Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Holly Nicole Stoumbaugh | The Christian Reeve Podcast #241

Transcript

Holly Nicole Stoumbaugh | The Christian Reeve Podcast #241 · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:00
  Hi. Before we get into today's
• 0:02
  podcast, just a quick trigger warning for anyone who may be
• 0:08
  uncomfortable with some of the themes that we cover today.
• 0:11
  There will be some some heavy stuff we talk about like SA and
• 0:14
  trauma and stuff like that. So this is just your warning,
• 0:18
  you know, if if if you're uncomfortable listening to those
• 0:21
  themes, listening to some of that stuff, maybe skip this one
• 0:25
  or maybe just make sure you're in a comfortable sort of setting
• 0:28
  and stuff before you listen to this one.
• 0:31
  Thank you so much. Hello and welcome back to the
• 0:34
  Christian Reef podcast. As always, make sure to leave us
• 0:38
  a review on Pod Chaser, on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcast,
• 0:42
  Google podcast, wherever you listen to the show.
• 0:45
  It really, really helps us out. And you know, I'm really, I'm
• 0:48
  really trying to kind of just push the show as much as humanly
• 0:51
  possible right now across all platforms.
• 0:53
  So if you do that, you'd be doing me a big favour.
• 0:56
  Thank you so much. And also of course, if you want
• 0:59
  to support me and what everything that we're doing
• 1:01
  here, make sure to subscribe to patreonpatreon.com/christian
• 1:05
  Reeve and get access to bonus podcast content as well on in
• 1:10
  addition to the about how many at least 239 episodes and
• 1:14
  counting that we're on now. Today's guest is an entrepreneur
• 1:19
  spiritual guide and founder of Rebellion Rd.
• 1:21
  Coaching. Her name is Holly Nicole
• 1:24
  Stumbar. Welcome to the show.
• 1:26
  How you doing? Hey, I'm doing really well,
• 1:28
  Christian. Thanks for having me.
• 1:30
  It's really great to be here that nail the name.
• 1:33
  Yeah, you did pretty great. I'm really impressed, actually.
• 1:36
  I should have asked. That was the 1st.
• 1:37
  What? You're the last part.
• 1:39
  You know the last name all the time.
• 1:40
  That's what I was thinking like that's normally the first thing
• 1:43
  I do when there's a tricky name. I I like check it with a guest
• 1:46
  beforehand and I forgot to do that because I was just
• 1:48
  distracted by other things. But great, I'm happy that we.
• 1:53
  Yeah, there's there's so much to to speak about with regards to
• 1:56
  yourself. I I I guess I just want to kind
• 1:59
  of delve straight into like how you got started with teaching
• 2:02
  yoga and, you know, sort of mentoring in general and
• 2:05
  everything else that you do. So sort of walk us back a little
• 2:07
  bit, give us a bit of a history lesson.
• 2:09
  Yeah, let's go from a blast to the past.
• 2:12
  Wow, I love that question. It's actually a it's a sweet
• 2:16
  story. Honestly, it started when I was
• 2:19
  pregnant, almost 23 years ago. My oldest son will be 23 in
• 2:24
  December. And I was on bed rest.
• 2:28
  I was young. I was like 22 and just on bed
• 2:33
  rest and didn't really know what to do with myself.
• 2:36
  And I went to the doctor and was like, what can I do?
• 2:39
  I need to do something. I'm going to go bonkers just
• 2:42
  sitting at home all day reading books.
• 2:45
  And they approved yoga. So I started to go to.
• 2:52
  What am I saying? Went on to the blank, DIRECTV,
• 2:56
  satellite TV and found a yoga class there.
• 2:59
  And that's how it started. But I little did.
• 3:02
  I know that it would bring me towards so many different things
• 3:06
  in yoga, but that's honestly the the bare, the bare roots of the
• 3:11
  story. That's how it started.
• 3:13
  Quite simple. What's kind of changed, what
• 3:18
  would you say the biggest changes with regards to yoga in
• 3:21
  the last sort of 20 odd years? Because obviously the practices
• 3:24
  themselves and the techniques stay the same, but is there like
• 3:26
  a particular focus and direction that's changed within that
• 3:30
  sphere? I mean, obviously when you first
• 3:32
  did it, it's like and also as well.
• 3:34
  Just another element to this question, how has it changed
• 3:37
  your life? Yeah, I love that.
• 3:40
  I love that. I love all those questions.
• 3:43
  Well, yoga's changed a lot, at least in my own life.
• 3:46
  I think any person who ends up finding it one way or another,
• 3:50
  it has the potentiality of bringing us more toward
• 3:55
  ourselves. Obviously like you mentioned in
• 3:56
  the very beginning like it is an internal practice and it's
• 3:59
  something that we the shapes and a lot of the things don't change
• 4:04
  as far as the history goes with yoga, but how it's infused
• 4:08
  itself into. My life is first it was a real
• 4:11
  physical practice. You know, that's really a lot of
• 4:14
  in the Western Hemisphere. That's how yoga is really
• 4:16
  perceived as just this physical practice.
• 4:20
  And it was, for me for a really long time, it it was.
• 4:25
  You know, something that just I did, it brought me a sense of
• 4:27
  inner peace. It, you know, helped me feel
• 4:29
  good in my body. But then down the line, as my
• 4:33
  kids grew older and life's challenges started to kick in, I
• 4:38
  started to think a lot more deeply about what some of these
• 4:44
  teachers were infusing into their classes.
• 4:47
  Whether it be that quote UN quote Dharma or they would
• 4:51
  approach, you know, the class with a particular.
• 4:55
  Theme or a particular concept. And those started to kind of
• 5:00
  trickle their way into my own life.
• 5:03
  And then I would say probably around, gosh, 2006, I started to
• 5:09
  explore what it might be like to go even more deeper.
• 5:12
  And so I took my first kind of training and it was funny
• 5:15
  because it was, it's through a gym.
• 5:17
  I was working there and happened to be taking some of the yoga
• 5:21
  classes and there is this. An organization called Triple
• 5:25
  AI, I'm trying to remember and recall some of these names.
• 5:28
  It's funny. And they were offering like a
• 5:31
  whole weekend thing where like it was a whole event, a big
• 5:33
  convention, right? Like you could go and get your
• 5:35
  like Pilates certification or you could go get your weight
• 5:38
  training. And this one was for yoga and it
• 5:42
  was like yoga in the gym. And but this, there was a few
• 5:46
  really great particular teachers who just started to continue to
• 5:49
  bring that philosophy, and that's really what started to
• 5:51
  draw me in. And then I this is kind of inter
• 5:57
  interwoven with my mental health journey as well.
• 6:01
  So it's hard not to speak to the mental health and like that
• 6:04
  trauma aspect of things, you know, that's feel like it's a
• 6:08
  buzzword now, which I'm grateful it's a buzzword.
• 6:11
  I want those things to be buzzwords because we're speaking
• 6:14
  to them more and we're starting to look at it more and so.
• 6:20
  I ended up finding a really great therapist.
• 6:25
  I was looking for low cost therapy in Colorado and as we
• 6:31
  know, like certain things. It took me, you know, a long, a
• 6:35
  long time to find the right person.
• 6:37
  But I did find this person and she actually was was a Yogi
• 6:41
  herself and she very much ended up becoming a mentor to me in
• 6:45
  many ways, not just my therapist.
• 6:47
  I mean, I I feel like I kind of scored in that department.
• 6:51
  Because she took me down a lot of avenues and we really started
• 6:56
  to unpack and explore. And then as life happens, life
• 7:01
  happened. You know, I had some really big
• 7:03
  situations. My son got really sick when he
• 7:07
  was 15. My oldest son did and was in the
• 7:11
  intensive care unit. And was gosh, we didn't know if
• 7:15
  he was going to make it. And you know it was a big, there
• 7:19
  was all these other situations also coming up in my life at
• 7:22
  that time. And I remember going to my to
• 7:28
  therapy or calling her and you know, it's just one of those
• 7:32
  situations where she was like, you know, this is when the yoga
• 7:35
  begins. This is actually when the yoga
• 7:38
  begins. Like the yoga begins right now,
• 7:41
  here in this moment. It's actually the first Yoga
• 7:43
  Sutra, which is an ancient text by Patton Jolly.
• 7:49
  And you know, that was really when I started to delve pretty
• 7:53
  deeply into my own practice. I would say even in the last
• 7:56
  eight years it's always been available to me.
• 8:00
  But really looking at what does that mean that yoga begins now
• 8:03
  And it was how am I taking what I'm doing physically, what we
• 8:07
  see, what's projected into, you know, around the globe of what
• 8:12
  yoga is and how is it actually taken off of the mat and brought
• 8:17
  into our lives. And for me it it was what I
• 8:21
  would call maybe an initiation. It's you know.
• 8:25
  A situation that is really scary and and you know one in which
• 8:29
  you don't know what the outcomes going to be and it can bring a
• 8:34
  lot of people into, you know, states of mind and places of
• 8:38
  presence where they don't cope well.
• 8:41
  And I really am thankful that I had those as tools that were
• 8:46
  available and so it changed me into rooting down deeper into
• 8:49
  myself. And seeing how can I apply what
• 8:53
  I've been learning all the way around in this practice and how
• 8:56
  can I apply this to my wife so that as things seem like they're
• 9:00
  falling apart because they kind of are.
• 9:02
  How do we use this as a practice to stay present for lack of a
• 9:08
  better term when this was going down and and your son was is in
• 9:15
  the hospital and you're you're receiving this kind of advice
• 9:19
  now I imagine a lot of people in a similar situation and maybe
• 9:24
  this includes you. I don't know.
• 9:25
  I'm still kind of getting to know you're you're kind of like
• 9:27
  temperament and stuff like that, right?
