Let’s Talk Love Podcast Season 4 Episode 7 with Sheleana Aiyana | Transcript

06.07.23

This transcript is from the Let’s Talk Love Podcast, available in our Podcast Feed.

Robin Ducharme | Today I had the honor of speaking with Sheleana Aiyana, author of Becoming the One and founder of Rising Woman, a growing community of more than 3 million readers. I felt her grace while listening to her book. And while we shared this hour-long podcast recording her training and immersion in couples facilitation, inherited family trauma, conscious relationship, and somatic healing in form her holistic approach to seeing relationship as a spiritual path. The practices in her book and her online workshops help us to overcome childhood trauma, learn from past painful relationships, ground us in nature and awaken us to our spiritual potential. Sheleana says, I am not an influencer, a spiritual guru or an expert. I am a guide, and I take great care in this work. I'm so privileged to do. I hope our conversation today sparks new insight and infuses more grace and beauty into your life. Enjoy. Welcome to Let's Talk Love the podcast that brings you real talk, fresh ideas and expert insights every week. Our guests are the most trusted voices in love and relationships. And they're here for you with tools, information and friendly advice to help you expand the ways you love, relate and communicate. We tackle the big questions not shying away from the complex, the messy, the awkward and the joyful parts of relationships. I'm your host, Robin Ducharme, now, let's talk love. Hello, everyone and welcome to this special episode of Let's Talk Love. I'm so excited to have our beautiful guest, Sheleana Aiyana, did I pronounce your name correctly?

Sheleana Aiyana | You did indeed. Thank you,

Robin Ducharme | Oh, you're such a beautiful name, you really, really do. And I'm just so I feel blessed to share this hour with you on our podcast, talking about the work that you're doing in this world, which is quite profound. And I've listened to your I'm listening to your book, I have listened to your book. And it's, it's really it's a very powerful, powerful message and teachings. And I love that you're narrating it right? Your voice is so soothing, and full of grace. And anyways, thank you for being with us.

Sheleana Aiyana | Thanks for having me. And funny fact about when I recorded that audiobook. I the second day was my second day of having morning sickness hit me while we were in LA traveling. And so I'm very proud of myself for recording that audiobook because I was taking a lot of puke breaks.

Robin Ducharme | So you were pregnant with Sorea at the time?

Sheleana Aiyana | I was we had conceived her in Mexico. And then we flew over to LA to do a bit of media for my book, record my audio book and see some family. And the day after we got there, it was confirmed that I was pregnant with her. And we had a few days of no morning sickness. And I was like, Oh, I'm not gonna have any. And then on day two of recording my audiobook I woke up quite sick. And I powered through though. And the day after I completed it. It all really fell apart. It was just perfect timing. Everything was so perfect with this book.

Robin | It was meant to be. So I have a question about your pregnancy, did you because when my so your daughter's middle name is Maya and my my first daughter is Maya. And I knew well before it was confirmed on you know, through my tests that I was pregnant. I had this like it was quite an incredible like magical feeling in my womb that I felt. And I said to one of my because I was working at the time and Vancouver and I said to one of my colleagues, I was like I'm pregnant. And it had only been I think I was only pregnant for like a week at that time. But I really felt her moving and growing and me even though obviously like scientifically, it would be the two cells coming together. Right. Did you tell me did you have that sense with Soreya.

Sheleana | I did yeah, we did a quite an interesting preconception path as well spiritually. I did a lot of ancestral clearing work and I did a ceremony to call her spirit in. Some people think sounds very kooky. But it was really profound for me and it was under a full moon many months before I actually conceived her and so that's actually when I received her name. Excuse me, but once we actually conceived her, I felt her enter in a spirit sense because I had been communicating with her all along. And so when she finally came I knew and I remember waking up at 4am, every morning, that was one of the first physical signs. So I just was waking up every morning at 4am and walking down to the ocean because we were in a little casita in Mexico. And I would just go and sing medicine songs to the moon, and I could feel this spirit baby very, very close. And I was like, please actually be here. You know, I hope this is real, you know, I hope you're actually here. And, and I would sing to her and, and then I didn't actually test because we had been trying for a little while, and it was getting me very in my head. And so this, interestingly, the only time that I was actually pregnant, was when I just decided to not test at all until it was quite obvious. And then when we went to LA for my book, I finally was like, Okay, I'm gonna take a test. And there she was.

