[Ep. 342] I'm Quitting My Live 7-Week Course...For Good

Marika, Camille, Evan and Luis reminisce about the 7 week course, how it started, and what their individual entry points were: Marika’s was admin in the very early days, Camille’s was the famous ant crawling on Luis as he taught, and Evan, as a long time musician friend, started in podcast production. Each recounts their experience of the 7 week course. 

The course was the first offering HLN ever offered, and after teaching it so many times, the time has come that it's ready to evolve into a more robust self led course. So, while the live course chapter is ending, it’s just the beginning of a more accessible program. 

The podcast was recorded with a live audience of Community Members, who share their experiences of the course, and being in HLN spaces.

You can get instant access to all of the HLN webinars and video courses here: https://hln.thinkific.com/collections

You can order the book here: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/the-book

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You can learn more on the website: https://www.holisticlifenavigation.com/

You can follow Luis on Instagram @holistic.life.navigation

Questions? You can email us at info@holisticlifenavigation.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Welcome to the Holistic Life Navigation Podcast. I am your host, Luis Mojica. I'm a somatic therapist and nutritionist who combines nutritional therapy with somatic therapy to help thousands of people around the world, including myself, recover from stress and trauma. This podcast serves as a way for me to teach you what I learn for free. How can food aid in the recovery of stress and trauma? What does it really mean to be embodied? And how can simple somatic practices help us better navigate this strange and sensational human experience? Let's find out. When we made this well, I made the course, and then Marika helped me do it, and then you all started coming in and adding your flavors to it. Every single one I would redo. You know, it was never the same course. It was like people would keep taking it because I would update it, I would refine this, I would change it over that the overcoupling practice. I've probably done that 10, 11 different times. That was the hardest concept to teach people. And I finally have it to a place now where it's like, here it is, it's expectations, you can feel it through constriction, and people like, oh, got it. But it used to be so hard to talk about because it is kind of esoteric and strange. So the the pleasure of just refining this thing, especially as a Virgo, to make it so digestible and so simple, it was very pleasurable. And I maybe maybe what's happened as we're talking about this is it's been so refined that I feel like it's like hit its pinnacle. Hello, everybody. I'm happy to be the host of the podcast for the whole team today. We haven't been together as a team for a while. We joke about how we have monthly HLN team podcasts, and the team has essentially become Camille and I because of the topics and the capacity of what we've been working with. But today we're working with a topic that is near and dear to everyone's heart on the team, and that's our beloved seven-week course, which we are now retiring. The course is going to live on the website as something people can take whenever they want throughout the year, but I'm no longer going to teach it live. And I don't know, we thought it'd be fun to dive into it and talk about what the course meant to us, what came up. It's a massive era shift for HLN because the course was HLN essentially. That's what really changed uh our, I mean, especially Marika and I, our lives, what grew the business, what brought so many people into us, and what helped a lot of people understand somatics in a way that they just weren't getting from other programs. So I think I'd actually want to start with Marika because that's where it started. You were already working with me months before the first course ever launched. And what do you what do you remember? What was your experience?

SPEAKER_05 3:30

I remember we were doing maybe webinars, maybe you did a webinar. And and I was thinking, oh, like you probably need like a course or like some type of like a long, and you're like, I'm working on it. And I think you had you were just about to do that first one, but I wasn't part of that one. I think it was just like what 19 people exactly 19 people, and it was sort of like a test, a little bit of a test run. Um and it was six weeks. It was four weeks. It was four weeks, yeah. And then it was six weeks, and then it was seven weeks, but yeah, I um if we kept going in that way, it would be like a year long at this point.

SPEAKER_02 4:10

It'd be a year long.

SPEAKER_05 4:11

Um yeah, and I just remember thinking, uh, this is gonna be great for everybody else, and then I took it basically, because I was like assisting. And yeah, I feel like it really changed my life. Like it was because I was learning in real time while I was also like uh answering people's questions and you know, emails and like the whole thing. So it was really um it was great because every single time I got to take it, I really learned so much, and then just kept bringing people in.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

Yeah, it's uh you know, it's funny, I didn't think of it that way for you, but you're right, because you weren't trained in any of this when you started, you did purely admin schedule emails, but it wasn't like you understood even what I was doing, you were just handling that other piece, and then the course really exposed you to the work, right?

SPEAKER_05 4:59

Right. I mean, like I I knew a little bit, but and what I'd obviously what I'd learned from you, but um, yeah, it was just funny to be, you know, part of I guess the part of the people who are uh, you know, the f facilitation or whatever it is, and like having these mind-blowing, you know, r realizations of my own. Um and being yeah, I just remember I was writing down notes, writing down people's questions, and then like putting my own questions in there too. You had like Q ⁇ A, I was like, well, I'm just gonna Cheryl from Virginia was her name rhymes with Rika. But yeah, it was uh it was really it was really cool, um overwhelming too, but um because I realized how like how much it was gonna like I think really impact people, especially if it was like me. I was pretty much in freeze all the time. So and it was you know realizing like how much of my personality was a trauma response up until that point. I was like a big I remember realizing that during something and I had a hard time being on camera. I mean I still do, but I had a much harder time being on camera at that point because it was just me. And um, I remember I could see myself like learning in real time, you know what I mean? Like just be like all of a sudden I'd look at myself and I'd be like you know, like, oh I didn't know that about myself, you know. So it was really cool. Um, I'm lucky that my mom was really into this type of work, so she got into it really early with me, so uh with us. Uh she was one of she was part of the first membership as well. So um I did have somebody to kind of talk to and and be like, I learned this and I learned this about this stuff or whatever. So it was it was nice to have someone to besides you process that that all the learnings with.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

