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In this episode of Alison Answers, Alison sits down with Cheryl Donaldson, a therapist, leadership expert, global lecturer, and author of the guided journal Lead From the Soul, for a powerful conversation about what it means to reconnect with your soul and lead your life from that deeper place.
Cheryl explains the soul as the truest part of ourselves. The place where we connect to meaning, hope, compassion, courage, clarity, calm, and something bigger than us.
Together, Alison and Cheryl talk about the wounds, experiences, conditioning, shame, grief, fear, and protective parts that can cover that place inside of us and make us feel like we have lost ourselves.
This conversation is deeply personal for Alison, as she shares what it felt like after losing her husband and realizing there were moments when she could not “get back to Alison.”
You’ll hear:
- What it really means to lead from the soul
- How pain, grief, and life experiences can disconnect us from ourselves
- Why healing often begins with compassion, not criticism
- How Internal Family Systems can help us understand the parts of us that are trying to protect us
- Why some behaviors that look unhealthy may have started as protection
- How therapists, parents, and leaders can hold hope for someone until they can hold it for themselves
- Why connection is essential in parenting, leadership, and healing
- How to help children build identity and self-worth from the inside out
- What it means to stop letting outside evidence define who you are
- How to begin finding your way back to your truest self
If you have ever felt buried under grief, shame, anxiety, expectations, or the weight of what life has done to you, this conversation is a reminder that you are still in there.
You are not gone.
There is a deeper place within you that can still be reached, strengthened, and led from.
In this episode:
00:00 What does it mean to lead from the soul?
00:50 Meet Cheryl Donaldson
03:00 Raising emotionally intelligent children
04:48 Getting to the heart of what activates us
07:06 Cheryl’s path into soul work
09:36 When someone needs you to sit with their soul
12:52 What is the soul?
15:04 Alison opens up about losing herself after grief
16:18 How to strengthen the soul
17:58 Holding hope for someone who has lost it
21:38 Leaving your burdens in the room
23:35 Internal Family Systems and soul work
27:34 Understanding the parts that protect us
31:08 Compassion, forgiveness, and self-understanding
34:07 The deeper place beyond yourself
36:19 Living from a surrendered and purposeful state
37:07 Why some people become deeper after pain
39:22 Alison’s viral conversation about suicide
46:04 Finding peace by connecting with the soul
47:46 How leaders can lead from the soul
50:16 Why connection comes before correction
52:21 How childhood labels shape identity
53:31 Choosing how you see your own value
56:05 Breaking the evidence that says you are not enough
01:00:06 A simple way to reconnect with your soul
01:01:43 Alison’s experience meeting her higher self
Connect with Alison:
- Instagram: @alisonanswers | @lagercounseling
- Website: LagerCounseling.com
- YouTube: Alison Answers
- Facebook: Alison Lager Lcsw Casac
- Purchase Alison’s book: “The Wake Up Call”
- Alison Answers Facebook Group: Join HERE
- Women of Excellence FB group: Join HERE
⚠️ Crisis Resources:
Lager Counseling Services
Call: 516-221-2123
Text: (914) 363-0381
Wantagh: 3408 Park Ave. Wantagh, NY 11793
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (24/7, free, confidential)
Call or text 988 | Visit 988lifeline.org
