Podcasts about so february

This week Alyssa sits down with Sofia Zapiola, the founder of Active and Anxious, a blog and wellness account focused on mental health awareness. Sofia shares her battle with anxiety, depression and PTSD as well as the hope and healing that has come from her struggles.  Find Sofia on Instagram @activeandanxious and at her blog Active and Anxious ~ living and thriving with mental illness! Light After Trauma Patreon Transcript: Alyssa Scolari: [00:00:00] Hey, everyone just popping on before we get into today's discussion with Sophia to let you know that we did it. We smashed the 3000 downloads goal on the light after trauma podcast. So to celebrate as promised we are having our very first giveaway. So this giveaway is actually a replica of an exact painting that I have framed in my bedroom. So part of trauma recovery, especially if you are in recovery from sexual abuse is learning to love our bodies and be fully in touch with all of its parts. We are letting go of shame. We are accepting ourselves, loving ourselves and finding beauty in our bodies. Thus the first giveaway, we have a beautiful abstract painting with very bright colors. It is a vulva portrait, all about self-love and body positivity. The artist is,, her name is Katie Lloyd. She has an Etsy shop and her Instagram handle is Yoni Art by Katie Lloyd, you can find her on Instagram. If you just go onto my Instagram, which is Alyssa_Scolari_LPC. You also can see pictures of the artwork where you, and you will have the opportunity to win. We are going to be calling a winner this Friday, February 12th. So, what do you need to do to win? It's very simple. All you need to do is leave a in review on the podcast. You can do that on any platform, Apple podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, et cetera. And then simply email me or direct message me on any type of social media. And let me know that you would like to be entered. I also should mention that the dimensions for the artwork are 12 inches by 10 inches and the frame, because you will see in the picture that it has a frame around it that is not included, but this picture is absolutely beautiful. And if it's not your style, not your thing. No worries. Because for every thousand downloads that we get, I will be doing another giveaway. So stay tuned. What's up everybody. Welcome to another fabulous episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host Alyssa Scolari. It is February. We are recording this in January, but it will be February by the time this comes out and I have to say, January has already been quite a month for this podcast in terms of breaking records. I honestly just can't thank you all enough. In the month of January, we have had already well over a thousand downloads, and that is in the four months of the podcasts launch. We had, averaged around like 300, 400 downloads throughout the month. So to head into 2021 with downloads in the thousands is just like extremely humbling. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A thousand times over for all of the support, I love this podcast. It has been, I think, truly one of the gifts that I didn't even know I was giving myself when I started the podcast. I thought that if five people could hear me, then I was doing something good. And what I didn't realize is that I was helping myself just as much as I'm helping other people. So again, just thank you for all of the support. I have with us today. Sofia Zapiola. I said it right? All right, I'm on a roll. So Sofia is the founder of Active and Anxious, which is a blog and wellness account focused on mental health awareness. She holds a BA in psychology from the University of Minnesota and is a trained crisis counselor through Crisis Text Line. She has been featured in Self magazine and was a guest panelist for the University of Minnesota Medical School, where she spoke to the first year class on trauma informed care by sharing her own experiences with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. She hopes to de-stigmatize mental illness and improve the accessibility of mental health treatment and show others that they are not alone. So without further ado. Hello, Sofia. Welcome. Sofia Zapiola: [00:04:56] Hi, thanks so much for having me. Alyssa Scolari: [00:05:00] To the listeners out there, I found Sofia on Instagram and I've been following her for a little while and I just love, I love your work. I love the work that you're doing. So can you talk a little bit about how like just the roots of Active and Anxious and where that came from? Sofia Zapiola: [00:05:20] Totally. So I guess it stems back to, I was 12 years old when I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder and clinical depression. And I didn't really know what that meant. I'm lucky in that my mom has a psychology background. And so she understood what that meant at least but I started Googling all things related to anxiety and depression. And one thing I was Googling was celebrities with generalized anxiety disorder. I wanted to see some sort of depiction in the media and the closest I could find was that Brittany Spears had bipolar disorder. And so I just felt really alone. I didn't know anyone else that was going through what I was going through. At least not my age or someone relatable or accessible to me. And as I grew up and just learned more about anxiety, depression, as my friends started get diagnosed later in life. I realized that this is something that most people, when they first get diagnosed, they feel really alone. And so when I was 22, I decided to be the person that I needed back when I was 12 and start this Instagram account, that kind of models itself after lifestyle influencers, in terms of the pretty pictures and these long captions and everything, but was talking about mental health awareness and my experiences. And it just grew from there. And the response has been really positive, which is awesome. And I'm just really grateful that I'm able to do this work and be the person that I needed back then. Alyssa Scolari: [00:06:50] I love that you say that because that's something that I say to my patients all of the time to the people that I see in therapy. And that's something that I also try to say to myself is that I need to be the person that I needed. And so for you to, come in hot, You're in your early twenties, right? Sofia Zapiola: [00:07:08] I'm 24 right now. Yeah. Alyssa Scolari: [00:07:10] Oh, you are a rock star. So to be in your early twenties and to have this level of understanding of mental health and this fire in you to de-stigmatize, which I think is exactly what your page does. You're very candid. And when I say your page, I meant your Instagram page, but just like Active and Anxious as a whole, that's what you do. You're very candid. You're very open. So what, in 12 years you've developed into this person. I know that may seem like a long time, but to be 24. And to just have the understanding that you have is incredible. Sofia Zapiola: [00:07:53] I think a lot of it stems back to just my mom was a licensed therapist in Argentina. She doesn't practice in the U S she works more in social work. She did some work in child welfare, but just overall this psychology background, she works with a lot of people who deal with severe mental illness. And so she knew exactly what to do when her daughter was diagnosed with things, she knew to take her daughter in, to see a therapist when I was showing certain signs of depression and anxiety that other parents may not have been able to recognize if they didn't have that background. And so because of that, I was able to work with a lot of different therapists as I was growing up. And I became really interested in psychology and studied that in college. Just cause I was so passionate about mental health and just learning more about it and being able to educate others, I became a crisis counselor and I almost just became that person that people knew as oh, if I have questions about mental health or if my friend or my partner is struggling and I don't know how to help them, like I can ask Sofia. And so I don't want to say it became my identity because it's definitely not my entire identity, but it was just like a part of me was. The person that knew things about mental health. And, but it's the culmination of all those experiences I had with therapists growing up, being able to study at this amazing psychology program in Minnesota, working as a crisis counselor, since I was 18 years old, just all together, created this like perfect storm where I don't feel like the ultimate expert because I don't have a PhD in it or anything like that. But if anything, I feel like some people are able to relate to that more because I'm honestly just like this somewhat normal person that has one foot in the field, so to speak. But when I talk about it, it's very candid. It's very sort of layman's terms. If that makes sense. Alyssa Scolari: [00:09:57] Yes. The way that you speak about it in all of your posts. And one of the things that I love the most about your account, and I am going to link her social media handles in the show notes and in the Facebook page, her handle is Active and Anxious. And one of the things I love the most about the posts is that you don't just touch on anxiety and depression. You touch on everything that is in between that can trigger anxiety and depression. You touch on boundaries, setting boundaries with family members like around the holidays. You've talked about body positivity, body image. You've talked about your, so your process of you are fairly recently diagnosed with diabetes, correct? Sofia Zapiola: [00:10:55] Yes. So I. Let's see as diagnosed with pre-diabetes in fall of 2018, just like right after I graduated college and then full type two diabetes, whatnot in that following February. So February, 2019, and that was honestly a process full of guilt and shame because you don't expect to be 22 and have type two diabetes. I was exercising four times a week. I didn't have the healthiest diet, but I had the same diet as like most college students do. And it was just, I almost went into the spiral of like guilt and shame. And the people that knew, had this advice for me, that just always felt so condescending in terms of telling me what I should do in terms of my diet or exercise. I ended up posting about it because it was the same thing as before I was searching, like people with type two diabetes on Instagram. And all I was finding was either weight loss accounts or nutritionists, like trying to reach people with type two diabetes. And so it was so scary to say, like I Alyssa Scolari: [00:12:03] can'teven imagine. Sofia Zapiola: [00:12:03] I'm 22 years old and I have this disease that you associate with old people and like negative health outcomes and all these things. But I was getting messages from people being like me too. You and I literally have no one to talk to you about it because I tried to talk to my friends and family that don't have it. And it just, their advice just comes off as condescending. Alyssa Scolari: [00:12:25] Yeah. Yes. There is such a stigma around type two diabetes that actually people