Stop Drinking and Start Living

Ep. #49 Power Of The Shadow with Relationship Specialist Julia Phoenix

October 27, 2020 Mary Wagstaff Season 1 Episode 49
Stop Drinking and Start Living
Ep. #49 Power Of The Shadow with Relationship Specialist Julia Phoenix
Show Notes Transcript

Learn how to stop drinking alcohol and honor your wisdom. Trigger warning: into's show we speak to childhood trauma and abuse. In today's show we hear from Relationship Specialist and Coach, Julia Phoenix of her heroines journey from childhood abuse and addiction to reclaiming her power through shadow and inner child work and understanding her limiting beliefs and patterns of what was possible in her intimate and personal relationships.   We talk about the darker side of alcohol and how it take our agency of conscious choice away from us.  She teaches us that sometimes addictive behaviors can actually be a survival mechanism and to offer compassion through your process of healing is the integral piece.


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Welcome, welcome. My name is Mary Wagstaff. I am a life coach who ended a 20 year relationship with alcohol without labels, counting days, or ever making excuses. In this podcast, we will explore my revolutionary approach to quitting alcohol that breaks all the rules, amazing stories from women who are throwing a better party because of it, and how you can stop drinking and start living. The show is not a substitute for rehabilitation, medical treatment or advice. Please talk to a health professional if you're alcohol consumption is a risk to your mental and physical health. Now on with the show. Welcome back, my beautiful listeners, thank you so much for being here for another episode of stop drinking and start living. And today we have another amazing, beautiful inspired guest to share with you not only her own personal story, but the amazing work that she's doing in the world. And I just wanted to welcome Julia Phoenix. Julia, thank you so much for being here. It's such an honor. Oh my gosh, it's such an honor to be here. Mary, thank you so much for inviting me. Yes, it's it's crazy how things overlap and how timing, I just always believe in divine timing. So Julia and I met at this amazing empowerment women's circle in Portland. And she, it's called power for anyone that lives in Portland, Oregon, shout out. And Julia was a speaker there. And I remember her talking about purple story and inner child work. And it was so inspiring to me. And so when I found out that she had her own journey, through changing her relationship to alcohol, and I was like, jumped on the chance to have her on the show to cover this work that she's doing here, too. So yeah, Julie, if you want to just start by telling our audience all of the magical things that you're doing in the world, Ah, what a awesome introduction and invitation. I am a relationship coach, I'm a speaker. But really, I'm a transformational healer, you know, and a mentor, I help women and couples who want to change their relationship patterns, and adulthood. But really, you know, since relationships really build up the fabric of everything about life, it ends up being, you know, a pretty holistic process of healing that I walk people through, including inner child work, which is a bit of a specialty of mine, I have my Master's in human development, and I worked with children in early childhood education for a number of years before I got into this gig. So looking at how our development as children, influences our relationship patterns in adulthood, and then really finding powerful ways to, to integrate those experiences and heal from them so that we can move forward in a, in a more embodied more whole and more fulfilling way. That's what I do. Yeah, that's so beautiful. And I can't, you know, it's just so important right now, I think more than ever to see, you know, as we evolve as human beings, it's like, taking those relationships along with us and making sure that as we're evolving as individuals, we can then, you know, extend that to the people around us or choose, you know, choose differently to the people, which we surround ourselves with. So I definitely want to talk about the framework of that. And I think we'll probably lead up to that when we start talking about your own personal journey, I'm sure. So yeah, if you want to start there, and just to kind of take us backwards to what your relationship with alcohol was like, and kind of how that started off for you. Yeah, I would love to, you know, I, I just also want to say thank you for giving me this opportunity to share my story because it really is true that when, you know, when survivors tell their stories, when women tell their stories, and when alcoholics tell their stories, you know, within a safe container. It is so freeing, it is so healing, not only to us as individuals, but to the collective, you know, who are suffering from these things because we really, really need to quit it with the silence. You know, I really feel strongly about that. So I just appreciate also the work that you're doing in the world. And I appreciate the opportunity to talk about myself. My favorite subject? No, and thank you for saying that because it really is this shame. You know, this. We're in this shame spiral, we're already isolated with so many things and it just builds up. And if the stigma just keeps, keeps going, and you can never break from it and say, You know what, why? Why can't I choose a better version of my life? And the opportunity to talk about it without shame? It's like, yeah, no shame. And the more I hear women like you and myself putting it out there, there's just these, there's people in the background saying, you know, me, too, I'm feeling always Hey, and it's like, so yes, blazing trails, and I'm so excited to have your empowered, empowered voice here. So thank you so much. Yeah, yeah, of course. Um, yeah. So okay. I grew up in Palo Alto, California, which is in the San Francisco Bay Area, right in the heart of Silicon Valley. So it's a very kind of a heady, intellectual environment, very multicultural, and diverse, in some ways, actually, which, which was cool, very progressive and forward thinking in a lot of ways very liberal, also, very disembodied, very emotionally isolated, that was like the emotional climate of the people and kind of like, what I sensed as sort of the energetic imprint of that area is just a lot of feelings of internal isolation. So not physical isolation, but you know, just this feeling of kind of everybody being in their own little bubble, you know, and the bubbles just kind of, like, bounce up against each other, sometimes, you know, that, that was kind of the climate and also very privileged in a lot of ways, you