Overcoming Anything

Overcoming a Lack of Intimacy with Authentic Ecstasy with Elisabeth Serra

• Anne Vryonides • Season 1 • Episode 51

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Episode 051: Overcoming a Lack of Intimacy with Authentic Ecstasy with Elisabeth Serra

Intimacy is often thought of as romance, sexuality, or closeness with another person, but Elisabeth Serra brings a much deeper definition. In this episode of Overcoming Anything, host Anne Vryonides sits down with Elisabeth to explore intimacy as the ability to stay in true contact with yourself, your body, your sensations, and the present moment, even when life feels painful or uncomfortable.

Elisabeth Serra is a guide, teacher, and wisdom keeper who helps people come home to themselves through the body, the heart, and the courage to live more truthfully. Through embodiment, sensation, presence, and what she calls the relational field, Elisabeth shares how we can stop outsourcing love, stop abandoning ourselves, and begin returning to the intelligence of the body.

Key Takeaways
• Intimacy begins with the ability to stay in contact with yourself, especially when discomfort, pain, or conflict arises
• The mind often rushes in to explain, blame, escape, or protect, but the body holds the doorway to clarity
• Sensation is the path: when you stay with what is happening in the body, the next truth, boundary, or action can naturally arise

Timestamps
• 00:00: Introduction: overcoming a lack of intimacy with authentic ecstasy
• 02:10: Elisabeth’s mantra: “I am the one I’m looking for”
• 05:00: Why life is not something to overcome, but something to experience and alchemize
• 09:00: Staying present when life brings pain, discomfort, or adversity
• 14:00: Why the mind tries to rescue us from sensation
• 19:00: The body as the doorway to clarity, contact, and true intimacy
• 24:00: How conflict pulls us into survival consciousness
• 29:00: Why intimacy is the capacity to stay in contact with what is happening now
• 34:00: The eight keys of communication and the practice of bringing your energy back in
• 39:00: How we see others through our filters, stories, and old wounds
• 44:00: The deep feminine as the capacity to stay in relationship
• 49:00: Why couples, families, and communities often go to war instead of contact
• 54:00: How to cultivate the feeling of falling in love within yourself
• 59:00: Archetypes, embodiment, movement, and returning to the wisdom of the body
• 01:05:00: Simple first steps: notice sensation before meaning
• 01:10:00: How the body reveals truth through tightness, heat, contraction, sound, and movement
• 01:15:00: Why emotions are labels, but sensation is the deeper doorway
• 01:20:00: True intuition versus fear, conditioning, and survival patterns
• 01:26:00: Why midlife can disconnect people from desire, aliveness, and joy
• 01:31:00: Dance, movement, creativity, nature, and body awareness as paths back to intimacy
• 01:37:00: Eye gazing, presence, and learning to stay with another person without escaping
• 01:42:00: A powerful client story: moving from collapse into self-recognition
• 01:47:00: Elisabeth’s final wisdom: “I am the love I’m looking for”
• 01:52:00: Recommended resources, books, and films

Connect with Elisabeth Serra
• Elisabeth’s website: https://authenticecstasy.com/https://authenticecstasy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reels/C-lJG1jIbF6/ https://www.instagram.com/reels/C-lJG1jIbF6/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewombportal/ https://www.facebook.com/thewombportal/
• Elisabeth’s podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/38LrWe7USpKgw0XrnnMmKs 

Resources
• Elisabeth’s forthcoming book, coming soon
• The Tantric Quest: An Encounter with Absolute Love by Daniel Odier, https://a.co/d/00SXSMA1
• Movie The Matrix
• Movie Lucy

If this episode helped you, share it with someone who feels disconnected from their body, their desire, their truth, or their ability to stay present in relationships. You are the love, the freedom, and the connection you have been looking for. I’ll see you next time on Overcoming Anything.
 ❤️ Anne

Disclaimer
The content of this episode is for informational and inspirational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy, diagnosis, legal, medical, or relationship counseling.

#overcominganything #midlifetransformations #energyhealing #resilience #intimacy #authenticecstasy #embodiment #somatichealing #bodywisdom #emotionalhealing #relationshiphealing #consciousrelationships #tantra #feminineenergy #selfconnection #nervoussystemregulation #traumahealing #healingjourney #desire #midlifeawakening #presence #selflove #personaldevelopment #overcomingadversity #podcast #podcastlife #podcastcommunity #podcasthost


intimacy, lack of intimacy, authentic ecstasy, embodiment, somatic healing, body wisdom, conscious relationships, relationship healing, tantra, emotional healing, self connection, feminine energy, nervous system regulation, trauma healing, presence, sensation, desire, midlife awakening, self love, Elisabeth Serra

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Anne

Welcome to Overcoming Anything, the podcast where we dive deep into stories of resilience, transformation, and growth. I'm your host, Ann Vide, and today we have an incredible guest who helps people overcome a lack of intimacy using authentic ecstasy. It's gonna be super exciting. So joining me today is Eli. Joining me today is Elizabeth Serra. She's a beautiful force of wisdom, freedom, and deep feelings, and she helps people come home to themselves through the body, the heart, and courage to live more truthfully. This is going to be a very powerful and heart opening conversation. Welcome to the show, Elizabeth.