aren't talking about that I don't truly think even hit home for me until you started sharing it. And I was like, Oh crap. Yeah, people really do have that horrible stigma. And when you talk about the guilt and shame, how did you manage to, I don't want to say pull yourself out of that because I don't know if we can pull ourselves out of guilt and shame as much as we can, push ourselves through it. So how did you manage to do that? Sofia Zapiola: [00:13:00] The two things that I can think of that I think made the most difference where number one, I did a lot of research and discovered that it was basically genetic. It was more a matter of when I was going to get diabetes and not if, and so stemming from that, I made a list of good things that like came out of this diagnosis. So I think the statistic is that like one in three adults is pre-diabetic, but very few of them actually know it. And so I said, I know about this and I know about this early, so I can make sure that I'm taking, whatever precautions or procedures that I need to so that this isn't like a huge surprise and a lot more severe when I'm older. I'm lucky to know that I have it. I'm lucky to have healthcare that allowed me to get tested for it at this age, I'm lucky to have continuous health care so that I can consult with a physician continuously. And so just realizing this is not the end and this is also not all my fault. And I don't mean to push all of the blame off because it's so much more nuanced than that, but just realizing that this could be a more sort of positive thing in my life. And it still is pretty hard. Like more of my friends now know that I have diabetes. I like am much more candid about mentioning it a lot of times though, people assume it's type one until I specify. And so they'll ask me questions about things that are specific to type one diabetes. I'm like, I can't answer that. But hopefully just cause I think my generation, like more and more people are going to get diagnosed. And so I think it's going to be similar to my experience with anxiety where, like I found out about it five, 10 years before my peers did. So if I have the advantage of knowing early, then at least I can do something to help all the people that come later. So maybe they don't have that same sort of spiral of guilt and shame. Alyssa Scolari: [00:15:10] Yeah, exactly. Did you find that...so just going back to, when you said that you had lots of people reaching out to you that were like, me too, this happened to me too. I was diagnosed with this as well, and I have nobody to talk to did that also help to bring you out of the guilt and the shame. Sofia Zapiola: [00:15:29] I think so, even if it's more, just a thing of, if I'm going to deal with this, it's helping people .That's ultimately all I can ask for, I tend to always focus on the positive. I learned a long time ago that focusing on the negative or complaining just does not work for me. And it's not the type of lifestyle that I want to lead, but being able to have those reassurances and especially when I make those really scary posts that I'm like, who is going to see this? What are they going to think about this, to be able to see that. There are people that saw it and it really made a difference for them. And it really resonated with them is what I'm truly hoping to achieve. Alyssa Scolari: [00:16:14] Yeah, you are vulnerable in ways that are so helpful to others. And it's incredible that you are able to do that and you have this personal and professional experience, which I think really makes you like a powerhouse in this field. And so you are, you work for the Crisis Text Line. Sofia Zapiola: [00:16:43] I used to volunteer for them. I stopped at one point in college where my mental health was getting really bad. So I felt that I wasn't able to help others. And so I went through the training when I was 18 years old and my first semester of college, it was a 40 hour training. And then I volunteered consistently for about two years. And so I think if I look at the statistics, it's, I'd had like more than 200 conversations with people that texted in crisis. And so that was super fulfilling and also just really it opened my eyes in terms of people love to gatekeep what a crisis should be, or what qualifies as a crisis and Crisis Textline is very much, if it's a crisis to you, it's a crisis to us. And, I think that maybe your situation objectively isn't as bad as another one that doesn't mean it's not valid. That doesn't mean that you don't deserve to share your feelings and get support. And so just being able to talk to people that are going through things that might seem very small to others, but being able to see how this is like this thing that might seem small to us is truly blowing up their lives was I think really great in terms of my general understanding of how we all deal with mental health and how mental health treatment, and needs to be able to address all sorts of issues. And also just to be able to de-stigmatize all sorts of issues and not just the things that you objectively look at and go, Oh, that's terrible. Alyssa Scolari: [00:18:23] Yes, that is one of the most profound statements. And to the listeners out there, I encourage you to hit pause. Go back 30 seconds and listen to it again, hit pause, go back 30 seconds and listen to it again, because that is one of the most validating statements that we can tell ourselves. And we can tell others because I think that there's like this objective understanding of what it is to be in a crisis. And I don't even know where that comes from, perhaps just like society. And we tend to beat ourselves up. And judge others as well as a result of this idea that only certain things qualify as a crisis. Whereas a crisis is different. It's more about perception and less about reality and more about emotions. And it's, if somebody is in a crisis, death or crisis, and that's valid and. I don't know, part of me wonders that if we all had that understanding and that like piece of knowledge, that just because this may not be a crisis for you doesn't mean it's not a crisis for me and vice versa, maybe life would be just a little bit less difficult. Sofia Zapiola: [00:19:38] I think it kind of connects to PTSD and how that has historically been treated and continues to evolve. Cause like it came from Shell Shock Syndrome. So it was associated with veterans and people who had been in combat situations. And now I think there's more of a wide understanding of people that have been through situations of like violence or assault that weren't associated with war can also have PTSD. I still have friends that have gone through, sexual abuse and have doctors tell them like, Oh, you can't have PTSD it's just for veterans. But at that point, I think that's on the doctor. That's not on society as a whole. Alyssa Scolari: [00:20:19] Absolutely. I lose my mind when people say that these days I'm like, hold up, sit down. Let's talk. Sofia Zapiola: [00:20:25] But I think just people beginning to realize that you can have an overall, like great life and just little events that you may not have thought anything of at the time can affect you years later and give you post-traumatic stress symptoms is what I tend to call it. If I don't want to label it as like PTSD as a whole. And so I see a lot of people that struggle with guilt because they don't understand why they're depressed because they've had a really great life. And I think that translates over as well, because I also, like I had a very privileged upbringing. I have parents that are incredibly understanding of my mental health issues and that doesn't necessarily mean that I didn't have situations during my childhood that were invalidating or somewhat traumatizing that I didn't really realize until later. And so as more and more people begin to realize that you don't need to have this big catastrophic thing happen to you for your sort of post-traumatic stress to be valid, or just to justify taking care of yourself and doing healing activities that you might associate with PTSD. Alyssa Scolari: [00:21:35] Yeah, absolutely. And you also are in recovery from PTSD as well, correct? Sofia Zapiola: [00:21:42] Yes. So I was sexually assaulted when I was 18 years old in college. I did not realize it until I was 20. So about a year and a half later. And I did get pretty significant treatment for it. I did EMDR, which I highly recommend. I have a post on my blog all about my experience with it because people ask me all the time what it was like, or if it was worth it. And so I totally say yes, I think that was a major turning point for me in terms of, I used to not be able to go to the grocery store. Without, if someone got too close to me, I would freak out and have to leave, which when coronavirus started, I was like, finally, everyone understands what it's like to be me and get anxious when people stand too close to the group. Alyssa Scolari: [00:22:26] Six feet apart! Sofia Zapiola: [00:22:28] Exactly. And so after EMDR, I was really able to detach from that thing of being terrified of just everything around me, but there are still just times nowadays where people get too close to me, people touch me and I'm not expecting it. And it just sorta sets me off. Sometimes it's one day things will set me off another day I'll be totally fine with it. And so it's a process and I feel like I'm lucky that I'm past what I would consider, like a turning point where it's not really interfering with my life on a daily basis, but it definitely has been an entire process. Alyssa Scolari: [00:23:05] It's such a process. It can be a lifelong process I think, you know depending and it's just that concept of what you say of like how some days are okay. And some days you're not, I think that's really important as well for people to understand in PTSD recovery or post traumatic stress symptoms, which is that just because it's okay to be touching somebody one day doesn't mean it's going to be okay every day. It's like this roller coaster for sure. Sofia Zapiola: [00:23:39] And it also just the way that it affects your relationships, for the rest of your life. In terms of, I spent a lot of time in group therapy and something we just touch on so much is if you're making new friendships or new romantic relationships, it's at what point do you tell them. Like, how do you explain this? How do you explain that? Like one day I may be totally cool with being intimate and the next day I'm not, or I think I'm okay. And then in the middle, I have to say, you know what, like I can't today or whatnot. And so it's just even if you think that you're over it, these things come up that you realize like, Oh, my life is forever different because of, my PTSD essentially. Alyssa Scolari: [00:24:27] happened. Yeah, absolutely. Especially when it comes to being in a romantic relationship or being intimate that's absolutely what it's like. It's funny that you should mention this because I think in the episode that we have that just aired, episode 26 ,was an episode that I did with my husband, where we talk about from his perspective, you know what it's like for him to be married to somebody who has complex PTSD. I have