Lauren Leduc Interview Embracing Radical Wholeness S2e40

[00:00:00] Speaker A: My intention really is to help people see the best parts of themselves, even the parts that they might historically have not liked or that they think might be weaknesses rather than strengths. And it's such a beautiful thing having somebody mirror your beauty and your greatness rather than just pointing out what needs to be fixed. [00:00:24] Speaker B: You welcome to supernormalize, the podcast, where we challenge the conventional break boundaries and normalize the seemingly supernatural. Join me, CJ, as we explore less uncharted realms of existence and unravel the mysteries of life. Experience. My treasured listeners, if you have a life story or healing modality or unique knowledge that you'd love to share, reach out to me at supernormalized. That's supernormalized with a Z at Proton me. Let's together embrace acceptance of the supernatural and unusual as what it really is. Completely normal today on Supernormalized, I have the pleasure to interview Lauren Leduce, a visionary yoga teacher, intuitive mentor, and Mama with a remarkable journey of personal transformation. Her work includes trauma informed yoga classes and she is now hosting a renowned teacher training program. And her recent expansion into spiritual life coaching and intuitive reading has also helped her inform herself when it comes to the writing of her current book, which is about to be released. Embody your inner goddess. A guided path to radical wholeness reflects her passion for guiding women and femmes to embrace their power and wholeness. Alongside her bestie Rashida, she also explores spirituality on the your spiritual besties podcast while finding balance through family time and personal pursuits. We delve into her life experience and her drive to help people and talk to her about a book which is due to be released as of the 24 November this year. Welcome to Supernormalize. Lauren Leduc I'm so happy to be here. [00:02:46] Speaker A: Thanks for having me. CJ. [00:02:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm very interested in your story because you've actually had quite a story arc there where you've been through a lot of trouble yourself and then discovered a way in life that helps you to help others and a big part of that is your yoga, mentoring and intuitive work. Can you go through a bit of your origin story about how that all happened for you to lead you to where you are right now? [00:03:13] Speaker A: Sure. So I live in the US, in the Midwest, and it's a very Conservative area. This is where I grew up and very evangelical Christian and that's the culture I grew up in. And I grew up being a very high achiever in school and really just trying to do everything perfectly and right. And at age 17 I kind of what I would say crashed and burned, basically, where I couldn't really sustain this level of achievement. And at the same time, I was learning and growing and exploring and just not feeling like I fit with this maybe story I was given or a path in life that I thought that I was supposed to follow. So I did get very sick. And initially my parents put me in, like, an inpatient program at a hospital. And in this program, it's where I was first exposed to, really any tools outside of prayer and outside of the culture and religion in which I was brought up. So I was exposed to therapy and things like affirmations. And most importantly, I think for me, yoga, while I had heard of yoga before, this was over 20 years ago. And there just was not the pervasive culture of yoga that there is now in the West. Obviously, it was here, but just not in so many people's towns and consciousness now there are yoga studios everywhere, and it was really the first time I got to just sit down with myself and breathe and just have space, if that makes sense. I had grown up listening to music in my room or having space in that way, but the first sacred space I would say that I had had with myself. And while it took me a long time to heal and I went through a good ten year period of a lot of trial and error, it also gave me the opportunity to really rewrite and figure out, who am I? What do I believe? Is there a God? How do I connect in that way? And in that time, I did find some answers for myself. And, yeah, it took a lot of trial and error. Like I said, I started school many times and dropped out. I dealt with horrible anxiety and depression. It was still healing my relationship with my body, with my mind. At the same time, I was experimenting. So it was opening my mind in different ways. I had tried psychedelics in my late teens, early twenty s, a good few handful of times, and that really just showed me a different perspective of things. I wasn't using them as consciously as a lot of people do now, but it still gave me this glimpse into the connected consciousness into now, like, what is now. And I wanted to find a more sustainable way to tap into that in my daily life. That wasn't just like tripping balls