Forum Radio: Anita Beacroft

In this week's episode, Jessica talks to Anita Beacroft (Singapore). Born and raised in Sydney, before moving to Tokyo and Hong Kong, Anita began her professional career in finance and property. Following health challenges, she trained in energy healing modalities from Reiki to meditation, and now runs The Ascended Heart, a transformational coaching company. She talks about the unconscious divide between what people say they want and what their body says they really want.

'The work that I do often requires you to suspend doubt for a moment and lean in,' says Anita. 'But everybody's looking for that something special, that invisible edge...that will optimise their skill set and allow them to achieve something important, powerful and impactful. It's unusual work but I absolutely love it.'

Transcript

Hello listeners, thank you very much for being with us today on Forum Radio. This is the podcast which features interviews with members of Forum who are spread all across the world, coming from diverse sectors and backgrounds. We can't always get together in the room, so this is one way for us to connect and learn more about each other.

So I'm Jessica Fellows and I'm talking today to Anita Beecroft in Singapore. Anita is a transformational coach and the founder of The Ascended Heart. She was born and raised in Sydney and began her professional life in the finance industry, which took her to Tokyo and Hong Kong before she landed in Singapore, where she worked first in the poverty sector.

But after some health challenges of her own, Anita decided to hone her skills by taking courses in energy healing modalities from Reiki to meditation. So it's really something quite different. So Anita, thank you very much for being with us today.

Thank you. I've given a brief summary here of the professional path that you've taken, but I'm sure there must be so much that underlies various decisions that you've taken and the experience you've gained. And we'll return to some of those starting points, but I'd like you to tell the Forum membership what it is that you do now and why you love doing it.

Thanks Jessica. So the work that I do now is transformational work, which means we're going in and this is interesting. Now I'm just going to panic a little bit.

So I'll just take a breath because I had this whole spiel about, I'm going to tell you about the professionals that I work with. So I'm going to take a breath. Take a breath.

And I'll tell you why the work I do has a spiritual edge to it. And that can make people really uncomfortable. So what I try to do is reword it in these situations so that people feel like it's something tangible and relatable.

So don't worry about that, but you know, it's best to try to be not on script, if you see what I mean, you know, just chat to me as if we just met at a party or something. And I'm saying, so let's start from here. So Anita, tell me about you.

What is it you do? Why is it you love what you do? Okay. So the work that I do is geared towards helping people to uncover what their motivators are and what's driving them so that they can achieve the dreams that they've set out for themselves. So often I'm listening to people and they're telling me what it is that motivates them and energetically their body is sending me another message.

I'm hearing something completely different. And I'll give you an example. So I had a lady who was a wellness entrepreneur, and she came to me and she was really concerned about how her voice showed up in the industry.

And what was interesting was, she was already quite accomplished. And when we dug down into it, there was a past life experience where she felt that her self-worth was challenged, and she'd taken a vow of silence. So in order to show up in this lifetime, really step into her power, she had to overcome these obstacles that she wasn't necessarily that conscious about.

But as soon as we started to do the energy work and clear and release it from her energetic body and her field and release it from her emotional body, everything opened up. All these doors opened and opportunities arrived. And she started to feel like she was living her best life.

So the work that I do often requires you to suspend doubt for a moment and lean in. And interestingly, I've had a lot of men show up and they're in very high level positions. Of course, there's a lot of discretion about the work we do, because I don't know that these people would necessarily identify in any way as particularly spiritual or interested in energy.

But everybody's looking for that something special, that cutting edge, that invisible edge, something that will just optimize their skill set and allow them to achieve something important and powerful and impactful. So it's unusual work, but I absolutely love it. The results speak for themselves and people are really happy with the outcomes.

I know that must be so very rewarding. And I'm sure they must come from a lot of very different professional backgrounds. I mean, you mentioned someone there from the wellness sector, and I know you'll be talking to people in finance and property background.

But do you find there's a common thread in anything, what brings people to you and maybe what unlocks what they're really asking for? Yes. So in my experience, the people who are quite accomplished and they're looking for that extra something, they're quite brave. So entrepreneurs and founders of businesses, they're really willing to lean in and see what else is there.

So the work I do is largely on a referral basis. So there's a lot of trust in the work that I do. And people will come in and I've had people from global supply chain companies, IT companies, Fortune 100, and a really important member from a historically important family, people who have already experienced quite a lot of success or privilege in their life.

