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Episode 24: Beyond the Mind: Why Embodiment Is the Key to True Healing
27 Plays1 year ago
In this episode of Sacred Self Love, we explore the vital role of embodiment on the spiritual healing journey. So often, we’re taught to seek healing through books, podcasts, courses, and even plant medicine—but what if the true transformation isn’t found in consuming more, but in coming home to the body?
I share reflections on the difference between knowing something intellectually and living it in the body. We talk about how healing isn’t about fixing ourselves—it's about feeling ourselves. I unpack how the constant search for the “next thing” can become a form of spiritual bypass, and how true wisdom and integration happen only when we slow down and drop into presence.
You’ll hear why embodiment is essential for processing trauma, reclaiming your emotions, setting boundaries, and accessing deep inner truth. I also offer signs you might be disconnected from your body, along with gentle practices and journal prompts to support your return to yourself.
This episode is a loving reminder that you don’t need to do more to heal—you need to feel more, trust more, and soften into the sacred wisdom already living inside of you.
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Transcript
Introduction and Reflection
00:00:00
Valerie Vazquez
Aloha and welcome to Sacred Self-Love. I'm your host and guide Valerie Vasquez and today I'll just be doing a solo pod. If you've listened to the last couple of episodes, I had my son Logan on with me and we had some really...
Farm Life and Mangoes
00:00:17
Valerie Vazquez
profound conversations and I'm just super proud of him for wanting to be on the podcast with me and to really share some of his wisdom and insights before I go any further on mangoes are coming in on the farm. I just harvested some the other day. they're One was almost three pounds. We have some really large mangoes on the farm and
00:00:51
Valerie Vazquez
I mean, some of them are some of the best I've ever had before. This one variety is called Golden Glow.
00:01:02
Valerie Vazquez
and if you ever come across that variety, grab it up. Because it is, I mean, it tastes, I can't even explain how juicy and yummy it is. It's just amazing.
00:01:13
Valerie Vazquez
And let me think if there's any other updates here. Not so much, just um really enjoying the peacefulness and the beauty of living nature.
Healing Beyond the Mind
00:01:29
Valerie Vazquez
So today, this episode is really more going into beyond the mind and why embodiment is the key to true healing.
00:01:48
Valerie Vazquez
So
00:01:50
Valerie Vazquez
In the ways that we have been raised, the majority of the focus has been on putting information into the mind and just listening to podcasts and reading books and things.
00:02:08
Valerie Vazquez
you know, just mind work, psychology, and figuring things out and and learning why we are the way we are and why others are the way they are. And there's just so much that is just, and even on social media, like the reels that come across and the information that comes across, it's just information coming in, coming into the mind.
00:02:32
Valerie Vazquez
And while that is helpful, that isn't true healing because our bodies are where that energy is stored, those wounds that are stored within our body.
00:02:48
Valerie Vazquez
And we cannot think our way out of a situation that comes up where When we are truly triggered into an old wound, we can't think our way out
Somatic Practices for Healing
00:03:00
Valerie Vazquez
of it.
00:03:00
Valerie Vazquez
We needed or we need to release aspects of those wounds so that when someone tries to Or they not might necessarily try to, but when we come into a situation, we don't get triggered and fall into the wound because we've cleared it out through certain practices. And i know that we speak a lot about, or I speak a lot about breathwork.
00:03:29
Valerie Vazquez
But there is also, as a woman, it is so empty important to really allow yourself to do other somatic practices, dancing, singing, doing a body scan so that you know exactly what you are feeling in your body,
00:03:54
Valerie Vazquez
and not trying to bypass that feeling out, but allowing yourself to be in it and to release it. And embodiment is really living in your body.
Spiritual Knowledge vs. Embodiment
00:04:11
Valerie Vazquez
Instead of just thinking about healing, you're actually living it. It's about presence and regulation and, again, feeling what is real.
00:04:27
Valerie Vazquez
And you can really tell when you're around someone who is just has a whole bunch of spiritual knowledge that versus spiritual wisdom because the wisdom lives in the body.
00:04:44
Valerie Vazquez
And so you can watch how they show up in their life. If they are still acting sporadic all the time and moving really fast around and there's still all of these drama trauma dramas going on everywhere and they're just stuck in that that's not really embodying the wisdom that comes from when we release and we know that being slower and really truly knowing that these types of situations are going to continue to happen over ah and over again in our lives but that by doing the work of releasing and doing the work of
00:05:33
Valerie Vazquez
really, truly getting grounded in your body will change all of the aspects.
The Trap of Spiritual Content Consumption
00:05:40
Valerie Vazquez
and And you will just have a different presence. The person with spiritual wisdom has a different presence about them.
00:05:48
Valerie Vazquez
They know how to set boundaries. They know how to, that it's okay to speak their truth. They know that it is okay for them to show up exactly how they are.
00:06:02
Valerie Vazquez
And so there is, you know, again, like I said in the beginning about just reading more and more books and listening to more and more podcasts, sometimes that can become a distraction from feeling.