know, very affluent area. And you know, as a white woman in this affluent area, I very much did enjoy certain privileges. But at the same time, there was a lot of darkness that happened inside of my family home. And that I kind of was birthed into. So my family was involved in an Eastern cult, and I think I only touched on this in my talk at power, when you met me, maybe just like one sentence or something like that. But that really shaped so much about the way that I thought about myself and the world and my safety in the world. Because you know, it, we didn't actually live inside of the cult, there were people who lived, you know, like, in the compound, we lived outside of it. So I lived this very normal kind of life, during the day. And then, you know, like, there was, you know, on the weekends, we went, you know, we went in and participated in this spiritual organization where there was really a lot of scandal and a lot of just gnarly stuff, you know, a lot of abuse that went on there a lot of suppression of information, spying on people, you know, without consent, things like that. So there was always just a sort of very heavy atmosphere of suppression around me. And of course, my my parents, having fallen into a group like that, you know, kind of carried a similar frequency. And both of them came from broken homes, in a sense. And my father was a pedophile. So I experienced a lot of sexual abuse, both from him, and from certain members of the cult, as well as on up through, you know, my years in elementary school, and then kind of even throughout my teenage years, high school all the way up until my early 20s, which actually, the last time that I was date, raped was a huge catalyst for me getting sober, you know, to be honest with you, and I wonder how many women have a similar story, actually, that was, you know, I think for some of us, it makes us go all the more deep into that. And, you know, for some of us, at least eventually, there's this calling to confront that pain and confront that experience, and also an awareness that we're not safe, so long as we're drinking or using, you know, because we don't get to have that element of conscious choice and agency to keep ourselves safe. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, so I struggled a lot, you know, because of some of my earliest experiences I, you know, really had an addictive personality from a young age. So, you know, my first drug of choice was food. And then you know, it was like, whatever I could get my hands on and, you know, so I, I developed an eating disorder from You know, real real young that I struggled with off and on for car over 20 years, actually, the first time I threw up my food that I consciously remember, I was only eight years old. So there's got to be a lot going on for a little eight year old girl to be doing that and to have that urge to self harm in that way. And, you know, relationships, drugs and alcohol, you know, relationships, cutting whatever it was, it was an attempt to numb that internal ache, you know, an attempt to run from the really horrifying realities, you know, that we're still very much alive inside of me. And, you know, an attempt to just find relief, you know, and looking back, I'm all that, like, I have so much compassion for myself, Mary, for doing those things for doing the things that I did, because I actually see that I wouldn't have survived otherwise, you know, I actually see that I was doing just the absolute best I could, you know, to take care of myself, and some people will say, like, that's kind of a weird statement to make Julia, you know, that you're doing the best you could to take care of yourself, whilst you were, you know, throwing up and you know, you know, using heroin, and all of these, you know, behaviors that seem very self hating, but they were at their core, this is what I've learned in my own recovery process. at their core, these behaviors are an attempt to take care of ourselves on a very primal type of a level, and we just don't know how to do it differently, you know, until we do, but I had a large wake up call, you know, when, when I was using a lot of drugs, alcohol, actually, an alcohol was there through all of it, like, I should probably said, like, I first took a drink when I was maybe 12, or 13. And that was just as much as I could, you know, do that as much as I could get my hands on, it was pretty much my favorite constant, you know, substance, and the other stuff was just kind of, like on top of or addition to, right. But I did have a very, very intense kind of battle with heroin addiction that really brought me to an intense bottom when I was in my early 20s. So I got sober at 23, actually, and I'm 34 now. So it's been 11 years now, which is crazy to even say. But I just really had this point of clarity that I reached where, you know, I knew that I had two choices, like I could either go in the direction that I was going, and keep doing what I was doing. And you know, I was just gonna die. You know, I was real clear about that. Or if I wanted a shot at something different, I had the opportunity actually to go to rehab. And so I did take that option. And I'm really glad that I did. Because part of you know, we were talking just a moment ago about how important it is to share our stories. Part of why I even gave it a shot was talking to other people who had survived, you know, the the drug addiction and alcoholism, most especially, you know, at the time, and they weren't doing that anymore. Like they had found a way to live differently. And their lives were better, right? Like they weren't in the ER every, you know, week, right. And I had chronic illnesses as well, I had type one diabetes, and so or have type one diabetes. So I'm actually kind of grateful that I reached that bottom when I did, because I'm aware that a lot of people can go on a lot longer. You know, then 23 is it's like, you know, remarkably young to be able to get get clean and sober. And it is because I I really bottomed out hard because of that condition, you know. So from there, it was just like I basically spent the next decade like, trying to, you know, just rebuilding my life, connect reconnecting with myself. But I do want to share actually, like, there was this one moment when I was in that rehab. And I didn't know I was going to share this story tonight. But I remember there was this one counselor that I had, and her name was Holly. And she was actually kind of a bitch. I didn't like her very much, but but she did really care. And she gave me this assignment that I was supposed to stand in front of the mirror and say, I love you. You know, and I was supposed to do that. I think she said three times. And every morning she would come in and