And there is usually underneath everything, there's usually a nugget of truth, something that's a hidden, something that they're looking to develop. Maybe it's a passion project, or maybe it's something that they were told they couldn't do by someone in their family. And once you get to that level of success, you're looking for something that really speaks to your heart.

The one thing I noticed when I went to the forum meeting in Singapore, was we walked into that room and immediately, you're in a room with people who have impeccable energy, these people know what they're doing, they know why they're there, they're brave, they lean in. And they come in in a very collaborative, a collaborative way. And they just open up and they start sharing their stories and they start sharing what's working, what's not working, what's in their heart, what they want to achieve.

And occasionally, as they were speaking, you could feel them hold back. And I think everyone in the room feels it when you're holding back, you don't have to be an energy specialist for that to happen. But when they hold back, that's the thing that interests me the most.

So I will pause. And the work that I do allows me to read the energy body. So I'll scan the body, and I'll just see where the energy appears to be stuck.

And I instinctively, so I'm very visual, and I hear their audiently. So I start to receive images of what is, what is happening in the body, what is the story that they're not, they're not saying, and I'm not looking for your dark, deep, personal stories, you know, unless you come to me as a client, I don't have permission to look at that. All I'm looking at in a general setting, like before a meeting, is just, where's the discomfort, where's the friction.

And then as I pay attention to that, I always like to hold a space of compassion, I want to hold enough space that it's just, it's just a very easy energy to be in. And if there's anything that you need, that will just bring some relief into your energetic field. I'm paying attention to that I'm really listening to your body, I'm really, I mean, I'm invested.

So when I was at that meeting, I just loved how collaborative people were, how they just opened up immediately. And, and they, they went deep very quickly about what was going on in the business. And I recognize that that's a skill set that really comes with successful people, they know that there's a timeframe, they know they need to move on, and they get to the point very quickly.

And in doing so, it gives everybody in the room permission to lean in as well, and offer suggestions or seek them out at the coffee, you know, the coffee break later and, and ask a few more questions. And I, it was that level of collaboration that was so inspiring to me, because you have to feel really safe to do that. And I think you and Simon created that space.

And I said this to Simon, it was almost as if everyone just puts their weapons down at the door before they come in. And he laughed because he said, actually, that's, that's exactly what the intention is. Yeah, that's a lovely way of putting it.

And I didn't know that, but I thought that's exactly what I saw. And I think for people who are at the top of their game, the top of their, their field, to walk into a space and know they're not competing with anyone, because everyone in this room is highly accomplished, that brings great relief to their nervous systems, you know, you see their shoulders drop, you see them relax. And the next thing that I noticed was that you had a wonderful keynote speaker.

And he started speaking about his global experiences and the infrastructure projects that were he was passionate about. And as he was speaking, I think he spoke for 20-25 minutes, without pausing, I think you know exactly who I'm talking about. And without pausing, and he was and he just took everybody on a journey.

And as everyone's going on the journey, for me, I'm watching it, and I'm seeing energy moving around the room. And I started to see how, how everything seemed to sway. It was almost like watching starlings, you know, when they sweep through the sky.

I was watching all this energy. These people have laser sharp skills. They're listening for exactly what it is they need to hear in this conversation.

They can assess it, determine whether it's valuable to them, and then let it go within within seconds. I just watched all the energy like they rush forward and then move back. And it was really extraordinary.

And I know that Kelly is a MIT engineer, but also works with, I think she's a creative artist as well. And she works with kinetic energy in birds. And the thing I noticed was, there's so much of this energy that felt like, it felt like Kelly's presence was really quite important in this room, it seemed to have a lot of sway.

And anyway, so I watched the energy moving through the space and through the room, and I watched how people would lean in and lean back. And the extraordinary thing was, there was nothing aggressive about it. And that's amazing, because these people are hunters.

You know, if we're in the jungle, and we're tapping into that mammalian brain, when you're at the meeting room, you're in a room with leaders, hunters, they're the head of the pack. And they've come together in this environment where they're allowing themselves to be seen. And it was extraordinary to just watch how they ran through the process of deciding whether something was important to them or not, and how they filed it away and stored it.

And at the end of it, I think I was just so joyful that there are rooms where people are all in, all chips are in, they're not holding back. And they're the rooms that I want to be in. At least I think I want to be.

