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95. Navigating ADHD and Anxiety Through EFT Tapping with Theresa Lear Levine
162 Plays2 years ago
What is Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), and how can we use it to heal from trauma and release old patterns?
Theresa Lear Levine is a master EFT practitioner, entrepreneur and mom of four who helps clients release their trauma and limiting patterns so that they can become more present, feel happier and get aligned with their values and vision for the future.
After dealing with her own struggles with ADHD and high functioning anxiety, she learned effective ways to get unstuck and create a different outcome for herself. In our conversation, we talk about EFT - or emotional freedom technique - and how our emotions often store themselves in the body.
Theresa shares ways we can use EFT to quiet our busy minds, tips for creating affirmations for ourselves that we actually believe in, and daily habits we can all incorporate to help us regulate our nervous systems.
If you'd like to get access to the exclusive EFT session that Theresa and I did after the show recording (the topic was "feeling overwhelmed" so I'm sure it could help you, as we all feel that way from time to time!), simply send an email to Theresa [email protected] with the subject line "Wellness and Wanderlust" and she'll send you that private session right away! It's just like working with her and it's jam packed with value, nervous system regulation and breakthroughs.
If you enjoy this episode, please feel free to rate and review the podcast on whatever app you’re listening on, and share with a friend!
CONNECT WITH THERESA
Website: https://www.theresalearlevine.com/
Theresa's 5 Minutes to Freedom eBook: https://www.theresasfreegift.com/
The Becoming more Me Podcast: https://www.becomingmoreme.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theresalearlevine/
CONNECT WITH THE SHOW
Website: WellnessAndWanderlust.net
Instagram: www.instagram.com/wellnessandwanderlustblog
Facebook: www.facebook.com/wellnessandwanderlustblog
Twitter: www.twitter.com/moses_says
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Transcript
Introduction to Wellness and Wanderlust
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the wellness and wanderlust podcast. We're here to demystify wellness and help you add a little adventure to your life. Tune in for a new episode every week, where we'll hear from incredible guests and talk about ways to be happier and healthier in our new normal. I'm your host, Valerie Moses. Let's get started.
00:00:23
Speaker
Hey, hey, Wellness and Wanderlust fam. I am so excited that you're here with me for episode 95 of this show. Thank you for being a part of this incredible community and for sharing that part of your day with me, no matter how you found the show or how long you've been a listener. I am so grateful for each and every one of you. Now we have a fabulous guest for you all today, and I'm so excited for you to get to hear from
Meet Theresa Lear Levine
00:00:43
Speaker
her. Theresa Lear Levine is a master EFT practitioner, entrepreneur, and mom of four who helps clients release their trauma and limiting patterns so that they can become more present
00:00:53
Speaker
feel happier, and get aligned with their values and vision for the future. After dealing with her own struggles with ADHD and high functioning anxiety, something I can definitely relate to, she learned effective ways to get unstuck and create a different outcome for herself. In our conversation, we talk about EFT, or emotional freedom technique, and how our emotions often store themselves in the body. Teresa shares ways we can use EFT to quiet our busy minds
00:01:18
Speaker
tips for creating affirmations for ourselves that we actually believe in, and daily habits we can incorporate to help us regulate our nervous systems. After our conversation, Teresa did a private EFT tapping session for me and it was such an incredible experience. So if you'd like to watch our session and see this technique in action, you can email Teresa for a link in the video. I've included her email address in our show notes.
00:01:39
Speaker
And I'll talk about this a little bit more at the end of this episode as well. But for those who are not familiar with EFT, I highly recommend watching the video and reaching out to her so you can get a better understanding of what EFT is like because we're going to be talking about it a lot, but to truly see it is such a different experience. I'm going to let Teresa fill you in more. So without further ado, let's dive into this week's episode. Teresa, thank you so much for joining us at Wellness and Wanderlust today. How are you doing?
00:02:05
Speaker
I'm doing great Valerie. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to get into all the things that we're going to talk about today. Yes, I'm so excited to chat with you. I'm so excited to learn more about EFT and a little bit more about what you do. This is a topic I'm not as familiar with as I'd like to be. And when I pulled listeners on social media,
00:02:24
Speaker
100% of the listeners that responded to my survey did not know what EFT was. So we are really going to get into it today, get into some of the basics, but also kind of how it can help all of us. So before we really do that, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about you and your wellness journey and what kind of led you to EFT?
Theresa’s Journey to EFT
00:02:43
Speaker
Sure. Well, and you've just asked an ADHD woman to tell me all about the journey. So you can get an earful. It's kind of a dangerous question, really. But I've always been interested in health, in health hacks, in supplements, in playing around with the way that things affect the way that we feel and our energy. And my life has given me plenty of occasions, circumstances, things that have allowed me to test things out.
