By Lauren Minor
The podcast currently has 17 episodes available.
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode includes sensitive subject matter, including details of suicidal ideation. If you have experienced any trauma such as what is described in this episode, I encourage you to seek professional help in coming to terms with it and healing.
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK (8255); 888-628-9454 (Spanish); 800-799-4889 (TTY)
This week I was joined by Arzo Yusef, my college roommate (20 years ago!) and founder of @thesexybossbabe to have a candid chat about the road to healing from suppressed childhood trauma.
Arzo gets raw and vulnerable about her personal struggle with depression and coming to terms with her own childhood trauma that left her contemplating suicide; ultimately choosing that low point as a catalyst to start a healing journey.
We talk about the beauty and the mess that comes with choosing to heal and how once you start down the path, there is no turning back.
The Sexy Boss Babe brand identity is all about women empowerment, every box has encouraging messages of positivity. A “Sexy Boss Babe is a breed of woman that is confident from the inside out. She can be curvy, thin, plus size, athletic, tall, short, any size, shape, color or age. Her beauty comes from knowing her self worth and what she deserves. She goes after what she wants in life. She’s fierce, bold and empowered.”
Follow Arzo at @thesexybossbabe
If you enjoy what you’re hearing please:
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
TRIGGER WARNING: This episode includes sensitive subject matter, including details of sexual abuse. If you have experienced any trauma such as what is described in this episode, I encourage you to seek professional help in coming to terms with it and healing.
National Sexual Assault Hotline: 800-656-4673
National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-TALK (8255); 888-628-9454 (Spanish); 800-799-4889 (TTY)
This week I was joined by my friend and fellow coach, Holly Lynch, who is also a two-time cancer survivor, and we talked about healing, childhood trauma, and how it manifests in the body.
After spending a number of years in trauma therapy and battling two bouts of “incurable” cancer, Holly has a powerful story to tell around coming to terms with your childhood trauma, seeking support and continuing to do the work to overcome your trauma responses.
While she shares harrowing details of childhood of trauma, she also shares the power of looking within and having support to explore the deepest parts of yourself so you can learn how to deal with stress in your life in a way that is more productive and allows you to not only survive, but thrive.
Holly Lynch is a 20+ year communications veteran and life-long social impact advocate and strategist who has helped individuals and companies tackle the toughest challenges in their worlds.
Having survived countless life setbacks and two rounds with terminal cancer, while seeing the country-wide collapse of the systems and safety nets for the most vulnerable in and outside our communities, she is now shifting her life and career trajectories to focus on coaching those facing down fundamental shifts and transitions as they try to navigate and rebuild their lives and businesses during these unprecedented times.
If you enjoy what you’re hearing please:
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
This week Kristin and I talk about the turning point in the healing journey.
Once you find your voice and build more and more courage to speak your truth, you come to a point where you can no longer be the person you once were.
You are empowered. And this is where things start to really open up. You start to look forward to speaking up and acting courageously because you can feel your levels of empowerment rise with each opportunity.
You are feeling more yourself than you ever have and you feel inspired to help others start down the path of healing.
This is not to say it is easy to stay the path, it’s very easy for one setback to send us off track, but if we keep coming back to the idea that healing allows us to be more and more ourselves, we no longer like or choose the alternative.
Learning and growing requires that we be willing to keep looking at ourselves and choosing in every moment how we want to show up.
How do you want to show up??
If you enjoy what you’re hearing please:
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
On this episode I was joined by my co-conspirator in coaching, Kristin Leazer, and we dove into healing, specifically what to expect as they embark on a healing journey.
There are lots of feelings of fear as we start to take steps toward healing. And there tends to be a bit of fallout that occurs in the process, both internally and externally.
As you start to explore your patterns, habits and conditioning, you are going to start shedding parts of you that are no longer serving you and you’re going to start to find your voice. As you use that voice, you are going to met with resistance, both externally and internally. Our default response (autopilot) tells us to fight, flee or freeze…don’t. Use the resistance to learn even more about yourself. Start to ask yourself some of the following questions:
Fallout is a natural part of the process of unlearning and relearning who you are and what you want. Don’r run from it. Embrace it.
