Sexuality often remains a taboo topic, shrouded in mystery and replete with stereotypes. However, beneath the layers of cultural narratives lies an immense potential for healing, personal growth, and intimate connection. In this riveting podcast episode, Life Coach Myrna Young and Dr. Liz Letford unveil insights into how sex can transcend mere physical gratification, becoming a tool for profound emotional healing and restoration of the, nervous system. By delving into the intertwined worlds of relationships, body awareness, and emotional responsiveness, this exploration reveals how truly transformative the act of sex can be when approached with vulnerability and consciousness.
Sexual Healing and Emotional Freedom: Understanding the deeper emotional currents within sexual experiences can lead to significant healing of past traumas and emotional blockages and promote sexuality.
Dynamic Relationship Roles: Men and women can benefit from exploring both giving and receiving roles in sex, breaking away from traditional power dynamics and discovering personal empowerment.
Body Church Movement: Dr. Liz Letford's unique practice uses collective somatic experiences, such as movement and sound, to create coherence among diverse groups for systemic healing, unity and sexuality.
The Intersection of Sex and Emotional Well-being
A core theme that emerged from the discussion is the relationship between, sexual intimacy, and emotional well-being. Dr. Liz articulates a perspective where physical closeness serves as the doorway to not just pleasure, but also the space where one can confront and heal unresolved emotional conflicts. She describes how every sexual encounter acts as a stage, reflecting earlier life events that may have impacted one's psyche, a process especially potent when memories tied to these emotions elude conscious awareness.
The interaction of sexuality with emotional well-being underscores the raw potential that lies in our physical interactions to act as a conduit for catharsis.
Dr. Liz notes, “Our sexual nature, our erotic nature, is exquisitely designed to heal our emotional, our physical, and our spiritual bodies.“
The healing is not just an abstract idea but has tangible effects, from soothing hormonal imbalances to aiding in recovery from emotional scars. The implications are vast, suggesting that by redefining sex as a mutual, emotionally-attuned experience, individuals can work through deeply entrenched issues and foster more harmonious relationships.
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Reshaping Power Dynamics in Sexuality
The dialogue seamlessly shifts to contemplate the energy dynamics within sexual relationships. The traditional script writes men as givers and women as receivers, but Dr. Liz challenges these norms by advocating for a fluid exchange where individuals can alternate roles. The notion presented is not to obliterate gender roles but to empower individuals to explore their sexuality and embrace both dimensions of giving and receiving power.
Quotes from Dr. Liz encapsulate this shift: “ultimately power […] everyone deserves to taste what that tastes like.” By acquainting oneself with differing polarities of power, a person can unlock a more versatile form of expression and connection. Embracing one's full spectrum of capabilities creates room for a more fulfilling and equitable intimate interaction. Men learning to hold space for potent, feminine energy, and women discovering their own assertive power can reinvigorate the foundations of personal and partnership growth.
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When your body feels safe, that's when your body opens up to its healing bliss. Its this bliss ecstatic state, which we've called orgasm. And so if you are receiving only because you've been told that, because you said society told you to do that because you're afraid.
If you've never expressed what it's like to give, to penetrate, to take, and all of the expressions of that penetrative energy, your system has the potential to be out of balance. And so I teach this, I have something called dragon school, where I teach women how to step into their power, their containment. What we've traditionally associated with the men is giving, penetrating, holding. And so I went to dominatrix school and trained as a dominatrix.
I don't necessarily need to use pain, or deep penetration, put pleasure where the pain is. So I don't really identify as a dominatrix, but it's the closest thing that people can associate with what I do. So I teach women how to step into their dragon archetype, their protector. They're badass. And it's really so healing. So just by embodying these other energies, we are able to express the thing that we've been told is not nice to be expressed, or, shame on you, or.
Collective Healing Through the Body Church Movement
Dr. Liz introduces a communal aspect of healing rites through the, Body Church movement. Blending physical movement, sound, and storytelling within an intentionally diverse group setting offers a profoundly inclusive platform for societal healing. Moments in the conversation shed light on the idea that sharing and witnessing each other's emotional journeys can foster understanding and empathy across historical divides such as race, gender and sexuaity.
This practice pushes the boundaries of individual healing into the realm of collective catharsis. It suggests that to address the societal fractures, an embodied approach that taps into the resonance of human connection is key. As Dr. Liz remarks, “It's vibrating the body and entraining the body to a different frequency.” This notion of communal vibration shifts the focus from isolated experiences to shared human truths, potentially bridging gaps of misunderstanding and opening pathways to societal reconciliation.
Unveiling the Transformative Implications of Sex and Sexuality
Throughout the transformative dialogue between Myrna Young and Dr. Liz Letchford, it becomes abundantly clear that sex is more than an act; it is an interplay of energies, a canvas for emotional expression, and a pathway toward personal and communal fulfillment. The exploration transcends conventional understanding, positioning sex as a platform for healing past wounds, rebalancing power within relationships, and even serving as a community ritual for collective healing. This forward-thinking approach reimagines intimacy, encourages individuals to step into their full expressive potential, and fosters a more connected and empathetic society, stirring the vibrations of change through the shared rhythm of our bodies.
In this blog post, Craig Goldberg, shares how mindfulness can help you reset your nervous system. By using, vibroacoustic therapy, you can achieve a deeper sense of inner calmness and calm your mind. If you're feeling stressed out or anxious, mindfulness combined with sound vibration can help you to reset your nervous system from the sympathetic response to, parasympathetic response.