Elisabeth

hello Annie. Thank you for having me. Love to be here with you today.

Anne

My pleasure. So before we dive in, I'd love to ask, what's one quote or mantra that keeps you going in tough times?

Elisabeth

I am the one I'm looking for.

Anne

Ooh. And how has that changed your life?

Elisabeth

Well. It's not aqui about changing my life, it's about realizing that life is full of changes continuously. The question is, can I inhabit my body, stay in contact with the changes and not turn it into the trauma that lives within me, which is history. And I project into the events that which I fear, and then they appear in that way. is returning to presence, which is what I called, the vertical line that which connects us from the infinite to the finite, and this is our spine. And from that place, we can recover what I call the feminine, which is the feeling open, receptive capacity to intuit and to be with the simplicity of life. So that's the marriage. When I am not connected, when I am not in that presence and in that vulnerability, which is fierce and powerful, then life becomes something to overcome, if that makes sense, rather than something to experience and alchemize it and take the gold like the Alchemist, you put base metals. Yes. and they transformed. i'm coming from slightly different perspective here. What I hear in your question is what? What keeps you connected? What allows you to stay? When life says, not today, no baby. Today you're gonna experience a big slap, something that's really gonna hurt You know something that's. Stumble you and make you be an inch close to the ground. And can I stay there and not make it into a drama collapse, live, transcend, bypass, explain myself or teach myself something, but rather than in the experience, if I can stay. This. We haven't been taught how to stay in intimacy. Another word better than intimacy because it connects with sexual partners. Intimacy has an image of bodies and sexuality, and for some people is can I stay in contact in true contact and present with what's happening? And then it changes.

Anne

That was really profound. So when someone has fallen and their face is two inches from the pavement, like you just mentioned, how do they stay peaceful? How do they stay grounded in that adversity?

Elisabeth

Yes.

Anne

When they haven't even gotten back up.

Elisabeth

Yeah. The first thing is when I am not inviting people to find peace, because peace means I am not peaceful and I have to get to peacefulness. is something outside looking for peace, resolution love. Power, integrity. Yeah. All of that becomes something that there's a distance between me that I'm two inches from the floor and no less, to that thing I have to achieve, which is peace. What's gonna happen when I fall? What gonna happen when I experience something? Let's say that is painful, not pleasurable, painful. what comes into rescue me is the mind why the mind does not feel, and I have a backlog. We have a backlog of not being able to stay in contact with sensation. Now, this is what I'm talking about. if you stay with the experience, not with what the mind is saying, not only that, the mind is also coming to rescue you, and it's gonna drag all your stories about that thing. This is happening to me again. I've fallen before. Why am I falling again? What have I done wrong? What have you done wrong? Who can I blame? So I go into panic. Yeah. Or then I can go into God and ask for light, for salvation, for somebody to rescue me, either a person or something bigger. Yet the intangible, whatever my beliefs are, and what I am bringing here is, okay, I am the one experiencing the hit, the pain, the discomfort, which is real. It's in the body. It's not pleasurable. Okay. I'm having something, I've lost something that I love. I'm evoked in something that somebody said being done, a situation that causes me. Pain. now the tendency is to not be able to stay in contact with the sensation. So then I have to gain altitude, or I have to go to psychology to go to someone to explain how, why did I created that? Why is this happening in my life to get meaning? Nothing wrong with that. Human. We do that. I've done that.

Anne

Yes.