If you’re struggling to deal with the fear or take that next step to speaking up and having the difficult conversations, I want to help.
Click the link in my bio to schedule a FREE clarity session and lets work together to get your stepping fully into your power! (Psst: I have two 4-week slots for a couple women that are ready to get out of their own way and speaking their truth on the regular!) Is one of the two yours??
If you enjoy what you’re hearing please:
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
On this episode of the Meant 4 More podcast I was joined by my co-conspirator in coaching, Kristin Leazer. We dove into healing and specifically, coming to terms with your past.
We talked about a new way to look at Trauma; It’s not just a deeply catastrophic event. It can be a culmination of micro-traumas. Some signs of trauma may be:
Trauma at any level affects us all. Sometimes we cannot pinpoint a specific event - its a culmination of micro-traumas
Common ways trauma manifests:
New definition of Trauma
When we consistently betrayed ourselves for love, were consistently treated in a way that made us feel unworthy or unacceptable, we severed connection to authentic self. Trauma creates the fundamental belief that we must betray who we are in order to survive
Childhood Conditioning:
Conditioning: beliefs and behaviors are unconsciously imprinted onto us
The Archetypes of Childhood Trauma:
Having a parent who denies your reality
“It didn’t happen that way”
“It’s not a big deal”
“You should just forget about it”
How did this make you feel?
Having a parent that does not see or hear you
They always seemed distracted or busy, or otherwise made you feel unacknowledged
How did you try to get their attention?
Did you “perform” “act out” or become withdrawn?
Having a parent who vicariously lives through you or molds and shapes you
“You’re so sensitive like your mother”
“You need to get straight As to make the family proud”
Were you as impassioned and committed to those goals as they were or did you simply go through the motions?
What messages did you receive about yourself as a child? What did your parents want or expect of you?
Having a parent who does not model boundaries
Parents who violated your personal limits or those of others, or didn’t have boundaries
Did you feel free to say “no?”
Were you told to behave a certain way?
Did you parents set clear limits on their time, energy and resources in their relationships?
Did your parents respect your privacy or invade it?
Did your parents allow you to have conversations or experiences with others without inserting themselves into them?
Having a parent who is overly focused on appearance
They provided direct and indirect messages about our appearance
“You should wear your hair down”
“Your thighs are getting bigger”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea to have seconds?”
“You’d look a lot better if you didn’t have clothes like that”
Sometimes these statements may have been directed at others
What are the messages you received around appearance?
Having a parent who cannot regulate their emotions
We learn by watching our parents
When your parents had strong emotions, how did they respond?
Slam doors
Vent
Scream
Silent treatment
Did your parents have a specific coping strategy?
Spending
Use substances
Avoid certain or all emotions
When they had strong emotions how did they communicate with you or those around them?
Name-calling
Blaming
Shaming
Silent treatment
After strong feelings, did your parents take time to explain or help you process your own feelings around what happened?
What messages did you receive about feelings in general or your feelings in particular?
Coping with our Trauma:
Common coping strategies:
People pleasing - once you meet the demand, the stress is temporarily gone
Anger or rage - discharge emotion onto someone else to release it
Dissociation - you “leave your body” during a stressful event so that you “don’t” experience it
The Potential for Change:
It’s not the severity of the trauma, but our reaction to it that leaves an imprint. Resilience is learned through conditioning. If we didn’t see something modeled by your parents we may have never learned it. When we do the work of resolving trauma we become more resilient and profound transformation becomes possible
Trauma is unavoidable (birth is trauma) - but we don’t have to repeat patterns that are no longer serving us. When we do the work, we can change. We can move forward. We can heal. The first step: knowing what you’re dealing with - identifying the unresolved trauma The next step: understanding the long-term effects and how you’re learned coping strategies are keeping you stuck (more to come on this).
Note: the Content referenced in this episode is in the book How to Do The Work by Dr. Nicole LePera.