This podcast episode will teach you some mindfulness hacks that shortcut the meditation process and reset your nervous system. After watching this video, you'll be able to reset your nervous system and feel more at peace using, vibroacoustic therapy.
Reset your nervous system with Vibroacoustic Therapy
Myrna: My guest today is Craig Goldberg. Craig is a relaxation expert and we're going to be talking on the topic how to reset your nervous system with mindfulness. Mindfulness is big for me and that's one of the reasons I invited Craig on the show.
I'm reading the book The Power of the Now by Eckhart Tolle so I am heavily into mindfulness. Let me give you a brief intro. Craig Goldberg is a relaxation expert and technologist on a quest to help Humanity achieve a deeper sense of inner calmness through the use of sound and vibration technology. He is a, vibroacoustic therapy, practitioner and his work is backed by 40 plus years of research showing the many benefits of this type of therapy.
He is also a patented inventor constantly exploring new ways to use sound and vibration to help people reduce stress and anxiety, heal and transform their lives for the better. Craig is passionate about his work and truly believes in its ability to provide a path towards a more peaceful and fulfilling life.
Mindfulness and vibroacoustic therapy
I started off by saying I'm very much into mindfulness. I've had lots of guests on the show talking about mindfulness. I've had lots of guests in the show talk about meditation and the nervous system but I've never had a guest that talked about combining vibration and, Vibroacoustic therapy. Craig can you share your journey into this path and how did you marry the two disciplines together.
Craig: I'm a club kid from New York City, that means I like standing in front of a stack of speakers and feeling the bass all night. When I was a kid and that translated into electronic music and dance and house music and melodic house and that sort of thing. I love feeling the music and and I think that resonates with just about everybody on the planet.
The technology that's inside our furniture is called a tactile transducer otherwise known as a base Shaker inside there is a magnet that magnet is oscillating back and forth a certain number of oscillations per second is a certain hertz frequency so 20 Hertz oscillates that magnet 20 times per second. It creates vibration, that vibration transfers directly to your body. There's an entire body of research that guides and talks about this technology. A gentleman by the name of Olaf's began to research specific frequencies and their impact on our body on our physiology, on our Neurology, on our Anatomy, and on our organs.
What he found is that specifically focusing on 30 Hertz to 120 hertz has a profound impact to calm and relax the nervous system to send messages to every muscle in the body telling it to relax to increase lymphatic drainage, to increase or decrease recovery time, increase our ability to recover faster between workouts. So I found this Magic Carpet Ride if you will in this sound lounge and I became absolutely enamored. The human ear picks up frequencies between 20 Hertz and 20 000 Hertz so 20 000 Hertz obviously being very much on the High Spectrum.
How vibroacoustic therapy works
Vibroacoustic therapy, focuses on 30 Hertz to 120 hertz to further dial that in, that subwoofer that you have in your home stereo system is typically 80 Hertz and below so we're talking about very low frequencies. We're talking about bass, we're talking about vibration. In fact once you get above 100 Hertz you're no longer feeling that frequency, you are hearing it and the reason we feel it is because of these mechanoreceptors that are in our skin that send triggers to the to the brain and that's actually the mechanism of action that's how, vibroacoustic therapy, works.
Vibroacoustic is vibration and sound vibro vibration acoustic is sound so this body of research, vibroacoustic therapy, is really just talking about vibration and sound and its impact on our body. What we found over the last six years of doing this is that when we start doing brain tests brainwave entrainment tests that music harmonizes the brain and brings you into that meditative state, that alpha or Theta brainwave State and has a profound impact on the rest of your body. We teach people how to meditate through sound and vibration, we teach them by guiding or distracting their brain by the music. So our music is very specifically made, it has deep bass notes that are drawn out these long drone notes that entrains the body.
Myrna: Let's talk about the difference between mindfulness and, mindfulness meditation, and meditation because I think they're three different things.
Craig: Mindfulness for me is simply the practice of being mindful of being aware of the impact that your persona, your physical body is having on the world around you. Now meditation for me is slowing down, it's allowing the thoughts to flow through. Just allowing the thoughts to flow through your head that means that your your brain is always thinking. This was a big aha moment for me, your brain doesn't know how to do anything else except think; so the thoughts are always going to be there.
When I first set out to meditate, I thought it was like clear your mind, think of nothing and now I'm just thinking about thinking of nothing and then all the stuff I want to think about starts to come in and it's just one big distraction. No meditation is about just allowing the thoughts to flow, you want to dwell on something and see it through by all means do it.
Mindfulness meditation and sound vibration
Mindfulness meditation, which could be staring at a flame, it could be a mantra or something that you're repeating, it could be an “I am” statement two most powerful words in the English language. I am because whatever follows it you are. I am powerful, I am strong, I am loved, I am safe, brought up a little emotion. These are really powerful and a great mantra for you to come back to to remind the brain that you are all these amazing things.
So, mindfulness meditation, is where our music meditations fall in because sound and vibration is guiding Your Body Mind and Spirit. It is distracting your mind and guiding your mind so your mind is focusing on that meditation. I equate that very much to a mantra or to a staring at a flame or listening to a, guided meditation. I see, mindfulness meditation, as a whole it becomes really powerful.
Myrna: When you talk about mindfulness, I have a different word for that. For instance, I do a, mindfulness meditation, that's only 10 minutes but it's powerful. It's talking about can you feel the blood pumping through your veins, do you feel the temperature of the room, do you feel how your body presses into the seat.