• 9:29
  But like how did you take that when when they're kind of giving
• 9:34
  you that information, like obviously you'd be stressing out
• 9:37
  maybe you're angry, frustrated, upset, depressed like whatever.
• 9:41
  Do you know what I mean? Like, however, because we all
• 9:43
  deal with heavy situations differently.
• 9:46
  That's just human beings, isn't it?
• 9:47
  Right. So like did you kind of, I guess
• 9:51
  respond to that positively initially or was it just kind of
• 9:54
  like walk us through that process because obviously
• 9:58
  because it's not going to be like a straight board.
• 9:59
  I see what you get that. Yeah.
• 10:01
  Yeah, yeah. I see what you get that.
• 10:02
  Yeah, I do. Yeah.
• 10:03
  I mean I think in certain situations, you know people well
• 10:07
  intended people can say something that they think is
• 10:09
  going to help you and you're like you give them the finger.
• 10:12
  You know, you're like, forget. You like forget.
• 10:14
  I don't know. But maybe not in my in this
• 10:17
  situation. I had already been working with
• 10:20
  her for years. So that's that's something that
• 10:23
  to disclaim is she's a. She's not only a person who I
• 10:28
  have like relied upon and shared a lot of vulnerable things to,
• 10:33
  but she's somebody who I developed a deep sense of trust
• 10:36
  with. So as somebody who I would say
• 10:39
  she was definitely a mentor and a guide, it it's one of those
• 10:42
  things that I appreciated it, but I think that's particular to
• 10:46
  who I am. I'm one of those people where I
• 10:51
  have spent the gut of my life trying to figure out and
• 10:55
  understand why I went through some of the things I went
• 10:57
  through as a kid. Or you know what?
• 11:01
  What? And not even to think of.
• 11:03
  Like, what's my piece as much as it's like, well, how can I best
• 11:08
  bear witness to this situation? As scary as it is, yeah, I mean,
• 11:13
  it was terrifying. I I honestly didn't know what to
• 11:16
  do. You know, it's your own child.
• 11:19
  No one knows until you're in that situation.
• 11:22
  And no one really can empathize with you, 'cause if they don't
• 11:24
  have kids, you know, and vice versa.
• 11:26
  So I would just say I took it for me as something that was
• 11:34
  maybe I guess I could hear how it could be a bit challenging.
• 11:38
  But for me it was kind of like. This is part of that spiritual
• 11:42
  practice. You know it it.
• 11:46
  That's the the areas of yoga that I like to really teach
• 11:49
  people when they are curious about.
• 11:51
  It is this isn't just a practice that makes you feel good and
• 11:56
  look good because it will do those things because your body's
• 12:00
  going to respond to what a it's a powerful practice.
• 12:03
  There's a reason why it's lasted and been around for thousands of
• 12:07
  years. But.
• 12:10
  The deeper aspects of what, you know, the Vedic texts or the the
• 12:14
  the what they're saying, what Patanjali is saying in his
• 12:18
  sutras that ask of us to pull back those layers, especially in
• 12:24
  the middle of a crisis, especially in the middle of a
• 12:27
  tragedy, it asks us to really get out the core of who we are
• 12:31
  as humans. Like what's our humanity if I
• 12:34
  cannot bear witness to this moment?
• 12:37
  Mind you, if I had just met her, I probably might not have been
• 12:42
  so receptive. Maybe, maybe not.
• 12:46
  I don't know, considering like you obviously have been
• 12:52
  practicing this for the, well, your entire children's lives.
• 12:58
  Like how do they take it like because obviously they've been
• 13:01
  brought up in that. Like, do they believe in it too?
• 13:04
  Or are they kind of like OK, mum, whatever.
• 13:07
  Like what? How do they take?
• 13:09
  I love this question because it's so funny because I always
• 13:12
  made we make a lot of assumptions about how our kids
• 13:15
  are going to be right. Like we make a lot.
• 13:18
  And I I raised my kids in it for the most part.
• 13:23
  You know, I, I especially my youngest for whatever reason.
• 13:28
  Well, they both, they both have meditated.
• 13:30
  They both have gone to things with me.
• 13:33
  My youngest, especially there was like a few years.
• 13:36
  In his adolescence that he went with me all the time to classes
• 13:42
  and whatnot. And it really just, it's
• 13:47
  interesting because I think that as we learn to grow older and
• 13:52
  we're individuating like they're learning their own autonomy, I
• 13:57
  think that's a natural progression to kind of reject
• 14:01
  what your parents are doing, what your caregivers have tried
• 14:05
  to show you. And you know, my, my youngest
• 14:09
  went for so long and my oldest went for a little while.
• 14:12
  And then they both kind of like did that thing where they're
• 14:14
  like, do you mom, It's like, you do you.
• 14:17
  And you know, it's interesting though, because now that they're
• 14:20
  older, my youngest is just turned 21.
• 14:23
  And he is somebody who's a deep, deep thinker.
• 14:28
  Really, He has some real interesting depth to him.
• 14:34
  But he's also really young, right?
• 14:36
  And so a lot of when we have conversations that kind of go
• 14:40
  down this road, if if he's dealing with something or
• 14:43
  something's come up, it's, you know, kind of like the best
• 14:46
  thing that I can do is say like, well, I've given you what tools
• 14:49
  that I could. You know, these are the tools
• 14:52
  that I found that kind of worked for me.
• 14:55
  I can't promise that they're gonna live.
• 14:58
  Work for you because we all have to find our own way, really.
• 15:03
  But I have a feeling that they'll probably both one way or
• 15:06
  another, come around to at least I would say, some of the
• 15:11
  foundational pieces of it, right.
• 15:14
  There's foundational pieces that I think remain.
• 15:19
  So who knows? They're kind of just like.
• 15:22
  Mom's doing her thing. They know, you know, my oldest
• 15:26
  ones, Cult told me. I'm a bit of an enigma.
• 15:28
  And I was like, is that a good thing?
• 15:30
  I think that's a good thing. I don't know.
• 15:31
  I'm a, you know, I'm an enigma to him in some ways because I am
• 15:35
  and have changed so much. That's one thing to kind of
• 15:39
  embed into that other question you had about how yoga has
• 15:42
  changed me. It's changed me.
• 15:44
  I am a different person than who I was 10 years ago, and we all
• 15:48
  will change one way or another just because of time.
• 15:52
  But when we're in contemplative practices that ask of us to
• 15:57
  continually be on that journey of going deeper and going deeper
• 16:02
  and going deeper and really looking at ourselves, that
• 16:05
  introspection changes us. And then just the studies have
• 16:09
  shown that meditation changes the structures of your brain
• 16:13
  over time. That lead to you being and
• 16:17
  feeling more at peace, calm, whatever.
• 16:20
  So my kids. I actually think that if you
• 16:23
  were to ask them this question, they would probably reflect that
• 16:26
  is how much I've changed. And so to me, that's where I
• 16:30
  think that they have a lot of compassion and even if like.
• 16:36
  To the depth that I practice yoga, To the depth that I have
• 16:39
  studied it and it is my life and my kids might not understand
• 16:44
  that they have a certain breadth of understanding because they've
• 16:49
  watched its transformation on me over the last two decades.
• 16:53
  So how have you changed? A lot.
• 16:59
  Well, I think that that leads into some of those questions
• 17:02
  around. You know, what does trauma do to
• 17:07
  someone? I grew up in a very traumatic
• 17:11
  household, my whole family dynamic.
• 17:14
  And you know, I think that's another reason why people find
• 17:18
  these kind of practices because they need some deep healing and
• 17:22
  they've they've woken up early on, especially as children who
• 17:26
  are dealing with like complex childhood trauma.
• 17:29
  I say woke up because I know it's just kind of like the
• 17:31
  terminology, but when I mean that, it's like they.
• 17:34
  They recognize that they're in a a different kind of reality.
• 17:40
  You know, they're they're in something that's pretty toxic
• 17:44
  and not all people end up being lost in that.
• 17:49
  If anything, I would. I grew up in it being like, wow,
• 17:52
  this is really messed up. You knew.
• 17:55
  You knew from like, oh, I knew. But did it click?
• 17:59
  Did it click for you? Because like something that I
• 18:02
  realised with certain things is that it clicks when you start
• 18:08
  meeting other people and seeing different dynamics and you're
• 18:12
  like, ah, OK, maybe that's not normal then.
• 18:14
  Was it that or was it just you knew like in a within yourself?
• 18:19
  It was both. It was both.
• 18:21
  It was like I had that feeling, you know, and I think that's
• 18:24
  something for anybody who starts going down the path of figuring
• 18:29
  out some type of healing modalities or they're looking
• 18:32
  into like that introspective work.
• 18:35
  That's one piece. But then I remember this
• 18:38
  distinctly. I had a memory of in 4th grade.
• 18:42
  I went to a friend's house and her name was Lisa.
• 18:47
  And I remember going over there and we sat down to eat dinner
• 18:51
  with her family and it was like, cool.
• 18:54
  It was good. I remember looking around and
• 18:57
  being like, this is what's normal.
• 19:01
  I'm not normal. My family's not normal.
• 19:05
  This is not how dinner time goes at our house, you know, at all.
• 19:11
  Different environment completely.
• 19:13
  And I was that was the first sleepover I was ever allowed to
• 19:16
  have and I was never allowed to have friends over.
• 19:19
  I mean, you know, when we, if you were to delve into, gosh,
• 19:22
  somebody's story, it's one of the reasons why I love.
• 19:26
  Talking to people and sharing stories and podcasting and all
• 19:30
  that because you hear so many great and interesting
• 19:35
  backgrounds. And I truly believe it's through
• 19:38
  that realm that that's how we actually continue to change and
• 19:41
  develop empathy and we have a a deeper thread of humanity
• 19:46
  together. Did you start seeking this while
• 19:51
  you were still living at home or was it something that you saw,
• 19:55
  you know, you got away from home and then you started seeking
• 19:57
  hearing like talk us through that kind of process and how it
• 20:02
  began. Yeah, sure.
