Stop Surviving Start Living Somatic Secrets to Soul Alignment

What if your body isn't breaking down it's responding to life You've been tolerating And the real question is are you actually healing or just overriding the signals? I'm your host edna white and this is keeping it real on purpose Well, we stop performing start telling the truth and turn life's pain into purpose today. I'm joined by elizabeth fowler Audience clap for me clap for me audience. Yay. I got it, right somatic transformation coach and regenerative wellness guide and the founder of body and soul sanctuary after facing neuro Degenerative not divergent. Sorry Neurodivert diet here. I go get neuro degenerate degenerative Autoimmune illness and a brush with death elizabeth didn't just focus on symptoms She built her life from the inside out her work now helps women reconnect their bodies Reclaim their self-worth and stop living in patterns that keep them depleted. Welcome to the show elizabeth of oregon Thank you so much. I love that intro. Love your energy. It's nice to hear welcome I'm, so glad you're here. So the pre-show you started to tell me about the ecosystems and I want to get straight into that you know, um The ecosystem our body being an ecosystem. So what is our body trying to tell? Us before everything forced us to stop and listen if we're in the ecosystem Yeah, I mean I think very similar to what we're all learning on the planet level too in terms of helping salvage the environment Right instead of just trying to cover up a problem With another problem and another problem like how do you how do you understand? um how the messages are happening between different parts of the system right like in a coral reef that they're talking to the Seaweed talking to the you know microbes and water and our bodies are complex But they're living and they're always communicating Um, and so for me, that's really the beginning of healing is to stop seeing our symptoms As a problem that just needs to be like whacked down with a pill or No way, whether it's physical mental or emotional or spiritual doesn't matter all of the levels It's actually like how do we partner with it and help? Help understand Why is that? Why is that trying to speak up? What is it? What do I need to to help us get better? Yeah And we I love how you said that we we you know, swipe it away, you know I call it the the red flags, you know, we pick them up Oh, yeah, that's a red flag pick that up and put in the back seat and ride around with it forever Instead of realizing that was supposed to stay there and so you don't go that way But we pick it up anyway, you know, and I love how how you say that Our we're we're being told things by signals from our body, you know, um I met Of course i'm dating guys. I'm dating. Okay, and they know that already but um Some guy said to me he says oh, um, everybody thinks about Visual everything's visual I said well I have eyesight It can't help but to be visual so then signals to you, but yeah your brain and everyone has a type Right everybody has a type right? So it's like Those things are there to tell us things it tells us things and if we go if we go past them Sometimes we end up in trouble Am I saying it right? Yeah, well and the nice thing is like sometimes As you know from the the transformation work that you talk about there's sometimes We're still stuck in a trauma pattern and like what we're following what our senses are following are just keeping us in a loop But the nice thing is like in order to break that you can't like Do turn away from it. Like you said you can't just put the red flag in the back seat You have to be curious and approach the curiosity. Okay Why am I drawn to that why is this happening, you know, you have to start with an attitude of curiosity Or ask the questions that you know, um, i'm finding that people do not like Honesty or truth and it could be the smallest thing. Um, you want to go in the store? No What? You know, it's like you know something simple like that i'm finding that that is not the norm, but When you're in when you're out of that trauma state, you can comfortably say no without having to have any emotion attached to it It's just a no, you know, and I think that isn't so important when we talk about listening to our bodies listening to Just listening to ourselves because we say no in our head, but we don't speak. No Right, right, right. I love what you're saying, you know, what you're talking about is having agency and a lot of folks don't realize they're not really Coming from a place of their full agency their their responses are habitual Instead of coming from a real pause Right, that's good Habitual. Yeah, we don't want to like we don't like that word pause either. I don't think anybody uses the pause button no more Don't use it. They don't use them. You remember. Oh, no, you're too probably young but We had a vhs if we walked away. We had to put it on pause Oh, yeah, I remember being I'm, not that young We had to put it on pause and and go where we can't and then come back Because if we didn't we had to rewind the tape and how long did that tape take to rewind? Oh, please. Okay. All right So we don't even know how to do that anymore we and and I love agency I didn't I didn't know the name for it, but I love agency because It brings back bring us back to Not denying ourselves. We've denied ourselves so much by saying yes to everything. Yes Even if we didn't want to do it with we you know And now is when you get to that place and you can say no without explaining a thousand things, you know, oh I don't want to do it because You know and it's so important when to listen to those signals because The voice is there in your head saying no say what the the voice is saying, okay Yeah, this is actually one of the biggest lessons. I learned from my autoimmune illness, you know, it's like Once I got underneath some of the physical things that I needed to support my body some more along the mental and emotional Stuff of what was it that kind of why did I manifest that situation? What did I need to learn? And so much of it was about the right to say no and the right to have boundaries around. Yeah The being that were really not good for me and I was like almost like leaking my energy for other people in situations