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Join us on Zoom every Tuesday at 11am-12pm CST and/or Thursday at 7-8pm CST for realtime conversations with other ladies doing the work. Sign up here:
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If you’re interested in coaching with Lauren, check out her packages or schedule a FREE Clarity Session
If you’re interested in coaching with Kristin go to Instagram and DM her at @kristinjleazer or email her at [email protected]
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
This week I was joined by my amazingly wise and beautiful friend Sarah Davidian, founder of I AM Yoga Method. We sat down and talked about the intersection of yoga, spirituality and healing and dive into the somewhat controversial topic of Spiritual Bypassing.
If you’re not familiar with the term, it’s one that’s comes up quite a bit in the western world of yoga, and according to John Welwood in his book Toward a Psychology of Awakening, can be defined as a “tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks."
Many people, even prominent yogis, have used yoga and other spiritual practices as a method to sidestep true healing, which we know is necessary to live at the highest levels of awareness and consciousness.
Sarah and I dive deep into how healing is a mandatory aspect of any spiritual practice and is the key to unlocking our highest self.
Sarah created the I AM Yoga Method in 2021 after reevaluating what is at the heart of yoga. She teaches intuitive asana movement, methods to live out yoga everyday, and how to look through the lens of yoga for all our relationship needs. You can follow her on Instagram @lov_is_power .
If you enjoy what you’re hearing please:
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
On this episode of the Meant 4 More podcast I talk about the need to de-stigmatize healing and that healing truly is for everyone. It doesn’t just happen on our own. We have to choose courage over comfort in order to embrace it.
On this episode I talk about:
To get to lasting and significant change we have to heal. We have to go deeper than a lot of coaching does, but coaching can be an incredible complement to healing.
Most of what we do is unconscious; only 5-10% of our thoughts, feelings and behaviors are made consciously. Without awareness we cannot reach a higher level of consciousness, and without consciousness we don’t have a chance of getting to the root of our trauma and healing.
My journey began with no longer being content with the status quo. I didn’t know what the root was, I just knew I was tired of going through the motions. I wanted more for myself and to live my most authentic life. I got still, tuned-in and started to develop some more awareness.
I asked myself a lot of questions and tried to get to the root of my thoughts, feelings and actions. I had to look at my childhood and how I showed up and the identity that was formed.
My biggest ah-ha: I didn’t have a voice. I kept myself safe in a protective shell. I had created my own defense mechanisms and limiting beliefs.
The turning point: I found my voice. I got more and more comfortable expressing myself and being in opposition to other people; which was huge considering I was always so agreeable.
I started to unravel many parts of my life, from career to marriage. I started looking at my experiences as a sort of death by a thousand cuts, what I like to call micro-traumas. Rack up enough little micro-traumas and they can no longer be ignored.
Bottomline, my healing is a work in progress and it always will be. It’s a journey, not a destinations.
When you’re starting out it feels really scary. A good place to start is your physical health. Are you experiencing any unexplained health symptoms? But can’t seem to find a root cause? Have you examined your stress?
Stress has a way of manifesting in our bodies, and if it goes unaddressed long enough, it’s going to wreak havoc. Once you start to address and manage the stress, you may be amazed at how your physical symptoms start to resolve. Don’t discount what’s going on in the physical body.
On the mental and emotional side, you are have to ask “Why?” more than you ever have. And it’s going to get uncomfortable; like REAL uncomfortable. Out thought patterns run deep. And if we’re not willing to get curious, we can’t ever get to real healing and lasting change. And then you will find variations on a theme, so the work continues. I encourage you, stay in it. True freedom lies on the other side.
If you want to stay in it…
Document it. Remind yourself you can do hard things. You can show up any way you want, with awareness and higher levels of consciousness.
Get support. It can feel very isolating and lonely. Seek out a support system that wants to encourage you to grow and develop. This is where the power of coaching really becomes valuable. Not to help you heal, because healing is an inside job, but to help you gain more insight and tools to guide you.
