Can making art change what we pass down to the next generation?

In this episode, hosts Lisa and Lauren sit down with Holly Woods, founder of the Emergence Institute and creator of the Living Portal initiation, to explore her perspective that creativity isn't reserved for a select few who call themselves "artists," but a life force moving through everyone, and that reclaiming our own creative expression directly shapes the world we leave behind. The conversation moves through the inner voices and childhood experiences that often keep people from expressing themselves, why discomfort around art is often a clue rather than a dead end, and how getting to know and integrate the parts of ourselves we've pushed away can unlock a more authentic, creative life. Holly also shares a moving story about a client who, after doing this inner work, found the courage to show up more fully, with real and unexpected results.

A reflective, big-hearted conversation about creativity, generational patterns, and what it means to become more fully yourself.

More from Holly: https://emergenceinstitute.net/about-holly/

Transcript

Lisa 0:02

Hello, it is Lisa and Lauren from Artist Moving. We're really, really excited today to introduce our audience to Holly Woods. Holly, tell us about yourself or tell our audience about you, who you are, and what your mission is.

Holly 0:17

So I've been working in human development, human potential movement, I guess, most of my life. I've founded a couple of things. Emergence Institute is my primary business, and I am a coach and guide and help people who are know that there is something wanting to be birthed through them to gain more clarity about what that is and work through the unconscious barriers, the shadow aspects of themselves that might keep them from living that form. I'm also the founder of a new initiative called Living Portal, which where I'm helping people do multidimensional parts work. To be honest, I'm an author, have a published book, and I'm publishing two new books this month. Radical wholeness. Yeah, so I've been, you know, help people find purpose, activate that, uh help people evolve.

Lauren 1:21

I love that. That's awesome.

Holly 1:23

Step into their wild creator. That's that's my goal. Yeah.

Lauren 1:27

I love it. Um with that in mind, I would love to talk to you about um specifically if uh if making art can change what we pass down to future generations. Like, what's your thought about that?

Holly 1:42

Well, I love the question, and it feels like a no-brainer to me. Does anybody ever say no, that's not possible? Um I mean, I I like of course. Um, I come with the awareness that the more clear we become about who we are and what is ours to do in the world, we begin living as creators of our own life. Most of us, you know, we've been taught creativity is for those, you know, artists. And um and it seems to be a small segment of society who calls themselves artists. And I guess my own perspective is that we are all artists, and probably I'm I'm guessing that you would argue the same, and that we've lost access to the life force that wants to move through us, which is creativity. The, you know, the universe, the cosmos, the field moving through us emerges as inspired life force. And it looks different for everybody what that creation or art might look like. Some of us would be painters or other kinds of, you know, um, you're gonna have the right words, I don't have the right words, but have that form of expression. And others, others of us are writers, I'm an author, I write and write and write and write. And, you know, and others build things so art can look different. And, you know, as we just spoke about, art precedes all other forms of of uh precedes all other forms of humanity. So it's it's the initial spark that causes creation to unfold into the uh social context. And so as we're creating art in in whatever form is our innate form, we are creating the world newly. And so, of course, that's going to affect you know all future generations as we are inspired, living, um, living according to that which is our divine intelligence.

Lisa 3:53

I love that. It's it's like fertile ground on some level. Um, what I really am interested in is like, how did you, it's it seems like you're walking the talk. How did you get to this place that you can now illuminate people to reach their greatest potential through creativity and such?

Holly 4:10

We only have a short period of time. So a nutshell ver I mean, my life's um my life's journey, you know, has been very difficult. I my soul chose a path that would require me to drag myself through the fire for decades. Um, not that that's everyone else, you know, everyone's path, thankfully. Um I how did I arrive here? I was here to help others. Um, I I think probably the most significant facets of that were that I didn't turn away from what got in the way. Um, I've been doing deep personal work for a very, you know, my whole life, and discovering that in that discovery of what is preventing me from living fully as myself also lies the gold. You know, most of us think about hurdles and barriers and shadow work, um, which is um, you know, become more common language in our culture, uh, as something I need to avoid or repress or move away from because it's uncomfortable and um it's not my preference to dig into the shadow. And my Scorpio nature didn't give me any other choice. I literally had to do that work. I I was forced to. And because of that, I you know, I see it as a blessing now. I was able to uh over and over repeatedly throughout life address those aspects of myself that were um showing me something as a mirror that I didn't necessarily know about. And in the in the discovery and liberation of those aspects of me, then I came to see the potential that lies in unleashing that power, that energy that was formerly sequestered in form. And when I talked about, you know, and now do multidimensional parts work. I'm I'm not kidding. Literally, I help people discover parts of themselves. You've probably heard parts work that have been showing up as personality quirks or things that you know I don't like about me. And and those are elements that we need to discover in order to know ourselves better. And each of those parts brings brilliance, brings intelligence in our whole human system. So I've been doing that for a very long time and just keep doing it and keep becoming more and more liberated.