Craig: I mentioned as part of, mindfulness meditation, 100 so there's a part of our brain called the reticular activator system and it's what filters out the world if you will our brain processes four billion stimuli per second, the unconscious mind four billion stimuli per second, the conscious mind four! Since our conscious brain can only handle four things at once, it blocks out the other three billion 996 000. I'll give you a great example, you're shopping for a Ford pickup truck and all of a sudden you see Ford pickup trucks everywhere.
A mindfulness meditation
So, mindfulness meditation, helps you to break down that barrier. We don't walk around feeling your clothing but when you are doing, mindfulness meditation, you become aware of the brush of clothing against your skin or the blood coursing through your veins.
When I'm doing, mindfulness meditation, on my, meditation cushion, or, sound lounge, there are two tactile transducers and the headphones are plugged into the amplifier that's in the back so the vibrations are coming straight up your back, so you're listening to the same things that you're feeling and this creates a three-dimensional fully immersive sound experience that makes you feel as though you're inside the music.
This creates that mild stress that triggers the chemical cascades associated with calm and relax. We are literally shaking every single cell in your body and your body reacts to that by releasing different hormones like serotonin and dopamine. Our sound lounge is a mattress that you lay on, there's a base that's underneath the two and the amplifiers.
There's four tactile transducers inside that bed and it feels like you're on a rocket ship. I call it the Magic Carpet Ride and then we have a third product which is designed specifically for massage therapy to add vibro acoustic therapy or vibration therapy to massage. Chiropractic acupuncture acupressure is a very soothing and beautiful experience.
Myrna: I definitely gonna gonna try your app and start meditating with it. Tell us about your company, we've talked about the, meditation cushion, and sound lounge, tell us about your YouTube channel and where people can find you on social media.
Vibroacoustic sound meditation
Craig: I'm really about optimal Human Performance, I'm really about human optimization and all that is is a fancy word for giving you the best opportunity to be the best possible human being every single day. I want high levels of energy, I want high levels of focus, I want to be a great father, I want to be a great leader in my community, I want to give back. In order to do that, I need strength, I need energy, I need brain capacity. I need all these different things and I'm on a mission to teach people exactly how they can get the most out of life, how they can squeeze the most juice out of that orange and really captivate and move mountains.
For me, vibroacoustic therapy, is a big part of that so we've built obviously an entire business around that called In Harmony Interactive. I understand that our products are an investment. We want more and more people to have access to this technology which is why the app is so accessible and so approachable. You'll find us on all the socials media sites, our website is www.Iaminharmony.com
Myrna: I love the vibration and the music tie to meditation and mindfulness.
The way that we use, breathwork, with, meditation, is as a tool to really settle our bodies, when we're in a heightened stress response or feeling really tight and closed off. Breathwork, allows us to settle into a space of openness and receptivity so much faster. When we're sitting in stillness and, meditation, you can feel the moving energy up and out of the body.
Ava Johanna is the founder and visionary behind The Academy of Breath, international breathwork and meditation school, focused on making these ancient embodiment practices household tools across the globe. Ava’s mission is to bridge the gap between modern neuroscience and mysticism so breathwork and meditation are made accessible to everyone from high-level executives to stay-at-home parents.
Yet, Ava’s present-day reality – running a half a million-dollar breathwork and meditation empire, while giving back 10% of profits to marginalized communities and do-good organizations – is the polar opposite to her teenage experience. At the age of sixteen, Ava was homeless. Her rise to fulfillment, entrepreneurial success with The Academy of Breath, and claiming a mission that serves all, makes her the living embodiment of perseverance, healing, and wellness.
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Ava: I grew up in a very affluent area. I was born in Santa Monica, California, one of the boroughs in LA and moved about second or third grade to Ventura County Calabasas Westlake area. I always give the example of Calabasas is where the Kardashians live. My family was middle class, but a lot of my friends had lots of money. And so by the time my mom separated from my stepdad which I'm still so proud of her to this day for doing that, we are unable to pay for the basic basic needs, like a roof over our head, food on the table.
My little sister is nine years younger than me and has autism and after she was diagnosed with autism, my mom did everything in her power to support her and to be near her. Unfortunately, my mom wasn't even able to get a full time job or a regular job because my sister needed to be on call for my sister. She's her primary caretaker so the only option really for her at that point was to work at the school. Being in close proximity to my sister and you know, really makes her life revolve around my sister.
My mom's car was repossessed, she would go to the church every other weekend, the Food Bank and pick up groceries for us and we spent a little over a year between couch surfing on friends' couches, families, couches, neighbors. And after about a year and a half my mom finally was able to scrounge up enough money to get us our own apartment and it was this dingy dark little apartment, but it was ours. And throughout that whole experience, I really am grateful that I was surrounded by so much wealth because it showed me that there was another way.
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I feel so deeply for communities where it's only poverty because sometimes that can create this identification of this is all that there will ever be for me. And so I'm grateful that I got to see two different sides of circumstance so that I could say, this is the direction I want to go. That experience created this deep hustle mentality within me of continuing to climb and climb and climb until I felt safe.
And it wasn't until the past few years that as my business started becoming more and more successful, I realized that there was no dollar amount that would ever make me feel safe and safety was an inside job that I had to create within myself. And that's really where, breathwork and meditation, have had the biggest impact on my life, is learning how to create safety within myself.
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Myrna: That's a powerful story. I love that, because I was born poor in Guyana, but I had a very rich godfather who also showed me the other side. How did you learn, meditation?