I forgot that that was that piece around your personality being a trauma response. I forgot that was really a big part of that the the early two years of the course. That was a thing that a lot of people got from it and that I would focus on a lot. I focused on a little less in the last two years, but I remember that now. And I remember it was in February, the first course was launched that had 19 people and Eamon, it was actually her idea. That's why I was already developing it because I didn't even know I didn't know courses were a thing. Like I didn't know people dig courses. I thought a course was a thing if you were like a professor hired out of school, and then you could do a course. So I was like, people do courses, and she had just done a course about doing courses because she wanted she wanted to do an herbalism course, and she said, You should really do this because I had, as you know, the wait list was like exploding for private practice. I think it got to the point where it was like a year out or something, and the the name just came on, and Marika's like, you need to find another way to work with people because it's this is never gonna end because Instagram started blowing up, and Amon had already said do a course, so I did that first one with 19, and I think a second one jumped to 150, which was like massive. I couldn't even imagine what it was like to teach 150 people, and the next one was like 200, next one was 250, then 300, 350, it just kept growing, and we were doing them every three months. And as the the deeper the pandemic went, this was pandemic time, the deeper the pandemic went, the more registrants we would get. And it was overwhelming because it was just us two. So we would do an intro webinar for free, open registration literally in real time. Like Marika would press a button while I said registration is now open, everybody, like off to the races, and it would just be a shit show of it.

SPEAKER_05 8:40

I love it. Rika would press a button and then be like, Oh shit, I did that wrong. Oh shit, I did the wrong thing. Oh shit, I didn't I sent them to the wrong place. Like there was that's more of what it was like. There almost so many things. Yeah, it would just I have how many emails I've sent out that started with apologies, but it was insane.

SPEAKER_02 9:01

We were using PayPal at the time, which I I dissociated from. I can't even remember how we did it, but it was like this weird coding that someone else taught us how to do. You'd press a button, hope that the button went to the right payment plan. It was just complete insanity, but it was so cheap, no one had a problem with it because our course was like 10% of every other course that we saw in terms of tuition. And and that really was what built the business because I had zero interest in running a business. I had a lot of interest in private practice, and you know, Marika came on to help me manage the schedule and the private practice, and then the business really blew up because the course was like this welcome mat. And then that turned into the ongoing groups, and that turned into our membership, and then turned into slow groups, and everything we do now really started with the course. So I have a lot of uh I have such appreciation for the course and everything it taught me and how it taught me how to teach, because I had to really put everything on paper and learn how to teach these really big concepts that I was just living and doing private practice from. And then what some I always forget, Camille, were you summer 2021?

SPEAKER_08 10:06

Fall.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Oh fall. Oh, summer, so summer 2021 is when I went to tending the roots, and that's where you saw me. My love affair with the ant in my office like crawled across my finger. And for you know, you never think you're gonna hire people or attract people by talking to bugs, yeah, especially people in corporate. But they have this bitch, apparently it worked for this bitch, and then you came in. And what what was it like for you as a student? And then where were you like they need help?

SPEAKER_09 10:39

Well, so you know, I I teach you in in spring or summer, and of course, and my due diligence at binge the the podcast and like all the all the free material. And um a friend of mine was also following you, you you at the time. In fact, she had told me about the rooted festival, and so she she kind of is the one that guided me there. And um, she said, do the course with me in the fall. I was like, no, I'm not ready yet. Maybe next spring. I still need some more time to digest the material. I don't think I'm ready yet. She said, No, no, no. I think, come on, let's just do compare notes and whatnot. I said, All right, I'll go ahead and do it, do it now. Um and it was at a really critical point in my life where I knew something needed to shift. The way I was living was was not sustainable. It couldn't continue, but I didn't necessarily know what that shift needed to be. And um there were a lot of things that you had said in in the Rooted Festival as well as throughout the podcast that provided um words in a framework to things I was experiencing. And I was like, yes, that's the word for the thing I'm thinking, or you know, that that's the that's the phrase for for for what I've been um experiencing, or what, or that is a possibility. Um, so that was uh really, really helpful and what I just and I still say it to this day, what I adored about the course and still adore about the course in the HLN approach in general is that it does not teach you what to know, but how to know. And on one hand, that can be really frustrating if you kind of just want to be given a list of like do this and you will be happy, 10 steps to a happy life. Um, but I I truly, truly enjoyed that the course through six parts walks you through how to how to learn what it is you want and or how to learn what it is that lives inside of you, like the all, in my opinion, all the wisdom you need is with inside of you. And I found that the course really walks you through step by step how to tap and reconnect into that wisdom. So that's why I fell in love with it. It was incredibly eye-opening. I still say Luis made me quit my job because the week after the course, I took a week off of work. And after that week I said, all right, I'm gonna give myself a year and we'll see what happens. Um, but because that course was just was so life-changing for me, and not even life-changing, it was just, it was like eye-opening. Um there are things I experienced in the simplicity of the practices that I was just like, oh my gosh, other people need to know about this. Like it's not, it's actually like right there at your fingertips. And um, you know, I saw that you and Marika were uh considering expanding. And I was like, I also want to learn from them. Like, how do you all make money but not like freak out? I thought those that that wasn't possible. I said, well, it could be a win-win. I can help them out a little bit, and I can also basically intern and kind of observe like it's possible to be chill and make money. Um, so so yeah, that's what sort of propelled me to reach out to see if there is anything I could do to support you all, because this was so helpful for me to me that I wanted it to get out to as many people as possible, but also an opportunity for me to learn another way of doing business and supporting myself.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Yeah, you know, as as you're talking, I was just thinking, I think I think the seven-week course is one of the best things that ever came through my body. I love it. I think it is like such a good. Well, my daughter did not come through my body, but she's I was part of the making. The process, the part a little part of the process. But the the the course is so special to me. I think it's such a beautiful introduction to somatics.