she would ask me if I did that. Yeah. And I would say like, Ah, yeah, I forgot. Like, I'll do it tomorrow, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, and one day she actually gave me so much shit that I just thought I'm gonna shut this person up and I'm gonna stand in front of the mirror. I'm going to do this right. And I don't know if you've ever had this experience married, but it was like, so hard at first to even meet my own eyes in the mirror. And I was, you know, like whispering, I couldn't even really say it out loud. But I remember when I finally landed on my own eyes in the mirror, I remember what that felt like. And, you know, when I said, I love you, this whisper, and I just started crying and crying, it was like this wall that had been preventing me from feeling or seeing what I was doing to myself, just totally came, like crashing down, I could see that little girl inside of me, you know, that was just desperate for help, I could see the part of me that was just reacting, just banging my head against the wall, trying to find relief, you know, I could see my divinity also, you know, and I made a promise to myself that day, that no matter what I wasn't going to give up on myself, I was never going to do that again. And I never have and that hasn't looked perfectly, you know, over the last 11 years, like I've struggled with other addictions, like I said, food was a whole other thing. And then, of course, the relationship addiction, which now I, I work with women, because I found that relationships are often you know, an early relational wounding, you know, and childhood is often, you know, some of what's behind addictive patterns for people. But yeah, I, I really took the time to learn how to do life without drugs and alcohol, and I didn't do it alone. really grateful, I had a community of support, you know. And they really showed me how to show up and how to commit and, you know, helped me to see the value in service also, you know, because they would come and pick me up at my house, you know, take me to a job interview, like, these were people that I met in the 12 step communities. And, and just really, really intense gratitude for that community, because I quite literally don't know how I would have done it without that type of support. And then, you know, as my journey progressed, and I started to peel back the layers, right, it was like, when I went into the food stuff, there was a lot there with my sexual trauma, you know, and the childhood abuse. And when I started to go into the relationship stuff, there was even more and even deeper, some of those layers of you know, emotional trauma and dysfunctional relationship with myself, and you know, and then I really began this journey of doing inner child work and healing through relationship in a new way. And, you know, I wouldn't trade any of it in for absolutely anything, if you would have asked me that 10 years ago, I would say, Please take it, I don't want it. But I wouldn't trade it for anything. Because those experiences, those experiences are what enable us to reach people in a different way. Because there's, you know, there's very little that I can't empathize with, there's very little that freaks me out, you know, and, and it and my whole life makes sense now that I'm doing the work that I'm doing in the world, you know. So that was it in a nutshell. I don't know how long I went on. Julie, Oh, my gosh, I am just thank you so much for being brave and sharing that and I spend time but I did not know that whole story. And I thank you so much. Because I know that there are so many people that use alcohol and other you know, disembodiment practices that are suffering from trauma and so just to hear that there is the other side of it and I want to get that is just so so powerful. And so yeah, the practice of the self eye gazing. Wow, I could just like you created such a beautiful picture of it too. And I've actually had women do that and circle before I have like a little meme that I've passed around and it's like if you've ever done you know, get I gazing with other people. It's uncomfortable. But yeah, meeting your own eyes is a whole world of difference. A whole new level and, man, I feel like everyone should implement that practice on a daily because that's all Yes. Yeah. And you know, when you were talking about not not ever trading, what you've gone through for the world and I just, I would love for you to talk about the first You know, like you were saying the empathy that you've been able to use in that same way to it's like, I was, like I say, I was wrong about a lot, you know, I, for a long time, and you can tell me how you what your beliefs were around this that, you know, for me alcohol and some of the other things that I was abusing were I thought were the answer. And I you know, and on the other side of it, I was like, Oh, I was I was wrong about that. And so now, I'm triggered by things. The triggering is, to me is only a cue that there's something to look at, or what don't, what am I not seeing? What don't I know, instead of running from it? So can you talk a little bit about, about how you're really have used that framework in, you know, in the rest of your life, or even starting to do in the work that you're doing now? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I see it really similarly, in a sense that triggers are, you know, you don't even really know what your triggers are, when you're still like, drink using, right, because you're just, you're just, it's like thought reaction, like thought reaction, I just am going towards the thing that numbs that trigger, or helps me cope with that trigger. So I'm not really sure what's going on underneath until I put it down. And then it's like, oh, my God, that's why I did that, you know. So I think like, I love that you are, you describe yourself as an embodiment coach, because I think, you know, getting into our bodies and really listening and feeling the emotion that is there, it's really a portal to our own transformation. And emotions are just felt sensation within the body. So, you know, that was one of the things that I that first, you know, kind of started to shift things for me. And I've been sober at this point for like, a couple of years, because I think I just got, I really needed to get a foundation of being able to live without alcohol and drugs before I was able to go a little bit deeper with those triggers, you know, and that may be true for some people. And for some people, it might be like, they're ready to dive in the deep end, you know, right off the bat. And that's beautiful, if that's the case, for them. But, but for me, I think I needed a couple of years to really just kind of stabilize and then I, I started doing