Ava: So I was working in a corporate job at the time I worked at this agency in San Diego in the marketing department and was so stressed out, it was a startup. I was working anywhere between like eight to 10 hours every day. I was in before the boss out after the boss and literally had dreams about my work. I was no fun to be around. A girlfriend invited me to a, yoga, class for, personal development, and, stress relief, and the, yoga instructor, taught me, how to use breathwork, and, meditation. as, personal growth, tools.
I remember being in a, breathwork meditation, class for the first time, just dripping in sweat and feeling so good. And so from there I became a little obsessed about, breathwork meditation. So I enrolled in, yoga, teacher training about six months later. And a lot of anger would come up in training, which is now I know just repressed emotions leaving my body, but my first weekend in our, yoga, teacher training, we had someone come in and do a full, breathwork, session with us. It was Wim Hof, which is a more modern take on older ancient practices that stem from the Himalayas.
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I remember leaving class that day and just calling my friend and letting her know oh my goodness. This feels incredible, I found my bliss. So from that point forward, I aggressively trained in, breathwork meditation. I saw that there were a lot of amazing things coming from teacher training and also a lot of gaps that could be filled in order to support people that had these missions. And so that's really where the inspiration for the Academy of Breath came from.
Myrna: What is the neuroscience behind, breathwork meditation, that makes you feel so blissful?
Ava: I like approaching the science from two different angles. I love the mysticism behind, breathwork. I love the spiritual approach to it and I also love the science. So in the same way that if you are with a group of individuals and you're all singing together. This energy that you can feel this, this opening that's happening that is almost intangible to describe with words, but you can feel that heightened level of bliss. There's that kind of element of, breathwork, that comes up.
I can't really explain this through my words, but you must experience it, in order to really feel what I'm talking about. So, with, breathwork, what I found was that, through this practice, I could feel my body softening and opening and calling almost all aspects of myself to the present moment where I was no longer time traveling between what had happened in the past or my anxiety and worrying predictions of what was happening in the future.
Now, that's not necessarily something that we can prove with science, but that is something that you experience when you're practicing various, breathwork, techniques whether it be a calming technique that's really slowing the body down, slowing the, nervous system, down or more energizing techniques that's actually creating more of a movement and momentum within yourself.
You can experience that type of surrender, that type of fullness or oneness with all of these different, breathwork, practices and quite quickly as well. You can do three rounds within two to three minutes and start to feel that sense of relief. Which is really powerful. And then on the other side of it when we look at the science behind, breathwork meditation.
In the same way that singing turns on the, vagus nerve, which is responsible for your, parasympathetic, response in the body. Breathwork, as well turns on the, parasympathetic response.
So basically, the way that I explain it is that the, vagus nerve, is like pumping the brakes on your stress response or, sympathetic nervous system. We're not necessarily humming or vibrating the vocal cords to activate the, vagus nerve, but there's different practices like for example a, box breath, or equal ratio breath where the, parasympathetic nervous system, is being activated through slowing down your breath and essentially telling your body and telling your, nervous system.
It's safe for me to relax, it's safe to let go. And when we're doing that, we're releasing happy chemicals throughout the body like, dopamine, and, serotonin, which are all those feel good hormones, and so that's where the bliss comes.
Myrna: I told you, I learn something new every time I interview someone. I've never heard that you can relax your, vagus nerve, by singing. I understand now why some, meditations, do the chanting. I myself do the, box breath, with my, meditation, where you inhale for four, hold for 4 and then exhale for 5.
Ava: Most people don't realize that our breath can be used as medicine. So when someone goes into a really advanced, breathwork, practice, like a Wim Hof practice, all of those practices are amazing. They all serve their purpose. However, if we're working with somebody who struggles with PTSD or struggles with anxiety or struggles with depression, we want to be really clear about what, breathwork, practices we are using and the equal ratio breath or the, box breath, or the style that you had mentioned.
So when I teach it, I teach 5-5-5-5, box breath. You can absolutely elongate the exhale, because it does help with the, vagus nerve, being stimulated. But that's like the easiest practice for anybody to start with to reacquaint themselves with their, breath. To reestablish a relationship with their breath where they're more mindful about when they're breathing, because we know that anything that we do in the 10 minutes that we're sitting down, or five minutes that we're sitting down, we're going to become more aware of in the rest of the time during our day when we're awake.
So that's a really, really simple place to start breathing in through your nose for four or five, holding at the top for four or five, scaling for four or five, and then we also hold at the bottom for four or five and that's a way to just strengthen the lungs as well. And the way that is easiest to remember is just an equal basic breathing. So that's how I explained it to individuals who this helps them.
Myrna: Okay, so you're saying that's the simplest, breathwork, . Give us a complicated one.
Ava: Being able to increase your body temperature is a pretty epic tool to have, especially when you're feeling a little chilly. And I think more than anything, it's understanding the breath, and the role that the breath plays on the autonomic nervous system. It is like the heart beating; it is the immune system. It's our hormones releasing from the body.
It's our digestion, our breath is directly connected to our, autonomic nervous system. And so we can do about that as a way to again move out of that, fight or flight response, where we're just dumping acidic chemicals like cortisol and adrenaline on our body into a, parasympathetic response.
Yes, there is actually a really great practice that is so funny. My mom came with me for my bachelorette party a couple years ago and it was so hot and we were walking back from the party to the Airbnb we were staying, and she just got so overheated and she had to sit down. I was like, Mom, you got to do this, breathwork, practice with me to cool you down. It works within five minutes. It's really simple, you curl your tongue like a funnel and inhale through it. And for anyone who can't curl their tongue up, you'll just breathe through the teeth.