SPEAKER_09 14:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

And I think it teaches it like nowhere else, no one else. And I think the the audio practices, the sound healings, the QA's with us, like that we have a whole practice session. It's not just the cognitive, then we practice the thing we learn the next day. I think it's so special. And I don't know, it hit me a couple months ago how after we did the last one last year, this thing happens in my body where I'll do something, and in my mind, I think I'm gonna do this for life, you know, because it's so easy. I can do it with my eyes closed. I could teach the course at this point with my eyes closed. And then this thing happens in my body where I'm just done. Like I don't know if it's ADHD, I don't know if it's me, I don't know if it's all human beings, but something hits and it's like, I'm done. And when I taught the one last year and we were finished, I felt like I'm I just dissociated from the idea of ever doing it again, but didn't really think about it. And then this year, when we were sitting with it and I saw it coming up, and Evan, you know, we have this conundrum every year where it's like squeezed into all these things we're doing, and it takes a lot of time and energy for us. I remember thinking, what if there was no seven-week course this year? Like, what if it wasn't being taught? And I had this tremendous feeling of relief, like utter, utter relief. It's a massive loss and profit, just everyone listening. Just so you know, Camille will we talk to you all about that. That's her, that's her job here. But it was like massive relief. And I just thought I have to follow the relief because I truly believe in being a capacity-based company, and it's not always perfect, but it's always there as an intention and it's built in that way. And I just thought this this takes away our capacity in a way. I don't think it needs to anymore. And I was talking to one of our friends who consults for us and talking to all of you about it, and everyone just felt this like hit of like, yeah, letting it be something you can buy all through the year seems so much different than we do all this work to get everybody in for seven weeks, letting it be this living resource. It gets to be more inexpensive, so it's more affordable that way. More people can take it when they want to. We don't have to constantly market it. And it just felt like, yeah, let's just give this to the world now way and let it sit in on the website online, let people take it at their own uh kind of pace. And then I've really gotten into these incredible six-month slow groups we do because they're so relational and they're so nuanced. Like everyone would tell me, I mean, Mariki, you said this, everyone but Camille has said to me that the course is like a fire hose of information that's like so much information for some people. Like the first week, it takes them months to digest the first week, you know? And so it's like it's like a fast track to this stuff. And so I think the slow groups actually last few years doing those. And if you're listening, you don't know what I'm talking about. We do these six-month slow groups, so it's one topic six months. It is like the perfect amount of time to really get into something and indulge and get gooey and nuanced about it, and that's just where I'm at in my life right now. Like, I want more of the nuance, I want more of the space, I want less of the kind of hustle and flight response. I'm really working on that, and I just love not having to market another thing. I want less marketing. So I I wonder, and Evan, I haven't asked you, like when you came on board, what was your experience of the course? Like, I don't remember how we even fooled you in or any of that. I always just thought you've always been here. I can't remember you not being here. You've always been in my life, but I'm like, how'd you?

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Well, I a part of it too was that I started off doing the podcast. Um, yeah, I super appreciate because I literally have no experience in that. Um, I mean audio, audio editing, yes, but not podcasting. Like I was just like, sure. So yeah. Um so I started off with episode one, and basically until I think I took a break around 100 when we moved over to someone else. Um, so I had listened to all of those almost just like, oh, I'm gonna help you out, make a little money, do this on the side. Um, and that was how I started getting introduced to the work because I had to listen to it. Um, of course, I was like distracted by like focusing on like removing the sound of like you having a sip of water or something.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

You sent me that that one-minute edited track of me. Just one minute of me doing that, it was horrific to try to prove a point. I had to drink more water.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yes, the importance of drinking water before recording. Cannot say it enough. Um, but yeah, so I was kind of doing that for a while. So I was always kind of in the orbit, and I think that's um, I mean, that's where I again I started getting introduced to cinematics. I kind of knew what you were doing, but I didn't fully um and the podcast was a great introduction for me, and I'm kind of just more or less subconsciously taking this information in because I'm not super focused on it, but I'm still listening and going through the whole episode. And um oh and I was also writing the descriptions at that point, so I was, I was taking notes, so it was a really already a bit of a deep dive for me. So um when the time came around that you reached out and you're saying I need you know a little more assistance here, um then I jumped in to take over the email inbox, and then um I'm trying to remember it all happened really quickly because I had started composing music um during the pandemic that was different than the other music I was making. I wanted to do something that was um more supportive, and especially before I kind of understood um where I wanted to go with this. My goal was just like, how can I make people feel calm and supported um during this time? How can I put something into the world that that's helping people? Um and I was doing all of that with software instruments, so I didn't have any physical instruments, I was doing everything through the computer. And then you were like, Hey, do you want to join my course into live sound healings? And I was like, sure. But then I was like, I don't have anything. So I went out and I got a credit card and I bought all my instruments, and then I was like, Well, how do I how do I do this over Zoom? So then I had to figure out how to do all this this remote stuff. Um, so I was really plunged into it. Um and yeah, and then and then being in the course and offering them, and one learning how sound plays into this and how it affects people through, especially through a somatic lens, a somatic framework was amazing and super eye-opening. And also to echo, yeah, I don't think until maybe the sixth or seventh course, I feel like I got the information where I could kind of be like, yeah, I know this answer. Like beans are good, I guess. And yeah, I got that. Um eat a little less than eat more send. Um, but it took me a while to really get some of the more like I would say week six and week seven. I remember it right in the beginning, I'd make it with you up until like week three or four, especially once it got um or five or six, you know, depending on if it was the six or seven-week course. Um yeah, it took a really uh it took me some time to really get my head around what that was. Um and then yeah, just I I love being able to be a part of that and see that. And then um, again, also starting to go through um the training through SEI. I loved seeing how there was the the the core similarity of feeling the body and kind of the semantics, but just um, and I I nerd out about this stuff all the time, like the different approach that you take to it, the way that you come to everything you do on such a holistic level that is both um I love how it's both kind of nuanced and almost metaphysical, and at the same time wildly practical. Um, and that's what I've always always loved about everything that you do and teach. And yeah, that was a big part of the seven-week course.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

