What if running a business could feel as balanced and harmonious as living a healthy, fulfilling life?
In this episode, I have Raeanne Lacatena, a mental health therapist and musician, who explores how holistic business practices can transform your personal and professional life.
Stay tuned to discover the power of balancing action with downtime, integrating well-being into your work, and embracing vulnerability to foster true growth.
In this episode, Aimee and Raeanne discuss:
The concept of holistic business, balancing action with receptivity and rest.
Balancing masculine and feminine energies is crucial for success
Integration of past, present, and future awareness supports growth
How integrating mental, physical, and financial wellness into business mirrors holistic health.
Encouraging entrepreneurs to engage in self-inquiry and find personalized paths to success.
Raeanne’s background in mental health and music, and how these experiences shape her coaching approach.
Recognizing and addressing limiting beliefs as key to personal and professional growth.
How healing and development can be efficient and less painful with a holistic approach.
Personal trauma and recovery as catalysts for deeper healing and self-discovery.
And so much more!
Raeanne Lacatena helps experienced entrepreneurs and small business owners reach their greatest expectations while living their happiest, healthiest, and wealthiest lives. Among the business owners she serves are restaurateurs, brick-and-mortar offices like those of physicians and therapists, and online businesses for authors, artists, speakers, and coaches.
Raeanne is a Holistic Certified Professional Business Coach, Licensed Registered Mental Health Practitioner, and Reiki Master with two decades of experience in the business coaching and professional development fields. Raeanne is also a mother of three children under seven who help her understand and live the principles she teaches more deeply everyday! Contest Link! Win an Air BnB get-away! raeannelacatena.com/contest
Check out her book "The Integrated Entrepreneur" Out Now! https://www.raeannelacatena.com/integrated
And here's a free quiz where listeners can see where they fall on the spectrum of distorted vs. healthy masculine and feminine energy: https://www.raeannelacatena.com/energyquiz
Additional Links:
Follow Aimee Takaya on:
IG: @aimeetakaya
Facebook: Aimee Takaya
Learn more about Aimee Takaya, Hanna Somatic Education,
and The Radiance Program at www.freeyoursoma.com
LISTEN WHILE READING!
A: Hello everyone, welcome to Free Your Soma, Stories of Somatic Awakening and How to Live from the Inside Out. I'm Aimee Takaya.
Are you tired of the grind? Are you feeling exhausted with the go, go, go? And especially if you're an entrepreneur or you've been thinking about coming one, listen to today's episode and we're going to discuss what is a holistic business.
What does that look like? And how do we balance our action taking with our receptivity and our downtime? And what does it really mean to be an integrated entrepreneur?
I've got Raeanne Lacatena with me and we're going to get into it. Thank you for listening.
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, to the experience of being alive. Here is where you find the beauty, the joy and here is where you free your Soma. I'm your host Aimee Takaya. I'm here to help you move from pain to power, from tension to expansion and ultimately from fear to love.
A: Hi Raeanne.
R: Hi there.
A: How are you doing today?
R: I'm fantastic. How are you doing today Aimee?
A: You know it's been a little bit busy and running around and so I'm like loving that we're going to talk about balance today and balancing our feminine and masculine energies because that's been a big project of mine for a long time I would say because it's not easy to do in the world that we live in.
R: Yeah, it's not the mode of operation. It's not what we're taught naturally although it's in all things in nature. It is not necessarily the most natural way that we're taught as we're growing up.
A: Right. And some of that's cultural, some of that is familial even. When we talk about a holistic, I think a lot of people know the word holistic related to like their health and like to their well-being and things like this. But how would you describe if we're talking about a business, what does it mean to have a holistic business plan or do you be running your business in a holistic way?
R: Actually, I don't think it is much different than what you would think of when you're thinking of holistic health or wellness because if we're thinking about the body even, very much important to pay attention to the body if you're the business owner.
It is our home, our body. And so of course if we're having health scares or if we're having some kind of medical condition or if we're having stress or inflammation in our bodies, it's going to impact at minimum our productivity, our focus and our ability to be the best expression of who we choose to be in our business.
And so I really do believe that when we're thinking about the word holistic, it's really we're one human being having lots of experiences. We're not meant to compartmentalize into lots and lots of different parts of ourselves.
We're meant to integrate into one experience. And so we need to pay attention to as business owners, not just the strategy, the KPIs, the revenue, the marketing, the personal branding, which are all really important parts of business ownership.
But if we're not looking at our limiting beliefs, if we're not looking at our sleep habits and hygiene, if we're not looking at our physical wellness, if we're not looking at our financial wellness, that these parts of us holistically impact one another and they are in this dance. Maybe not a balanced dance, but they are in harmony with one another.
And so finding that way for you as a human being, which is also part of it, that you need different things than other people. And so there's a fair bit of inner work that needs to happen. A whole lot of mirror holding up and looking at yourself to understand what is right for me as a business owner and an entrepreneur.
What is right for my body, for my business, for my personal brand, as opposed to just doing what someone else tells you to do because they've done it successfully. That's not going to work.
A: Yeah, that's a really great point. I mean, I think that we are unique individuals with unique nervous systems with specific kinds of life experiences. And all of that can be, and I'm drawing from what you're saying here, it can be this unique blueprint of what we have to offer and who we really are that we can be connecting with. Or we can be looking at it as some kind of like problem to be solved or why am I not like, you know, being able to do this plan or follow this structure that somebody else did.
Oh, they had such great success with it. Why am I struggling? And so you're speaking to an individualized way of actually that self-inquiry and discovering inside yourself what's going to work for you and allowing that to be different than what other people are doing, perhaps.
R: Yeah, which even takes a level of vulnerability and self-trust in and of itself because, you know, to go against the grain or to watch someone else being successful and to know that that's not working for me, that brings up limiting beliefs in and of itself. And so there's work in discovering what works for you. For sure.