Robin | Wow.

Sheleana | Yeah.

Robin | So tell us about. So in your bio, you, I'm going to read a few things that are describe what's what's going on with your work. And in the world. You're a spiritual counselor, you're the founder of rising woman, a growing community of more than 3 million readers. That's, that is just really so incredible Sheleana that you've been in your community is growing? And so obviously, you have you have a very grand sole purpose in this world. That's the way I see it. You're helping a lot of women. Would you say that? It's mostly women?

Sheleana | Yeah, it's mostly women. There's a small percentage of men for sure. But mostly women, obviously, given the name, but I do really enjoy working with men as well. And I find more and more as my work matures, I get more men entering my programs to even just from my husband, because he does a lot of men's work.

Robin | So yes, exactly. The two of you are doing work in profound work in the world. So tell us about tell us about your book, tell us about your group, rising woman and Becoming the One. The tenants of it.

Sheleana | Yeah, sounds great. The book is, it's called Becoming the One and it's a bit of my story, a little bit about where I came from, in my journey through childhood trauma and abandonment, and very unsafe unhealthy relationships, as a result of that early conditioning, into healing, and through the portal of learning, conscious relationship. And so it takes you on this journey of looking at your own relationship patterns, understanding your own wounding with your mother and father recontacting, that divine inner mother and father and healing your relationship patterns, through transformation, rather than trying to get rid of parts of yourself. So it's really rooted in self acceptance and self awareness. And I wrote the book because it's sort of the, the journey that I had to go through encapsulated to help people hopefully skip some of the pain that I had to go through to gather those lessons. Of course, we all have to endure our own, our own painful experiences to learn. But there are pathways that we can take. And there's information that we can gather along the way that can support us. And so I created that book in order to help people who perhaps are exhausted with their relationship patterns, or are feeling heartbroken and don't know where to turn or feel that their relationships continuously turn into chaos and upheaval. And that was my experience as well. So that's, that's the premise of the book and Becoming the One the title is really meant to sort of reference how in our culture, we've had this idea of finding the one and how we have this belief that there is one person out there who's going to sweep us off our feet and make everything all better. And while I believe that there are people who are perfect for us, there's no such thing as just one magical person. And it's certainly not going to be the person you meet, that changes your relationship patterns, it's going to be you. And then you add them together in the dynamic. And so we're taking away the pressure in some ways of having there be the one so that we can really be present with the one that we're with, and also be really present with ourselves.

Robin | It's so much of a journey of getting to know yourself on the deepest level and understanding yourself. Like you said, I think so much of us. So many of us were living with we have patterns that we developed early on, that we are repeating, and it's the integration. So that was one of the what that was a really great lesson that I learned from listening and reading your book. So you say that deep in our hearts, we all want the experience of true love. Yet romantic love is not what defines us or makes us whole. This is why my life My response to anyone who's seeking love is always first seek within. And that's what so much of this book is about is about the inner work that you that we all, if we really want to have fulfilling partnerships or relationships in general, it's doing the work inside of ourselves, right?

Sheleana | Absolutely. And there is this pendulum swing, where we have gone to the other end of hyper independence, where we are told that we maybe should be needless, or that we should have it all figured out inside and that all we need is to love ourselves, and then we will no longer yearn for partnership. And I also don't believe that to be true, we're born to be in relationship, we are wired to be in connection and, and we're wired for touch and safety through group and community. And at the same time, we can't really be in authentic relationship with others, if we don't know who we are, if we are not fully expressed, and if we're not authentic in our voice. And so the first prerequisite to being in those relationships that you yearn for is to get into right relationship with you to know who you are, and to unapologetically claim what it is that you want and desire. And so that is where we go in this book, we go on a journey of discovering what parts of you have you let die, what parts of you have you relegated to the basement, because that's what you had to do in order to survive or to earn love, and what parts of you need to be reawakened and welcomed home. So that the right kinds of people, the people that you really yearn to be in deep relationship with can discover you and can celebrate you. And we can only do that when we're in celebration of ourselves. And so it's it is a process of returning to our authentic voice as well.