So thank you so much. That's a very moving description. Actually, it's very nice to hear, because one of the things about Forum often is that we say to people, prospective members, you really have to come and be in the room to know what it feels like to be a Forum member.

It's quite difficult to explain sometimes, you know, kind of what that energy does feel like. So thank you very much. That's given us a really, really lovely description.

I'm interested in the visualising of energy. Was that something that you felt you could do before you started doing this training? Was it something that was coming up for you? So I've been able to do that since I was a child. And of course, there's always a formative moment where your parents are like, don't do that, that makes people uncomfortable, or don't say that.

And that happened for me, between the ages of eight and 10, where I just, I would see things very, very clearly. And it just made people uncomfortable. So I learned to just file that back.

And then when I went into property, which was interesting, because that was something I just was doing on side. And then I actually had so much fun, I was really enjoying it. And it became a great job to have while I was, you know, bringing up my son as well.

And I would meet people. And immediately, you begin to learn about how they handle transition, you know, from the home country to Singapore. And what did safety mean to them? What did ambition mean to them? How did they want to show up in this space? And when I was watching them, when we look at property, it was interesting to notice that the CEOs, the people who were really in position, positions of importance, how comfortable they were with themselves.

I mean, not all of them were. And it was interesting, because they're very accomplished. There were a couple of inspiring CEOs, there was one who was the global head of an advertising company, and just so in his body, and so present, and so comfortable with himself, treated everybody impeccably.

And so you'd be out with him. And honestly, just, it goes beyond energy, you just, he felt such, so comfortable to be around. And then I had a couple of clients where you go out, and they were at the top of their game, but they were demanding and rude and obnoxious.

And you'd, you'd sit there and think, I know that there's another way to be, it's really unfortunate that you don't think you can stand in your power without behaving this way. But that person would be a prime client, because actually, behind, and you know this, but behind all of these people are it's their lineage, it's their past lives, it's their experiences, it's their childhood in this lifetime, it's formed who they are. And it informs how they show up in the world.

So it's really important to sit in stillness and think about what is it that I want. So I'd listen to these people all day. And I'm thinking, what do you really want? You know, they talk about their achievements, and they talk about what they wanted for their family.

And then I just listen to their heart. And I get very, very still. And often, it's validation, often it's to be seen, to be acknowledged.

I think for a lot of men, there's so much expectation when you're very successful to be everything all the time. And it's exhausting. And it was one of the things I noticed at that forum meeting, that as people started to relax, I just noticed how very tired people were.

And I thought, oh, that's really interesting. Because that's something we don't generally let people see about us. But when we're in safe spaces, we could lean back and reveal ourselves a little more.

And I thought, what would it take for people at this level, this skill level, to lean into tools that would make what they do even easier. And as unpopular as it may be, it's stillness, it's meditation, it's breath work, it's being in nature, it's taking time out. And I know a lot of people don't feel that they have that kind of time.

But it's so nourishing, and it's so important. So if you can get into your heart, when you're in important situations, and align with who you are, align with your messaging and say, what is it that I really want in this moment. And I think it's relief.

I think people need relief from the stress. So instead of as we're watching everybody, during the meeting, focusing on what's happening, that requires a lot of energy, even if you have a high skill set that requires energy. But if we could get you to relax, come into your heart space, breathe, maybe give you a couple of tools.

Jinjinjitsu tools are fantastic. And now pay attention to what's happening. Feels like there'd be a lot less effort.

It feels like the people who are for you in the room would reveal themselves to you. And the information that you need would be just the conversation that you would have. An example of that is, I got to sit next to the wonderful Anton Oliver.

And it was interesting, because clearly, you know, we have this Maori New Zealand lineage in common. And I didn't, okay, you probably shouldn't put this in the recording. I didn't know who he was, of course, because I don't watch rugby.

Don't put it in because I'll be the most unpopular person. But he sat down, what he exudes is warmth. What he does is he knows himself.

He's a leader. He's carried countries on his back, you know, and you literally can feel it. So when he showed up and sat next to me, I mean, it should have clicked.

Because what I felt like, I was sitting next to a quarterback, because I felt like I was sitting next to someone who had these great big shoulder pads and all of this, you know, armor. And I thought it was just warrior energy. I was thinking, oh, here's warrior energy.

