Latest / The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series / How to Heal After Loss | Self-Compassion & Resilience with Soulla Demetriou

Transcript

How to Heal After Loss | Self-Compassion & Resilience with Soulla Demetriou · The James Granstrom Podcast - Super Soul Model series

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: That was so challenging and really took me to that place of deep surrender, of prayer, of just letting go at the sense that I could control anything and surrendering and asking for the wisdom, the guidance, the support seen and unseen, just to show me how to get through this.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to the James Granstrom podcast Super Soul Model series, and today in this episode, we're joined by someone who's really special Zula Dimitriou.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Now Zula is a trauma-informed somatic therapeutic coach, a yoga teacher and the founder of Soul Shine Retreat, and for over a decade she's been helping people heal, reconnect with themselves and live more authentically.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: But her story goes far beyond her work.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: After a freak accident left her with life-threatening injuries, zula had to lean in on every ounce of self-compassion and somatic wisdom she'd been teaching others for years.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: What followed was a powerful journey of healing, resilience and rediscovering what truly matters.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: This is a conversation about strength, compassion and the power of coming home to yourself.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the episode, zula.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: I'm so honored to be here and it's so powerful hearing all of that reflected back as well.
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Sometimes hearing the story.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: What does it feel like someone repeating back your story to you?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: A?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: year and a half ago and it's just a real reminder of how far I've come and the depth this work has gone over, you know, more than a decade of being really dedicated to healing and growth.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's powerful and it's moving as well.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: It moves me.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Beautiful Zula.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Your journey is pretty extraordinary.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Where do we begin?
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's such a good question where do we begin?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Because there are so many layers to it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: Um, I suppose my journey consciously began from a place of real suffering.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I started having panic attacks in my teens and that really extended into my early 20s of developing a generalized anxiety disorder, which I'm sure anyone who's experienced anxiety can relate to just how incredibly painful and life-impacting that is to live in a constant state of anxiety.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: And I also really struggled with depression in my teens and my 20s.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: And my nature is one that is innately very courageous, very adventurous, very curious.
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I've always been like that and I feel really lucky that there was something in me that had like the strength or the conviction, or just the belief, that I wasn't willing to accept anxiety and depression and these labels which come with such a heavy burden, as the truth for the rest of my life.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: There was so much I wanted to do, there was so much I believed was true for me, so I embarked on this path of really just dedicating to my own healing and then, as that went deeper, getting curious as to you know why not only I was having this experience, but so many other people around me were having similar experiences as I dedicated to wellness.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Um, you know, I've now I've worked in in person with thousands of people through retreats and one-on-one and I was like, hold on, so many people are suffering in this way, why?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: And that curious part of me I just went very deep into, like trying to work it out and explore and understand.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: And that's really what all my work is about and where I sit today, you know, with the lessons that I found so why don't you take us back to the part where you had that freak accident?
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: because that's almost a part of where your journey to healing really begins.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Um, for the listeners listening in because you, it's quite a deep experience, so why don't you share with that?
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: yeah, well, interestingly, I would say that's almost the culmination of my journey, because that happened just 18 months ago and it was it was my third near-death experience in my life.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I was also in the tsunami in sri lanka and I was also.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: I nearly died with my family when I was 11 in a carbon monoxide poisoning.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: So there's been these.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Really, um, I feel someone still wants you to be here, right?
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: yeah it, yeah, it's weird.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I remember my little sister once saying are we very unlucky?