That's so sweet. I love that. Metaphysical but wildly practical. That actually sums me up very well. Yeah, that's interesting. What is that bias new by dropping soon?

SPEAKER_05 22:17

I was also gonna remind us like Evan, you were actually in the course before you were in the course because we used your music. Oh yeah, yeah. Hey, can you do another one for like look at the winter feel? And like you didn't know. Oh, you're right, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, that was so fun that we just we just had so much fun with it. We a lot of our creativity went into like how do we make this really interesting and new and dynamic for people? So it's not just sitting back being lectured to, but there's something that really is is different. You can feel it, and it works in different um different dynamic containers. Like you're learning here, you're seeing a video, now we're practicing, now we're doing a demo, now we're doing sound healing, now Marika's leading a session, now Camille's doing QA. Like all these different ways to engage different parts of the brain too. But over Zoom. But exactly. That was the real Zoom. Like that was the real challenge.

SPEAKER_05 23:09

I feel like because I've been on so many different Zoom calls and meetings and workshops and stuff. But I haven't ever felt like I felt like they were informational but not relational. And I feel like that's something that we got over. Like um, I felt like we have certain things that we do and have done that made it more more relational to me. You know, kind of how we do the bands or how we yeah, how we do um, you know, the did the sound healing, um, or you know, leading the um like the guided practices with Evan on Thursdays were really interesting. Um especially for people who would get triggered by the sound.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Oh yeah. It was always I was thinking of I was thinking of the weeks, like Evan said, like he would get a couple weeks and just zone out. Week three was like that was the week, right? That always did it. Because that's when we get into attachment stuff, and this the still face experiment with the dads and the kids, and that's when it hit the place where people were like, I'm out, and that's why we week four, we're like, let's have a week where we don't learn anything new. We just review, we relax, we listen to sound, we just don't do anything new, and that tremendously helped people get through to the last three weeks of the course instead of get so overwhelmed by it. What are you thinking, Camille? I see something on your face.

SPEAKER_09 24:27

Oh no, just sort of um I mean, that's what we're doing here, reminiscing on the course. I just remember taking it. Your your comment around of everyone has told me except Camille that is like drinking from a fire hose. And I remember taking the class, I'm like, this is wildly digestible. Like this is because I'm used to coming from corporate academic settings where like the the cases are like 20 pages and notes on notes on notes. I'm just like, let's get to the point, let's get to the point. And that's how I felt the course was like yeah, metaphysical, but wild, wildly practical. You gave me the bullet point. I was like, I get you. And what was really fascinating was like, again, this was my first introduction really into semantics. So I'm learning these terms, these concepts here. Got it. Then I'll learn it or hear about it in a different place. And I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about? This is unnecessarily complicated. I know what this is, or at least I thought I did. Why am I now confused? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Yeah. The thing with me, and this is why ADHD is wonderful when you learn to love it, is I will obsess over something and refine it like beautifully. And when we made this, well, I made the course, and then Marika helped me do it, and then you all started coming in and adding your flavors to it. Every single one I would redo. You know, it was never the same course. It was like people would keep taking it because I would update it, I would refine this, I would change over that the overcoupling practice. I've probably done that 10, 11 different times. That was the hardest concept to teach people. And I finally have it to a place now where it's like, here it is, it's expectations, you can feel it through constriction, and people like, oh, got it. But it used to be so hard to talk about because it is kind of esoteric and strange. So the the pleasure of just refining this thing, especially as a Virgo, to make it so digestible and so simple, it was very pleasurable. And I maybe maybe what's happened as we're talking about this is it's been so refined that I feel like it's like hit its pinnacle. And I'm curious how all of you feel about this, but part of my issue in the world, maybe, but just how I navigate is once something is like done and doesn't need me anymore, I have no interest. You know, like when I make a record, the moment the music record is out, I'm like completely over it. I don't want to ever play another song from it again. Like I'm ready to work on the next one. And so I don't know if it's my avoided nature or what it is, but this course feels like it really I squeezed everything out of it I can, and now it feels like it just needs to be preserved. How does it feel for you to also never have to teach it again or be part of it? What if people can't see you, Marika? How would you describe that?