• 20:04
  Well, you know, I was sensed that something was afoot, if you
• 20:09
  will, but I, you know, I think it kind of started around that
• 20:13
  4th grade. I remember holding a lot of
• 20:15
  space for my age, probably 11, okay 1011.
• 20:21
  I just I have. No idea when it comes to the
• 20:23
  grading system in America. Like, I'm just terrible of it.
• 20:25
  Yeah. Okay.
• 20:26
  So young child, early teens, Yeah, young child.
• 20:30
  Elementary school, you know, so under 12 years old.
• 20:34
  And I found it in different ways then because obviously I'm I'm
• 20:39
  45 years old, so we didn't have the Internet yet.
• 20:43
  It's just so funny. It's an interesting thing to
• 20:45
  kind of like recall and be like wow, we didn't have a lot of
• 20:48
  these digital things. We had cool things like Atari,
• 20:52
  but you know back in the day we we just, I don't know.
• 20:59
  I think like I just knew that something was not OK and that I
• 21:03
  started to then just want to be outside of the home a lot.
• 21:07
  I just rode my bike all the time.
• 21:09
  Or it's part of the reason why I appreciate yoga as a physical
• 21:12
  practice because it was something that I could do for my
• 21:15
  body and it was an outlet for dealing with all of the the the
• 21:22
  strain and stress of life. But I found it early on more in
• 21:26
  in physical activity, like going out and being like I'm going to
• 21:28
  ride my bike. You know, there was, as long as
• 21:31
  I was kind of out of their hair, I was allowed to go and you
• 21:34
  know, at least have those as freedom.
• 21:36
  So I'd be outside as much as I possibly could.
• 21:39
  That's kind of how it started. But then as I went into my
• 21:42
  teenage years, I had a lot of troubles.
• 21:45
  One of those troubled teens, you know, for obvious reasons.
• 21:49
  And I was getting into a lot of trouble.
• 21:52
  And, you know, they make you take the, the classes.
• 21:55
  Like, you know, I got in trouble at school.
• 21:59
  And so then they make you take, like, I'm trying to think of
• 22:01
  what was one of the name of one of them, like, anger management
• 22:06
  classes. You know, they're like, you're
• 22:08
  angry. And I'm like, obviously, look at
• 22:11
  me when you're, you know, going through stuff like that as a
• 22:15
  kid, like, yeah, you're going to be angry like, duh.
• 22:20
  But I think that that's actually kind of those those classes for
• 22:24
  me started to plant the seeds. And the same way that I planted
• 22:29
  seeds with my kids, right? Like being they.
• 22:30
  And I was happy that they did. I can look back and say, you
• 22:33
  know, when you're looking at anger and they're telling you,
• 22:36
  like, you need to manage your anger.
• 22:38
  And so you have people coming in and trying to share this
• 22:40
  information with you. Not all of it sticks, but some
• 22:44
  of it did. And you know, honestly, I after
• 22:48
  high school, I I just kind of continued that physical
• 22:51
  practice. It was really when I got
• 22:52
  pregnant and found yoga on satellite TV because I was by
• 22:59
  myself pregnant. You know, my partner at the time
• 23:03
  would be off at work, but you know, I was at home during the
• 23:06
  day and was like I got to do something.
• 23:08
  So that was really just kind of the progression through as far
• 23:14
  as therapy goes. You know I think that those that
• 23:16
  kind of just ended up being a progression from some of the
• 23:19
  trouble I'd gotten into as a kid.
• 23:21
  You end up in the social worker's office or you end up in
• 23:23
  the counselor's office and there was trying to remember what
• 23:30
  their name was. Honestly, I don't remember a lot
• 23:32
  of names, which I think that that's actually a condition.
• 23:34
  Sometimes it's like just growing up in a little bit of a crazy
• 23:39
  childhood. But I had a counselor in like
• 23:44
  one of the programs that I had to do from getting in trouble in
• 23:48
  school. And just even for a brief time,
• 23:52
  you know, just that kindness and consideration was something that
• 23:55
  helped me really look at therapy as something like, I need
• 24:00
  somebody to talk to. And that's something I think
• 24:03
  around why I It led me into the work that I do.
• 24:05
  Because, you know, all through school we're told what to do,
• 24:10
  how to do it, when to do it. And then when we get, you know,
• 24:15
  done with high school or whatever and we end up, I feel
• 24:20
  like going through life thinking that we have to figure it out
• 24:24
  all by ourselves. And there's this very
• 24:28
  individualistic kind of like, well, I'll just figure it out,
• 24:32
  It's fine. And I'm, I appreciate it.
• 24:33
  I'm. I'm also very hyper, self
• 24:36
  reliant. I had to learn how to be because
• 24:38
  I was basically made to be an adult when I was like as you
• 24:43
  know tall. And what am I trying to say from
• 24:47
  the time that I could stand, you know, we were made to be a lot
• 24:50
  older than we really were. But I started to see the value
• 24:53
  of like, I can't do this alone. I don't want to do this alone.
• 24:57
  So I started seeking out people and started seeking out therapy,
• 25:02
  started thinking out, seeking out all of these other
• 25:05
  approaches and just got really curious.
• 25:08
  I mean, I think that's just part of who I am.
• 25:11
  And I would encourage anybody, if they are thinking about
• 25:15
  talking to somebody that they should, you know, find the right
• 25:18
  find the people you click with, obviously.
• 25:21
  But there's some good people out there who can help you unlock
• 25:26
  some of these things that help you lead a more fulfilling life.
• 25:32
  That's my hope. But maybe I'm still never
• 25:34
  optimist. I think that's a powerful
• 25:38
  element to it as well, because I've seen people kind of go
• 25:42
  every direction, you know what I'm saying?
• 25:44
  And it's like. Some of it comes from I think
• 25:49
  resiliency maybe a sense of like strength in in just carrying on
• 25:54
  sometimes that's the best you can do is just carry on and
• 25:58
  other yeah being like I think a lot of what you're talking about
• 26:01
  requires a certain degree of like being proactive and sort of
• 26:07
  wanting. I know how this will sound, but
• 26:10
  like wanting things to get better and like trying to
• 26:13
  actively seek it and like, not not kind of living in your
• 26:16
  despair, obviously. I get it's easier said than done
• 26:19
  sometimes it can feel sort of overwhelming.
• 26:21
  Like when I look at like my life 10 years ago and the person I am
• 26:26
  today and the person I was 10 years ago.
• 26:28
  Like, yeah, there was some hard times over the last 10 years.
• 26:32
  And as messed up as it sounds, I think like all of that had to
• 26:38
  happen. In order for me to be the person
• 26:40
  I am today. But you go through a circle, you
• 26:43
  go through like a, oh, you know, you feel sorry for yourself.
• 26:46
  You get angry, upset, frustrated, like why did this
• 26:48
  have to happen? Why did I have to learn these
• 26:50
  lessons in this way, etcetera, etcetera.
• 26:53
  But then you go through acceptance and you learn, you
• 26:55
  grow and you choose to like move forward with it.
• 26:58
  And you know, now I've kind of become the person I always
• 27:04
  wanted to be. And I you know, I'd always.
• 27:08
  Dreamed about becoming I'm not completely there, but like the
• 27:13
  minds, the mindsets there. You know, I just need the the,
• 27:17
  you know the bank balance and the job and then it'll be all
• 27:19
  right. But everything you know, the
• 27:22
  the, the, the important stuff is there and that took, that took,
• 27:28
  you know going through a lot to get there and I suppose like.
• 27:36
  Especially when I see people online reach out for advice in
• 27:39
  like my live streams and stuff and my community, and I'm sort
• 27:43
  of giving advice to people like, I kind of pay close attention to
• 27:47
  people's individual circumstances and also like
• 27:49
  their mindset, Like sometimes getting out of bed, just doing
• 27:55
  that, that's like impossible, you know, like.
• 27:59
  One of the reasons I've always kept going is I'm just stubborn.
• 28:02
  To be honest, I just. I think I am too a little bit.
• 28:05
  Do you know what I mean? Like, I kind of just sit there
• 28:07
  and like right now I'm, I'm in a bit of a tricky situation,
• 28:10
  right? But you know, I'm kind of like,
• 28:12
  well, how many times have I been in a tricky situation Like
• 28:14
  something will work out and I'm stressed and I'm worried about
• 28:17
  it, but I know how to sort of manage it and just keep.
• 28:20
  Trying to get stuff done, keep on, keeping on, right?
• 28:24
  But there is like, this sense of like, stubbornness as well that
• 28:27
  just keeps pushing you. Like, I'm not going to, what am
• 28:30
  I going to do? Sit in the corner and just feel
• 28:32
  miserable and like what I'd be like, oh, this is terrible, what
• 28:35
  we're going to do. And it's like, well, that
• 28:37
  feeling's there. I'm not saying ignore it, but
• 28:40
  you've got to use the time and do something.
• 28:42
  Change the situation. Get out of the situation, you
• 28:45
  know but. Again, go back to what I said
• 28:49
  before. I do understand I am sympathetic
• 28:52
  to the fact that, you know, sometimes your feelings,
• 28:55
  emotions, etcetera, don't allow you to, you know, like the the
• 28:59
  concept of like being depressed, being in a state of depression,
• 29:02
  it's like it doesn't allow you to do that.
• 29:06
  It's very different. So it's almost like the
• 29:07
  equivalent of. I'd hate to compare it, but
• 29:11
  like. You know, like when when you
• 29:13
  can't quite wake up in the morning and you've had a coffee
• 29:17
  and it's still a blur and you're like trying to wake yourself up,
• 29:19
  like shake yourself, but it's just not working.