Robin | So you, you share so much about your story, which that I really, I really believe that how we learn from each other. So, so much of how we learn from each other is from sharing our experiences, and then saying, Well, this is what I learned. And this is how I, my reflection of that and my perspective on it led me to where I am now, like sharing our stories is so very important. So tell me about tell us about your journey. I know there's a lot that you shared the book, and I don't expect you to go through everything, but it was like you were married. And first of all, your childhood, you were in and out of foster homes, can you can you share about your story, please with us, and then your 26 year that's really like, and you did so much work in between the time that after your first marriage, and then you met meeting then that was a huge, like, dense amount of time, like energy spent on your own healing. So I just love to hear more about that.

Sheleana | Well it's funny.You can't even really call it a marriage the previous you know, it was yes, legally, technically, we got married. So we were in our 20s. And it wasn't like he proposed and we were like in this romantic love where we decided we're gonna have a wedding and be married. It was much more strategic than that, you know, we were from different countries. And we wanted to see if we could make it work. And that was the only way and so we were like, Okay, well, let's get married. And we weren't even really happy about it. We were kind of devastated. And I don't know, it was wild, you know, the things that you do when you have to live out a certain life path and a certain karma with somebody. And you look back and you're like, Why did I do that I knew all along? But if I hadn't done that, and if I hadn't experienced that pain, then I probably wouldn't be here now experiencing my greatest joy. And so I'm grateful. But it's always funny to look back. But I did start out on a rough path. Right? I had a very young mom struggling with severe mental health issues, trauma, very, very deep PTSD, alcoholism, addiction, and overall, just no emotional capacity whatsoever, right? She didn't have the privilege of being mothered herself. And so just keeping me alive was such a blessing. And really, I'm grateful to her for all that she did, because she did not have any sort of teacher or guide on how to be an adult to be a mother when I was in and out of foster homes quite young, starting at around three years old. And by the time I was 12, I was on my own as a word of the government. And then when I was 16, I moved out on my own officially and homeschooled myself and worked two jobs and

Robin | Wow, that right there is just amazing.Yeah, to do that.

Sheleana | Yeah, I mean, well, I've met so many people now, I guess maybe we just attract each other. But I've met quite a few people who have a very similar story. And you know, it sounds sometimes like this very unique story. But actually, the more that I share it, the more I receive messages from people who feel so seen in what I went through and feel that their life path was very, very similar. And so that also reminds me that it's important to share, you know, because ultimately, this mission is not about me. But when I remind people that, you know, there's other people out there who have been through this, who are now living fulfilling lives and have happy marriages, you know, I'll be it we have our, our bumps and our struggles, you know, no, nobody is perfect. But all in all, life is really good. And it's possible to get there. And so that's really what I'm a champion for is reminding those people who are perhaps wired for chaos and turbulence, and all they know is destruction. And that there's another way,

Robin | There is another way. And so can you give us just a little taste of all of the work that you did that you do? You do teach somatic practice therapy, practices, healing in their book, and different ways that we can, it is a journey, like you said, of healing. So tell us about your healing journey. And how that like, you did so many things, right. But can you just give us a? Yeah, you were on a mission to heal yourself.

Sheleana | It was a mission. I was I was in a lot of pain, you know, I was in a lot of pain. And when we're in a lot of pain, there are really two pathways that we can take. And one is just absolute collapse, and bitterness, and resignation. And the other is we have to find our fire, we have to claim that element of fire, and we have to forge ahead, and we have to do the work. And that is what I chose. And so I tried everything. And I really first started deep in ceremony. So I worked with a lot of plant medicine, I did a lot of ceremony every week, I did a lot of breath work, I did rebirthing, which is quite an intense form of breath work, not always actually recommended either. Not necessarily something that I would recommend to anyone, but it's what I did. And I also did a lot of deep transpersonal therapy, Shadow Work, mother wounding work, Father wounding work, ancestral clearing work, working with Shamanic healers, literally everything you could possibly do, that is all that I did. Every day, all day, I was focused on my healing. So if I wasn't doing some sort of practice or ritual, I was writing or I was creating processes for myself, which a lot of them are in the book to writing letters to myself and creating containers to vision, what it is that I wanted to experience in the future. And, and I had planned to be single for many years. And then And then I met Ben and he had planned, we met when he was 30. And he had planned to be single until he was 35. And he ended up getting married at 35 instead. And so we actually met quite fast after I broke up with my partner. And I resisted it quite intensely at first because I I felt like it was fast. And I had planned to be single and to just go on this journey. But you know, we don't get to choose when our partners walked through the door. And we also don't get to choose when they exit, even if we're in a deep committed relationship. And so I said yes and surrendered. And here we are now about eight years in and we have a daughter, and it's wonderful, but you didn't plan for it. I planned for him. But I didn't plan for him in the timing that he came.