SPEAKER_05 27:18

I mean I'm here celebrating at its memorial, right? So I'm I guess I the only thing I wish I'd known the last one was the last one, you know what I mean? Um I'm not quite sure what I would have done differently, but um But yeah, when I thought about all the things that we need to do this this fall, um that was the sticky part where I was like, Yeah, this is like one more seven-week thing gotta get through. You know, because it's um it's a lot of extra hours on top of a lot of hours. So it just I was when you asked me and you sorry you didn't ask me, when you told me, you said, hear me out. I already knew what you're gonna say, and I was all bored. So I was just like, Yes, absolutely. Like not you know, I'm obviously I'll miss it, and I and and I I love giving myself that like uh you know, a little extra learning, you know, a little check-in. Um I too took me a long time to get to week six and seven, I guess, or you know, um, because I was practicing all the other weeks, you know, and um uh but you know, we have membership for that, and um I think we've um and we have recordings if I really wanted to to to revisit it, but I'm I always am uh loving the like new energy, where is it gonna go? You know, we're we're still gonna teach the same stuff, but it'll be through maybe different offerings or um from you know uh a different but still grounded place, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Yeah, I think even more grounded, right? Like the more space we have, the more I feel grounded, the more everyone else feels grounded. That that really feels like the the top priority for me. What was it like when I called you, Camille? Because you seemed like at first you were like, oh, and then 10 minutes through the conversation, you're like, okay, okay, I can be with us. I can be with us.

SPEAKER_09 29:20

Yeah, I think the initial uh it's just like change. All right, hang on a second. Let me let me orient. What are we doing here? Um, and and I I do it the seven-week course has a special place in my heart just because of one, my own personal experience going through it. But um, I mean, like I said, I I I love that course, like because of not just what it did for me, but it lays out the foundation to everything. Like at half the time when people ask me questions, like, well, if you go to week three, if you go to week four, if you go to week seven, like it's it's all there. Um, and so there was a part of me that's like, oh no, without teaching it live, people won't really get it. But also what I really like is people first getting their getting their first sort of exposure to it and like me sort of seeing light bulbs clicking and like, oh, this makes sense. Like I I really dig that. Um we'll get that in in the slow groups, but there was something special about for a lot of people it being their first introduction uh in the in the seven-week slow group.

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Um but an initiation, right?

SPEAKER_09 30:33

Yeah, yes, and an initiation. But I I I also like to attune to the fact, like you said, there there is a relief. Like it was a seven-week gauntlet. Like I didn't I would prepare for it. Like, I know these seven weeks is gonna be balls to the walls, there's gonna be question after question, it is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Um well, because for people listening who don't know, your primary role next to teaching is you're on circle Monday through Friday answering questions for hundreds of people.

SPEAKER_09 30:58

Yeah. So it it was it was it was a lot. It was a lot of questions. Um, from sometimes we had over 300 students, and um and so it could be a lot. It's nice to to get that that time back. And to also know that there's going this the same foundational material is going to be there, it's going to be evergreen. Um, and people don't necessarily have to wait to once a year to to do it, they can jump in when they're ready.

SPEAKER_08 31:22

Um, so I think that was my my hesitation that oh, but this is so key, like this is the foundation to everything, and we're gonna lose it.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Yeah, yeah. Evan, I know you're loving it. I can just smirk when you're he's like he's like arrogantly spinning his chair King of the Mountain.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Well, I do I do enjoy not having to. It would be a whole thing because I'd have to have my whole setup, and then I would be setting up either in the afternoon or in the morning, and then well no explain so they know what it means by whole setup.

SPEAKER_02 31:55

Oh, yeah. Well, especially never even been in the course.

SPEAKER_01 31:58

Yeah, and and and people actually don't even know what goes into it because I have yet to have a dedicated space to do this. Um, and I've I've moved a bunch of times. So basically, what would happen is every um what Wednesday? Thursday, whatever day it was, Thursday.

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Um I'm laughing because I feel like I just opened the altism door box.

SPEAKER_01 32:18

Yeah, I'll keep every I'll keep it brief.

SPEAKER_02 32:20

I thought you living to the distance.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

Well, I just I guess I am I am very glad that this part is over where I'm just like every week sliding the couch and like moving the tables and moving the lamps and then rolling out the rug and setting up my instruments, and this would be like yeah, it usually takes like about an hour to 90 minutes of setup. Um, and then do a sound check, and then Marika would pop on and we'd do a sound check together and then do the thing, and then I'd immediately have to jump into you know a membership call or a slow group call right as that closed. Um, and then you know, at like eight o'clock at night, I'm like breaking down things and moving the couch back. So and I'd do that seven times. Um, so yeah, there was just troubling. Last last last cohort was actually the first time I left it set up the whole time because I had a porch. Um, that's right, yeah. Yeah, so that was very nice. I did enjoy that. Um, so someday. But um yeah, but well, and I remember too, um, even I think a week before you told me you were done doing the course, we had a phone call, and I remember saying something that I didn't think much of in the moment where I was like, and this is great, you know, like I can really see maybe in like three, four, or five years, like you you really we start with the replay stuff, the replay stuff is so foundational. Maybe we don't even do the course anymore. And then, like a week later, you're like, Listen, I have an idea. I'm like, Oh no, you took my advice, but but then it was really just like, yeah, and and I love what you just said about it before of like then you've like squeezed everything out of it, refined it so much, and now it's time to preserve it. And I totally agree, and it feels like it's become so full and like clear that um, and again, I feeling the same way as you about music. I feel like once it's reached that level of like it's done, it's perfect. It's like you don't want to touch it, you just want to save it and then let it live on its own life. Um, and you kind of send it off to college. Um, and that's kind of what you know, it feels like the course has kind of reached, and it is super exciting that it can be available for anyone at any time. And um, and even the fact that it is the replay, um yeah, here's the autism speaking. Um, anyone who has purchased the self-led course, once we eventually start updating them, those updates will carry over for you as well. Um, so there's this really great um way that if we ever have the desire to make updates to things like that, that it's not fully like fossilized or whatever, in the sense it can still be living. So if you suddenly decide, oh, I want to record this audio practice again, or I'm like, oh, I want to re-record uh sound healing, I do, those things can still be kind of brought in and it kind of gives it this um yeah, it's it's just like a best of. It's it's really lovely.