• 29:22
  I feel it's a lot like that. It's like, you know, so when
• 29:26
  someone comes along and says, oh, just be positive or, you
• 29:32
  know, have you tried this or oh, you know, just hang in there.
• 29:37
  It'll be OK. Like, I understand why that's so
• 29:39
  frustrating because it's like well.
• 29:42
  You know, I would do all of those things if I could, but I
• 29:45
  don't feel like I can. And Lord knows I've tried, you
• 29:49
  know? Yeah, absolutely.
• 29:50
  I, you know, I can speak to that in a few different veins, I
• 29:55
  think because you're you're not, you're absolutely right.
• 29:59
  I think that that's sometimes advice can be the most unhelpful
• 30:06
  when people are really in that state of despair, right?
• 30:11
  And what's the definition of despair as we think tomorrow is
• 30:13
  going to be just like today and and when we're in that state,
• 30:18
  when we're in that state, it's really hard to think about,
• 30:22
  well, I'm just gonna pick myself up.
• 30:24
  I mean, the American way or the US way is to pick ourselves up
• 30:26
  by our bootstraps, right? And just like work harder and
• 30:30
  that that's not always doable you know.
• 30:33
  So the work I'm doing here in Mexico right now for the over
• 30:40
  the for the next winter, seven months, a lot of it is to really
• 30:44
  help this particular wonderful individual who's a friend.
• 30:48
  But also I'm working for a bit and you know I'm I'm get leading
• 30:55
  with this is the example because I hope it'll create context to
• 30:59
  even just the work that I do at Rebellion Rd.
• 31:03
  So, you know, I arrived over the last week and really just saw
• 31:08
  that there was a need because I know this individual pretty well
• 31:12
  over the last year. And you know, even as an
• 31:16
  assistant, which is some of the work that I'm doing with her, I
• 31:20
  just kind of had to assess what was really needed.
• 31:23
  Like we have to meet people right where they're at, right.
• 31:25
  If somebody's telling you that getting out of bed is the
• 31:29
  hardest part of their day, I'm not going to make them go
• 31:33
  journal about and and have a gratitude list.
• 31:37
  Like, come on, you know, like they have a very different needs
• 31:41
  that are needing to be met. Then somebody like you or me or
• 31:47
  some of them must, some of those more stubborn types who are
• 31:50
  like, just give it to me. You don't tell me how to, like,
• 31:53
  make it better, I'll do it. You know, like we're these
• 31:56
  fighters kind of, I think. But perhaps when you are in a
• 31:59
  state of deep depression, you have different needs.
• 32:02
  You're going to have different needs.
• 32:03
  So I'm helping this, I'm helping this person.
• 32:06
  And just yesterday she turned to me, looks around and she's like,
• 32:10
  I feel like I have a mom. And I was like, no, you don't
• 32:15
  have a mom. I'm just your Maslow's hierarchy
• 32:18
  of needs coach right now. Like, I don't know if you know
• 32:20
  Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but truly, truly baseline
• 32:26
  physiological needs met. Do you have food, shelter.
• 32:31
  Water. But that we can even take in a
• 32:33
  layer deeper? Does your body have its basic
• 32:36
  needs met yet? You know, do you have the right
• 32:40
  nutrition even to help you, you develop and, you know, create
• 32:45
  some of those good feel, good hormones that might need to be
• 32:49
  improved in order to help with the depressive state that you're
• 32:52
  in? You know, there's just like a
• 32:54
  lot of ways in which we can look at, you know, human being is so
• 32:58
  complex that that's not a cookie cutter one-size-fits-all.
• 33:03
  I never just go tell people, oh, you should just go do yoga.
• 33:06
  It'll be great. Wow, no, no.
• 33:10
  There's so many other aspects and so many other things that
• 33:13
  that even when I work with a client, you know, if I have a
• 33:16
  potential client who's coming to me, I'd just rather would do a
• 33:20
  lot of deep listening about where they're at, what's going
• 33:24
  on with them, What are their biggest, like 3 biggest issues
• 33:29
  that seem to be coming up and what do they feel like they need
• 33:33
  to work on? Because honestly, we're the
• 33:36
  expert on ourselves. And sometimes just having again
• 33:39
  somebody to bounce it off, those answers come right to you and
• 33:45
  so. Exactly how I am.
• 33:47
  Like, I it kind of, I don't know, it's stupid, but like, I
• 33:52
  get a bit annoyed at like, advice, even though I know it
• 33:56
  comes from a good place. It's like, no, no, no, no, no,
• 33:58
  no. I know what I need to be doing.
• 34:00
  I just need, as you say, someone to bounce on.
• 34:02
  You're like just. And then yeah, just as well and
• 34:07
  just let me just brick through it for a minute.
• 34:09
  You know, and that's that's you know, that's probably why I even
• 34:13
  going back to what you said. You know when I'm telling you
• 34:16
  that this my mentor is telling me like the yoga begins now she
• 34:21
  knew that's what I needed right then She knows I know how to to
• 34:26
  to do the other things and take care of myself.
• 34:30
  She knows that I'm going to do those things.
• 34:32
  So she we're at a different place right.
• 34:35
  Than if somebody else were to come and they may have a
• 34:37
  different need. So literally this, this friend
• 34:40
  of mine, this person really needed different things.
• 34:44
  So I focused on her nutrition. You know, when they're relaying
• 34:48
  to me that she's been not, she's in a rut and she's feeling
• 34:52
  depressed and she doesn't even have time to eat in the middle
• 34:55
  of her work day. And all of these things, like, I
• 34:58
  hear that I'm like, you have completely different needs.
• 35:01
  I'm not going to be pep talking her about, you know, let's get
• 35:05
  on the yoga mat and meditate. How about we just get you some
• 35:09
  nutritious, you know, meals that are provided and ready to go?
• 35:15
  It's different needs, you know, different needs for different
• 35:18
  people. And you really have to learn how
• 35:20
  to meet people right where they're at, because otherwise we
• 35:24
  will feel defeated with just a whole bunch of noise.
• 35:30
  And that comes in the form of well, well intended advice, but
• 35:33
  that we really just we already know the answer.
• 35:35
  We already know the answer of what we need.
• 35:40
  I'm just here to be the the, the, the space holder for people
• 35:44
  to kind of cycle through that and figure it out.
• 35:47
  I think I've said it before on the show as well, but I think it
• 35:49
  comes down to like understanding.
• 35:55
  Understanding what empathy is and how empathy works.
• 36:00
  You know, like I remember for a few years I just didn't really
• 36:05
  get it because I'm obviously a very pragmatic minded person, so
• 36:08
  I approached it all wrong. And then when it was kind of
• 36:12
  explained to me, like, no, listen, just shut up and be
• 36:14
  there and you know, focus on the basic needs as you outlined
• 36:19
  before. You know, sometimes that is
• 36:21
  legit. Like, I think, like, I know how
• 36:23
  this will sound, but like, let's say someone's depressed or
• 36:25
  they're upset or just like there's something going on death
• 36:28
  in the family, something like that.
• 36:30
  And they're just sitting there and they don't know what to do
• 36:32
  and you just come over and. You know, you make the coffee,
• 36:37
  make the food, clean the house. Like people will look at that
• 36:39
  and be like, how's that doing? Anything like this person's
• 36:42
  doing with this and it's like what you're doing is you're
• 36:44
  creating normality. You're showing the person like,
• 36:48
  OK, life does go on. You're not up to it just yet.
• 36:53
  You will be, but life goes on. I'll take care of this so it's
• 36:56
  not on you all on your shoulders, because that's
• 36:58
  another thing as well. When that stuff's going down and
• 37:01
  it feels like the world is caving in and everything's just
• 37:03
  gone to shit. Like having someone come in and
• 37:07
  just like help you with that and take a bit of pressure off your
• 37:10
  shoulders. I mean, that can work wonders
• 37:12
  and before you know it, you know you're you're back to.
• 37:16
  Dealing with it, the pain doesn't go away, but like now at
• 37:19
  least you can get up and, you know, move yourself around a bit
• 37:24
  and and sort of work at trying to process that stuff, you know?
• 37:32
  Yeah, absolutely. Well, excuse me, you hit the
• 37:38
  nail on the head there. I think that that's one one of
• 37:40
  the things that when we're looking at stress, right, stress
• 37:44
  is in the top five like of like what?
• 37:48
  What is like a considered a killer of mankind or human like,
• 37:53
  it's up there, it's one in five or something.
• 37:56
  And when it comes to that stress, what's the first thing
• 37:59
  that falls away? Our basic needs we stop doing.
• 38:03
  We stop taking the vitamins we've because we start
• 38:06
  forgetting because we're stressed out.
• 38:07
  Or for me, it's my car. Like, I'm like the condition of
• 38:11
  my car for whatever reason, because I just won't maintain it
• 38:14
  as well. And then I'm looking at it and
• 38:16
  being like I really need to clean this car, you know, but it
• 38:20
  it's those things that we don't that like you said, creating
• 38:24
  that normalcy so that and and the world really does continue
• 38:29
  on. That's one of the things too,
• 38:32
  like that I had to learn and understand.
• 38:35
  I've always been a go getter, but it wasn't until the latter
• 38:39
  aspects of my life. My mom passed away in January of
• 38:43
  2020 right before the pandemic hit.
• 38:46
  Thank you. And it was a complicated
• 38:50
  relationship, you know, as I've already kind of mentioned.
• 38:53
  And but it was in that time that followed that for the first time
• 39:01
  in my life, I can say that I I now understand what other people
• 39:08
  were saying when they were saying they couldn't get out of
• 39:10
  bed or they didn't care. Like you, you, you developed
• 39:14
  this almost apathy because you're so depressed that it
• 39:20
  doesn't matter if you get out of it.
• 39:23
  It does nothing. None of it matters, you know,
• 39:26
  and those are some tough spaces to be in.