Yeah Luckily, I don't need an illness as an excuse to not do that anymore Thank goodness But it was a really important lesson Yeah, yeah Yeah, I I I get it I know my lesson wasn't it wasn't uh, wasn't an illness but it was an accident and I You know, I I I welcome The red flags now and I I make sure I oh, nope. Nope. No, i'm not doing that and and yeah, i'll do that, but you know, i'm welcoming the signs now and the and being able to self-regulate and to to have agency with people because We you know, we all um don't realize it but we all are wanting something All of us and so if you allow me i'm going to do it i'm going to continue to do it because you're allowing me to And it may not be malicious, but it gets into be a pattern Here we go again, right a pattern and you just and you keep giving and they keep taking and you keep giving and taking So it keeps going on to this relentless cycle that Ends up in destruction at the end It's quite powerful what can shift when someone breaks that cycle It's a whole crash Let me just tell you it doesn't end well It's not like amicable it isn't because once you say no i'm not going to do that anymore No, i'm not going to worry about anymore It's the whole thing Yeah, it can yeah it is and I think that's the part that I often People need the most coaching during that phase of healing because it does it feels like everything's falling apart I'm, completely lonely. My relationships aren't working out blah blah blah. Yeah But it's really the beginning of liberation and I think that's a message people need to hear you know because in a way it's like what does that quote from albert einstein like you can't You can't solve a problem from within the problem. You have to get somehow outside of it And so your world might be collapsing but maybe that's because it's a small world and you actually are about to Find your way into a bigger world so that you wouldn't be able to find without Yes That's good small worlds. Yeah, I like that You said many of your relationships are based on what you you could emotionally provide How does that show up in women who don't realize they're doing it? Yeah, I mean that's a good question because I didn't realize I was doing it for so long um it You know, there's this thing that we talk about in the nervous system work that I do called freeze And that's where things are so intense inside We've had emotions stuffed inside for so long That we don't even realize like the only way to sort of manage it is to go numb, right? So we think the things are fine and things are functional But like for me, it was actually slowing down long enough actually having the courage to be in the pause long enough Um, it's it's almost like I use I like the metaphor of like if someone's been in a war in a war zone They had to be on when they come out of the war zone. They come home Now they're off It's not until they kind of register. They're actually safe and not in the war zone that they start all the anxiety and the flashbacks All this so sometimes it's not so we actually are in a place in our life where we're more grounded We're in a safer space. We're not being abused anymore. We're in a safer relationship. We're okay Um that we actually start to feel these feelings pop up and we're like, where did that come from? Where did that come from and that happened for me? um, and so Um, I guess just to say like you're not crazy if that starts to happen. It's almost like Oh, it's like those little parts that were stuffed inside that are finally like we can have our tantrum now we can get upset Now we can get angry now Yeah, so I would say embrace the process even though it's a little bit messy but it's um, it's a healing process and To hold ourselves through it. Yeah Yeah, something came to mind when you were talking about the freeze. Is there a difference between fawning and freezing? Maybe I can look it up. But is there i'm since I got an expert here. So Yeah, I mean It presents differently in everybody depending on what the coping strategy is But fawning tends to be a little bit more. I mean, it's just a form of freeze. I would say it's one thing under the category of freeze And it's definitely you know, it serves us well when we're in a powerless situation and we need to get out of it you know like But part of being Targeted and truly earn our in our agency is being able to be in that uncomfortable place where we don't fawn anymore Yeah Yeah, that's good, that's good Okay, what does it actually cost someone physically and emotionally to live long term? outside of all that chaos Or in it now maybe in it i'm sorry in the chaos of like in a bad, you know bad relationships, you know I mean ultimately it costs it costs everything in my opinion and when I was very sick I remember being concerned about money when we're talking about costs But eventually I was like i'm gonna put everything that I have into this. I'm gonna put thousands of dollars into healing because My life force and my well-being is the most important thing, right? And so what I would be giving up to not do that Would be a being myself Right, right. That's good. Yeah B if you really let that go on long enough It also takes hold of the physical body and you start losing your actual energy Enjoy life in this body you know and to feel good in this body and moving and walking around and all the things are part of being human and um, but ultimately even more than that, even if you don't get sick, it's Not getting to be you and to be like, that's the ultimate pain Yeah, we live a life hiding Yeah Wasn't just healing your body But you had to value yourself Yeah, I mean for me it was a deep journey of self-worth, um because I because it was like in order to rally to Do all the things I had to do to bring myself back to life. I had to care a lot about me There were days where it was tempting to just kind of let it go and go deep into depression and even Suicidal ideation at times because I was in so much pain and it was so hard um, but I had to be like, okay, well There has to be you know in order to Be in an endeavor like that. You have to be motivated right? You have to be deeply motivated and so You know for me it really was it really was about you know Letting go of the story of like i'm here because I need to prove