a history of childhood and adult sexual abuse and those moments were real. Those moments happen. There are some moments where I'm like, okay, I am comfortable with you. Even non-sexual touch, holding my hands. And then there are moments where he will go to hold my hand thinking this is okay because I grabbed her hand earlier and I'm gone like gone, don't touch me. Your brain is forever changed. And that's not to say that recovery isn't possible because you've come so far from where you are, you were 18 when you said your sexual assault come so far. And it sounds like the group therapy was particularly helpful for you. Sofia Zapiola: [00:25:44] Definitely. I think it all stumps to what I'm trying to do and seeing that you're not alone, but just having a space where you can talk about these things and just realize like other people deal with this and honestly, get advice from people because they'll say here's how I explain it to my partner and they seem to understand and take it really well, or just getting support and validation. If you're saying like, I try to explain this to a new like potential partner and it did not go the way that I expected. And to be able to have people tell you that, like you're not overreacting. Like it's okay to expect that people are able to respect your boundaries and what you need in that moment. And so I'm just overall a big fan of community and I don't necessarily think people need to share what has happened to them in order to be valid or to truly heal. I think everyone's process is completely different, but since I am comfortable sharing, I figured that's something I can do. And I think it does also help my healing to just be able to get it out instead of before. I would just think all day this particular thing about mental health and I feel like people don't understand, and instead I can write about it, I can ask other people about it and. Yeah, just overall has really helped me. Alyssa Scolari: [00:27:08] Yeah. There's so much power. For some of us, like you said, not all of us in speaking, like actually speaking out loud and I feel the same way that when I talk about this stuff, it helps me heal and feel so much less alone, which is really the whole point of what you're doing, which is to let people know. And it's also the whole point of this podcast as well, which is to let people know that they are not alone. And also that there is hope. There is hope for them. And that's one of the questions that I have for you is you have such positive vibes and such a positive outlook. And one of the things that you said earlier was, I decided a while ago that staying stuck in like the negative thought patterns, just wasn't going to work for me. So you tend to do that cognitive reframing and you take the best out of what's given to you. Are there some days where it's so hard to do that? Sofia Zapiola: [00:28:21] It's been enough training where nowadays I recognize them immediately. And if I have an anxious thought or I'm thinking like, Oh, nobody likes me. I'm able to stop myself and say, okay, what is the evidence to support that? And normally there is none. And so I can say, or something that I used to like to say whenever, how it's some sort of inconvenience. I was like, Oh, I just want to die. And that's not true at all. I did not want to die. I did not have any sort of suicidal ideation, but it was just like, what I really meant was I wish the world would pause right now. I wish I hadn't done that. I wish I could take a break. And so I started instead saying if I caught myself saying something like that, I stop and be like, no, that's not what I want. What I would like is for everything to pause. Or, for that not to have happened or whatnot. And also just something that, I don't know if it's as common now it is, but like in college, a lot of my friends were saying like, it was a common thing to be like, Oh, I'm trash. And then you like point to a trash can. And you're like, Oh, that's me. And I couldn't not get behind that because even if you're joking, Your mind starts to believe it. And that's also something that I did is I used to have really bad self-esteem. And one thing that I did, one of many was just one day decided that I was like the best or at least was going to act like it. Even if I didn't believe in myself and I'm a Leo, so that was a lot easier for me to do than it might be for other people. But just one day I I thought I was being obnoxious, but everybody else was like, yes, queen. Like they were totally behind it. And so I'm like, Oh, people really like me. I really do think that I'm awesome. And so I highly recommend, I just, even if you don't believe it yourself, just putting out those kind of "I am the best at what I do." Alyssa Scolari: [00:30:16] Yes. Sofia Zapiola: [00:30:17] Whatever affirmations you need. Alyssa Scolari: [00:30:20] Yes, there is something to be said for affirmations, even if you don't believe them. And I can't even believe these words are coming out of my mouth because six years ago, if you had said the word affirmation to me, I would have rolled my eyes so hard and been like, Ooh, No, but there's something. There's something to be said for it. It's that whole concept of fake it till you make it. I may feel like I'm trash, but I'm actually not going to say that. That's not really what this is. I'm going to put out there that I am competent. I am great. I am worthy. I am loved people care about me. I feel like I do that all the time with this podcast. I, like when I first started this podcast, I was like, who am I? I'm like, I'm some lady from New Jersey who is talking about trauma, but then when I started to get feedback, I'm like, Oh, maybe I do know what I'm talking about. So I could totally relate to that. Sofia Zapiola: [00:31:23] I think it also another part of my life, which I equate to having boundaries, but it's much easier to do as an adult, but I am very intentional about the people that I spend time with. It's also a lot easier for me to do as a solo entrepreneur. So I don't necessarily need to deal with coworkers that I am not fond of or have negative attitudes or whatnot. Alyssa Scolari: [00:31:48] It's the best. Sofia Zapiola: [00:31:50] But even, even when I was like, was an employee or what not just what I could control in terms of it doesn't mean you need to cut everyone out who like is negative, but just in terms of who are you spending time with. Who are you making plans with. Who are you continuously communicating with. And if those aren't people that like make you feel warm and fuzzy inside, when you see them, then maybe reevaluate it. And so being positive is a lot easier to do because the people around me are generally positive. And even if they're not, or even if they say things that are triggering for me, I'm able to have conversations with them to respectfully say, I feel this way when this happens and maybe that wasn't your intention, but I just wanted to let you know. And overall, I think that's just improved my life and everything about it really. Alyssa Scolari: [00:32:52] That is a golden nugget of advice for, and in fact, this conversation is really, so much about different ways to protect yourself and your peace and that's absolutely surrounding ourselves with people who will hype you up, who will listen to you, and who will respect your boundaries. That's another thing that you are amazing at educating people on is the concept of boundaries. I really do feel that there are many people out there that. And I also feel that this is a cultural thing where some cultural, like in some cultures, boundaries are not at all acceptable. And I think you're really good at teaching the importance of boundaries and being able to use them as a way to protect ourselves our mental health. Sofia Zapiola: [00:33:48] I would credit that both to just growing up with my mom who had this whole background. Yeah. And not only psychology, but she used to teach a lot of classes on parenting and to survivors of domestic violence. And so I learned about domestic violence and emotional abuse and manipulation from a very young age. And so I was able to recognize that when other people may not be able to recognize that something is emotional abuse, because it's just what they've always known. And then also, I think just growing up in the time of sort of social media and people sharing online, I think a lot of what I've learned about setting boundaries and what I deserve, I got from Twitter and Tumblr. And so it's interesting because I honestly think sometimes that I learned more from like websites than I did from like my college education or at least more kind of stuff that's applicable to my daily life in terms of I don't think about the amygdala on a daily basis. Whereas that's something I might have talked about in class much more often, but just being able to get opinions and advice from people all over with all sorts of different life experiences. So I wasn't limited to just what my culture was or what I had grown up with. And I think it also just makes me a lot more understanding that everyone's background is different. And so In terms of harm reduction, like things that we may see as really negative or really negative actions that people take are actually informed by environments that they grew up in and just perspectives that they have that are different and not necessarily correct, but it just helps you understand other people better. And I don't mean to say that to excuse like heinous behavior, but just when people do something that you might consider a betrayal or just as harming you, being able to understand where they might be coming from and why their intentions may not have been like what you interpreted them as. If that makes sense. Alyssa Scolari: [00:36:06] No, that makes perfect sense. And I think that's really helpful as well. I think that's very helpful for people to hear. It's certainly helpful for me to hear it because sometimes I tend to, especially after sometimes I find that for those of us who, have extensive trauma and have been for lack of a better word, wronged by people. We tend to jump right to assuming what the intentions of others are. So I think that's very useful advice. I know I totally did that slash still do it. Sometimes I have to work on being like, all right, slow your role. So I think that's really helpful. So you are in Minnesota. You live in Minnesota. And what would you say is like the long-term goal for you? So as an entrepreneur, like where do you see yourself? Sofia Zapiola: [00:37:02] This is so funny. Cause I was talking to my mom about this morning, about how I literally do not have long-term plans. I used to be the person that had her entire life planned out and I realized that I did that so that I did not have to cope with the present and essentially what happened is I was in college. I had this entire sort of five-year plan for myself. I was going to go to graduate school at first, I was going to do aPsyD. And then I worked in a research lab with graduate students and they were studying executive functioning, but they were not...phD takes a lot out of you. They were not functioning, so I said maybe not. So I was like, okay, I'm