this deep dive work and it was really me getting into my body in a different way. And I did actually do some somatic experiencing. That's it. So you know, therapeutic modality working with the body, but also, you know, it originally started happening in in yoga class, like, I actually just was going to yoga and then feeling myself in my body. And I had quit smoking around that time. And it was like, Oh, my God, the feelings. Like just, it felt like, I had this tremendous backlog of emotions, you know, and I was also just so sensitive and felt just like this raw nerve walking through the world. And today, I really see that as my blessing. And my gift to be that sensitive. And to be able to feel other people as well as myself, but then it was like, I don't know what the Frak to do with all of this, right? Because nobody really teaches us. I mean, maybe they're teaching kids this now, you know, I don't know I it's been a while since I've been in like grade school, but it feels like nobody taught us how to stay present with our emotions, how to move through our emotions, how to listen to the messages about our personal truth, that those emotions contain, you know, how to make associations back to past circumstances, right. And so, you know, getting into my body and feeling my emotions was the first step I think and you know, those emotions I mentioned it being a portal well, emotion is quite often a memory, it's a type of memory. So memory is stored in, in different parts of the brain, different types of memory, are stored in different places. So you know, you can have the visual memory, which is what most people think of when they think about memories, but you can also have body memories and you can also have you probably already aware of this, I'm sure as an embodiment coach, but you can also have emotional memories, you know, and you can have the smells and the auditory memories also. So I was having a lot of emotional memories, you know, and body memories. And I, it took some help, and it took some time to really piece back together what my body was telling me and really it was telling you the entire story of my life, right? And I did learn to see it as an opportunity for me. You know, to go back and comfort Rescue, love, you know, rejoin with my inner children. Wow. Yeah, that is so beautiful. I love that term that, um, that it's a portal for our own transformation because it's so true. It's like we live in these bodies, but then we spend all of our time avoiding what they're telling us. Yeah, and I don't think that they're doing that in schools, I think I probably think there's like, I have a 15 year old stepson and I asked him about this stuff, because I'm always talking about like, about, you know, we'd like share emotions at the dinner table. It's like, it's like briefly talked about like, emotional resilience, emotional processing. Like, those are, those are like, our, our tools. I mean, this these are our birthright, this is what it is to be human. Yes. Yet, like, every message that we get out in the world is steering us from that. And I do think in the collective we're having this, you know, there's is an awakening of people really, knowing that the process isn't about challenging the outer outer world, but it really is, is looking inward to seeing like, Okay, how do I align myself with the outer world? How do I teach the outer world how to treat you by how I treat, treat myself? Did you start like right away after that, like doing the inner child work, but like from that place where you, and I'm just I wanted to say this, too, I'm so glad that you talked about these stages, because there's no rush like this, you know, where you ended up didn't happen overnight, and it's a god, no process doesn't happen overnight. And it's really about it's a sacred journey, when we're rewriting a story based on our terms, this is an opportunity, it's a beautiful opportunity to get to look at the depths of who you are, as painful as it can be. But like, There's no rush to get there to get to any other place. It's this beautiful, intricate offering to yourself of crossing into this threshold of the next phase of like, how do I want to live into my life, holding my own hand, you know, so I just like that you said, You know, I needed to get sober, and I got sober, and I just dealt with what that was, like, like my eye senses, and then I was in my body, and then I kind of spent some time in there. And so I just think being gentle with yourself in compassion. So I just, you articulated that beautifully. And I would love to just to point that out to our listeners that, like, take wherever stage you're at is where you need to be, and there's no rush to get anywhere, because you don't want to miss any of the pieces along the way, or you're just gonna end up having to go back way, you know, well, and also, you know, I love this, I really appreciate what you're saying married, I think, you know, another thing that I really see at this point in my process is just how necessary each phase was. And it was really necessary for it to go at the pace that it went. And, you know, I really don't see how it could have happened any quicker and been as rich and as you know, laden with these lessons that I now can fully embody and share with the world. You know, I remember really clearly sitting across from my somatic therapist and just having this conversation with him, where he said, Is this shit like, Can this hurry up? Like can this go any faster? Please? You know? And he said, Well, Julia, then you know, if you wouldn't, you'd miss probably for one any faster, like you would miss some of it you wouldn't get like you wouldn't suck all those juices out of each and every step that are gonna really, really mean something, you know, at some point and they have he's absolutely right. And so, you know, as far from I'm not one of those people that's going to tell you like Well, I'm sitting now completely on the opposite side of opposite side of the fence where there are now like, no problems in my life at all ever. Because that's obviously not the case or there's no healing left to be done. Because that's not the case. For me. That's not the truth. But I do know now that I can trust like I can trust the pace I can trust the process. Whatever is right in front of me right now to heal. is the thing to focus on. You know, so I would love to just also like affirm that to your listeners that whatever wherever they are now is perfect and whatever is in front of them to be looked at right now is perfect. We don't have to you get it all done. In fact, I don't know that you can write. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And the one thing that I talk about a lot is this, you know, because some of the work is it seems like tedious. And it's this, like, you know, explain, you know, I have people explain, describe the sensations in their body, because to get to really know yourself in this intimate level and just chart their cycles. emotions, Oh, God, yeah. And so like, this is the intimacy that we've been missing out on from the day we're born. And then then of course, there's like the disembodiment piece, so, but the subtleties of the work sometimes it seems tedious, and that you want to rush along is where all the magic happens. It's where we get the most information. And it's like working, like I had mentioned, like working with essential oils, it's like essential oils are so powerful on such a low level, that, that they that it really expedites this process because it's this beautiful inner alignment, like when we're so used to bigger, better more, and these like powerful, concentrated rewards of alcohol, food, whatever. The Titian to the subtlety, it takes it takes time. And it takes kind of showing up constantly. I mean, it's, it's Yes. No. So yes. But what a beautiful journey. I mean, for me now, like what you were saying you trust in the process. And for me now, I just feel like, it gets better, like exploring it. Yes, actually is enjoyable now, for me. Yes. And and I will also say that wasn't the case all the time. And, you know, like, it certainly wasn't the case, when I was first kind of dredging up some of those memories and some of those feelings. And first coming into my body. I mean, it really can be excruciating to go through that process. But you know, like birth is excruciating, right? So it's like, and it's messy, and it's bloody, and it's like, not something that we would describe as like, a pleasant experience. But that doesn't mean that it's a bad experience. It's actually really fucking beautiful experience, you know? Yeah, I'm so glad you said that. And of course, like, yes, every one's levels of trauma. But this idea I, like, I use the example of sad doesn't always mean bad. And yeah, cushions is, is what is going to get us, you know, to the other side of it. Can you just explain, and because I have talked about this with some of my guests, but can you just kind of give a definite, like a little example of what like a somatic practice would be like, just because some people aren't familiar with that? Yeah, absolutely. Well, one that I like to give clients when we're first starting out, if they're really kind of having a tough time, connecting with their emotions in their body, or their sensations in their body, is just a really simple body scan. And what you can do is, and my somatic therapist actually gave me this technique, so I didn't come up with it. But what you can do is set an alarm on your phone, if you wanted to get really a lot better at like checking in with your body throughout the day. And just do a little scan from your head to your toe. And really notice any sensation that you can pick up and and start to label it mentally, like numbness in my, you know, front of my head, right? Or like, right now my right pinky is a little cold. So just anything that's that's a really simple, yet really powerful way to kind of go in other things that get you and your body, you know, a lot of times it's going to be like breath work. I know that's something that you're really, really into Mary but breath work is really powerful. Yoga is also powerful. ecstatic dance is also powerful. She Gong is also powerful. So like finding that thing that that lands you there, but probably not like the most hardcore exercise ever, because a lot of times, not always, but a lot of times when people are doing those types of practices, like you might say, you know, they're getting into their body, like, you know, lifting a crap ton of crazy weights or whatever. But oftentimes, it's actually just we're pushing past the body's limits. So we're kind of dissociating, not that that's even bad or wrong, but that just is the case. So like gentle movement, like mindful movement, right? Mm hmm. Yeah. And I'm so glad I just been we've I've had people that have taken us through some practices and stuff, but time we have new listeners, and I think that that word isn't as common as so yes, sure. unseen sensations and yet like asking yourself, what, how, what does this feel like in my body? And that's, that's kind of the first question that I really started to ask myself really was. Because I love that you said, Where do we don't even know our triggers? And when I realize that and my own personal journey of I've never even slowed down enough to ask myself if Yeah, Adi, does my body want this? Like, no, but really my body, like my head? might have an old template, right have an imprint in the subconscious? But doesn't What is my body really need right now? And how does it feel? And so that's why it's so important to start to learn those practices from the beginning, and so I kind of got you off topic, because I really do want to talk about inner child work. And it's, well, it's connected. Absolutely. And so you had started doing your in somatic therapy and working through doing embodiment practices, yoga, and yeah, so my, my mentor is a woman by the name of teal Swan, who's, you know, her best platform to find her is on YouTube, she said, an extra sensory spiritual teacher, and she was actually ritually abused for a period of 13 years and developed a process that uses inner child work and also incorporate some elements of like Somatic Experiencing into it, some soul retrieval, you know, kind of modalities into it. And that process is called the completion process. So I went to a powerful training with her back in 2015. And prior to that, I had just watched some of her YouTube videos, I had done a little bit of inner child work with my therapist at the time, as well, I had like a mainstream therapist that I also went to sometimes, and she did some inner child work with me, which was helpful, and really beneficial. But sometimes people will get you there, through different means, right? Like Hypnosis is a big one that's popular to get to those memories. But what ends up happening, if you go into the subconscious mind in that way, but you bypass the physical body is that those experiences aren't entirely integrated, because what needs to happen is that the body needs to actually go through and release the trauma. And our subconscious mind, you know, communicates through our body, right? And our emotions. And so, the cool thing about you know, about that process, the completion process, and also just how I learned to inner child work with myself, is to use those emotions as that portal to actually your inner child to recognize that those emotions are the very way that the inner child is speaking