Lauren 6:57

I love that. I I think that it's interesting that you talk about uh people avoiding the shadow work and the things that make them uncomfortable. And actually, I think one of the reasons that people shy away from art is because it makes them uncomfortable. And I understand that that the we definitely have this assignment that people you're only an artist if, and then fill in the blank. Um, but sometimes I think that's even used as an excuse so that they don't have to enter that part of themselves that does make them uncomfortable. Because maybe maybe that that's your answer right there, the fact that you're not willing to do art that tells you a lot about yourself, which is that right, it's about perfectionism and performance and meeting certain goals that have been set for yourself. So have you ever encountered someone I'm sure you have, that is like, nope, absolutely not. And and um what kind of tools do you use to help people work through that?

Holly 8:03

And I understand it's probably different for everyone, but so to to ad to face the parts of ourselves we don't want to look at or to who are not wanting to do art.

Lauren 8:14

I'm not sure what either either way. I mean, I think that not doing art is actually telling you something of that.

Holly 8:21

I I love that hypothesis, it feels very true to me. And and I'll speak to myself. I um I'm I wouldn't, you know, I I it even at this point, the the notion of calling myself an artist is um anathema to our cultural um you know description of an artist. But when I consider that I spend parts of every single day of my life writing, and that's the form of art that has become my way of expressing. Um, but it took me a long time to get here. And and so I mean, most of us don't want to express ourselves because we're nervous about it being good enough. You know, art is something that you put on a wall or in a museum or exhibit in some way where others can look at it and judge and and our perception is they'll judge me if I put my expression in the world. And you know, one of the things that I often do is have people just journal. Like I when I work with people, I literally create a set of Google Docs and it's like we're gonna just be expressing together. And you know, everything that I might comment or reflect for you is not a judgment, it's just my witnessing of you. And there it feels to me like, you know, in in kindergarten, you know, kindergarten elementary school, we learn to draw and paint and write and all those things, and it's kind of fun, and then we go to grade later grades and we're graded for all those things, which like shuts down any instinct I have to just express myself and just you know put things down or out in the world. And and so I think we we need to recover our ability to express without you know, without judgment, without grading, without some kind of metric about it being good enough. And so that's that's how I start with people is doesn't matter, go make a statue in the woods, like it just you know, begin doing something that's an expression.

Lisa 10:37

I love it. It's like that make things know thyself, you know? Um my question is you so if it's like how does I I know how it does, but let's let's tell our audiences like how does creativity become liberation? How does it really, you know, what's the what's the what's the key right there? Because you know, if I'm facing this and I know that I can become free or liberate it, I'm I'm gonna kind of say, oh, I'm gonna try it, I'm gonna do it, because the payoff is much greater than you know the the constricting.

Holly 11:13

Yeah, well, I think you you just you gave the answer when you asked the question, Lisa. Like, you know, it's it's in the ex it's in getting to know thyself. And the less we know ourselves, the more we're subject to other people's opinions and judgments. And so every little bit of knowing ourselves, however we do that, and it's usually in very, very small, nuanced steps, but it is a greater awareness of what is in us that wants to be expressed. And I I wrote poetry as a child, it was my form of expression, and I didn't I didn't share that poetry with anybody. I don't I don't know how I knew to do that, but it I had, you know, many of us have personal journals as children. We used to call them diaries. Um and they're just expressions of self that don't need to be seen by the public, you know. We often now think of art as something that is exhibited to others, and art can be very personal. And the more comfortable I became with my own writing, my poetry, then later I did start sharing it with people. But then, you know, and then it's subject to what somebody else thinks about it. Um and so, you know, continuously moving in a what if we had a social construct that said, know yourself regardless of all other um constraints, like doesn't matter what anybody thinks, but of course we all have voices that say, you know, gotta be good enough, gotta show up in a particular way.

