Sayer 1:16:34

Okay. All right. So then you moved to Poland.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:16:39

Yeah, I did. Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:16:42

Why Poland and what did you do there?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:16:44

I wish I knew why Poland. I you know, at this point I was so in my spiritual journey that I knew that I wanted to go abroad and I just applied to different places. Don't even know if I remember applying to Poland, to be honest. And it was just the place that came through so clear. Because later on in my journey, I did an astro cartography session and found out that I was essentially living on my Pluto line, which is all about transformation and spiritual growth. So it makes sense as to why I went went there and why I was there for such a long time. Um, during that time, I was teaching third grade for four years.

Regina Sayer 1:17:33

You were actually there when the Ukrainian war broke out?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:17:37

I was.

Regina Sayer 1:17:38

So how was that for you? Did that affect you at all?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:17:42

It didn't it didn't. Um it did in the fact that I was teaching in a school where there were both Russian and Ukrainian students, and you could feel how everyone was distraught by the situation. Some of the things with like renting apartments and like things like that kind of changed. But where I was living in my day-to-day life, nothing changed.

Regina Sayer 1:18:06

So you probably were not close to the border though.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:18:09

I was closer to the German border.

Regina Sayer 1:18:11

Okay, okay. And then you said that because Poland has a very strong Catholic culture over there. And so you're like back into that.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:18:20

Yeah, because I mean why not? Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:18:26

But you said that you actually found a spiritual community there.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:18:30

I did, yeah. Um it's so funny because I've as I've gone on in life, I always seem to attract the spiritual people, even in the spaces where you wouldn't think they are. So one of my really close friends um that I found they're spiritual, and just a couple of other friends, it wasn't like a formed community necessarily. It was just finding people in my life that I would have conversations with and realise that they aligned with me spiritually.

Regina Sayer 1:19:01

Oh, yeah. I yeah, this is something to mention. Your salary was cut in half when you went to Poland.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:19:09

Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:19:09

How did you manage that?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:19:11

Because I like taking risks, evidently, as is my life right now, too. Um, yeah, so in the States, I was making a teacher's salary, which is okay, I would say, in like the grand scheme of things, but for where I was in life and in the economy and everything, it wasn't that great for me. So when I moved to Poland, my salary got cut in half. But because of the cost of living there and, you know, all of those different things, it actually gave me such a sense of growth where I was able to travel more than I had ever been able to on a teacher's salary. And all the time that I was in the States, I just had such an expansion in life, which is crazy. Cause like I said, I cut my salary in half. And then of course, being there for four years, my salary grew over time. But yeah, it was definitely an interesting decision to make. My family's like, What are you doing? Yeah, they're they're like, try it for a year and then if you hate it, come back. Uh I don't know what's gonna happen with you. I feel like I give my family heart palpitations by my choices that I make.

Regina Sayer 1:20:16

And were you able to integrate into the local culture this time because you've been there so long, whereas in Sweden you were only there for a short period?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:20:23

You know, yes and no. When it came to my school's culture and that kind of thing, yes, I was. What I didn't anticipate was thinking about if the culture itself of the country actually resonated with me as a person and the personality type that I have. And I grew to realise it didn't. Like I said, I'm a very happy, bubbly person. I enjoy interacting with people and that kind of thing. And just the thing that I found with Polish culture, which it's their culture, is that it's hard to kind of break in and get to know Polish people on a deeper level, which is fine, that's their culture. I have no issue with that. I'm the outsider coming in.

Regina Sayer 1:21:08

But it's also because you're working in an international environment as well? You're in an international school and you're not exactly like working for a Polish company and being exposed to Polish colleagues and well, and that was the thing though.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:21:20

So with being at the international school, about half of our staff, if not more than half, was Polish. So I was actually around Polish people quite often.

Regina Sayer 1:21:28

But you're still with a that cushion of international. Y eah.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:21:33

Exactly. Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:21:34

And were you discovering more and more about your spirituality while you were there? And of course, if you're traveling too, you're being exposed to different spiritual practices in different countries and these different types of energies that are in different countries. And of course, Poland has its own really deep, deep, quite heavy energy because of the war.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:21:54

So yes, all of the things that happened while I was there. Um, I feel like, like I've said, I was on my Pluto line for four years. The deep transformation that happened was amazing. And like you said, whenever I traveled to different places, it was really interesting because I would go to different locations, and when I went there, I would remember past lives. Or see, like you were talking about, I would see things and I would remember things almost. But one of the most interesting things that happened to me right almost right when I got to Poland was one of those people that I told you about that I felt this whole connection with, but I hadn't met in the physical form. I met someone in the physical form right when I got to Poland who had cursed me in a past life.