Elisabeth

But that's not what I'm bringing. What I'm bringing is, and this is something for the people who are listening right now, if you actually, and this is a muscle that you get to develop, have the capacity to stay with the sensation. Grief, like we say, grief, rage, unjust, not feeling seen, collapse. Yeah. And all the drama that ensues from that trigger. If I can stay with a sensation, not with what I make it mean. Sensations have a journey of one leads to another. The body begins to move. I feel I collapse. I let myself collapse. Whatever has happened. The elements keep changing. The fire, get, feel I was in grief in water. Then I feel angry, then I feel, but not the story, the sensation. My body has an intelligence. Everybody not mine. everyone has intelligent, their body to take us through. And then the true wisdom, the next step, what I have to be, do, say, will arrive from a place of connection and alignment and intimacy rather than, I have a problem. I have to find a solution. I have something that's bad and I'm going to be strong and overcome it. That's beautiful and people overcome the most incredible things, right? So I am taking a step, different step because what I'm talking is about the relational feel, staying in deep embodiment and capacity to stay with sensation. And for the ones who are listening to us now, whatever your situation, you're in pain. The mind is saying, this terrible thing is happening to me, right? if you focus on the sensation, what's, where do you feel this pain? Okay, my chest. What's happening in your chest Is contracting. Okay. Stay there. it's like doors that begin to open out of the labyrinth and the sensation leads to another till you find your way out into. Clarity into contact, into connection. But that is not easy. Why? Because we have generations of internalized nervous system trauma. We have past and not being able to stay in our bodies. 'cause we are all quite disembodied and in our minds. So then what happens is the mind takes over and the body is left behind and the body is somatize us and it's gap that is the torture. So what I'm saying, if can stay with the body, which that needs practice and tools to stay and to. Come back into your spine. Into your body, then life happens. Not life hits you. Life happens, and you continuously stay in that contact, in that intimacies, like can you stay in contact when. Things are difficult. Can you stay in, present in intimacy with the other, with the situation? Not like we go, we retreat, we avoid, we feel. Yeah, we react. Can we stay? When we stay there, something happens. And what happens is the relational feel unravels that situation and it becomes something unexpected Gold and is your next evolutionary step is in that pain.

Anne

Just simplifying recap. So let's say someone got into an argument with their partner and it was pretty. Heated. So when those emotions come up in the body, would you suggest that the person step away into a room by themselves and turn off their mind so they're not replaying old stories and just feel the emotions in their body and process it and cry or whatever they need to do. And then as they move through the emotion, then at the end point they'll receive clarity? Is that what you're saying? Or did I misunderstand you?

Elisabeth

partly. So that might have to happen at the beginning. And I teach many keys so that you learn capacity. It's like lifting weight. you first, you start with five kilowatts, 10 kilos, 20 kilos. You get to a point that you're in front of your partner, or whatever. And that is something that hurts. The argument is not is because I can't stay with the sensations or the other, can't stay with the sensations in their body of what's ev being evoked between and the mind, which totally takes us out of our body, begins to tell stories and it says. This is not fair. You are wrong. I'm right. You're right. You're wrong. We begin to find a way. 'cause the, the mind is always, the ego's always right. I'm the right, it's like it's survival. It's survival consciousness. I am better. I am worst, but I'm better at being the worst, whichever it is. Whether you inflate or you deflate you are the one, right? Carry out this life, and the mind does it in a certain way, which is what I call survival consciousness. So you upset me. I, please, am I explained? Am I collapse? Am I attack? Am I blame? But inside, lost connection with myself and with you, and I resent you. So that's what happens, whether it's a person or a situation. So what I'm saying is when you train yourself to stay in your body so that I eventually you don't need to do all the bedroom and all the crying and all the processing. It's like it's, I have practices that you learn, not, it's not to process, it's to be able to stay in contact in intimacy with what's happening and present is what I call the inner marriage, masculine feminine. Then the other appears. And says something that you experience as very hurtful. insensitive. Very, whatever. Yeah. The other is the other, you're not there to control the other is also in survival strategy. So they do things to protect themselves. Everybody's protecting with that pain. I'm saying the pain is the portal, but not the mental pain, the sensational pain. We are sensational beings. And that we have not been taught. And that's what I call the relational feel. And the relational feel is our chemical. And one, one metaphor I can use is like when two people fall in love or when two people come together and we say, oh, I love this, this openness, this unobstructed feeling, a new life comes from there. Babies from that place, that attraction of masculine, that attraction between masculine, feminine, it's a field. So what I'm inviting is people to enter that field, which is not dependent on another, when you enter that field that is that it's a kind of embodied consciousness. have that traction, that masculine family and that presence and that contact. Capacity to stay. So you say something hurtful right now? Yeah, and I feel the contraction and I stay. I don't go, I react and I start attacking or arguing with you or doing something or diverting or making into some philosophy. If I stay, then I can stay with that discomfort and I don't react. And when I don't react, something new begins to happen. When I don't react, attack, blame, bypass, explain, transcend, saying, oh, it doesn't matter. Everything is God. Everything is beautiful. She's insulting me, but I am not touched by it. Yeah, you're an untouchable. You don't let life affect you're transcending. But when I'm saying no, feel it. Stay present and something happens.

Anne

And how do we get the keys to the portal?

Elisabeth

So the one, one basic thing, I, there's one thing I offer, which is the eight keys of communication, which actually I can give you a link and people can download it for free. It's ways of, so the eight keys to, to go very quickly. The first one is a hundred in. So you bring your energy, you stop outsourcing, you stop giving your power away, seeking for recognition, for power, for love, for something. Someone out there that's gonna give you the answer. You pull like a fisherman, you pull the real in, and then you begin to feel what I call the pulse in your body. The life force, the sound of silence. You begin to stay when nothing's happening big in your life. No drama. So you practice staying present, not just present, present in your body. Got it. With the family. Presence in your body, then you, that's one of the keys. Then the other one is like, all you have is your own experience. So like right now, all you having an experience that you can try to communicate the experience you're telling, you're having. Pleasant and pleasant. And I can get an, an idea or some, some empathy from what you experience. But it, I will never have your experience. I can only have mine. And mine is not better or worse than yours. It's like allowing, realizing that you have the filters, you have the five senses, and a lot of what we see outside a lot like seeing you. I see not I don't see you. I see you through my filters my of my story, of my mind. So to see you outside my mind outside, what I want to see from you is to stay in the pure energy. Intimacy with you right now here, but I can't be in intimacy with you if I'm not in intimacy with me.