And of course, it wasn't just that. But when he got up to speak, he got up with a panel of three men. Each man was impeccable.

They spoke beautifully. They had a wonderful message. When Anton spoke, the thing that really struck me was the first thing he did was acknowledge his family.

He said, well, I've been taking care of my mother. And he acknowledged his family. And there was a sense of an exhalation, like, like, people could just relax and maybe sit back and just relax, like, come back into yourself.

And he spoke a little bit about that. And then he started speaking about the business. And then Simon beautifully said, Can you tell us a little bit about your greatest failure, which I don't think anybody really wants to talk about.

But it is so informative, because not only is it brave, it's you're teaching, you're teaching and you're teaching from a perspective of someone who's been through something and is coming out the other side of it. And that kind of real time, business information is important. It's important to know that you know, it's you're on the way to success as you're overcoming these hurdles.

So as he spoke, the thing that I really felt as I looked across was the trust that he had endeared by or engendered by by telling his story first, but by mentioning family first. During different conversations, I noticed that when people went to mention family, they literally look up and then pause and then just change the subject. So you knew it was a hard, like a too hard subject.

And I think sometimes when you're working really hard, and you've got a huge mandate, and you're changing the world. There are things that fall into the hard basket, and it becomes important to pause and stop and say at some point, we're going to need to unpack that. Because at some point when you're at the top of your game, and you're you're launching that new business, that's probably going to show itself and make itself available for you to resolve.

And again, more bravery, you're going to need to lean in and look at that. So yeah, I learned so many lessons from that. I mean, I was there for half a day, but I had a brilliant time.

It's really exciting. And I find that really interesting, because when you know, we sort of we were talking a little bit before we started this recording, you know, about confidence and what that takes. And one of my top tips with public speaking, so I do quite a lot of public speaking, and I love it.

And my number one tip for nervous people is that actually, your first role is to look very comfortable up there. If you look comfortable when you're speaking, then everybody in the room relaxes, because they always they'll always work on your behalf. That's what I always find really interesting.

So if somebody starts looking nervous, or, you know, fiddling around with lots of bits of paper, or they said, everybody stops listening, holds their breath, and starts worrying about the speaker, you know, and, and so that that's, you kind of lose the audience. And then I don't know that I'd see energy, but I know when I'm talking, you can really feel it in a room, you know, when people are listening. And when they're not, even if they're not making any noises, or laughing, or, you know, whatever's helpful.

So I think what's nice about what you're saying is, I think, obviously, what you have is a very special skill, but there's a level at which we're all doing it without even realising. Exactly, that was, that was the exciting part was, this is what I do, this is what I'm most passionate about. And I'm sitting in a room with people who instinctively do it, like they're instinctively leaning in.

So in that space, with a little more encouragement, you can, you can lean in, and you can learn a little more, and you can use it a little more, and, and it becomes really fun. You know, that keynote speaker that you had, and I don't know if you want to put this in the recording, but I saw his, his, he has a very specific muse or spirit guide. I said muse, because I think authors always have a muse.

But when he was speaking, he had a very specific guide, and it looked like a very big master, I can still remember it. And he was behind him. And literally, he's behind him.

And that man was just channeling it straight through. What he did was he trusted himself so much that he offered no resistance to the messaging that's coming through. So the messaging is just flowing, and it's really beautiful and captivating.

And of course, he's, he's rehearsed it, and he's done it a number of times. And that's his business. He's a communicator, that's his role in life.

And he does it superbly. And it's because he doesn't block it, he doesn't stop it. So much Anita.

Would you tell me a little bit about, you know, the growth of your business? I mean, what do you see yourself doing in five years? And is there anything we can do as a foreign membership to help you get there? Thank you. That's very, very kind of you to ask. So in five years, five years time, hmm.

I was thinking about this earlier. And I love this business. What I really love is the idea that people will suspend out for a moment, get out of their heads, get into their heart, really lean in, and start to pay attention to what their body's telling them.

Trust and take action upon that, and really explore what's available to us moving forward. Interestingly, I'm seeing three fields of study that seem to be having awakenings. And they seem to be mathematicians, physicists, and chiropractors.

