Do you ever catch your mind stuck in a rerun, replaying scenes from the past like an old movie? Does it sometimes feel like your body is suddenly back re-living those moments? Would you like to re-write parts of your past?

There’s something more powerful than re-writing your past, you can actually help your brain and body experience it in a new way. In this episode I’ll reveal why you need Corrective Experiences.

Corrective experiences are a way to give your brain and body a new experience so that you can feel resolution with the past and move forward feeling empowered. Here are some other benefits:

• A software update for your subconscious mind
• Release this energy stored in the nervous system from trauma
• Go beyond old-school talk therapy methods and step into corrective experiences to unlock your potential.

Here’s the Corrective Experience Mindset Process:

• Identify the Ideal Response
• Gain Clarity on Necessary Support
• Import Supportive Elements
• Visualize the Corrective Experiences
• Create Safety
• Body Awareness in Key
• Bio-Feedback from the Body
• Going beyond a mental exercise

We dive into examples many people can relate to. From Jane slipping on black ice to Mark battling bullies, Emma's shopping addiction, Hannah's binge eating, Debbie's dating dilemma, to Craig's spiritual crisis – corrective experiences are the key to each person healing and transforming their lives.

*Note: client examples in this episode are fictional.  

Thank you for listening.
With gratitude,
Danielle

Danielle Carron holds a Master's Degree in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University as well as Master's Degree in Holistic Nutrition. She trained in Internal Family Systems with Richard Schwartz, Somatic Experiencing with Peter Levine and Diane Poole Heller, Shamanic Healing with Malidoma Patrice Some, Functional Neurology with Know the Brain, and Quantum Field Meditation and Healing with Joe Dispenza. Danielle Carron teaches her own integrative model called Embody Your Power.

Do you have a hard time regulating your body without the use of a substance, medication, food, technology, porn, or shopping? 

In this episode, I’ll teach you how: 
• The nervous system has it’s natural rhythm of regulation
• To help your nervous system integrate overwhelming experiences 
• Trauma breaches the boundaries of the nervous system causing dysregulation
• How to  come back into regulation
• Important it is to bring our awareness to our body
• Learn to titrate intensity in your body
• The Core Self can work with the overwhelm and intensity of our parts
• Feel in control and at home in your body
• To no longer dependent on addictive behaviors and unhealthy habits

At the end of this episode I invite you to try using these methods to titrate the intensity of feelings, sensations, and activation in your body: 

• Practice bringing your awareness to your body so that you know what’s happening in your nervous system.
• Give yourself permission to not feel 100% of what you are experiencing and instead feel one molecule or a small percentage of it.
• Try to bring your awareness to the edge of a sensation.
• Go back and forth between a positive sensation and one that is difficult to feel.
• What you’re experiencing can often be the feelings or sensations of a part of your psyche. See if you can make the experience more manageable by identifying the part, getting an image of it and then separating from it.
• Finally practice accessing your core self where you are inherently regulated.

Thank you for listening.
With gratitude,
Danielle

Danielle Carron holds a Master's Degree in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University as well as Master's Degree in Holistic Nutrition. She trained in Internal Family Systems with Richard Schwartz, Somatic Experiencing with Peter Levine and Diane Poole Heller, Shamanic Healing with Malidoma Patrice Some, Functional Neurology with Know the Brain, and Quantum Field Meditation and Healing with Joe Dispenza. Danielle Carron teaches her own integrative model called Embody Your Power.

Is your body still re-living past trauma? Do you suffer from trauma symptoms or PTSD Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?  Often we know in our minds that the trauma is over, but our body can be stuck in time re-living the past. 

In this episode I'll cover the following:

• What Trauma Is
• What Causes it 
• Symptoms of Trauma
• How Trauma Impacts our Nervous System
• Why Just Talking About It Isn’t Helpful

One of the leading experts in the field of trauma is Dr. Peter Levine who developed a method of healing from trauma called Somatic Experiencing. Somatic Experiencing is a three year training that teaches practitioners to help people heal from all types of trauma. Peter Levine has made major contributions to helping people heal from trauma by incorporating the body and nervous system in the healing process.