going to go immediately to get my master's and all these things. And I just was so depressed and so anxious that I ended up after a fall semester, I came home for winter break and I enrolled in intensive outpatient program for behavioral health. So I stayed home for the beginning of that semester. I took two online classes because I still needed my student health insurance, but I had no clue if I was going to return back to Minnesota, or finish my degree or what I was going to do. I was applying to transfer to colleges closer to home because I'm from California originally. And so I had this plan and suddenly I had no plan suddenly I had no clue what the future looked like. And that was really hard for me. And I just realized that I can't plan. And so at this point I have goals. Some of them I have ideas of how I'm going to reach them, but no, like specific plans and things have always tended to work out for me. So I just keep believing that things are gonna work out for me and things will come when they do, but it is just rough to decide do I see myself living in Minnesota for the longterm, if not, where would I live? Because I'm also thinking about going to grad school either for, to become a therapist or licensed clinician or for a master of public administration to do more like administration of sort of social services or mental health treatment or whatnot. I wouldn't even know what state to prepare to get my licensure. And because I have honestly, no clue, I will say that like my favorite place is Santa Barbara and I could totally see myself like moving there if not retiring there, but I really don't know in the meantime, what that looks like. I'm just working on building my business and just building a life that I'm happy and fulfilled by. And the goals tend to come when I'm ready for them. Alyssa Scolari: [00:39:46] Yep. I'm such a big believer in that. It's like that saying "You make plans and God laughs" and it's, God, the universe , whatever one may believe in, if one believes in anything, we make plans for ourselves and they never work out anyway. But it's also in the spirit of cognitive reframing, which you are extremely great at it's also exciting because I can definitely relate to that. That's where are you going to go? What are we going to do from here? And it's I don't know. I'm just going to see where tomorrow takes me. And then the next day after that. And we'll just see, because for all of us, I think all of our possibilities are endless and that's not a bad thing. Once we let our anxiety go and realize we can pretty much do whatever we want in this world, it becomes so exciting. You have a million opportunities ahead. Sofia Zapiola: [00:40:43] Yeah, I know it's. At the same time, it's a little bit overwhelming or just, I don't know, to see things happening. Like I have friends who are buying houses are getting married and I'm absolutely so excited for them. And that is what they wanted, but I have no clue when that will happen for me. But at this point it's not really something that's a priority in my life. And so yeah. Sometimes people get annoyed that I really cannot like give them timelines. And, but really the only person that like is allowed to get annoyed, that I don't have a timeline is myself and I'm not annoyed. Alyssa Scolari: [00:41:22] Exactly. As long as you're not annoyed, then that's okay. That's all that matters. That's all that matters. And I did want to ask, you said that you had received EMDR, could you just give a brief explanation to the listeners out there who might not know what EMDR is and how it helped you? Cause this is huge in the trauma fields. Sofia Zapiola: [00:41:47] I normally explain it in layman's terms or whatnot, which may mean that my analogies or whatnot are not exactly correct, but I think they're close enough. And this is something I was introduced to because of my mom. So she actually did it a year or two before, and she said, I think this could really help you. And then also just in my group therapy situations, there were people that had done it. So essentially, you work with a therapist trained in EMDR and they use what's called bilateral stimulation, which often is them holding two fingers in front of your face and then moving it from the left to the right. And you're following it with your eyes. So it feels right. You're watching a tennis game. If you can't do that with your eyes, sometimes they'll tap your right knee and left knee, like essentially it's like right side of your body, left side your body being stimulated. And you're thinking about the traumatic event as this happens. And so I believe the idea is that, like it, the thing about trauma and why it continues to trigger us after the fact is that our brain is not able to process it. Like it would any other interaction or memory. And so it almost just forces you to process it. So it's not triggering anymore. And it's really rough. I did it over winter break in three weeks, meaning that I was having sessions like twice a week. I can't remember exactly how many hours I did o it total, but it was a lot. And it was, my therapist told me to treat it like as having surgery. So I took a lot of naps. I could not drive myself to my appointments because I was just too exhausted after the fact to drive myself home. I had some really bad depression after the first couple sessions which kind of makes sense, because I was forcing myself to confront all of this trauma that I had tried to avoid for so long. But then you reach a break point, you keep doing the thinking about this situation that was like, while doing the bilateral stimulation until it's not triggering anymore. The other thing you can do is re-imagine it. And so it's funny. I had a situation where I was being sexually harassed by boys in my seventh grade class. And I was really frustrated by the teacher not doing anything about it. My therapist asked me, who is someone that would have done something about it that was in your life. At that point, I was like my field hockey coach. Like she would not have stood up for that at all. So now if I think back to that memory, like I think of my field hockey coach, like coming into the classroom and being like...which did not happen. And that's a huge part of what EMDR is supposed to do. I don't think it's necessarily supposed to record new memories, but like being able to reframe things and that's essentially how it helped me. Alyssa Scolari: [00:44:50] It almost sounds, and I am not trained in EMDR, but it sounds like it's just the most intensive therapy because it is forcing you like here you are processing everything fast paced, double time. But at the end of it, it's ultimately very healing. Sofia Zapiola: [00:45:09] And it's hard because in terms of treatments for PTSD, there aren't a lot. And the ones that are widely known are really hard. It's mostly like exposure therapy, which is also very hard on the patient. And I'm very lucky in terms that I had a break from school. I didn't have anything to do for three weeks. I had parents that could drive me to and from my appointments. And so it may not be necessarily the right choice for everyone. And it.Is brutal when it's happening, but like the way that my life after the fact, in terms of like before there were days where I could not leave my apartment, cause I was too scared of what would happen if I went outside and that didn't happen and I was having less nightmares and flashbacks. And it also just helped me heal some traumatizing things that I had not recognized as trauma. So like I went into my sexual assault when I was 18, but then as we were digging deeper, we realized like, Oh, this situation from seventh grade is also affecting me. And so you also go chronologically. So by the time you maybe get to the things that are more freshest in your memory, or in my case, like the most serious I had already worked through a lot. So it was easier to get through those by starting from when I was younger, but yeah, it can be really helpful, but just honestly, any treatment for PTSD is going to be rough. Working through mental illness is just hard. I don't think people necessarily realize that it takes a lot more energy to work through things than to just sit with them. Like it's a lot easier to just, even though it's really inconvenient to be depressed. It's a lot easier to sit there in your depression and like actively work through your thoughts and develop like coping mechanisms and try coping mechanisms that you didn't necessarily want to try and things like that. And so doing things like EMDR, like the intensive outpatient program that I did , honestly so much, energy, so exhausting, but ultimately so worth it. Alyssa Scolari: [00:47:12] Ultimately lifesaving because It's ultimately what allows you to thrive and what will help you to have really healthy relationships in the future? Yeah, it's very hard. I'm glad that you pointed that out because it is whew...I'm terrified of EMDR. I have not done it for my PTSD because I'm like, I don't know if I'll make it, but I know there are people that do it all the time. I just happened to be much more hesitant about it. But I just think that you have an incredible story. You are incredibly uplifting and empowering and intelligent. And I can't wait to see where life takes you. We don't know where it's taken you, but I know it's taking you somewhere good. I know that. Sofia Zapiola: [00:47:59] Yeah, overall I'm excited. And hopefully for me as someone who like does struggle with imposter syndrome and like other things that I think we all struggle with, like being able to hear like you are making a difference. I hope other people listening to this, realize that if you think "Oh, who am I to be doing this?" Or whatever things imposter syndrome is telling you, I don't go out into the world being like, people are going to give me praise, but then when it comes, I'm like, Oh yeah, I am doing that. Alyssa Scolari: [00:48:28] Yes. Yes. Let's normalize imposter syndrome because I think that we all have it at times, but that doesn't mean that we're not doing good things in this world. So I cannot thank you enough for coming on the show today. If people want to follow you, because do you have any other socials aside from Instagram? Do you haveTikTok as well? Sofia Zapiola: [00:48:55] I have a personal one, it's not mental health focused. I do occasionally do mental...I did an antidepressants as a sexy Halloween costumes, a Tik TOK that was pretty well received. But those, I normally just post on my Instagram because that's where I put everything. The hard part is I have personal accounts. I have this mental health account. I have my business accounts. I have a lot of social media. Alyssa Scolari: [00:49:24] Oh, wow. Okay. So where's the best place for people to follow you? And is Instagram @activeandanxious is that? Sofia Zapiola: [00:49:34] Yes, for mental health content. It's definitely @activeandanxious on Instagram and the blog is http://activeandanxious.com/ Alyssa Scolari: [00:49:42] Perfect. I will link all of that for the listeners out there. Thank you very much for coming on. Sofia Zapiola: [00:49:49] Thank you so much for having me. This was so fun.

