Adoption leaves a wound of abandonment our nervous system and can lead to the person seeking continuously outside of themselves for support and connection.
This was the case for Laurie Jean Vogler who has spent the last 20+ years fine tuning the art of healing this wound and discovering the greatest love of her life: herself.
In this episode we explore:
-the impact of being a Korean orphan adopted by an US family
-the generation trauma and wounds as it relates to the Korean War
-how we can heal, even if we don't cognitively remember specific events
-the power of co-regulating with a healer to learn how to feel safe in your emotions and physical experience
-becoming your own soulmate and experiencing the love that you are!
and so much more!!
Laurie Jean is a dedicated facilitator of healing and transformation, bringing over two decades of experience to her work. Her passion lies in empowering individuals to rewrite their stories, particularly those shaped by trauma, and reclaiming joy by overcoming limiting beliefs. Laurie draws from her own profound healing journey, marked by experiences of abandonment, adoption, and abuse, which she has transformed into her present-day superpowers of fierce love and grace.
Follow her on:
Instagram: @lauriejeanie
Website: lotusintouch.com
LISTEN WHILE READING!
A: Every day there is a forgetting and every moment there is the possibility of remembering. Remembering who you truly are, awakening to your body, to the inner world and experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy. Here is where you free your Soma.
A: Hello everybody, welcome to Free Your Soma, stories of somatic awakening and how to live from the inside out. Today I'm speaking with Laurie Jean Vogler. She is a facilitator of transformational healing for the last 20 years. She serves people who are ready to do their deep work.
Through body work, EFT, Reiki, she helps them to discover their own self-love and the soulmate connection within themselves, within their bodies that exists there. I am so lucky I got to experience some of Laurie Jean's work when we met each other in the last couple rounds at Joshua Tree Music Festival where she's been doing body work and facilitating healing for people in that environment, which is a really special place.
I got to actually experience her gifts and she guided me through a really powerful process that was really ready to come to the surface inside my body. I can tell you she is a powerful guide through healing trauma and helping a person to bring their nervous system back to balance during recovery.
Today we're going to be hearing a bit from Laurie about her personal journey, which involves things about nervous system and the impact of adoption on our nervous system. We're going to be talking about how to connect with self-love and self-compassion and discover that we are in so many ways our own soulmate. That's part of our design.
So thank you Laurie for being with me here today. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.
L: Thank you so much Amy for having me. I'm so excited to be here and to be able to share this information and connect with you and your audience and be able to really share my story of what it was like for me to be adopted and to be adopted and grow up in a transracial family and the experiences that I've had in my body, in my mind and from just the inherited trauma, but also the blessings that come from all of those experiences because it gives us an opportunity to reveal and to discover and to go deeper within an experience in the trauma to release it and to come back to a place of homeostasis.
A: Yeah, yeah, I really resonate with what you're saying. It's when we're going through it, it can kind of feel like the worst. And then as we start to heal and unwind and come back to what we maybe even didn't know we had, like the self-love and the power of love that we didn't even know was possible to experience, we can start to see that silver lining or experience, that blessing, that darkness is actually the other side of.
L: Yeah, absolutely. I definitely feel that each of my experiences that they each of them were really an opportunity for me to heal and for me to deepen my well of experience of being able to hold space that covers so much ground from personal first-hand experience.
A: Yes, I felt that. I felt that when we worked together when I got the opportunity to work with you and that was a wonderful insight that I feel like you kind of transmitted to me through your being. I could definitely feel into that and it's, well, thank you for the work that you've done for yourself and that you help other people through.
Can you tell us a bit about your journey, like anywhere that you want to start on your timeline or to share a bit about where you've come from?
L: Yeah, sure. I'd love to. Let's see here. I was adopted when I was five years old from South Korea and my family were very kind and loving in the most part, but like most families, they also experienced a lot of stress around work and family life and didn't really have the best support to come from a balanced and grounded family dynamic themselves. And so I really truly feel that they did their best. However, the effects of my upbringing was pretty traumatic.
Before even being adopted, I feel that there is an inherited trauma of the original separation and loss, but then to go deeper back, the inherited trauma from our lineage of our biological families of what they had experienced, especially to because there was the Korean War and that created a lot of separation, confusion, death and traumatic experiences for people. And that that's something that's not really talked about, but it's really brought in a lot of insight for me when working with my nervous system.
I kind of see the nervous system as like a map and you go into the body, into the soma and you start investigating through feeling and emotion and you start finding that it takes you back a lot further than you realize.
A: Yes, absolutely. I think the more that we're learning about how trauma is inherited genetically and then also how it can be transmitted through our environment, like not through our genetics, but through our epigenetics and how our conditioning affects like the current state of things basically in our bodies and then based on the current state of things, that's going to be passed on to our children or passed on to even the people in our lives who we are surrounded by.
And so something like war going on in a country for the years and years that it did would absolutely have an impact on the population. And then you would be the descendants, you know, your generation, my generation would be the descendants of those traumatized people. Absolutely.
L: The power of the mind is incredible and when we consider epigenetics and the link between the stress of the lineages and what is really held in the subconscious is really profound because, you know, our core beliefs are found in our subconscious oftentimes, if not in our conscious yet. And in those places, there's, you know, oftentimes, you know, issues around self-worth and belonging, confidence, safety and vulnerability to trust, you know, and all those areas and subjects often aren't discussed or talked about and let alone in our personal lives now or within our lineages in the past. Right.
