I Had Cancer, Lost My Job... Then this happened

Sometimes losing everything is the only way to find yourself. 

Vanina had it all figured out. Corporate career. Clear direction. A life that looked right. Then cancer. Then job loss. Then everything she thought she was — gone. 

What happened next, she never saw coming. 

Vanina is a coach, hypnotherapist & intuitive dance facilitator. 6 years in cancer remission. She's bee helping helping people find themselves through their biggest collapses.

 In this episode: 

- What happens to your identity when your life suddenly collapses

 - Why losing everything might be the most important thing  that ever happens to you 

- How your subconscious mind was programmed before age 7 —  and how to change it 

- Why you keep repeating the same patterns no matter  what you change externally 

- What your body knows about healing that your mind can't reach - How to surrender when letting go feels like losing 

- The unexplainable healings that happened in her sessions 

- What living on purpose actually feels like from the inside 

If you're in the middle of a collapse right now — or still trying to make sense of the one you survived — don't skip this. 

Transcript

Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:00

What I didn't see coming is that the next year in 2019 I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I also lost a cop for a job three months prior. Was also going through a relationship breakup during the chemotherapy. And I thought, what is going on? I was so desperate for help that I asked for help out loud. So I asked for a second shot. I will listen. I am ready to listen. And bit by bit things revealed themselves to me.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

You asked openly. It was a god, some spirits. I was wondering who you are talking to.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

I just realized sometimes people are not connected to themselves, so they can't find their own answers. After my first session, I had somebody that came to me and said, listen, Vanina, I don't know what you did in the session. But I've had a blockage in my head for 10 months, and I've seen a chiropractor and an osteopath and a massage therapist, and that blockage has dissolved. But what really propelled me into continuing to doing that work is really when I connected to my soul's mission and my purpose. I was able to expand and expand and expand my soul. Allow my soul to arise and allow the wisdom of my soul to guide me. When you allow yourself to be present and to let go of any judgment or expectations, and you surrender, that's when the magic happens.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Welcome Vanina.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Thank you. Thank you for the invitation.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

So without further ado, I want you to introduce yourself. Who is Vanina?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yes, that's um great question to start off. There's so many things that I could say. I was born in Paris in France, and I did my primary school in that country. My mom is French, my father is German. So when I was 11 years old, we moved to Germany. I did my high school over there. Now, obviously, you know, changing countries was already kind of preparing me to be more adaptive and flexible. And I would say Vanina is open-minded and highly intuitive, and she's on this path of you know discovery and expansion and wants to serve the world to help people grow. There is a lot to it, obviously. But I'm an empath by nature, have a professional corporate background. However, I've been on a journey to connect spiritually and uh to step more into the coaching and the mindfulness and the hypnotherapy and all that.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

And I know you said you worked in HR and leadership. What role would you say this younger journey played into your choice of going to human resource as a field of work?

SPEAKER_02 2:48

Yeah, I would say that early on in my childhood, I was already very people-oriented. I had a lot of friends. It was easy for me to build friendships. People seemed to be, you know, attracted to me. And then I loved understanding my friends. I would love to listen to what they have to say and ask questions. And quickly I realized even when I was a teenager, I had friends who would come to me and tell me, hey, Vanina, I haven't told anyone yet, but I've got this thing, you know, it's a secret, and you're the first person I'm sharing it with.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

What gift is that again, Loen? Because I have the same gift. Yeah. You guys know what gift it is. Right. The gift of encouragement. Encouragement.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Encouragement. Yeah. And then I would, you know, hear things like, oh, Vanina, you should become a psychologist. So I always knew that I had an interest for people and understanding where they're coming from. And that is what made me like go into human resources management. At the time, I didn't want to be a psychologist. I thought I'm going to go to business school and I'm going to, you know, help people. Particularly, I wanted to work in recruitment because I liked the idea of kind of analyzing the profile of a person, the background, and matching it with the job's requirement and seeing is there a fit.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Like a professional matchmaker.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

Yeah, professional matchmaker.

Why She Left Corporate to Help People Differently

SPEAKER_01 4:18

So I find it so hard at that early age in general to decide what you want to do with the rest of your life. So it's like, okay, looking back, you know, I have a BA in marketing. Okay, sure. I had an experience at university. Okay, sure. But most people, unless you come from, I think, a family of professionals like lawyers and doctors, there's a certain path that is expected maybe of you, and you may have a tendency, but um to do that because you're more surrounded by it. But gosh, it's it's like I guess I like people. So, you know, HR fit right.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Are you still evolving into this position of human resources or what are you doing today as a professional background?

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Good question. So I work for over a decade in human resources management, and I did start in recruitment and I went into also diversity, equity, and inclusion. I've been the last few years in leadership and talent development, but I recently left my corporate job about three, four months ago to start working full-time in coaching. And so while I already had a side coaching business in the last four, five years, I now focus on, you know, leadership coaching, helping leaders figure out what kind of leader they want to be based on their values, mission, purpose, creating guiding principles for them to help them make decisions. And I really have like this 360 approach where I embed mindfulness and hypnotherapy into my coaching practice. And then the other thing that I'm also very passionate about, which is more on a soul level, is to help people build a foundation through learning how to surrender with dancing as a modality. Because when you have a foundation and you know how to let go and surrender, this is really what propels you into your transformation. It's like it's a gateway to your transformation. It's really hard to let go sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 6:17

I want to touch base on this, among other many things. So much to unpack.