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: I was like I think maybe we're very lucky because we keep surviving, you know things where it was very lucky that we did survive.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: So I say it's almost like the combination of my journey 18 months ago.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: This accident I had, because by that point I was already writing my book, which was already about a methodology which is what I bring to my clients one-on-one and retreats, which is called the soul shine way and having worked already with people and myself through that methodology, having this accident then put me in a place where I went on a personal journey of applying everything I'd been teaching to myself in a very tangible way and that was powerful.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And as part of my recovery and I'll talk more about what happened I was recovering as I was writing the book which I'd already, as I said, begun, and I realized that the writing I actually took myself on my own process again.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: It was like I facilitated for myself.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: So the accident I was quite I'm a kite surfer and I've been kite surfing for nearly 20 years and I basically was lifted up by a freak gust of wind and thrown into a building and then dropped one story after hitting the building to the ground.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: So I had very major impact injuries, much like you'd have with a car crash, which led to internal organ damage and led to me having quite a traumatic hospital experience and then being in hospital for one month unable to eat or drink, on a tube through my nose, uncertain if I'd need major surgery and what really the future would hold.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: And so, yeah, many moments during the accident both from the actual accident itself, the moment it happened, where I was waiting for the ambulance I didn't know if I had a trauma to my head, a trauma to my spine.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I couldn't breathe.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I had to call upon nervous system regulation practices.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I had to work with the somatic therapies that I work with just to stay calm All the way through my whole journey in hospital, and then the recovery afterwards with post-traumatic stress, really called upon the methodology that I developed.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: So very powerful.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: So thank you for sharing that story.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: It's probably tough to bring, but I think there's transmutation and healing within your story, actually going through some of the healing practices that you developed or shared.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Why don't you share with us a little bit about what the somatics is and how that's helped you and how that's actually also helping other people, because everybody goes through some type of trauma, some more so than others.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: But if people have been experiencing any difficulty and any challenge, how can they come back to their center again?
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: And I think that's really the crux of your work.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I love that reflection and so much of my work is about this return to what we call self-energy, this return to our truth, to that calm, curious, compassionate center that each of us have and, yeah, becomes very obscured by by life and by our experience of seeing the present through the lens of the past.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Um, I guess, to answer that question, maybe I'll talk a bit about the soul shine way and what that methodology actually is, and then can sort of touch in on perhaps what the practices are.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Um, the soul shine way.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: We begin with awareness.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: So first of all we have to recognize what is happening.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of in mindfulness, um, like the roots of that.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: And you know, in order to create any change we first have to notice what is happening, right, to find that pause between what's happening and how we start.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: So if we're in the middle of some, type of difficult moment.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: You've got to be aware that you're in the difficult of some type of difficult moment.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: You've got to be aware that you're in the difficult moment exactly.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: And then what does that entail?
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: Being aware of it, because one might just think, oh, this is experience.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: It's not very nice, but how does one actually fall into that state of awareness which you mentioned?
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: so, once we have that pause of recognizing what's happening, that allows us the possibility to respond in new ways.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: So, rather than reacting unconsciously, we start being able to respond.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: For me, the first step with that is self-compassion.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: We start being able to consider well, how can I be there for myself in the most loving way, in the most um, in the strongest expression of friendship, of support, and that's where all the tools can come in um understanding, because it really it depends what perspective you're coming from.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Like when I was having the accident, that was a specific trauma and so for me, in that moment of being scared, of being in pain, recognizing all of that was happening, how could I respond in a loving way?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: What did I need?
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I was able in that moment to respond with nervous system practices, because that's also part of my.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: You know my focus working to calm the nervous system.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I was able to call in you know a lot of sense of calm and protection and to support my physiology.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: Someone else in that situation, recognizing what is happening.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: It might be recognizing your inner critic is here, okay.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: So how can I respond?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: In a different way?
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: Or it might be recognizing anxiety is here, okay, well, how can I respond from a place of kindness here and from that you know, having all different toolkits, be it somatic therapy, like how can you come into your body in a way that supports you?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: so could you just tell us a little bit what somatic therapy is, because there might be a lot of listeners who've heard it but doesn't know what that entails yeah, it's a word that we hear a lot now but isn't always clear.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: When we talk about somatic therapy, we're talking about the soma, which is the body.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: So we're using the body as this kind of wisdom keeper and this portal.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: So what I mean is, instead of just understanding from your head or I'm feeling this, and having a story which is cognitive and analytical, it might sound more like okay, so in my body now I can feel a tightening in my chest, I can feel like a sense of sickness in my stomach, I can feel my heart rate beating and we start looking at the body as the wisdom keeper and the wisdom messenger.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And so then, when we recognize the body as telling us a story for us to listen to, we can get curious and be like well, what does that tightness in my chest mean?
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: What does that feeling in my belly, what does that agitation mean?
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: And rather than just needing to work out through our heads, we understand our stories through what our body is showing us.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense?
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Kind of.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: I think I just want to go into something really practical, because I know a lot of the people listening are just going how do I get practical if I'm sitting in hospital and I've got crushed bones?