• 39:30
  And when you're, you know, somebody who like me, I have a
• 39:34
  background in mental health, like, I understand what's
• 39:37
  happening. I can conceptualize it and but
• 39:41
  to experientially understand it now I have a deeper
• 39:46
  understanding of what it means to to to not have that ambition
• 39:52
  or to not. My stubbornness and my ambition
• 39:54
  actually had fallen away and I spent quite a long time really
• 40:00
  grieving. And that was my first real deep
• 40:03
  understanding. Also what grief can do, What
• 40:05
  trauma can do? How did you deal with look like
• 40:08
  you have a question. I've always got a question.
• 40:11
  I love it. Give them to me.
• 40:14
  I just wonder like how how you deal with that because obviously
• 40:16
  you come across as a person who is very sort of comfortable in
• 40:20
  their own skin, they're very on top of all this stuff and you
• 40:22
  kind of you remarked on that, you said like why I understood
• 40:25
  what was going on, but. This is how my body and this is
• 40:28
  how I'm dealing with it, etcetera.
• 40:29
  So, So what did you do? Did you lean on to your kids,
• 40:33
  friends, therapists? Like how did you sort of push
• 40:36
  yourself through that and then ultimately get through that
• 40:39
  period? Well, and I think the keyword
• 40:42
  was to not push through it. You know, we have it.
• 40:46
  We have that, that the mode of thinking is, well, I just have
• 40:49
  to push through this. I didn't.
• 40:51
  I couldn't push anymore. My pushing is what had exhausted
• 40:55
  me. I pushed myself past to a place
• 40:59
  where I was in complete and utter burnout, and there were
• 41:04
  other things that had gone on during that time.
• 41:06
  Because I was such a go getter, It really didn't hit me that my
• 41:09
  mom had passed. I mean, I was there, obviously,
• 41:12
  and I was in it and but it really didn't.
• 41:15
  It really didn't land in my body until like two years later.
• 41:20
  And this was after I I was in grad school of graduate studies
• 41:24
  and social work, and I actually took a leave of absence because
• 41:30
  it finally hit hard and I could no longer.
• 41:35
  What did I do? I I relied on my support system.
• 41:38
  You know, my therapist, she's very much an anchor.
• 41:42
  And you know, I I definitely have some really great people
• 41:47
  who checked on me. And you know, it was some part
• 41:51
  of the process was honestly thankfully to Laura, my
• 41:57
  therapist, where she just was that reminder, you know, that
• 42:01
  reminder of you know this too. You have to be in it.
• 42:06
  And if what you need now is rest, then you must rest.
• 42:12
  You know, and and that's really what I think a lot of us, when
• 42:15
  we hit like a deep depressive state, we don't.
• 42:18
  But it's honestly the resistance to it.
• 42:20
  That's actually what keeps us in it longer.
• 42:26
  And so really changing the culture, changing these ideas
• 42:32
  about pushing through really was what I worked on in my own
• 42:37
  therapy around like, well, you know, we are humans and lots of
• 42:42
  different cultures do know how to handle grief and in ways
• 42:45
  through their rituals and and whatnot.
• 42:47
  But a lot of us don't know how to handle grief.
• 42:49
  A lot of us don't know how to handle depression.
• 42:52
  We think we have to push past it.
• 42:54
  I'm one of those people and had for a really long time.
• 42:58
  I'm a get up and goer. I like to do those things right.
• 43:01
  So and and that's how I moved through a lot of pain and trauma
• 43:07
  and I like to create and so those were natural avenues for
• 43:13
  me. But when those fell away because
• 43:16
  I had hit a place in my life where the depression was so
• 43:20
  deep, the grief was so deep, that I had to really rely on my
• 43:27
  therapist and deep trust in self and, you know, just really
• 43:35
  communicating that to people. I think honestly, it's a double
• 43:39
  edged sword because I had to educate others on what I needed
• 43:43
  as well as figuring out what I needed, right?
• 43:46
  Because we don't often know. And what I needed from people
• 43:50
  was compassion and some understanding of like grief
• 43:53
  takes a long time and it it it doesn't, it's not cookie cutter
• 43:59
  and it's not linear and it's really hard to see the silver
• 44:05
  lining when you can't really get out of bed.
• 44:10
  And so honestly just having those people that were there
• 44:13
  some really close friends who are just like I'm here, I'm just
• 44:17
  here like you said, come and help clean the house, you know
• 44:21
  or make a meal or you know do anything.
• 44:25
  And also there is in that state. I will just say I think it's
• 44:31
  really important that if I were working with a client who came
• 44:34
  to me that was in that place, my focus with them would be on
• 44:40
  acceptance and acceptance of being in that state of being.
• 44:44
  But then also working still on our own perceptions of what that
• 44:49
  what that means. My own perception on being
• 44:52
  depressed is also what held me back is also what kind of held
• 44:56
  me down because I couldn't accept it for how long.
• 45:00
  I just kept wanting to go past it.
• 45:03
  It's interesting you bring up acceptance, get through it.
• 45:06
  Just want to get through it. Absolutely.
• 45:09
  And I think, I think that a part of an important element to that
• 45:12
  is being like. Really honest with yourself.
• 45:15
  I'd like to bring up an example that I saw recently which I
• 45:17
  think is is a spot on. There's this YouTube called
• 45:20
  Joshua Flake and he does a lot of videos about like bad jobs,
• 45:27
  scummy employers, that sort of stuff, right?
• 45:30
  But when he first started doing YouTube, he.
• 45:34
  Now he's always done that. That was always the backdrop of
• 45:36
  his channel. But then here and there he would
• 45:38
  drop a few videos about his personal life and unfortunately
• 45:42
  he'd gone through some really traumatic stuff, separation with
• 45:45
  his family. He was once part of a little
• 45:49
  mini cult thing when he was a kid.
• 45:53
  Just just all these like, yeah, like an interesting guy went
• 45:57
  through some some traumatic experiences and when I found his
• 46:00
  channel. There.
• 46:03
  I mean, these videos were a few years old at this point, but he
• 46:07
  sort of essentially said, OK, I, you know, I disown them.
• 46:13
  We're done. These are the reasons why And
• 46:15
  like the videos were for himself, but also because he
• 46:19
  knew they would be watching. It was to kind of say, like, hey
• 46:22
  this my hands are, you know, I wash my hands of you sort of
• 46:26
  thing. And.
• 46:27
  You know he would go back and forth sometimes with people
• 46:29
  online about it and then ultimately I think he just sort
• 46:31
  of put it to bed and and got on with his life right now.
• 46:35
  He dropped a video recently which which is why I want to
• 46:38
  want to bring this up because I thought it was brilliant in his
• 46:42
  sort of healing journey if you like.
• 46:45
  He posted a video and he basically said I forgive them, I
• 46:47
  forgive my family, right. And he speaking to the point
• 46:53
  about. Being honest with yourself, he
• 46:55
  turned around and he said those videos you saw for me from years
• 46:58
  ago where I acted this way, I was just trying to be tough.
• 47:02
  I was just trying to be strong against it and be like, no,
• 47:05
  screw this, I'm not dealing with this, etcetera.
• 47:07
  So he acknowledges that the sentiment was there.
• 47:10
  His feelings were just then. He's not denying like or saying,
• 47:14
  oh, they were wrong to to have those emotions, but he's also
• 47:18
  saying like, oh, the way I handled this.
• 47:20
  You know, after years have gone by and I've gone to therapy and
• 47:24
  my life has moved on, things are now better and I'm able to look
• 47:29
  at this and go, do you know what?
• 47:31
  This is how I feel. And basically it's a process.
• 47:34
  I'm sure in his life there'll be years of of processing that and
• 47:39
  moving forward. And yeah, I wish him the best of
• 47:41
  luck, but I just thought that was really interesting, you
• 47:45
  know, years after the fact, because I find myself like I
• 47:48
  went through some. Some traumatic experiences in my
• 47:51
  mid 20s, early to mid 20s, and my initial feelings about it are
• 47:58
  completely different from five years removed.
• 48:02
  You know, and I know that comes down to experience and
• 48:05
  acceptance and being honest with yourself, but it also comes down
• 48:08
  to just time, you know, taking time to look at things and go,
• 48:13
  do you know what, like I feel totally different about it.
• 48:15
  But then again, I am a different person now.
• 48:18
  So then, that's a big aspect to it, you know what I mean?
• 48:20
  Like the time really does heal all wounds and gives you a fresh
• 48:27
  perspective with which to look at things and go, do you know
• 48:30
  what? Like maybe the way I saw it then
• 48:34
  is not the way it is, But you know, that doesn't that doesn't
• 48:38
  mean my I'm wrong to feel that way or I was wrong to feel it
• 48:42
  then. It's just you feel what you feel
• 48:44
  in the moment. What makes sense for you in that
• 48:46
  moment? And then you move past it and
• 48:49
  and you keep growing and progressing and then after the
• 48:51
  fact you look at it and you're like, you know what, like this
• 48:54
  is what I'm taking from this, this is what I choose to learn
• 48:57
  from this etcetera. Yeah, absolutely.
• 48:59
  Well, we hope that we can get to that place.
• 49:01
  I think that's that's a hope and I think that that's honestly, oh
• 49:08
  I the word that's coming through is like higher level thinking
• 49:11
  skill. But but I think it is, it's a
• 49:12
  certain amount of awareness that you can gain and develop.
• 49:16
  Hopefully if you're the kind of person that's still allowing
• 49:21
  yourself the process and you're moving on with your life and
• 49:24
  you're doing your inner work or your healing or whatever that
• 49:26
  looks like for you, absolutely. I think that, you know, we move,
• 49:33
  we can move from a place of really when we have to
• 49:38
  acknowledge that there that something has happened, you
• 49:41
  know, whether that's a victimization or we've been
• 49:44
  traumatized, whatever it is, we have to actually be saturated in
• 49:48
  it and feel it. That's where like even like with
• 49:52
  what you were saying around like and I was saying like you can't
• 49:54
  push through it. You just have to allow yourself
• 49:56
  to be there, right. But then as you move beyond it
• 50:01
  and time does allow for a lot of things to settle, then you can
• 50:06
  look back and have maybe a different perspective.