00:03:11
Speaker
like car accidents when I was younger that you know brought about a lot of physical pain and also you know landed me on disability and not being able to work in the way that I had originally set out to as a young woman so that also took a toll not just on my physical health but on my mental health with all sorts of different limiting beliefs and anxiety kind of really surfacing more than it even had in my younger years and depression even
00:03:37
Speaker
And I have been married and divorced. I have done the single parent thing for a bit. I have remarried. My current husband and I have
00:03:48
Speaker
together for a while now and we have three more kids. I had one in my first marriage. I've got four boys, so if that's not occasion enough to be able to, you know, practice healthy things for work and how to get calm and clear on things, I don't know what is. But throughout that, there was always kind of this underlying entrepreneurial and ambitious kind of desire that was always kind of bubbling up in me. I mean, from the time that I was old enough to know how to exchange money with people, I always wanted to be
00:04:14
Speaker
like making a craft and selling it or you know doing something creative and finding a way to market it or whatever and throughout my life I've done all different things from you know network marketing to my own handmade candle and bath and body business to coaching and you know in the iteration that I'm in now and have been for the last 25 years all different
Understanding EFT: Technique and Benefits
00:04:35
Speaker
kinds of you know personal development type coaching nutrition fitness mental health that kind of stuff
00:04:39
Speaker
But when I was really focused in on the nutrition and fitness element with women, I really had the knowing that I needed to go deeper than that, not just for myself, but for the women that I really aligned with because too many times I'd be working with people that I just knew were never going to get results because they weren't doing the deeper work.
00:04:59
Speaker
And the deeper work is like where I just thrive. I absolutely love doing the stuff that other people think is hard or difficult and making it like a breeze to like clear those energetic blockages to overcome the traumas to, you know, refine your clarity and groundedness and focus and all that kind of stuff that's like I just love that stuff so
00:05:21
Speaker
I expanded my focus and I became a master EFT practitioner so that I could really help myself and other people to regulate their nervous systems and be able to balance their their energy. And in doing so, you know, when we're able to change things in our mind and in our body, the whole world appears different to us and we appear different to the whole world. So just it allows us to be able to manifest what we want so much better and
00:05:50
Speaker
to just bring all of the things and goals and desires that we want to the forefront and actually achieve them. So that's kind of how I got from there to here, I guess, in a nutshell and glossing over a heck of a lot of other things.
00:06:04
Speaker
Well, I love that. And I know we'll definitely dive deeper into a lot of that as well. And I think, I think that's such an important point though, that when we think about wellness, I think so often we do think very, not superficially, but at a very high level that we're looking at what we're putting into our bodies and how much we're moving our bodies. And both of those are important, but I think the more I've like dived into my own journey, I've learned how much the spiritual and the mental health aspect of it all and
00:06:31
Speaker
what we are telling ourselves and how we're showing up for ourselves really impacts the way that our bodies respond and the way that we feel on a day-to-day basis and how others respond to us and the realities we create. So I think that that's so important doing that deeper work. I've heard even a lot of nutritionists come out later and say that, hey, we've had
00:06:53
Speaker
clients in the past who maybe couldn't reach their goal for whatever reason. And it turned out it really was kind of an energetic blockage. It was some trauma that they hadn't really taken the time to explore and do the work on. And so once they had done that and kind of exploring that, that really helped to
00:07:11
Speaker
to clear things a little bit. So I love that you're doing that deeper work. I think that's something that's so important and so valued and something that we're all kind of realizing. I think in today's day and age that it's something we all have, even the lower T traumas that we need to be working on
Impact of Trauma on Energy
00:07:29
Speaker
a little bit.
00:07:29
Speaker
Absolutely. I mean, trauma is trauma. It doesn't matter whether it's big tea or little tea, it lives in your nervous system in the same way. And if you haven't cleared it, it's going to manifest as something that is going to show up as some kind of a dis-ease. So when people are realizing that something is an energetic blockage, I think the thing that we overlook so easily is that everything is energy. And so how could it not be related to your energy? Exactly.
00:07:56
Speaker
Exactly, and that that energy doesn't go away it's transformed in different ways it can move but we need to figure out the way that we do move it and otherwise that you know you have that feeling stuckness and you know we talked about that a little bit on our episode that came out today actually as well but I think that
00:08:13
Speaker
Yeah. Those blockages are so important to be, to be mindful of when we're on those journeys. So as you dove into this work, um, you know, you mentioned EFT and, and I alluded to the fact a lot of our audience does not know what EFT is. Can you give us a little bit of a rundown of EFT, emotional freedom technique, how you exactly found EFT and what exactly it does for us? Yeah, sure. And please remind me if I gloss over any of those questions, I'll try to answer them.