SPEAKER_02 6:24

I know I said a lot.

SPEAKER_00 6:25

I was like, wait a second, let's start with hypnotherapy and mindfulness. How did you how did that even start to the point where now you are incorporating it into what you do?

The Year Her Entire Life Fell Apart

SPEAKER_02 6:36

Right. So at the time, I just knew I wanted to do coaching. I knew I wanted to help people grow, and I had learned about the coaching modality, and I thought, you know what, this is a great way to start. I will do a certification, which I did in 2018. I graduated, and then I started coaching slowly. But over time, I realized that some people have a hard time finding their own answers. Because for those who don't know what coaching is, and I know you're all aware, but for the listeners, in coaching, a coach is not really providing answers. You're asking open-ended questions, you're guiding the conversation, you're creating a safe place for people to open up and find their own answers. I just realized sometimes people are not connected to themselves, so they can't find their own answers. So that was like one of my roadblocks early on. So I thought, well, what can I do to help them connect? And then I started to like intuitively embed, you know, a breathing exercise or short meditation. And then I thought, you know what? Why don't you learn about mindfulness and do a certification in it to just have more tools that you can use? So I would intuitively in the coaching session decide what tool I'm using to help them connect. And as soon as we would finish with the exercise, oftentimes, I mean, I would say nine out of ten, they will be able to come up with some aha moment, some realization, come up with an answer. So that's how I got to the mindfulness part.

SPEAKER_04 8:15

To leave a very comfortable corporate life, to leave like such a great job and like and everything. What got you to make that decision to start coaching at all? Like what brought you to that before?

SPEAKER_02 8:27

For sure. I mean, while I was interested in coaching, to because I already early on felt that I had um had this calling that I could do a lot more than my corporate job. I just didn't know how and what exactly. And I knew I wanted to have a positive impact in the world. So I had that inner calling, hence why I did the coaching certification. Now, what ended up happening is that I graduated in 2018, and what I didn't see coming is that the next year in 2019, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 9:02

And there is a series of things that happened that year that kind of shook me to the core of my essence. Yeah. I, you know, I did become ill. It's it's it's huge in itself, but I also lost a corporate job three months prior. Was also going through a relationship breakup during the chemotherapy. Financially, it wasn't going well. And I just looked at myself and I thought, what is going on? Why is your life literally falling apart?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

It's like in shambles, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Yeah, it was really difficult at the time. It took me a year to, you know, heal, over a year to heal from this trauma and and the physical health. You know, I am super grateful. Luckily, I've been in remission now for six years, but the whole journey was very scary. But what it did do, and to answer kind of your question, also what made me continue the path of coaching, because doing a certification is one thing, but what really propelled me into continuing to doing that work is really when I connected to my soul's mission and my purpose. It was really during that year where I lost my health because I felt like, wow, you lost everything. But I felt so disappointed because I already knew that I was supposed to do bigger things, and I felt I had not stepped up my game, that I had not accomplished what I was meant to accomplish in this world. So when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had this moment where I was sitting on my couch at home and I was crying, I was by myself, and I don't know why I ended up doing this and how I came up with that, but I just started to speak out loud. I was so desperate for help that I asked for help out loud. I asked for help, I asked for guidance. I said, you know, I really need some help right now. I don't know what to do, I'm afraid. And I said, if you help me, whoever you are, if you help me, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to step into my purpose and to help others do the same thing because I know I'm supposed to do bigger things. So I asked for a second shot.

She Asked for Help… What Happened Next Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00 11:33

I will listen, I am ready to listen as you said you asked openly.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

I was wondering who were you talking to?

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Yeah, and then you received. So do you feel that when you asked the universe responded? Do you feel that it was a god, some spirits, some guides that you have? How did you interpret the answer that you received, and how did that play a role in your belief, in your relationship with the universe?

SPEAKER_02 12:03

Right. You know what? At the time, I was practicing yoga and meditation, but it was on and off. And I had started to connect to myself, but I wasn't fully connected. And I also, you know, I'm not religious, I wasn't spiritual. So when I asked for help, I didn't know who I asked for help. I just knew I had to ask intuitively because I felt helpless. And the way I interpreted the help when it showed up is that I realized that there were certain things that fell into place during my year of healing that I had no control over whatsoever. And I am very proactive. I'm very goal-oriented. At work, I was driven, goal-oriented, I have objectives in my health. I took a proactive role. I, you know, I changed my nutrition, I started to receive energy healing, I fasted, I did things to help me out, to complement whatever the conventional medicine was doing. But a part of that, I noticed things are falling into place and I didn't do anything. And that's when I felt like, okay, it's not once or twice. It was a series of things, and I started to feel somehow that I'm protected, that I'm supported, yeah, and that I'm safe, and that I don't need to be afraid.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