I learned about Somatic Experiencing after my first month long meditation retreat, which was part of my Masters Degree in Contemplative Psychotherapy. By immersing myself in meditating 8 hours a day, my way of coping with past trauma crumbled. Taking a break from my daily life and sitting in silence broke down my coping mechanisms. I didn’t realize I had unresolved trauma until then. I thought well I survived a 40 foot fall, my body recovered from the injuries, I didn’t notice any signs of trauma, so I went about my life as usual. Then years later I’m sitting in silence all day for a month and all the holding patterns I developed to get me through life disintegrated. I realized that I had thought I was fine because I was numb and disconnected from my body.

Peter Levine says “Trauma is not in the event itself; rather, trauma resides in the nervous system.” When we perceive threat, the body produces a tremendous amount of adrenaline to survive. Ultimately, the body wants to feel a sense of completion with using up this energy to protect itself. When we have an impulse to fight, flight or freeze that doesn’t get to move through us to completion then we can experience trauma symptoms.

At the end of this episode I’d like to offer a summary:

• Trauma is not in the event, it’s in the nervous system.
• Traumatic symptoms are not caused by the event itself. They arise when residual energy is not discharged from the body. This energy remains trapped in the nervous system where it can wreak havoc on our bodies and minds. 
• Our body is our window into the nervous system.
• When we know how to regulate our nervous system we embody our power.
• In order to heal from the contraction of trauma, we need to access and experience our expansion.
• We don’t need to dread the process of healing from trauma. It can be a transformative experience where we reclaim our energy, our power, a positive connection to our body, and the ability to feel at home in our body - the vehicle for our consciousness. 

Thank you for listening.
With gratitude,
Danielle

Danielle Carron holds a Master's Degree in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University as well as Master's Degree in Holistic Nutrition. She trained in Internal Family Systems with Richard Schwartz, Somatic Experiencing with Peter Levine and Diane Poole Heller, Shamanic Healing with Malidoma Patrice Some, Functional Neurology with Know the Brain, and Quantum Field Meditation and Healing with Joe Dispenza. Danielle Carron teaches her own integrative model called Embody Your Power.

In this episode I’m going to guide you in a meditation to connect with your core self. As we explored in the previous episode our core self is a deeply spiritual aspect of us. It is consciousness, it’s knowing, it’s present, it’s regulated, and it exists in the silence and stillness. 

The core self is always present, however, the parts of our psyche can cloud it out or make us feel disconnected from it. These are the parts that are operating from fear or pain and some examples of how they might show up include: restlessness, anxiety, anger, sadness, distraction, or even a productive part that wants you to get things done instead of meditating. 

In this meditation I’ll guide you to separate from these parts so that you can access our core self. All of our parts crave the presence of our core self, so even though we are asking them to step back, we are providing them with the nourishment that they need by doing this. It might be helpful to see the parts of your psyche as young parts of yourself. You can ask them for some space, put them in another room or sacred space, or maybe you might have someone you trust tend to them while you meditate. You can also try to imagine holding a remote control and pressing pause on the parts or on time at any moment. 

As we separate from our parts, we naturally feel more calm and regulated in our body. Once we quiet the mind and body we can get to know ourselves beyond our body, as pure consciousness. For some people using a eye mask helps them drop into the meditation more deeply. I invite you to position yourself in way that’s most relaxing for you. This meditation runs about 24 minutes. 

Music by Christopher Lloyd Clarke

Thank you for listening!
With gratitude,
Danielle

Danielle Carron holds a Master's Degree in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University as well as Master's Degree in Holistic Nutrition. She trained in Internal Family Systems with Richard Schwartz, Somatic Experiencing with Peter Levine and Diane Poole Heller, Shamanic Healing with Malidoma Patrice Some, Functional Neurology with Know the Brain, and Quantum Field Meditation and Healing with Joe Dispenza. Danielle Carron teaches her own integrative model called Embody Your Power.

Do you know how to access your greatest power? 

In this episode, we’ll explore the most powerful aspect of ourselves, our Core Self.  It’s the true essence of who we are and it’s our greatest resource! Our Core self is where our power resides! Knowing that your core self exists and knowing how to access it is essential to embodying your power.