Myrna: Can you use, breathwork, to connect to our, higher power? Because when you go into stillness, you connect with your, higher power, you connect with God. So how do you teach your clients to use, breathwork, to connect to the, higher power, or their higher self?
Myrna: Yeah, that's such a beautiful question. And to be honest, this is where I get them the most like space to explore on their own because I truly believe that we all have a unique relationship to a, higher power, of our own understanding. And so you know, as an example, I know that in a lot of communities, the word of God can trigger them based on religious upbringing. For me, I love the word God if that's my understanding of the, higher power, but I know other people like the word, universe, or my, higher self, or whatever it might be.
And so I need to change the language because I know that God created the, universe. All those things are just means the same, super consciousness. There is a bunch of labels.
Using Breathwork meditation to access your higher self
Ava: So the way that I use, breathwork, in with, meditation, is that using, breathwork, first as a tool to really settle our bodies so that again, we're out of that heightened stress response or feeling really tight and closed off. Breathwork, allows us to settle into a space of openness and receptivity so much faster. When we're sitting in stillness and, meditation and you feel that moving energy up and out of the body.
Sometimes that energy might be before in the form of recurring thoughts. that might be something that happened yesterday, something that you have to check off of your to do list etc. we can use, breathwork, as a way to move that energy up and out of the body so that we've actually created enough of a slowing down within the mind. so that when you are meditating, it's so much easier for you to hear your own inner voice or the voice of God or the voice of source in the practice itself.
And so usually what I will do for someone who's like just started, guide them into, breathwork. Then once they're in, meditation, bring them through a list of things that they're grateful for, so that they're really dropping their, heart space, and then guide them into some sort of, prayer. That, prayer, might be just like asking a certain question of something that they desire guidance around or wanting to communicate with God.
And then just allowing myself and, breathwork meditation, to be the subject. I think the two practices go together so perfectly and you know, the lens of, yoga, the eight limbs of, yoga, conjures eight limbs of, yoga. Breathwork, comes before, meditation, as a way to prepare the body to sit for longer periods of time so that you can experience God.
Myrna: How can we connect with you and learn, breathwork meditation, an these wonderful things that you're teaching.
Ava: Thank you so much for giving me an opportunity to share. So the Academy of breath offers an eight week online, breathwork, and, meditation, certification program. This is really meant for anybody who is interested in incorporating, breathwork, and, meditation, into their work that they do. We've had high school teachers go through, therapists go through, we have coaches, yoga teachers, massage therapists, so really anybody who would want to expand their core offering using, breathwork, and, meditation, or wants to become a replica, meditation teacher.
We created this program to really guide you through how to facilitate nine different record practices, three different styles of, meditation, as well as bonus modules and bonus support on how to build a business around it. Again, as I mentioned, when I went through all these trainings, I thought there were phenomenal aspects of the trainings that were more spiritual based or the trainings that were more like science based, but no one really approached like the business side of things either.
I think that's where a lot of teacher trainings fall short is that you give them all of these tools, but then they're like, I don't know what to do with this. And so we really work on that aspect of it as well. If that's something that feels a little bit too, too much or too advanced for those of you that are listening and maybe you're brand new to, breathwork, and, meditation, we also have a six modules for some practice course called backward, where you will learn over the course of six modules how to develop your own personal, breathwork meditation, practice, to help amplify your creativity, your intuition, lower stress levels, and become more present.
And so we really wanted to create a more accessible way for people to learn, breathwork, and, meditation, that might not necessarily be ready to go into a full teacher training. And you can find details for all of that at www.Academyofbreath.org/programs.
The, happiness recipe, is super simple. Do more of what matters to you, and less of the rest.
Simple, though obviously doesn't mean easy. There's a lot that goes into that very short phrase and into the execution of that very short phrase. Becky Morrison is a mom, wife and lawyer turned, Happiness Coach has identified what she thinks are the three areas that stop us from executing on this, happiness recipe.
Becky Morrison is a mom, wife and lawyer turned, Happiness Coach. Her mission is to spread joy. She believes most people can live happier, easier lives if they get clear on what matters most to them and then develop a plan to do more of that and less of the rest. She wants to enable people to find clarity and happiness, so everyone wins.
Now she’s using her experience coupled with her own journey to help people supercharge their success and happiness by: finding clarity; taking the next steps in their career; overcoming overwhelm; going from idea to action; and, stepping into their authentic leadership presence.
Myrna: Your story of coming from corporate lawyer to, happiness coach, reminds me of the first book I read in my quest for enlightenment and, personal growth. And that is the book called from Robin Sharma that's called “The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari.”
So, for those who didn't know Robin Sharma, the character in the book is a corporate lawyer who had a heart attack. And then he went to live with amongst the monks in the Himalayan mountains and he changed his life. So, how did it happen for you?
Becky: Well, I mean, it was not quite that glamorous or fun for me, but it is a story of evolution and, transformation. And it starts with me doing what a lot of us do, which is doing all the things I thought I was supposed to do.
Going to the good school,
getting the good grades,
getting the job,
going back to graduate school to become an attorney,
then getting the job at the big law firm with the big paycheck to be on the partnership track.
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Then one night 16 years later, I found myself sitting on the floor of the bathroom, with a toddler in the tub, and the cordless phone clip to the back of my pants, and the toilet seat cover down with a notebook on it and papers spread all around me. And I was doing two things at the same time. I was bathing my toddler daughter and trying to prepare an expert witness for their upcoming deposition.