A: Well, it can feel very overwhelming when you start to open kind of this Pandora's box of like how much is actually being held in your unconscious mind or you're, you know, in your body. Some people say the unconscious mind is our body, you know, and our body is kind of keeping the score of everything that's ever gone down, you know, whether it's in our lives or the lives of people, you know, who are our ancestors or who are our caretakers, right. That's all affecting our nervous system and how we're experiencing and perceiving the world.
And when you start to realize that so much of what you think is like you and what you're doing in your life is actually this unconscious stress response or trauma response that's just been going on, it can feel enormous. And that's why it's so important and powerful to have guides in these processes when we're first starting to open that up and realize like how much there is to sort through, right, to have somebody to have some kind of mentor or somebody who's been through it before to hold our hand is part of returning to that regulated state. It's that co-regulation that we didn't get from a caregiver.
I want to ask something kind of on the lines of that, on the lines of co-regulation nervous system. And, you know, when you, before you were five years old and you were adopted into a family that sounds like they did their best to be like a loving family, right? Were you in an orphanage? Were you with your biological family? What was the conditions, you know, from before five years old?
L: You know, I wish that I could tell you that I knew more information. And I've actually gone back to my orphanage and sat with a social worker and looked at my files and they said that there was no information.
So all I can really share is from the time that I arrived into the orphanage and during that time I only spent about four months in the orphanage. And the only thing that my file had mentioned is that I took care of all the other little children and that I eat a bowl of rice well with a spoon. And so that's pretty much all the information that I have, like, that was directly shared with me.
But I have found actually a lot more information within my nervous system and what my nervous system remembers versus what my conscious mind remembers or what I've been told.
A: You know, but interestingly enough, those two pieces of information that you were a nurturer to other children and that you had some fine motor skills that had been that you were able to eat a bowl of rice well, so to speak, and not make a mess. Like all of that points to some level of regulation that you had experienced from a caregiver at some point. Right? Like that's what I absolutely.
L: Yeah, I would definitely say that as well. You know, when I came to the United States and I was first adopted, you know, received by my adopted family, I really, you know, notice how I came in already loving. I came in affectionate.
I came in helpful and curious as well. And so those are definitely some markers to show that I was cared for at one point or another. And yeah. Yeah, wow.
A: Well, thank you for sharing that. I mean, I can imagine that there have been times when it's felt frustrating or that there's been grief around not knowing, right, and not being able to remember or have that history. You know, and I think it's really amazing that you actually went back in person, right? And you visited that is beautiful, powerful thing to do.
I've known, you know, another Korean adoptee who did something similar in his 20s, a writer who I mentioned to you when we were on our call the other day, and he wrote extensively, you know, in his poetry about the experience and, and just being back there brought certain memories back to him that he had forgotten.
You know, but what I think you're pointing to as well, that's really important is that we don't have to know on a level in order to heal. We don't have to know. And sometimes we get obsessed with thinking about like, why don't I know this or what does this mean? And that's not actually like required. Can you say a little bit about that?
L: Absolutely. You know, for a long time, I was really upset that I didn't know that I didn't know what happened during those five years that I couldn't remember directly. And I would ask people, you know, do you remember memories, you know, when you were two or three or four or even five years old, and people most likely would say, Oh, yeah, I remember, you know, having my diaper changed and, you know, eating some favorite meals or going on walks or such.
And, you know, I really, you know, searching through my conscious mind, I didn't have any of those memories. And when I started getting into healing work of Reiki and craniosacral and EFT, particularly emotional freedom technique, I started realizing that my nervous system actually was a map in almost like a photo album of sensations, feelings, even smells that my body had actually recorded and remembered.
But my conscious mind didn't actually wasn't able to, you know, comprehend or store at the time. And so, as an adult, and having these tools to be able to go and navigate through my nervous nervous system has actually given me a sense of power from those areas of not knowing.
A: Yeah, yeah, that's, I think that's really a valuable thing for people to hear that there are ways that our body can process this stuff. And, you know, in some ways, like you said that that that soothes the part of us that feels like it needs to know when we can actually experience the softening and the toning back and the unwinding of like processing something that doesn't even have like a specific mental image around it, right? It could have absolutely some other kind of a sensation in your body, you know, but doesn't have a story around it. Absolutely.
L: Yes. And, you know, it's funny how the mind always wants to create a story, though, you know, through my experiences of, you know, going through my nervous system. During those times, I always come across certain smells specifically, and they do say that the olfactory and system in the brain is the largest storage of memory. And I always come to this smell that really that connects me to an image of eating food by the ocean. And it's possibly like some kind of seaweed or some kind of soup, and it has a very like umami kind of taste and smell to it. And it feels very familiar. And there will be certain moments in times where I might be by the ocean or a bay, and I'll get a whiff of that smell. And it takes me back to those original sensations.
A: Wow. Yeah. And then, you know, kind of the, you know, the culture shock of coming to the United States wouldn't have been so apparent at five years old, because you're not so versed on it. You don't have no context for culture necessarily, but your system would have noticed a big difference in all the smells and sensations and environmental changes, right? And then in addition, absolutely. Whole different family dynamic that suddenly you're immersed in. Absolutely.