00:08:43
Speaker
I knew when I came in touch with EFT at a retreat that I was going to need to learn more about it. EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Techniques. It has been around for a long time and sadly a lot of people don't know what it is. I feel like part of my greater mission is
00:09:02
Speaker
Getting it more normalized and getting it more into people's vocabulary and more importantly getting people to actually do it because it can literally change the world. And people should be like teaching this in elementary school and you know learning it at a young age, but I use it originally when I when I welcome the idea of using it because
00:09:21
Speaker
When I first would hear about it, it was always with reference to things like using it for the traumas of post-war veterans or for Olympians or you know pro athletes and things and it was just all of these really extreme uses of it.
00:09:37
Speaker
that didn't feel like they applied to my life as I like sat on the couch nursing a baby and just like wanted to lose 20 pounds and have more energy and feel more connected to my husband and, you know, have my business excel. It just felt like, well, this doesn't really, this isn't my thing. But when I went to the retreat and I experienced it, it was just using it on anxiety.
00:09:57
Speaker
just using it on basic stress and at the time I was really sick when I was at the retreat and I got sick on the way there otherwise I wouldn't have gone but I said I'll make the most of it and I noticed that as I was tapping on the stress and anxiety my sinuses and my head were clearing too and all sorts of other things were feeling better because there's this borrowed benefit aspect of this work that is so very cool
00:10:21
Speaker
But what it is, is a psychological acupressure technique that combines ancient Chinese wisdom with modern day psychology. And it incorporates the same meridians used in traditional acupuncture by simply tapping on them with your fingertips. So no needles. And while you're tapping on these different parts of the body that have kind of
00:10:42
Speaker
created this recipe or formula that works really well, you're focusing on the issue, you're giving it a voice. And in doing that, you're unblocking the places where your energy has gotten blocked around whatever it is so you can use emotional freedom techniques or EFT tapping for anything that you can feel.
00:11:03
Speaker
Just to give breadth to that, that could be something emotional. That could be something physical. That could be something that happened in your past. It could be something that's happening right now. Or it could be something that you're future pacing about, worrying, anxiety, that kind of thing. So pretty much nothing is off the table. And although it seems crazy, all those different uses have all been scientifically proven to be very effective.
00:11:26
Speaker
So it has efficacy that's like pretty hard to beat. And it's something that you get to do yourself. You know, even if you're working with a practitioner like me, you're the one that's tapping. You're the one that's talking. You're the one that's helping get to the bottom of the things. So it's very empowering.
00:11:44
Speaker
And it's easy. Once you learn how to do it, it only takes five, 10 minutes to do a round of it. And you can change so very much in that short period of time. The things that people spend months, years, or decades doing talk therapy on or looking for answers otherwise can be resolved in a very short period of time, comparatively.
00:12:06
Speaker
I think it's so amazing how this just manifest itself in the body and that's something I really did not understand growing up and you're so right, this is something they need to teach us in school, because I think as children, maybe we're a little more intuitive when it comes to.
00:12:21
Speaker
how our bodies feel and how we might feel in a situation. But as we get older, we start to have doubts about that. And I get that pit feeling still. And I feel emotions so deeply into my body sometimes in ways that I didn't understand until going through some trauma in my early twenties. And I ended up doing EMDR therapy where we did a tiny bit of tapping, but more with the sounds in the headphones. And I found
00:12:48
Speaker
Some of the stuff that I had been dealing with for a couple of years at that point, I think it cleared in a matter of weeks of really working through that type of work because I think once we really got into the body, which we're so often I think taught not to trust and kind of relearning that it's so impactful. It changed so much for me.
00:13:10
Speaker
We store a lot of it in our body and we don't release it. And that's how it shows up as the disease. But when we are really listening to our body and our intuition, we do a lot of things naturally that release pressure and negative feelings through the meridians, like ringing our hands when we're stressed or like.
00:13:27
Speaker
When you have a headache or you're just feeling, you know, overwhelming rub your temples, or you know you put your head in your hands and you just kind of like you're getting those points or you maybe like rub your shoulders a little bit. All of that is similar in that you know you're thinking about the thing that's bothering you and you are, you know, tapping or rubbing or.
00:13:44
Speaker
You know, kind of digging into that different area of the body that helps you to release it. Kids do a lot of that really instinctually too. And animals do it the best because like, I mean, if you ever watch like a rabbit get chased down by a predator and then escape, they'll go off and they will just shake like a leaf.