A: Yeah, it sounds like a process in terms of, you know, people may, you know, hear some of the ideas you're sharing today. Maybe they're even going to read your book because I know we're going to talk about your book that's coming out and it's going to inspire like, oh, wow, I see a new way forward.
And even then as you take those steps in that new way forward, and I know this from the work that I do as well, like we can start to open a door and people can look through and see what's possible.
But then everything that it actually takes to build the capacity and the skill to do all those things that you mentioned to be with yourself in those uncomfortable moments, you know, that are vulnerable where you realize like, oh, I've been in my own way. Right. That's something that can require, you know, time and mentorship and support in order to successfully like move through and relearn and relearn new ways of being.
R: Absolutely. And it doesn't just impact the way that our business plan looks. It impacts our, our muscles and our, our neurochemistry and our sleep habits. And so we kind of have to peel back the layers of the onion in order to look at all those different parts. It doesn't have to be a huge undertaking.
I don't want people to hear this and think, oh no, like there's years of therapy, years of work, years of, of uncovering that can happen when we really live in this integrated way. It actually can be quite efficient, frankly. It's, it's instead of going against the grain and being disrespectful of the reality that we are one human being, having lots of experience.
It actually can be even more efficient to pay attention in this way and less painful, frankly, because you are addressing the reality of who you are and what you need instead of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
A: Love that. Yes. Yes. Music to my ears. The idea of going with ourselves instead of, you know, denying what's going on. Like we can't really change anything or adapt to anything if we don't be present with what is, if we don't accept the limitations that are in front of us.
It's very hard to find an innovation to work with those limitations and move beyond them. We first have to come to that step one, which is just being, you know, aware of what is actually the circumstances of my finances, the circumstances of my life, the circumstances of my mindset, right? And, and my, my individual level of like, you know, I guess you could say like capacity or my ability to capacity.
Your capacity is the best word like handle whatever is that showing up like where am I really at. So, you know, can you share with us a little bit about like your background and what brought you into this practice of, you know, taking a look at some of these things and building that, that capacity inside yourself.
R: Oh, yes, absolutely. I started my career as a mental health therapist, actually. And so I, and a musician, I have pulled a lot from both of those worlds as I have continued to evolve in my career. And so my, my current way of supporting people is very much in a baseline of evidence based practices that come from the mental health world, because, you know, as, as I am alluding to it all comes back to mindset anyway, that that internal world is so important to manage.
And I've always really known that and how it affects your body, of course, as part of that. And then I've evolved from, from being a performer, being a mental health therapist to also pick up a Reiki certification along the way, in addition to then becoming a certified professional coach. And so it's been a journey in and of itself of integrating these different parts of myself into my own unique version of being a business coach.
And because there's lots of coaches out there, but there's only one Rayan Lagatina. And so learning what works for me and calling to me my clients that are impacted by the way that I serve, that's part of the journey too.
A: Yeah, and I love that that's that synthesis that you're speaking of of bringing all of those pieces together and you know what kind of music did you play just I'm curious.
R: I'm a singer actually.
A: Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. What kind of music did you sing? What was your style?
R: What is your song? I actually went to college for vocal jazz performance. So, you know, I got a I got an alto style voice. And there's a lot that I share in my book actually that I wasn't expecting to share around that piece.
Quite interestingly, that you asked me how did I come to this in my own personal way too so there's like the professional journey of being, you know, getting those different certifications going through different education, evolving from a therapist into a coach and a master.
I also had a lot of experiences personally that brought me to this space my own traumas, my own difficulties, one of which was a very challenging circumstance where I was asked to sing on stage in front of over 1000 people for graduation and completely lost my voice in front of everyone.
And how that experience affected first a downward spiral for me and my career and watch myself move away from performing move away from even music for a while it felt unsafe to be involved in music because I had such a terrible physical emotional mental reaction to that trauma that I then spiraled back into myself in a variety of ways, but it was part of my journey and a part of my story.
And now I think of business ownership as really a symphony and the business owner is creating harmony in their life and I'm using some of those musical principles that I once was keeping in an arms distance to help inform the people that I serve. Both the creative entrepreneurs that I serve authors, actors, artists, but also the more masculine driven entrepreneurs who are who tend to be more strategic and and focused on revenue outcomes competition, those masculine elements, they also need to integrate the feminine into their experience.
And so, I didn't know it at the time when these different things were happening to me in my life but I've always embraced the masculine and feminine in harmony, it's instrumental in creating both my 5D and 70 human design. I have masculine feminine in both of those arenas and so it is just a part of my DNA to be in that interweaving of the two worlds. And it's been fascinating to witness this and the business owners that I served and in my own life, frankly.
A: Yeah, well and I love how you're bringing in all of the kind of musical language into this you know talking about harmony and harmonizing. We need different tones in order to create a harmony it's not just going to be one tone.
You know it then when we create, you know a piece of music there's going to be up and down there's going to be that rhythmic pattern of what creates an interesting and compelling melody that comes from those high and low tones and I'm kind of thinking about this in regards to that experience you described that was pretty traumatic in terms of you know when you have something like that happen and it kind of takes away your confidence and it takes away your trust in yourself but also in you know a certain kind of environment or situation.
It can feel really horrible like you're losing a part of yourself like something's being taken away from you by God like it can feel very unfair and I went through that in my own experience with yoga and having injured myself a lot in yoga and yoga was this thing I loved and yet for a while.
You know in my journey I had to step away from it and I had to like really really back off and I didn't have a safe relationship with yoga. But now I look back on that and this is kind of what you're describing I think and you go oh like that.
That injury was a catalyst for deeper healing to occur for me to rebuild and regain confidence in myself in a way that you know and you can say what you think about this in a way that is much much harder to break now. Like you're probably much more resilient now and able to handle like I guess messing something up because you went through what you went through and so you built you know it's like kind of like the scar tissue that we develop when something heals.