L: Yeah, I really feel that when you're that young, you're really just a sponge to your environment and the models around you. And I just kind of took everything in, gathers as much information as I could, because I couldn't really comprehend everything at that young age. So taking in those models and the environment around me, and then being able to decipher them when I got older, actually.
A: Yeah, yeah, it reminds me, and maybe you've heard this or have the opinion about this, but when we've talked, I've heard people talking about empathic qualities, this ability to sense into others and notice how others are feeling. And there's many saying that this is a nervous system strategy in response to some kind of feeling of unsafety, because we need to know and apprehend what other people are going to think and feel and do. And so it kind of, it becomes this thing that's like, you know, a wounded healer kind of thing where it's like, it's this wound that we're carrying where we're sort of hyper vigilant about what other people feel and think and are experiencing. And then it turns into something that's actually a huge gift as well. Absolutely.
L: You know, naturally, just out of survival, our bodies have a way of, you know, taking in every detail of information and using that in a way to be able to adapt, to be, you know, accepted, loved and kept even and, you know, to meet the experience expectations and in each experience and is really kind of overwhelming and tough if you kind of think of it all at once in that young state.
But, you know, luckily in that young state, you know, you're not really consciously thinking about these, you know, actions of trying to survive and be, not be abandoned again, potentially. And, you know, you want to be accepted. And so, you know, your body just naturally does what it has to do to, you know, be loved, be supported, you know?
A: Absolutely. Ensure that safety and ensure that survival and your right it is. And it's a very totally unconscious process, you know, when we're in it, especially when we're children. Absolutely. The impact of adoption and maybe even specifically related to interracial or, you know, adoption as a Korean, you know, person in a Korean body coming into the United States, like, how was that for you to grow up, you know, in the area that you grew up in, in a family that was, you know, that was Caucasian, that was white? And how did that, you know, how did that feel for you and your body and what impact do you think that had on you?
L: You know, I think originally, I was absolutely oblivious to being different, to being Korean. And I think that that was a survival strategy, honestly. I really didn't find out that I wasn't white. For some reason, you know, I came in at five. However, I kind of just went through this experience of the ugly duckling where I just took on the experience and the family and the people around me. And, you know, primarily they were all white and Caucasian families around me.
And I just took on that persona that I was just like them, because that's what the people who around me had looked like, you know. And it wasn't until I was about eight or nine years old, where I had an experience where I was clearly shown that I did not look the same as others. And in that moment, I remember going home and looking in the mirror and realizing that I never really looked in the mirror and saw that I was different until that moment. And that's when I started really kind of becoming aware of myself, who I am, my experience of being adopted. Because, you know, for so long, I think the part of me that really wanted to be accepted, just, you know, I adapted so much so that I really thought that I was like everyone else there for a moment, you know.
And, yeah, you know, it was that's probably when I started really realizing that there is a deeper emotions and feelings going on within me. I was realizing that I had experienced a lot of guilt and shame around not being white, not being, you know, potentially good enough to be kept originally, to be, you know, released into an orphanage.
I also felt a big lack of self worth. I didn't really know if who I was and my awareness of my identity, like, well, if I'm not white, you know, who am I, you know, because I look like this person that doesn't look like anyone else that I know. So I started really questioning myself and my life and my belonging, myself confidence and at this time. And it was quite overwhelming at first. And, you know, this is very normal, very natural for a lot of adoptees to kind of go through these experiences and emotions, especially when their cognitive mind starts awakening and having conscious thoughts about, you know, oneself and identity.
And that can, it felt really confusing. And so I started finding myself, you know, reaching towards methods to feel better, you know, from drugs to self pleasure, to risky behaviors.
Like, you know, I used to really be into jumping off of cliffs into water and off of tree swings and such like that. And, you know, I was really trying to push the edge to feel because all of this information was kind of too much. So I had a numb out a bit. And doing those kind of high risk behaviors, you know, kind of helped me feel not so numb and still, you know, alive.
A: Yeah, that's a, you know, there your description of that, I think is is really telling you in so many ways, all these things that we're doing that look like, you know, bad kid activities or whatever, whether it's like, you know, partying or, you know, risky behavior, it is our nervous system trying to balance out trying to feel better.
And it's just we're doing it in these ways that aren't actually like effective long term and can cause like other problems, right? But I think that when we recognize just as the way that you, you know, spoke about it now that that it's coming from a place of wanting to feel better. Absolutely.
It's like twisted form of self love, right? And that we kind of are able to take off that, you know, veneer of like shame or like belief that we're that it means we're like a bad kid or we're a bad person or something like that. And we can take away like the stigma of those behaviors and look at it as, you know, well, this is this is my attempt to feel better. So how can I actually help myself feel better in a way that's like effective and not destructive? Exactly.
L: Yeah, a lot of the work I've done on myself and the work that I do with others is, you know, going back into those experiences and memories where we might have not had as many tools to be able to work with. And we connect with that inner child and that part that might feel stuck or angry or full of shame or loss. And we update that area, we bring in the information and the love and the support and the words that, you know, weren't there before. And we kind of fill in those spaces with that love. So that part can be free to be a kid and be playful with it again.
A: Yes, it's I know just what you mean because you brought me through a process like that for my own timeline for something that had happened for me. And it was it was beautiful. And it really, you know, I really felt that that space again that you hold that, you know, is only there because of the wide breadth of experiences that you personally had. And, you know, so much of what you're describing is this just incredibly powerful way to disarm the experience of shame in our bodies and replace it with love. Absolutely.