I had two thoughts in super quick succession. The first thought was, who says you can't do it all? Look at me. I'm a mom, I'm a lawyer. I'm here. I'm killing it. This is amazing. That was quickly followed by and I'm exhausted. Is this unsustainable? And perhaps more importantly, and more scarily, I'm not sure this is making me happy.
And that kicked off my own quest for, transformation, and, personal growth. I had to figure out, well, okay, what does it mean, if I've done all of the things that I was supposed to do? And I checked all the boxes? And I'm not happy?
What the heck does, happiness, come from then? If it's not from success? If it's not from the results?
You talked about, happiness, is working towards a purpose or a goal.
What am I working towards here?
Why am I here In this season of my life?
What is my top priority?
What is the most important thing?
I panicked. And I started to think about what can I do? And the reality is, I can do a lot of things. I'm a lawyer, with a ton of management experience, a whole bunch of process experience. I've been a CEO, I mean, the list of jobs that I could apply for is pretty long. And thankfully, I had some voices in my life who said, timeout?
This is an opportunity, what do you want to do? Not what can you do, but what do you want to do? And that's how I landed in this business of helping other people chart their success and, happiness.
The Definition of happiness
Myrna: That's a good story. I love your evolution. One of the things I will add is when you're in a tub bathing your child and doing work, you're not giving her the attention she deserves.
Becky: So true, I wasn't fully focused on one or the other. I had split focus and split focus is not efficient, effective or meaningful.
Myrna: So right. Yes, that's what mothers do. You know, they have one of the hips and they're doing it all. So, that moment was the start of your, your evolution, your, transformation. You asked yourself the question Is this making me happy? I'm working towards a goal. I'm working towards partnership, you're immediately disrupting my, definition of happiness.
My, definition of happiness, is working steadily towards a goal or purpose
I guess the other part of that is, fulfillment. And somehow your work wasn't hitting the, fulfillment, button inside.
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How do we identify the essential sources of happiness?
Becky: How do we find our essential, sources of happiness? I have a little exercise that I like to do with people that might seem silly or small, but it's not. And it's about developing a menu of things that you can do, that are easy and accessible, that you know, are going to create a positive emotional experience for you.
We can use Oprah's, sources of happiness, sitting in the bathtub. We need to do to get down to the essential, sources of our joy, or have those positive emotional experiences is to ask a few more questions. Get down to the simple things that you can do to add, happiness, into your daily life.
When I'm sitting with a client is ask them to brainstorm a list of five to seven things that are their, sources of happiness. I ask them not to judge because on my list, one of my, sources of happiness, is clean sheets!
Then taking one on that list and asking yourself, what about that makes me happy? So, take the Oprah example. What about being in the bathtub that brings you, happiness?
Is it the solitude?
Is it the warmth of my water?
Is it the time with my thoughts?
There's something more than just the bathtub that brings you, happiness.
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Invite your nervous system to become a partner in your happiness?
Becky: Happiness, makes you feel good or, or when you're doing the things that make you happy in that moment, right? You feel good, and it helps with your health, and it helps with resilience and all that. But your nervous system is a little different.
A lot of times more, happiness, for us lives on the other side of some sort of change. Whether it's change in behavior, change in circumstance, change in mindset. And at the most basic level, one of the important jobs that our nervous system plays is to keep us safe, literally, to keep us alive. That's where the, fight or flight, response, comes from.
Often when we're trying to make a change, it can feel uncomfortable and unpleasant, because it is our, nervous system, is saying, no, no, no, please don't. I know how to keep you safe; this new activity is not safe. I have no data on it. So, often we mistake that discomfort as a sign that we shouldn't do it.
Myrna: That’s true that our brain’s function is to warn us about impending danger and to keep us safe. Which is why One of the first things I learned myself on my journey of self-improvement is you got to get out your, comfort zone, because whenever you sit In your comfort zone you're not moving, and you're not growing.
Becky: Sometimes I worry that when I say the, happiness recipe, people are going to be like, That's it? But here's the deal. And you've sort of set it in your definition. But the recipe for maximum, happiness, is super simple.
Do more of what matters to you, and less of the rest.
Simple, though, obviously, doesn't mean easy. There's a lot that goes into that very short phrase and into it's execution. I've identified what I think are the three areas of the, happiness recipe. Three areas where there can be gaps that stop us from executing on the, happiness recipe.
And the first is what I call the, authenticity gap. Do we know what matters most to us? And are we willing to claim it publicly? Because to live it, you must be willing to speak it. You must be willing to share it. Be willing to have other people see it.
Then there's the middle gap of the, happiness recipe. I call that the, emotional energy gap, or the, mindset gap, that's all the beliefs and feelings that get in the way of us executing on that knowledge of what makes us happy.
We know what matters most to us, we know the goal or purpose that we want to be working towards; but do we have the, mindset, and belief that will allow us to make that happen?
3. The third gap in the, happiness recipe, is the, physical energy gap, which is really the execution piece. Do you align your time energy and resources with what matters most to you? I call it priority aligned living.
You told us about your book the , happiness recipe, we all know we can pick up a copy on Amazon, but give us your website and maybe a couple of your social media handles or so that people can connect with you.
Becky: My website which is www.untanglehappiness.com. And on there you can find all the social media links to connect with me on social media. You can also find a link to my book The Happiness recipe and you can learn about the work that I do.
Myrna: It's been an incredible conversation. We talked about, happiness, the big takeaway from this conversation is our, sources of happiness. If you were to ask someone Are they happy? They're probably going to be talking about, is my life good? Is my husband good to me? Am I making enough money? Am I living my dream life?