It gets stronger and more reinforced in that area and then we're able to handle you know able to emotionally and mentally handle when something goes awry because we've been through that experience already and we know that we can come out the other side of it.
R: I think resilience is the operative word because it's not to say that I don't have moments where those parts of my body and my mind and my emotions go back to that visibility moment and I don't have that.
Yeah, the fight or flight response in my amygdala that says like this looks and smells and seems like you might screw up. I felt acutely even you know I shared I've done so much work to heal that trauma and I am sharing it in this book that's coming out into the world.
I would be I would be lying if I said that I didn't have moments where I feel my throat saying hey are you are you really going to do this are you are you really going to step out on stage again and share your voice with the world at risk of being silenced again, or whatever my body tends to think and so I had to even though I've spiraled out of the bulk of that trauma. I noticed myself learn deepening lessons of it and I feel that parts of those parts of me come to the surface and instead of fighting it now.
This is where the resilience comes in. I'm I'm I have such a strong relationship with this part of me that I can kind of bow to it and say I understand why you're here. I see you and I'm listening to you is there anything that you need to feel safer more more prepared to step out because you know that you can overcome this you've spiraled down and spiraled back up again and so what do you need throat body.
Mind emotions what spirit what do you need to feel safe enough to move forward with this next expansion because you will you will expand you will you will succeed and it doesn't have to be painful or embarrassing in the process and it's okay that you feel that way right now because we understand it. And let's move forward together so it's this exercise of making friends with fear and the trauma.
It's a it's literally a part of you it's embedded in your DNA and so instead of thinking that we're going to start surgically remove that part of ourselves. That's another part inversion of integration is how do we how do we join hands with this thing because it is protecting you from something terrible that happened to you.
And so I want to learn from them and we want to pay attention how do we how do we course correct and bounce back I actually heard someone describe it as a trampoline right that that thing happened you sink down for a second and then you bounce back up again and the more you're on the trampoline the more momentum you can build the more quickly you can move from that thing that didn't serve you anymore that doesn't need to limit you also.
A: Love it. Yes, absolutely. I agree and that's relating so much to what you're saying. I think that we sometimes when we don't have that experience of being able to bounce back you know when those those big things happen and we are still in it. It can be hard to see that we're going to be able to come out of it again and it's through that kind of returning to the pain returning to the trigger and then working through it yet again.
And what you're describing sounds like another layer of intimacy that you get to create with yourself when you are with those parts of yourself that are that are upset and triggered and afraid and you create that intimacy.
And I personally believe that this this process what you're talking about it actually creates a leader a person out there a performer even maybe who has so much more of a compelling energy with their audience or with their clients or with whoever it is that they're standing in front of because they have this sense of courage to be up there. They're they're pulling from that well that includes all of who they are including the parts of them that are afraid or insecure or uncomfortable.
It's allowed to all be there. And in that way it inspires other people to like be their full human as well versus somebody who shows up and you know they're just perfectly confident and they never had anything horrible you know horrible happen or they're or they're in denial of it still affecting them and and they're not showing up in a way that's compelling because people can't relate to perfection people can't relate to you know a perfect person who doesn't have any you know upsets or pains that's not real.
R: Absolutely yeah they say vulnerability creates credibility and I've seen that evolved in my own career and my own personal experience that I am I tend to be an academic you know I have I have a lot of training.
I have I love the neuroscience and the quantum physics I love the explanations the reason behind things and that has a time and a place in someone's experience or it the importance of education and certification and and what you're learning in the process is so important but it has to be balanced in the realness the rawness of being a human too.
You know that the book that I wrote the integrated entrepreneur started out as me delivering a clinically based framework that I have developed over 20 years of being in personal development and it was very buttoned up and like this is this is this is the proof that this thing works.
And what came from that process I was not expecting to share this story about my trauma I was not expect I shared other very deeply personal stories in the book as well as even client stories in the book which it maybe even that is vulnerable in a way because I'm a mental health counselor tend to be very private even with clients and you know in the balance of the masculine and feminine I had to ask of my clients do I have your permission to share your story and receive the gift of their story and their support for my book.
And so there was this even the peeling of back of the I'm in the transformation that happened in writing the book. So as now it's not just facts and neuroscience and figures which is important and in the book.
It is also deeply raw personal stories that share. It wasn't always. It's not only about neuroscience and it's not always easy.
It's not always a straight line. And you can still recover from those challenging parts of your your book and I'm getting feedback in this way that you're talking about where people are connecting deeply with the stories and they're understanding the principles more more fully because they can relate and resonate with the story that comes along with the principle and the guidance that illustrates it and sort of demonstrates what it feels like to have this experience.
A: I think that's so important because academically we can really miss out on that like there's a lot of talking about something and you know the facts and figures around it.
But you know for example like say when you learn Buddhism or something in college like you're not actually meditating they're not actually you know maybe in some schools. But in a lot of them they're just talking about like the philosophy of it and having you mentally analyze it not actually going through the physical experience of what is it to actually experience and feel some of these things that the Buddha is talking about.
You know so what you're describing in your book is that you're taking people through an actual somatic experience relating to what you went through relating to your stories alongside the the actual factual information about how this works. And I think that's a recipe for some some really brilliant outcomes honestly for people getting connected to what we're talking about today.
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A: So maybe we can go a little deeper into in terms of what it means to be integrated and you know we have our right and left hemispheres of our brain we have our masculine and our feminine energy right and all people have this even you know men have feminine energy and women have masculine energy. And what does it mean to be integrated and balanced between these two sides of ourselves?
R: I tend to avoid the word balance especially with the people that I work with because they take it very literally often whether they're realizing it or not they're imagining a scale in their brain that is meant to be balanced at 50-50. And that's not how life works right that relationship is not a 50-50 you give 50% and I give 50% that there's this ebb and flow I almost think of an infinity symbol or again more harmony when we think about integrating those different parts of ourselves.