To egg you along on our #tbntbookchallenge for 2021 we will be putting up a 30mins show at the end of each month that can get your juices going for the next month. So February's challenge is to read a book by a Southeast Asian author or set in Southeast Asia- we concentrate on Indochina for this episode

✴️Episode #33✴️

Janelle Hardy is a dancer, artist, and writer who teaches the Art of Personal Mythmaking, a transformational memoir-writing program. She loves weaving embodiment prompts together with creativity and ancient tales (like fairytales/ myths/ folklore/ etc) as a way of supporting growth and healing. This interview features a 7-minute guided visualization to unblock creativity by tapping into the body. GUEST LINKS - JANELLE HARDY janellehardy.com The Art of Personal Mythmaking Outline Your Memoir free workshop HOST LINKS - SLADE ROBERSON Slade's Books & Courses Get an intuitive reading with Slade Automatic Intuition FACEBOOK GROUP Shift Your Spirits Community BECOME A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/shiftyourspirits Edit your pledge on Patreon TRANSCRIPT Janelle: So this is a really round-about sort of story because I didn't really know when I started teaching the work that I do, that it was actually about memoir-writing. I'll leave you with that statement and then circle back to it again. Slade: Okay. Janelle: I'm from the far north of Canada. The far north-west, which is the Yukon Territory, and for context for people that aren't Canadian (even some Canadians don't know where I'm from). It's beside Alaska and above British Columbia. It's beautiful. It's so wild. I'm not living there now, but I talk about it because I feel so connected to that place. I'm also from a family... I think I have a common experience to a lot of people in North America and in colonized countries where my ancestry, you know, I'd be considered white, but my ancestry is varied and mostly unknown. There were some family secrets that were whispered as I was growing up. That experience of growing up really attached to a landscape. And then learning that my roots in that landscape are only as deep as my grandparents having moved up there and met each other and settled down there, and wondering, Who am I? Where did I come from? And then struggling with some health challenges that didn't feel like they belonged to me really kind of pitched me on this path of curiosity and inquiry and kind of roaming all over the place in terms of what I studied and where I lived. So... See, this is the trouble with collecting my thoughts around all of my offshoots of interest, which, for a long time, really mystified me. I was really into painting. I was also really into writing. I was also really into dance. I wanted to be a dancer. I also wanted to live in other cultures, so I was an exchange student to Japan and to Russia and to another part of Canada, Ontario, which doesn't really sound like being an exchange student, but the Yukon is really different than southern Canada, in terms of lifestyle and how people think about themselves and their relation to the country that they're in. For example, in the Yukon, we refer to 'going outside' as leaving the Yukon to the rest of Canada, or outsiders coming to the Yukon, right? So there's a real strong identity wrapped up in being a Yukoner. And then, the other part of my realization was, I feel this intense claim to being a Yukoner to being part of this world, and it actually doesn't belong to me. There's a history of First Nations people there that is thousands of years old and is being erased and denied. So how can I reconcile my love and longing for this place with the understanding that my roots don't originate there and I don't get to claim it as only my own. All of these curiosities and wonderings pushed me out to study and travel and do all sorts of things, including becoming a single mother at 23 and having chronic fatigue. Throughout all that time, the one thing that kept me steady was a creative practice. And it didn't matter what the creative practice was. I'm a really big believer in creative energy and the life force, that kind of erotic creative life force that's in all of us. When it's in flow, we get to choose the medium that suits what we're trying to express best. And for some people, they just latch on to the one medium and they're a writer and that's all they are. Entirely. For other people, it's kind of peripatetic and maybe a bit dilettantish. Sometimes I've labelled myself as not being able to commit to something, but I've let go of that label and realized that I have the ability and desire to use different mediums to explore different facets of my creative energy, depending on what it is that's wanting to come through. So I might go through a phase of dance and choreography, which happened a lot in my mid-20s. That's a time when I earned a masters degree in dance. And then I really got into painting. And then I got a horrible creative block for years, where I had all the ideas and I actually couldn't write. I couldn't paint. I couldn't... It was so painful. It was so painful, this state. But it also taught me a lot. So I felt the bubbling force of my creative desiring, creative energy, and I had all the ideas and I encountered my own resistance and procrastination, no matter where I went. During that time, some of the jobs I was doing involved writing for a local coming events magazine and a couple of national magazines. What I noticed was, while I really enjoyed it, and for some reason was able to write about things when I was being paid, although the pay was terrible, but I was able to do the task when I set the intention outside of myself. And then I also became really angry that I couldn't prioritize my own desire for creative expression enough that I could work on my own projects during that time. I was only able to do it if it had a functional function in society, which was making some money and being of service to an employer. So all of that to say, most of my writing has always been creative non-fiction. It's almost never fiction or fantasy or imagined stories in that way. It's always been about finding a way to share an experience I've had in the world, either my own personal experience in order to understand myself, or, in the case of when I was writing these profiles on artists that were coming to perform in the Yukon, interviewing them and being able to describe their personality, physicality, art and the venue in a way that would invite people in. Slade: It's kind of freaking me out how much you're really speaking to me in this moment. I've been working a lot with issues around the struggle that I have, writing fiction, versus all of the prolific amount of stuff that I put out into the world around my paranormal memoirs, and Shift Your Spirits, and these interviews. And I can write articles. I can write blog posts. I can write for this audience because, like you said, it's sort of my job and there's something very liberating, weirdly, about, it's an official thing and I have to do it every week. I didn't even really think of it in terms of the blocks that I have around my novels as being particularly about something attached to, Oh it's just this thing that I'm making for myself that doesn't have this official, sanctioned place to be in the world. It's not being asked for by other people. It's something that I'm bringing through for myself. And it was really interesting. I don't remember the exact words of how you said that, but I thought, Oh! I get that. I understand that. That's a piece of the puzzle for me. So the wild synchronicity is that you and I are here, speaking for the very first time ever, and we're having this conversation. And I had just told you before we started recording that I have had an energy healing session, a clearing, around creative blocks. And I've also been to a chiropractor and a massage therapist yesterday, because there's a physical manifestation in my neck, like nerve impingement and my spine and neck. You... Something I want to say really quick and then I want to bring you back to this idea of blocks and how they're related to the body, but I wanted to say, when you were talking about your journey and how hard it was for you to sort of justify the idea of committing to one form of creative expression, one of the things that was a real turning point for me in my life was when I accepted the fact that I couldn't choose and I didn't have to. And that I would be all of those things together, and that's just what my path was. That, you know, I am an intuitive, and a novelist, and a interviewer voice talent. You know? Whatever! I am all of those things and I think most creative people are really eclectic. And sometimes the things that... And this is something I've been talking about a lot with clearing creative blocks. There is a purpose that you choose for yourself and then there's sometimes a purpose that's chosen for you by the world. And I feel like, as creative people, sometimes it's that hit song, it's that one performance that you did. It's that one job that you landed that just was the right place at the right time. And maybe you become known for that one thing. And people ask that and expect that of you. It becomes this identifying thing that YOU didn't necessarily choose as much as IT chose YOU. So it makes perfect sense to me why you're all those things. And knowing that you work with creativity and writing and mythmaking, and that you talk to me about how you work through creative blocks through the body, makes complete sense to me. That you're a dancer. It really is the intersection of all those things, right? It's you being a little bit of everything that you are. At least to me, in this moment, it's what you represent. To get back to this idea of the creative block and how it's connected to the body, talk to me about, first of all, when you were really blocked, what you discovered set you free. And then how you've learned to guide other people through that. Janelle: Okay. That's a really good question. My answer won't apply to everyone, but I think there's a lot of useful tools people listening can get out of my misery. Slade: Yeah! Absolutely. Janelle: Being creatively blocked as a creative person, number one, I think it actually makes us sick. Because it takes a lot of effort to shut the flow down. Being in the flow and having energetic as well as physical movement as a constant experience is actually our natural state. But we live in cultures, and by saying 'we', I'm kind of speaking to the experience I grew up in, being in North America, in an English-speaking culture colonized originally by England, and Canada, still being governed by England, tenuously. So we have a cultural inheritance that is really damaging. And the cultural inheritance is the idea of productivity being important in service of capitalism, of making money, of being an employee to someone else, having skills that someone else wants to pay to make money off of you for. We also have an inheritance of domination and we carry with us... And this is most intensely felt for people of European white ancestry, but anyone of colour growing up in a culture like this also receives these unspoken rules and values as well. We grow up learning that self-control involves contraction, tightening and dominating. Ownership of our body and our emotions and our inner state. We grow up understanding that what is considered attractive and valuable and wonderful in our culture is really limited. And if we don't fit, we need to feel shame and try to improve ourselves. Can you kind of get a sense that all of these non-verbal values that we grow up with involves tightening and shrinking and contracting and shutting down, in order to be okay, or be acceptable? Slade: Umhmm. Janelle: So with this kind of cultural inheritance, as well as a lack of deep grounding and roots, most of the cultures living in the Americas of all backgrounds no longer speak their indigenous languages. My ancestry's not English. It's quite a mix, but Scottish people never spoke