Robin | I think that that is the beauty, so much beauty and mystery of life in that our soul and God, the source has this greater plan for our lives. So there's like fate, right? And then there's ways that we can get to that fate. Like there's you can go quicker, I think, I don't know, I don't have the answers. But it's like, you can possibly hasten the process of getting to what's good for you. By going down that road. Like you said, I think that is like a great lesson right there is that you were so dedicated to your healing, like you're on a mission to heal yourself. And that sped up the process or the timing on you meeting Ben?

Sheleana | Well, it did for me. And that's the thing is, I want to be mindful to for those people who are doing all of the work and have even done even more work than I did. And then they're single for seven years. And they're like, Well, what gives? Right?

Robin | Right, so what is your advice on that? Or what is your perspective on that?

Sheleana | Well, timing is not up to us, right. And that's true for everything right. And even, you know, I've done a lot of work in the spirit baby realm in the last couple of years. And I have friends who have been communicating with their spirit babies for the last six years, and they are still struggling to conceive the motor, they have that connection. They know their spirit babies and they're ready. But they're not in charge of the timing. And so they just continue to have that connection in that relationship. And the same goes for being with a life partner or any other thing that we want to create. We don't know when it's going to happen. And we don't know why it's not going to happen on our timeline either. And there is some misconception around the whole manifestation.

Robin | Let's talk about that, yes,

Sheleana | Believe that, you know, all you have to do is just do the work and you just have to think positively and then you'll manifest it. And of course, I'm to an extent I believe in manifestation. But I also know that we just don't have the kind of control that we think we do. So for me, it's more about having a relationship with spirit, and then trust and surrender in the process, and just really being present with what is right now. And seeing what is here for me now in this moment, you know, and allowing the moment to be healing for us and allowing joy to be present in the space, even if we aren't receiving exactly what it is that we want in this moment. Knowing that life is a mystery, still, it's still a mystery. And we don't get to decide ultimately, how our life is going to look. And some of us get exactly what we want. And some of us don't, there are plenty of beautiful friends that I have, who are I'm just in awe of, and they want the family and they want the kids and the husband and they want all of those things, and they don't have them and they're, you know, starting to enter their 40s. And they're grieving. They're going through this midlife crisis, where they have to re-evaluate their identity and who they are and who they thought what they thought their life would look like. And that happens too. And that's not because you didn't manifest properly, it's because life is a mystery. And nobody knows. And nobody can tell you why. And it's definitely not your fault. It just is that is the way that life is going. And I personally believe that there's a little mixture of willpower. And then there's a little bit of free will, and then there's surrender. And we have to bring all of those to the table when we're approaching life. We need the willpower to endure when things are not going our way. And we need to remember that we have free will when things seem destined. And we're looking to chart a new path. And then we have to surrender to whatever is given to us in every moment. And I just think sometimes the whole manifestation idea in general, can be harmful if we we hold on to it too tightly. You know,

Robin | I agree.I agree. So you talk about this, I just I just thought this is such a great way to put it like self sacrifice for love, right? And how this can happen to any of us. You say if we are afraid to be single, because we think it has something to do with our worth, then we're more likely to settle for crumbs, engage in self sabotage or self-abandon, to hold on to a relationship that doesn't serve our highest potential. I think this is just really prevalent in, in our society, right? We don't maybe and I think we a lot of us don't realize when we're in unhealthy relationships, but it is this self sacrificing. Can you talk about that Sheleana, how you must see this a lot in your work where people are like, I lost myself, I don't know how it happened. It happened slowly. Or it's like I settled and I should have I should have known better, like I knew, but I I still did it anyway.