I know chiropractors get a bad rap sometimes. But I think what it is with chiropractors is they really understand the spine, they understand energy centers and chakras. So and they understand how, you know, the importance of your circulation and how breath can really bring relief into certain parts of the body, so that you can create a little healing and relieve the stress within your body.

So I think chiropractors seem to be a field that is standing out. What I love about mathematicians and physicists who are waking up, and they're recording it, they're documenting it, I'm very surprised. But I'm loving it, because what they're doing is they're giving language to things that traditionally were thought of as spiritual, or a bit out there, or that's an unknown.

And if you can't quantify it, then it doesn't really exist. And I love the idea that that's happening now, because that means that in five years with my business, there'll be more language, there'll be more case studies, there'll be more evidence of what we're doing. So it'll go beyond being anecdotal.

And that's exciting, because this work's important. I have clients who are coming in, I had one Swiss businessman who's at the top of his game, very excited about, you know, project he's working on, but he kept walking into meetings, and he'd go from zero to 100 very quickly. He was really struggling with anger issues, and not only at work, but at home as well.

And we did some work, and we unpacked a past life where he had been a battlefield doctor. And at some point, a young man is dying on the table. And the visual I saw was him just looking up with absolute fury and rage in his body, as to why this was happening, just how and how impotent he felt in that moment.

So what was happening now in this present life was that he didn't really have any conscious recollection of his past life. But whenever he was having experiences where the energy of the experience here, and it would happen often in meetings, where there was a lot of pressure, and he was overwhelmed, it matched the energy of that past life experience. And it would literally trigger it and awaken it within his cellular memory.

And all of a sudden, he'd be having a response to something that didn't match the moment. And I always say this, especially to young people, if somebody's ever having a response to something, and the emotion doesn't match the moment, you need to pause, you can exercise compassion. If you have the skill set, you can validate what they're saying.

Or you can leave, because what they're having is a heightened experience. Because their cellular body has this memory, and it wants to resolve, it wants to heal it. Because if it can actually give language to it and express itself, it can release it.

And when you release past life issues, your body feels heard and seen, and it feels loved, and it feels like you're advocating for it, and it completely relaxes. And you could say that this is, you know, this is made up. It's truthful, I've seen it over and over and over.

If there's a woman and she won't speak up, and we do some energy work, and she can release a vow of silence, or suppression from a past life experience, what you'll notice is in the next coming weeks, she starts to gain confidence, she speaks more clearly, everything improves, doors open, opportunities come towards her, she doesn't have to work so hard anymore. So with this Swiss man, we cleared the energy around it. We also gave him a few somatic tools, or a few physical tools.

So, you know, as he's leaving a meeting, it's interesting, his body wants to hang on to the stress of the meeting. So it was literally like walking out of a meeting room, coming back into breath, coming back into stillness. And he had this energy about him.

He loves fishing. So there was an idea that because we want to give you a somatic tool that's really relevant for you that your body will actually recognize and acknowledge. So I said, imagine that you're taking all the stress.

And it's in a big, you know, a fishing basket, and I want you to or on a fishing line and just toss it back into the water. And it was really interesting that just this motion of throwing something away was enough to regulate his system. And then he'd take we did, you know, the four, seven, eight breath, maybe do three cycles of the four, seven, eight breath where you breathe in for four, hold for seven, breathe out for eight.

And as we went through those cycles, his whole body just relaxed. Now we're developing muscle memory around these tools, so that he can reregulate. And the only other thing that you need to do when you're doing energy workers, once you start to clear things, you do need to make new choices, you need to show up in a new way.

So it would be like having an operation and, and they remove something. And they're like, okay, now you have to eat cleanly, so that your body can stay healthy. And then the first thing you do is go out and have a cigarette.

Do you know, like, if you don't, if you don't choose to take action and to make new choices for yourself, it's very hard to uphold the energy clearing. It'll work on some level, but what happens is you're more likely to just attract it back in. Yeah.

Thank you so much, Anita. It's been so interesting. I want to book a session with you now.

Unfortunately, we've run out of time for this particular podcast recording, but thank you so much for listening to all of you who are and remember that although Anita is sitting in Singapore, you can connect with her from wherever you are. Just go on to forum.club and find her details. And just keep an eye on all the events on forum.club that are coming up for whatever chapter you're in.

If you're traveling elsewhere, make sure you join the WhatsApp group and let them know that you'll be in town. So until we speak to you again next week, goodbye.