And yes it is it's very much the balance between or the harmony between the masculine and feminine. I also think about the different time zones that we operate when we're thinking about integration we have our past, our present and our future time zones and our past informs a lot of what happens in the present and can continue to impact our future.
Our presence our body where we're our breath here in the in the moment what's really happening right here and right now is so important to get in touch with if you're going to become an integrated entrepreneur or human frankly.
And then also attending to the future without giving into the temptation to create anxiety or fear about what's coming because the past and the future are basically they're non existent they're not real. The past already happened you can't change it the future is not here yet it's a fantasy. The only thing that's real isn't is the present moment, but it would be disrespectful of reality if we didn't address the fact that the future is coming and the past happened.
And so it's integrating those three time zones into who we are right now and being respectful of all of them as part of it. And the same applies for the masculine and feminine as you mentioned, this isn't about this is a genderless expression of energy.
I actually work with a lot of women entrepreneurs who are more masculine of energy, and a lot of men who are more feminine of energy, and finding their right fit flow between those energies. And for those who are aren't familiar with what that looks like the masculine energy tends to be the numbers, the, the, the drive, the go the providing for this is momentum based.
There's the revenue in businesses as tends to be masculine driven or at least the numbers behind it is because money is actually very feminine of nature. It has an energy behind it itself. And then the feminine is more adventure play receivership it is community collaboration empathy. And so we want to find though the flow between those two worlds in order to have a successful business as well.
A: Yeah, and what you're describing is that it's going to be dynamic, right? Instead of thinking that it has to be equal, right and 5050 and like this perfect balance. So to speak, where you're speaking of is instead of it being linear, it's more of a quantum and it moves and adapts in all different directions.
And I love what you're saying about the present moment, being where you actually have any semblance of control. Yeah, we don't have control over the past, we don't actually have control over the future or other people's actions or what's going to happen at all. And we can drive ourselves crazy if we try to hold on and grip to controlling, you know, something.
But what we can do in the present moment is we can choose how we're spending our time and our energy in this moment. We can be a little bit more intentional about the words that are coming out of our mouth or the thoughts that we're allowing to affect our physiology.
We can tune in and ask ourselves those questions of like what is it that I need right now like you were saying earlier what is it that I need right now on a mental emotional or spiritual level to feel more secure or more safe to go ahead and do this thing to take on this task, make this phone call, whatever it is right.
So maybe you can tell us a little bit about this work of responding to the present moment and the action taking versus the receptivity, because I think that a lot of people are like, oh, what should I do, should I take action right now or should I be in a receptive space what's your take on that.
R: Oh man, there's so much that goes into that the first thing I'll say is that I tend to think of things as an instead of an either or that it's a both and energy and that's part of the that's part of the integration and the holistic like you had mentioned, linear versus or action versus receptivity linear versus more quantum as you said or action versus more receptivity.
And I believe that it is both. And that's really what we do in the work that we that we focus on and so in a business plan, for example, just to make it very concrete. I tend to help my business owners to really look at what are the linear measurements. It would be disrespectful of reality you're in business.
They use money at the bank currency at the bank, and it is you're doing your business your work in order to have some kind of currency exchange. And so it'd be disrespectful of reality if we didn't pay attention to money at least a little bit and money tends to be linear.
And so what are those other linear drivers of your of your business what are those linear goals in your business and what are the nonlinear more quantum approaches. And so we look at what are your self care mechanisms how are you managing your thoughts how are you stewarding your body's needs.
What are you doing to take care of your relationships as a part of the both and even in a business plan. And that speaks to the action and the receptivity to because it can't just be output in the business.
There needs to be actually probably more input, because we can only control what is happening in our physical experience, our personal experience we can't control so much that is outside of ourselves we can't control the market we can't control the weather, we can't control other people when they buy. And so we really focus that on how am I showing up in the world, physically emotionally mentally spiritually, that's really all we can control.
Yes, there's only one thing we control and that's which thoughts we energize. Right, right. That's it. That's the that's the list. Whether whether how we respond is ultimately how it comes down to
A: that's a perfect word for it responsiveness right and how responding and interacting with ourselves and so yeah I mean the capacity to regain or rediscover control in the present moment with ourselves. You know I think that it's, you know, in the work that I do often people are coming to me because they have pain in their body.
You know, and they're like my back or my neck and I can tell their disease stuck tight places in my shoulder, or my jaw or somewhere in my body and it feels frustrating because my, you know, mind or my spirit or my soul feels like, you know, I'm ready for or capable of receiving so much more or doing so much more.
And yet, I, you know, get up in the morning and my back is killing me. Right, why don't I have control over this aspect of my my experience right. And so there's all these different ways that we can increase our capacity to actually have control over what's happening inside our body in the present moment. Right, and I think mindset is an incredibly important part of that.
And when you include a somatic approach when you include actually building your neural pathways to connect with parts of your body that have been frozen and teach them how to surrender and teach them how to relax.
I think that this is an amazing recipe for, you know, exactly what you're talking about here further integration, you know, and, and when you go on this journey and you can speak to this to with like the limiting beliefs that we experienced. You know, and I was recently talking about this in one of my, my newsletter posts is like, you know, we have these beliefs and they often came from like an early childhood experience.
And at the time that it happened, we didn't have this idea of belief, it was totally unconscious, we just had like you had this experience, you know, where you were singing and you lost your voice and it was a fully, you know, raw experiential moment that included thoughts and feelings and, you know, sensations in your body and it was this just intense somatic experience.
And it's only later, as we look back on that event that we can start to give it that name belief and we can start to identify, you know, mentally, like, understand like what came from that.
What ideas did I start making like my reality based on that raw somatic experience that I had, you know, and so, like, as you go through, you know, understanding your own thoughts and feelings and limiting beliefs, right? I think that there's going to be there absolutely isn't you can speak to this, there's going to be emotions that show up. There's going to be sensations in your body that show up.