So, were you a believer in anything whatsoever at that time? I guess not really. We were just living life, basically.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yeah, I was just living life, although you know, three years prior to the illness arriving, I would say that I would start to see some synchronicities and some signs. So I would say I was I was starting to open up, but it was very surface level. What changed when the illness came is that because I lost everything almost to me, right? My job, my career, my health, my relationship financially, I wasn't doing well. I had friends and family, but my family is in Europe and they came to see me, but still, you know, most of the time I was by myself in Montreal and I had lovely friends. But when you're the only one who's ill, you feel very lonely in your experience of the cancer. So while I felt like I lost everything, I also realized there is one thing I did not lose. That's me. I'm still here, I may be ill, but I'm still here. And I have my body and I have my soul, and I decided that it was time for me to go inwards more than before. Because before I would go inwards, in and out, I considered myself self-aware, but you know, obviously I became a lot more self-aware through my healing journey. But I started to meditate every day. I became aware of the importance of doing that. Became aware of the importance to connect to my heart and my soul, to become more grounded, and I would say no to things. I'm like, no, sorry, I'm not available. And I would say, Well, I've got the best excuse. I'm ill. Nobody can be upset now if I say no. I'm just gonna say no.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

So the illness gave you permission to have an excuse, almost like a crutch, when you didn't really want to say yes, but it was so easy to say no.

Was This Pain Random… or Meant to Wake Her Up?

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Yeah, it brings me to something because you see, during the illness, there were so many other things that happened to you in your life at the same period, right? Like you said, you know, going through a breakup situation, losing a big job. Would you say, with everything that was happening, and there's something specific that you said earlier, it's almost as if I would use another term, you surrendered by saying I'm I'm ready and I'm willing to listen. And when all those different situations happened and made you look inwards, would you say um our destiny is written in a sense of all these things that happened to your life? Were they purposely written to teach you a lesson to make a pivot in your life? Or do you take it's just circumstances? What's your belief when it comes to that?

SPEAKER_02 16:48

Yeah, I mean, looking back at my experience, I would say I was meant to go through these challenges so that it would crack me open. It would crack me open to spirituality, to listening to my intuition, to tapping into my innate abilities, to getting in touch with my emotions. Because frankly, I felt stuck before. Like I had this feeling of feeling stuck at work, feeling stuck in life, feeling like caged? Caged in. That's the right word. I felt caged in to the point where I would say, I feel like I had an internal knot in my chest. And when I say these words, it's almost ironic because the way it manifested itself, it manifested itself as a lump in the breast.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

That part. Do you believe that illnesses could be the cause of suppressed emotions or misalignment?

SPEAKER_04 17:58

Yeah, because we talked about this. You talked about like there was this other school of thought that things happen to us, and this one in a scientific sense is more unresolved emotions that we hold in our body. So we we kind of talk about that. So do you see that in play with your story or yeah, I believe in both.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

I I do believe that suppressed emotions can have an impact on health. Now, obviously, no one can, you know, trace back how did you get the the cancer in the first place? You know, it could be environment, it could be the nutrition, the pollution, it could be the emotions, trauma. It could be many different things. But I do even believe, even if the emotions had an impact on that manifesting itself in the way it did, I still believe that it had to play out in that way for me to open up so I can connect to my soul and listen and start connecting to my inner power to have the courage to do what I meant to do in this world. I had to get to that place.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Can you mention intuition? If you had to explain or describe what intuition means to you, is it talking to um a higher self, a higher power or your intuition? How would you describe the feeling of an intuition or yes?

SPEAKER_02 19:22

I have a few ways of how I can describe intuition. Like, one way is like an inner knowing. Like I just know within me there's something that is guiding me in a way, and I can see the difference between okay, it's your intuition guiding you versus it's your mind speaking to you. Like I can I know the difference. Now, sometimes I receive a feeling, a feeling intuitively that's what I need to do. Sometimes I can receive messages where I feel like this is the right answer, or I can yeah, receive the right words to say. So there is guidance that I receive, but there is also feeling that I know I can follow and um can be blurry at times too, if I'm not fully aware and I'm a bit unconscious. Because obviously, we like go in and out of consciousness during the day, but it's there, and the more I connect to myself, the more I can hear the subtle, the subtleties of the intuition.

SPEAKER_04 20:26

And it makes me think of also going back to uh Alex's question about intuition and also how you felt like you were some way guided. And a few times you mentioned about your soul mission, and I think we all have our own definitions or understanding of that. But what is that for you? What does it mean to have a soul mission?

SPEAKER_03 20:45

Yeah, great question.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

Yeah. For me, it's to listen to what the soul wants you to do, but how that translates into is that you feel excited and you feel joy and you feel you're doing something that almost doesn't make any sense. It's like your mind thinks it doesn't make sense, but your soul is guiding you towards a particular path. And if you're brave enough to follow it, that's how you follow your soul's mission. And for me, at the time, I thought it was coaching, and coaching is still part of my modality, but it was revealed to me over time that the modality in particular that I'm supposed to bring to this world is the intuitive dancing. And it's something I never had on my radar, it's something I never thought I would bring to the world, it's something I did for myself during my own healing to help me connect and open up. Because that internal knot that I felt in my chest, where I felt like I was caged in through the dancing and many other things that I did, that knot dissolved itself. And then with the dancing in particular. I was able to expand and expand and expand my soul, allow my soul to arise and allow the wisdom of my soul to guide me. But it's the dancing that opened me up to that.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

Would you say it's because it just moves and reshuffles the energy in your body?

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Yes, it moves the energy in my body. I realize that it also dissolves energetic blockages and emotional blockages, and it allows you to practice expanding yourself energetically. You know, when we speak about executive presence, to me, executive presence.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

What is executive presence?