Anne

So true. Yes.

Elisabeth

Right?

Anne

Yeah.

Elisabeth

I might seek it, but then it's like I am outside myself. So the first two is like a hundred in, and there's ways of cultivate. One of them is movement. A lot of movement, making our spine strong, making our body, desensitize again. the body that can feel, that's why we love touch or some of us that, if we're not too traumatized there because we feel sensation. Yeah. and to return to that capacity of what it is to have this body that carries the universal cosmic intelligence, it's kind of cosmic dust. Cosmic intelligence and all the information of your ancestors and of humanity, all of these in a organism. And to manage that, I have to inhabit it and open door slowly so I can learn to feel. And when I am in, it's like being in love. You know, when you're in love, you feel your potential, and everybody says, oh, you look wonderful. are you in love? Right? cause you are entering the field. But then the tragedy comes that we think is that person. I feel like that because of him. Because of her. And then I wanna build a home with them and I want to possess them. And then of course the pain body comes out and we know what happens next. so that movement out outsourcing to, to look for that we are looking for love, but love is you are is to wake up in the middle of love and that is embodied. We can't stop outsourcing if we don't bring consciousness. Into the body, feel it, and it's super, it is an erotic intelligence, then the world does things. but you stay, and actually as you begin to stay and make contact, what comes towards you is different because a lot of our. things that we experience are reenactments by default from our narratives of pain that we have inherited in our nervous system. That it's like you, you're very contracted. You don't even know it. You're very tense, you're very stressed. You walk around through the world and what you magnetize is more of the same. And then sometimes that disconnection expresses itself through a big illness, through a big rupture of some, some sort of an initiation.

Anne

Yes.

Elisabeth

And then that's your podcast, isn't it? The initiation. Then people find God, find a voice, find someone or something, and gets them to connect in some sort of way. And what I'm saying is, yes. That's wonderful. Welcome home. You're beginning to pay attention to yourself. Yeah. But now how much you wanna be home, how much you got to stop outsourcing and staying in contact. And that's the deep feminine that we repressed for thousands of years. The deep feminine. It's not pink, it's not lovey-dovey. It's not that deep. Feminine is our capacity to stay in relationship. And this is the last thing I wanna say, because I've been speaking a lot and maybe I have things to

Anne

say. No, this is great. I love it.

Elisabeth

Like the war the we're in. Couples are in war. People are in war. Continents come together. Countries come together of traumatized people. Generational, and I have so much resentment, so much pain, and you touch a little spot and then off we go. And it's because we don't know how to relate. We don't know how to be in contact. We don't know. Couples don't know how to be in intimacy. Intimacy is not touchy. Conversations candlelight and being nice with each other. Intimacy is the capacity to have deep contact with what's happening in the moment, whether it's pleasurable or painful. And that's embodiment and that's the relational field and the field changes and then the magic begins to happen.

Anne

So how are people able to cultivate that? Sense of falling in love within themselves.

Elisabeth

Yeah, so obviously I've ruined courses the last two years is a process that, and then eventually it ends in an initiation, which is, it's like the moment in which you reenact rather than slowly through your life. The same scenarios we create the scenario that you most fear and you have, you know, they do. Art sculpture, a lot of movement, a lot of writing, a lot of practices, a lot of experiential dynamics in which you embody all the archetypes, which is the mother earth body, organs, the warrior, which is your fire, your will. Your clarity, your boundary, which is buried in your child of history, which is in your rage and your nang and your anger, your irritation, which is mild forms of the same. Then the water, the lover, the capacity to feel to sensate, so there is all these practices, then the shaman, which is the capacity to stay connected. The unknown to open to the unknown, to the what you and your podcast. Many people come into the, what we call spirit realm. In your own way without intermediary. So this is a process of embodiment, of cleaning the elements. then in each of these archetypes, you develop gifts. One is the ground. Earth to be able to exist all the way down to your vulva, to your feet, to your staying. Then in the warrior, you develop your fierceness, your clarity, not to react or attack. The aggression that we have the self in some of us is mental, is like judgment. Others or yourself, but it's also emotional. You are in contain rage that's there, and then the physical. the emotion, the anger in your body. They need to push, so all these goods open so it's distilled into clarity and will not, the ego will, I got to achieve it, but the natural pure will that's aligned to your purpose of coming here. And then the lover is the waters, the cleaning, the being able to stay in contact. That is the contact. That is the closeness. Not to be afraid of contact. we don't look at each other, with people. You have to make a safety with somebody that follows your narrative. You take them in and say, okay, you're gonna be special. And I'm gonna open a little bit more just with you. that's what the rest just okay, I don't trust you. Don't trust, we protect, right? We're protecting to, to embody means, to stop protecting. Not that you don't need to stay in a state of alarm and protection. You protect if it's something to protect that is real. If somebody comes with a knife, you know, but the rest, apart from being attacked physically or your property, it's all energetic. Right. Apart from some physical obvious things that you have to be meted physically. The rest is like, if I say, you're stupid, Annie, I haven't touched you. It's gonna hurt.