Sheleana | Totally. And in those moments, I'm like, Just give yourself grace, because I've done that many times. And that's what brought me here. And so I don't wish that I had made a different decision. Because if I had, where would I be? I love my life. Now, hopefully, if we're awake and we do the practice of remaining present, then we get to that place where even all of the pain in our history has carried us to a place where we are really grateful and happy to be now. And for those of us who are right in the middle of it, that might sound far fetched. But as long as you're awake on the path, likely that is where you will find yourself. It might not look exactly the way you want it to look. But that's a different story. But yeah, it's just such a journey. It's such a journey. And we have to remember that life is going to carry us where it's going to carry us. And if we find ourselves in relationships that make us self abandon, let's say or cause us to lose ourselves. There's often two things going on. One is our own patterns from our family conditioning or activating. We're holding back in some way. And two, we have to ask ourselves, are we with somebody who is activating this in us and they're not actually willing to do the work? Or is this an opportunity to heal? What we tend to do in our culture as we enter these relationships, our family wounding is activated. We lose ourselves and then we blame that other person as if they are to blame for us losing ourselves for our own self abandonment. As men, we don't take responsibility for it. And we think, Oh, well, I just can't be with that person because I can't be myself with them. But how often has that story repeated in your life? How many times? Have you said that? And where does that come from? Is that a familiar feeling or a familiar narrative? And often, when we look back, that's how we learned to survive. That was a survival mechanism. And that's where we go back to what I was talking about earlier, which is that what are those parts that you had to let die or that you relegate it to the basement of your own mind in order to receive love? What are we bringing back, we're not changing who we are, we're just welcoming parts home, or we're becoming more of ourselves, we're stepping more into our essence. And so what we're essentially doing is we're clearing away all the cobwebs and the electric fences, and we're taking the gates down. And we're, of course, having healthy boundaries, there's healthy boundaries that prevent us from just letting everybody in. But there's not such a crazy, you know, jungle gyms swamp to try to get through to our hearts. You know, it's there's a clear path, and you know, what the boundaries are. And there's ways to respect that path. But it's not painful or impossible to get to get to you. And that's the work that we're doing in all of this. And to remember that we should be able, if we are securely attached, to be in relationship with ourselves, to be at home in our own bodies, while also being in relationship with another. So I can be in relationship with myself, I can be in relationship with you. And then there's this other entity, which is our relationship. And those are three separate things. And it takes a lot of somatic practice. And it takes a lot of work for many of us to be able to maintain those boundaries in a healthy way. Because so many of us learned to caretake or to hide, or to contort ourselves in some way to win lover approval, or just stay safe. And so what we're really doing is we're really learning how to be in relationship with our truth and with our direct honesty and our desires, and with curiosity as well for the other person, so that we can learn about each other. And if we find that we are escaping, or that we are hiding, or that we are avoiding in some way, then sure, maybe the solution is to end the relationship, especially if you're younger, and you're still out exploring, but if you're in a relationship where you really want this to work, then you can likely if you both want it to. And if that relationship isn't healthy, you can ask each other well, what can we do to make it healthy? You know, and that's, again, another skill that I think we're still learning in our culture. 50 years ago, 100 years ago, people didn't get divorced, they just stayed together, but they just stayed together in an unhappy state. Now we're in this other end, where people really eject quite quickly, or they don't commit at all. And what I'm rooting for is this middle path where we, we do commit, and we do go all the way.

Robin | That's so well said, so can you can you talk to us about something that you identified in yourself your pattern that you saw, or was just like an awareness that you recognize within yourself? It's a funny story, but it's in hindsight, in hindsight, you laugh about it, but at the time, it wasn't funny. It's something that it's not about the Nespresso. Right. And you talk about how you had said to Ben, you're talking about coffee machines, you're like, don't ever buy me an Nespresso. And lo and behold, Christmas, you open up, like there's an Nespresso machine. Now you took that. So I would, I would feel the same way. You weren't listening. But you really internalized it as, can you talk to us about that? How you recognize within yourself later on, or not too far. After? Oh, it was going?