00:14:00
Speaker
for a little while. And people are like, oh, poor rabbit. Rabbit's getting rid of all the trauma and stress so that it can just go back to being a happy rabbit again. But we don't take the time to just shake it out and let it flow through our body and let that energy move. But it's so important.
00:14:16
Speaker
Absolutely. I know
EFT as a Stress Relief Tool
00:14:18
Speaker
for me, a lot of times when I'd have anxiety, I would get my teeth would start chattering and it's not pulled in the room or anything like that, but it was just like, you know, that type of movement. And so for us, if you're, if you're not that rabbit and, um, for the animals, I guess what is really nice is that they're not in a society where they're told, you know, you need to sit still and behave yourself and calm down or whatever it may be. So they can kind of follow those instincts a little bit more. What is the equivalent for us? What can we do when you're having.
00:14:46
Speaker
you know maybe that stress response or you're in that situation what are some things we can do in the moment that kind of tie back to that? I mean just being conscious of it in the moment makes a huge difference and doing the EFT tapping like if you're in that moment and I can I'll show you guys a little bit more tell you a little bit more about how to do that
00:15:06
Speaker
But just doing a quick round of tapping, you know, even though I'm really anxious and stressed right now, I love accept and forgive myself and kind of tapping through those points and expressing what there is to express about how you're feeling while you're doing it will keep the energy moving and prevent you from getting blocked around whatever it is that's happening so that it doesn't settle in your body as an energetic blockage and show up as some sort of dis-ease somewhere at some time.
00:15:29
Speaker
So just keeping that energy moving. Because what's happening when we're doing EFT in the body is that we have these meridians in our body. It's this invisible kind of set of channels in the body through which our life force or our energy flows. And we get to treat the emotional issues and the stress at the same time through this system. And controlled studies have shown that any acupoint stimulation, whether it's using needles or not, brings about better pain relief than anything you can get from medicine.
00:15:59
Speaker
And that's a very accepted way of thinking about things in Eastern medicine, but we're not quite there yet in a lot of the ways that we're dealing with things here. But I know that we are embracing it more and more, but EFT doesn't need any needles.
00:16:15
Speaker
Instead, you know, you're just, you're tapping. But what's happening is that while you're tapping, you're sending signals directly to the amygdala, which is that little like almond shaped part of the brain that is unmonitored by like the frontal lobes and the thinking part of the brain. So you get to go right to like the fight or flight type responses that you might have. And you get to calm that emotional and the physical stuff simultaneously.
00:16:40
Speaker
So whereas if you were just doing talk therapy, you're working with the frontal lobes more, and you're not necessarily getting the nervous system regulated at the same time, so that can make a really huge difference in the results that you get. But also, while you're doing that, you're lowering your stress hormones.
00:16:59
Speaker
And in this day and age, we live with our stress hormones so elevated so much of the time. It's crazy. You know, it used to be like your stress hormones would only go up if something like truly life threatening was happening. But there's so much feeling of unsafety and so many people for so many reasons. And that's really all it takes for the cortisol to spike and
00:17:21
Speaker
for the good feeling hormones like oxytocin and stuff to have no room to exist. Because if one's up, the other is down. If the other is down, the other is up. You can either feel amazing and allow the oxytocin to thrive or you're stressed and the feel good hormones are really shut out. So in just tapping for like 10 minutes,
00:17:43
Speaker
you can lower your cortisol levels by like 43%, which is crazy. Like there's really nothing out there that can do it that effectively or that quickly. And when you lower that resistance, even if you're just like maybe you're doing tapping to alleviate a headache or something that's kind of more of like a band-aid sort of thing that's like right there in the moment, then you're still lowering your cortisol all around.
00:18:05
Speaker
So then when you go to think about something else that might normally stress you out or deal with another challenge, you're in a better place mentally and stress-wise to deal with it. So it begins having a really awesome ripple effect and kind of having a positive effect on all the things that you're trying to work on, even when you're not specifically focused on working on them.
00:18:26
Speaker
I think that's that's such a great point too that when I'm not having the physical symptom that I can I can manage a little bit more I can kind of move past it and say okay well now how am I going to handle this situation and kind of think a little more clearly because you're so right I mean in today's day and age
00:18:43
Speaker
We, I think we react the same way that we would have to the lion chasing us. Now, if I get like a call or an email that I don't like, you know, it's the same. Exactly. Right. Yeah. And if the lion's chasing me, great. I should be stressed. I should.