Anne

Right

Elisabeth

and then you're going to, you're gonna go, you're going to react. In different ways by attacking me back or by saying, okay. And distance yourself from me rather than stay. Stay in relationship and say, okay, I hear that you're saying this to me. I'm curious to know what's happening. Is there something I said or done that is upset you? I want to know your reality, for example, but I stay

Anne

Right.

Elisabeth

Rather than cutting you off. Absolutely. So it's a process of arrival, of embodiment, of managing energy. That's very doable and our grandmothers and our forefathers haven't taught us, and the world is a war. You done that. You said that if you hurt me, I'll destroy you. That's the basis. Destroy you in any way I can. By rejecting you, by whatever, or by throwing you a bomb.

Anne

Yes.

Elisabeth

But all we are doing is protecting from pain.

Anne

It sounds like an incredible program that dives so deep. but for some of our listeners who may not have two years to go into it, what are some simple yeah. Processes that they could use to start making change today?

Elisabeth

Okay, beautiful. I love it. Okay, so begin today by, staying with sensation. When there is nothing big happening, so what's happening in my front line? Take a moment and just stay with the sensations in your body and, oh, my tummy is really tight, or I'm not breathing very deep. My shoulders feel and stay there, rather than, oh yeah, that's because my shoulders are like that. Because, no, I'm feeling tied because. Not because I'm not interested in the meaning. don't jump. The body is calling you. Yeah. Somebody says something rather than your reaction. this person, you know what they're like. Don't listen to them. No. This person is coming to your life. He's done something, said something. And it's hurt in your body. That is a contraction. That contraction is yours. That discomfort, that tightness, that tingling, that that heat, that cold part in your body. That's the path. That's the door. The sensation is the door to actually clarity and wisdom because then everything, if you can stay, 'cause what we can't do is stay with the sensation. That's why the mind comes in, because it's training. And that's why you do the psychological bit. How many people have done 10, 20 years of therapy? Nothing changes much. You understand the beginning of your wounding and how your family and whatever, very useful, but it doesn't change the reaction because it's nervous system stuff is inner weather stuff. So the shot is can you stay with your weather? you get up in the morning, it's raining, it's sunny, it's cold, it's hot, it's wind. That's not gonna stop. The weather is not gonna go, is it?

Anne

No, it's there. You adapt.

Elisabeth

And we have weather, don't we? you get up in the morning for no reason. Nothing is wrong. You don't need a big trauma. You're low, you're high, you're this, you're that. You have weather, and the mind is continuously commenting into why. And one day there'll be something, someone, you'll have money, you'll have this, you'll feel fine. That day never arrives. The question is, can you be with your weather? And then when you're with your weather, the weather is no longer a threat. And then you can see that you are not just weather. Weather is, let's not pretend that there is no weather and the other has also weather,

Anne

right?

Elisabeth

So can we be with each other's weather? That relationship?

Anne

I think we can wear our rain boots, our rain slicker. A hat? No, I'm just kidding.

Elisabeth

Yeah. That will be what we do. You see we do is we defend, that's why intimacy goes and love. It's not,

Anne

Wow. That's profound. Yes. And that you only build that muscle through staying with your own emotions before you can be there to support someone else's emotions, correct?