Lauren 12:58

Yeah. I know I think it's almost like I want to assign people um who um are like right on that edge of being willing to to do it to I'm almost assigning myself right now, is to do things, it's is to do things, do something that you're never gonna show anyone. Right? Like just make make a work, make a work or express yourself. So because I agree with you. Um, I think you know, you could be you could be making a cake, you could uh be um orchestrating sound by recording it, you could just be listening to sound, you could be humming a tune, um, you could be choreographing a dance in your living room, you can be doing anything. And I think that um we run into this a lot with this, which is like permission. I think people, we also live in a society where speaking of grade school, that's all you're doing is you're constantly waiting for permission to do something, but I actually think that is against a lot of human nature. And I I totally understand why um in terms of like management and community. And um, I mean, we could go into like other ways we could do that for sure, because I have thoughts, but um I just think I would I wish like maybe we need to say, make something that you're never gonna show anyone, and maybe that gives that permission. But I guess there's still self-judgment, but maybe the more you do it, the the easier it gets to express. And then eventually, like you're saying, you get to that point where you're like, you know what, maybe I'm gonna ask someone what they think about this, and you kind of instigate a conversation. I just think that fear is such a powerful, and it's that fear of judgment, is such a powerful anti-progress thing we do to ourselves. And it's you know, I mean, speaking of generations, right? Like if you're because a lot of what you're doing, I think a lot of what I was doing through my own work and still do, is it was all about my me. It was all about me and my family, right? And I was working through that. I didn't know that at the time, but that's what I was was doing, and I actually think that's probably what everyone's doing on some level. You're work because you're working out who you are and how you became who you were, and who's telling you what to be what, and what do you actually want to do, and that gets murky. Um I I guess I just I really do want a world where people um aren't hesitant to just go and do it. I don't know how to create that world. Is it? I mean, obviously you're doing, you know, you're doing it.

Holly 15:42

Yeah, and that just my my my own um manner of working with people to liberate themselves, you know, and and and my ultimate goal in my work is literally to liberate the creator inside of each of us, which is what creates the world that we live in. So you can call that art, you can call it structure, you know, products, whatever. Um, it's creation moving through us, but I walk people through, you know, very process deep process to reflect on all those voices that are what limits us being true self. And and they're, you know, not only of this lifetime, but they're a karma and ancestry and uh social context and all the things. And so, what are the voices and what are they telling you? And we work with the voices to have them alchemize into something that's more productive and liberates your potential, and then when that happens, the voice then becomes a powerful ally as opposed to a deterrent, and um, and so having those allies then is they're like cheerleaders, and you gained capacity from all those voices by learning to live in the world with the constraints, you innately develop capacities then that actually serve you. So everything we experience in life is useful, and and so those voices that want to limit us are also helping us gain new tools and skill sets that we then can parlay into power, into expression and creativity, and they become the version of us that is liberated.

Lauren 17:42

Um, if I have a voice in my head that's like, no way you should even do this, you can't do this. I can by I can develop essentially if you work through that, you're developing a characteristic of like resilience and determination um and things like that.

Holly 18:02

Yeah, generally. I mean, each each particular voice is very distinct and nuanced, and that voice was a protector of for some some way in your childhood, and often it's a karmic thread that came to be resolved. And so we we get to know, we develop real intimate relationship with each voice, and each voice then, as you've come to appreciate what it was doing for you in childhood, as it protected you in your social context then, that voice then becomes um, as you appreciate it and alchemize it, it becomes an ally, a partner in your unique expression in the world. It literally is a facet of your soul. Yeah, so your soul becomes more whole and fulfilled and capable of being in the world.

Lisa 18:55

So this is your work then to identify the archetypes, these voices?

Holly 19:00

Do you have like they're they're actually believe it or not? I mean, they're not archetypes. You can consider, you know, a range of archetypes that exist, you know, critics and judges and accommodators and people pleasers and all those things. That that was, you know, a decade ago inner child work, and there's been many advancements in the field of parts work, um, IFS internal family systems being one of the more recent. And I've now innovated myself and have a new form of dealing with the parts that's literally stepwise, I call it the sequence of coherence, and is working with each unique nuanced part so that you're gaining all the gold, not just some of the gold, but you're gaining all the gold of that part and developing partnership, and it becomes then a coherent ally for you.