• 50:11
  You know, in the case for me, what came through is really just
• 50:15
  me beginning to understand and see my family, my family of
• 50:20
  origin as people and not just as like perpetrators or like these
• 50:26
  horrific people. Like I'm not going to label them
• 50:30
  all as narcissists, you know, like I, I, you know, and mind
• 50:35
  you, there's probably is a few in there.
• 50:37
  Let's be real. But, but to see them as people
• 50:43
  absolved me of being constantly victimized by it, you know, to
• 50:49
  see that they are not, they are not just these people who did
• 50:54
  these really shitty things, because yes, they were and they
• 50:56
  did those things, but they're also people and they did the
• 50:59
  best that they could with what they had.
• 51:01
  And I think that's where we can insert some forgiveness, right?
• 51:05
  Or at least a way of perspective of like that happened and it
• 51:09
  does not define me. Yeah, I'm like the process of
• 51:13
  figuring. There's a lot I think about that
• 51:16
  and I totally agree. I think that I look at it from
• 51:21
  the perspective of you're taking a weight off your shoulders,
• 51:25
  like a good example that comes to mind for me.
• 51:26
  And this is an extreme example and I really respect these
• 51:29
  people because I don't know if I could do this.
• 51:32
  When you see, sometimes people forgive their the killer of of.
• 51:38
  Whatever their child or something like that.
• 51:40
  And there's a few videos online of this in courts and stuff and
• 51:43
  I think it takes a tremendous amount of strength to do that.
• 51:50
  But I I have to look at it from the perspective of they're doing
• 51:54
  that for themselves. Not like in a selfish way, but
• 51:58
  like it is selfish, but it's a good it's good.
• 52:01
  There's nothing wrong with being selfish to a degree, but like,
• 52:05
  it's about. The process of healing and and
• 52:08
  and and understanding that when you forgive someone you like
• 52:13
  release the energy like you you release that burden if you like.
• 52:18
  Absolutely. And and it's that's the thing.
• 52:21
  Like whoever's wronged you. I mean some look some people are
• 52:27
  just assholes. This is true?
• 52:28
  Oh absolutely. There's some really prickish
• 52:31
  people. There's people and like let's be
• 52:33
  real, Yeah, fuck them, but like. A lot of the time as you said,
• 52:38
  like it's people are just people.
• 52:40
  Do you know what I mean? Like, I think that's the problem
• 52:42
  with when we talk about parents and family, like we often forget
• 52:46
  because we're like, oh, these people should be like this.
• 52:49
  And we we set these high standards and we compare to like
• 52:52
  well this is what these people have and da, da, da, da, but we
• 52:54
  we don't consider all the different factors.
• 52:57
  Like, maybe that's the best that our family could do given the
• 53:01
  current situation. And like what they were raised
• 53:03
  with. That's the thing as well.
• 53:04
  Like their upbringing too. And like everything that you
• 53:06
  contend with and what you feel you can do and so on and so
• 53:11
  forth. There's so many factors.
• 53:12
  It's never just black and white, you know?
• 53:15
  Of course it's not. Go ahead.
• 53:18
  Sorry. No, I was just going to say
• 53:20
  like, just as children and as young adults, like we don't.
• 53:23
  I appreciate that. And then when we become adults,
• 53:26
  I think we begin to understand that because we, you know, like
• 53:30
  I look at things from when I was a kid and I see it totally
• 53:33
  differently now. Yeah, well, when we're kids,
• 53:36
  we're super egocentric, right? Like, the world does literally
• 53:39
  revolve around us. And as we grow, as we grow, we
• 53:44
  hopefully are getting to a more mature place where we recognize
• 53:48
  that it's not just focused on us.
• 53:51
  Unfortunately, people get stuck there.
• 53:53
  That's a big reason why I think people end up perpetuating their
• 53:57
  issues once they become adults because they haven't part of
• 54:01
  forgiving another person or for and and for some maybe even the
• 54:05
  use of the word forgive might be too strong for them.
• 54:08
  But to to become to a place of neutrality, like I'm neutral
• 54:12
  toward my family of origin now. Like I'm good.
• 54:16
  I don't. I, I, I don't necessarily use
• 54:20
  the word forgiveness because there's a bits and pieces where
• 54:24
  I'm like wow that was really fucked up.
• 54:27
  We're never going there again you know and and and also though
• 54:30
  but I've come to this place of neutrality and what that does
• 54:33
  when you get when you become neutral or you're able to
• 54:36
  forgive, you're taking your sovereignty back like I'm taking
• 54:40
  my power back. I'm a sovereign individual and
• 54:43
  that means that if you are are able to let that go and whatever
• 54:48
  way you can, that you can begin your healing journey and in a
• 54:54
  completely different way because it is not reliable on that
• 54:58
  person's apology. It's not relied on that person
• 55:02
  showing up for you different. It's not it's not making them
• 55:05
  change, it's it's it's putting it completely in our hands.
• 55:11
  And and for me, I was one of those individuals, I realized I
• 55:15
  wanted that sovereignty back. Well, and I'm also not defined
• 55:18
  by what happened to me. You know, as somebody, you know,
• 55:22
  I survived complex sexual abuse as a child all the way until I
• 55:27
  was 13 years old. And for a long time, because of
• 55:32
  what I needed to heal, I thought it was me, right.
• 55:35
  And it it definitely, I think you know, it's a double edged
• 55:40
  sword because there's so much of, because of what I went
• 55:43
  through as a child being abused that led to promiscuity, that
• 55:50
  led them ending up into me being a very sensual person,
• 55:54
  incredibly. But I had to take ownership of
• 55:57
  it in that way, right, Because otherwise I was going to be held
• 56:03
  in bondage with the the fact of what had happened to me and and
• 56:08
  it defining me. And that's that's where it gets
• 56:11
  into the deeper aspects of why it's so important.
• 56:14
  And we should all do some of this introspection because you
• 56:21
  know, when we have things like that happen to us when we're
• 56:23
  kids and and I would say as young as as 25 and under, I mean
• 56:28
  and just trauma is trauma. It doesn't really matter when
• 56:31
  you when it happens to you, but especially when you're young and
• 56:34
  it happens to you. Because we're so egocentric, we
• 56:38
  assume it's us. We assume that we are the reason
• 56:41
  why and it takes, it takes getting in front of another
• 56:46
  person or sitting in community with others or having these kind
• 56:50
  of discussions to start recognizing that we have created
• 56:55
  a definition of ourselves that is reliant on that situation or
• 57:00
  that person, place or thing. And like your previous partner
• 57:06
  had said like it was, it's taking ownership of our of our
• 57:10
  healing journey. It's taking ownership of I am
• 57:13
  not what happened to me. I'm not what happened to me.
• 57:18
  That happened. But I'm not it.
• 57:21
  And that is when we get to redefine ourselves over and over
• 57:26
  and over and over again, especially throughout life,
• 57:28
  because it's not stagnant like I have a working.
• 57:31
  I call it a working definition of myself or like you know
• 57:36
  because it it needs to be modified.
• 57:38
  It's, you know, language is alive and so am I.
• 57:41
  And so I I like to have a working definition and and it
• 57:45
  gets to morph and change in its by design because I'm not who I
• 57:53
  was five years ago. And how I look at what I went
• 57:57
  through as a child is different. And as I continue to grow from
• 58:01
  it, it's just another layer of understanding or another layer
• 58:06
  of my own autonomy that I've developed.
• 58:09
  And so I'm no longer, like I said, I no longer feel it's not
• 58:13
  charged for me anymore in the way that it used to be or in the
• 58:18
  way that it could be. You know, for someone who's
• 58:21
  still carrying that around with them, it can.
• 58:26
  I think that's when it comes to like what we were talking about
• 58:29
  with people who are feeling deeply depressed or people who
• 58:32
  have some deep stuff coming up. I I, I don't always attribute it
• 58:36
  back to something that we had happened to us, but we're
• 58:39
  probably carrying around something.
• 58:42
  When you say charged, like, do you mean like, yeah, you know,
• 58:45
  I'm not angry about it anymore. Charged in the way that I I mean
• 58:52
  it a a little bit deeper than that, more unlike, I would say
• 58:56
  like a somatic sense. Right?
• 58:57
  Like, like for some people, for the longest time for me,
• 59:01
  cigarette smoke was a trigger for I I like and it was just
• 59:07
  because of the way I grew up. And like that was constant in
• 59:10
  the home and was part of my abuse.
• 59:13
  It was charged. I, I and I would say charged.
• 59:16
  Meaning that it had an effect on me, like a visceral effect, You
• 59:21
  know, like people can smell or hear or experience something
• 59:26
  that kind of gives them. That's what they would might
• 59:27
  maybe call like a flashback, you know, where you're having an
• 59:30
  experience, where the body is remembering based on what's
• 59:35
  happening in the present moment. So that's what I mean by
• 59:37
  charged, Yeah. No, it's it's interesting like
• 59:42
  because. Especially like throughout the
• 59:45
  years I've realised like the the nature of trauma and you're an
• 59:49
  expert on this, 26 years you've studied trauma.
• 59:54
  It's before I get into my question, I just want to kind of
• 59:57
  quickly just outline this. The one thing that I realised
• 1:00:00
  with trauma is that it's like something that unravels over
• 1:00:04
  time. And sometimes, Sometimes it's
• 1:00:06
  obvious, but other times, like you trip over it.