L: Absolutely. You know, we, you know, that we always hear the term, you know, you hold all the tools, you hold all the information, you hold all the keys. And that that kind of wording kind of annoyed me at first before I felt like I understood that saying a little bit deeper of like, you know, we do hold the information, we don't, no one else is going to be able to touch that wound and bring in its healing, its medicine and support than like anyone else because no one else knows that wound like ourselves, you know.
And I think that's why the work I do and facilitate is so powerful is because I have had the opportunity to have so many traumatic experiences that I can just sit with someone in their wound, in their trauma, without having to change them or judge them and just sit with them so they can be able to let enough light in, enough love in, enough information in, and then guiding them to help themselves bring in their own, you know, like I said, medicine, which would be their own heart, love, wisdom, and information to, you know, update that space with what was lacking before.
A: Beautifully said. Yes, I'd love for you to say a little bit more about, you know, some of the work that you're doing around discovering your own soulmate energy with inside yourself, because I know that that was a big theme for you for the first part of your life was kind of looking outside of yourself for love, and you went through different kind of like phases of life around that and then it looks like you've arrived at this really gorgeous place. Can you kind of take us through some of that process?
L: Yeah, you know, you know, when I was younger, a part of me was really looking for, you know, genuine true acceptance and unconditional love. And I was looking for my value within other people and other experiences, you know, first my adopted mother, but then my relationships, my intimate relationships after them, after, you know, adolescence and growing up a little bit more.
And I just realized that I kept on finding myself in the same relationship that was not what I wanted, you know, they were oftentimes abusive, and I would put myself in situations that were potentially dangerous, you know, just because I had an exude belief of what my purpose was in the relationship, I thought was to to fix people or to help them and to, you know, if I could be able to love them enough, they would, you know, stop drinking alcohol or stop being abusive and such. And, you know, I was looking for this acceptance in relationships and experiences in my life that I wasn't finding what I was looking for.
I was looking to be validated, to be loved, to be cherished, to be held in safety. And, you know, the more I looked, I just realized, you know, I don't think this is working out. I don't think I'm doing this right. And, you know, honestly, I just sat down one day and I was like, you know what, universe, I don't think I don't think I'm doing this right because I keep on having the same experiences and the same relationships over and over again. You know, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to just work on myself.
And till then, you know, I don't really feel the need to date or be intimate in relationships or to have, you know, my validation come from anyone else, but from myself. And so, you know, for four years of that time, I really put my all my focus into just connecting with my own self, my own self healer, my own self soother, my own self validator.
I realized during this time and work that there was a inner divine feminine within me. And she had certain wants, you know, and I also realized that there was an inner divine masculine went within me, and that he had certain wants, and that they could actually console each other and lift each other up creating a space of, you know, grounded safety and be able to open myself up to the deeper parts within my being, which I think is my soul, and connecting to my soul really helped me feel like I never have to ever be alone again, you know, and recognizing at that time that, you know, there's this personality of this person that I tried to be and tried to model to society that, you know, I deserve to be loved and, you know, all the belief systems and everything that my personality tried and realizing that, you know, she tried, yeah, but that was just a piece of the puzzle.
And really within deeper within my being that there's the soul, the person who I came into this world to be to share, you know, to love, and that personality is the person who was developed for survival. And so, you know, I really love being able to connect people to their deeper soul mate within side of themselves, the part of them that, you know, knows how to support themselves, knows how to self regulate, knows how to co-regulate with the connection of that masculine and feminine energies of giving and receiving.
And, yeah, I really feel that that the soul can clean away all that hurt, judgment, distortion, anger, that shame, that the personality loves to stay attached to, you know, and connect the story to. And, you know, the soul comes in fills those spaces up with its love and its wisdom and that, you know, information is all within us and that we come into this world with this information, you know, and it reminds me of this experience where I was in a locker room with this woman.
It was a locker room for the women's locker room. We were at a resort and the lockers make this little sound when you lock them or open them and they're like, and I just naturally went and kind of like, you know, responded to the sound of the locker and the women beside me was like, oh my goodness, like, you're so joyful and open and loving and just the way you interacted with that locker sound and I just kind of looked at her and I'm like, whoa, yeah, I did because I am a kind and loving and playful creature and this is the part of me that has always been there, you know, and when I drop away all the personality of the shame, the guilt, the questions, the who am I, the identities and I just let myself be completely bare.
What's left is that soul part, that tender part, that kind and playful part that I truly feel has always been there, you know, and like I mentioned earlier, I feel like when I was adopted to my adopted family, you know, I came in open and playful and kind and loving and affectionate even though that wasn't exactly what they were used to, you know, I've trained them through the years but yeah, that was definitely some work and yeah, I hope I answered your question.
A: Absolutely, I love it and you know, I think that that element of play is a big part of how we actually regulate as children, you know, children are playful by nature and they're sort of in, you know, their brainwaves are in this more dream-like state and so, you know, there's, you know, the way that we learn as children is so much through games and joyful interaction, you know, and that's natural to us and, you know, to be able to take away the barriers that inhibit that, right?