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: And how do I get practical if someone I love, close to me, has just died?
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Or how do I get practical if I've got some type of title of an illness that I'm not comfortable with?
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: So how do we get practical about trying to get the awareness and then what we can do about it?
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Because obviously the body knows how to heal, but the mind can obviously speed up heal, healing, but if we're not familiar with any tools or strategies, we're just going to suffer, yeah and so so what would you say to someone sitting with an illness or someone close to them who's just passed away?
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: how to get practical with some of those things that you've mentioned on the soul shine way yeah, I can really feel like the the burden of those moments and I would say let's keep it really simple.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: You know I work with over 15 years of tools.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: There's so much depth to that, but let's keep it super simple.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Can we notice?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: This is a moment that's painful.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: First of all, can we notice and understand wow, I'm having a painful thought.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: This is a scary moment.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: This is challenging somehow.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Can we notice that, either through the quality of our thoughts or how we feel in our body.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Does it feel heavy, does it feel scary, does it feel anxious?
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: However, that relates to us and through noticing.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: The most simple practice I would bring is like recognizing what you're feeling in this moment.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: If someone you loved was sitting across from you having this experience, they've just lost someone, they've just had a scary diagnosis, they're in hospital.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: They don't know what's going to happen to them.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: They're suffering, like how would you feel towards that person if it was your loved one?
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: And can you literally just be there for yourself in the same way, either like a hand on the heart or through the way you speak to yourself, through the way you respond to yourself?
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: That is the most simple and yet super powerful tool anyone can bring in recognize this is a moment of suffering and respond to it as you would a loved one.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I'm so sorry that you're having this experience to yourself, with your hand on your heart, wrapping your arms around yourself, understanding what you need in that moment.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: And what would you suggest to a friend?
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Maybe saying to them don't do this on your own.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: You know, reaching out.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: It's like being there and giving yourself that same permission that you would give to a loved one.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: That's the essence of self-compassion permission that you would give to a loved one.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: That's the essence of self-compassion.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: And many, many moments of this really have the capacity to transform our life, just in many moments of recognizing and turning towards ourself as we would a loved one thank you for sharing that.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I find that not everybody have that accessibility to find compassion.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: It's only if you've gone through something really difficult that you have access to compassion.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: I know you said you've had almost three near-death experiences, um, which allows you to have a lot more compassion because you realize the fragility of life.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: But sometimes people need a big wake-up call in order to perhaps look at life isn't just about them, it's really about the lives that you touch.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: You mentioned a little bit about the body knows with somatic therapy.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: How does the body know from your experience?
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: And then how do you know what to give it to heal?
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: You know, if you're caught in a bed in a hospital and you've got crushed vertebrae, punctured lungs, all sorts of difficult challenges, how do you, from your experience and your knowledge, how do you come back from that?
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So when we talk about the body, you know, holding the wisdom, I would say a big key to that is our nervous system.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: The nervous system, which many of us are more familiar with as a term.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: Now, you know, the nervous system is a system through which we experience everything in life.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: So our quality of life is dictated by the nervous system, and most people now will be familiar with the idea of sympathetic, like fight or flight, or the parasympathetic as it's often referred to, which is more of our like when we feel calm, rest and digest, and so, putting those terms to sigh for a moment, the body holds and stores all the memories of our experience in the nervous system, and anything that is unresolved it's almost like Groundhog Day for anyone who remembers that movie.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: It's like the nervous system keeps experiencing life as if that event is still happening until we process it, which is why so many of us will be experiencing this current moment through the lens of our past, and what I mean by that is we can be triggered in our life, and often when we are triggered emotionally, it's because something from our past is showing up in the present, and I think this is something you speak to and teach yeah, I had a great podcast on that that you did um
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: yeah, and it's so.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: We want to really in our healing journey, we want to update the system so we're experiencing life through the present, not the past.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: So that's a bit of like the technical In terms of what you need to do if you're in that situation.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: I was very lucky because this is the work that I do and it's very embodied in me.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I had a similar situation.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: I was in a bed with something going in my nose, to my stomach, unable to walk or or move around for a long time.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: So the beauty of the practices is that they don't have to be big um.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: For me, I was able to use music as a nervous system regulator wonderful.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: What sort of music did you listen to?