There may even be awareness of where you've been clenching or where you've been tightening, like you mentioned your throat, right? And so, you know, this, and again, speaking to this, not as like this huge undertaking or this huge scary thing, but just this is part of it, we have to address what's going on in our physical body. And sometimes if we don't have practice with that, or if we don't have that, the pathways to do that, you know, it can be uncomfortable, but it's just part of it. It's part of moving through all of this that we're talking about today.
R: Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I've had the gift of receiving somatic work with you. And you caught me in a moment when you offered that gift to me, that I was actually feeling my throat go through this process. And it was because I was I was done with the book just about to really make my marketing plan about the book.
And so we moved from this phase of writing the book. And there was an expressing that needed to happen in by virtue of writing the book. But next it was, Oh, people are actually going to read this. And I'm amplifying it.
I want as many people as possible to read the book. And so my throat started to respond again. Yeah. And what we want to recognize first is that is productive and useful and helpful. The body is responding to what we what we ask it to respond to. It's our it's, it's a part of our protective mechanism to avoid traumas that have happened to us in the past. And so it's not a bad thing.
And it still shows up. And so you caught me in that moment. And I because I'm so deeply into understanding the beliefs, but also the thoughts that happen as a pattern after the beliefs, the the the physical response that happens as a risk as a result of those beliefs and thoughts and also the emotions and the feelings that come from that as well. It's like a cascade of circumstances. And so the body is interplaying with the beliefs and the thoughts and the emotions very deeply.
And so it's just one piece of the puzzle that makes up your fear response or your or your your experience of life, frankly, and your business if it's applicable. And so you you caught me in this moment where my throat was closing again, and my body was responding.
And we're noticing even the way we speak about our experience, you said my back is killing me, for example, we don't want to be sending thoughts and beliefs to our body that sound like this part of my body is killing me because the body will deliver is what we learn in the experience of working with our body, mind, connection.
And so we want to pay attention to how we're speaking about our body and to our body, how we're engaging with our body. And notice when those signs and signals come up, it is just trying to warn us.
Yeah. So instead of fighting it and creating more resistance and inflammation in the body, we we're gentle and kind with it. We ask it questions.
And we also move with it and give it the care that it needs, the gentleness that it needs so that you can get on the other side of it instead of continuing to spiral spiral down. Because closing my throat right now, and this in the in the effort of bringing my book to the world is not useful, right, not useful for my greater mission anyway, there is a protective element and sure, maybe I'd be safer if I stayed quiet.
But there comes a point when you're on your entrepreneurial journey and you're looking for actualizing your potential, fulfilling your purpose, transcending in service to others, that your fears of and your own personal safety, even your own personal comfort, preferably, they become less important than your greater mission, that you're willing to put yourself through the work necessary to steward your body, your mind, emotions and your spirit in order to fulfill your mission.
And that's where I am in this journey. And so I have to honor and care for my body in the process of calming it down so that I can move forward with the greater mission, in conjunction with the protective mechanisms, but not allowing them to drive the bus of my life.
A: Totally. Yes. And it was interesting because in that session, you know, I don't need to share too much about it. But like, you, you didn't even have to tell me all the story.
There was a little tiny element of like, this is kind of what's showing up for me right now. Right. But we just worked very much with the sensations with the feelings. And then we worked through these movements that, you know, helped your body to process and release that. And because you've already done so much of this other other layers of your consciousness work.
And because you're connected to your body, I mean, I think to be a musician, you just have to be at some base level connected to it. But even more than that, the self care that you are speaking of and your willingness to, you know, take a gentle approach and be softer with yourself, which frankly, some people need to learn that because I didn't know that.
R: I needed to learn that one too. And so it's actually a work in progress.
A: It's always going on. And then, you know, what I what I observed was this how much your body was able to let go in that session, how much your body was able to just, Oh, right, let's move through that.
And that's that trampoline that you're speaking of, that's that, you know, when we practice something, and we can think of, you know, having a trigger come up and having to repeat tending to ourselves and caring for ourselves as we are dysregulated, as we are in panic mode, and then kind of moving through that, that's a practice.
We're practicing taking care of ourselves. We're practicing self compassion, right? And anything that we practice, we are going to get better and better at it.
We are going to become masters of it at some point. And I feel like what you're sharing and what you're describing sharing in your book is really, you know, you stepping into your next level of mastery of this, and sharing the fruits of that with others.
R: Yeah, and it's it was a surprising evolution that I wasn't expecting and really frankly, didn't want to go into, which is like, this idea of sharing parts of your humaneness publicly is actually an evolution in your consciousness. It's an evolution.
It's a trend. It's an effort towards transcendence, which I didn't want to take on at first glance. But now that I have it is, it has been one of the most meaningful parts of this experience for sure. When it is hard at times. It doesn't it has also opened up so many doors and so many hearts in the process that there's no going back now.
A: Yeah, I love it. Yeah. And so we, you know, kind of let's let's loop back around because we've touched on mind, we've touched on body a little bit now on, you know, spirit. And how does it go? How do you feel at this point going through that process of going from a very, you know, structured clinical psychotherapist kind of place in your practice to evolving into coaching to evolving into coaching and offering energy work and and stepping into that space with people. And you know, how do you how do you personally integrate those two parts of yourself?
Because it's kind of like that whole science versus religion kind of idea. And I know you have this and and both. And how do you how do you navigate that? How do you navigate that with clients with businesses and all of that?
R: It's not so much that it's evolved into is that it's this this deepening relationship with that I've always since I was a little girl, been an empathic, intuitive person. And I didn't know what was going on at first, right? I just knew that I had a lot of feelings and that I felt things in big ways.
I didn't understand it. And I deepened my relationship with energy as I evolved, I got the language behind it much later than I had the feeling and the sensation of energy being a present part of everything that we're involved in. Energy is everything. And then the deepening spiritual connection to it, really recognizing that energy is love, ultimately, it is the energy of love or fear, right?