Kind of like our natural state is to be like joyful and loving and present, then what are the things that are inhibiting that, that from coming to the surface and how do we work with those things to help them integrate back into our body so that it's not just these stress responses, again, these ways to survive that are running the show, that are determining how we behave, how we interact, even how our bodies feel and look can be impacted immensely by our stress, you know, if we kind of go back to what you were saying before about taking this time, this four years to really focus your energy inward, you know, I know that we've had some conversations where you talked about like just the somatic process of that and kind of coming into like contact with your physical body in a new way that didn't like require, you know, or necessitate outside input from other people, but to like really come into this full acceptance of your body, can we talk a little bit about that?
L: Yeah, absolutely. You know, during those Because for years I really took absolute responsibility for myself and my thoughts and my feelings and I wasn't going to use any excuses of, oh this was passed out by this person or someone said something mean about my body once here or you know I felt insecure about that.
I had to really take full ownership of my own thoughts and my own beliefs and I recognized that my body had been holding on to a lot of shame because it did not look like the typical you know white Caucasian model that I would see advertised on TV or movies and things like that and I realized that I was actually happy that it didn't that my body didn't look like anyone else's but my own and I started you know this when I say this it sounds all easy but this is work that had to be done you know.
I did a lot of mirror work I'm not sure if you're familiar with that where you look in the mirror look into your eyes look at your body and you say your affirmations because any thought is really an affirmation whether it's a positive affirmation or a negative affirmation and I chose to take responsibility for my thoughts and start you know affirming that I am lovable just as I am you know and that I am in my perfect body and so I started taking my power back from believing or thinking that it has to look like anyone else's body and just really taking ownership of my own and recognizing that this is the body that I've been given and that this is the body that I'm going to love you know and you know.
Oftentimes we want to be shorter or thinner or you know or in better shape or however and in reality we can't really make any real changes physically or you know mentally or emotionally without taking ownership of the feelings that we're already feeling so that was like probably one of my biggest steps of you know taking ownership because I think previous to that I kind of you just thought well you know well you know this happened or that happened or you know my body didn't look like my my adopted mother's body so that means I must be ugly and abnormal and unlovable which you know really you know tapping into the deeper truth to love myself was um the love and acceptance of exactly who I am in the exact body that I'm in and so breaking free from those old patterns of um stress of survival you know and really just allowing myself to let go of that long enough for me to take on the new belief system for it to stick and for that to become my new thought and belief system you know and there is that kind of gray period at times when you're really trying to like you know transform a really deeply embedded belief or thought which it was for me for around body image um.
And uh you kind of have to just endure and just love and accept yourself anyways and that's kind of just the work I did was you know I'm gonna love and accept myself anyways even though there's a part of me that's still a little scared or still a little judgmental about this or that I'm gonna love this part anyways and you know the powerful thing about love is that it dissolves that that you know um piercing hatred and self judgment and uh if you put the light on in the room you know all the darkness disappears you just let that light be brighter and brighter and you let your love shine brighter and brighter and next thing you know what are you left with but just love you know yeah yeah
A: it's uh you know what you're describing the word that comes to mind is this experience of grace of being swallowed in in grace you know and and that's that's a it's a very much a you know to be in that sort of space is a very powerful..
I would very like it's one of those experiences where you're sort of in your body and you're sort of out of your body at the same time you're like inhabiting your whole energy field absolutely that moment of grace you're still in your body in your body in this really full way and you're like super connected to the larger field of energy that exists around you all the time you know that is that light that is that loving space and you know going back to what you said about you know taking kind of radical responsibility.
I feel like this is sort of a landmark on a journey and part of the journey is like you know we we come into the world and we're children and we don't really have a context or an orientation and we're just everything's coming in like super experientially and we're not even like able to sort through it at that time it's just raw experience and then we're in a period of time where we start becoming aware like you described at eight years old becoming aware that like you look different than others that maybe you know there are certain feelings or beliefs about yourself that are starting to like form you know or fortify in your system and then you know we kind of go perhaps through a rebellion or a destructive phase.
And through that experience we end up realizing how much of like what we're carrying isn't ours and that's where we end up ending that like exactly it's like a victim phase that's like required actually where we have like blaming our parents blaming society blaming those Victoria's Secret catalogs you found on you know the floor when you were 11 that you know changed your perception of what beauty should be you know you have to blame the outside so that you can start differentiating between what is you and what is not you.
But what you're referring to and what you're describing in terms of coming into that radical responsibility is to go okay this happened I was given this belief or I was I you know was given this experience but then I continue to perpetuate it. I can keep it going and keep it alive in me long after the experience is gone and that is practical responsibility you're talking about which is part of this larger journey of liberating ourselves is that we have to say I'm the one who's keeping this going yeah.
L: yeah and that's a hard one to come to you know it's like way easier to just you know be in a state of victimhood where we can just look at others and be like you made me like this you did this to me you said that to me and when really it's you know that's disempowering ourselves and we have the opportunity to take responsibility for those thoughts and feelings at any moment and take that power back from that place where you know we we felt alone or scared or you know weak or you know ugly or however.
A: Yeah yeah absolutely so so beautifully said I think I very much relate to you know to your your process and I've been going you know through one myself and it's interesting because like the space where it really shows up for me in my body is like my stomach. And like my belly and I've you know at my first podcast episode was about that it was about kind of this awakening to how much I was like holding in this area in my body you know like shame.