00:18:59
Speaker
Get out of that situation. I am in danger, but we're not in danger necessarily with some of these stressful situations, but we are on such high alert all the time. And so I think having something like this, and it sounds like it's something you can really do in the moment, but something we can also do preventively to as a measure to kind of prepare for those situations.
00:19:18
Speaker
And it's important to understand too like you can logically know and understand exactly what you just said that you know that it's not life threatening when you get that email that you don't like, but knowing it isn't enough to regulate your nervous system. Yeah.
00:19:33
Speaker
So you're still having all that response, even though, you know, and this is what used to frustrate me so much when I would come up against challenges in my life. It's like, you know, if I'm so smart, then why am I having all these problems? Like, why can't I think my way out of this? But our brain's not designed to do that. Our energy system can.
00:19:53
Speaker
So we really have to get it on board and allow it to help us through our challenges so that we can actually get to the places we wanna get to in life and have things work out and have ourselves behave and be emotionally regulated and all those kinds of things the way that we want to.
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah. I think sometimes we're too smart for our own good. We think too much. I think sometimes even knowing it and not doing anything about it or not being able to release the energy can almost make it a little more stressful because then you're beating yourself up over why, why is this so hard for me? Why can't, why can't I break past this? Why is this bothering me so much? And like it shouldn't. And then we're, I think adding, you know, blame and all those other feelings to it. Yeah. I mean,
00:20:35
Speaker
for me, like with the high functioning anxiety, you know, we all have different ways that we have that show up for us. But for me, it went hand in hand with my tendencies to be an overachiever and to have really high standards for myself. So it would appear as if the high functioning anxiety was helping me in accomplishing things and propelling me forward.
00:20:56
Speaker
But before I started regulating my nervous system and alleviating some of those feelings while also like elevating my consciousness as I worked on goals, the cost was really high because I was feeling exhausted. I had like a total void of inner peace and it came out with this like big helping of self-judgment and criticism and being really hard on myself. So I would take on too
EFT and High-Functioning Anxiety
00:21:20
Speaker
much. I'd be a slave to my to-do list and I wouldn't allow myself to slow down, pause or relax.
00:21:25
Speaker
So even though I could make some pretty awesome things happen and come to life and it all seemed like things are going great, things were not aligning with my values to make me feel fulfilled. So I wanted calm, clarity and confidence. And instead I was living in confusion with constant cortisol spikes and chaos. Like it's just.
00:21:45
Speaker
There's total contrast there. So, and the difference that EFT made when I started putting that into what I was doing was huge. That plus, I mean, I'm not just a EFT master practitioner. I'm also a law of attraction practitioner. And I do a lot of chakra work along with the stuff that I do. I incorporate a lot of different modalities that I'm trained in, but EFT is like my favorite. That's kind of at the heart of it all.
00:22:07
Speaker
And I think that's such a great point too, that the high functioning anxiety, cause I'm, I'm guessing a lot of our listeners do fall into that category, especially we do have a lot of women who listen to the show. And I think that that's something that does show up in our lives and it's something I certainly have dealt with. Um, I've had times where my anxiety was at a high and when I go out in public, people are saying, you know, it seems like you're doing so great right now. And I'm thinking really?
00:22:30
Speaker
because i'm a little stressed out right now but because you're pushing and pushing and it can serve us externally but internally you're on high alert and responding like the lion chasing you when.
00:22:45
Speaker
The thing on the to-do list isn't happening. And how exactly does EFT kind of slow that down a little bit and regulate that? And are there, cause you talked about the meridians and you also mentioned chakras and I am not as familiar if the similarities and differences between those two, but are there specific areas in the body where we, where we hold that anxiety that we should be focusing on as we get into this type of work? That's completely individual and yes.
00:23:13
Speaker
But when it comes to the chakra system and the meridian there are a lot of things that line up I mean there are different body parts and organs and things that line up with the different chakras that make up our energy system so that's part of the reason I like to use it it's very well engineered and also relates to different things that we might be feeling or having show up in our life.
00:23:33
Speaker
So it's a, it's a great tool for me to use. For some women, they might find themselves always like losing their voice or having to clear their throat or whatever else. And it might be completely correlated to them feeling like they're not heard or they don't have a voice in their life and something else. And it might just take clearing that chakra and that energy in that area for them to feel like they have that back. There's the whole.