Sheleana | Yeah. Yeah, it was, you know, this is many years ago. Now. Gosh, that was that was a wild Christmas. Also, I'll save the story if you want to read it in my book. But essentially, we had to had a series of events where I had said something and then he had sort of done the opposite and the gift giving realm. And it's really not about the gift. Of course, like when I opened the card that he got me I was overjoyed. I was like, Oh my gosh, all I need is this card. It was just so beautifully written. I felt just my heart was so open. So in love so happy. And then I opened this big box, you know, and it's an Nespresso and I couldn't even fake being happy. And you know, now I we have processed this. We've talked about it actually on a podcast, just the two of us to about how if that were to happen now the response would be very different. And I'd be like, I love you, but I don't really like this, you know, but at the time. We hadn't fully worked through some of these deeper issues. I guess you could say this one particular issue of feeling unseen and unheard of um, that I guess I was still carrying as a wound from my own childhood. And so when that happened, what it really evoked in me was this feeling of just not being seen not being heard. And it really, really activated something in me. And it's not like this wasn't the first time either, right, of course, there was kind of a buildup of a few things that had happened. And so finally, when this occurred, I just kind of had a meltdown. And afterwards, when we processed it, it really came through, you know, this is about this consistent theme for me, and I talked about this in my book, which is these emotional themes. What's the emotional theme, it's not so much the actual events that are going on in this current relationship, that is the pattern or it's not, like, do all of your ex partners look the same, like, that's not the pattern that we're looking for, what we're looking for is the emotional themes that we carry with us and those current narratives of, you know, I'm not enough, there's something wrong with me, I always attract people who cheat or people don't listen, or I'm not respected, or whatever the narrative is, those are the emotional themes that were looking for. For me, it was I'm not seeing and I'm not heard. I'm not understood, you know, and, and so it brought this beautiful opportunity for me to acknowledge that and to do some deeper work and some deeper healing on it. And that's the beauty of relationship is that there's always something, you know, there's always something that will arise in the space. And, you know, I could have easily just made that all about him, and held the grudge forever, or even ended the relationship. But we used it as a way to create opportunities for healing, and for more wholeness within myself, right, because what we want is to see those moments as healing moments, and then to actually move through them to the point where if the same theme were to arise again, in the space, the story in the narrative would be different. And I would no longer feel that activation in my body and have that same reaction. And so that's, again, to where, you know, doing the somatic work and working with our nervous system to become more securely attached comes in, because the idea that we're always going to be triggered or that, you know, we're always going to be carrying the same story or the same trauma is not correct, we actually can heal that on a physical level, and move that experience through the body. So that, sure, we might have some thoughts or feelings about it, but we're not going to be activated anymore when it arises.

Robin | Right? So that is how you integrate your recognizing, oh, that's if it's like, almost like you take away. Like you said, you're taking away the trigger, you're still aware that that is like you might have these thoughts, that, tell us if that has something come up recently that you can think of that may have triggered or made me it made you recall, this feeling of not being seen or being hurt, but you behave differently or you've encountered is that now that you've done the healing around that? How is that?

Sheleana | No, I would say that that probably happens all the time. Yes. But again, right, because it's something

Robin | It's part of, it's something that's part, right, a part of you, I'm trying to understand that once you've healed that, how is it your life is different now?

Sheleana | Well, ideally, when we do the actual healing work on a nervous system level, we aren't even noticing these things anymore as much because it like I said, it's not being activated, right. And so that's why I say, you know, probably happens every week, but my body's not reacting anymore. And so there are of course, times still in my marriage, of course, where I'm having a hard time, and I'm still having those thoughts of I want to eject from this, or I don't want to be in this relationship right now, where gosh, this guy's such a jerk, you know, like, I have those moments, and he has those moments with me, it's that's marriage, you know, we all have our, our shadow moments. But in general, you know, I've experienced a shift in my own nervous system through doing the healing work, where I don't have those same activations anymore. And if there's something that bothers me, I'm not going down a spiral with it, you know. And so, when we heal our nervous system, it's the nervous system is able to relax into secure attachment. And so we can say, okay, things are really hard right now. And I can acknowledge that, yeah, there's a part of me that wants to run, but actually, I'm going to stay here and it's, it's safe to do so. And it becomes easier to just stay in the game, so to speak, because our body is on board with us. Instead of feeling like we need to run away, which is something that I used to experience all the time and I've written about this as the runner archetype or the survivor archetype. Our instinct is to eject or to run and to just exit the dynamic or go and be alone because we all we can trust as ourselves. And ideally, when we've done the deeper healing work on our nervous system level, that sensation in the body reduces or completely goes away. And so we have a greater capacity to receive love but also to just be in a stable, healthy connection without needing to disrupt the homeostasis all of the time in order to feel something familiar.