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: What sort of music.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: So I work with a practice called Kindred, which is a beautiful somatic meditation.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: So remember that word somatic, body-based meditation that means in Kindred rather than sitting, you know, eyes closed in this peaceful still position we actually use music and we move as what we're feeling.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: And are you trying to move in a hospital bed?
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: yeah, so I have no shame with these practices.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: If I know they work, I don't mind about doing them in a public place and um so I would lie in bed listening to music, this beautiful, um very powerful music that I used to facilitate on retreats and with clients, and I would let myself feel and express, through these very small movements that were available, which are really just my hands, um, what was going on within me.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Um, that's not going to be for everyone, because that might feel a bit weird.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: There's also a lot of nervous system practices you can do, so there's a lot of things we can do to calm and bring this sense of safety.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: So when I have the accident as I was literally lying there with my head against the wall, barely able to breathe in so much pain, I did practices like humming, because when we hum it climbs the nervous system I did breathing what's called the physiological sigh, so I did different kind of breaths which I knew would calm my system.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: So, even as I was in a lot of pain, I did things that actually affected and impacted my physiology, and in doing so that was my way of responding in a loving method.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And so I would say the beauty today is that there are so many practices that we can find out there.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: If you look up nervous system regulation, um, in particular, there are very little things like eye movements, sounds, working with the breath that, even with no mobility and no experience, you can practice.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Similar to the self-compassion itself.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: We don't need to have anything other than someone that we've cared about in our life, be it an actual person or be it.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: You know, it could be a religious figure, it could be anything, it could be a place in nature that feels safe and loving and we can just relate to ourselves in the way we relate to that place, so we can turn, like a mirror, back the compassion towards ourselves.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: So we don't need a lot to make really big changes and to support ourself is what I want to say.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I have years of experience so I have a whole toolkit, but you don't need that to begin.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Just pick one thing that resonates breath, movement, sound, music.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: If you can move around, nature is a great support and healer so that.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: So all of those things regulate the nervous system, bring it into a sense of harmony and coherence yeah, it can really help move towards that and support and bring some balance um, as much as possible.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Obviously, if you're in a very critical, unsafe place, you might have to dig a little deeper to find that safety.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: But yes, exactly to what you said, and the mere choice of looking for those things is an act of compassion for yourself.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: So, even looking like, even choosing, I'm going to try and do something to support myself.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: That's already powerful, because already you're saying I deserve and I'm willing to support myself in a loving way, in a friendship way, and that in itself already is healing.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Never underestimate that so what's your uh take on prayer?
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Because prayer I've noticed has been essential for my well-being, uh when I've gone through very dark, difficult moments and a lot of the guests I've had on.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: So you talk about the somatics, you talk about the amusement, music and the breathing and the light movement and dancing of the hands.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: What's your take on prayer and how that's helped you, if it did at all, in your, your healing process after that accident I love that question because I think people are really nervous around the word prayer, um.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: You know there's a lot of connection it's one of our most ancient things to connect us with who we really are, you know.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: So there's nothing to be frightened of yeah, I think, um, because of the connection with religion, there can be like a nervousness around it, but for me, I have a deeply spiritual practice and I can move more towards the spirituality and more towards the science, depending on who's sitting in front of me.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: But that spirituality drives everything that I do.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: It's very much connected to like a higher power or, you know, a surrender to that and, um, I actually just wrote about this recently because after the accident, I then had a lot of health problems um, that was so challenging and really took me to that place of of deep surrender, of prayer, um, of just letting go, and letting go of the sense I could control anything, and surrendering and asking for the wisdom, the guidance, the support seen and unseen, just to show me how to get through this, and that complete surrender was so powerful.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: It was a place where I feel like all the spiritual teachings that I've been immersed in as a student and a facilitator for years make more sense than ever, which is letting go of the idea of this being a good or a bad experience, letting go of the idea this should or shouldn't be happening, understanding that life is a continual journey that will bring, like the ocean, difficult moments as well as beautiful ones, and, rather than trying to control that, just surrendering and asking for, you know, the support from something greater than me to let me get through it with the most grace and compassion possible.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: My background as a yoga teacher means that I've always had a very strong connection to what we call bhakti practice, which is divine, um, a kind of divine practice.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: So I already have that really strong connection.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: But you don't need that, I think, to find what makes sense to you, to something bigger.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: For a lot of people that can be nature like.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Just when you understand and see nature, you can, you can pray to nature, because nature's like all around us and nature is us and, um, yeah, I, I'm very grateful to to that prayer and for that surrendering so what is, what is that prayer?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: you know, if anyone's inspired by you, know your journey, what, what's the prayer that you had that you used?