00:23:56
Speaker
adage that comes up a lot for me when I work with women who are trying to manifest things and they instead I mean they begin bringing things into into reality but not in the way that they wanted to and it's usually like somewhere in between the throat and the heart or in the sacral areas and you know you'll hear people say all the time like oh her heart wasn't in it or you know whatever and
00:24:19
Speaker
It can be very literal that heart energy is more like the inner critic than it is the compassionate friend to yourself. And it can show up in a lot of really negative ways. But yeah, the body parts do, whatever kind of feelings you're having in your body should definitely be listened to to see where and how they come up. And as you bring ideas down, like when we're trying to achieve things in life,
00:24:45
Speaker
they start kind of in this higher area, this like the seventh chakra area of our body and is these ideas and their total possibility and everything else. And then as things kind of come down our energy system, that's when they become physical realities. But if something's blocked along that chain, then we either never make it happen, or it happens in a way that wasn't really what we wanted. Like maybe we wanted to have a job that
00:25:10
Speaker
It was easy and we only worked like 15 hours a week and we were making X amount of dollars and you know we had you know scaled our business or whatever and instead we just manifest tons of work and endless you know hours of doing things and maybe we've hit the financial goal or whatever else.
00:25:27
Speaker
but nothing else feels like it's in alignment because we had blocked energy in places that if it were flowing, we would be a lot more aware of our worthiness and our value and able to bring that ease and joy into our life as we did our work.
00:25:45
Speaker
I think that's so interesting too. You mentioned the throat and I had no voice or voice going in and out for probably about two, two and a half months. And a lot of times when I get sick, it's in my throat and I have thyroid as well. So it's always interesting to hear that because I had a medium reading not too long ago where she even said before I'd really said anything, I know that words are very important to you.
00:26:08
Speaker
And words have something to do with, well, I guess words have something to do with what we all do, but as a writer and a podcaster, you know, it's especially poignant. And I thought that was so powerful, but, you know, I feel a lot of things in my chest as well. And I find this just so fascinating and I'm definitely wanting to explore a little bit more in terms of especially I think the voice.
00:26:29
Speaker
But I think this is so important too because so often we don't really recognize our worth and we think there is something that we want but because of these blockages we can't be as clear about how we want to achieve that. A lot of that comes back to things that happened much earlier in our lives and sometimes we're not even conscious of them.
00:26:47
Speaker
But you know, beliefs and all those kind of things or circumstances events that happened earlier in life that kind of set the tone for how we feel about anything in our life, whether it's work or relationships or roles or whatever, and that stuff's got to get cleared in order for that to change.
00:27:06
Speaker
So, you know, I do a lot of work kind of working from the lower chakras on up because at the heart of pretty much any problem that anybody's having is a feeling of unsafety or a fear of death. And, you know, those kinds of things are kind of at the heart of a lot of stuff. So when we can really solidify and make good, the lower chakras, which are like a container for everything that we want to have in our life, then that's fortified and ready to receive all the things that we're trying to do and achieve
00:27:35
Speaker
or clearer. That's so interesting. And you mentioned the sacral too. And I remember even just being sick a long time ago. And my parents, my dad is really into a lot of this as well. He sent me to the chiropractor for craniosacral and my throat cleared.
00:27:53
Speaker
after after doing a cranio sacral session and it was insane how how much different and how much better I felt after you know and I guess that would be one of the lower chakras so I'm so fascinated by how this work in the body and in one part of the body can impact you know another area too.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And then, I mean, just when I thought it couldn't get any better, I, we started realizing how this plays a role with epigenetics also, and our ability to actually change the way that our genes express. So, you know, not only can we deal with like the past, the present, the future, the physical, the emotional, but we also can potentially change whether short-term or, you know, we're still figuring out the whole long-term aspect, the way our genes are expressing, which is just like nuts. So there's just no end to the things that we can treat with this.
00:28:40
Speaker
That really is amazing. And I've been fascinated by the idea of epigenetics. I'm not as familiar with that topic. And we actually haven't really talked about that at all on the show. So I definitely want to ask you a little bit about how EFT does change the way our genes express and, you know, in what ways, and can you share a little bit more about that? I am not any kind of epigenetics expert, but there's, there's an emotional part of any kind of.
00:29:07
Speaker
disease that we have in our body. So when we're able to release the blockages around that and work on the emotional aspects, and even instruct our bodies to work in a certain way while tapping and allowing that to be received by the body, then it can it can have a lasting effect.
00:29:30
Speaker
And they've been doing a lot of studies on it, and I'm not terribly familiar with a lot of them, but I am absolutely fascinated by it. And I will definitely be somebody who's on top of it as more and more comes out. But I know we were talking about how it could help with autoimmune diseases and things too. And it's similar. There's the emotional component and there's the bodily component. So it's really cool.