Why Intuitive Dancing Helps People Let Go

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Well, according to Forbes, the executive presence is something like inspiring confidence into you know your peers, subordinates, your leaders, etc. To me, that can help maybe it can boost it a little bit. At the end of the day, it's not so much about executive, it's more about the word presence. You need to be present, and to be present, you need to be connected to yourself, you need to be grounded, you need to listen, and the presence just exude itself almost on its own. You're exuding it when you're connected, when you're allowing your energy field to expand. And I do that through the intuitive dancing. And it started out with me just doing it at home to help me, you know. I just wanted to dance and feel free. I didn't want to be blocked anymore. I didn't want to feel that knot in my chest. And bit by bit things revealed themselves to me where I realized, hold on a minute. It's something I can bring to other people. So I was exposed to facilitating intuitive dancing at a retreat when I hadn't planned for it. Somebody asked me to do it. And so I would do it and then receive feedback. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm helping people with that. Then I would continue on my journey and realize, oh my gosh, I'm accessing innate abilities I didn't know I had. And it's almost like you continue uncovering and discovering things about yourself. And it came to a point where I had, you know, dreams and imagery that came about me dancing on stages and facilitating dancing.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

It's interesting you talk about that because me, um, myself and Didier as well, we come from a background of music. So I understand what you're talking about because I do it myself. But do you think that this intuitive dancing, you need to have a precursor of loving how to dance or liking how to dance in order to be able to intuitively dancing, or you just need to maybe like music, period, and that is enough for someone to maybe develop intuitive dancing?

SPEAKER_02 24:57

Yes, I think if you like music, that is enough. And you don't need to know how to dance intuitively. In fact, I don't teach a choreography or anything like it. It starts with the connection to yourself, and I facilitate that. I create an environment, a safe place where I allow people to connect to themselves through mindfulness and meditation. And I go into gentle stretching exercises for people to already sense where do I feel heavy, where do I feel tight in the body, developing that awareness of the body. So when you start feeling that, then we can slowly go into the body movements. And I might give some guidance on certain exercises and stretching that can be done, but ultimately I invite people, particularly, to listen to their bodies and tune in and see what you need to stretch out in your body right now. Try to listen to that first. And then as we go into the dancing, you know, it's a step-by-step process. And I tell people there is no right or wrong. This is a safe place. We're not here to judge. I want you to feel like you can show yourself to people at the core of your essence.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Yeah. Can you give me an example of from your experience with intuitive dancing and also helping people through intuitive dances? Is there anything that a movement and the body can reveal that the mind can't?

SPEAKER_02 26:32

Yes. I would say that the soul, the energy that flows through you, if you're really connecting to your soul and you're allowing the body to surrender to the soul, the soul knows best. The soul can guide you to unblock certain uh energetic or emotional blockages. And if you allow that, if you follow that, it might get you to places you didn't think you would get to.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

It might help you heal some things that you didn't know from the mind that you needed to heal.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Exactly.

Why We’re Afraid to Be Seen

SPEAKER_01 27:08

You you said something about giving people the permission to be able to see you. Uh I don't remember exactly what you said, but that means that other people are watching, right? So obviously, intuitive dancing can be done on a one-on-one as you're being coached, or it can be done at home because you figure out how to do it. But it also can be done in environments. Yes. And I want to tie this into like the club experience, right? Or people that go out dancing. You always see, you know, people that are on the dance floor and they don't give up, you know, they'll just do whatever. And I always find that so interesting, admirable almost. And then other people will just be on the side and like, you know, not really knowing what to do, but they're there because they often enjoy the music. And I think that's an interesting uh difference that we can see in a public environment. But I've actually experienced that myself when I went to a personal development event. Um, like, you know, the Toby Tony Robbins or the world. It was a personal development event where there's a lot of talking and then they tell you to get up. Get up and move your body, change your state, change your state, right? And one particular event on I went to, they put on music, like the tip, you know, the hype music, not that just gets people moving. And I remember looking at other people and and and judging, and I'm like, oh, you're you're you're just moving around like you don't care. And I wanted to do it too. But I was ashamed because I was afraid I would look funny. But music was it took over, and then one day that's actually how I broke through, and that was maybe six years ago, and I never look back since. And I think that it's such a beautiful experience when you break through and you don't care what other people think, and then you practice that, and then you realize that if there's music that's playing, you know how we see sometimes these videos of people just prancing around in the street because they have their earbuds on, or any other situation where you can just break out into dancing because you heard music, and how freeing can be because your soul wants you to do it, or your body wants you to do it, but there's this ego thing um that will might stop you. And I want to encourage people, since we're on the topic, to pay attention to that voice a little bit more in their head of I just want to move right now.

SPEAKER_00 29:31

But you see, with what you just said, one thing that happens often, which is also tied into a question that I wanted to ask you, is often people may have that feeling like they want to dance or spontaneously, but there's this idea of being self-conscious of, but I don't know how to dance, I don't know how to move. How would you say, you know, when you're doing intuitive dancing, how do you help people too self-conscious of how they move? How do you help them surrender so they could really get in tune, right? Because sometimes you could feel a bit awkward or weird. What do I do? How do you help them maneuver through that?