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: it's not a prayer with words, necessarily a sense.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: It's a more of a feeling.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: For me it's connecting because I have a very strong kind of shamanic earth wisdom influence in my practice.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: It's understanding myself as part of the earth and the sky and the ocean, the mountains, and coming into something that feels like a meditation and just not even looking for answers, just connecting to that within me, and it's something that almost doesn't have words, just asking for that trust, like and finding that trust within me to let go of answers and needs, to just feel myself not alone, I guess, in that journey and actually when I had the accident in that moment.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you asked that question because in the moment of the accident with the nervous system I worked with internal family systems, which is an amazing somatic therapy.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So I did this kind of parts work, all the parts that were scared of me.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I put them like in a I imagined a sphere of protection and put them in it.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: So the scared parts of me were safe and I also really called on guidance.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I just called on protection.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Whatever was here, above and below and around, whatever form like please keep me safe here.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I surrender this to you, keep me safe.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: And that definitely fed through I like.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Thank you uh, I think that I think that what I know the audience love is what can I do if I'm in a difficult moment?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: What can I do if I'm faced with, you know, a really very difficult challenge?
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: And I think that prayer is a wonderful way and there's no right or wrong way to do it.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: From what I've heard from you saying, I just think it's just help me.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: It's as simple as that.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Help, yeah, help me get to the next stage.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: You can have wonderful other practices that will help you regulate, but I think it's also nice to know well where else do you turn to if you've hit rock bottom?
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Where else do you turn to if your nervous system's fried?
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: You know, I remember there was a really interesting story.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: I studied different masters and different people who have done excellent things, and I've also looked at my own experience and gone well, what did I do to come back from that hardship or that challenge or that suffering?
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: Lots of death, and I've always prayed, I've always done something for the mind, body and the soul, and I'm listening to different guests that come on and you know I love to hear you know what you're doing for the mind and also what you're doing for the body, and well-being is a triad.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: It's these three different aspects of ourselves that unifies us to the life itself, to that beautiful energy that we are.
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: But when we have an area of our life that's suddenly fallen out of balance, like having an accident, it's like have I neglected one aspect of myself?
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Or, if I haven't, what can I do to bring myself back into balance again?
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: And I think your story really shows that we can bring ourselves back into balance once we've hit a real challenge.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: And I think that that's actually part of life.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Whether we like it or not.
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: The challenges will come, as you mentioned, like the ocean, and it's not to to be worried about them when they come, but it's to be prepared and trained yeah, resourced, I was thinking is about being resourced it's a lovely way of saying yeah, and so much of my work is like can I share the tools with you?
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: can you work out what your toolkit is?
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: We are unique beings.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I'm sure you find in your work, as I do with mine, whilst I have this methodology, it's not one size fits all.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: We're all unique and so it's like what is going to work for us.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: So we feel resourced um to meet life, because life will have.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: You know, as as in the teaching of Buddhism, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: And that's really the space like pain happens, and that was so clear to me in hospital because I was in such a painful, difficult, scary place and also a lot of what you've shared has really resonated, of what you've shared has really resonated.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: So I also was going through the process of two very close friends, um, facing terminal cancer, um who have now no longer with us, and so it was a year of like just death.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: It was facing like I mean, it really touched a bit.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I can feel it within me and it was like wow, I can either sit here being like why, why is this happening, as we can so often do, believing that this is personal and something happening to me in that victim place.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: I would be like, okay, this is life, this is painful, but I don't need to make this suffering by believing there's something wrong with it I think that I think what you just said there, I think it's really important, which is thinking that it's imperfect, how it's happened, and that that's really tough.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: Because actually, as human beings, when we have physical attachments to the people that we love and then they're no longer with you, that creates this incredible void that is now separated, so what you loved is no longer physically present.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: But when you understand the spiritual world and the soul, soulful aspect of who we are is that we all come alone, we all die alone.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: That's number one and we all come to fulfill our purpose, whatever our soul's purpose is, and we have no understanding of what someone else's purpose is and what they need to fulfill.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: So this gives me a little peace, knowing that.