00:29:54
Speaker
I think that's amazing. You touched a little on manifestation too and that's something, visualizations when I was a child and going through health issues completely different from the autoimmune but sinus related. My dad had us doing visualization before surgery and I really do think that
00:30:09
Speaker
doing that kind of thing really helped. I mean, I have so much gratitude for the doctor and the life-changing surgery that I had, but I do think it helped in my recovery. And I think it's so fascinating how what's happening in our minds and how we're feeling emotionally.
00:30:24
Speaker
can impact, you know, how our bodies heal from very physical symptoms that we're experiencing. Yeah, for sure. I mean, imagining ourselves in the state that we want to be in helps us to get there. It's the beautiful side of, I guess, fake it till you make it kind of thing.
00:30:40
Speaker
But it's important because the body and the mind love responding to emotion. And it's so, I mean, when you're working on anything, when you can put the emotion and the vision behind it, it's so impactful. I do.
00:30:55
Speaker
I used to do vision boards, but they felt really tedious. And I realized, with law of attraction, you've got to do things that feel good and that bring more of what feels good to you. So I normally just write out kind of, over the course of a couple of weeks, I'll write mine out. And I tweak them every few months. But I do recorded visualizations and goal setting on my voice recorder on my phone. And then I play it back to myself.
00:31:21
Speaker
every morning and either stand in front of the mirror and kind of listen to myself and feel into it as I'm doing it or I listen in bed with my eyes closed and I'm just visualizing myself becoming all of that that's in there and it makes a huge difference and year after year of doing it everything that I state in them always comes to fruition like without a doubt it's just
00:31:42
Speaker
handing it over to the universe and allowing the law of attraction to bring it back so that it can happen. And being open to different ways of things happening than maybe when you get too set in your ways, then it's really hard to have things happen. And the universe knows better than you do what will bring it to you. So being open to that and just kind of like letting it go and then revisiting it a lot of times,
00:32:07
Speaker
you know if i draw a picture or something as a visualization or something i'll just put it away and i'll put a reminder on my calendar i'll be like look at that picture from six months ago today and when that pops up i'll look at it i'll be like whoa like it's crazy how much of that stuff is already like happening happened in totally in process that kind of thing so
00:32:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very powerful technique. I do a lot of visualization exercises with my clients and a lot of teaching on ways for them to implement that in their lives so that they can get good effects from it too. Because affirmations and things can get really hard for people sometimes.
00:32:41
Speaker
And I know that can kind of come into people's ideas with visualization and goal setting, but affirmations sometimes can almost traumatize people because they feel so untrue. You know, we were talking about like fake it till you make it and everything.
00:32:57
Speaker
I think sometimes affirmations feel too fake to people because they're not 20 pounds lighter. They're not a million dollars richer. They're not, you know, those things or whatever they're trying to put out there that are like big, you know, goals for themselves. So instead, it kind of has an opposite effect.
00:33:13
Speaker
So learning ways that I like to teach about how to bridge that gap so that you can actually make them effective is really helpful because otherwise you just end up feeling worse about yourself and what you haven't achieved yet.
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think it can be so hard if you are just simply telling yourself something that's like the opposite of the mean thing that you say to yourself in the morning, which is unfortunate, but it can be really hard if you're saying the opposite to yourself and you don't believe it. And then I think it hurts almost the trust you have in yourself. And yeah, it is traumatic. What advice do you have then
00:33:51
Speaker
for how we could create an affirmation that serves us, but is also, yeah, not so far out of the realm of possibility in our minds that we don't even believe it. Well, when I'm working with somebody, I like to do work to clear any kind of goal trauma that they have in their system first, because that can be a very real thing. But then when you're creating new things that you want to manifest,
00:34:16
Speaker
Simply saying that you're in the process of whatever it is instead of I am can be a lot less traumatizing to people. You know, I'm in the process of making a million dollars. I'm in the process of losing 20 pounds. I'm in the process of whatever it is. It's a lot less traumatizing and normally feels truer for people than saying the I am. There's a huge power behind I am and
00:34:44
Speaker
I definitely suggest using I am statements for things that feel like they're either like really close or you got them or you already are. I am love. I am light. I am, you know, things that you deeply know are true but maybe need to bring back to the surface of your consciousness so that you remember who you are and yeah, that kind of thing. But just being in the process can be a lot more helpful to say than I am.