Regina Sayer 1:22:45

And you knew that and you met them?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:22:48

Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:22:48

And did you get along with them after that? Y

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:22:56

Yeah. It's really funny.

Regina Sayer 1:22:56

You're supposed to heal that in this life you know.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:22:56

You know, it's really funny. Um, when I met her, um I wanted to be friends with her and I wanted to get along with her. And I just felt this feeling from her that she didn't like me for some reason. So eventually we we got to know each other enough that I'm like, Did you not like me in the beginning? Like, what was the issue? And she's like, Yeah, I don't know why I didn't. And then um, I she was also spiritual. And I said, I looked in her eyes at one point and I said, I think I know who you are. I think I remember who you are. And I told her about the past life that I remembered. And when I told her about it, she remembered also. So it was not only that I remembered her, she remembered me.

Regina Sayer 1:23:38

And she was into spirituality as well, and this type of thing. Okay.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:23:42

Yeah.

Transitional to spiritual mentoring

Regina Sayer 1:23:42

It's funny that you you say that because I have a very good friend, a very good Dutch friend that I met in Singapore. And the first time I met her, I don't know. I mean, first of all, people thought we were sisters because we had both had short, short, short hair, short grey hair. And she looks at me, she goes, I think that you've done really horrible things to me in another life. I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't want to do them in this life. Yeah. She doesn't, and she's across the border from me now in the Netherlands. Oh gosh. Okay. So you have been sort of branching out now from teaching and offering your spiritual services, spiritual mentoring to people. So what's happening there? What's that about? Why did you decide to do that?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:24:32

Yeah, so I mean, we've just gone on this whole journey of my life. That now I've been on this spiritual journey for about 10 years or so. Um, I've done multiple practices at this time from my own personal healing, from past life regression to ancestral healing to emotion coding, all of these different things. And as I went through this process about three years ago, I started to see this vision of circles, bubbles, and like lines that kind of went together. And as I saw this, I was like, what am I seeing? I don't understand this. And I felt this desire to draw it out. And when I did, it was like the circles or bubbles, whatever you want to call them, were the energy of the people in my life. And then the lines were the colours of the different chakras, different energy systems. What I was learning to do was understand the cords that connect us together. So over three years, it's just developed over more so that now not only is it that I can draw it on a piece of paper, I can find the chords that are attached to someone in their speci specific chakras, release them from both you and the other person, and then cauterized that wound that was there.

Regina Sayer 1:25:53

So your architecture drawing did come into play after a while.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:25:57

Kind of in the end. So have you been doing that for people? I have, and it has been such an amazing journey where, you know, I've been a part of Reiki, I've been a part of these different practices, and there's always some kind of energetic release that's happened. But doing this new modality, I didn't really know what to expect of it, what like transitions people could have. But I've had people that have transitions anywhere from an hour to 24 hours afterwards, and like big shifts happen in their life, which is crazy.

Regina Sayer 1:26:32

You have now plans to take that business to Italy.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:26:37

Yeah, exactly. So because energy is not, you know, stuck in one place, energy flows. I have the privilege of being able to do it online with people. And because of that, I've decided to leave my teaching job in Poland and travel my way to Italy doing this so that I can find the life that I've been looking for, the home that I've been looking for. Because I feel like that has also been a part of the past four years, is while I was in Poland, it was kind of a holding pattern of, you know, explore Europe, figure out where that place is going to be. And now I'm really actually making that journey to that sense of home that I've been looking for.

Regina Sayer 1:27:19

So you are just going to Italy and you've had a pit stop in Austria.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:27:25

Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:27:25

You're going to Italy in the summer? Are you crazy?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:27:29

Yes. Have you not heard any of my story? Yes, I am.

Regina Sayer 1:27:32

And I'm only saying that, first of all, because in the summer, if you don't know, you know, it's everybody's on holiday here. And then also because we are having such horrible heat wave everywhere, it's just terrible right now. Have you figured out what you're going to do in Italy now? Have you got even a place to stay? Because the last time I talked to you, you hadn't even figured that out. No, she still has not.

Ongoing Spiritual work, business direction and steps to Italy

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:27:52

No, no, no. So yeah, what I'm doing is I have my dog along with me, the one that knocked over the internet last time we talked. And Um, because she's 15, it made more sense to me to go by train. So that's why I stopped in Austria right now. And I'm just planning on going to different places within Italy and really truly feeling the energy of the place, the energy of the space, so that I can find that place that I want to live long term, you know, because when it came to Poland, it was a job that brought me there, you know, and then I ended up staying for a long time. This time I really want to be intentional and pick a place that energetically feels aligned because as I said before, I did that astro cartography um appointment. And when I did that, I found out that the different places that I've lived haven't had the best energy, and I want to live in a place that feels good energetically.