Lauren 19:55

Yeah. Wow, that's on the I mean, that's extremely powerful.

Holly 20:01

It is, you know, it's it's I uh I'm I'm kind of not a normal human, but um, I ex I began experiencing this like almost six years ago now, and um over time as I healed many of my own parts and became more and whole more whole and liberated all of that sequestered energy, and it became, you know, they became allies. I like, oh, we're gonna actually use this in the world. And so this is one of my creations, right? The more liberated I became, the more creator, more of a creator I became, the more I'm able to bring things to the world that are useful. And this is all of us, every single one of us, nobody left out, like all of us can be creators, um, expressing our form of art in the world.

Lauren 20:55

Yeah. I I think it's I I've I'm just fan, I'm fantasizing about a world where everyone I'm just imagining. I'm imagining growing up and and that like it's growing up can be hard, you know? And you know, and I and I think that like um, you know, when you watch people and you can uh you can see when someone um is really is there, I I mean I think of it as like they're feeling it today, they're having a day where they they feel like they're part of this, they're they're sort of intertwined in the world and they're feeling confident about that. They're not feeling like they're against something or they're fighting something or they're walking through honey or something like that. They're they're almost floating in a way. Um I'm not saying you're gonna feel like that every day because if you are, then you're lying to yourself. Um and so bypass. And I just I and it's it's almost like a it's in a I don't wanna attach the word confidence to it, but it's In a way, it is, it's because, right, like know thyself. If you're doing all of the hard work and you're willing, it's you have to have this willingness to see all of yourself as though you're your own sort of caretaker, right? Um, because it's if you look at it that way, then you would be willing to see, like, oh, my anxiety, my anxiety is trying to protect me from my fear that I'll fail, or some, you know, things like that. But you have to you have to open the whole door. You can't like you can't just like peek, but I can understand like why people might want to just open it just a little bit at a time. That's something I have a difficult time doing because I'm just like a like open it and like dive in, right?

Holly 22:48

Or use a video too.

Lauren 22:51

Now I'm a Gemini, and I just um so I felt all over the place my whole life, but it's like I think that I have to sometimes remind myself that not everybody's willing to do that and you can't shove it down their throat, or then you really get a wall built, right? And so what would you like if because clearly someone has to sign up for your class, right? So if you're a per if you're a person, you know, um I'm just like a I'm just a person that wants to do things in my regular daily life, yeah, that helps encourage people to essentially see that they are more way more capable of doing things than they might give themselves credit for. I think we have a lot of people walking around the world like that right now, feeling very much like they have a huge brick on their back, um, very disconnected. Um, and and really most of it is a giant troll on their shoulder that's just just really screaming some bad stuff. And I do think a lot of that is leftover stuff from generation, generation, generation. But I also think it's just the way the world is right now, unfortunately.

Holly 24:12

Yeah.

Lauren 24:13

So like I as a human, how can I walk around the world and what can I what would you what's like a tiny little step?