Our access to our core self exists on a continuum, meaning some of us don’t know it exists at all, we can feel disconnected from it, we can spontaneously experience it, we can dip our toe in and feel the surface, we can have a practice where we’re intentionally connecting with it, or we can jump in fully and explore the infinite depths of it.

What I’m calling our core self, may also be referred to as your true self, Self (with a capital S as Richard Schwartz refers to it), higher self, essential self, your essence, inner light, spirit, soul, consciousness, awareness, or your inner being. I like using the term core self with clients because I think it facilitates the work were doing and is a concept most people can connect with. Consciousness or awareness are likely better names for this innate aspect of who we are.

Although I had many experiences of accessing my core self throughout my life I wasn’t able to utilize this innate power until I learned about it from Richard Schwartz aka Dick Schwartz developer of Internal Family Systems or IFS for short. I am forever grateful to Dick Schwartz for bringing his work to the world in such a unique way, with such clarity, and in a way that really resonates with me. I believe there are many names for the same thing and there are many people talking about the same concepts yet we gravitate to those who communicate in a way that resonates with us. I find the language and concepts very universal and easy to relate to for most people. Dick Schwartz found a way to help people access something powerful inside of them which is a true gift.

Dick Schwartz describes this innate state beautifully in this quote where he refers to the core self as the divine within: “Though they used different words, all the esoteric traditions within the major religions – Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam – emphasized their same core belief: we are sparks of the eternal flame, manifestations of the absolute ground of being. It turns out that the divine within – what the Christians call the soul or Christ Consciousness, Buddhists call Buddha Nature, the Hindus Atman, the Taoists Tao, the Sufis the Beloved, the Quakers the Inner Light – often doesn’t take years of meditative practice to access because it exists in all of us, just below the surface of our extreme parts. Once they agree to separate from us, we suddenly have access to who we really are."

I share my experiences with Loch Kelly and Joe Dispenza.

At the end of this episode I offer some ways to get to know your core self:

1. Explore when you feel most like yourself or most aligned with the truth about yourself?
2. Take an inventory of what helps you to be present.  
3. Begin noticing when you are accessing one of the C words.
4. Start to notice when your core self is present and when the parts are taking over.
5. Use a prompt such as  - Who am I in this present moment, when all of my parts separate from me?

Thank you for listening!
With gratitude,
Danielle

Danielle Carron holds a Master's Degree in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University as well as Master's Degree in Holistic Nutrition. She trained in Internal Family Systems with Richard Schwartz, Somatic Experiencing with Peter Levine and Diane Poole Heller, Shamanic Healing with Malidoma Patrice Some, Functional Neurology with Know the Brain, and Quantum Field Meditation and Healing with Joe Dispenza. Danielle Carron teaches her own integrative model called Embody Your Power.

How do you respond to people you care about when they are hurt, sad, vulnerable, fearful, difficult, triggering, or even infuriating?

In this episode I’ll share tips on how to navigate relationships from our core self. I’ll explore how to respond to other people when they’re hijacked by the parts of their psyche that are operating from fear and pain. We’ll look at how you can embody your power by accessing your core self in the presence of others that can knock you off your center.

I explore wisdom from Dr. Bruce Lipton author of The Honeymoon Effect and The Biology of Belief.

Our subconscious programs are default programs, meaning they’re automatic and we don’t have to think about them. This is a really good thing for the helpful programs that we have, however, when it comes to the programs we downloaded that are limiting, destructive, and self sabotaging it’s a major challenge. I see this in my work everyday. Everyone is struggling with the subconscious programs that don’t serve them and are creating great hardship in various areas of their lives. It’s a major cause of suffering. 

Bruce Lipton would say if you want to know what subconscious programs you have take a look around at the major areas of your life. The things that are easy for you, you have the subconscious programs to support those things, the things that are challenging and difficult to achieve you don’t have supportive subconscious programs for. 

I explore some examples of our subconscious programs that we learn in the first decade of our life from an integrative perspective. Physically, Intellectually, Psychologically, Physiologically, Emotionally, Relationally, Nutritionally, and Spiritually. I outline some major areas that influence our subconscious mind to emphasize that all of us are dealing with a set of subconscious programs that got wired in at a young age. Unfortunately we didn’t have a say in which subconscious programs we received when we were young and some of the programs were helpful and supportive while others were destructive and harmful. Perhaps this alone can make space for greater compassion for others.