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Yeah. I mean, if it's in a space that I'm guiding, obviously I set the stage to say that, you know, there is no right or wrong move. It's about connecting to you, and everyone, you know, will be. I ask people to be um to accept kind of the rules of the dance, which is to be non-judgmental and to respect everyone and to give everyone their their own space. So once you've kind of set the table, it's also easier when people say feel safe to open up slowly. And as they open up, if they continue to feel safe, then almost they have the feedback that it's okay to be themselves and it's okay to be seen for who they truly are, and that they will be loved and accepted, right? The reason why we block and we don't want to dance, maybe, is because we're afraid to be to be seen. Why are we afraid to be seen? It's because we're afraid to be rejected or judged or and we want to be loved and included.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

I was just gonna say, I relate very much to your what you notice in the dance clubs is you know, being afraid of being seen and resulting in constricting our movements because we don't want to look crazy or we don't want to look bad. And um, I wonder if that's also part of us suppressing how we truly want to move. And that's why I think your program is so beautiful in terms of like the the name of the program is Surrender, and then through that you do it through intuitive dancing. So I love that that you actually guide the people through that. And I think just you inviting the non-judgment makes it such a safe space for people to actually be there and just flow through it without judgment.

The Real Difference Between Dancing and True Surrender

SPEAKER_00 31:56

So that's amazing. And would you say intuitive dancing and it's like this is it the same?

SPEAKER_02 32:01

Is there similarities or yeah, I would say it's very similar. It's just that ecstatic dancing often you um there is no particular like guidance to knowing how to connect to yourself. Yeah, you just show up to an event, maybe there is a cacao ceremony. Sometimes there can be sometimes there can be guidance, but most of the time the music starts and you just start dancing. My process is really I want to make sure that people are connected inwards, that they're aware of what they feel in the body, the tension that they have, and they allow kind of the energy to flow through them. And like you said earlier, to to kind of listen to the body and where your soul wants you to go. Because what that does also, why it can be very healing and you can unblock emotional and energetic blockages, it also trains a muscle, it also teaches your body to let go in the day-to-day, to surrender in the day-to-day.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

That's big.

SPEAKER_02 33:03

And that's important because I've now been in the personal development field for like a decade. I've gone to a lot of retreats and conferences and events, and I was looking for breakthroughs, obviously, and aha moments and mindset shifts and having different perceptions so I could change what I need to change, right? And in my day-to-day life. And I realized that for me it's very easy to go to a retreat, follow the instructions, and surrender to the process and just whatever wants to emerge from me, an emotion or an energetic shift. I allow it to happen. I didn't realize that for most people, it's one of the most difficult things to do. And so people spend thousands of dollars going to retreats and conferences in the hopes to have breakthroughs. And a lot of them maybe do, but a lot of them also walk away feeling like nothing really happened for them. But it's because they weren't able to surrender or allow them to surrender. And I believe it's an embodied practice, and through the dancing, you build that muscle of surrendering so that when you do go to the retreat, you have that foundation and you can let go and see what happens. When you allow yourself to be present and to let go of any judgment or expectations, and you surrender, that's when the magic happens. Absolutely. That's when you break through, you get onto the other side of where you need to be to kind of unlock something for yourself. Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:54

Yeah. Basically to add to that, because sometimes we know that, you know, consciously, we know, okay, we need to work on this, we need to do this. I'm this is my ego, and I'm fearful and this and that. But then it's still so hard to make changes sometimes. Absolutely. And so going back to the topic of hypnotherapy, how are you using that modality to help people with, you know, someone who's very much in their mind or in their conscious mind to work with maybe their subconscious mind?

SPEAKER_02 35:24

I would need to start with saying that the conscious mind is really just 5% of your mind, and the subconscious mind is 95%. And I didn't know that for the longest time. And I wish I had found out about hypnotherapy a long time ago. Because when you realize that your subconscious mind is 95% of your mind, and when you understand that it was programmed between the age of zero and seven years old, and that whatever you understood, whatever you heard, whatever you interpreted during that time, kind of created this hardware.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

If you compare it to a computer, it created this hardware and you're carrying it with you now. It kind of leads you into directions that are subconscious that you're kind of not fully aware of. So if you felt like you were repeating patterns or you keep on being in the same situation and you don't understand why, but you change jobs and you change bosses and you change the project, and yet you keep on having the same issue. And you change relationships, yes, you move, move, you do all of these external things, and nothing changes. It's because internally something didn't change.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:43

And so being aware of things is important, enhancing awareness is important, but also starting to work with the subconscious mind and reprogramming it, which you can do through hypnotherapy, can be game-changing in a way. And at the end of the day, the subconscious mind is also there to keep you safe. So the unknown, whatever you don't know, haven't experienced yet, it will try to keep you safe. Obviously, part of it is conscious, another part is unconscious. But when you're able to identify what's blocking you, then you can reprogram the subconscious minds through hypnotherapy. And in a way, you you create like a new blueprint from which you can operate.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

While you've been doing guiding people through intuitive dancing or different aspects hypnotherapy, has there ever been any like unexplainable thing that happened during a session?