And what that looks like. And so if I am a love being, and I stand for love, and I can learn how to harness that love in service to other people, that is my work, that is the work that I do.
And so not everybody is, it's not necessary for everybody to be open to the Reiki in business, I have some clients who will come to me for in person Reiki sessions, I have some that will send me a message like going into a big test or a big meeting, Ray, can you send me some Reiki today?
And that is something that I definitely offer. I use it a lot for my own self care and my own family's care, all of my children are attuned to level one Reiki and it's one of the gifts that I gave to them in utero. And so there's this this dance of this energy of my own energy being and my own energy body so that I can better take care of everyone else that I serve. And so we're, as I'm practicing what I teach, those that are impacted in my ripple get the Reiki just by virtue of being around loving energy, that's part of it.
And sometimes they will receive energy work with with me and from me. Although I've had, you know, from that spiritual religious aspect, I work with, I have a Rabbi, I have a minister, I have a preacher, I have an atheist, and I have everywhere in between literally.
And so it doesn't it's not necessarily one religion, it is an openness to love is what is one of the requirements of my, you know, working with me is that if you if you are heart centered, loving being, and you can be open to different ways of doing things, I'm not going to push any one particular way on you, because my job is to help draw out of you what works for you.
And so Reiki, emotional freedom technique, those types of things work for me personally, I give you a buffet of options, I ask for your openness. And if I give you something that doesn't feel right, we both say, Okay, what's next?
What can we try next? It's this playground of all the potential and possible ways that you can take care of yourself in service to others from a love driven mission driven approach. That's really, that's really what the focus is. Fantastic.
A: Yes. And this also speaks to this idea that it doesn't have to be just one thing or one way, right, kind of that collaboration of all the different parts of ourselves can come together. And so you have all these different tools.
And you recognize that every single person is unique, and they're going to be providing you with that feedback that says, this is this is for me, you know, and this I may not be ready for right now, or maybe this is not what is going to work for me at this moment. No fly zone.
R: Yeah. Yeah. And having that dynamic presence to be able to respond and be present with that and people that's, yeah, I can definitely relate to that in my work. I mean, I have a very specific modality that I work with that, you know, is really where some for some people, it's exactly what their soul was calling in.
And for other people, you know, they might, I had the experience recently of someone like, it was a year ago, they worked with me for a little bit. And then they were like, Nope, I can't do this, blocked me unsubscribed. A year later, they reached out and were like, I want to work with you again. And I'm like, Wow.
A: It's like they just they were like, I just wasn't ready for that step. I thought I was ready. And then there was still some things I needed to go through before I could be ready to get that connected to my body. You know what I mean?
So I feel like there's a flexibility, you know, that you're speaking to here, that is part of the part of the being integrated idea part of being integrated means that we're allowed to say not right now, or no to something without throwing out the whole buffet, right?
R: Yeah, yeah, there's there's also a seasonality to it, what you're alluding to is that what works for me now is not what worked for me before I had children. And it's not what worked for me before I owned a business. And it's it continues to change as naps change and sports change.
And the business shifts and change and I as I become an author and as I head into the you know, my 40s now, it's different than what I needed in my 20s. And so part of it is a flexibility and a fluidity based on the changes that are happening with you naturally as a human, we don't just find one thing and stick with it for life.
Although some people benefit from that I have, I have one person who has done the same ritual every single morning in the exact same way for many decades, and it continues to work for him. And that works for him. Other people would find that stifling.
And so it's it's really being willing to say, This is what I need right now, I have a personal practice, it's a personal presence practice, where every morning I wake up and I put my hand on my heart and I say, What do I what do I need today physically, emotionally, spiritually to be in the greatest service of all that I connect with today.
And so I ask my body what it needs, what's what's coming in the docket of my care taking, but also my self care, so that I can fill myself up in all these different realms physically, emotionally and spiritually, in service to everyone that I encounter. And so it might change day to day, let alone season to season.
A: Yes, yes, I love that. And, and again, kind of that idea of coming back to what we do have any semblance of control over, which is right now. Yes. Yeah, beautiful. So for someone, you know, there's there's plenty of people who are, you know, it sounds like you work with a wide range of people, people who are full on entrepreneurs, you know, I am my business, this is the whole deal, right?
And then there's also kind of a hybrid of person who maybe all still has their day job and is is doing some entrepreneurial projects. And I run across people like that a lot who are like, Oh, how did you transition into just like this full on entrepreneurship? How do I just like, you know, be able to quit my day job and become my own boss?
You know, for someone who's in that middle space who might be listening, who is inspired by what you're saying, you know, what would be some advice that you'd have for someone who's looking to transition from, you know, a very, very structured kind of environment to creating their own business?
R: One of the things that I talk about a lot is the difference between an employee mindset and an entrepreneur mindset. And there is no wrong or bad. There is not one that is better than the other. We need entrepreneurs, we need employees, they interplay and they need to intersect in a lot of different ways.
It's just that if you're going to be your own boss fully, you have to embrace some different ways of being in order to be successful. I've seen so many entrepreneurs carry their employee mindset into the entrepreneurial space and not be very happy with the experience.
Now a couple examples is that an entrepreneurial mindset, they're comfortable with risk taking. The employee mindset tends to prefer safety structure and consistency. They prefer the paycheck.
They want to know where their insurance is coming from. The entrepreneur, they have to take risks and be comfortable with the ebbs and flows of what happens with the business, what happens with the market. The true entrepreneur actually loves the risk taking. They love the ebbs and flow, they love the freedom and flexibility, and they would be completely stifled by the structure and consistency and safety that comes with an employee mindset.
And so really having a heart to heart with yourself and being aware, am I going into the entrepreneurial world, leaving my nine to five or my career and moving into the entrepreneurial world and expecting safety structure and someone else to make decisions for me, you're not going to be happy as an entrepreneur.