with friends. That's not really sustainable. I did do a Reiki certification. I had a friend give me Reiki one time when I was in the Rocky Horror show. I'd kind of pulled a muscle in my neck dancing, and he gave me Reiki, and I didn't know what it was or how it worked, but it did. And several years later, in my mid twenty s, I found a Reiki training, and it was my first exposure to energy work and energy healing and struggling. I just always felt that I could talk about it. I could try to fix things on paper, I could try and fix things in a practical way, but I always felt like I needed to heal spiritually. I think there was just this disconnect from the way I grew up and what I was taught and then how I felt and what I knew at that point. So Reiki was this entry point, as well as yoga into the world of energy, into a more personalized, nondogmatic spirituality. A couple of years later, I had moved all around, going to school, accumulating debt, being horrible to myself, and I decided to move back home, where I really took my healing a lot more seriously, where I tried different types of energy work and therapy, and most importantly for me, started a very regular yoga practice. And that's really where the healing started to accelerate. A couple of years into it, I decided to become a yoga teacher. I had this whisper to do it for a long time and finally listened to my intuition. And once I did that, things really started to line up for me, and I felt in my purpose and my career and my life in general really started to make a lot more sense. So that's kind of the origin story. Now I have a yoga studio. I have for eight years. I teach yoga and lead yoga teacher training. Beyond that, I do intuitive work, which is something that has been incorporated into my work for a long time. But I do more formally now and then have become an author and have this book coming out. I'm also a mom, and that's been a huge part of my purpose. So, yeah, I could not be doing what I am doing now without that initial struggle, without the ten years of just hating myself, really, and trying to figure out how to not feel that. [00:09:43] Speaker B: Way anymore during that time. Did that time come about because of the struggle you had with the faith that was pushed upon you as a youngster? [00:09:56] Speaker A: I would say that is definitely one of the things. I was a dancer growing up, and I wanted to become a professional dancer. My soul didn't want to go right to college like many of us are expected to do. And unfortunately, dance comes with that shadow side of starvation a lot of times, or not treating the body very well. At the same time, because of being in theater and dance, I was exposed to a lot of people that I wasn't exposed to in the church. So I had friends coming out as gay. And to me, I'm like, well, they're wonderful people. I love them, but I'm being taught that it's not okay and that it's a sin and that there's something wrong with them. But I don't believe that in this particular church, you're also meant to believe a certain way politically. And I wasn't feeling that anymore. It's like I was taught this compassion, but I was seeing people not act in that way. So there was this kind of cognitive dissonance that came from what I was kind of taught to be, and then what I was actually seeing as I became older and my mind was develoPing. So I'd say it was a lot of exposure to the world and also just inner turmoil because I still wanted to fit into this person, maybe that my parents would love that would be on the outside, successful, but I just didn't feel like I fit in that mold anymore. [00:11:26] Speaker B: So with that incongruence that caused all of the drama for you in your body and your personality, did that scar your faith at all, or did it actually just convert it into something else that you could actually more tangibly experience? [00:11:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that eventually that was the case, that it converted, I suppose, into something a little bit different or expanded. But for a few years, it was just a lot of. I think I settled into a space of just agnosticism where I just didn't know, and I had to be okay with that. I knew that I didn't believe what I was taught. It was kind of like learning Santa is not real or something like that. But it took some experimentation to figure out what I do believe, and that came with learning about other cultures and other religions, the way that other people live around the world, and not necessarily following that in a dogmatic way, but expanding. What is God or goddess or source? What is spirit? What is our relationship to this as humans, and what am I going to directly experience through my practices and through even the psychedelics as a young woman and then form my own view, I suppose, of what this is. So for me, that's really what spirituality is, as opposed to religion, is this experiential practice of communing with the divine, and that that's going to look and feel different for