to us. It's like, I sometimes will imagine her like tugging on the hem of my skirt, you know, her little hand tugging on my skirt, like, Hello, um, you know, and what we've been kind of taught to do is like to just ignore it, like to, you know, shut that kid up in a closet somewhere, right? Because we're taught to abandon our bodies and our emotions, we're taught to like, even in the you know, even in the self help industry, like an even in spiritual circles, sometimes there's this like, kind of, well, just, you know, you're having a negative emotion, just think, a positive thought and go towards that. And, and it's, it's just absolute abandonment for those precious inner children inside of us that are just trying to get our attention, and they're just trying to come home, you know, so using the body to as as an access point, you know, that access point rather for, for those inner children and the memories that they carry, you know, is is my preferred method. Yeah, I didn't know about inner child work, and I heard about it a little bit. And really, it was a, you must that your speech must have made an imprint on me, because you're so point your inner children were like, I like what that lady said. Yeah. Well, and I think initially, I was definitely a little nervous about it. Like, what? Is this like a reliving process of trauma? Really? No. Can you just I know that there's like, different methods of is there? Yeah. drive it a little bit for for? Yeah, yeah. The type of inner child work that I do, like, going in through pain is not the only way that I interact with my inner child. I think that it's a relationship just like anything else, you know. So it is about consistently just sort of making contact with those younger parts of ourselves. We can start if you're, if you're real scared, like I definitely wasn't in the beginning. Actually, you know, my first mentor who taught me anything about inner child work was a man called Mel brand who does work with couples and with like, twin flames, relationships. Because I, you know, I had this really profound relationship experience that was as devastating and damaging as it was, you know, intense and beautiful. That really catalyzed me. And he helped me to really see the ways in which my inner child was calling out for my attention. But he also helped me in the beginning to really ease into that connection by doing things like finding a picture of myself when I was young, and putting it up on the mirror, you know, or put just very simply, like putting a hand over my heart, and asking to see, you know, the inner child that most needs my attention in that moment, and just like holding, loving space for that kid talking to that kid, I did inner child dates, you know, like, went and played on the swings, you know, went and bought makeup for my inner 13 year old. So it can actually be fun. Also, like, I don't want it to just seem like it's this like, terrible, excruciating, like, it can be but but really what it is, though, is that the pain is already there, right? So it's not that we're like recreating pain, we're actually just, we're bringing it up not not for the purpose of just dredging it up just because like, if that was the, you know, if that was the end of it, like, no way, would I do this kind of work, you know, like, No, thank you. But it, it comes up and it is processed through so that we can actually leave a new imprint in our subconscious mind, and our body and in our field. And we do that by actually changing the experience for the for the inner child, right. So I might go back, like, I might be triggered by something in my adult life. Give an example, let's say like, my partner is playing video games, right? And he's not paying attention to me, or I'm perceiving that he's not paying attention to me, I'm trying to talk to him. Right? I might get really triggered. By that, you know, and I might like, make that mean, all kinds of things inside my mind. And then of course, my body is going to be reacting. If I were to stop in that moment, and just be with myself in those emotions, I could actually ask to see the memory of when these emotions first, or imprint or like this, this exact particular feeling flavor, like when the first time was that I felt that, or sometimes I'll ask how old am I right now, you know, or I'll ask my consciousness to show me the the memory and, and I'll go back, actually, and this is actually timeline work. This is actually time travel, it's super powerful. I'll go back into whatever scene the inner child is showing me or whatever, you know, sometimes I'll just be relating with her in kind of the present reality, but she's like appearing to me, and she has needs, right? So like trauma, really is just any experience where there's just stress, and there's no resolve, right? So what we're doing with inner child work, is we're creating the resolve. That's what we're doing. And that can look differently. That's why it's so important to develop the relationship to the inner child, for yourself, so that you can ask them, you know, what it is that they need, so that you can talk to little Mary, and you can attune to her and see like, Oh, it's a little Mary wanting, like, she needed comfort with someone making fun of her? And if so, like, does she need, you know, adult Mary to go and like, call their parents and, you know, have them, have them in trouble at school does she need to be taken out of school, like, you know, so there's all kinds of ways in which we can get really creative and imaginative. And there's other steps to this process as well, wherein we can like call back, you know, actual fragments of us. This is like the soul retrieval part. I don't want to get too much into the mechanics of that, but, but like, what I'm sort of trying to paint a picture of is the fact that we're not going in just to feel the pain. Although we do feel the pain and that takes a lot of bravery. But we are going in so that we can create resolution so as to have a different imprint, so as to experience a different reflection in our adult lives and to respond to situations differently in our adult lives. Does that make sense? Yeah, I makes 100 like Yeah, absolutely. I am so glad that you talked about all of that because I just recently we were talking about this before the call I recently just did some inner child work and honestly worked with may have done a similar training to you the to the teal Swan because she is very similar to what you're talking about. What it felt like for me and I'll just kind of talk about my experience is it Didn't feel like reliving trauma, and felt like meeting myself at a point where I had experienced that emotion before. times, it's not like 100 super clear if you're going back to like pre