English. Welsh people never spoke English. Arcadians never spoke English. There's a small bit of First Nations in my ancestry from Quebec and Canada. They were not English-speaking cultures. When language is lost, we also lose a great deal. We lose music, we lose language. We lose a connection to our roots. And then all we have to grasp onto, and we lose our stories. All we have to grasp onto is this very one-dimensional colonizer culture that really profits a lot off of teaching shame and shrinking us. The way that that relates to creative blocks, I think, is that it's really hard to be in flow if you feel like you're not good enough in any way. What some people do is, they figure out compensations around the tightening and the contracting and the shrinking. But then what happens is the creative flow comes and goes in 'bursts of inspiration' and flashes of insight and really intense, forceful rush of creativity that people get, afraid of not jumping in and staying up all night, buzzing away with it, because if it goes away, when will it come back? It might be three more years, right? We have all these ideas about our inherent creative flow that are warped by a constant experience of being taught to shut down and contract and deny that flow. In our bodies, we really feel it through tightening, through physical tension, even though most people in North America live very sedentary lives, there's actually no reason, if someone is doing a lot of sitting or desk work, to feel as tense as they do. As a bodyworker, I've spent 12 years working on peoples' bodies hands-on, it's astonishing how much tension there is in people that actually don't use their bodies. Part of it is related to this idea that we need to make an effort. We have to be appearing to be working hard. We have to be tightening up just in case... It becomes internalized. 'If anyone looks at me, I'm clearly a hard worker because I appear that way because my brows are furrowed while I tense my shoulders and type.' Or whatever it is. Slade: Right. Look busy. Janelle: Yeah. Looking busy. Busy making... That's a whole other tangent of how much energy gets devoted to making ourselves appear to be busy rather than just using our precious energy to create and do the work with ease, right? Back to getting creatively blocked, these are all things I've figured out as I've done a lot of healing work, offered it as well as received it. And had the excruciating experience of being blocked. Being blocked, the flow was locked up but it's like it's boiling away inside. The other things that really stopped me from just creating were perfectionism, this idea that it has to be brilliant and wonderful or it's shameful. Which, again, goes back to the cultural ideas of, it's not okay to just play. It's not okay to experiment. We have to have an idea and execute it as if it's the greatest thing ever. And how is that even possible when we're stumbling along learning a process, right? I got trapped in perfectionism for quite awhile. I also got trapped in being too serious. So being serious. I'm an empath and a highly sensitive person and introvert, so seriousness comes quite easily to me. Actually, one of the best antidotes came from a mutual friend, Anna Holden, who said, 'Cultivate a sense of amusement.' Being serious is not a good thing when you already tend to be on that side. But there I was stuck, well before I met Anna, being too serious. So I would have these light-hearted happy ideas and then I'd crush them because they weren't serious enough, they weren't... It's not really art if it's not serious! So I crushed those impulses and I just got caught in this spinning circle of contraction and perfectionism and seriousness. The thing that really helped, receiving bodywork really helps. Loosening up the physical restrictions helps with the energetic flow as well. I can't remember how many years ago, I had a summer up in the Yukon. I was still living up there. It's so beautiful up there. It never gets dark. It's just incredible. I didn't have any money. I didn't have a lot of work going on. I was also solo-mothering my daughter but I had time and I had art supplies! I didn't have money for extra art supplies but I had these watercolours. I had a whole bunch of watercolour paper, because my other problem was, I would collect things for the ideas. So I was always collecting stuff to collage with but then not collaging. I was always buying bits and pieces of art supplies but never allowing myself to have the pleasure of making art. I hit this point of deep frustration and fury and irritation with myself and I was like, 'UGH. I'm just gonna sit outside in the sun this afternoon with my paper and my pen and my paint brushes and my watercolours and a jar of water and I don't fucking care what comes out. I'm just gonna sit out there with my stuff and see.' And then, this is the liberating experience was, I started drawing feathers, and colourful circles and balls. I just let it flow. The nasty, critical perfectionist mind, of course, was still hanging out in there. That little eyeball's watching when I'm creating, saying things like, 'What the hell, Janelle? Feathers? Circles? Happy colours?? This isn't you. This is so... This is stupid! Stop it right now!' The part of me that was so tired of that mean, vicious voice shutting me down, it's like, 'I don't care. I don't care. I'm just letting things come out and I'm as surprised as you are that I'm drawing pretty, colourful feathers. But I don't care. I'm just gonna let it go.' I had to let go of my egotistical ideas about my fancy, serious artist creative projects that were gonna wow everyone, and just be okay with making pretty pictures for awhile, you know? Slade: I can so relate. I mean, I've had a lot of conversations this week with me as the patient, you know? Me as the client, talking about this issue with perfectionism and the paralysis that comes along with that. The desperate need that you... It's not like you're not aware that you're doing that to yourself. You KNOW that you are and that's what's so frustrating is that, like, 'Oh! How to make this shut up??' I think it's interesting that you said, really early on in our conversation, we literally make ourselves sick. Because when I was at the chiropractor yesterday with my neck locked up, which is still, it's still sore to turn my head and all that. And that's a common thing that happens to me. That's a place in my body where anxiety tends to go. Some people have stomach stuff. Some people are like neck and shoulders people, or back or head. There's different places in the body that tends to manifest, but mine is always that spot. My first instinct to explain what had happened was to be like, 'Oh, I hurt myself working out.' Because I do work out a lot and I can overdo it or do something with bad form and get a little bit of an issue or something. And that was the first place that I wanted to blame it. It wasn't until I talked to the energy worker, and again when I was talking to the body worker last night who was adjusting me, they were both challenging me that the blocks contracted muscle. The issue was that, like you said, everything was clenched. I was being challenged to accept the fact that this may not be a sports-repetitive-motion injury at all. This is stress induced. This is psychic. And when I say psychic, I mean that in a big term. I mean that in the fact that we can tie ourselves up in knots, whether you believe in psychic abilities at all, you're still capable of mentally, like you said, shrinking yourself. The issue of making yourself small so that you are more acceptable in some way... Janelle: Mmhmm. Slade: It's like all those themes are playing out for me. So I'm sitting here listening to you talk about that and I'm thinking, What a beautiful synchronicity for me to be having this conversation with you right now. I'm really curious. You talked to me about a kind of guided visualization that you do when you first start working with a group of people or some clients before doing a workshop or something like that. Is that something you'd be interested in kind of walking us through right now? Janelle: Yes! Slade: Let's do it! Janelle: I love doing this. I'll give just a little bit of context first... Slade: Okay. Janelle: ...about why I think it's so important to include the body in everything. Slade: Yes. Janelle: Number one is, our body is our ONLY home in this world and we seem to forget that a lot. Number two, back to the cultural stew that we're growing up in, we also inherited these ideas that rational intellectualizing and the thinking functions of ourselves is more important and more valuable than the body-based knowledge and experiences that we also have. So I feel like, bringing the body in is simply reminding people that I work with, and myself, because I can fall off of remembering this easily as well, but the body is JUST as important. If we include our body, the body's psyche, rather than being floating heads and thinking brains, forgetting about the body, we just feel so much better and also intuitively, gut-feelings wise, clairsentience, these are ways of knowing that come through the body first. And if we don't learn how to tune in to the body, we miss out. So for this visualization, first off, are you sitting? Slade: I am. Janelle: Okay so we'll do it from a seated position, because I'm sitting as well. You mentioned that your neck and your upper back often gets uncomfortable. Can you describe just a little more about what's going on? Slade: There's a tension between the shoulder blades and up into the neck. You probably have experienced where you wake up one morning and you can't turn your head all the way to one side or the other without experiencing it being like locked, you know? Having a crick in your neck is how we say it around here. Janelle: Yeah. Slade: Yeah. I asked the body worker last night, I said, 'What's the technical term for that?' She said, 'I think it's nerve impingement.' Yeah, does that help? Janelle: Yeah, it does. So one of the premises of the kind of bodywork that I'm trained in, which is Hellerwork Structural Integration, also known as 'rolfing', is that everything is connected to everything else. So it's never just where the issue is that needs attention. This may or may not help with the crick in your neck, but I know it'll help loosen things up and for everyone that's listening, if you're seated, that's the place to be for playing along with us. Because I'm going to describe this visualization from a seated position. Slade, I'll get you to notice where your sit bones are in relation to the chair. It's easier to tune in if you're sitting on a hard chair, but it's okay if your chair is soft. What you want to do is really have your whole body stacked over your sit bones, so that you're at the highest point. If you're not sure where that is, all you do is let yourself roll back on your pelvis so that you're sinking onto the fleshy part of your bum. You'll notice that your whole body starts to sink and your back rounds forward as you do that. So just take in a nice breath. Actually, if you let your head hang forward, you get to experience a lovely little stretch down your neck and all the way down your spine and through your shoulders. It's kind of a luscious thing to do. What we're doing is a pelvic rock. And then you're going to start rolling forward, tipping your belly forward, and you'll notice, slowly is better, you'll notice as you roll forward you start to get taller. This is how you know where your sit bones are and whether you're on top of them or not. Because when you're on top of them, you're at your high point, the tallest point. Just for contrast, you keep rolling your pelvis forward. You're kind of tightening your lower back and pressing your belly towards your thighs. You'll notice they start to sink a little. Your belly feels like it's spilling out onto your thighs. I'll get you to just tilt that pelvis back until you reach that high point again. And then you're just gonna do another pelvic tilt, rolling