I share some advice that comes directly from a personal conversation with Richard Schwartz, developer of the Internal Family Systems model.

At the end of the episode I offer some action steps for navigating relationships from our core self: 

• Listen to Episode 5, 6, 7, and 10 to learn to work with your own parts so that you can stay connected to your core self and have greater clarity and understanding for others.
• Avoid frustration by seeing the situation clearly when others have been hyjacked by their young parts. Even though someone is in an adult body they may be driven around by a young part.
• Practice bringing curiosity and compassion to others the way you would with your own parts.
• When someone you care about is hyjacked by their parts it’s loving and supportive to see and reflect their core self even though they aren’t accessing it at that time.
• This a practice, it’s not easy, and we’re human so we’re not always going to be able to access our core self and were going to have our own parts popping up that need our attention. It’s important that we have compassion for ourselves first. 

Thank you for listening.
With gratitude,
Danielle

Danielle Carron holds a Master's Degree in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University as well as Master's Degree in Holistic Nutrition. She trained in Internal Family Systems with Richard Schwartz, Somatic Experiencing with Peter Levine and Diane Poole Heller, Shamanic Healing with Malidoma Patrice Some, Functional Neurology with Know the Brain, and Quantum Field Meditation and Healing with Joe Dispenza. Danielle Carron teaches her own integrative model called Embody Your Power.

Would you like your child to feel resilient in the face of life’s challenges? 
Have you been taught how to access your own unshakable resilience? 

A resilience that is a  true power, not pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, bouncing back from adversity, or surviving traumatic events which are about surviving something hard, not about truly facing, integrating, and thriving in the face of challenges. The resilience that I help people access is a fearlessness inside of them. Its our ability to be open-hearted and present with any type of emotional pain, fear, or vulnerability. It’s not about fixing it or making it go away. True resilience doesn’t need to push through, control, judge, or avoid anything. 

In this Episode I’m going to reveal the #1 way to help children access their own innate resilience. This is such a passion of mine. It’s my mission to help our next generations have the knowledge, skills, nourishment, and resources to live their fullest potential. Providing this kind of support to children at a young age is essential in helping humanity evolve. If you're a parent, a caregiver, a nurse, a teacher, or anyone who works with children let’s look at how we can help them know their innate resilience.     

And….if you don’t have children you’re going to benefit from this episode as well because I use the same process I’m going to outline here to help my adult clients access their resilience and show up for the various parts of their psyche so they aren’t driven around by emotional pain and fear. In order to help children access their resilience, we need to know how to access our own resilience. 

From coaching and counseling people for 16 years, I believe the root cause of suffering is emotional pain. Examples include feeling abandoned, rejected, unlovable, alone, wrong, unworthy, hopeless, ashamed, or insignificant. And because most people aren’t taught how to be with their emotional pain, they develop parts of their psyche that try to fiercely avoid it. Examples of these parts show up as anxiety, depression, anger, avoidance, distraction, perfectionism, bullying, narcissism, people pleasing, insomnia, obsessive compulsive disorders, eating disorders, and addictions. 

I'll cover common parts that get in our way of helping our children access their own innate resilience. These include: Fix it, Minimizing, Avoidance, Distracting, Judging, Criticizing, Shaming, Angry and Violent parts.

This is huge if you can help a child not fear their emotional pain! This can truly change the course of someone’s life. As a therapist and coach for over 16 years this is at the root of all of my work, I am helping people learn how to be with their feelings without being afraid of them! By doing this someone can truly heal and live from their core authentic self. As a result we reclaim and embody our power. It’s my passion to help people access their resilience to be with there worst pain and greatest fear.

If you can help your child feel that it’s ok to be with their feelings and emotions you have helped them profoundly. I really want to emphasize how incredibly significant this is. Most people live their lives trying to avoid their emotional pain and as a result they suffer and develop destructive coping mechanisms.