Holly 24:21

Yeah, so one of the things that I would encourage is you know, listen because most of us have dozens of voices, and they're all unique, they're all telling us something different. Um, so you know, I you I might have a voice that that said um don't express yourself because it's dangerous, and you know, you will be ridiculed and judged and abandoned. And you know, that may have shown up in a lot of ways early childhood, and you know, it it uh it almost always shows up in very early childhood, and we don't even know the early childhood voices because it's we're adults and it's become so prominent that we can't remember its origin, but usually there's a child part, and what happens in our human lives is we we have a we come in with a you know a psyche, and then we enter our childhood context, and the the context says, nope, can't be yourself, don't express yourself. A part of our psyche literally fractures, it's a subpsychic fracture, and those are the parts that I'm speaking about. And this this work is very well substantiated in the you know the psychologic field, tons of research. Um, this isn't woo, this is real, and so the the fractured childhood part says, Well, I'm not gonna show up and express myself, I'm gonna protect myself, so I'm gonna hide my greatest creations. I'm gonna maybe I'll draw in my room or I'll write in my diary or um I'll tell my best friend, but like nobody else gets access to me because it's too scary and I will be judged. And you know, karmically, I was killed in a lifetime because I had great expressions that weren't accepted. So that deep fear lives in us from past lives, but also in childhood, my dad made great fun of me every time I drew something. And so one of the things we can do is get to know the very specific, nuanced voices that show up. And so we, you know, you talk about the brick. The brick is probably dozens of voices all saying really distinct things, but we don't think about, oh, I need to actually get to know those voices. I get to, I need to understand what that voice is saying. And the first step is, who are you? And what are you trying to protect me from? And and and this is this is literally the first step in the sequence of coherence is acknowledging I have a part that says, don't show yourself. You know, what what is the really basic message of the part and get to know it? Like I I see you, I hear you, I understand that you think it's it's it's dangerous for me to show up in the world as my true self, expressing myself in some way. I'm so grateful, you know. So we we need to get to know the part in a way that it can accept that we know it, we sense it, we feel it, we feel it's hurt, it's pain. Are these these parts are not um, they are aspects of self, but they are also, and this is gonna sound weird, but they are living beings, you know, they've just been in the corner or the basement or wherever they've been trying to protect us. And once they know that we are in acknowledgement of them, they're like, oh, okay. So I'm still having to do that because of the way you respond in the world. So the very first step is actually getting to know that part and appreciating what it's been doing for you. And it may still be serving you in life, it may still be protecting you from very toxic work environments or very toxic families or whatever. And there's a way that you still need that part. And so the key is how do you build a life that doesn't need to be protected? You know, if you're hanging out in places that really don't allow you to fully express, well, maybe I don't know, find a new place, a one new place, one new friend, one new network, one, you know, one place that you can go and like be your full expression. And it is safe. And you learn the tactics or you learn what it feels like to be able to be safe, you know, and maybe that is an art class, maybe it's a writing class, maybe it's a dance class, maybe it's you find a a group of people who like to go walking in the woods and you know, building things with sticks. Whatever that looks like, find places in life that literally just let you pull your hair, put your hair down and and be yourself. Yeah.

Lisa 29:26

Piggy back on what Lauren was saying, I was I was curious about like how do um it's bravery to show up and actually to to walk through that door to like see all aspects of yourself, to even realize that I think that's that multidimensional thing that you're speaking of, that I have 20 voices from childhood, you know, and they could be like living little dimensions or entities. So how do you I as a potential client or um uh creator? How do I how do I become brave enough to let go of fear and actually just stand up and open that door and start the work?

Holly 30:07

How do you become brave enough? Um you know, most of the time the pain is overwhelming enough that you just can't do it anymore. That's that's my experience is the bravery doesn't necessarily come first. It's just I'm done with the pain. I'm I'm done with the brick I'm carrying on my back. Um the ton of bricks. Um, I'm I'm exhaust I'm exhausted. Exhaustion is one of the byproducts of of this, all this sequestered energy that's fractured. So, you know, most of us who make it to adulthood literally have somehow navigated our way through the the um you know the the thorns of our life. And you know, there's enough here that I know like I I want to live more of this, not of all that. You know, I want to take some of this off my back, stop, stop dragging the long black bag of my past. And there is a there is a point in time at which somebody says, okay, I really have to figure some of this out. I really want to be something else. I want to move to my next stage of life where I'm not so hindered. And it's that intolerance for remaining constrained that generally liberates then some inspiration. I would call it inspiration more than bravery or courage. Like I'm inspired, I want to find another way. And and that is literally just taking a step out of the door of you know the gates that we put in front of ourselves and saying, it may be really uncomfortable. I may learn some things about myself that I don't really want to know. And I'm willing to take a step. I'm willing to just move forward and recognize this might be difficult for a period of time. And nothing is more difficult than carrying that ton of bricks on my back.

Lisa 32:19

Yeah.

Holly 32:20

You know, it's just it's there's there's a level of intolerance, it's like a threshold in our human potential. Um I love working with young adults um who, you know, don't have as maybe as much baggage as as I'm I'm I'm elder. I'm an elder now. But you know, if you wait so long in life that you've just built your life around that structure of being constrained, it's it's a bit harder to break out of because everything you've ever known, all your social networks, all your people, your career experiences were based in that um constrained identity. And young people, even though they may not know as much about life, they they have it's like a fresh palette, you know, it's like a fresh canvas. It's a little bit easier to tweak their belief systems. Like that's just something you were taught. That's that's part of our social construct with each other, that we're all gonna behave and fit in these boxes and you know, not be our true selves. But if we all do that, everybody's fine, right? That's a that's a construct. And young people are like, yeah, I see, that's not necessarily in my best interest.