Regina Sayer 1:28:49

Maybe you should take some dousing rods.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:28:51

Yep, yep.

Regina Sayer 1:28:52

And so you're gonna learn Italian as well.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:28:54

Yeah, that is my plan.

Regina Sayer 1:28:55

You have a tutoring job. So you're not completely penniless.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:29:00

No

Regina Sayer 1:29:01

you're still doing some online tutoring to maintain feeding your dog.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:29:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, so actually it's uh online homeschooling, and I am so grateful for it because I'm a substitute online in addition to helping them with some resources that they need. So it's a very flexible job where I can work anywhere from 12 to 19 hours, and it totally fits in with my business that I can kind of create my hours as I'm traveling and as I'm exploring things. So I'm very grateful.

Regina Sayer 1:29:32

Okay, so you also, and I don't want to give everything away here because we're gonna have a special follow-up to this podcast to talk about this in more in depth, but we'll just bring it up here just to give you a taste teaser. Tammie has also written and published two books. And the thing is, is that she did it in a weekend. Talk a little bit about how did you even get the idea to write these books and just a little bit of teaser about what they're about.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:30:05

Yeah, so as you've already heard, the beginning part of my journey, the first like five-ish years, was just a lot of internal exploration and figuring thing out things out as I go. And I still feel like the collective is kind of in the space where there are people starting to create materials to help people early on in their journey, but I still feel like there is such a massive need for that for people that are early on in their journey and kind of just figuring things out.

Regina Sayer 1:30:35

Okay. And you said also during a soulmate-seeking course, you received a clear vision for a spiritual mentoring business. What does that mean in layman's terms?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:30:46

Yeah. So um, after I finished that first more mentor, one of the things that I was really desiring was finding my soulmate, the person I'm meant to be with in this life. So during this course, I um got a feeling like suddenly there was this, oh, I need to do like one of those light bulb moments of like, I can write about this. I can do this. And when I had that light bulb moment of, oh, I can do this, I sat down on, I think it was it was either Friday or Saturday, I don't remember which one, and I wrote a whole book based off of that idea in one weekend. So that's what I say when it's a download. Like it's this sudden inspiration that comes so through so clearly, and I feel like it's divinely guided.

Regina Sayer 1:31:33

And you did that twice.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:31:35

Yeah. Um, I don't even know how many times I've done it at this point, but I feel like when it comes to my business in general and the modality that I just talked about, that's all a download that came to me from source, God, divine, whatever you want to call it. Um, that, you know, I'm I'm being given the information. It's not that, it's just me.

Regina Sayer 1:31:58

How does your family feel about this whole spiritual journey that you're on? I mean, we know about what they feel about you hopping countries and teaching. But what do they feel about this whole experience that you're having and your connectedness in the way you're interacting with who you call source divine?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:32:17

You know, it's so funny because I think people are sometimes more open than you expect them to be, even if they're very religious. So all of my family members have kind of reacted in different ways. Because also it's not like all of a sudden, yes, I have this business. It's like they've seen me go over this journey over the past 10 years. And um so for my mom and my stepmom, they're probably the most supportive. They understand it the most. They have since I've been on my journey, they've recognised that they have their own gifts and they've started using their own gifts, which is just so beyond beautiful.

Regina Sayer 1:32:59

Did you help them to find their gifts?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:33:02

Yes and no. I think that we all have our innate gifts, and sometimes we just don't realise that there are gifts because it's not something that is talked about. So, you know, if you have this feeling, oh my gosh, I need to slow down because there's a cop gonna be over the hill, you just do it, not realising that you're being given this information for a reason. So yeah, my sister, I think it's kind of like, is what are you doing? Like, I don't understand, but she's like, Okay, I'll support you kind of thing. And then my dad has been the most surprising of all, actually. Um, he's still kind of like my sister, like, what are you doing? But he'll call me every once in a while and be like, okay, this weird thing happened and I need to tell you about it. So I have been very, very fortunate that I have supportive people around me that, you know, as I've grown in my gifts and as I've told them, you know, I'm seeing this or I'm experiencing this, and I'm telling them my my stories about what's going on in my life, they're starting to become turned on to that fact, and they're starting to realise the things that are going on within them. Because, you know, that's the thing. I feel like one of the things that I learned very early on in my journey is when you heal, the people around you heal. It's not just a you thing. It's as you heal and you learn about yourself, the other people around you learn about themselves, which has just been such an amazing experience.