different people, and it might even change over your lifetime or lifetimes. [00:13:14] Speaker B: What is God, Goddess, the divine to you now? [00:13:19] Speaker A: Hmm. I love the word source because it's, like the source of all things, and it's something that lives within everyone and everything. So I love the indigenous view of, and I know there's many different indigenous cultures, but, like, the overall view of what is it, animism, like just spirit being in absolutely everyone and everything. So for me, being able to connect with that within myself helps me see it everywhere. [00:13:56] Speaker B: Do you have practices that you actually do to assist yourself in connecting to that? [00:14:02] Speaker A: I DO, YES. And I've tried a lot of different things, I think, over the years, but yoga is a very important one to me. WHen I First Started YoGA, OF COuRse, I HaD that Exposure in the Hospital. BUT WHEN I started the PhySiCal Practice, I, OF COuRse, FELT StROnger, MORe Mobile. I felt more peaceful, but didn't quite know why, more connected. And once I started really learning about the philosophy and what Yoga is and what it's for and the path of Yoga, that's what really gave me the tools to connect on a consistent and regular basis with the Divine, with the present, and with that within me. SO THAT INclUDES A LOT OF THINGS. That includes movement, for sure. I THINK INCluDING THE BODY IN A SPiRITUAl PRACTICE IS VERY EFFECTIVE AND REALLY ImPoRTANT. WE'RE IN THESE BODIES ON EARTH FOR A REASON, AND I THINK PART OF IT IS THIS WORSHIP. OUR BODIES ARE TEMPLES. SO FOR ME, THAT'S ASANAS, WHICH IS THE PHYSICAL PrACTICE OF YOGA THAT'S ALSO TAKING WALKS OUTSIDE. IT'S HAVING DANCE PARTIES WITH MY DAUGHTER. IT'S LIFTING HEAVY THINGS. IT'S DOING ALL SORTS OF THINGS WITH THE BODY AS WELL AS BREATH WORK. THAT IS AN INCREDIBLY ImPorTANT PART OF MY PRACTICE FOR ME, JUST TuNING INTO THE BREATH INHALE AND THE EXHALE, IT'S SUCH A METAPHOR FOR SO MANY BEAUTIFUL SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLES. I THINK OF THIS BEGINNING AND SUSTAINMENT AND END AND THE PAUSE AFTER THE END AND THE CycLE OF BIRTH AND DEATH AND REbIRTH. BUT ALSO IT ALLOWS US TO HARNESS OUR ENERGY SO THAT WE CAN HAVE A LITTLE BIT MORE CONTROL OVER HOW WE'RE FEELING. WHEN WE HAVE THAT CONTROL OVER HOW WE'RE FEELING, WE'RE ABLE TO STILL THE MIND AND THEN BE PRESENT WiTH THE SOUL. SO BREATH WORK IS INcREDIBLY IMPoRTANT TO ME. HAVIng CONVERSATIONS LIKE THIS WITH OTHER PEOPLE, CoNNEctION IS VERY IMPORTANT, LIKE BEING ABLE TO JUST LOOK INTO SOMEBODY'S EYES AND SEE THE DIVINE WITHIN THEM. EVEN TO LOOK AT MYSELF in the own mirror and see that when I start to forget. Meditation is extremely important. And there's so many different types of meditation. There isn't really one that I stick with because I feel like I have so many tools, so I like to use different ones for different occasions. Connection with nature, laughing, mothering is such a huge one for me, like being able to see the divine in my daughter and to observe myself as a mother and take sacred pauses and sort of break generational cycles and things like that with the way that I parent her. I think there are so many. Those are just a few ways, but I think they're really infinite ways. And what's going to resonate with each person is going to be different. I'd love to know what you do. [00:16:59] Speaker B: What I do. Okay, so what I do, all right, so I meditate. That's one of my main things. And I swear that by that per day, I try and do it at least twice a day if I can. And I find every time I do it, I call it a reset. It's like I go so deep that when I come back, it's a new world every single time. And that's a major part of my day when it comes to holding that presence. And the other part that I do is every morning before sunrise or just on sunrise, I do an honoring of the planets, of all the planetary day for that day, and the planets overall as well. And for me, that's a way of opening up into the day. And then at nighttime, before I go to sleep, one of the things I do every single night is I offer gratitude to, first of all, all of my ancestors and my angelic ancestors. And then I go on to having gratitude again to all the planets and the planetary energies and the astrology that affects me and how I can work with that, and then to all of the spirit beings that work with me and the angels and saints that work with me as well, and also to my body for keeping healthy and happy. So all of those practices, overall, for me, are a part of. I would call it a part of my religious practice, but it's also a part of my faith, too. I know that this stuff works, so I do it, and it helps me, and I know it helps me to help others. [00:18:28] Speaker A: Thank you for sharing that. I love all of that, and I love the acknowledgment of the planets. For me, I'm not as much of an astrology buff, although I love to follow it. I do follow the moon, and that is an important part of my practice now, too, is acknowledging the moon cycle and where I am in my