They're going to think of the big things that cause, happiness.
I found that, definition of happiness, is working towards a goal or purpose. Happiness, comes from taking those steps towards it. That is what makes you happy, when you're moving towards something. When you feel stuck, or you think you're going backwards, is when you're unhappy. So, it's the same thing, finding moments to bring you joy, understand your, sources of happiness, can be as simple as clean sheets, or taking a bath, everybody can do that. Everybody can find, happiness, sitting inside a tub, you don't have to have waterfalls!
You can find, happiness, by taking a walk. Happiness, for me is walking in a park, you can find a park with trees everywhere. Find your, source of happiness, if could be a good book, it could be clean sheets, it could be taking a bath, whatever is your, source of happiness, start there and then you pick a goal or a purpose and you take little baby steps towards it.
Once you are moving in the right direction, you are going to be happy. So, thank you, Becky, for that simple, happiness recipe. It is a very simple recipe. Head over to Becky's website, connect with her on social media and pick up a copy of her book.
Trauma, is a shock to the, nervous system. And when, childhood trauma, is stored instead of released, it can cause physical and, mental health, issues down the road. When, trauma, occurs, in an effort of protection, your brain temporarily pauses your memory processing system, and the experience is not stored as traditional memories.
Today I am talking with Emily Francis. Emily is the best selling author of “Healing Ourselves Whole”
Listen to the full interview here:
Healing Ourselves Whole will give you the tools you need to clean your emotional house from top to bottom, complete with journal prompts and access to audio meditations for you to listen along to as you read.
As a trained, body worker, Emily Francis offers a refreshing perspective into healing, trauma. She reveals unique knowledge of the body as a holder for memory. Emily will lead you on a path deep within yourself to rearrange the ways that, pain, and, trauma, have been holding you back from whole body, mind, spirit, and, energy healing. You will rearrange the dialogue within your body memory systems as well as learn a practice to re-birth by healing your, inner child, and adolescent selves, coming into the present to create the best adult self possible.
This groundbreaking interactive book contains a journal and access to audio meditations for you to listen to as you read. The meditations will help you dig deep into past, trauma, and discover when and how, trauma, took root. Learn to get in touch with various parts of the physical and, energy body, and how to use them to let go of stored, traumas, and rediscover the deeply held joys that have also been stored within the body. From this, you will learn to live from a new mindful and powerful space.
book: Healing Ourselves Whole
How to release trauma from the body
My Psychotherapist told me to do something called catch and release. Which means whenever you catch yourself being triggered by past, trauma. This happens whenever you begin to feel bad, and you are not sure why. Whenever you feel your body going into reaction mode, breathe in and then release it. This allows the feelings you have stuffed down to come out.
Myrna – Emily can you share with our readers how they can to us start to release, traumatic experiences, from their body?
Emily – In my book, Healing Ourselves Whole, I help my readers put their own hands on their body. When I am helping my clients in person, I help them, release trauma, in their body by putting my hands on their body to help them locate where the, trauma, had gone in, or the shame, or the guilt.
Why our bodies hold Trauma
Our muscles and tissues store the memory of, trauma. They also store memories of Joy. That's my work; but I couldn't write a book and teach you how to do Hands On Healing, so I wrote a book teaching you how to dialogue inside your body. This book “Healing Ourselves Whole” has a chapter for every emotion we hold in our body. We go through a 15 to 20-minute meditation on releasing, body trauma.
The workbook included with the book allows you to journal and go through all the senses to find the, trauma, carrot or the shame carrot or the guilt or grief. I teach you through this book how to do the body work by yourself. I'm not a therapist, so some behaviors and thoughts still need to be treated by, hypnosis therapy, like EMDR.
I work on the part of the body that is holding the, pain, and blocking the healing, so you still need your, cognitive therapist.
Childhood trauma and body trauma are connected
I have some, childhood trauma, and I know that until I became conscious that I was stuffing things down instead of understanding my emotions, I never understood that my, childhood trauma, was influencing my present. My, childhood trauma, also affected my relationships earlier in life before I was able to start to release them.
This is a great topic on releasing, chronic pain, because some people go to their graves not understanding that their quality of life was hampered by, what happened to them. Sometimes the, wounds, were only from, childhood, but relationships earlier in their lives eg. lovers, friends, teachers etc.
Emily, what made you become a wellness expert?
I graduated undergraduate with a science and, wellness, degree then I went on to become an aerobic yoga instructor. Then I started suffering from extreme panic attacks and agoraphobia, so I went from loving to be on the stage, to not wanting to leave my house. I was a college cheerleader, I worked out every day, I was at the gym three to five hours a day teaching different classes and I was like rocking.
The more crowded the better. I fed off the energy and then I turned twenty-five! I stopped drinking and the mask dropped and the crazy came up. All the, pain, that I had stuff down came to a flying head and I had to stop myself from extreme anxiety and panic attacks.
It took seven years for me to understand that the reason for my anxiety and panic attacks were because of, childhood trauma, that I had stuffed down. I missed a lot of my hot years as a young adult because I couldn’t hang out with friends or go to bars without feeling like I was crazy. I really stepped away from life and just sat out and watched life pass me by. My, mental health, was of grave concern to me. I prayed a lot. I did a lot of intensive work, meditative work. I went to a million different, healers. if I heard of something for, body trauma, I was there. I went through 7 years of, holistic therapy, and nothing worked until I finally broke down and tried a child's dose of an antidepressant.