SPEAKER_02 35:00

I love it. As you say it, it feels so right. Because I I think if I'm correct, I've taught the course 20 times. I think it's right right around 20. Because we we had done you when you when you joined the course, Camille, you were in the seventh cohort because we started in 2020 doing them quarterly just because of demand. We were just like we would do a course, and at first, it was the first two, I think were four weeks. That right the first two or three were four weeks. So it was like it'd be a month, we'd be done. There'd always be hundreds of people on the wait list. Like, okay, let's do another one. So we were just kind of sloppily doing them, and then we're like, let's do them every quarter. And we did that for years up until I think just two years ago was the first time we did three instead of four. Then last year we did two instead of three, and then this year we're doing none. So it like slowly came down, but I think it got close to around 20. And so I think I had to teach it that many times to get it to this place where okay, now it's where it's supposed to be. Let's leave it like that. And I love leaving things alone. You know, it's like one of my favorite things to teach and for people that own businesses because we're constantly taught to like keep pushing, keep creating, keep doing the thing that makes sense, that makes money, that your brand is built on. And the seven-week course is what the brand is built on. But if it's not alive for me, it doesn't feel like something I want to keep working with. Like I like, I like to let things die. I really do. I think it's important. So it feels like even though we're preserving it, it's not dying. The live version is dying, the experience is dying, but it's it's a wisdom, everything it offers gets to be preserved for people, and then we can see where else that might take us. And I I had this feeling I want to throw out. So we record once a month, we record this podcast in front of a live audience, and the audience is our membership. And almost all the members here in this call right now have taken the course. Um, I was curious if anyone wants to be on the podcast, if you want to raise your hand, like go to oh, you know how to raise your hand. If you want to raise your hand, uh, if you I would love to hear your own experience of how you experienced our course because, like, we know how we did it. You know, what did it mean to you, or what did it teach you, or how did it initiate you into this work? Um, if you want to share, you can raise your hand and I'll allow those people to unmute themselves. And you can be on video, you cannot be. It's completely up to you. I'm just gonna change the settings to allow that. Um and then, yeah, Camas, why don't you start us off? Like, like, how was the course for you? What was it like?

SPEAKER_04 37:37

It was the answer to a freaking lifelong prayer, I swear. It was I because I spent decades being at the effect of my trauma response was just you know, I I was clear that I did not I didn't have the resources or the capacity to deal with psychiatry as it stood then. I needed something that had some heart, and that was heartless. It was just so transactional, it was nothing else, is my experience, nothing else. And so this was so relational, and I I'm kind of I don't know how to express how much it meant to me. I mean, I'm I'm you know, I've got my journal that I've kept all these years, and I was in the spring 2022 cohort, and I I I just felt like this is this is what's gonna keep me alive. This is I, you know, I still have a litany of physical ailments and problems and whatever, you know, but but I have now like a a sense of of like something to live for for Pete's sake, you know, something really clear to live for. Because it's helped so much in in my relationships with my families and and but also just with myself. I've learned how to be kind, I've learned how to be patient, I've learned how to how to just not drive everybody crazy. I was just a little while ago thinking how I just would go out in the world and um somehow unconsciously trigger people, and I didn't have any idea how I was doing it, but it just made my life so miserable because it wasn't what I wanted and I didn't know how to not do it. So yeah, the course was life-changing. It was it was um it made sense.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Thank you, love. So uh it's fun to get to introduce some of you, uh-huh. Some of the members we adore who are part of our HLN family to the audience. So thanks for for doing that. Heather, you're one of the OGs. Like when I think of the course, I think of Heather. So tell tell us what that was like for you.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Oh yeah. Um it was as much as it was life-changing for Camas, I think it was life-saving for me because I was in a really dark place. And I it was late summer or early fall 2020, was when I came to HLMN. And I was so disconnected from my body and so um stuck in my trauma responses. I didn't understand what was going on with me that I was like literally at the end of my rope. And this course literally saved my life. Um, it was the first time in my life I ever was able to feel into my body and understand what I was experiencing because my feelings were just it was this interesting thing that were so big, but at the same time, they're so overwhelming that I was just so disconnected. And that's how I was going through my life. I was so so disassociated, but finally being able to touch in and understand like the overcouplings I had and all of the trauma responses that were my personality at the time. How I was able to let go of those things and just really get down to the real me inside and find this real settled space in my center now that I can just tap into when I need it. And like literally, it saved my life and it's it's been life-changing.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

Yeah, I've seen you and and say this to Camus. Same for you, Camus. I have seen you, Heather, because it's you've been with us for so long. Like all the transformations, it is incredible. And it's really beautiful as a teacher to see you all want to do the course, like see your faces on the screen of all the other faces. Like it's a sea of faces. There's these certain faces, and we all as a team will clock it when we have our meetings of like they're joining membership, they're joining membership. Like, you can tell, like who's invested, who's I mean, just you can feel this thing. I remember I felt it with Camille. I would look often because you know, there's dozens of people to look at, and I'll orient to a couple people I feel it resonates with. And it's funny because the three people have their hands up, Heather, Camus, and Chamel. I was clocking you all in those sessions. Like there's something about you that just felt, ah, you know, you're here. And so it's just lovely to hear this this connection, the way you you joined membership and how much incredible transformation you've done. It's been a blessing to watch. Jamel, what do you how was it for you?