Thank you for listening!
With gratitude,
Danielle

Danielle Carron holds a Master's Degree in Contemplative Psychotherapy from Naropa University as well as Master's Degree in Holistic Nutrition. She trained in Internal Family Systems with Richard Schwartz, Somatic Experiencing with Peter Levine and Diane Poole Heller, Shamanic Healing with Malidoma Patrice Some, Functional Neurology with Know the Brain, and Quantum Field Meditation and Healing with Joe Dispenza. Danielle Carron teaches her own integrative model called Embody Your Power.

Do you suffer from feeling like you’re not enough, you’re alone, you’re unlovable, or you’re unworthy of the things you want in life? Have you experienced being overcome with intense emotions, flashbacks or nightmares?

In this episode I’ll explore the parts of our psyche that get locked away or exiled and carry these beliefs or messages about ourselves as well as intense emotions and memories. I’ll also show you how to update your subconscious programs and heal those exiled parts. 

Our exiled parts are often referred to as our inner child, wounded child, suppressed or repressed parts. They are called exiles because they are locked away or exiled by our protector parts of our psyche. Exiles can be experienced as dissociated or fragmented parts. They can be experiences and memories that we can’t remember because they are exiled and locked away.

The main emotion of our exiled parts is emotional pain. For example feeling rejected, abandoned, alone, unlovable, wrong, unworthy, unsafe, ashamed, insignificant, or hopeless. 

The exiles are stuck in time reliving the pain from the past and they try to get our attention so that they can heal. Exiled parts know that they can’t subtly get our attention or the protectors will quickly lock them away again. So they will come through with intense feelings, flashbacks, nightmares, or even bodily illness or disease to get our attention. This is why parts of you will flood you with these intense feelings. The wisdom in this is if they can get your attention, they have a chance to heal and no longer be stuck in the past, reliving pain or trauma all alone.

We can also look at exiled parts from a shamanic perspective. An exiled part is likened to what shamans call soul loss and when there’s soul loss the remedy is soul retrieval. I really enjoyed having a few personal conversations with Dick Schwartz about the shamanic nature of his Internal Family Systems model and understanding how people can be guided to do their own healing instead of a shaman doing it on their behalf.

From a shamanic perspective, soul retrieval is a healing practice that involves recovering and reintegrating lost or fragmented aspects of a person's soul. Shamans believe that traumatic or distressing experiences can cause a person's soul to fragment or become disconnected, leading to emotional and spiritual imbalances. Soul retrieval is performed to restore wholeness, health, and balance to the individual.

Richard Schwartz has introduced another way to go about soul loss and soul retrieval where the client can do this process on their own by using their core self. After studying with two shamans, an American trained in essential shamanism and an indigenous African shaman named Malidoma Patrice Some, I think guiding a client to do their own soul retrieval has many benefits.

I'll walk your through the step by step process of retrieving and unburdening an exiled part.

At the end of this episode here are a few things to try:

1. Identify your exiled parts
2. Explore taking the steps I outlined to help heal and unburden the exiled parts. 
3. Find the place inside of you that can be with the exiles pain without being afraid of it or having to fix it or make it go away. There is a place inside of you that can be with this pain from a place that is open hearted and present.
4. Notice how you feel in your body as a result of this healing process.

Thank you for listening!
With gratitude, 
Danielle

Have you ever experienced anxiety? 
Do you know someone who suffers from chronic anxiety?

In this Episode I will take a thorough look at anxiety and teach you how to work with your anxiety so that you can feel more relaxed, resilient, and present in life. Anxiety is a protective part of your psyche which means it’s trying to protect you from some type of pain, usually emotional pain. It is oriented toward the future and often worried about what might happen. It’s enemy is the unknown. It wants to be able to predict what will happen next so that you’re not caught off guard and you don’t get hurt. However, we don’t get to predict the future. We embody our power when we accept reality instead of trying to fight it or control it. There is a place in you that can make peace with the unknown and I will help you access that.

I take a look at how an anxious part can impact you from an integrative perspective. Mentally, Emotionally, Physically, Physiologically, Relationally, and Spiritually.

I out line step by step how to work with an anxious part.

When I’m working with people, I will ask them… can you find a place inside of you that can make peace with the unknown? Some people will say yes and some will say no. When people say YES and they can find their ability to be with the unknown then I have them bring that knowing and presence to the worried anxious part and see how it responds to being around you. Generally it’s very calming to the part.