Robin | Yeah. So in your, in your book, you have these practices that we can all do. Whether you're in a relationship or not, right, I think it and if you're in a relationship, I think the healing is the life, this life is a healing journey, period. That's just the way it goes. So tell us more about somatic healing. This, this is something that I'm still I'm learning a lot about. But I think a lot of our listeners don't know what that is. But does it mean?

Sheleana | It just means it just means body, right. And so what we're doing with the body, yeah, we're doing, we're working with body memory, we're working with body intelligence, the body, you know, there's a book called The Body Keeps the Score, it's probably the most famous book on this work. So certainly, you know, it's dense, heavy, very intense read, but it's been on the charts for years because it's just such an incredible resource for those who want to learn about this type of work. But ultimately, what we're doing is we are healing at a nervous system level, so the body holds memory, it holds trauma, and we might be able to do all of the mindset work in the world. But if our body hasn't moved through the event, or our body hasn't had the opportunity to process the experience, then our body will still be in fight, flight, freeze, fawn, we're in some sort of state that doesn't allow us to react differently to the same type of stimulus. So what we're doing when we're doing somatic healing, is we're actually processing things that we've been holding, without having to talk about it, and through movement, or sound, and through gentle touch, and it's quite subtle, and it's not going to blast your channels open. And it's not this intense experience. And that's the beauty of it is we have been conditioned, especially in some of the therapy circles that people attend, where they believe that, you know, it needs to be this big experience, you know, like a big breathwork event or something where you're going to just blast your channels open and have this vision come through and you know, you're gonna see God. And with somatic work, it's often the opposite, it's very subtle, you almost don't notice anything. But what's happening is that slowly, your nervous system is retraining to be secure, and to also not be holding on to anything that needs to be processed. And so also, it's about learning how to be present in the moment where if there's something to process that we don't skip that, that we either process it right there in the moment, or that we come back to it in that same day, so that we're not building up memory in ourselves, that's going to impede our ability to be fully expressed in our relationships.

Robin | Right? I had a conversation yesterday with Kelsey Grant. And from, she talked to talk to us about the work that she does with people around cleaning your emotional pipes. And it's just, you don't because you don't really know what's what's locked in there. A lot of times, like you said, but you but it does make a profound impact. If you are able to clear out what you know, we don't even mean we know you're holding on to. That's the thing about somatic work. I thought about when you were talking about this, I was thinking about my experience. A few years ago, I was in Vancouver doing a five rhythms workshop with one of my dear friends Anne Marie Hoga. And she does just, I had never done this before it was wild, and it just out of my realm of what I was used to. But we danced for three days, just turn the music on, and she's leading us into whatever your body wants to do. And at times, I was enjoying and the music was you know, pumping, you're feeling good. But there were times when I just had to sit down and cry, I had no idea why I was crying. And I didn't, I didn't know what I was experiencing. And your mind can't make sense of it most some of the time. And you're not, it's not meant to, right?

Sheleana | Yeah, we're not meant to understand everything and we don't need to and it's it can be really healing to go to the roots of your relationship patterns and understand them in the mind. And I've done a lot of that work. And I guide people through that work. And I also remind people that ultimately, the thing that matters is that we move this out of your system, and if you don't remember that's okay. And you don't have to have all the answers. You really don't. Your body will lead you if you allow and we so often resist being in the body and that's why we have so much chronic pain and disease and discomfort. And, you know, I went through that myself where I had severe chronic pain and severe autoimmune for years that actually healed through doing somatic work because I was so afraid to be in my body that my body was keeping score, so to speak, right it was holding on to all of that trauma and that pain that I wasn't able to process it acknowledge and so as I did that, my body transformed my pain reduced and I had more capacity to feel all of the feelings, including joy and celebration, and peace, which are the things that we might not realize that we're afraid to feel. But we really can be, you know, so often, if we are conditioned for chaos or dysfunction, we may actually have a cap on how much joy we can experience, we might feel awkward when everybody's celebrating around us, and we're in a crowd, and we might feel embarrassed to clap or to sing, or we might not want to get up and dance and we might feel frozen. Why is that? Well, that's a limit on joy. And that's a somatic block as well. And it's not just part of your personality. It's not who you are, you know, it's a separation between you and others, and this feeling of being separate from. And so these are all things that can give us information about where we're at, and what we need in order to open ourselves to the fullness of life.