00:06:17
Valerie Vazquez
and it's like, it becomes like this ah addiction to just fixing yourself and and always being in a course or a healing modality. And trust me, I am guilty of that.
00:06:28
Valerie Vazquez
i'm I'm not saying that I'm free from not doing any of these things. I definitely feel like I took a crash course into spiritual healing journey because I had no idea what was even
Valerie's Embodiment Journey
00:06:44
Valerie Vazquez
going on. I just wanted to like...
00:06:48
Valerie Vazquez
take a fast course and a, like ah hurry and just get done with all of this. But the more, the longer that I've been on it and the more that I have done embodiment practices, the deeper that I'm getting into the understanding of this spiral path, this journey is,
00:07:12
Valerie Vazquez
never ends in your entire life. i'm I'm not saying that you will be facing the same things that you're facing now, because hopefully you are doing practices that will release. And so you're just going to be presented with different things. But you're also going to be able to get to a point where you just, you know that this is about to happen. You know that you're about to step through into a a ah portal not a portal of pain, but like you're about to step into something, and whether it be personal or collective, and then you're going to quantum leap to a different, you know, version of yourself if you're really truly doing the work of releasing and allowing and not just continuing to pour more knowledge in, because the knowledge is great, but the wisdom is greater.
Releasing Trauma from the Body
00:08:11
Valerie Vazquez
Because we know that there is
00:08:18
Valerie Vazquez
trauma that lives in the body. So healing has to happen through the body. So if we are not releasing out of the body, it's still going to be there no matter how much we learn.
00:08:38
Valerie Vazquez
And you can you can also see this in your in your personal relationships because I have... witness this firsthand that this person is continuing to demonstrate the same patterns over and over again. It's just the same patterns over and over again.
00:09:00
Valerie Vazquez
and if you call them out on that, or if you witness it, they'll start spouting off all of this spiritual knowledge they've learned, but yet they're not actually able in a situation to be embodied enough to live the spiritual wisdom. it Yeah, so you can, you know, turn this back to yourself and look at it like, am I just learning things, but in an actual situation, not actually being able to embody the truth that I know in my head?
00:09:37
Valerie Vazquez
so
00:09:40
Valerie Vazquez
It's a gentle process, though, as far as how you start treating yourself. It's just turning yourself back, turning back to love as best as you can.
00:09:54
Valerie Vazquez
Loving that those parts of yourself that didn't receive the love that you needed.
Managing Triggers and Reactions
00:10:01
Valerie Vazquez
In a moment when you are triggered, it's the pause.
00:10:06
Valerie Vazquez
It's the putting your hand over your heart and over your womb space and taking some deep breaths and feeling the feelings you're feeling, knowing that that's okay, and then making a choice from there, how you go forward.
00:10:22
Valerie Vazquez
But it's not... falling in the old pattern and just immediately reacting or shutting down or just not really dealing with it. Just saying, oh, well, this is always going to be this way.
00:10:35
Valerie Vazquez
It's actually wanting to make a change in your body so that when a situation comes up again, you will not have to have the same reaction again because you've already witnessed yourself in it, felt that you were safe to speak your truth in the moment, or felt that you wanted to lessen the flow of whatever comes through for you. For me, anger has been a huge thing that I've had to work through on my journey.
Integration of Knowledge
00:11:18
Valerie Vazquez
i've I've really had to I used to just feel like a freaking volcano every time i would get triggered. And now it's like this little spark that comes up a little bit and I feel it and I'm like, okay, I see you there.
00:11:34
Valerie Vazquez
You're there. You're still there sometimes, especially. when I'm dealing but with someone, mainly my husband, that keeps repeating things over and over again, and I'm like, oh my gosh, are we going to get through this? Are we just gonna keep hitting the same roadblock every time?
00:11:55
Valerie Vazquez
And even with that, it's getting better and better. And so, yeah, the i embodiment is when you have time to integrate.
Plant Medicine Caution
00:12:09
Valerie Vazquez
So the integration is so important. So here's an example. Let's say you you did read a book and it was really profound and there were practices in that book.
00:12:25
Valerie Vazquez
Did you do those practices?
00:12:29
Valerie Vazquez
Before you just jump to the next book or jump to the next podcast, can you truly
00:12:38
Valerie Vazquez
embody the knowledge that you brought in. and if if you can't, then pause and take a little bit longer on that. Or here's a big one, plant medicine.
00:12:52
Valerie Vazquez
If you have done a plant medicine journey and things came through to you that were teaching you embody the teachings before you go take plant medicine again.
00:13:06
Valerie Vazquez
Otherwise, you're just bypassing. it And it's such a huge thing. I've seen it and witnessed it so much, especially on this island.
00:13:19
Valerie Vazquez
People will just be out drinking ayahuasca like once a week. And I'm sorry, but I'm just gonna like be really freaking honest.
00:13:32
Valerie Vazquez
I know that the original like shamans and the those that gave the medicine, the curanderos, and they might have had that practice in their little village in the Amazon or Peru or wherever.
00:13:57
Valerie Vazquez
But that life is so much different than the life we have here. And if you are continuing to just, if you are continuing just to drink or take these plant medicines so frequently, it's, I've just seen that it's like people think that they're like living in this other dimension.