verbal, right? Yeah, absolutely, yeah, that's a great point, a lot of times in those memories, you're not going to get even any visual, it's just going to be body memories. So it's like, you go back, and you're not like, necessarily, like, I wasn't really reliving this trauma, I was just meeting myself at that age. And with my adult, you know, with the control and the empowerment I have now, not needing to rely on the past my parents, you know, validating, not really needing to rely on any external factors, but myself, and my heart and my soul to go back and say, you know, girl, I've got you, you know, and bring her with me into the present moment. And so what, like, for me, the message that I really received, and the first journey that I did was like, for my two year old self, and really had just thought she just wanted to know, I didn't forget about her. And she just, yeah, like, she was just like, Can I come? Yeah. I had just, I like lived like a very, you know, I was like a young adult, like very young, I, you know, I was like, always like doing chores, you know, like doing laundry and like loving it. And like, all these weird, you know, kind of had didn't have like a lot of play. And so now in my adult life, and just so people can understand, like, what I'm trying to really do for her for my inner child from that place, right didn't have what felt like a lot of play, is I'm doing that with my son. And I'm really, and I, you know, I forget about it, it's, I'm so clever when this conversation is I really try to invoke her and let her play with him in these moments that can be very stressful, because I'm in like, my adult mind, and I'm not in that, you know, in that space. And so, as like, an example of how, how I'm using it now. Yeah, that's beautiful. And, you know, when I first started doing this work to was when I was working with children, so teaching preschool, or I was a nanny as well, you know, and really relating with those kids, and sometimes I would, like, invite my inner child to really come along, you know, and, and play and draw pictures, you know, yeah, that was really helpful to get in touch with that energy. Because the what people you know, we get to this phase of our lives. And this is like, also, what's fascinating about alcohol is like, we get to these phases, where we think that certain other parts of us are done and gone. And like, everything with us, you know, yes, always forward. And then, but then there's this facade of alcohol, that we want it to keep us youthful, or other things that we do in life, and I'm sure it shows me all these other ways. But yet, by not moving in the natural progression forward, and trying to keep this facade of you fullness, rather than just playing naturally. It's like, we're almost expediting the process of aging more by stalling. Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's through. Yeah. And I saw in because we are kind of wrapping up a little bit, we have so much knowledge and so much info, I do want to ask you a little bit about how you're using this now in the work that you're doing with relationships. Just so people can know about the work you're doing and how you can you know, how it might be supportive of the work that they're needing? Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, you know, maybe some of your listeners will be able to relate to like, being inside of a relationship and kind of suddenly finding that you feel maybe like you're about three years old, you know, or like, you know, just behaving in a really erratic way or losing losing contact with like your logical rational adult mind making a decision to like cut and run acting out what what you know, psychologists would call like a fight response, you know, fight flight freeze are fine if you do any of those like if you feel like it's hard for you to trust people. If you feel like you get really anxious or needy or clingy in relationships or you feel like you know, someone gets too close in you push them, these are all elements of, you know, childhood and printing, like all of them. So when when are looking at, like, Oh, god, it's so it's so good. When we're looking at trying to have a happy, healthy, fulfilling adult relationship, it's not that only the adult is welcome, like the inner child, I believe should be welcome to, but you do want to have more of your conscious adult self, like choosing your partners for you, number one, because the inner child will often choose partners like, you know, dad or mom or you know, someone in their past that they desperately wanted love from whom, you know, they didn't get the outcome that they wanted, because that is the trauma within your system, trying to find that result, it's just kind of an inappropriate way to do so. So we'll, we'll pick partners, you know, that have, and sometimes you can friends that have, you know, like that are just wildly inappropriate in terms of actually meeting our needs. Right. And so that's, that's what we don't necessarily want, you know, and I mentioned that I got into inner child work by way of these painful relationship experiences that were happening, you know, like, I was trying to understand why certain feelings or thoughts would come up why it was behaving in certain ways why he was behaving in certain ways. And it just was really challenging. So, you know, I don't know, if you're familiar at all with attachment theory. So there's, you know, there's, there's these early attachment wounds that happened, and they really afford inform the ways in which we relate to our adult partners and our childhood wounding informs our needs, you know, it also informs our boundaries, sometimes it also informs our values, sometimes, you know, and so it's really, really important to integrate those awarenesses into the relationship itself, you know, sometimes I'll work with couples or work with, you know, partners, and then I'll work with them each individually, or I'll go through a journey with a woman where I take her through for like, six months or a year, and we just, we go really deep, and re, we do a lot of rewiring, re patterning. And then I also teach a lot of actual more like external relationship skills versus that internal work. And they go hand in hand, right. Because even after we've done that internal work, we still have to learn how to show up and actually communicate, you know about what we're feeling and what we need, we have to learn how to express boundaries, we have to learn how to resolve conflict, we have to learn how to, you know, deal with perceived rejection, or, or move towards greater intimacy, you know, when we're scared. And so I love, love, love that work, especially when I get to dive really deep one on one with women. And when I get to help