One of the ways I've started to like recently reconnect with that space somatically has actually been through physically touching my belly when I feel overwhelmed or scared because it used to be this place where I would like squeeze my belly like I wish I could cut it off or I wish it wasn't there. I you know it's resenting like the squishiness of it or something and so I started to like reprogram myself by like holding my belly in like a comforting way you know squeezing the flesh of my belly.
And like kind of you know like it's a safety blanket or something almost like you know when we're little kids maybe some people have this experience of like the softness of your mother you know or your caretaker's body you know and the way that their arms were soft or squishy against your face when they held you or you know the way that their chest or their bosom or their belly was this like soft landing place you know and can I like recreate that for myself and start to reprogram this like place where I've held a lot of judgment about myself how can I start to transform that into like a place where love exists where comfort can be found and it's a project it's ongoing absolutely.
I just felt like you know when you were talking about that you just brought that up for me because I'm in that myself I'm in that process and you know when you're working with people do you feel like each person has a you know unique place where they may be holding their pain or their trauma or is it actually pretty like reliable like that most people are carrying it in these spaces?
L: Um you know honestly it's going to be different for everyone and um it seems that for each emotion uh it has a frequency has an energy to it. And depending on that frequency it's going to be stored in different areas of our body. Um for instance um you know areas uh emotional areas around um fear and feeling um pressured or feeling a sense of um you know like their will is not their own and they're having to do things because you know they feel like they're expected to do this expected to that do that you know energies like that oftentimes are going to be stored around the area of the solar plexus and the solar plexus is going to be an area of our you know our embodied light our will our you know our courage our you know confidence.
And uh if we're doing things because we feel like we have to do them it's going to be draining that area you know we feel like oh I have to do this. I gotta go do that you know it's gonna you know those kind of thoughts and beliefs will actually store energy and drain that that solar plexus area but we have the opportunity to then transmute that and be able to take that same experience thought and feeling from a place of like oh I have to do this and find within ourselves where our deeper you know our want compassion and personal will and our love is that we can shift it to a place of I get to do this I want to do that and that actually allows for the energy to move upward within the body's energy systems up into the heart space and allowing that tightness in that solar plexus of feeling almost cornered into having do something that they don't want to do to be released.
So each person is going to be different depending on what feelings that they're going through and you know there's a motions they store in the body the however I feel that you know it's made to do that because it is the roadmap you know we allows us to know like okay you know I have tension here on my shoulders you know specifically maybe on my my right shoulder you know and shoulders are gonna be you know feeling like we have to take on the weight of the world.
And oftentimes those you know heavy feelings are then triggered and amplified by belief of thinking that we have to do everything on our own you know. And that right side is going to be more of our physical or masculine side our doing side you know and feeling like we're expected to take on everything it's gonna you know feel heavy on that side and you know it's it goes in deeper so almost a person comes in with ailments and they'll say no.
I have you know this pain here and that pain here and it'll lead me to asking them some deeper questions that specifically relate to those areas of stagnancy and every single time. I swear 100% of the time and I remember when I started first realizing this a long time ago that our emotions are held in the different places of our body that directly can relate to us and the answer to being able to release it according to where it's being stored you know which chakra and what information and characteristics are connected to each one and yeah. So everyone's a little bit different because but then also very similar because we all you know go through so many of the same things and we don't even realize it because we don't really share with each other these deeper stresses that we every one of us goes through.
A: yeah yeah I love those examples those are some great examples of like how it kind of is it sounds like it's a blend of both it's like we all have our unique blueprint and there are you know very kind of like not just reasonable but like almost logical like if someone's having issues with their jaw or their throat or their mouth like maybe they're holding back expressing themselves exactly there's feelings and it's like that makes sense. You know like we talk about the weight of the world on our shoulders feeling like we have to carry a burden that's literally kind of like what it feels like when you're having all this pressure coming down you know on your shoulders or your shoulders feel like there's a rock on your back you know like it's it's almost obvious. It's like in plain sight you know the way that these things these things actually operate.
L: absolutely the emotional I feel like you know I kind of sum it up into the words of emotional hygiene and I really feel that our bodies actually know emotional hygiene. It knows the deeper reasons why we're holding on to this pressure that pressure this fear that fear this pain or that pain. But for whatever reason and how we've you know have come so far in the areas of relying on allopathic medicine relying on to just give us a pill relying on a diagnosis to kind of you know we don't have to go into that area and cleanse it clear and work with our feelings and so on such we can just take a pill and it'll just go away but you know what we're finding out is that it doesn't really work that way you know.
A: Yeah yeah can you say I would love for you to speak a little bit on like you know the everything that we've been talking about well I know not everything but a big portions of things that we've been talking about. You're now creating a six month container to guide people through some of these processes that you're referring to can you tell us a little bit about what you're working on right now.
L: Absolutely yeah I am creating a six month sacred course a container of absolute safety where I guide people to learn about the tools of how to connect with their body their nervous system, how to self-regulate and co-regulate, how to bring their nervous systems, and bodies back to a place of connection with their soul self. And you know that truly that there is this soulmate within themselves and I take them through a process where each month is built out to help us go a little bit deeper where we'll be clearing the body temple and cleansing out any and all energies that you maybe not we're 100 to to cleansing out limiting beliefs about potentially looks or body image or you know self-confidence or how lovable you might be and really giving ourselves opportunity to make it fun and playful and connected to that you know that tender curiosity and playfulness with inside of ourselves.