own cycle and how they relate. And then I think prayer and acknowledging our ancestors and our guides is so important. And, yeah, it's something maybe I don't talk about as much because I'm very yoga focused in my life, but working with guides and now especially working with what I'd call the inner goddess is a huge part of my practice. [00:19:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I would say, actually, yoga is prayer through movement. So you're honoring your body and also the universe by actually keeping your body healthy and happy as well by doing that. And it gives it a vessel for the expression of consciousness. [00:19:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:19:30] Speaker B: So could you tell us more about your recent expansion into spiritual life coaching and intuitive reading and how these complement your work as a yoga teacher? [00:19:39] Speaker A: Sure. I'll start. Just before I was feeling, I think, at the top of my game as far as if that can be a thing for a yoga career. So my studios were doing really well, and I was and still am, but was leading international retreats all over the world and had a popular yoga teacher training program. Speaking about this in past tense, but things shifted really quickly. I will say. Right before they shifted, I felt that my career was in a really good place. I had delegated a lot of things out, had a great team, and it was time to call in a baby. I'd had this little spirit baby knocking at my door for a long time, and she was conceived in March of 2020, just as everything was shutting down. And I had to make a huge shift really quickly in a lot of different ways. So I had to put my business on a virtual model and cancel international retreats. And I had a yoga festival, had to cancel that as well. And then in November, I had her and my Priority shifted. And she was this beautiful gem in this very difficult time where the world was in chaos. And also my husband and I were both entrepreneurs. We're just trying to figure out how to adapt and keep things afloat and keep our people paid and fed and all of that. So I had her, and things wildly shifted for me. And I think she came in absolutely for a reason. She has her own reasons and contracts and things like that, too. But I think as far as my life goes, she was meant to sort of usher me into this next phase of my Dharma or purpose. So I definitely did not want to be teaching a bunch of classes anymore. I wanted to be home with her. I love being a mother. I love being at home. And that side of myself was new and something to explore. So I knew that I'm so passionate about what I do and serving others, I wanted to be able to do a lot more online, not only to be sort of pandemic proof, I suppose, but also to be able to spend that time with her. So while I still have my studio and my teacher training, and I've led a couple of retreats now since things have opened back up, I love working one on one with people and with groups, particularly women and feminine folks, to connect with the sacred feminine. So not only are these practical reasons of, like, oh, I can do readings from home, or I can coach from home, or run programs and trainings and things like that on the Internet, she really helped Usher in this different state for me, or this different energy of being in my feminine and really shifting me from this linear go go person in my career to pulling back and kind of feeling into what is right for my energy and our family's energy at the time. So I started, did a coaching program and got really into that, but I was finding that I didn't want to follow the rules. I didn't want to just ask questions, that my intuition was always speaking, and I wanted to be able to wield that. And I had felt that for years. Like, I teach yoga very intuitively. Intuitive hits came with the Reiki, but I wanted to formalize my training and learn how to wield this tool much better. So I did an intuitive training as well. And that really put me in touch with a lot more of my guides, and it was sort of like when I started teaching yoga, it felt really right. And I love serving people in this way, and I get to combine a lot of different skills and tools that I have to help connect people with their inner divinity, to help them find more purpose in life, to help them love themselves more especially. That's my biggest passion. So it's been a really beautiful thing, kind of blossoming open to this different, I don't want to say different side of myself, but just using it in a little bit different way and to have methodology to use behind it. [00:24:30] Speaker B: Okay, so with this change in your life, do you still work with people one on one or in groups at all? [00:24:39] Speaker A: I do, yes. So I teach at my studio once a week because I love being in person with them. And then I lead our yoga teacher training, which is like half online and half in person. And then I do monthly full moon Goddess ceremonies. That's fully online. So that's like a group container