something i'm here because of blah blah blah but like Just because i'm here like That in itself is enough, you know, I me this being you know, um and also I also to be honest had to be okay with the idea that I could I don't get to choose when i'm gonna go You know, um, so it was less about survival and more about okay. Can I just embrace my soul whether I survive this or not? Can I just embrace that this you know? I believe and I don't have any particular religious tradition, but I believe that my soul continues after this body dies And so it's like how can I befriend the part of me that is going to be with me? No matter what happens to this body because that's like that's the relationship that's never going away ever So I just was like, all right, that's the most important thing more important That's great. Oh my gosh um a while ago, I was talking to a friend of mine and I didn't really know she was just a new friend And so I said to her, you know You have to do you run all over the place and you spend out because i've done it before then you have to have some radical self Love right and you talk about radical self-worth Tell us what that actually looks like in life. Not the concept but the real decision Hmm Oh, I love that. I love how you ask about the feeling and not the concept Yeah I mean the way it presents to me and the more that I embody it the more peace I feel in my Existence there's less of a need to prove or react Right, if it was just an idea, I would be like, oh, yeah, i'm worth it And I think there's an important part of that that's just coming out of free Sometimes when you've been fawning and freezing for so long you have to get angry first That's totally okay to be like **** that, you know But the more that you bring it into your tissues and you believe it Which again is a concept like you said, there's a there's like, um Almost like to me the way I experience this is why I call my work the body and soul sanctuary because it's almost like your soul Or your spirit Literally comes out of the clouds and just lands here It lands in your heart. It lands in your body It lands in your face and your eyes and your hands in the physical body and the more that happens The more you inhabit your body the less other people's Stuff can inhabit your your thinking your body your emotions It's so empowering Yes It feels so good Yes You're like don't really buy the stuff it just falls right off of you like Velcro like a anti-magnet It just goes off. Yes It really does you were talking my language girl You took even people that you don't need in your life You may want to have them around. It's just like it's like automatic. You don't do anything To provoke it and it just drops away You don't have to get in confrontation with them all you got to do is just Literally be yourself and i've had a person Say to me one time they asked me to do something and I was doing something else and I was like And it's very important. So I was like, you know, you know, no And I just it wasn't rude or anything. No, I can't do that And I walked, you know, and so maybe when they called me and said, you know, I didn't like your attitude, you know, like What do you mean? And so she said I felt like you were cutting me out I said why do you used to say that? Because the attitude that you were giving me I I made a pie and I was cutting the slice out. That was yours Literally my mind to cut you out I didn't even know who was doing it when I just took the slicer to slice the piece. That's not mine. That's hers Yeah And I handed it to my own my spirit. That's the way I did it And I just walked away and she goes well, I could feel that I felt it like you just cut me off Like you cut the slice so it wasn't rude or anything, but you know, I just felt like I was slighted and I was like, hmm Yeah And they they they disappeared after a while they disappeared on their own I didn't do anything on their own And you know how you sometimes you feel when you're your feelings getting involved And you're like, oh, maybe I said something but you really didn't you didn't do anything Just they're just not for you Yeah, well, that's the only way to open up space to find the people that are for you Yeah And really it's not our job. It's um, it's not our responsibility whether someone else likes us or not Our responsibility is to be ourselves And the more we are the more people who aren't a match will get repelled and the people who are a match will come up our lives That is so good Okay, you said earlier when you started asking, um, what actually nourishes you what began to fall away? And how hard was it to let it go? Yeah I mean lots of things fell away on a practical level because I was like so so Exhausted but I would say the deep sort of energy emotional Root of it was basically looking for validation outside myself that was like That was the thing that got really deeply uprooted And even just feeling like oh I was missing out on the world if I couldn't Go out to this event or be in such someone's life or whatnot Um, I got really really intimate with just being alone by myself and taking and going deep inside, you know Um and getting to know myself really well. Um So I don't remember the second part of your question, but the thing that fell away How hard was it to let go? It was hard I had so much. Um, it brought up all of my trauma all my anxious attachment It brought up all early early memories like from like pre-verbal memories of feeling all alone and like nobody understood me um But I I I held myself through all of it with the tools that I have, you know, and um did a lot of self-soothing so It was very very hard. It was not it's not easy to face those feelings I think you know, we don't realize like there's an emptiness inside and we just keep trying to Do this And then when you do that pause, it's like oh no, it's gonna swallow me. And of course, I thought it would too It was terrifying. Yeah But I think that's why i'm so grateful for the somatic work. So it's not just Idea spinning in the head, but like oh if I bring it physical and i'm like, okay It's a tension in my chest or it's a beating in my heart or it's a hit in my stomach or It's a tear trying trying to cry that i'm feeling behind my eyes then It's a lot easier to be with it. Uh instead of the