SPEAKER_02 37:41

Mm-hmm. I have like two things that come to mind that I want to share, and and we'll see how that resonates. But the first one is when I started to guide people into intuitive dancing, after my first session, I had somebody that came to me and said, Listen, Vanina, I don't know what you did in the session, but I've had a blockage in my hip for 10 months. And I've seen a chiropractor and an osteopath and a massage therapist, and that blockage has dissolved. And I'm like, How do you, how do you know? And they told me, well, because of that hip blockage, I could not sit down cross-legged on the floor. And then she's like, Look, I can now sit down cross-legged on the floor. So to me, that was like an epiphany moment where I realized, oh my gosh, this work can really help people unblock um physical blockages, right? And and more than that. And so obviously, when I guide people into that process, I'm very connected to myself, but I'm also very intuitive and I pick up on certain energies that that I clear. And I believe that because I'm very good at surrendering, I probably also connect to whether it could be a different, like could be source or the universe or consciousness level that is here there to help other people heal. But it's hard for me to say, you know, I don't have any evidence, I just know that things happen in the sessions.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

The soul knows.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

The soul knows, right, right. The other thing that happened is I'm very intuitive. Like while I know my process, while I know maybe the theme that I want to touch on approximately, I also go into the session with an open mindset, and I get inspired in the moment. So whatever inspiration I have to guide the session in a certain way or to touch on a particular theme, I will take what inspiration I connect to. And I've had I have been in situations where after the session, somebody said, and that happened recently, I kept on talking about the butterfly. And while it could sound a little cheesy connecting to the butterfly while we're while we're dancing and spreading out our wings, to my surprise, all the people that were there when we did the debrief, they all said, It is so bizarre that you touched on the butterfly because I'm very connected to the butterfly. Wow. Or I just saw a butterfly earlier today. I mean, just random things, right? But for some reason, the butterfly resonated, and they were able to lean into that in the body movements. And that's just an exercise we do, you know. I can use colors, I can use other animals, I can use uh the seasons, I just play with different concepts and themes. Most oftentimes it seems the theme that I'm using resonates with most people, and that I can't explain to you.

SPEAKER_04 41:13

That I how I see that is that we're all connected energetically. And again, subconsciously, we're picking up on these cues that again, we can't like subconsciously, it doesn't make any sense, but because we're all connected, it sounds like in that room, you connected to this butterfly, which they also were connected to that symbolism or that frequency of a butterfly, because the butterfly has a very special frequency, right? Yes, and so for me, it's it sounds like in that room everyone was connected and was being brought to that frequency when you all connected to that butterfly. And I also love how you talked about like you're being inspired in the moment, and earlier you talked about being present in the moment, and that's how we can and if you know surrender. Um, because I believe in that a lot, it's in the moment, there's just so much information in every moment for us, uh, and to trust that, although it's scary because there's no script, we don't know what's gonna happen, and to let go of that control is scary, but it brings up so much magic.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

More and more nowadays, even if you look at people who are out there that have podcasts that talk about things, there's more and more conversations that will bring up the fact that science cannot explain everything. And even scientists nowadays they recognize the fact that not everything can be measured. So the hum the developed world at least has a tendency to lean in more and more to the fact that not everything can be explained and some things can only be felt intuitively, energetically. And I love that. I'm excited about the idea of living life more from an unexplainable feeling that is guiding so much of our decisions than facts and data and uh research and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

It's funny that you said the developed world because what we could say is the world that we, the westernized world, considered as undeveloped, they're most of the time more spiritual than us. But they're actually more connected to the universe, to the planet, to the nature, to energy, because they don't have those misconceptions of what energy should be, or the scientifically proven way, right? Or have to understand scientifically, they just know it. Um what we could call mystical connections to um energy healing through plants, nature, and other things. Where us, it's like the modernized world has blocked all those senses where we are kind of the ice age, and we are discovering through the help of science. Because we've been so much disconnected to source because of the westernized education in platforms, right?

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yeah, the less developed world may have less resources, but they probably have a better connection to self because they're not bombarded by so many systems and doing and corporations and outside forces telling you what to do. Um, which is why the world is an amazing place because you have so many different colors and um experiences.

Is Humanity Going Through a Collective Awakening?

SPEAKER_00 44:29

And that's why I think it's so important for people today to connect more and more to spirituality because there's a lot a lot of amazing things that are hidden behind these unknown ways, right? Behind these non-conventional ways of growing as a human being outside of what we've been thought, how we've been programmed for those first seven years, right? So every experience that I've had so far in personal development and spirituality, on the contrary, gave me this desire to learn more. What else is out there that we're not seeing, we're not experiencing because of either beliefs or blockages that are created by this programming that we have that is kind of working to keep us secluded and comfortable opposed to discovering these unknowns?

SPEAKER_01 45:23

So you know, the world is um going through so much right now lately, and obviously we're kind of deep in it, people who talk about spirituality and and practice personal development. But I have a juicy question for you. Do you think that humanity is going to through a collective awakening lately in your personal opinion?