Lisa 33:40

Right.

Lauren 33:40

Yeah.

Lisa 33:42

Nice.

Lauren 33:42

Yeah.

Lisa 33:45

Let's talk about your books because you were talking about you just created and birthing. Let's uh you said this month you're gonna actually release into the world two books. Let's talk about those.

Holly 33:56

Yeah, and I'll just back up. So when I arrived at this place, and my program's called Living Portal, because it was a it was a download to me, and like, what's a living portal? I don't even know what that is, and over time I came to understand. Um, you know, it's it's like the the the term axis mundi. I don't know if you know that term, but um I am the tree of life, I am the ground through which source, the field creation emerges. And when I resolve enough of this stuff that feels like a ton of bricks on my back, or all the voices, when I resolve, meaning I hear them, I work with them, I appreciate them, and they alchemize and they become my allies. I am a very clear, I'm not saying I'm done. Never use the word enlightened, we're never done, but I am a much more clear vessel through which creation can flow. And this started happening about six years ago, and life became magic. And I wasn't like, what is this? It's really different than the traumatic life I've lived for decades. And um, and with around that time when that started happening, my writing like exploded. Like, okay, now I have a fire, I went from constrained to a fire hose. Um, and so I've been writing and writing, and I've there are two books I'm about to publish this month, um, Radical Wholeness Primer and Radical Wholeness Field Notes. And then there's like six or seven other books that I've drafted that need a whole bunch of work before they're ready. But radical wholeness is the first pillar of this living portal work. Um, and radical wholeness is what I've named, actually, it named itself, but it's when we reclaim the lost parts of us, you know, the parts that have been fractured and sequester the energy and power and intelligence of the parts that were fractured from my whole self, they come home, they become a part of me. I create this coherent um council. Um, I become more whole, radically whole, and then creation can move through. Then I can align with soul, then I can amplify my life force and move into my next creative expression. So the the two books, Radical Holmes Primer, is more the conceptual, uh, theoretical, and methodologic book. Um, it describes what radical wholeness is, it describes the sequence of coherence and the the met some of the about the methods that I use. Um, and then the field notes is really a whole bunch of essays I wrote about what happens to you when you live as radically whole. And so this is what it looks like in your real life. It's um a little bit more of a mainstream book and um is offering a new perspective on how we can live as humans, yeah, as creators.

Lauren 37:12

Yeah, instead of destroyers, right?

Holly 37:15

Well, and you know, uh it's oh it makes me want to cry. Um when we aren't living as ourselves, our whole selves, you know, in the fullness of each of our unique soul expressions, um it is just it's just it's it's destructive to us first, right? Is is I'm I'm diminished. I'm just a fraction of who I can be. And it it's it's um it's creates disillusionment, you know. It squashes our expression. Yeah.

Lauren 37:53

I just I think anyone that feels whole um doesn't have the notion of destruction unless it's part of unless it's part of an actual cycle, right? But anyone who is whole has probably gone through a section of destruction. And but if you're whole, you want to help build and you don't want to help destroy.

Holly 38:17

Because it's all about you know, creation, the field, the cosmos, you know, God, however you want to describe your belief system about the cosmology, but it is literally the the quantum field moving through you, and that is love. That is love. I call love the animating intelligence of the universe, and it is an expanding, it is a joyful, it is a creative endeavor to live as that. I mean, it it yeah, there's um I mean, not not that I'm a perfect, I'm definitely not a perfect human. Like I do stuff, I do shit.

Lisa 39:03

What I what I love, what I'm hearing is that um to become whole, you accept every aspect of yourself because I think we want to destroy parts of ourselves, yeah, and that's where that destruction comes in. We want to destroy that anxious child who was five. Do you know what I mean? Like, you're not me, you're not me. But once we accept our team, right, right who we who we came with, then we can be the true creators that we're supposed to be.