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: But it doesn't always make you feel happy that someone's taken off.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: But there's a really wonderful teacher called Abraham Hicks, and I like the way they say it and they say when someone, when someone passes, it's just they've just taken off.
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: You know they're just taking the suit off and off, they've gone and don't and try to be very light-hearted about it.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: But the actual physical feeling is quite tense, emotional nervous system settling.
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: But we can find our center again and that's what you keep talking about.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: You can use those resources, and I think the word source in there is the key word, because that's who we are and where we return to when we find our balance.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: So what sort of strength has this all given you in sharing your work with other people, having moved through a few different sets of challenges?
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Where does that leave Zula now, you know, in terms of headspace and art space?
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Where?
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: does that leave Zula?
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: Now, you know, in terms of headspace and heartspace, yeah, I feel it's left me in a place of self-trust.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I think self-trust is a really big part of it, of really understanding, not from a victim mindset, because, truly, if you knew my whole life story, I through a lot and sometimes it's felt crushing, um, so stepping out of the place of victim, more like that.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: That real essence, teaching of this is life and I can and um, and far more vast than that, and I just I love so much what you just shared there because it resonates deeply with my journey, with losing my friends and um, like a real sense of connection.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: I have such deep faith in the soul journey, in the spiritual journey, in the continuity of our soul, like there is not one aspect to me, for many reasons, which would be an entirely, uh, new podcast, that that doubt that.
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: And yet I also understand that to be human, that doesn't take away from the fact that my friends are not here in this way, in this world in this form, and so understanding, like this essence of our human experience about impermanence, that we'll come here alone, as you say, and we'll all die alone, and this kind of duality of that being our human experience with pain and yet being part of something so much more vast and infinite and powerful and eternal.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Um just gives me deep comfort that we are on a soul journey that's part of something far greater than we could ever imagine.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: I think it's deeply comforting when you start looking around and understanding yourself as part of this web that goes so far beyond what we see and perceive in this lifetime, in this world, and so in my physical body.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: In this lifetime, self-trust and self-compassion is what I've gained and in the broader spectrum, it's understanding I'm part of something oh, I tell you what.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: This is a really interesting question now.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: I love this, I like to to put that sort of question to the audience listening, anyone who's listening in.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: What do you think your sole purpose is?
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: And we don't mean it is to necessarily achieve something, but it's what you're going to learn in terms of qualities.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I think that that's what you mentioned there.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: I've got self-trust, I've got self-compassion.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: I think it's not necessarily achieving x or having a family, or those things are important, but it's actually the qualities of what you develop, like personal trust, self-compassion, kindness to self.
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: I mean these are qualities that you might be have glimpses of, but you actually have to.
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: You have to embody them, as you mentioned.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah and yeah.
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: So what would you?
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: You think that other types of soul purpose things people have to learn?
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I think it's a remembering.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: It's like a remembering of that which we forget as humans.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: For me, and and it's funny because actually it's the title of my book and it was really the lesson I think I have to remember again and again in this lifetime, which is that you have always been enough beautiful and that's the title of my book and that actually came through in hospital when I had this almost like near-death experience.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: It was like it was very scary, very and then very powerful experience and the message was like you've always been enough, there's never been anything wrong with you and why is it that we we'll talk a little bit about the book and when that's coming out in a second.
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: Actually, why don't you just tell us now when's it coming out and when can people get it?
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: yeah, it comes out in january, january 15th 2026.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, it'll be available for pre-purchase from um mid-october 2025 for dupe and we're going to have the links where everybody can get that.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to go back to that question.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: I'm so excited to to read that and your story going back to like the soul qualities you said it's a remembering.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: What do we need to remember?
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Zola?