And you know teaching people how to listen to the intuition of their own body you know and I really feel that there's so much power in my own personal experience of breaking free from old patterns and you know when we are attached to these old patterns we oftentimes we attract the same thing over and over again and teaching people how to break free from old patterns and old relationships and how to step into their personal soul alignment. So when they you know you know if they are in relationship being able to deepen their connection intimacy vulnerability and bond with the partner that they have currently and that they're not in relationship beginning into soul alignment so when the right relationship is in front of them they're actually available for that experience wow.
A: It sounds like a combination then of like working with your relationship with yourself so that you can have functional joyful connected relationships with others but it's not that's not the point of it it's not like you're doing this work so that you can have those things but that's a byproduct of this work with yourself.
L: Absolutely absolutely you know because when we do this work we become safe spaces for relationship and for ourselves you know. One of the areas of the work that we will be doing is being able to do the sole discovery work of nurturing the those spaces the void of the areas that are still waiting to be saved loved accepted supported instead of waiting for someone else to come into our lives to give us that safety and support. We're actually going to learn how to be able to do that for ourselves and that creates a way more of a safe space in person and container to be able to begin a friendship or you know potential relationship.
A: Well any kind of relationship because I mean relationships in our lives are everywhere you know it's not just it's the relationship you might have with a business partner you know our relationship you might have with your child's teacher at school or even with a neighbor you know like these relationships show up and we can definitely improve all of the relationships in our lives by improving the relationship we have with ourselves you know like I've offered back on relationships in my life that fell apart or that did not you know work out in various ways and kind of going back to that idea of radical responsibility.
You know it's so easy to kind of blame the other person and give them like a label you know that basically says that gives me an out as to why like that didn't work you know but as I have worked more with like those hidden parts of myself as you're describing like recognize like oh no like I was partially responsible for that and it came from a place in me that was aching it came from a pain inside me that I was unconscious to that was you know running a muck and like not allowing this relationship to be functional you know. And then the other person too they have their have their half of it you know but but to be able to accept and do something about that pain that you're carrying so that the relationship has its best chance right.
L: Absolutely you know and I feel that we oftentimes are manifesting these experiences and relationships to help us through those emotional wounds and triggers so we can be available so we can return to a state of love again yeah.
A: Awesome well I'm so excited for this do you do you have a title for this program or any kind of launch date that you're imagining.
L: Um well I'm finishing up on the course details and the the layout on my platform and I'm looking forward to launching it sometime within the new year within in January and the name I'm still kind of playing with the name I keep on talking the spirit about the name and it might be you know um become your become your soulmate you know or connect to your soul I'm still listening to what the right keywords are you know because if this work is you know such a huge transformational part of my life and what has kept my life feeling so blessed and so free and so supported is being able to connect to my soul and because my soul is connected to then to the universe and I can have the backup and support of the universe then um through the vessel of my soul so yeah I'm really excited to be able to share this work with people because I feel that this is the work that I was meant to share you know.
Yeah I feel that from you too yeah I really feel that you know it's like being able to connect to your soul um I feel like you'll never have to be alone ever again and that's one of the you know areas where I really felt that as a young person I felt really alone and then I realized that actually I was never alone because my soul was there with me the whole time right.
A: Yeah absolutely that that illusion that we are alone versus connecting with the truth of that that grace that surrounds us.
L: Absolutely yeah yeah you know that that connection and creating that deep reverence and dialogue with your soul and really creates such a more beautiful and creative and playful life experience for me and gives me the freedom to know that like I can play as much as I want I can create exactly the way I want I can speak and share exactly what I the the way that I want. And that it's exactly right does that make sense yeah yeah it takes away this like judgment um of having to be good enough for society or media or others and then it has to just be good enough for me and my soul perfect.
A: I love that kind of brings us back to this idea of being you know self-contained and having having the tools inside of us and including the tools to affirm ourselves and to allow ourselves to be okay as we are and accept you know our life and our body and our being as we are and from that place things start to change and evolve and transform naturally without forcing or you know cajoling or whatever it is that we are programmed to do to try to make ourselves be you know some way or fit some form.
L: Absolutely absolutely yeah I like to imagine and also ask my clients you know to imagine themselves as the person that they you know were before they came into this world you know. And to really feel into like what were you excited about coming into this world to share you know and just connecting with that part that uh isn't diluted by society yet and all of its expectations and getting to really strengthen that core connection to um you know to our joy again and that alignment connection to that grace.
A: You know when you said that the first thought that came into my mind like what did I come here for and I had thought like I came here to be on an adventure.
L: Yes the grand adventure.
A: Yeah yeah so more and more looking to embrace that side of myself that is here for the adventure including you know and there's no adventure that doesn't come with with that hardship without suffering without perils without you know this. That's part of the adventure it has to be like that's part of the definition that's what makes it rich you know and the triumphs they're gonna come too you know the victories are gonna come that's also part of it and yeah I can't be with all of it you know.
L: Absolutely and that's how I feel about um being adopted I feel like being adopted is one of um the most amazing adventures to have gotten to experience because I feel that for me. I took it on as a challenge of how I can create being adopted becoming an absolute superpower of mine.