And so you have to learn how to, I actually am a natural employee minded person. I was born and prefer safety stability and security. I had to learn the skills and the ways of being and the mindset. It's a practice for me to be comfortable with repeated decision making, risk taking and inconsistency and what the world looks like as an entrepreneur.
And so really getting yourself clear about how you're coming into this experience is one thing that I would do from a mindset perspective. Are you coming in with a mindset that is not going to be happy and healthy for you as you step into entrepreneurship? That's part of it for sure. Yeah.
A: And then what you're speaking to in your own process with this, with it not being really, you know, your nature to be comfortable with risk taking because it totally is for some people. Some people are just like, I love risk taking.
R: I love not knowing what's going to happen. You know, they're like the extreme sports people who like, you know, downhill skiing or whatever. I mean, there's and then there's those of us and I can relate to this too, who prefer consistency and safety, right?
And and want to know like what's around the corner. And it's a big flex or a big like push to start challenging yourself to build these newer, like kind of pathways in your body to experience that it's safe and okay to not feel safe and okay sometimes, right?
And so it's a nervous system practice as well. When you notice that like, Oh, like I'm about to make a big, you know, investment and I don't know how this investment is going to pay off whether it's a personal investment in your own development, right?
Or whether it's a business investment, you know, in a new product or a new approach, right? And you don't know, you can't know how it's going to all turn out. How can you find safety in your body as you make that decision? How can you find ways to regulate yourself, right?
And what kind of tools and what kind of support do you have so that you can can, you know, build those new ways of being, right? Yeah, it's so interesting. It's a really great example, actually.
So that personal presence practice that I do every day, that is as much a business tool as it is a personal development tool, because I believe that business is a brilliantly disguised personal development plan. And so in the morning, the same same thing, what do I need to be the greatest expression of who I choose to be?
When I was faced with the decision to leave my employee consistent structured paycheck and move into entrepreneur, I did that same thing, which I've been practicing for years. I went within. And I said, body, mind, spirit, what do you need to feel safe enough and stretch enough to move into the next stage of your evolution and become a business owner?
And I thought through this from a mindset of physical and emotional perspective. And what I landed on is that I would feel safer having legal documents drawn to create an escort where I am paid a paycheck out of my business. And I expect the same amount of money that goes into my bank account. And so I still have a paycheck as an entrepreneur.
There are structures, so scaffolding logistically on the masculine side that you can put up for yourself that help not just the central nervous system feel good, but the operations of the business feel good for you. It's a great example of how the personal and the professional intersect in that way from an employee and entrepreneurial mindset.
So I still am taking a risk and obviously the revenue needs to come from somewhere in the business, but my mind and body feel safer knowing what to expect every month in my bank account. And I can plan for my family with that way and create budgets and structures, which is my natural way of being. And so I'm creating the safety and scaffolding that works for me, but I'm also stepping into a stretchier place than I'm used to at the same time.
So it's like creating that bolster of care for me and moving forward into something that feels like unchartered territory. And that works for me. And I do that over and over again, both for myself and the people that I serve.
I ask them, what do you need to feel safe enough? And we don't want to disrespect your central nervous system or your body or your amygdala. It's in there. It's not going anywhere. We need to respect it.
So we honor those parts of ourselves that are trying to warn us that feel unsafe. And we speak to it. We ask it, what do we need? And then we make some reparations and some caretaking that allow us to move forward with what we need to do to stretch.
A: Awesome. I love it. That's, that's wonderful that you're, you know, you're gaining the tools, right from a kind of more the structural perspective and saying, how can we use the structure to support the human that you are kind of going back to something you mentioned earlier that might be sort of fun to play with here. You know, what is your human design? What is your configuration like your profile and thing if you're if you're open to sharing that?
R: Yeah, I mean, I do have I have a masculine the I don't know it well enough to I'm not a human design.
A: Okay, are you like a I says like a two four, a one three, a six two, four, six, you remember that one?
R: I don't actually. Okay. Okay. It was just something that was read to be by a former coach. And what I know is that so the seven D configuration of my human design is the is masculine and feminine. And so it is just a part of who I am. I'm a, I'm a gene key nine. Are you familiar with the gene keys?
A: Yeah, well, I mean, they're, they're based all based on the each hang. So it's like, once you kind of understand one system, you can understand the other system as well. Yeah.
R: Yeah. So in my three D, I'm a gene key nine, which is this idea of there one foot in front of the other, take one stop at a time. And there are a lot of coaches out there that they, they invite people to do this jump off a cliff mentality, that, you know, another person who asks you, you asked that same question that you asked me earlier, which is like, what is that advice you would take for someone who's moving from the nine to five into the entrepreneurial world? I've heard this advice over and over again.
And it's something to the tune of just do it. Take the leap. Yeah, take a leap and know you're gonna get caught. And unless you just do it fully, you're wrong or bad, like you're not doing it right, unless you just go for it and do it. Like there are people that say, unless your priority, your focus is your full focus, and you're not doing it full out, then you're just not doing it right.
It's literally some of the advice that comes out as very masculine approach to coaching. Instead, for me, I help people to identify the small, easily implementable steps that move them forward, which actually creates psychological safety, emotional safety, physical safety, to get to the next phase.
And they still get that outcome. And sometimes the steps are a bit bigger than, you know, the one prior, but safe enough to move forward is really what my Geneke 9 is. It's called the attaining the power of the small is one of my superpowers. And then that 70 representation is a masculine and feminine piece, which I was like, wow, I can't believe after because I had just learned about this actually in 2024.
I was not familiar with the 70 gene keys. And to see right in my codes, the masculine feminine blend, I was like, Oh, yeah, this is this is my life's work. This is I've always been doing this. I've always been in harmony with this. And to see it in my codes was just like so edifying and validating and also encouraging that this this is meant to be my life's work.