Elisabeth

Yes, but you said what can I give to the, our audience, beloved audience here? Emotions is already a step too far. I'm gonna take a even down because emotion is already a sticker. so if I ask you, so what are you feeling now? the mind can't feel anything. So if you're in your mind, you can't already say anything. and then you've learned, I'm feeling shame, I'm feeling grief, I'm feeling sadness. I'm feeling irritation. I'm feeling, rage, feeling anger. Feeling frustration. Yeah. those are titles, stickers, and I'm just saying, go deeper. I'm feeling angry. And then for example, you shouldn't be angry. anger is bad. Don't express your anger. That's gonna be terrible. So do you see the engagement here? But if you say, I'm feeling angry, right. You're working with me. Right now I say, okay, feeling I'm not gonna ask you why what's triggering. Not yet. So where do you feel your anger in your body right now? My belly. What? What does the sense I feel hot. Yeah. Then can you stay there? Can you stay with that heat? Then I feel in my throat. Now my throat is tightening. Okay, let's go there. Sustain your throat. Stand your throat. Totally innocent. If you were extraterrestrial with a human body for an afternoon, right? You're just tracking. And then what does the throne, the throat wants to? The throne wants to make sound. Okay. What sound like? Like a scream. Okay. Don't go for the scream. Come from let, just open what's true. No, it's That's the millimeter next step. That's the little step for you is this, ah, and then the body, ah, it's a body recognition. It arrives, it sees it, and then from that the clarity comes, ah. This is, I'm angry with, the, the wisdom comes. It's not from the mind. You're angry because they said, da, da, No. You get the clarity of what you need to do. You need to put a boundary here. You need to go to that person and say what you need to with contact, with connection. do you see what I'm saying? So we go deeper than the title of the emotions that the emotions reveals. After sensation

Anne

that is so profound. It's so simple, but not very easy to do because so many of us are trained to just override our emotion or override the sensations in our body. Oh, I gotta keep going. Oh, I don't have time to be tired. Oh, that sore throat, oh, I don't have time for that. And we just push and override the sensations in our body and that, Ooh, I got goosebumps. That is so powerful.

Elisabeth

Then we have a crisis. You don't listen to your body. You don't listen to your body, you don't listen to your body. You don't listen to, you got cancer, sorry, you got whatever. it's like it's epidemic because we are not in relationship. what mentioning cancer here, it's like cells that don't talk to each other. That's what cancer is. I'm just gonna go and do more liver without consulting the organism. So what I'm saying is, can we come back to relationship? We are not relating, we are just bumping into each other. And understandably, really want to be very clear here. We are not doing it wrong. We are doing what we've been taught. We are not failing. Are we ready for relationship now or we are just gonna carry on killing each other?

Anne

Yeah,

Elisabeth

that's the ads that we are, and I'm voting for relationship and for intimacy and for contact.

Anne

I love it. So how can we tell the difference between true intuition and fear and then conditioning and old survival patterns?

Elisabeth

Okay, very good. First of all, when is back the key is the body. When you're in reaction, it's agitating and it causes friction and pain. when I'm, when I want to find a solution to my problem, it's like a plaster. It's like I can't bear this. I've gotta do something, but it's not an action that's coming from connection, so it's gonna breed more this connection and the difference between an action that is in contact and in intimacy. It's like you can see it again back to the lovers, back when you're in a state of connection. Some days we just feel, our body, how it moves, there's a grace, there is a contact, there is a, there's a tenderness. So intuition, it comes to you. It's no effort. There's no looking. It's embodied. You feel a truth that rings through and through from bone to bone is a bone truth. I'm sure we all know Moments in your life that even if anyone came down superhero and told you, no, don't do that, and That's, it's like falling in love again is a good metaphor because it's no one can tell you're in love and you're not in love. You know it through and through.

Anne

Absolutely.

Elisabeth

There's no argument now, but I don't think you're in love. Okay. Think whatever you want. It's the same it. Bone to bone. You know it through and through whether it is an action, whether it is a clarity that comes. So when this tenderness that comes from contact, intimacy gets together with presence, clarity, access, showing up, the architect there together, then there's a different perception of reality.

Anne

Beautiful. so many women lose touch with desire, joy and aliveness in midlife because they're caring for their kids. They're taking care of their parents. They have a job, they have, a spouse responsibilities. Men too have this issue, but it seems like in midlife so much hits people. do you have any suggestions for people to help move through this? This really impactful, busy time in their lives.

Elisabeth

The first thing is noticing there is a. A noise inside, an emptiness, a disconnection that is beginning to hurt you. There's nothing wrong with your life. You've got a husband, you've got the kids. Everything is well, you've got money. You're surviving fine. You've got a job that you don't dislike. You've got friends, you've got social life, but you're not touching life. You're an automatic pilot. You're just going through. So the first thing is to notice that you are, and sometimes we create crisis to create change because you are on, you are like closer to a robot. Than a human. You see the children, you see young teenagers. There is a life, there is a powerful, there is a power, there's a connection, right? When then we squash it and other things happen. But there is that time, you know? So that goes, that life force, that life and that life force is contact, it's connection with yourself, so the first thing you say, okay, I know what's happening to me. I'm disconnected. Okay, next step. Begin to, so if you're very disconnected, do something that will involve body dance. That's why now the fashion is a lot more embodiment, but not gym to get fit, to look good in Instagram. No to, to actually stay. your diet, your body, move it, dance it. Put music. And not to be, just to let yourselves move by braid. Then from there begin to, enter times not to meditate. I come from big meditation. Story. Yeah. It's not just sit in silence to quiet your mind. That's Chinese torture.

Anne

I love it. Chinese torture.