whole vortex of all the thoughts and feelings cascading, you know Yeah, one of the exercises that you do a small one that you do around that Yeah, I mean usually there's lots of different ones But the simplest one is honestly just called orienting which basically just means opening up your your senses to the moment so your ears hearing your your your sight, um, you talked about your eyes before Smelling taste touch and temperature and all that and so anytime I start any kind of practice I just do that first because the brain just want it tells the brain i'm not in the past. I'm not in the trauma I'm not in the future trying to escape anything I'm just right here and now and my immediate environment's actually safe and comfortable and there's an intimacy with that too And so that's like a good starting place before doing any of the deeper work. Yeah A lot of people say they want peace, but they stay environment that dreaming why? Because it's familiar And and our brain interprets what's familiar as safe Um, even if it's actually not what's best for us and so that's part of um getting comfortable with Going into the unfamiliar, um is actually, you know The more we can do that with ourselves and with our own body Then we can start to open up our world to situations that are healthier for us But until we start to build that capacity, we're just going to choose this familiar Even if our conscious mind is like why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? The nervous system is like this is what I know. So I want to keep doing it because i'm gonna stay safe Yeah What would you say for someone disconnected From their body right now what the signs that they've been ignoring, you know share that with them They've been ignoring their body Yeah, I mean just overriding like you You're not aware of your signals basic body signals like when you're hungry when you're full when you're tired You push through instead of like taking a pause You know, um, maybe you don't notice until you finish your work day You've been tense and you've had a tension headache or you've been holding back some emotion Uh, because you don't let yourself be in touch with it, you know throughout the day Those are just some small examples But then it can manifest in it lots of health issues are just like the body having trying to speak for a long time And not being listened to yeah What are some simple ways that someone can start listening? to their own body Yeah I mean Getting support obviously from someone that can help them do that is always really good. Yeah but starting with orientation and then um I think one of the most powerful practices is developing a sort of mindfulness, uh practice in which You realize that you aren't your thoughts or your emotions Um, but you can observe them with a kind of compassionate curiosity and the more you can create that kind of Safe distance Right and more it's paradoxical because with that safe distance Then you are able to feel more deeply and see and feel what's going on without it flooding you Because you know, it's not you you're not going crazy. You can actually have a conversation with those parts of yourself So developing that kind of witnessing Makes it possible to feel more deeply. Yeah, that's what I would practice Okay, so now we're getting Closer to the clothes, but you mentioned something about money earlier right um receiving monetary value For emotional intelligence. Why do so many women give that away for free? It's so bad. It's been so ingrained in our you know, because we have personal trauma and then we have cultural trauma One of those things Right and so for such a long time a lot of our identity and value has come from being emotionally available emotionally supportive And when something's taken for granted And under the system that you know that that's the trauma in itself It's the taking for granted of a precious resource our emotional availability Is a precious resource and so to start by having boundaries and realize that and say, you know, I get to choose where and with whom I supply this resource um, then you can start to This is actually a valuable thing and if i'm really good at this Um, you know, it's like this is part of how we I think start to take that culture and heal those deeper over cultural traumas is to That's been smoothed over and not been given appropriate recognition Yeah Well like that like that a lot. Um What shifted in you that allows you to receive instead of just give Yes, um my my just deep self-acceptance I mean, I don't know how else to call it. There are many many steps to that um, but um my my deservingness So tell us how we can get in touch with you How our audience can answer your questions or even be involved in something that you maybe a workshop that you're Going to have this month or coming months Yeah, so the project that i've been working on recently is called the body and soul sanctuary Um, and there is it's a it's a it's an intimate Community in which you can enroll and actually go on a deep journey of transformation and healing through this work over the course of a year I also have a a free community called the body and soul village which is a nice place to just come and get resources and receive my newsletter and come to our Seasonal rituals on the equinoxes and on the solstices So that's a nice place to start and you can find that through my website Which is body and soul sanctuary.com. I also share a lot on uh, facebook Undermining elizabeth stouter. Yeah Okay, awesome. So audience. Here's the truth. Your body will carry you Carry what you refuse to confront And at some point it will stop Negotiating with you. You heard the story now. Let's talk about what to do with it My my guest today elizabeth told you what to do with it. Okay, so let's not talk anymore But let's get to doing if you're tired of being exhausted Overwhelming disconnected it's time to look at the pattern not just the symptoms You know book a session with with elizabeth book a session with me. Let's identify What your body has been trying to tell you what needs to change? If you're ready for a conversation like this Don't forget to like subscribe and share keeping it real on purpose This is edna white your host and my esteemed guest elizabeth stouter saying goodbye for now