If someone says NO they can’t find a place inside of them that can make peace with the unknown then I simply remind them of all the ways they go about their day making peace with the unknown. Think about it for a minute. Can you find ways that you already find acceptance and peace with the unknown?

The unknown is a ground rule of the reality we live in. We don’t get to know what will happen in the next minute, next day, or next year.  

I believe we Embody Our Power when we accept and make peace with reality. One of my favorite quotes is by Byron Katie. She says…"Whenever you fight reality, you lose, only 100% of the time." Most of us, most of the time are accepting and making peace with the unknown that exists moment to moment.

However, what can happen is that an anxious part can overly focus on one or a few particular risks to our wellbeing.

For example, during the height of covid I saw many people develop anxious parts that previously weren’t present. All of a sudden people had parts that were anxious about coughing, sneezing, masking, testing, touching, hugging, traveling, isolating, socializing, disinfecting, and vaccinating. Prior to covid this was off of most peoples radar as far as risks to their wellbeing.

When we are in the present moment we have the most presence, knowledge, and resources to react to any situation in the most powerful way. 

At the end of this episode let’s reflect on some ways we can make peace with the unknown rather than let anxiety and fear of the unknown drive us around.

1. Look at the ways that you already make peace with the unknown.
2. Take note of the benefits that come with accepting and making peace with the unknown. 
3. Identify your anxious part and learn to work with it so it’s not driving you around.
4. Learn to separate from your anxious part and access your core resilient self.
5. Lastly, Find the place in your core self to be with the pain that the anxiety is afraid you would feel if it wasn’t making you anxious. Otherwise known as the pain that the exile is carrying.

Thank you for listening!
With gratitude, Danielle

In Episode 8, I will explore the wisdom of anger as a boundary bodyguard and how to work with anger to embody your power.

Many of us have been on the receiving end of anger. We know how painful it is when someone else’s pain, discomfort, disgust, or even hatred is aimed at us. Anger is generally seen as a bad or destructive emotion, because of how much suffering it can cause. 

Rarely, do we learn that anger has wisdom and how to work with anger in healthy ways. 

Anger can be utilized to create healthy boundaries and restore our power.  When we are able to create boundaries with others and others respect our boundaries, we feel a greater sense of safety and relaxation navigating relationships and the world. Anger is what will let us know if anyone or anything threatens or violates our boundaries. It’s like a boundary bodyguard. Anger looks out to the world for any threats to our boundaries. Anger also looks inward and sees our core self and knows that we are worthy of respect and protection and that our boundaries are essential for us to be true to ourselves and thrive.

What do YOU do when you feel angry? 

Some of us vow to never express anger. Others may feel more comfortable expressing anger even if it’s destructive to our relationships. We can also turn our anger inward on ourselves.

Many of us will experience all of these ways of relating to anger and will express anger in various ways depending on the situation. However, If we are suppressing our anger, turning it inwards, or allowing it to take us over and drive us around we haven’t found a healthy relationship to it.

I explore how anger is a personal bodyguard and help you understand it’s wisdom. Anger orients around what needs be protected? And...what needs be restored? Boundaries are an important part of embodying your power. We'll look at how anger is asking us to assert our boundaries and repair our boundaries. We may have parts of ourselves that are allowing our boundaries to be overridden. Speaking up for your boundaries and not overriding them is essential for your mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being. When we assert our boundaries we Embody Our Power. We stand in our truth. We are sovereign. We’re not giving our power away nor are we trying to have power over others with our boundaries.

At the end of this episode I offer some things to reflect upon.

1. Take some time to see if your anger is in response to someone crossing or attempting to cross a boundary. See if you can identify the boundary that was threatened or crossed.
2. Work on separating from the anger part so that you can respond from your core self with integrity.
3. Speak for the angry part rather than from it. Meaning, instead of saying I’m angry at you… Practice saying I have a part of me that’s angry. That helps you stay connected to your core self.
4. Listen to and assert your boundaries. Practice respecting your boundaries as well as the boundaries of others.

Thank you for listening!
With gratitude, Danielle