Regina Sayer 1:34:31

Yeah, and I think when when you heal, your perception of them changes as well and allows them to be able to change as well, or for them to be able to heal, because maybe you're not always holding them in contempt for something that you did before, they they did before, or you know, being angry about something, so you're able to understand them a bit more, so it allows them to change as well.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:34:57

Yeah, exactly.

Advice for people new on the spiritual jounrey

Regina Sayer 1:34:59

So, what advice would you give to, because you mentioned people who are, you know, new on the journey, and so this is one of the reasons for the books that you have written. But apart from that, given your own journey and how you've approached it and how you've been through it, and I mean, I know for myself, you know, you go to so many people, and so many people tell you so many different things, and you're just, you know, you're not sure what to believe, right or left. So, what advice would you give to somebody who is out there seeking?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:35:31

Yeah, so I think it's a couple of things. One is be open to the experience, learn and understand to figure out how things really resonate with you, like we were talking about earlier. If it doesn't resonate, then don't listen to it, don't follow it. And just explore. You know, there are so many different modalities out there that I really truly feel like everyone has their own secret sauce of gifts. You know, I explained a little bit of mine, and I was talking to a French client recently, and we learned that she has such expansion when it comes to holding space and protecting people, not only herself, but other people, that when we had this conversation, she can do it like to the scale of like a citywide. For me, I can like do it for myself and like my house, you know? So it's just recognising and realizsng that not everyone is the same, and that's okay. You came here with your gifts for a certain reason.

Regina Sayer 1:36:40

Okay. And what about a tool? Is there a tool that you use that's that somebody can use for themselves to help them, for example, get in a space of being more comfortable with their own intuition?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:36:53

Yeah, so I think there are so many tools.

Regina Sayer 1:36:57

Okay, okay. we just got time for one.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:36:59

I think there are so many. I think it depends on what you want. I mean, for me, it was essential oils, crystals, meditation. But you already mentioned there's dousing rods, there's oracle cards, tarot cards, you know, there's pendulums. I think it's just trying them out and seeing which one you like.

Regina Sayer 1:37:17

And what, just practicing and becoming more in in touch with sort of testing your intuition, I guess.

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:37:24

Yeah, exactly. So for me, another area that I uh slowly developed over time was I ended up getting Oracle cards. And um the way I practiced with Oracle cards was I would look at the card and see kind of what I felt about one card that I had pulled. And then after I saw that, then I would look at the actual book and see how they compared. So just like those really little practices that you do, I feel it could be really helpful.

Where to connect and closing

Regina Sayer 1:37:52

Hmm. Okay. Yeah, you're not the only person who has recommended that. So there must be something in that. Since a lot of people recommend that. Okay. So if anybody wants to connect with you, where can they do that? You have a website?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:38:08

Yes, I have a link tree. Um, and it's attached to my Instagram, which is Aurora Relationship Healing, or they could just email me if that's something they want, which that's Tammie@ Aurora Relationship Healing.com.

Regina Sayer 1:38:21

Okay. Well, I will definitely have that information in the show notes. And as I said, we will be having a special mini podcast to talk about the books that Tammie has written, and she's gonna talk about that whole process and what those books mean for her and what they're meant for other people, and then she'll do some readings from them. So please join us for that. That is gonna be fun to do that. So, is there any final words you have for anybody on this podcast, giving all the wide range of things that we've covered?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:38:54

Yeah.

Regina Sayer 1:38:55

Or not covered. Anything that we've not covered that you want to say something about?

Tammy Vecchiarelli 1:38:59

I think it's more so that being on the journey that I've been on for such a long time, there has been so many nuances. It's okay. Like it's okay to go through trauma. It's okay to learn who you are and take those steps, and it's okay for it to take time. It doesn't have to be like an instantaneous, I'm cured, like I thought when I was in my 20s, you know? It's okay to explore who you are and what you're meant to do.

Regina Sayer 1:39:28

Yeah. Yep, I agree. Okay. Well, thank you for that very interesting and fun conversation and a lot of different information there. And as listeners, you can see that Tammie's journey is very different from any other guests that I've interviewed. So it's going to be different from yours, it's gonna be different from your neighbour's, and that's the really awesome thing about it is that everybody has a different journey, everybody's got different perception, everybody uses different tools, and there's crossovers. And if you've liked anything that you've heard, try it out. Contact Tammie and you know, explore more anything that she's talked about. Definitely join us for the Mini podcast about her books. So until the next time, thanks again, Tammie. Thank you for joining us. And until the next time, listeners, thank you for listening and have a beautiful day. Hopefully, cooler than where I am in Belgium. Have a beautiful day wherever you are in this vast world. Bye, everyone.