00:14:24
Valerie Vazquez
and You're not. Like maybe you are
00:14:33
Valerie Vazquez
under, you understand that there's, you know, 4D, 5D and up and up and up and up, but you're not living that unless you've completely ascended and healed through all of your wounds and you've completely cleared everything out.
Pitfalls of Spiritual Bypassing
00:14:54
Valerie Vazquez
And yeah, I just don't believe that that's really something that we're capable of doing by drinking or taking plant medicines and just saying love and light all the time.
00:15:10
Valerie Vazquez
Because the real process is not up and out. It's down and in It's going in to two your darkness. It's going into your shadows.
00:15:22
Valerie Vazquez
It's not fearing them. It's not bypassing them. It's not saying, oh, well, I chose this for my life. but My soul chose this for my life. So i just, you know, this is just the way it is. And other people have it worse than me.
00:15:39
Valerie Vazquez
Or you're constantly berating yourself for making mistakes. All of these ways to bypass what are not going to actually help you truly embody your healing.
00:15:54
Valerie Vazquez
So you really have to ask yourself, are you talking about your healing or are you living it? Are you a living example of it or you just talking about it?
00:16:10
Valerie Vazquez
And so I really want to give you an invitation for this week.
00:16:18
Valerie Vazquez
I want invite you to and to choose embodiment over excess information this week.
00:16:31
Valerie Vazquez
So
00:16:34
Valerie Vazquez
try your best not to consume.
00:16:40
Valerie Vazquez
Allow yourself this week to feel, to slow down, to find a ritual, which a ritual can be as simple as drawing yourself a bath, adding rose petals in it, lighting a candle, rubbing your body down with oils, diffusing some essential oils,
00:17:11
Valerie Vazquez
doing whatever that can truly allow you to be in your body without distraction. Not drinking, maybe.
00:17:23
Valerie Vazquez
if you're If you drink every night, maybe one night you don't and you really feel what that feels like. Or if you smoke or try your best to not consume information in That also includes social media.
00:17:43
Valerie Vazquez
And not to consume anything that takes you out of your body or lessens your real feelings. This is embodiment.
00:17:56
Valerie Vazquez
This is feeling and slowing down and allowing yourself
00:18:04
Valerie Vazquez
to be okay with it. Because if you really are truly on this journey of, you know, I do talk about, and I say healing a lot, but it honestly, it's remembering. It's remembering who you are before you were told to be something different.
00:18:30
Valerie Vazquez
And you're not going to Remember who you are with constant consumption.
00:18:38
Valerie Vazquez
you You're just not. You must drop into the body. You must drop into your heart space. You must clear out these lower three-dimensional things
00:18:58
Valerie Vazquez
victim consciousness programming and these wounds that are stuck within your body. And there is no fast track to it.
00:19:09
Valerie Vazquez
There's no podcast. There's no book. There's no movie. There's no course.
Focus on Embodiment for True Healing
00:19:17
Valerie Vazquez
that's all mind stuff that's that's actually going to really bring you into true spiritual wisdom and a returning home unless you allow yourself to drop into your body.
00:19:40
Valerie Vazquez
And so also I wanted to provide a little something else today
00:19:48
Valerie Vazquez
I want you, if you journal, which, I mean, I'm going to be honest. Like, it's not my favorite thing to do because i don't know why i get on these, i there's these times when I really journal a lot and times where i don't.
00:20:07
Valerie Vazquez
The times that I do and then I read back, I'm so thankful that I did it because it's like, whoa, I can remember where I was during that time you When I journal, sometimes then a poem will come out or something, and I'm like, whoa, where did that come from?
00:20:27
Valerie Vazquez
So i am pledging to you all that I am going to start journaling again, even if it's just for five or ten minutes.
00:20:40
Valerie Vazquez
If you don't like writing like in a journal, open up your laptop or put it in your notes, but just journal and sometimes journal prompts are a really,
00:20:54
Valerie Vazquez
a good way to start out if you don't know where to start, if you've never really journaled before. So this journal prompt is When was the last time I chose to feel something instead of fix it?
00:21:13
Valerie Vazquez
And what happened? I'm going to repeat that again. When was the last time I chose to feel something instead of fix it? And then what happened?
00:21:27
Valerie Vazquez
So yeah, that was today's episode. And I just want to send you all so much love. Please subscribe to the podcast if you haven't already.
00:21:40
Valerie Vazquez
Five-star ratings are great. am just really appreciative that you are walking this path with me. i know that we're all on different different aspects of our path.
00:21:58
Valerie Vazquez
No matter where you are just remember that you're perfect, whole, and complete. You are both human and divine. And, and o excuse me, my throat chakra.
00:22:14
Valerie Vazquez
And just, I want to send you so much love during this time. The world is...
00:22:23
Valerie Vazquez
It can be a scary place right now if if we're constantly consuming too. So give yourself a break from that. And um it's okay to allow yourself to fully feel so that you can heal and so that you can remember.
00:22:42
Valerie Vazquez
So sending you so much love and aloha until next time.