A: Yeah, I love that. I feel the same way. That's what human design and I mean, I think of all of these things, there's they're not like the truth. They're like different languages that we have to talk about something that we already know about ourselves. Yeah, we're already experiencing. And it's just a way to sort of look at it from the outside and go, Oh, then I don't have to argue with God anymore.
R: I don't have to argue with myself anymore. I can just be who I am. And maybe that maybe who I am is exactly who I'm supposed to be. And so I find these things very validating, you know, and I'm kind of a human design nerd. So, you know, I will I will be like, maybe texting you and be like, send me your birthday. And I'll look it up. And then I'll like, I have my chart. I just don't I don't have it memorized. I have not flew it in the language yet. Yes.
A: I mean, it's kind of a wormhole, you know, so you can take a lot of time on it if you want to. And I've been at it for probably like, in about 10 years now. So it's, you know, it's been a slow process of just gaining more and more knowledge and having fun conversations.
And, you know, and so I think that it kind of goes back to this idea that you're an individual, we're individual humans. And there's a lot that we have experienced and that we're ongoing Lee experiencing and we're having a unique perception of ourselves, of our bodies and of our reality.
And while that's not fixed, right, and that's something that's ever evolving and ever changing, how can we be real with ourselves and work from that place of like, yeah, maybe first one person, the medicine is take the leap for another person, the medicine is going to be you don't have to jump into the unknown, you can take small little bite sized steps that are going to feel safe to you. You know what I mean?
And, and maybe for each person, there's going to be the dynamic flow of those two opposites, like maybe there's been moments for you as a step by step person where the moment that that moment, it was just taking the leap. That's what you needed at that moment.
R: You're so right. You're so right. And that's really what part of our responsibility is even in of itself is that we have to listen to what do we what is our call right now, what are we being asked to do and what do we need to get us on the other side. And sometimes a more masculine approach is the thing.
And I, you know, my clients often say to me that they, they feel like they are simultaneously hugged and slapped upside the head. I am, I am truly like, come on, let's go, let's do this together. And I'm gonna hold you and hug you in the way, but we are going to get this done. And so sometimes you do need, you need someone to say, you are ready, go enough is enough.
And sometimes you need a little bit more cuddling and like, come on, it's safe, come over here. I tend to be right smack dab in the middle of both of those worlds. And so when when the the student is ready, the teacher appears.
A: Absolutely. I love it. And while so tell us a little bit about, you know, the when the book is coming out, I know there's also a special offer that you're going to share with people about. So maybe that's a good time to do that is tell us a bit about how people can learn more. Sure.
R: So the book is coming out on September 30. I cannot believe it. It's so exciting. It's only a few days away. It's been a long time in the making. And it's it's ready to go. I have it. I have it right here. It exists.
There's only a few copies that are out there in the world right now, but it's coming to print and to digital copy on Amazon on September 30. And the really exciting contest that we're running is that I was sharing with one of my colleagues, Michelle, who is an Airbnb owner about how one of the gifts that I gave myself during this process, this long price process of writing the book, was a series of retreats over these years of writing the book.
As a mother of three children, I have a two or five and a seven year old. Writing was not always easy to carve out time, frankly, in addition to owning a business and taking care of all the business owners that I serve.
And so the book really started with fits and starts, I would have a moment here and I'd write like 20 pages feverishly, and then I wouldn't touch it again logistically for many, many months. Until I'd say, I need to go away, I just need to be have my own space and be quiet and to write. And so we were talking about this, eventually I created a ritual around writing.
But before I got to that ritual of writing, I gave myself these retreats and I was I wrote 50 60 pages during these writing retreats. And so Michelle and I are really excited to be offering a authors or artist business owner retreat, where someone is going to win five days at her Airbnb, to be able to go step away and to do whatever art or authorship you are working on to create whatever you're looking to create at her beautiful lakehouse in upstate New York.
And we're offering that to anyone who downloads and buys the book from the from Amazon, the integrated entrepreneur on Amazon, you can write a review, you get another entry that way, or you can share the contest page tag your friends in it.
So it's very much a contest, you can have up to five entries, and we're going to select a random author, artist or business owner to come and work on their dream and their plan at a beautiful lakehouse.
A: Hmm. Well, I might just have to enter that contest, because I've also been wanting to write a book for like the last two years. And I've got so many projects, it's hard to find the space for it unless I put it on my schedule, I've got to like block out the time, which is what I hear you saying. Yeah.
R: Yeah, it's a blend of the two without a shadow of a doubt that there's that that intermittent ritual that you have to create for yourself. But I am such a firm believer in just how much can get done during a retreat space.
I offer retreats for my mastermind and I go on so many of my own because there's something magical that happens when you step out of the day to day and you give yourself a different space, a different environment to create and just be. There is so much that unfolds in that time away. And so to be able to give that gift as a part of the book launch is really exciting.
A: Yes, yes. Well, congratulations on that big huge step. And for those of you listening who've been enjoying this conversation, definitely check out Raeanne's book. It's on Amazon. We'll be having a link to information about the contest in the show notes, a link to the book. And yeah, and feel free to follow Raeanne if she's on your social media, right? And follow you there.
R: And LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, all the things. Yes.
A: Perfect. Perfect. Check the show notes. And yeah, and check in with yourself today. Check in and ask what do you need to feel more safe, to feel more capable, to feel more confident? What do you need?
Body, mind and spirit.
A: Thank you for this conversation.
R: Thank you for having me, Aimee.
A: Hey there, friend. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I would love to hear your thoughts. Follow me on Instagram at AimeeTakaya and send me a DM about this episode. I'd like to thank you for being part of this somatic revolution. And if you'd like to support the podcast and help more people learn about somatics, consider leaving a review or a rating.
And finally, if you'd like to have the experience of relief in your tight hips or back, and learn to understand what your body is really saying to you, visit, youcanfreeyoursoma.com. I can't wait to share with you what is truly possible. Bye for now.
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