where I offer meditation and some intuitive reading and things like that, and exercises to help people connect with their own intuition, to set intentions, to release whatever it might be. And then I do work one on one people through intuitive readings as well as bigger, longer containers. I call it the sacred Path mentorship, where we really dive into each of their chakra centers and with intuitive reading and with coaching kind of clear blockages and help them connect with their divine spirit and with self love. [00:25:38] Speaker B: Brilliant. Brilliant. Okay, so do you mostly focus on working with women, or do you work with men as well? [00:25:46] Speaker A: It's funny, my focus has been with women, but for some reason, more men just keep coming into my. Coming into my field. So I suppose I'm meant to work with both. The energy I work with most is this sacred feminine energy. But it's important to State that this exists within everybody. It's in men, it's in women. We all have feminine, masculine within ourselves. I just find through my observation and probably through my upbringing as well, that the masculine is much more pervasive in our culture. Things are more linear. There is more like hierarchy, for instance. It's more solar, less lunar. So as I work with people to draw out kind of the opposing qualities, it helps bring in more balance. So I work more with women because I think that maybe because of their hormonal cycles or because of their personal experience, they might be able to feel into that more comfortably, or they might have more of a direct line to it. But I think it's really important for men to also connect with these energies within them, because there might be, like, half of what they have to offer. Half of their gifts aren't quite online yet because we tend to suppress them. In our culture, things like being open to creativity and inspiration, being in touch with our emotions, being in touch with nature, these are all part of the feminine that benefit everyone, definitely. [00:27:18] Speaker B: And being vulnerable as well, that's something that men have trouble being with. So, yeah, that could enhance people and enhance a male understanding, for example, of themselves and what's actually going on for them. Because if you can't identify it, you can't really work with it. [00:27:34] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. One of the reasons, too, I've been drawn to working with women is earlier in my journey, I had never had any kind of concept around goddess work or had never seen any depictions, really, of the divine that looked like me. And while I knew they existed, maybe in mythology or within other religions, I just didn't really have any exposure to it. In fact, I was taught man was made in the image of God, and then woman was actually made from man, not from God himself. So when I first started working with these goddess energies, it was really a very emotional and beautiful experience for me because I was able to see the divine more in myself and myself more in the divine, and to get this really wide picture of what the Feminine even looks like in the divine. I think we think of these diminutive, soft characters when in fact, they're also warriors and demon slayers and teachers and an artist and mothers, and There are so many different facets to what the Feminine iS. And it was really such a healing thing for me to get in touch with these different Sides of Myself. [00:29:05] Speaker B: Excellent. So when you're working with women, can you actually expand on how you help them and guide them to embrace their own power and wholeness? [00:29:17] Speaker A: Sure. So this is kind of an interesting story, at least to me. I wrote my book a couple of years, about a year and a half ago. It's just about to come out called Embody your Inner Goddess, A Guided Journey to Radical Wholeness. And in this, when I was kind of Workshopping some of the concepts from it, I would connect women with their quote unquote Inner goddess, which is this Feminine aspect of their highest selves or of their Souls. So it's almost like their Own personal Deity that lives within them. And it was really a very powerful experience for myself, for my own, and for others. And it wasn't until after the book was fully written and off to the publisher that I started doing this more intimate, one on one, intuitive work with people. And while I might be able to tap into their guides or angels or things like that, my Focus started becoming this Inner goddess. So I connect with their inner goddess and learn what I need to learn from their energy. And they're not like A Goddess that exists within cultures or mythology or within the current Paradigm. They're really this Individual goddess. So it's really fun kind of tapping into that and seeing it. And then they help me do ChaKRA readings. So I look at all of their energy centers, and we see where they might be able to connect with themselves more deeply. We see maybe blind spots they might not be seeing, or