• 1:00:09
  But the triggers thing, I think is a good example of that
• 1:00:11
  because like you just outlined, it's something that reminds you
• 1:00:14
  of the conditions of something that you went through years
• 1:00:17
  prior. But you don't always necessarily
• 1:00:19
  realise that. Sometimes it's like, Oh yeah,
• 1:00:21
  no, this is like that. And that's why I'm, you know,
• 1:00:24
  consciously, This is why I hate this.
• 1:00:26
  Other times there's like a subconscious hatred or anger
• 1:00:30
  towards a specific thing and you can't really put your finger on
• 1:00:32
  why, but it's probably related to that trauma, 26 years study
• 1:00:39
  in trauma. What are the key things you've
• 1:00:41
  learned about trauma within your studies?
• 1:00:45
  Oh, well, you already. We already kind of dropped some
• 1:00:47
  of that language. Trauma creates triggers.
• 1:00:51
  Trauma creates triggers. We develop somatic and
• 1:00:58
  psychological connections to people, places, things, smells,
• 1:01:05
  the senses. And so when we start delving
• 1:01:09
  into an understanding trauma, it it's an individual journey.
• 1:01:14
  I mean we can do like an overarching umbrellas that we
• 1:01:17
  know that everybody experiences trauma, right?
• 1:01:19
  And it shows up in the form of like triggers.
• 1:01:22
  It can show up in the form of psychological disturbances,
• 1:01:27
  mental illness, looking at other things.
• 1:01:30
  But when one of the few things that I really.
• 1:01:35
  Like to educate people on with trauma is you know and also as
• 1:01:40
  somebody who I've been a body worker.
• 1:01:42
  I've worn many hats in my life, but I was also and have been a
• 1:01:45
  body worker for almost 20 years and sorry, one of the body
• 1:01:51
  worker. Body worker?
• 1:01:51
  Massage therapist? Oh, OK, so.
• 1:01:54
  Yeah, cool. Yeah.
• 1:01:57
  And so you know the issues. Are in our tissues and and
• 1:02:01
  that's something that I use for massage, but it's also with
• 1:02:04
  trauma, You know, when you're a kid.
• 1:02:07
  We are adapting. We're, you know, we learn in
• 1:02:11
  elementary school all about evolution and adaptation, right,
• 1:02:15
  That animals adapt, But we're animals, and children are very
• 1:02:19
  much more animalistic than we are as adults because they are
• 1:02:23
  reliant. On their environment and their
• 1:02:26
  caregivers to take care of them. So they're going to adapt to
• 1:02:31
  whatever conditions are present in order to survive.
• 1:02:36
  And so trauma is an adaptation. You know, it's well, trauma is
• 1:02:41
  what happens. But we the triggers, and what we
• 1:02:45
  end up carrying with us is an adaptation to that trauma and
• 1:02:50
  so. That's one way that I really
• 1:02:52
  like to frame it, because when we start really delving into who
• 1:02:57
  we are and how we show up, it can be painful to sometimes look
• 1:03:04
  at ourselves, You know, I have a client who just the other day
• 1:03:06
  was like, fuck. Sometimes I feel like I'm kind
• 1:03:11
  of symptomatically kind of really narcissistic, you know?
• 1:03:15
  And I think that's another buzzword that's thrown out a lot
• 1:03:18
  these days. But I think.
• 1:03:20
  What what they're speaking to is these symptoms or these aspects
• 1:03:25
  of self that go beyond just. Being like self-care and being a
• 1:03:33
  little selfish in some ways, you know, it goes a step further
• 1:03:36
  into seeing the ways that we manipulate, seeing the ways that
• 1:03:40
  we maybe fudge the truth or the way that we try to manage an
• 1:03:45
  environment or even manage other people.
• 1:03:47
  By the way, we choose what we choose to share.
• 1:03:49
  What we choose to not share. You know that we can go into all
• 1:03:52
  these different layers, but to not zoom out too much.
• 1:03:58
  To kind of keep it simple in the sense that if we are an
• 1:04:03
  adaptation on our environment and we understand that what we
• 1:04:09
  went through down the line caused certain behaviours and
• 1:04:15
  ways of being, that when we start to get out in the world
• 1:04:19
  knowing that even just as a foundation, if we start there.
• 1:04:24
  And then we can start going out into our world and we broadened
• 1:04:28
  our perspective even just a smidge.
• 1:04:31
  And when we broaden our perspective a smidge, we might
• 1:04:35
  be able to look at why. You know, for me, I'll use an
• 1:04:40
  example. This is from early early on, and
• 1:04:43
  I used to have my kids remind me that traffic was my Zen practice
• 1:04:49
  because I would get really agitated while driving.
• 1:04:53
  Really agitated. Oh gosh.
• 1:04:57
  And you know when I, when I bring it back to, you know, when
• 1:05:04
  I think about it, well, duh, yeah, it was because I had some
• 1:05:06
  trauma in the car with my step parent, blah, blah, blah, blah,
• 1:05:09
  blah. But but you know, to an average
• 1:05:12
  human being, it's just that traffic sucks.
• 1:05:16
  You know, they're not going to look at it like, oh, well, I'm
• 1:05:18
  going to trace it back to my stepdad who's in the car.
• 1:05:21
  And this is what happened. Like, you know, and and and
• 1:05:25
  maybe it's not that necessary. I think it's kind of funny.
• 1:05:28
  I saw a video recently that was like, you know, you, you know,
• 1:05:31
  you're in the car with somebody who's been through trauma, but
• 1:05:34
  they've been through a bit of therapy because they'll be like,
• 1:05:36
  oh, that person who swerved reminds me of this one time that
• 1:05:40
  my dad did XYZ. And that's why I have trauma
• 1:05:43
  like. And then, but you know, I think
• 1:05:48
  for so many of us, it doesn't even matter what happened it.
• 1:05:53
  I mean, we can get to that. But what matters is that in the
• 1:05:55
  present moment you feel angry and anxious and irritable and
• 1:06:01
  you feel inflexible and your relationships are suffering and
• 1:06:04
  you're not feeling good in your body.
• 1:06:06
  Like, let's talk about the here and now symptoms of what's going
• 1:06:10
  on, and let's talk about how you prefer to feel.
• 1:06:15
  Like, I would prefer to feel at ease while driving and not feel
• 1:06:19
  like car. I I wish I was driving in a
• 1:06:22
  bumper car and I just would like, like, ran into him, you
• 1:06:25
  know, Gosh, I would feel so satisfying sometimes.
• 1:06:29
  But we can't do that, you know? I actually have a funny meme
• 1:06:35
  that for me, it's really relevant because of where I came
• 1:06:39
  from. And it was like, it's all yoga
• 1:06:40
  because punching people in the face is frowned upon.
• 1:06:43
  You know, because, like. That's really what it came down
• 1:06:46
  to is yes, I had some experiences that opened up the
• 1:06:50
  door to me, exploring my internal environment, my my
• 1:06:57
  behaviours, how I was feeling. But it was really the here and
• 1:07:01
  now experiences that I was having that were so displeasing
• 1:07:05
  and uncomfortable. I was tired of feeling anxious.
• 1:07:08
  I was tired of feeling depressed.
• 1:07:10
  I was tired of feeling anxious and depressed in the same day.
• 1:07:14
  Like, how can you have both? You know?
• 1:07:17
  I was. I was exhausted on being
• 1:07:19
  triggered, and I didn't even know that they were triggers.
• 1:07:23
  I didn't even know what to call them at the time.
• 1:07:26
  They were just like constant things in my environment that
• 1:07:29
  felt like they were bombarding me and creating all of this
• 1:07:33
  turmoil and it was all outside of me.
• 1:07:37
  So little did I know it was actually all really kind of
• 1:07:40
  going on. I mean, yes, there's stuff that
• 1:07:42
  goes on outside of us and then, you know, the it's a what do I
• 1:07:46
  want to say? There's there's a kind of a line
• 1:07:51
  of understanding when something is really, truly in our
• 1:07:54
  environment, displeasing and we must do something now versus I
• 1:07:59
  have some anxiety, depression, unresolved issues, unresolved
• 1:08:04
  trauma. Things going on inside of me and
• 1:08:08
  therefore are affecting my ability to perceive fully, you
• 1:08:14
  know, those things get in the way.
• 1:08:18
  So I think it's the key things. You know, it's a layered answer.
• 1:08:22
  You know, I give a layered, layered answer because it's not
• 1:08:24
  so simple. It's not so cut and dry, but I
• 1:08:26
  will say that trauma. As far as my understanding and
• 1:08:32
  and what I've studied really can be used as an umbrella term for
• 1:08:40
  just any of the things that have happened to us.
• 1:08:42
  But then how we show up in our current environment is really
• 1:08:45
  what we need to be focused on. And if we want to feel better,
• 1:08:49
  if we really want to feel better, then we can start
• 1:08:52
  unpacking those things little by little.
• 1:08:56
  Because we don't need to go as far back as we absolutely need
• 1:08:59
  to in order to understand that we want inner peace.
• 1:09:02
  Now moving it forward, you mentioned earlier that you so I
• 1:09:09
  knew that you're a licensed massage purpose, but you said
• 1:09:11
  you did for 20 years is. That right?
• 1:09:13
  Yeah. Well, 19 years, it'll be going
• 1:09:15
  on 20. Oh, it's not there.
• 1:09:17
  Cool, cool, cool. I got to ask to bring it to
• 1:09:21
  bring. So because we're obviously we've
• 1:09:22
  been this been the heavy conversation let's bring
• 1:09:24
  somebody, yeah. Let's do it.
• 1:09:26
  Let's do it. Please.
• 1:09:27
  Strangest interactions you've had so far.
• 1:09:31
  There's got. There's a massage service.
• 1:09:33
  Yeah, there's there's got to be some interactions that left you
• 1:09:36
  like. OK, you know, God, I hate to say
• 1:09:42
  sometimes it's like creepy dude. Oh, you know.