Robin | Wow. Oh, my gosh, I was just something just really clicked for me right now, around all of that what you just said, because it's like, this makes sense to me how it's like our, if you have been through, you're holding so much trauma in your body. You're unconsciously like disconnecting yourself, like you've got the memories, you've got some of that, but you don't want to experience it in your with your fullness of yourself. So you're disconnecting, but you're not doing it on purpose. So that really what it means. That's what it means to be out of body. Right? Yeah. And what you're what you're helping people do with your work and with your book is, it's these rituals and these practices to really be and clear. What's going on. Yeah, wow. Yeah, I think that's amazing. So tell us about you. So I recommend everybody read your book and listen, listen to your book. I think your voice is so healing. I think it's just the audio is, is incredible. So tell us about the work you do with rising woman. And you know, are you doing online? People can do online work with you as well, right?

Sheleana | Yeah, right now the only way to work with me directly is to do my program called Freedom From Relationship Anxiety. And that's a six week container where we do some breath wave ceremonies, which is a very, very gentle form of breath. And also six sessions with me. And we do a combination of somatic experiencing work with practitioners that I have brought in to do that supportive work. Because I'm not I'm not yet a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, which is Peter Levine's body of work, which I really admire. So I've brought in some friends who are doctors to support that. And then we also do weekly calls and practices to heal from these anxious and anxious avoidant tendencies that we might be wrapped up in, in our relationships. Many people who are doing the anxious avoidant dance many people who are chasing many people who are desperate for love and attention from the wrong places, and also people who are just in healthy relationships and cannot relax and be present because they are so conditioned to fear the worst or to are waiting for the other shoe to drop. So that is the program that I built actually, about four months ago. And I love running that program. It's so amazing to see the transformation that can occur and the aha moments that happen while we're really getting into our bodies together and also practicing vulnerability and connection because I we do these calls where we, we do breakouts, and we talk about just things that are vulnerable to us in a safe container. And we practice being seen and heard and also listening. So that's, that's what I'm up to these days. And I also have a journal for becoming the one that's being published in September. So that'll be out by the end of September. So I think the link for preorder is available now. So

Robin | When does your opening, sorry, you said it's what is it called again? Please? Sheleana?

Sheleana | It's Freedom From Relationships.

Robin | Yes. When is that? When is that opening?

Sheleana | The next one is July 3.

Robin | July 3rd. Very soon.

Sheleana | Yeah. Yeah. Okay, about a month from now just under a month from now we'll open the doors again. And because the program is live, we close the doors and we build a waitlist and then we open up every few months, like every three or four months. Right now that could change of course, but right now that's how we're doing it. And I've just really enjoyed since having my daughter working directly with people and with groups again. I've just had this new energy for people because seeing the innocence and the tenderness and the vulnerability in my own baby just reminds me so much that all of us that come through these doors for healing were once that innocent child and it connects me to people's hearts even deeper knowledge as as a mother and so I've just really loved having the opportunity to run these sessions. It's been really great.

Robin | Wow. Well, I'm just so honored that we shared this time together, and I've been learning from you and I will continue to do so. And thank you so much for being with us today. Yeah.

Sheleana | Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. Thanks, Robin.

Robin | Please visit realloveready.com To become a member of our community. Submit your relationship questions for our podcast experts. At reallovereadypodcast@gmail.com. We read everything you sent. Be sure to rate and review this podcast. Your feedback helps us get you the relationship advice and guidance you need. The Real Love podcast is recorded and edited by Maia Anstey. Transcriptions by otter.ai and edited by Maia Anstey. We at Real Love Ready, acknowledge and express gratitude for the Coast Salish people, and stewards of the land on which we work in play, and encourage everyone listening. Take a moment to acknowledge and express gratitude for those that have stewarded and continue to steward the land that you live on as well.

Transcription by https://otter.ai & edited by Maia Anstey