Holly 39:31

Absolutely. And I use the word manage, you know. Early on, we push it down, we reject it, we abandon, we abandon ourselves by pushing away those parts of us that were rejected, and then we reject, you know, so we interject what was told us by our parents or society, like, oh, that's bad, don't do that, don't show up like that. So we manage those aspects of ourselves. And most of us go through my life. If you've become successful, generally you're managing the parts, the fractured parts, rather than inviting them back home. So there's a lot of unlearning in this work, right? It's like, oh no, I want to know that part. And in its when it, you know, when it becomes apparent to me, it like might start acting up a little bit and like, okay, we just have to figure this out together. It's like taking my child to the playground and we're just gonna play a little while together so that you don't feel repressed and abandoned anymore. I'm gonna invite you back in and get to know you as a child, because these are all child parts that you know, they didn't grow up with us. This is a this is a developmental journey. Um, remember my doctorates in human development. So everything is about developing appropriately. These parts got stuck in very early forms of childhood and didn't have the opportunity to go through the developmental stages. So my job as an adult is to help reclaim them, help them grow up into more uh mature forms, and that's when they can alchemize and become my allies instead. Um, but but yes, it is it is anathema to everything we've ever been taught as successful humans, is like you don't show up with too loud of a voice or an expression that's not welcome or not being polite and nice and you know, all the things, many of it gender-based or otherwise, depending on the industry you're in. Like there's just so many rules that we learn to follow to be acceptable in our culture. And you know, it's all it's all it's not all BS. I was about to say it was. It's it's it's how we create, you know, we've created structures that have worked in the materialist world that depends on progress and productivity. So our entire world is the paradigm is formed just for those purposes so that we can live in this linear, mechanistic, productive world. And so we have to show up as little widgets in that world and you know, be it stay in our boxes, stay in your lane. Um and we live in an animate world that's alive and inspired and joyful, and you know, like, and anyway.

Lauren 42:37

I love it. No, I mean I can talk all day about this because I I'm I'm thinking that like um because when I think about like a community, I I I don't think you can be a hundred percent of yourself a hundred percent of the time in a community because it just doesn't work. But what we need to find is a is a way to um balance it so that you you don't feel like you're not um sort of getting your fair share of being your bright, you know what I mean? Your face and I I I just I think that is um out of totally out of whack. And it definitely when you throw um when you throw capitalism into the mix, it just kind of messes a lot of things up. Um so like what do you if someone were to ask you how can I live in society as it is now, I mean I have to have a job. How can I what do I what do I you know, what do I do? Like I want to be my full self, but I I do have to sometimes like go into the box of making you know money.

Holly 43:48

Go into the box that's a job.

Lauren 43:49

Yeah.

Holly 43:50

I mean, you know, I think earlier we described at least finding some part of your life where you can show up more fully. And can express more of you. And it also may mean that you might be asked by your voices to leave some of your networks and some of your containers behind. You know, the more, the more, the more one becomes developed and evolved. Unfortunately, this is just an unfortunate consequence of getting to know yourself, is that you outgrow many of your contacts. And so it can feel very destabilizing and at times lonely as you get to know yourself. And like, I don't actually get to express myself anyplace in my current life. Wow, I need to find new friends or I need to find a new job, or you know, heaven forbid I need to find a new relationship. Um it is it is common that when you do this work, you literally do outgrow your contacts that held that more constrained version of you. You know, you develop a new identity in order to have greater expression. So we literally become someone else that doesn't necessarily fit in the boxes that were your life.

Lisa 45:21

Yeah.

Holly 45:21

And and that doesn't usually happen overnight. It's a it's a matter over time. You just begin to recognize, oh, I don't actually, this new form of me that I'm really enjoying and playing on the playground with my with my parts and getting to know myself and really accepting the parts of me. And wow, I'm gaining new new awareness and new skills and new courage to be in that expression. I don't actually get to do that with any of the people that I'm with. And wow, that company I'm working for, they really don't want me to show up fully. That may not work for me anymore, you know. And and so it is a very different world. We're ascribing to being able to hold us more fully. You know, so I'm I'm I'm not I I am suggesting a revolution of sorts, but it is a revolution.

Lisa 46:18

I'm curious about um if you have a you don't need to name the person, but a testimony where you see saw see someone expressing their greater self, you know, seeing your work um make the magical radical knowing difference.

Holly 46:35

Oh, I actually I mean most of my clients, I I've been doing this for a really long time.

Lisa 46:41

Um are you asking for specifics or yeah, just a uh so something tangible so somebody can pull onto that story and go, I think this, I want to try this. I want to express myself, I think just a testimony as it would be.