we might do some healings on these different energy centers as well. I can also tap into the Akashic records, but really, my wheElhouse, I think, is working with this goddess energy and working with the chakras. They're both energies I've been working with for a long time, just in a little bit different way. So that's what I love doing. And I think coming through my vessel, what makes the biggest impact for my clients. [00:31:21] Speaker B: It sounds like you've got your own practice, which is built around your intuition as well there, with working with the chakras. Is that correct? [00:31:28] Speaker A: Yes, actually. So this is something I hadn't really thought of until maybe in the last year, but I didn't know how to meditate when I first started trying. And it was a little bit different time. This was 20 years ago or so, maybe a little bit more, and I just would experiment. Like, I'd maybe find a meditation in a book or here and there, but I couldn't just go on YouTube and find a meditation. There weren't apps you could download to find them right away. And I would sit with my own visualization. So one of them was, I would visualize white light coming through my crown and then, like, a rainbow being emitted from me. So I was imagining myself as a prism, so this white light coming through and then the colors coming out. And I learned about the chakras later on when I did my Reiki training. So that was really mind blowing for me, of like, oh, these are energies I think I'm meant to be working with because I channeled them somehow, and now they're such a part of my work. But, yeah, I think this has all more or less come intuitively to me. I'm, of course, informed by other people and teachers and ancient practices as well. But, yeah, the way I do it, I think, is a little bit different. [00:32:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Cool. Yeah. You formulated your own method. That's beautiful. So what can people expect if they pick up the book, embody your inner goddess? [00:33:03] Speaker A: Yeah. They can expect, really, to go through this process I just described of connecting with their inner goddess and traveling through their chakra system. So it's set up like a course. It's not really meant to be read all at once. It's meant to be kind of read and integrated over a seven week period. Although you could do Shorter, it could do Longer. I split it up. So every week is focused on a different chakra center, and we start at the root and end at the crown. And every Day, there's a Reading that comes either from a story in My Life, or maybe it's a Channeled writing, or maybe it's kind of Tied into Yogic Philosophy, and it has to do with the Chakra. So, Like, Day one, in the Root, we start with the body, and every Day has an Affirmation. So Day one is, I love my body. I talk about my Relationship with My body and eating disorder and stuff. After that, we do a reflection. So they're usually Questions To Journal on Or to contemplate so that you can see how these Different Concepts Work In Your Life and what your Relationship is to these Different Things. And then there's some sort of embodiment practice every Day, too, to integrate the Information into the body. So that might be a Little bit of Physical Yoga. That might mean meditation. That might mean breath. It might be some sort of action step. Like there's a couple of Days where you're meant to text a friend with various Purposes. So we journey from the root through the Crown with this Process. And in this process, it's not really meant to improve somebody, Although they might see some improvements in their Life or find more happiness. It's meant to help them Love on all of these different aspects of themselves, Especially the Ones that maybe they've been Neglecting or Hiding for a long time. So we don't even really do this Meditation to meet the Inner Goddess. Toward the end, I think it's really important to connect with the Denser parts of our humanity First. So the Body, for instance, and our sexuality and creativity and our Confidence and our HeArts in SErvice. And then we start to go into the Higher Realms. [00:35:29] Speaker B: We'd say it sounds like a well Rounded sort of Embodiment of that Full Understanding of Goddess before you get There. And then you step into the Meditation of the Goddess. So Then the ConnecTion to that is more extended and lived. [00:35:48] Speaker A: I think so. I think that when people are in pain, and this isn't necessarily just for someone in pain, but when they're seeking spirit or spirituality, a lot of times there is pain. And that certainly was my experience. And when you skip over the human parts, you're not really fully healing. You're not really getting the whole picture. And it can feel good to skip over that stuff because it's hard. It can be crappy to look at the different things that we don't want to look at. And maybe we're hiding for a reason. It's hard to look at our trauma. It's hard to look at our inner child like that's in the root, but