When I was able to heal myself, I want to share and that is why I wrote the book Healing Ourselves Whole
Google Podcast Transform Your Mind
Can medications help with Childhood Trauma?
After 7 years of looking for a treatment, I came across a book by a psychotherapist named Tom Rutledge. He suggested medications. I tried it and it worked for me. The antidepressant worked because it regulated my brain and here is the thing that I learnt from Tom. I was reading his book and embracing fear and I decided to write this letter to him. I wrote that I was a big phony and a liar, and I've been writing all these years and it was just crap. I am crap and I wrote this long letter. It was like reading my autobiography. I just wrote out all the things I had been telling myself all these years.
Tom Rutledge replied that I should consider medication. He said that we must first regulate the brain before we can start the healing process and suggested that we should try medication. I rejected medication, because it goes against everything, I believe in. It goes against my holistic principal, it was a Band-Aid. I said no I'm not interested, and he wrote back. He said there's a part that I think you've missed, the brain and the mind are not the same thing. The mind is where your thoughts and behaviors are, the brain is an organ in your body. It’s like your heart or your liver or kidneys. You would not hesitate to take medication if your heart or liver or kidneys were malfunctioning.
But, mental illness, comes with a stigma. People hesitate to take medication because they feel it makes them crazy. Antidepressants are just something to regulate your brain. The brain is an organ and you're missing some chemicals in your brain and that is the reason for the anxiety and panic attacks. Once you get that regulated all the work that you've done because you've done significant with healers will be able to come through.
Yes, you can create what you want with imagination an intention. The movie themes the world loves are few and simple; they are the themes that have been portrayed over and over since Hollywood began to make movies. These classics have the most wonderful endings: love overcomes all; good defeats evil; the wayward child comes home. Anyone can be a hero, and everyone has a Guardian Angel.
Hollywood Endings – Using Imagination and Intention is about self-awareness, recovery and enlightenment. It's for anyone who has ever wanted or dreamed of having a “Hollywood ending.” It is for those of us who never had a role model to show us how it's done. It celebrates the wonder of the movies and urges us to see movies once to be entertained, and then return to see them again to learn from them. We all deserve a Hollywood ending. This book can show you how with life lessons from Dances With Wolves, National Velvet, Die Hard, and The Color Purple, to name a few.
Rewrite your own story and give it a Hollywood ending.
Trauma, gets attached to your tissues, because the experience of stress, particularly, childhood trauma, causes stress and can trigger active survival responses of fight, flight, or freeze. When your, body trauma, can't activate or complete these responses, those sensations become trapped in your nervous system.
Trauma, is a shock to the, nervous system. And when that, trauma, is stored instead of released, it can cause physical and, mental health, issues down the road. When, trauma, occurs, in an effort of protection, your brain temporarily pauses your memory processing system, and the experience is not stored as traditional memories.
Instead of being stored as a complete memory, traumatic experiences are thought to be stored as fragments of pictures of, body sensations or, body trauma. These fragments are unprocessed and thus don’t fit in the system as they should. Because they don’t fit, these fragments can surface unexpectedly as nightmares, flashbacks, or general angst and unease. Most of the time you don't know why you are feeling uneasy.
International Trauma-Healing Institute founder Gina Ross has developed a simple process called Emotion Aid. Here is a summary of those steps you can use to begin to, release trauma, trapped in your body.
First, assess where you are: rate your stress or upset from a low of 1 to a high of 7. If it is high, first practice the following Grounding Steps.
Begin by Butterfly Hugging and Tapping– hug yourself and then alternately tap on your arms, from side to side, 25 times. Then take a deep breath. Repeat this until your stress level begins to drop noticeably.
Next, Send Roots into the Ground. Notice your feet or, if your seated, your back, buttocks, and back of your legs in the chair. Now notice your feet or lower body being firmly connected to the floor, then to the ground, like roots going deep into the earth. Take a deep breath. Then gaze about the room and notice objects or textures about the room, remaining connected to your “roots.”
Finally, Notice Breathing: Put one hand on your chest and one hand your belly. Now just be with your breath, not trying to change it, but just noticing the rhythm of it. Then make a heart shape with your fingertips and bring awareness to your beating heart.
How to discharge body trauma
Now begin to Discharge Sensations and Release Stress.
First, notice your breath and Breathe Notice any sensations that come up naturally. As you release, trauma, and stress hormones, they will present through sensations like shaking, heat, sweating, yawning, goosebumps, changed breath, and gurgling in the stomach. Be curious about the feelings and be with them, and they will naturally discharge. Do not judge or critique what you are feeling or sensing.
Next, briefly review the, childhood trauma, or troubling thoughts that lead to the sensations. As you review, notice the Feelings that come up as you consider what happened. It’s important to go slow so that you’re only allowing the activation of one feeling at a time. Just be with it and give it plenty of time. Then notice the discharge that emerges as you follow the sensations. (Know that you can temporarily set aside sensations and emotions that you are not focusing on at the moment. For example, imagine putting them on a shelf for the moment.)
Then work with the Thoughts. Again, as you notice one thought at a time, observe the sensations that show up with these thoughts. Let go of the judgment or criticism. Just be present and continue to observe what happens next and experience the sensations discharging and releasing from the body.
Now notice and bring to awareness Resources. A resource is anything that feels strong and calm to you. These can be external (for example, the kind eyes of a good friend) or internal (perhaps the memory of a personal achievement). As you recall or hold these resources notice the sensations that show up in your body. Take a few minutes to feel the sense of calm and strength in your body.