We don’t like to ask for help, but asking for help is an act of strength and vulnerability.
Keep looking. Keep being willing to dive in. There is so much power in doing the work and staying in the work. Healing is magical and a gift we can give ourselves if we choose.
If you enjoy what you’re hearing please:
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
On this episode of the Meant 4 More podcast Kristin and I were joined by one of our sisters, Sharon Lee, a female empowerment blogger and soon to be podcaster! We dove deep into the journey that is the awakening.
The awakening is something we lovingly refer to as a pivot crossroads in life where we are beginning to question who we are and what we want out of life and all the BIG feelings that come along with navigating this potentially traumatic and exciting time.
We each talked about what it looked and felt like as we reached this pivotal crossroads and we do NOT hold back. We acknowledged how scary it can be and how isolating and uncertain it can feel, yet at the same time how freeing the process is.
We share some insights and tips on how you can navigate your own awakening with grace and compassion for yourself and encourage you to seek support as you embark on this journey.
If you’re currently feeling like you’re going through an awakening or are on the precipice of one, this episode is going to meet you right where you are and let you know that you’re not alone and that there are other women going through the same thing who want to support and encourage you along the way.
If you enjoy what you’re hearing please:
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
On this episode of the Meant 4 More podcast Kristin and I really dug in on awareness, specifically in the body, and how cultivating more of it is an essential step towards creating a life you love.
In a world where we are constantly told we need to be more “mindful,” so many personal development gurus do us a disservice, and skip right over awareness. In this episode we put a stake in the ground, and talk about why awareness is actually the only path to mindfulness.
We talk about what it took for us to personally get to a place of awareness in our own lives and provide some tips and tricks for how you can start to cultivate more awareness in your own life.
As women, so often we start to lose our identity as we give to others over ourselves. And in the process we don’t realize how much stress we are creating, often manifesting in the body in various forms (gut issues, anxiety, depression, etc.). These physical symptoms can be tell tale signs that something is really off mentally/emotionally and this practice of awareness can be the critical component of true healing.
If you’re currently feeling stuck in a rut, dealing with unexplainable physical symptoms or like you were meant for more than your current reality, this episode is going to be just what you need to spring you into action and start to take a look at your level of awareness in your life.
If you enjoy what you’re hearing please:
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
On this episode of the Meant 4 More podcast I was once again joined by my co-conspirator in coaching, Kristin Leazer.
This week we dove into all things energy. We are ALL energetic beings and we tend to show up in ways that play to our default or autopilot mode of operation, rarely taking the time to assess how we are or want to be showing up energetically.
We talked about realizing we can manage our own energy and how we want to show up by using some intentionality to start our day. From there we are able to decide how we want to show up for ourselves and other people during the day.
We also talked about how there are undoubtedly people in your life that are sucking or draining the energy from you (we like to kindly call these people Energy Vampires) and how you have a choice in how you respond to their negative energy. You do not have to play victim to their negative energy field. By once again, setting an intention, you can CHOOSE how you decide to show up or if you even want to show up for them (yes, boundaries can be super empowering here!).
We are all responding to one another’s energy all day, everyday, but if we don’t learn to harness our awareness to start to shift our energy in the direction we want, we will always be at the mercy of other people’s energy.
We recommend starting to bring a little more intention and presence to your day. Take some time, whether 5 minutes or even a minute, each day to think about how you want to show up energetically by asking yourself “how would my best self show up today?” And from there check in with yourself throughout the day to see how you’re holding up to the intention you set for yourself.
We encourage any woman that is struggling with managing her energy or that of others, to start to be more intentional with self-discovery and start to DO THE WORK to unravel to come back together.
This episode is chock full of insight and solutions for real struggles, real women go through on their journey to becoming themselves again.
We would love to know what ah-ha’s or insights you had after listening to this conversation. Drop them in the comments below!
If you enjoy what you’re hearing please:
Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of the Meant 4 More podcast. We appreciate each and every one of you! Now go out there and live each day ON PURPOSE.
The podcast currently has 17 episodes available.