back, this time keeping your attention really in your spine. So noticing all the incredible possibilities for movement. Often our spine gets viewed as a one-unit rigid sort of thing but the reason we have so many vertebrae is because we want to have so many options for movement, so many joints to be able to turn and twist and arch and contract. So just notice the incredible ability for your spine to move, and also, really noticing those frozen stuck spots too. And then bringing yourself back on top of your sit bones again. I'll get you to draw your attention down into the soles of your feet. You're just going to press one foot into the ground. Let it go. Press the other foot into the ground. What I want you to notice is how pushing into your foot starts to move your pelvis which starts to move your spine, if you let it. So remember this: a lot of embodiment work and connecting to the body is learning how to let go of all of the layers of tightening and contractions. It's never actually about adding more effort. It's always about noticing sensation and movement, and where you can let go of armouring and tightening and efforting to hold yourself together. Get yourself together. That's a really common thing people say. And that involves a lot of tightness in the body. So as you're just pulsing from foot to foot and noticing the very subtle ways in which your spine is moved by what you're doing in your feet. What I'm going to get you to do now is bring your inner eye right into your tailbone. You're going to notice the tailbone hovering under the sacrum as the bottom of your spine. Draw that inner eye up into the sacrum, which is part of your spine that is fused to your pelvis, right? This is why when you're rocking your pelvis back and forth your spine goes along with it, because it has no choice. If we don't have movement in our pelvis, we don't have a lot of movement in our spine. So hips that are a little more wiggly than our current culture finds acceptable is actually ideal. Draw your attention from your sacrum up through your lumbar vertebrae, which is your lower back. These are big bulky ones. Just, in your mind's eye, picture, even if you don't really know what they look like, just picture these great big bones with these amazing cushions in between them. The joints have a sponge that is designed so that it absorbs pressure and a downward movement compression. And then it has the ability and leads the release of an upward lift. You can move your back as well as you're doing this pressing down, and picturing every single little disc between your vertebrae all the way up your spine, squishing down on them. Lift, an upward movement and so much spaciousness, right? Now I'll get you to bring your attention up your spine to where your ribs join your spine. The really beautiful thing to imagine is that your rib cage is not a big block. It's more like a bellows, an accordion. If you slowly twist from side to side through your shoulders, what you'll notice is, your rib cage basically goes along for the ride. And as you're twisting, allow your head to keep reaching back so you get a little bit of a stretch. You might also notice where you're a little limited in motion. As you're just doing a gentle rotation, a twist from side to side through your rib cage, keep your attention in your spine. Imagine that the twist is only happening from your spine. And then the ribs, as they're attaching to your spine, they kind of fan out. They have a capacity for way more movement than we allow. They fan out as we twist away to the side and then they come back in. There's also muscles between every rib that has the capacity to expand and contract. So if you take a really big breath in, and really breathe and notice what's happening in your ribs, but also send that breath into your spine where your ribs attach. And just notice. It's all about noticing, and then exhaling. Just do your breathing at your own pace. And then just doing a little rotation in your spine between your ribs. Noticing the movement in your ribs from your spine. Drawing your attention up to your neck and to your head, floating on top of your neck. We often separate the neck from the rest of the spine by naming it the neck, and having the idea of a stopping point at the top of the shoulders and a stopping point at the base of the skull. For this exercise, I'll just get you to imagine there are no stopping points. So when the neck is moving, it is in response to the movement in your mid-back and your mid-spine. See if you can draw in this elegant idea of capacity for movement as well as compression and release in the cushions between the vertebrae. Invite a little more freedom in. So most of this is slow, steady and gentle. And it's all about bringing your attention inside your body. Do one little last scan of your spine. Just noticing, and then opening your eyes if they're closed. If they're open, just kind of sharpening the focus. Letting your eyes land on some sort of tangible object in the room, and just noticing three details about it. And then letting your eyes land somewhere else, noticing another three details, specific details. And then bringing that attention that you're sending out through your eyes back to your ears, into this conversation and the more mundane regular world way of connecting. Slade: Lovely! That was wonderful. Thank you! relaxing sigh Now I have to remember I'm in the middle of an interview, right?? That's so cool. Too bad it's not on video. It would be quite an interesting thing for people to have witnessed. That is very cool. I'll put something in the introduction to prompt people who might be driving that that's coming up and that way, if they want to wait and do it. OR if you're driving and you just listen to that, and you're like, Oh that was really cool, go back later when you're home and do that as a guided visualization. There is a guided visualization in the middle of this episode! That's so cool! So how does that help with the creativity? Janelle: It just does. That's my fastest answer. More specifically, if you think of creativity as being a state of flow, unblocking flow in the body unblocks flow creatively. The other really cool thing is that, especially if your creative energy and output has been generated more through thinking and through head-based processes, it's like we just opened a few doors and windows to give you a better view, give you better access to your creative energy so you're getting more of it. Slade: Ooo I just saw this cool image in my mind's eye of like, when you have a door window open at one end of a space, and you go and open a door window in the other, you create this draft. You create literal flow. Like, it will slam the doors closed. Janelle: Yes! That's perfect. Slade: Very cool. You talked about somewhere in some of the material I was reading of yours, you have this phrase, 'letting the body lead you towards your stories'. What does that mean? How do we do that? Janelle: Okay. You can actually, what I just walked you through, that visualization, this is fun. You do something physical. You have a pen and paper and a timer. Right after that, you're in a bit of a different state, right? You do some flow writing. And if you keep your brainy brain part of things out of it, the part that wants to figure it out and is dreaming of writing awards already, if you keep that out, you do some sort of physical exercise and then you go straight into flow writing. It's like unwrapping a present, because something will show up. And if you stay open to not-knowing, it's really thrilling what will bubble up and come out. Actually, you mentioned you work out a lot. You can actually play with doing that after a workout. Or if, I don't know how you work out, but if, say, one day it's a legs day or something, you can very explicitly have the intention that you're gonna really tax your legs, you're gonna focus on that part of your body, and then you're gonna let your body write through you. You're gonna let those legs tell you something about them, or let them release a memory or story. It's pretty fun. The delight is just in the utter magic of what happens when we let ourselves be led and guided by our body, instead of trying to force it. Slade: Those of you listening who do my energy reboot are probably noticing the similarities. One of the things that I recommend to people to do to reconnect to their creativity, it's not so much about being blocked. Because obviously I can't be giving advice about that just yet. But as far as reconnecting to the creativity, or reconnecting to your sense of your Higher Self speaking to you, I recommend a combination of walking meditation with timed proprioceptive writing. Janelle: Yeah! Slade: Those two things in tandem, and I say, don't overthink it, just do it. It may not happen the first time, but what will emerge is through that grounding exercise, being in the body, you actually reconnect your antenna, so to speak. And then the writing allows you to start to translate that, to give a voice to record it and let it through. One thing attaches the hose and the other thing sort of turns the knob and lets it flow out. Does that make sense? Janelle: Oh yeah, total sense. I'll add a clarification to writing and staying in the body, rather than kind of tapping into a more unseen sort of energy or force that's more outside of the body. I totally agree with you. The body grounds us and you can be a more clear channel for that kind of guidance. And if you want to really specifically stay with the body, in your writing, and really tune into the body's psyche's stories, guidance, etc., it helps to just focus your attention in sensation and then be really specific with details when you're writing sensory details. So whatever's coming up, always asking the question, so allowing the flow to come out, but having a, in the back of your mind, just this reminder of, Oh, it was a beautiful day, so what are the specifics? What tells me it's a beautiful day? And what will tell the people reading this, if they ever do, it's a beautiful day? Or, Oh, my leg was sore. Okay. Let's get waaaay more specific. What part of the leg? What does sore mean? What's the sensation? Finding words to describe the physical experience. That will help to contain that kind of flow writing within the body. Slade: Well it's interesting too because for story telling, I mean, if you were editing a piece of fiction, one of the things you would look to make sure that you're doing is giving your reader multiple sensory information, so you know, to ground them in the story, to make sure that you're introducing smells and touch. And that everything isn't just always somebody looking at someone else, or thinking. You have to be really conscious to put that in. And I know everybody thinks that this magically happens, but sometimes you do have to consciously remind yourself to insert that. We have a tendency to focus on one clair sometimes, more than the other. We're either very visual or very feeling, sensory. And sometimes you have to balance those out with whichever one you don't see showing up. Does that make sense? Janelle: Yeah. It just makes it richer. Slade: Yeah. It's gonna be better for both you, as the person creating it, and if it finds its way to an audience, then they're going to be able to inhabit your experience that much more easily as well. Oh gosh, I love talking nerdtalk about writing. Janelle: It's fun. Slade: You're hitting all the buttons because you've got the psychic and the bodywork and the intuition, all the stuff, so we're loving this. Tell me about this transformational memoir writing process that you do, called The Art of Personal Mythmaking. I know you have a workshop that's kind of specific to a time of year and everything, so tell us about that and when you're doing it. Janelle: Okay. This is kind of a fun story too. So for a long time, doing all these different things, I thought, What the heck? This doesn't make sense. When are the threads gonna cross? And then about three or four years