• 1:09:48
  I haven't had too many. I can think of 1.
• 1:09:51
  And he was just the weirdest guy.
• 1:09:53
  He just like, he walked into, I worked at this really high end
• 1:09:56
  spa and he walked in, Yeah, he's just like a creepy dude.
• 1:10:00
  And I don't know, he really wanted me to like, massage his
• 1:10:04
  palms like for an hour. And I was just like, yeah, he
• 1:10:09
  was really weird. He just wanted me to massage his
• 1:10:11
  palms, like he just like just stay, just massage my hands.
• 1:10:14
  I was like for the whole hour, yes.
• 1:10:17
  All right, all right. It must be to do with like, eye
• 1:10:19
  contact. It's gotta be something like
• 1:10:21
  that, I guess. I guess, I don't know.
• 1:10:24
  I like to cover peoples eyes so that it's not.
• 1:10:26
  It's an interesting feel when you really think about it is
• 1:10:30
  weird. It's funny.
• 1:10:31
  I love the work. It's incredible work.
• 1:10:35
  I've learned so much. It really goes hand in hand.
• 1:10:38
  There's AI think There's truly a reason why I ended up becoming a
• 1:10:41
  massage therapist because it is connected to everything I went
• 1:10:43
  through. Want to talk about ownership?
• 1:10:46
  You know, I moved from not being in control of my body, Obviously
• 1:10:51
  going through the abuse I went through, coming into being a
• 1:10:54
  massage therapist that I I get to have in my own way, a really
• 1:10:59
  healthy way of what touch is. For me.
• 1:11:03
  So yeah, the strangest thing. That's probably the strangest.
• 1:11:06
  It's probably the strangest overall.
• 1:11:08
  I ran my own business, so I have great clients.
• 1:11:12
  The work is incredible. Yeah.
• 1:11:16
  I'd say that's the weirdest one. I was like, you want me to rub
• 1:11:18
  your hands for the next hour? All right, dude, Whatever Was
• 1:11:22
  he? Was he like a regular client?
• 1:11:23
  Client for a long time. No, he just walked in and we
• 1:11:26
  never get walk-ins either, you know, it's a very high end spa,
• 1:11:30
  like 5 star spa. So it was really just he was
• 1:11:32
  just like a weird, like, older dude.
• 1:11:34
  And we were like, and that came down and I was like, can I maybe
• 1:11:38
  not ever massage him ever again? Please.
• 1:11:44
  All right, A couple of final questions for you that I ask
• 1:11:46
  every guest. Biggest mistake that you've made
• 1:11:50
  that you learned a valuable life lesson from.
• 1:11:56
  Oh gosh, OK, give me like 30 seconds to think on that one
• 1:12:04
  biggest mistake I've made that I've learned a live lesson.
• 1:12:09
  I know. Yeah, you know, I don't know if
• 1:12:19
  it's like a real specific example of a mistake that I made
• 1:12:22
  of like one time I did this and I learned XYZ.
• 1:12:25
  It's probably been more of a collective thing of like biggest
• 1:12:28
  mistake. Yeah.
• 1:12:32
  The one that's just coming through is just to not people
• 1:12:34
  please so much. To not people please so much.
• 1:12:38
  It's a mistake. It's a mistake.
• 1:12:40
  I know that we want to be giving and it's but but when we say
• 1:12:45
  yes, when we really need me, no, we really like, we really shoot
• 1:12:50
  ourselves in the foot on that one and then we, you know.
• 1:12:53
  So I would just say that one. If I think of anything else I'll
• 1:12:57
  blurt it out, but I'm sure I've made plenty of mistakes.
• 1:13:04
  What's the best advice you've ever received?
• 1:13:09
  Immediately what comes to mind is I was in massage school and
• 1:13:13
  this was before I'd actually even started really delving
• 1:13:19
  super deep into my own therapy and healing journey and I was
• 1:13:23
  still very fiery and. She's still in there.
• 1:13:26
  She does. I like to channel her into
• 1:13:30
  better directions, you know? But I remember I was in the
• 1:13:34
  office of the owner of my massage school.
• 1:13:38
  We're still very good friends. My name is Gina Simpson.
• 1:13:41
  She's amazing. And I remember just, I was so
• 1:13:45
  upset about something. I was like probably financial
• 1:13:48
  aid or something. And I was stressed about money.
• 1:13:50
  And my kids were really little. They were one and three years
• 1:13:53
  old. And she took my hands into hers,
• 1:13:57
  and she just was like, Holly, if you approach the world with
• 1:14:01
  closed fists, be prepared to fight.
• 1:14:05
  And I don't know why. I just always stuck with me
• 1:14:08
  because I am. I'm a fighter.
• 1:14:09
  I'm stubborn. I have a lot of fire in me, and
• 1:14:14
  I like that about me. But I also think that that's
• 1:14:18
  been a common thread. Maybe that's the real mistakes
• 1:14:22
  that I've made is like, I've mistakenly put myself into
• 1:14:25
  fights that I didn't need to fight.
• 1:14:28
  You know, they're not mine to fight.
• 1:14:30
  And yeah, that was the best advice I'd ever gotten because
• 1:14:34
  it really stuck with me. And that's been, what, 20 years?
• 1:14:37
  And I still reach out to her. And I'm like, Gina, I love you.
• 1:14:39
  Like, thank you for saying that. You know, I still to this day,
• 1:14:44
  what's the biggest life lesson you've learned so far?
• 1:14:49
  Gosh, I feel like I just mentioned too.
• 1:14:52
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 1:14:53
  No. But like with with this, it's
• 1:14:55
  like, I like to kind of just go, I love it.
• 1:14:58
  Whatever. The first thing the person
• 1:15:00
  feels, Yeah. Because I think passion in their
• 1:15:03
  mind, I love it. You struggle because you feel
• 1:15:05
  like, oh, I've got to say something profound.
• 1:15:06
  It's like, no, just say what you feel.
• 1:15:08
  Just say what comes to mind, what you feel you know.
• 1:15:12
  What was the most profound life lesson?
• 1:15:13
  Honestly, that one comes to mind, and it's near and dear to
• 1:15:18
  my heart, is that for my whole life I've been seeking and
• 1:15:23
  seeking and seeking and seeking something outside of me.
• 1:15:28
  And there was a point in time as a mother.
• 1:15:31
  Where I and I remember going into my therapist office and
• 1:15:34
  saying this where I was like, I've been seeking the universe
• 1:15:37
  and I had it in front of me the entire time.
• 1:15:40
  Like my children are a walking embodiment of creation.
• 1:15:45
  And they came out of me like, what?
• 1:15:48
  That that's the most profound thing.
• 1:15:49
  Like and it and it it's wild. Because yes, I should have
• 1:15:52
  realized that like obviously when I was pregnant and having
• 1:15:55
  them and when they're infants. But no, it took.
• 1:15:57
  It took a few years in. To my own journey to and I
• 1:16:02
  remember like like going and laying with them and just having
• 1:16:08
  this really beautiful, profound experience of feeling more
• 1:16:12
  connected with them than I ever had.
• 1:16:15
  Because I was like, I have spent the last like X amount of years
• 1:16:19
  seeking outside of myself or seeking something outside of
• 1:16:24
  this little family unit I have and I have them right in front
• 1:16:28
  of me. And I was like like Waterworks,
• 1:16:31
  you know. Final question for you.
• 1:16:36
  Do you have any upcoming projects or final thoughts that
• 1:16:38
  you'd like to share with our listeners?
• 1:16:41
  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'm in Mexico right now
• 1:16:44
  for the next seven months. I just got settled in, so I'm
• 1:16:47
  going to be teaching yoga down there if anybody's going to be
• 1:16:49
  down in Toro Santos or in the Cabo area in Baja California.
• 1:16:54
  Sir, I also have an offer, a lot of great things at my website,
• 1:17:00
  rebellionrdcoaching.com. Ioffer individual services, and
• 1:17:05
  then I'm going to be crafting a workshop here in Baja.
• 1:17:10
  Ioffer them. I'm in Colorado, but it's Ashes
• 1:17:14
  to Alchemy, Inner Inner Child, Shadow Play and so it's just a
• 1:17:19
  really beautiful shadow work experience and workshop.
• 1:17:22
  So keep your eyes out for that. Or you can find me on social
• 1:17:26
  media as well. Absolute pleasure having you on
• 1:17:30
  the show. Thank you so much for sharing
• 1:17:32
  your story. And thank you so much educating
• 1:17:34
  us. Appreciate that.
• 1:17:35
  Thank you. Thank you for having me,
• 1:17:37
  Christian. This is great.
• 1:17:38
  This is so much fun. I really appreciate it.
• 1:17:40
  Yeah, very cool. As always, to all the listeners
• 1:17:44
  of the Christian Reef podcast, yeah, make sure you go check out
• 1:17:47
  Holly's work and go support her. And in addition, if you want to
• 1:17:51
  support the show and you like what we're doing here, go to
• 1:17:54
  patreon.com/christian Reeves, subscribe, get your access to
• 1:17:58
  bonus content, exclusive Patreon content, and much, much more.
• 1:18:02
  Make sure to leave us a review on Pod Chaser, which is sort of
• 1:18:06
  dubbed the IMDb of podcasting, apparently.
• 1:18:09
  I don't know. This is what they tell me.
• 1:18:11
  Also subscribe on YouTube. Leave us a comment, a like,
• 1:18:14
  share. Subscribe all that deal.
• 1:18:16
  Spotify. Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts.
• 1:18:18
  Wherever you listen to this show, leave us a rating, Leave
• 1:18:21
  us a review. It really, really helps us out.
• 1:18:23
  And most importantly, be safe. Be well and I'll see you in the
• 1:18:28
  next one.