SPEAKER_02 45:49

Yeah, I do believe that there is a collective awakening happening. At the same time, everyone has their own, you know, journeys. So maybe while some people are awakening, there are different levels of awakening that can be unblocked, I would say. But more and more people are trying to get in touch with themselves and they're looking for answers, and they're being aware that something's not working out. So there's something happening. I'm I'm not the best person to kind of explain how that works with the collective awakening, but I have seen shifts, and especially this year through talking to friends and acquaintances, a lot of people are going through a lot of changes. Whether it's leaving a job, moving to a different country, but usually it's not just the external part, there is like an internal awakening that's happening at the same time. I feel like people are making more soul-aligned decisions.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

And that's why I asked from a personal experience because you cannot answer that from a collective. Right. But um, um I was curious to say if you felt, you know, based on your everyday conversations, because you know, if you asked a thousand people the same question and it it, you know, they feel the same thing, maybe, maybe we're on to something there. I've I've certainly felt it. A lot of people that I speak to have certainly felt it. And an awakening, not necessarily of like, oh my God, I had an epiphany, more of self-discovery, introspective questions, um, more willing to make a change.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Yes. What I've seen also is a lot of people, the way they start describing that awakening, is that they feel like they're not fulfilled. Whatever they're doing, they don't feel fulfilled. Something, a career that gave them a lot of fulfillment all of a sudden feels empty. It doesn't feel like they belong there anymore. It feels like they were growing their job or their environment, the environment they're in.

SPEAKER_01 47:52

They're outgrowing their current skin. Yeah. So they're starting, and not to confuse fulfillment with happiness.

SPEAKER_03 47:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Happiness is a fleeting moment, right? Fulfillment is a deeper overall feeling, not necessarily an emotion that rises. Oh, I'm angry, oh, I'm happy. And you really nailed it. It's like it's um this discontentment with an overall life situation that is arising more and more.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

And at the same time, I would say they're starting to pick up on cues that they don't know what to make out of, and they don't know that they're cues either. But they're able to pinpoint at certain things that were said to them at certain point in time, or something they read, or a feeling that they had.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

They're connecting the dots.

SPEAKER_02 48:42

Yes, they're starting to get data points, but they don't know yet how it all connects and what that means, but they're intrigued by it.

SPEAKER_04 48:52

I feel like that just to answer your question with that, and what you're saying is that people are subconsciously picking up on these cues and you're able to bring that out with your work, yes, but also with the internet, and that's like a such a big shift that allowed us to be now open to the world, and with that, gives us access to connect at that level. And so whoever is doing spiritual work or doing the awakening or walking that path, there's more access to for people to find that now, more tools, more awareness around that. And at the same time, we're seeing a lot of suffering. Yeah, at the same time, and because before it was always there, suffering was always there, it's just now everything is you know accessible to see. People are sharing it or with the internet, it's easier to find that information. And so whether we like it or not, we've been fed all this information and subconsciously we're taking it in. And I just love the work that you do to help us extract that. But I do think that collectively we are going through an awakening, like that oneness is happening with the the inter that that happened already, and it's happening. On top of that, with AI, yes, is like the next level. And I have like a whole I have all these uh opinions about it, and maybe that's for another podcast. But I do think that a lot of us are awakening. Like now, when we talk about spirituality, there's more people open to it compared to maybe a few years back when we started this journey. We will be doing some spiritual practices, but we can't tell everyone yet about it. But now it's easier to find that group, and we're even having a podcast about it.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

That's why I think RPES is at the center of this pivotal change that's happening because we're creating that platform where we not only can connect, have make this an everyday thing conversation about spirituality, purpose, uh, changes that are happening into your life, and also hearing different experiences from guides. So you can start taking those, like you were saying, points and information that you've been having in time and have a space that can help you make it make sense and see how does it play a role in your life and how can you find help, whether it's through an expert in intuitive dancing or hypnotherapy or anything that it is, or someone in sacred gift, human design, and so many other ways there are to connect these dots, you know. So I think um that's why these conversations are vital because we're we're being vulnerable, we're sharing, but also we're learning and growing together in the spiritual world.

SPEAKER_02 51:30

And I believe, like, if we're able to balance out, you know, the intuitive side with the logical and the reasoning side, and then we're able to draw onto both when we need to. This is when we make the best decisions for ourselves. Yes. Um but we need to develop both and um have awareness to the benefits of each each side, and continue this path of growing on each side, right?

The Books That Helped Her Surrender More Deeply

SPEAKER_04 51:57

So actually makes me think of the book uh The Surrender Experiment. Have you heard of that from Michael A. Singer? Yeah. Um, so basically the message, the message from that book is if you surrender, what the universe has in store for you was way bigger than what you your little mind can plan for yourself. So that was one of the pivotal books that I read that really changed my life. Um, do you have any books that you highly recommend, whether it's spiritual or personal development that uh made an impact?

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Yeah. I mean, I loved Michael Singer's book on the surrender experiment. And while I help people surrender through the art of intuitive dancing, I also consider myself the first student of my own work because I'm human too, and sometimes I might not surrender. So it's just remembering to show up in that way. But one of the books that helped me early on to connect and be in the present moment are the books from Ekatoli. The power of now, for example, gives you a foundation on how to be present, right? And let go of um past stories and future, like anticipating things that are happening in the future, that your future doesn't exist. It's only the now that exists, it's in the here that you need to be, otherwise that moment slips you by. And so, yeah, that's one book that you know that I would recommend.

SPEAKER_04 53:25

Um such a classic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:28

I try to read it, and I never got past it. I try to read it way too early in my because everybody was trying to read it. Right. So that's another thing is um books are amazing in all in all of their integrity, and it it just because one book is super popular, it doesn't mean that that's the one that everybody will resonate with.

SPEAKER_04 53:50

I do find books find you. Yeah, if you allow and not just read whatever one is else is reading, but allow the books to come to you. Like those are the life-changing ones I find for myself. Were there any books that really made an impact on you?