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: wow, that's such a big question and it might sound abstract how I answered to answer it, but I'm reminded of so many teachings that I have received.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I think what we need to remember is our essence is love.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I think that our essence is whole, that there's nothing, that we're, we're whole and we're divine and we are loving, and that's kind of what the remembering is in human language, because that might all sound quite wafty.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: I would go back to like there's nothing wrong with you, you don't need to earn your worth.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: You're already worthy and you always have been worthy of everything, of love.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's remembering that little baby, and when you look at a baby and see how pure and lovable and deserving of care and compassion they are, it's remembering that we're no different at any other stage in our life, that that is our true nature.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, I think that's beautiful.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: I'd just like to add, I think, think that even if you're sitting in the hospital thinking you're broken, you're not broken.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: You know, it's only your mind that thinks that I've got limitations or etc.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: But the physical limitations will only go so far, but your soul is and your spirit and your energy is timeless.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that that's what you know.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Your, your story really shows a lot of resilience to remind yourself who we really are, that you can come back even after two or three or four or five or six or seven really difficult moments, and that we can all do that.
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: And uh, I just wanted to say what's your best advice for the tough seasons, for people?
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: You know, if something's coming up, you're like what do I do?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: How can I not saying that I'm going to have a tough season?
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: I, I want to.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: I expect it.
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: It's not about that.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: It's just about how can we prepare in our daily life, have some disciplines that you think this will serve you and that has served Zula, you know, in your several years of work and finding your own center.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I often teach about, um, you know the practice of mindfulness and self-compassion, like learning to sail a boat in calm waters.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: If we can learn, if we can learn embody those practices in our daily life, then when the storms come we have them almost as an anchor.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: So I would say in simplicity, again, to not overburden with too many different approaches and and and strategies.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: It's like can you become aware of what is happening?
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: Like through a presence practice, can you notice what's coming in, coming up within you and around you, like this is a challenging moment.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: And then can you develop the capacity to respond to yourself and replace the self-compassion of kindness.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: And can you, if you do that every day through from you know noticing in your working day, what am I feeling, what do I need, how can I respond in a loving way?
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: That might just mean having a glass of water.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: That might just mean going outside for a walk.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: That might just you know, it could be small things.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: If you keep cultivating that pause and respond, then when you get hit by stormier seasons, that's going to feel much more embodied with you, and when you get hit by stormier seasons, that's going to feel much more embodied with you.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: No-transcript.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: And I'd say the second thing is know that you don't have to do it alone, like find support around you if you can.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: In those tough seasons, whatever that looks like, it can be hard to ask for help, but that's compassion in a sense, isn't?
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: it.
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Guys definitely find it a lot harder to ask for help because we always seem to be the one that seems to be the person who knows all the answers, who can lead.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: But when a guy has a difficult moment it's like, well, where do I turn?
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: And so I've got a lot of compassion for men and women.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: You know, both dealing with different sets of challenges, of how the world looks at that, how you deal with it, and then actually what you do yeah, I agree with that, and I think that's why the work and the space that you're holding is just so important, because, um, for all the challenges we go through as humans, I would say one of the beautiful things that many of us, as women, have experienced is the capacity to be able to speak with other women and share and process, and we've been given much more permission to be vulnerable, and I think it's so important we find ways for men to have a language, to process and be vulnerable and be authentic and to ask for help and to express and connect, not even to express what they're feeling, but to learn how to connect to what they're feeling to even begin with, because that has been so suppressed.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: And so I'm a massive advocate, um, of supporting that language, and I think you know, the the more we embody that, the more you embody it as a man, the more we give permission, um, as women, to men to do that then, when we give permission to each other, um to embrace new ways of being and I and I often say, you know, the most powerful thing we can do is walk our path we do the work, and as we do the work, we give permission to others to embody different ways of being as well I think that you have a wonderful way of teaching other people to be in their center and by that you help people live more authentically.
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: And I just want to say Zulu, it's been a real pleasure speaking to you on this episode.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing your wisdom, your knowledge and the stories, and very excited for your new book coming up.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Like I mentioned before, we'll have the link ready for anyone who wants to get their hands on that wonderful book.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: you are enough yeah, you have always been you have even better.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: You have always been enough, and it's, yeah, the healing guide to self-love and inner freedom, because so much of what I want to teach people is how to live in a liberated life.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Fantastic Zula.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for joining me today.
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Zula, Dimitri, Thank you for having me.
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: It's a pleasure.
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: Zula is this week's Super Soul Model, Thank you.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning into the show and if you enjoyed it, please remember to follow rate and share it with someone who'd love it too.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Until the next time, wishing you green lights ahead.