it's a beautiful part of our healing. And you asked me about my story in the beginning of this, and I really think that the pain is the fertile soil for my roots to root in and for my growth and my journey. And I really think it's the same for everyone else. That we all have pain, we all have suffered, we all have things maybe we have shame about or that we're not proud of, but we can, with compassion, I think, use them as fertilizer for our growth and for what ultimately becomes our gift. We grow so much that we fruit and the fruits are our gifts to the world. I love, like, tree metaphors. [00:37:24] Speaker B: That's good. It's growing on me. Sorry. I would say that people, when they've been through a lot of experiences that have been challenging and come out of those experiences. I think that's the only way you can share to the world in such a way that other people can resonate to those experiences, and they can say, look, someone else has been through that. Because a lot of people feel like they're alone in their world, they're alone in their isolation, they're alone in their depression, they're alone in their loneliness, they're alone in their anxiety. But honestly, everyone goes through these things. And when they hear other people speaking authentically about what they've been through and how they got through it, then they can find a rung on the ladder to step up and find that place of change for themselves as well. So that's great. Now, I was going to say, okay, so you've had a lot of experiences working with people and working with groups. Has there been any transformational experiences which blew your mind completely but you could share without obviously exposing identities and things like that? [00:38:38] Speaker A: Like people themselves or with the group themselves? [00:38:41] Speaker B: People and groups, if you like, yeah. [00:38:46] Speaker A: For sure. It's so funny. As you work with others as well, sometimes we see things and sometimes we don't. So sometimes people will come years later with a story. So that's always so interesting. So I try to not attach too much to whatever happens in the moment because I know that it's not always for me to know, but there have been beautiful experiences. Of course, my first year that I had, my teacher trainees had a group of about 30 women, all women that year, who were learning to teach yoga. And they came from all different backgrounds. We had former military, we had a police officer, we had students, we had moms. Just a really eclectic group of women. And I shared this practice with them called Awaken your inner goddess. And in that practice, we use yoga and movement and breath and mantra to embody the different Hindu goddesses. So we go through really embodied, like, anger practices and strength. And then it gets softer and we yell mantra in this practice, which for me is very much outside of my comfort zone. I'm like a very soft spoken person, and I did ballet. I like to stay composed, but it's always been a good medicine to get outside of that box. And in this practice, they yell a mantra of, I'm strong, I'm beautiful, I'm powerful, I am enough. And we're yelling this, screaming it over and over, and everyone just had tears pouring down their faces because we all know what it feels like to not feel enough. We all know what it feels like to be powerless. And there's something about the vibration of all of these women in chorus, like yelling. That amplified it, I think, for everybody. And it was just such a beautiful transformation to see. And they're all off doing all kinds of amazing things now, and it's fun to watch their journeys. But that's one particular instance I can think of. [00:41:15] Speaker B: Yeah, right. Cool. Cool. When you said chorus, I was thinking, that does sound like a chorus of a song. That would be amazing. [00:41:23] Speaker A: I think we had like Beyonce in the background, but maybe she should take those words. [00:41:31] Speaker B: Excellent. Excellent. All right, so is there anything else that I could have asked you in this podcast that I should have asked you? That you've been thinking over the back of your head. [00:41:44] Speaker A: You'Ve been such a great listener and have asked so many good questions in such a fluid way. So I can't think of anything particular. I'll just share that. Yeah, I think I love working with the chakras, whether you're man or woman and with the sacred feminine concept. But I want to say that everybody has strengths and gifts within them. And I think sometimes when people go to intuitives or go to healers, it's to fix something. And while I want to be of service in that way, my intention really is to help people see the best parts of themselves, even the parts that they might historically have not liked or that they think might be weaknesses rather than strengths. And it's such a beautiful thing, having somebody mirror your beauty and your greatness, rather than just pointing out what needs to be fixed. And I think the book is a really good