A: yes oh man and I'm so glad too that like you're branching out more to talk about this subject and maybe even specifically connect with like we mentioned at the beginning of this episode some of the generation of Korean adoptees who came to the United States, who are who are trying to piece together their identity and are you know looking to heal these parts of themselves that are generationally wounded. And I think that you are just you know in addition to what we already kind of discussed like and it fits well with that. Actually this is something that you are uniquely designed and able to do for people and provide for people as as part of like who you are and that's just that's just fantastic to think about that being like you said a superpower.
L: absolutely um thank you so much for saying that you know that really hits home because I truly do feel that you know doing this deeper work of being courageous enough to feel the feelings and really witness the wound that's when we allow for those wounds to be able to heal you know and my you know 20 plus years of experience of facilitating healing work and then you know being adopted and recognizing how these two areas of my life really um I feel like we're made for each other because there are part of the reason why I feel so inspired and moved to do this work with connecting to our soul.
And also, um with you know, helping to support adoptees is because it is so close to home. It's so tender in my heart uh there's so many people out there who I've talked to who they want those tools you know they don't have a community where they or a family that where they've been able to talk about these feelings they didn't have support where they could feel the loss and of their original biological families and to you know really help them um find their own dialogue to create that connection and to place that love and um to be you know supported by that grace where they can be able to do their own healing work.
And you know it's like sometimes I think well maybe I have too many healing tools you know and then I realize I'm like actually they're all really valuable because each and everyone kind of heals in their own different way and I kind of just put these different tools in their hands and then they run with the ones that they resonate with and it's really truly amazing to see when people are able to rewrite their stories and free themselves from painful traumas that reoccur in our minds and yeah that allows them to be free to step into their soul's work they what they want to share all to all of us then so I'm excited to share this.
A: Work fantastic if people want to learn more about you or they want to look into this program you've described where would people be able to reach out to you.
L: Uh they could reach out to me on Instagram at lori genie at l-a-u-r-i-e j-e-a-n-i-e on Instagram or they could also um my website is in transition but there is a page for a connection that's lotusintouch.com that's l-o-t-u-s-i-n-t-o-u-c-h .com and um yeah I'm you know I had a dream about a year so go of you know instead of just having one-on-one experiences with my clients which I truly love um I had a dream where I was being asked to share on a bigger level and to teach these tools on a bigger level and so I'm in I'm doing that work in uh of sharing with more people and getting these tools into more hands fantastic.
A: I yeah I love that because there is something that's really special about that that uh one to one energy and yet when we start opening it to a group it invites a more collective you know relational healing process to occur absolutely. And I think it is really important it helps for deeper integration of the work we're doing rather than just being you know you privately with you know with a teacher with an expert with you know a sage and you're in this dynamic that just automatically has a certain kind of like you know power dynamic that like you just is acknowledged one person knows a lot more about this and is orchestrating this and the other person is receiving versus when you have a co-fort when you have other people alongside you in the process with you that that just changes the whole energy. And it becomes much more I think cohesive and and yeah more of that relational healing of how do we apply this to my real life.
L: Absolutely um I feel that you know I can share information I can share tools but I truly feel that the deeper healing actually comes from being able to sit down and be witnessed by people who are almost speaking your words. You know feeling your feelings and have had you know your experiences and being able to witness each other and support each other.
I feel that there is such a profound healing that comes from that then just someone saying hey you know this is what you do you just you know you heal this part you heal that part and you tap here you tap there and you're good you know but there's an unspoken power when you are literally just witnessed by people who can truly empathize from direct personal experience you can't put that into words. I feel like you know and yeah we're we're really excited I I do have a a group of women who I'm working with one other adoptee as well from Korea and we've been orchestrating and creating the ability to support adoptees in a retreat space so we can be able to do this in person and share directly and connect directly with each other and really not only help each other heal but also empower each other to to truly thrive.
A: That sounds like such an amazing project I'd love to see that come to fruition and you know and be able to be offered to people who may be they don't even know they're looking for it but they're looking for it right.
L: That's absolutely yeah they I think they're really gonna love it but I'm also wondering you know how do you let them know what you're truly providing them you know and so we're cultivating and putting all the details together as we speak so I'm excited looking at launching those in-person retreats sometime in the spring of 2024 so I'm really super excited but also really honored to be able to help facilitate that work because there's nothing like in-person healing and as a group.
A: As an intimate group yeah oh yes yes definitely well thank you so much for coming on today and sharing these really important and and powerful messages with people. I'm sure that our listeners have been inspired and you know moved by your testimony by your experiences and what you've gone through and you know for even people who have not you know been adopted maybe they got a little window into that experience today and maybe even could relate to some of the pieces of what you shared even if they had a totally different upbringing and raising you know because some of the things you shared are very universal.
L: Absolutely.
A: Yeah if you have any last words for our audience if some final message of something that you'd like to share or that you'd like to say.
L: I'd just like to say thank you so much for your time and your your vision and your heart to to you Amy and to also your audience as well I'm sure that you know this information resonates with you because you also are like mind and heart and I'm just really excited to be able to continue to challenge myself to learn and grow and to be able to serve my community even.
A: More excellent yeah well set the honor to speak with you today and I'd love to have you back on the show later in the season share about how these things are updating and going forward and yeah thank you once again for coming on.
L: Great thank you so much I'd love to return and yeah thanks again for having me on the show.
A: You've been listening to the Free Your Soma podcast. To find out more information about today's guest, check the show notes and to find out more information about me Amy Takaya and the radiance program, visit www.freeyoursoma.com
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