Elisabeth

I silence your mind. Are you joking or what? That happens actually. The mind goes quiet when after an orgasm for a second or after extreme exercise when you're ex. Exhausted, but from a healthy way, not exhausted. Your mind can't, because your nervous system is released. It's the tension, accumulated tension is gone. The unexpressed emotion, generational and personal. In your life, the things that you don't say to your partner, to your child that you contain. And then whoof, especially women, before they have their period or menopause, they explode because it's the way the nervous system has to go no more. Right? so That's why I'm saying move it. Move it. Keep your body strong. Keep your cardio alive. The next step is to be able to begin to be interested in taking space of silence within yourself and to begin to notice how does your body want what's happening to your body? How does the body sensate? Stay there five minutes. The more you listen to your body, the mind. Now this is very important. The mind is so active. You know why? Because the body's continually sending the signal. There is something, a big problem. Because the nervous system is dense and they work together,

Anne

right?

Elisabeth

So it's like you're having a lion chasing you all the time, but there is no lion. But the, the body is feeling like that. You stress, right? You send the children, your husband, you stress, so the body doesn't know whether there's a lion or it's because you can't pay the bill. It doesn't matter. It's stress, it's tension, it's unexpressed emotion. Then your mind. It's finding solutions. That's why I say when you discharge a bit, the mind goes quiet. You discharge the nervous system, and then the mind is saying, oh, there's no problem. Everything is fine. So the mind can put the feet up and relax for a moment. And he's quiet. Yeah. So I'm not saying mindfulness and all these practices are very good to develop presence, to stay present, but the next thing, stay present with the body. With sensation with what's happening. So I just wanna talk about this gap because that's our robot life that we have minds and like tat poles. So we need to bring that and that will quiet the mind. So dancing, moving, painting the arts, creativity and staying quiet. Maybe putting a frequency and just asking yourself. What am I experiencing right now in my body? Not what I'm thinking that little Johnny done to me.

Anne

Yeah.

Elisabeth

Right?

Anne

Yeah.

Elisabeth

Or my, my, my friend or my, he shouldn't have said that. That was so hurtful. And then I phone my friend and I go on and on. that was, oh yeah, I agree. That was very hurtful. And do, and then your body go of the story. Let go of the meaning. don't. It's not let go. The mind will try to, you've changed the focus. You change the focus is sensation. It's so powerful. Try it. Dance, move, sensate and then that's why when we go for nature walk in nature has this capacity to mirror something very soothing, our inner nature, our wilderness. And then begin to, to write, to let yourself express or find a friend and stay in front of each other and close your eyes. Connect with your spine. With your body. Open your eyes and stay gazing with another one. Another. No talking. Five minutes and just the amount of stuff, both things happen when we are looking at each other. One is we see the oneness, the love that we're terrified. And the other one is the evocation. And I see all my projections on you that are sensations and I contract and my fears and everything. So stay. Not, I have to like her. I have to love her. Oh, I'm judging her. No, just feel the sensation. Doesn't matter what the mind is doing in front of him, in front of her with between women. It's beautiful to do between women and stay. And then you can share what you experienced while gazing with another, at the mental, emotional, because there is a space is that's a meditation.

Anne

Wow. Wow. You have really shifted my paradigm, and I'm sure the listeners have a whole new perspective on just feeling the sensations in their body, how to reduce stress, stop the Chinese torture unless you really love it, and just connect with your body.

Elisabeth

I was talking with somebody yesterday, that. Somebody. And she was frozen and then she started telling I'm in the middle of a violent divorce. And, I feel, she was in a lot of pain, and she began to, there's rage underneath that was covering tears. That was covering up rage. And she's got a 9-year-old. and it was overwhelming just to hear her in what was happening and anybody who was listening would say, yeah, there's a lot going on and overwhelm at max. And then the life, her work every be beginning to get impacted. And I said, okay. I listened and I took her to her body. And I helped her. Very simple to track sensation. She stood up, she made sounds but not in connection to anything. Just track sensation. Track sensation. She end up saying, ah, from deep within, I see what's happening. She, the inside, it's like, I. Feel unseen and, and I feel therefore unjust that, my daughter, my ex, the justice are not listening to my version of reality. And when I feel. Scene I collapse and then I go into rage, quiet, but mostly towards myself. that's what I did. All my li that's what happened to me at home. And then I please, and I don't include myself because I don't want to be further rejected, but all of this was like her body was telling her that. And then she said the end, it's so simple. What's happening here is that I don't see myself.

Anne

Wow. she must have burst into tears when she said that. Just to have that profound revelation.

Elisabeth

She lost, like I saw a dried, she's on her early forties. somebody had put a rug up her bum and she would like gr dry. and already when you see somebody's in that state, it invites more, like difficult to be in relationship with them because, and she's not authentic and she was all mental, very intelligent woman. So all the calculations, all the. Mathematical, everything was there. She entered that place. She looked, I couldn't believe it. I thought, have they changed her? It was, she was pink, she was soft, she was loving, she was tender. She was relaxed. And she said, no, I know exactly what I need to do.