SPEAKER_06 42:36

What you just said, that that recognition and the uh I had just been working for so long for so hard, feeling like I was going in circles, trying to work through my shit. And then coming to HLN was such a relief. I I learned myself in a way that I wasn't really safe to learn myself before. Um it didn't feel like a fire hose, it felt like recognition. This is what I haven't been able to see because I haven't been able to be safe to go to these places within myself. One of the hugest impacts for me was to be in relationship with other people that were experiencing the same things that I was. There were parts of me that I didn't even recognize until I saw it in somebody else. And uh so many experiences where it was like something just came alive and jumped up in me that I didn't really even know was there. Yeah, it felt like a homecoming. And it's been, I don't know how many years now, three, four feels like feels like it's it's just a part of my life. These are my people. And because of the things that I've learned here from you with you, and then with myself, the way that I've been able to relate to myself, it's had an impact in every single area of my life. And what's crazy is that I thought that I got to HLN and that things were gonna really be on such a different trajectory now, right? Because I've found my home and myself and my people, like it's gotten fucking worse in so many ways. And yet I'm just so much more solid than I ever have been. And uh, with all of that stuff that's gotten worse, like I'm not on fire. Like I got this stable roof over my head right now. I'm in my body. Um, there's no real danger. And that used to just, I used to be on fire all the time because of my perceived danger. Anyway, it's been such a beautiful, wonderful thing for me. I cannot express enough gratitude for what you guys have done and the fact that I just found you and you found me, and then I found myself.

unknown 44:48

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

I love this. Thank you, sweet. I love you too. I love this so much because something I love about HLN is we really, we really love and value realness and we teach it. And we I never in my marketing tell anyone something's going to happen for them. You know, like I'm surprised anyone joined anything we put out because I say what I'm going to teach, I say what my philosophies are, but I never say this will make you more money or this will take away your illness or this will cause you to sleep better. And so what I love about that is not only do people come, like it's a shock, but people come and then they experience, as you three are explaining, and we've had other people, massive transformation, even in the face of certain things in life getting worse, something inside of them has completely transformed. They have more peace, even though things might have been, quote, better even years ago. To me, that's a real testament to the work. Because if life is really easy and you take the course, oh, I love life, everything's great, the course really helped me. Awesome. I'm happy for you. But when you take the course and you do the practices and life gets harder or things get worse or health declines, but your relationship to yourself is completely connected still, and you're kind to yourself and you're kind to people around you, and you're floating and you're just you know riding the wave of whatever's coming. That's the whole purpose of somatics to me. And Camille, you teach that a lot, you know, about embodiment isn't calm. You know, embodiment is about staying connection to whatever's there.

SPEAKER_09 46:20

Yeah, actually, um as I listen to y'all, I think about like I was talking about the transition I made in my life. I did decide to make a change. And after after listening to Louise and joining LG HLN, um, my life was quote unquote bad. And by bad I mean it was there was a a high level of unpredictability. And prior, that would have been so devastating to to to my system. And it's just fascinating to see how over the last four years or so, even though things have been quote unquote bad, it has been one of the most um, I don't know, not even just easeful, but but precious and yeah, embodied and I don't know, I wouldn't trade it for anything, including, you know, even watching my daughter go through uh cardiac arrest and that um her recovery. It's yeah, it's it's definitely been a difference for me. And yeah, the to be embodied, not calm is is the key.

SPEAKER_02 47:29

Yeah, I'd love to close this with asking Evan Marika, you know, after being through so many of the courses, and Marika's been through every course except for the first one. Like, what what's the thing you got from it the most? Like whether it's something that you taught, something that I taught, something you saw in other people, like what's the piece that you feel like really did something for you? You're also gonna say nothing. It did absolutely nothing for me. I just work here.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

Um gosh, I don't know how to sum it up because I feel like it's something that's become so foundational to the way that I show up now. Um and I think that and even having done it fewer times, I think that just having done it so many times and had it over and over and over just in my mind. And um again, I think that's really another great benefit of working here is that it is a constant reminder. Um and yeah, yeah, just really, really grateful for that constant being in it and thinking about it and um even like getting questions and feedback and like how that really shifts and changes my own perception of things and how it helps me dive deeper into the practices. Um yeah, I just it just feels so foundational that it's hard to describe because it just feels like it's my self-connection. Like it's just I was so disconnected from myself for so long, and then now I'm so deeply connected to myself that it it I almost feel like a different person, like like truly. I especially I think back um yeah, especially we were just talking about this too. I think back even um even longer ago, like you know, 10 or 15 years. Um, and I can almost see myself as a different person. Like I almost I can almost become like a character in my mind. Um, and then at the same time, I still feel like I'm able to understand that that is the way I was, that's how I showed up, those are the things that I did because I didn't understand these principles. I didn't know how to, I didn't know what capacity was, I didn't know what overcouplings were, I didn't know how to relate to trauma and big emotions. Um so yeah, it just I just feels like it's so foundational that I can't I can't even uh single it out.

SPEAKER_02 49:47

Oh, that's a beautiful answer. I'm so so touched, thank you for that.