opportunity to go through that process, too. And I love cheerleading people through that. And I think that once we find these, especially maybe like, our power centers and our bodies, which can be different for everybody, that it helps illuminate everything else and the parts that need to be healed. Right. So that's something I wanted to say. And that being said, I have a quiz on my website that is a chakra superpower quiz, so you can go on and answer a few questions and it tells you what your power center is and gives some suggestions on how to work with that. And I found that to be a lot of fun, Rather than just saying like, oh, this is off balance, this needs to be healed, this needs to be fixed. It's like, no, where do your strengths lie? I think that's such an important thing to know, and it's something we don't always see in ourselves that can take an outside perspective to really feel that. [00:43:40] Speaker B: Okay, can you just say the title of your book again? And when it's going to be released and where people will find it. [00:43:46] Speaker A: Sure. It's called Embody your inner goddess, a guided journey to Radical wholeness. And the ebook actually comes out first on Amazon on November 24, and the hard copy comes out December 1. You can get it on Amazon, but you can get it wherever books are sold. And you can also, if you're listening to this before those dates, preorder it so that it's ready to go. And I'm really excited to share some vulnerable stuff with the world. But also I think this messaging that for some reason or another spirit wanted me to channel through and I can't wait to see and maybe like we were talking about, you don't always know what the effect is, but I hope that there's a beautiful, positive reverberation from these words, from these practices. [00:44:40] Speaker B: I think you're sharing the love of goddess and the feminine to the world, and I think that's definitely going to be a positive thing for sure. Now, people can find you also on your podcast, spiritual besties. Can you tell us a little bit about. [00:44:53] Speaker A: Yeah, so my best friend Rashida and I have a podcast called your Spiritual Besties. And we met actually in my coaching training, and then we did our intuitive training together, too. So we've been kind of besties through this different phase in my life through this expansion. And we talk about all kinds of things. Sometimes we nerd out on philosophy and things like that, but we also do readings on air. We do like chakra readings. And she really focuses a lot on purpose. That's really her wheelhouse is like Dharma and purpose. And we interview great guests like you do, and it's just girlfriends chatting. It's a lot of fun. [00:45:38] Speaker B: That's coOl. Now, in all of your work, you probably found that there's maybe a common thread and a common sort of grating element for women where they all seem to get stuck. And is there any words of encouragement or love that you'd love to share to all of our women listeners for this show, and maybe to the men, too, to actually help them get through life? [00:46:05] Speaker A: Yeah, there are so many things. But the thing that comes to mind for me right now is just that I think in our human forms, perfection just does not exist. And there are a lot of conflicting messages for women out there and for all people of who we're supposed to be, what we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to look, and this perfection just doesn't exist. And it's so much more interesting and fun, and the world benefits so much more if we can be ourselves. And I think it's a discovery process sometimes to figure out what that is. I know it was for me. But when we're in this space where we're accepting of ourselves, we're able to be also in a space of self realization, which is that, yes, we are imperfect and messy and chaotic sometimes as humans. And we're also spirit embodied. We're also soul embodied. We're goddess embodied. And that in itself is all the perfection we need. So that would be my main beautiful. [00:47:14] Speaker B: I'm into that. That's perfect. Thank you so much, Lauren, for your time. I've really appreciated all that you've shared here, and I'm sure the listeners will as well. So, yeah, if there's nothing more to say, then I will say bye for now. But thank you. [00:47:29] Speaker A: Thank you so much for having me, CJ. [00:47:33] Speaker B: I'm certain that a lot of listeners would have actually appreciated what Lauren had to say about finding your way through challenging times and also doing it in such a way that you are also embodying and connecting to a deeper sense of self. I'm sure her book's going to go very well, and I've actually provided links in the show notes here. And I encourage you, please reach out to Lauren if you've enjoyed the show and say thank you to her for coming on personally. Now, if you have something you'd like to share on the show, please contact me at supernormalized at Proton me. And until next week, it's bye for now.