Anne

Wow. Oh, to have that clarity, you'd have that revelation. life changing.

Elisabeth

Clarity, but not the tima. It's clarity for you now what you're going through. That's the breakthrough. And clarity is not gonna come from the mind, but the mind, it's, old, it's a tape recorder. It's a function that repeats the past and allows us to not every day to have to learn how to climb steps. it accumulates memory. Yeah. and it doesn't feel. But it records. It records all the moments of pain, everything you lived. And then when it's happening in the here and now, it goes into the same ways of coping. And she broke free from that prison. But when she said, all I need, rather than demand a world to see me. I need to see myself. And then in that moment, she knew exactly what she had to say to everyone 'cause she was beginning to resent her partner, although she felt that was bad because her partners found another woman and things are going well for him. How can he be happy? After all he's done to me. Do you see?

Anne

Yes.

Elisabeth

Then we end to that ego wanting to destroy the other or being unhappy. The other should be Ha. Unhappy. 'cause I'm unhappy.

Anne

Right.

Elisabeth

Need of it.

Anne

Wow. That was life changing for I'm sure.

Elisabeth

Yes. To

Anne

break that pattern.

Elisabeth

Right. That

Anne

Wonderful. I'm sure our listeners are just amazed. This has been such a powerful conversation. any last, partying comments you'd like to share with them? know you mentioned the resource, we can link that down below in notes.

Elisabeth

I like to go back to what you first question. You asked me at the beginning, what was the first question you said? What was the sentence that allowed you to keep coming through? When things, are, when life is difficult. you didn't ask it that way, but I said I am the one I'm looking for.

Anne

Yeah. What is the mantra that keeps you going in tough times? The mantra.

Elisabeth

yeah,

Anne

Yes.

Elisabeth

What's the mantra? So I am the one I'm looking for. I am the love I'm looking for. I am the freedom I'm looking for. I am the connection. And when you begin to do the journey back home, the power, the intelligence, and I love this word because is true, the erotic intelligence, which is the pleasure that comes when consciousness embodies all the way down to your toes. And to your womb and to your vulva, and that connection, which is not dependent on anyone having any friction with anyone or having to fall into anything with anyone. Now you share your wealth. It's not becoming wealthy. Inside when you, when consciousness drops, you become abundant, you become wealthy and you stop following the narratives and tapes that were given to you now, this is important. What you've been told that of who you are is not who you are. This has been put onto you from the beginning, your name, your religion, your nationality, what to believe, what to not believe, what to fear, which then you might adjust change. But it's a program. So I am the one I'm looking for, and I can see my program and not let my program drive be in the driving seat.

Anne

yes. I love it. thank you, Elizabeth. My final question is there a book that helped you on your journey that you can recommend to our listeners?

Elisabeth

Um,

Anne

or if you can't think of one, like a, a video or a movie or anything that's a resource that you would suggest.

Elisabeth

Okay, I'm in the middle of writing a book. I like to suggest my book.

Anne

Okay.

Elisabeth

Because it is a bridge between a collapsing paradigm and not yet, emerge in an emergent one, how to be in this time. And a lot of it I talk about the impact that where we come from survival consciousness and how to be in this age of change. There is lots of things, but for me the most, one of the most important because I'm not a book reader.

Anne

Oh, it's okay.

Elisabeth

and, I was 10 years in India. I did a lot of meditation. I lived like a nun top of the mountains at a very early age. So I got direct contact with source, and that's kind of the book of cosmic intelligence. then I did a Master's in Psychosynthesis Psychotherapy and I had to read a lot of books of wonderful writers that day. Bridging Psychology, spirituality. I love the book, the Tantric Quest, an Encounter with Absolute Love by Danielle Odi. And, but that's more, she, Davy, which is this Tantrica that he meets. Yes, that's a good book because she takes him to find out who she, who he really is through really extreme experiences. And staying with his body with that. Yes. And my favorite film is like The Matrix. the Blue Pill, red Pill.

Anne

Yes.

Elisabeth

It's like, do you wanna be in the program or do you want to free yourself from the program? There's many metaphors and there's many, there's questions of Will of Destiny. There's a lot of fascinating philosophical. Questions in that, film. And the other one is, Lucy, the Breaking Free and Seeing Reality, not Us, the limitation that we carry. But yes, that's the best thing I can say.

Anne

Perfect. All right, I will put those links down below in the show note. So thank you, Elizabeth. This has been a life changing conversation, and listeners, if you found this episode helpful, please share it with someone who might be facing a similar challenge or who may be disconnected from themselves and needs to hear this message of hope, inspiration, and all of these incredible tools. I'll see you next time on overcoming Anything.