ago, this process showed up to me. I can't really claim credit for the personal mythmaking process. It just showed up to me as it's own entity. I offered it in person as a workshop for eight weeks. It was not about memoir writing at that time. I didn't think it was anyways. There was a really great response and I thought, I could teach this online! So then I kind of revamped it. I offered it again. I still didn't know it was about memoir writing. Everything was about writing your life story, healing through examining life's story, tapping into the body and using creative writing and I have a bachelor's degree in anthropology, so I love being an anthropology nerd and bringing in culture and all of that stuff. I was still confused. And then, I think just over a year ago, I realized that if someone really committed themselves to the full process, they have the rough draft of their memoir written based on how I was taking them through the process and the creative writing prompts. So I went, AHA! This is amazing! People asked me what I was doing, I said, I'm teaching this process and you actually get the rough draft of your memoir written by the end. And everyone's eyes would start to shine. And they go, Oooo! And I thought, Oh wow, that's what this is about! It's healing but it's also actually a very practical outcome as well of getting to the point of getting it out of yourself, onto paper, to rough draft stage. So all the process work, which, you know, it is amazing how many people have been dreaming about working with their life story and writing their memoirs for decades. Slade: Yes. Janelle: And either haven't started or they just have a bunch of overwhelming snippets of writing here, there and everywhere that they've tucked away in a metaphorical drawer or file on their computer and it's just eating at them. So I thought, this is not good. This is creative blocks where you start to get sick. If there's a story dying to be born, and we close the doors and shut it down out of overwhelm and fear, two common reasons people don't dive in, even though they have the desire, that's not good! We're making ourselves sick if we have stories to tell and we're not telling them. So The Art of Personal Mythmaking is a transformational memoir writing e-course and writing circle. I teach it online. Each week has its theme. I use fairytales, well more specifically, ancient tales. So any kind of tale that has lasted more than a generation basically, as a guide and a structure for outlining memoir, but also... I don't know. I feel like fairytales are like having a pretty wise grandma or grandpa, helping us out, to understand being human. And they can actually really help us with working through our life story. So I combine working with ancient tales with working with the body and creative writing and creativity. A lot of people, you know, they're just stuck in creative block or a fear of not being good enough. A desire to write but being so afraid of being a bad writer that they don't try. So getting past those things is really crucial to actually getting the writing out. And then coming together in a discussion and circle every week is so rich and so beautiful for people to be working through these themes in a supportive environment and be witness to the incredible richness of every single person's different way of understanding and writing about the same prompt is so beautiful. I don't know if I've described it very well. I get so excited about my students. Slade: You do it twice a year? Janelle: Yeah. Slade: And when's the next one? Janelle: August and February. So right now, we're looking at February coming up. Slade: Okay. So February 2019. We're recording this in September 2018 if anybody is listening from the future. They can go find out if you're still doing this workshop. And you may be doing it still in August and February. Or it may have evolved into something else! I suppose if we're on your mailing list, you'll remind us that this is coming up and one of the gifts that you have for people who subscribe is a two hour Outline Your Memoir workshop that you offer. Janelle: Yes. Slade: Okay. Tell us a little about that. Janelle: Actually it's a little different... It is free. It's a little different than a gift that just shows in your inbox. It's actually a live two-hour workshop. The way I work with people is really connected and relational and productive. Don't know if that's the wrong word but ... So I actually walk people through the process. So although it's a free workshop, it's not a workshop that I record. I have a couple free writing courses that do just show up in your inbox, but Outline Your Memoir is actually, you show up with your pen and paper and I offer it every two months or so. I walk you through the process of getting some structure to what you want to look at and work on and finish the two hours feeling really resourced to keep going. Slade: That is really cool! First of all, let me just say, Janelle, thank you for taking time today to speak with us and walk us through that process. Make sure everyone knows where they can go to find you online. Janelle: Right. I'm JanelleHardy.com You can probably also google 'Personal Mythmaking'. I don't think anyone else is really describing their work that way, so Janelle and Personal Mythmaking will get you there too. Slade: Wonderful. That was great. Janelle, thank you for coming on the show. Janelle: Thank you! Such a pleasure.

Today is our National Day.  It has been for a very long time and it will continue to be for a very long time ahead.It has been endorsed by multiple governments and generations.  I’ve heard the old debate again, that it isn’t our national day and perhaps Anzac Day should be instead and that argument belongs to people with different barrows to push than this day and it’s significance.Anzac Day is an enormously important day, laden with much emotion and meaning and as such it doesn’t need to saddled with the added responsibility of the national day. Anzac Day is a day to look back, but Waitangi is a day to look forward as our original peoples and our newest arrivals get together and celebrate and pledge unity and progressAnd Waitangi Day is a good day and always has been. I was in Australia this year for Australia Day. There, three Melbourne Councils chose not to celebrate the day.  Some call it Invasion Day because it only commemorates the arrival of European settlers.  Our Day commemorates when Maori and the settlers chose to work together to forge a nation which is far more positive.  That said, I watched an Australia Day parade down Swanston Street in Melbourne which crackled with positivity and I lost count of all the different ethnic groups who marched in the culture’s clothes under a banner of one country.My Waitangi Days have been uniformly excellent.  I’ve spent it with family, or at festivals and once at the Treaty Grounds. I’ve seen no nastiness only positivity.So February 6 is the day that we chose to forge a nation in 1840.  Sure there are people on both sides that have problems with its implementation.  But fundamentally it is the soundest and best day to have as a national dayJacinda Ardern is spending 5 days in the North.  Today Dr Aroha Harris has written this.  “One hundred and seventy-seven years after the signing of Te Tiriti, I wish that a Prime Minister – any Prime Minister – taking the time to pause among Māori and other New Zealanders, in Māori territories, on Waitangi Day or any other day, wasn’t a thing, wasn’t a cause for opinion or comment or media attention.”It’s hard not to agree. The argy-bargy that is credited to Waitangi Day through the years came from one place.  Te Tii Marae. That marae had a special privilege granted to it purely down to its geographical location as the closest marae to the treaty grounds. That marae misused that privilege.  Not by protesting or bringing up concerns.  It was the mud-slinging, the sex toy chucking, the name calling and the jostling that did their chips.When Bill English refused to go North all he did was discredit the day.  Either he should have sucked it up and stood up to the ratbags or he should have just crossed Te Tii off the agenda.  That’s what Jacinda Ardern has done and well done too.  I’m amazed it took so long to figure out a logical answer. 

Today is our National Day.  It has been for a very long time and it will continue to be for a very long time ahead.It has been endorsed by multiple governments and generations.  I’ve heard the old debate again, that it isn’t our national day and perhaps Anzac Day should be instead and that argument belongs to people with different barrows to push than this day and it’s significance.Anzac Day is an enormously important day, laden with much emotion and meaning and as such it doesn’t need to saddled with the added responsibility of the national day. Anzac Day is a day to look back, but Waitangi is a day to look forward as our original peoples and our newest arrivals get together and celebrate and pledge unity and progressAnd Waitangi Day is a good day and always has been. I was in Australia this year for Australia Day. There, three Melbourne Councils chose not to celebrate the day.  Some call it Invasion Day because it only commemorates the arrival of European settlers.  Our Day commemorates when Maori and the settlers chose to work together to forge a nation which is far more positive.  That said, I watched an Australia Day parade down Swanston Street in Melbourne which crackled with positivity and I lost count of all the different ethnic groups who marched in the culture’s clothes under a banner of one country.My Waitangi Days have been uniformly excellent.  I’ve spent it with family, or at festivals and once at the Treaty Grounds. I’ve seen no nastiness only positivity.So February 6 is the day that we chose to forge a nation in 1840.  Sure there are people on both sides that have problems with its implementation.  But fundamentally it is the soundest and best day to have as a national dayJacinda Ardern is spending 5 days in the North.  Today Dr Aroha Harris has written this.  “One hundred and seventy-seven years after the signing of Te Tiriti, I wish that a Prime Minister – any Prime Minister – taking the time to pause among Māori and other New Zealanders, in Māori territories, on Waitangi Day or any other day, wasn’t a thing, wasn’t a cause for opinion or comment or media attention.”It’s hard not to agree. The argy-bargy that is credited to Waitangi Day through the years came from one place.  Te Tii Marae. That marae had a special privilege granted to it purely down to its geographical location as the closest marae to the treaty grounds. That marae misused that privilege.  Not by protesting or bringing up concerns.  It was the mud-slinging, the sex toy chucking, the name calling and the jostling that did their chips.When Bill English refused to go North all he did was discredit the day.  Either he should have sucked it up and stood up to the ratbags or he should have just crossed Te Tii off the agenda.  That’s what Jacinda Ardern has done and well done too.  I’m amazed it took so long to figure out a logical answer. 

So February is all about love. My mission ( and indeed yours should you choose to accept it) is to hold a position of LOVE for the month. I'm interested in finding out if it affects both your relationships, productivity, and see if it informs how you experience your world!  I do understand how challenging ones circumstances can be, working with people in my clinic on a daily basis I am consistently reminded of the complex nature of the mind and how our intentions don't always match our actions. With this in mind, I know how trivial it can be to encourage people to simply 'be happy' or 'feel loved' and that's certainly not what I'm advocating here.  Instead I am interested to see what the power of holding this word in ones thoughts has on our experiences. That's it. No major effort, just this word as a sort of talisman for the month. If you're intrigued, then please listen to the podcast to find out more....