partners to really see each other in a different way, meet each other's needs in a different way, and get back on the same page and sort of develop a greater sense of harmony in their relationships. And then I also love telling my story, you know, like I was saying, at the beginning of our call today, I love being able to just share this message really that that no matter what it is, you've been through that there is a way back from that and that you do deserve to have loving, supportive, fulfilling relationships with others as well as with yourself. And that you can have that, you know, so speaking and, you know, doing interviews like these and things like that, that's the other part of my work that I really, really love. You know, that's beautiful. And I know, yeah, it's really important to have that integrated piece of both of the the deep embodiment of you know, really getting to know ourselves, how are showing up seeing, seeing our triggers, seeing these conditioned patterns, and then choosing you know, how can we use that information then to respond to life to respond to the other person and really come ourselves and the other person walks from a place of love, like, Can we just choose love for you know, and then boundaries and everything. And one of the things I've been talking about with some clients and myself included is, you know, agreed upon expectations in relationships. You know, that so much of the time we show up in the world, from probably these attachments, and things that have happened to us in childhood, and we have now this projected expectation for that partner and it creates this whole world of drama. It's like, they don't even know. Right? Yeah. So I call those unwritten Contracts uncommon. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. It's, that's beautiful. I know. And so I just wanted to kind of wrap up a little bit by just saying, you know, if someone is feeling like they're alcohol, their consumption of alcohol is really stemming from something much deeper than, you know, because some people are facing like practical day to day they started drinking, like when they were stay at home mom. And not to say that everyone doesn't have some trauma to do it. But there are some people that have like, some really, you know, old wounding that they need to go to go back to and face and it's showing up now with substance abuse or relationship, you know, destructive relationships. What would you say to that person? I mean, a little work, little tidbit to give them a shot? What a beautiful question. Um, well, first of all, I do think that it's important to find support from people who can specifically help you with, you know, putting down the substance. But I think really just communicating to that deeper part of you that knows this truth, I just want to say that nothing that you could ever do, or have ever done, is going to cause you to be unworthy of love and support. Absolutely nothing. I don't care what you've done drinking, I don't care what kind of a piece of shit you believe that you are, you know, there is always a core within you, that is purity and light, you know, and that that little girl inside or that little boy inside, they didn't go anywhere, you know, they're right there. And again, they're doing the best that they can. Beautiful. Yeah, our worthiness is our birthright, I always say can't be created cannot be created nor destroyed, it cannot be created nor destroyed. Exactly. And I think just when it comes to alcoholism, the reason why I shared that is just that the shame, there's two pieces, you know, there's the shame behind the alcoholism, that makes us not want to talk about it, that makes us do it more to numb the shame, that makes us feel like we're the biggest pieces of shit on the planet, because we can't stop doing this thing. And then there's also the isolation, you know, and secrecy is like, you know, a product of both of those things. But when I say isolation, again, I'm talking about that sort of internal isolation, where you don't actually feel a connection to anyone or to yourself, you know, and so like, you know, I would say you're worthy and deserving of connection, and you need connection, you need support, you can't actually do it by yourself. It wasn't designed that way. Like, that was a big aha, for me, too, was it was like, you know, we're born and bred kind of on this concept of like, you are supposed to be able to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps, and like, you know, will yourself into anything. And with something like alcoholism, as with something like childhood trauma, like, you can't do that. Like, that's not how it works. I had so much support from various mentors and people communities over the years, that really held me when I needed it most. And so I would say, really reach out for help, because it's on you now to advocate for that inner child. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, Julia, thank you so much place that our listeners can find you. Well, I do have a website, which is www dot jeulia. Phoenix. eleven.com 11 is spelled out like the word, not like the number. And also, you can find me as Julia Phoenix on Facebook. Or if you have a question, I'm going to give you three ways. So if you have a question, you can also email questions. julia@gmail.com. Amazing, thank you so much. And we'll make sure to have all of that info for people if they want to reach out and get in touch because I think that this work is just so powerful and expedites the process of childhood trauma, like tenfold. And I think that there's a there's something there for everyone, you know, because we all have that. Julia, thanks so much from the bottom of my heart for listeners and just for your bravery and compassion and empathy that you're putting out in the world because it really is people like you that are that are blazing the trails for other women to show up to say, you know what, if she can do it, so can I and there's no shame in asking for help and support and this is the process moving forward. So thank you so much for being here. Oh, thank you. You, Mary, it's been such a pleasure. I really appreciate the opportunity to chat. Yeah, and I hope that we get to talk sometime soon. Have a great day everyone. If you're loving this podcast and you're ready to dive deeper, I want to invite you to check out my one on one coaching program. It's your opportunity to actually study and then apply these tools and principles to your life to get the results you want most to stop drinking without pain. Learn to trust yourself again and then refocus your energy to reach that next level goal. Stop by my website Mary Wagstaff coach.com, or find the scheduling link in the show notes. I can't wait to connect