SPEAKER_05 49:53

Um there's so much, but I think just kind of to what Cam said I'm not on fire anymore all the time. Like I literally feel like I that's how I spent my life was just like in a constant emergency emergency. Um and be and because of that it increase constantly. Um now when I'm on fire, which doesn't happen as much anymore, I know what to do about that. Um when other people are on fire, I'm not trying to fix it right away, which used to be my thing. Um big fixer of other people. Um and I think that that really is is more about capacity, you know. Um, I didn't really understand what that was. And because I do, all my relationships have changed because I know how to what my capacity is for people, and I know I don't take things personally when people don't have capacity, right? I've um so yeah, it's I also didn't used to want to learn anything about myself, you know. Then you have to change stuff, but now I really look forward to the learnings that I get from from s from sticky situations or from you know feeling inflamed or whatever it is. Um it's not something that carries me away forever. It's like now I have tools, which I really love. So that's um and that can't help but just ripple out, I think, into your life, at least it did into my life.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

That's so beautiful. I love you said I have tools. Because I think that's really what that's the intention. What I'm always thinking, what's the intention of what I'm doing? What's the purpose? And that's really the intention of the course for me all these years is give people language for what they experience so they can understand themselves and not judge themselves or think there's something wrong with them, but like actually all this is perfectly normal, you know, based on what you've experienced, and then not just leave it there, but now give you tools and like real tools, not things that are are impossible, but really accessible things to do any moment of the day in any situation, like no exceptions. And I think the brilliance, I mean, we have taught in the live course, we have taught over 5,000 students, and just in the live course, we'll see what happens when it's just available for people. I can't wait to see who we're able to touch, but that's a lot of people, and that's international, that's all over the globe. And what I love about that is I've gotten to see and hear how all different people from different ages, people living out of their cars, people living in other countries, people living in war-torn countries, like every experience you can imagine, every single person can use the tools, like every single person. I've never met an exception. And that has been so mind-blowing. It's been so beautiful to see uh as a teacher. Like I think every teacher wants to see that. And I really want to know that these things are for everyone. It's not just for a certain group or certain culture or certain class, but it's literally applicable for anybody. And that's also what really aligns with this decision for me. Not only do we have more capacity, but it's more accessible. We have so many ways we can make this more financially accessible and instantaneous for people instead of waiting a whole year to take something. And that just like my heart literally lights up when I think of that. I don't have to fight Camille about money anymore. No, I'm kidding. But it's just such a relief. That's really it's not true.

SPEAKER_09 53:33

That's still gonna happen. Who told you that?

SPEAKER_02 53:36

That's right, that's right. Thank you. I was hoping you chime in with that. Camille is our certified, no, no, chief. So we call her the CFB. A CFO is a chief financial officer. Camille's a CFB, a chief financial bitch. And so that's what her job is here now. And it is a tall order with this bitch because you, when you heard Evan say, like, oh, I I needed I needed stuff to do stallion. So ran down and put it on my credit card. I saw Camille's face, and that's what she has to deal with me to this day. I was blowing her mind. Her and Zach, we had dinner in Costa Rica. I was blowing their mind about how a poor person moves through the world. Can I talk about this, Camille? I was like, yeah, I'd have to do this. And and her and Zach were like, Wait, you left home when you were 19? You didn't have any money and savings? I was like, No, what do you mean? Like, you didn't you didn't have a plan? Like, a plan. What are you talking? You weren't you didn't have a business, but why the fuck are you talking about? I worked at a gas station and put everything on credit cards and food stuff.

SPEAKER_07 54:37

No, I was just like, wait, you didn't have a checking account? Your parents didn't open up a checking account for you when you were 12? How do you know?

SPEAKER_02 54:47

I'm like, I had a I had a 100 check that my grandma wrote for me when I was born. So that's what I got. And so it was so funny because I I mean if Marika was there, the conversation would have been even better because that bitch, and you can speak for yourself, but you know, Taurus, just think Taurus is all you have to think. But um, oh yeah, it was very fun. We'll have to have a whole conversation about that someday. But my point is, I'm gonna get into a ramble and I want to hop off and hang out with the members. Um, very excited about this course having a new life without us having to teach it. And I just can't wait to see what it does in the world and how it feels for us to have more space. And I have to, you know, funnel that into our work every year. I think we are done, and I feel very good with being done. So I thank you all for you know, thanking my team for lifting up this course because it became incredible because of you three. It was like nice in you know, February 2020 was the first one I did, a month before they met it dumb. It was nice, but it got lit. It got lit as you three were giving ideas and putting things in, and a manual was created, and we had sound healing and QA's and demos. It just got so visceral and powerful. It would not have gone that way without you three. So I'm I'm also happy to immortalize your wisdom in it too, and we'll have to add some more conversations to the upcoming one because we have more weeks to add now to the self-led. So we'll make a nice big fat announcement on the newsletter when uh when the time comes. Any last words before we hop off, anybody?

SPEAKER_05 56:27

Self-led course.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

That's the extent of the marketing, by the way, for the self-led course, right there. So okay, okay, everybody. So good to be with you. And uh actually, next time the HLN team meets, we're gonna be talking about parenting and all the somatic practices we have and how we parent our different children and the different ages and the different worlds we're in. And and I really want to talk about how our kids are often not like us and why that's a good thing and why that's normal. I want to go into that. So we're gonna have a nice juicy conversation. We'll see y'all next time. That's the end of today's episode. Take a moment to notice where you feel the episode. Take a breath into that place, maybe even put your hand over it, and let whatever wants to come up come up. And remember, our bodies speak through sensations. What's yours saying right now? For more information on any upcoming events, please visit holisticlifenavigation.com, and feel free to check out my YouTube page where you can watch any of these episodes, leave a comment, and even request a future topic for me to dive into. I'll see you next time. Bye.