SPEAKER_01 54:05

A lot. So one comes to mind. I'll keep, you know, I'll pick one that was uh more recent that came out last year.

SPEAKER_04 54:12

Oh, uh or worthy?

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Worthy.

SPEAKER_04 54:14

Worthy.

SPEAKER_01 54:15

Yeah. So not untethered by Michael Singer. So yeah, one book that had an impact on me was a book called Worthy. And that wasn't necessarily from a spiritual, though I love spirituality and I can go down rabbit holes on it. Um, worthy helped me understand the difference between self-confidence and self-worth. Because I have I've always had self-confidence, but that is external things. You can do this, you're smart, you can climb corporate ladders, you can accomplish things. It's easy for me to go through life. But believing that you deserve what's coming to you, that is self-worth. And I didn't quite have as much self-worth as I thought. I didn't really. So Worthy was a book that changed my perception on accepting what is coming to me and being okay with the good and letting love and goodness in.

What It Actually Feels Like to Live on Purpose

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Great book, Worthy. Today, with everything you're doing, Venina, would you say you're living on purpose?

SPEAKER_02 55:17

Yes. I would say I'm living on on purpose, probably since 2020. But since I've left my corporate job, even more so, because now I'm fully dedicating myself to the work that I believe will have a positive impact in the world. And I am doing whatever I can to connect and listen to the guidance because ultimately that's what matters to me, is to listen to my guidance. This is why I'm here on earth, and I'm open to following a path that I never thought I would take. The dancing is never something I thought I would undertake. It just came to me. And so I'm trusting that, and I want to see where that journey brings me. So I'm I'm definitely, you know, living on on purpose and helping others do the same thing with the leadership and the surrender work that that I do.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

There's an excitement that comes with living on purpose, would you agree?

SPEAKER_02 56:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Which doesn't make necess doesn't remove any challenges. It just supports you in your life.

What Illness Might Be Trying to Tell You

SPEAKER_02 56:26

And it's almost like an adventure, too. Yeah. You're on this adventure to uncover and discover what you meant to do. And while I have an idea now, it's possible that in five years I would have evolved in a different way and uncovered other things that are yet to come. And so it's constantly this discovery: how can I get bored of this life? Um, I cannot get bored of this life. I can just follow the guidance and know that I will figure this out. And I had to come to a place where I felt also connected to my inner power that I would be okay following that path.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

For people that, let's say, some of our audience right now listening, if they're going through um or facing any illness or cancer and stuff like that, what would you share with them as a kind of message of hope? Because you went through, and like you said, you've been in remission for six years, right? And what would you share to them as a message? Someone who's going through it, and how, whether it's hypnotherapy, um, healing journey, what would you say have helped you that you would share with them?

SPEAKER_02 57:41

Yes. I mean, first of all, I would say, you know, any challenge that comes in life also comes with a blessing in disguise. So if you can connect to the blessing in disguise, and maybe you can't see it right away, but if you can start looking at what are the good things about this difficult situation, whatever it may be, cancer included, it's a tricky one to look at in that way. But what what is good in that situation? What are the opportunities that I can identify for myself to make the best out of this situation? That's the one thing. And then the other thing I would say is also what is the tumor or the cancer trying to tell you? Like, what is it that you need to learn and change? Why is it there in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 58:36

That's a great role.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

And it's not to find the reason why and overthink it and you know, try to come up with like not an excuse, but this is why it happened, and now I have that.

SPEAKER_00 58:52

Something or someone to blame, kind of. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 58:55

It's more to understand to get to know you better and get in touch with yourself. Absolutely. And take this as an opportunity to honor yourself and respect yourself and look inwards. Absolutely. Because ultimately, there is a message in all the kind of health symptoms that we get. There's something that maybe we haven't picked up on, or something that we neglected that needs some attention and some love. So then it be turns into a healing journey.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

So I really want to say like it was such a pleasure for us to have you and have this conversation with you because not only we all grow together, but also your story can inspire a lot of people that they could right now be going through certain illness and they realize that okay, this may not be the end for me. On the other side, there could be something greater, right? And this platform, RPS, is exactly there for anyone who's willing to grow on a personal level, on a spiritual level. And we appreciate every single soul that is sitting here today for our own stories that we bring to the table.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:04

Yeah, thank you so much for the invitation for creating this space. I love your mission as well and the work that you're putting out there, and I can see you also leading, you know, from the heart and from love. Absolutely. And it was really a pleasure to be able to, you know, share my story. And I felt very comfortable in the process as well. So you did a great job at creating a safe space. Yeah.

How to Connect With Vanina

SPEAKER_00 1:00:29

Um and if anyone who would want to, hey, you know what, I want to be able to try dancing intuitively. How could we reach out to you? If we would like to, if we are curious of knowing more about the different aspects that you bring to the table when it comes to help, how can we get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:51

Sure. I'm I'm on Instagram. My handle is um Glow Well Coaching. My name is Vanina Pitch. You probably can find me also on LinkedIn and uh just send me a message. And then I have this online dancing community that I've started where I am inviting people for free into dancing with me once a week. And so if you're interested, feel free to reach out to me and I'll send you the information.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:20

Seems like we'll take her to the invitation and go dance with her.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:24

Yeah.