Holly 46:57

You know, it's it's interesting. A lot of the people I work with, um almost all of them have this, you know, they come with this knowing, this no longer works for me, and I'm I'm so pained inside, I can't do it anymore. And they envision a whole new life, like there's got to be a new job, maybe not a new relationship, but um one of the things that happens is when you become more whole and reclaim the parts and you know, then align with your soul, is sometimes you actually fit in the existing context, but from a different place. So I had a client who was a um um, he worked in a field, he was a he was a facilitator, and I'm not gonna say very much more because I don't want to identify him, but he was a facilitator of a in a really important field that was trying to do great work in the world. But he himself didn't feel like he was being recognized or acknowledged for the contributions he was making, and he was having a lot of conflicts and um just didn't see that there was opportunity for him to grow in this company. And as we did the work and he resolved his own self-abandonment issues, the inner conflict, the voices that said, stay small, stay small, you know, he became more expressive, more capable of bringing. I mean, he had massive skill sets already, but he became more capable of bringing those skill sets to the company in a way that literally everybody's like, Whoa, who are you and where have you been? And because it's it's often, you know, we life is a mirror. Life is just a mirror. And we are in a context that's not recognizing us, not allowing us. The first job is like, well, where am I doing that to myself? You know, where are my voices saying stay small, be a people pleaser, accommodate, don't step outside of the bounds, all you know, all the things. And when we begin to resolve that, we can show up more fully without, you know, forcing, because so many of us, I don't, you know, they reject me, they don't like me, la la la. We we blame, we, we shame others when it's really it's it's in here. And when I do this work and I show up, I don't, I don't need to prove it. I just show up because it's here. And I show up because I want to now it now it wants to be expressed, and now I want to contribute, and I can be present in a way that doesn't force the system. There's a there is a destructive energy when I've got these voices inside that are, you know, they're like beating against the wall, but I don't know how to express it. And so when we show up, so he was able to just like very calmly with great, you know, grace. Grace is something we all aspire to. He very gracefully expo exposed himself to the world. And they're like, Wow, who are you? And he, I think he was promoted twice in a year after work, and and is just happy as a clam, now doing the work that he his soul had already called him to the work. So he had a sense of it. Most of us actually have a really deep sense of what our soul's calling is. We just there's all these other things that get in the way, and we're like, well, that didn't work. I need to find something else.

Lauren 50:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Holly 50:40

And I have hundreds of those kinds of you know, and then some people do go off and create a new product or a new business. Um, I I actually do have a disclaimer for most people that want to work with me. I was like, well, if you're in a relationship and it's good, it will get better. Yay. If you're in a relationship that is not so good, it will either get better or it will end because you become yourself, and either your partner is willing to do the work with you, become themselves or you know, accommodate the new you. It can either, you know, it's iffy, it'll either go one way or the other. And if you're not in a relationship, generally you find someone because we, you know, that's a sort of a fractal expression of what happens is we literally, when we become ourselves, we attract, we re we become whole, aligned, amplified, we become coherent, and then we begin resonating. This is quantum physics, this is who we begin resonating that version of us, and and we start attracting the kinds of people and opportunities that want to resonate again, quantum physics, with the new version of us, and um, and then it looks like magic, synchronicity, because that's actually what synchronicity is. I am just vibrating and in another quantum physics term, it's not woo. We begin vibrating at the level at which our field, our morphogenic field, can hold that then meets the quantum field in a different way.

Lauren 52:26

Yeah. Wow, I love this. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us today. I feel like I could have like a whole nother uh three-hour conversation with you, but we will have to say thank you.

Lisa 52:38

Another time another time for sure. I think this is just like the tip of the iceberg, you know.

Holly 52:44

Yeah, it was my books Radical Wholeness Primar and Radical Wholeness Field Notes actually do describe a bit of this.

Lisa 52:54

So awesome. Yeah, thank you so much.

Holly 52:59

Um do you want to name your website so people can um my primary business is emergenceinstitute.net, and then my new living portal initiation is called Living Portal, and it's livingportal.co and we'll we'll link to those in the show notes. Thank you. It's just so delightful to be here with you. Yeah, I would love to be.

Lauren 53:25

I always I love this conversation, it was so fun.

Holly 53:28

Great, thank you so much.