00:35:10
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense because it's a lot easier to believe because we can say, you know, I am in the process. I mean, I may be very early in the process. I may feel like it's the beginning of the journey, but I'm still on that journey. And so I can believe myself when I say that versus I am
00:35:28
Speaker
all of the things that maybe I told myself for the 31 years leading up to it that I wasn't or that society maybe told you you weren't or whatever that might be. I think that there's so much power in that and then I am love and
00:35:43
Speaker
I think one that's helpful for me sometimes when I'm really stressing out over something that isn't going to kill me, isn't going to put me in harm's way, but it certainly feels like it is even though it's really just it's a goal thing or it's a to-do list thing is that I'm safe. You know, you're physically safe in that moment, even though you may have the physical symptoms that you're not. Yep.
00:36:07
Speaker
Absolutely, that can be the very beginning of a round of EFT, even though I have the physical symptoms that I'm not okay. I honor this feeling and allow myself to feel safe in my body, you know, that can be very well fit into a round of EFT.
00:36:22
Speaker
And I definitely want to let your listeners know that, you know, when we're done recording this, I'm going to do some EFT tapping with you because it's one thing for me to sit here and talk about it. And I know we've talked about it in ways that are a little hard to comprehend, I think, as far as like, well, what does this look like? How do I tap? So we're going to do a private round after this on, you know, whatever topic we land on and choose. And if they simply send me an email, Teresa at Teresa Lear Levine dot com.
00:36:50
Speaker
which I hope you'll put in the show notes because my name has engaged and people misspell it a lot of the time. And just put the subject in there, Wellness and Wanderlust. And then all I need is the name of the podcast and I'll know what to send you. And I will send whoever emails me a copy of the private session that we're going to do. And that'll give you a chance to actually get a hands-on experience doing this and to really just access and feel the power and the empowerment of the technique also.
00:37:16
Speaker
I'm so excited for that, first of all. And I can't wait to experience it myself. I really do think, you know, as we talked about, there's so much power in releasing that energy in the body. And yeah, I really can't wait to get into that. You know, and it's fun. I'm glad you could always say that too. And I don't ever recall ever hearing people say like, oh, I can't wait to go to therapy this week. Or I can't, you know, can't wait to go see my shrink or, you know, do this or whatever. But people constantly are excited to come to their, you know, EFT sessions with me. And I'm always excited too, because it's fun. I mean,
00:37:46
Speaker
We get to focus on the negative first of all which we don't get an opportunity to do a whole lot in this world because everybody just expects us to flip it over to, you know, positive and see it through the rose colored glasses but it's really hard to do that it's like the affirmations thing like if you're not genuinely feeling it.
00:38:01
Speaker
it's hard to be genuinely expressing it and authentically living it. So in EFT, we get to focus on the negative because we've got to root that out. It's like weeding the garden, you know, why plant the beautiful flowers if they're getting it overtaken by the weeds in a matter of days or weeks. So we weed the garden, you get to rant, you get, I mean, I don't know, it all depends on the people that I'm working with. Some people love to just, you know, cuss and rant and just be like, however they want to be because it's a place they're safe to be that way. And then as that's all released then,
00:38:29
Speaker
we get to bring in slowly the positive and kind of nurture where we actually want to go and it is fun you know and people people can go from like feeling awful about something or crying or whatever to like cracking up about it it's uncanny.
00:38:45
Speaker
I love that. And I'm so glad that you mentioned the focus on the negative, because it's something I think so many of us grew up with the power of positivity. And of course, we should look for silver linings and things and find the lesson and try to be positive when we can. But sometimes it just sucks. It's a bad situation. And
00:39:05
Speaker
There's therapeutic benefits to swearing sometimes. And, you know, I mean, not that we should be doing it every other word, but if you, if you need to sometimes in the moment, you get it out and that's. Yeah. So I think, I think that's so cool because yeah, we are taught so often, no, you have to focus on the positive. No one wants to hear the negative. Just.
00:39:27
Speaker
move on. And then I think that's where the blockages come. I've numbed that before over eating. And I think a lot of people push that down in other ways too. And yeah, I think, I think that's such a way that, you know, if we're not again, like experiencing those physical, then we can kind of deal with things a lot clearer after we've dealt with it in that way.
00:39:46
Speaker
I do want to ask you too, because I know you mentioned ADHD and that's something that I did not get a diagnosis as a child is something that as I've gotten older has become very clear and that I have, I do now know that I have, but something that I think a lot of people, especially women are finding out about as they get older, because it has been so misdiagnosed for so many of us, but you've used EFT to actually deal with ADHD as well. And I'd love to know kind of how that has worked for you and what that looks like.
EFT for ADHD Management
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, calming my busy mind is really my success. And while ADHD might be misdiagnosed, whether you're actually diagnosed with ADHD or you simply just have a busy mind, like either way, that's a struggle and it's a challenge. So I wasn't formally diagnosed since I was 42. So, and that was only, well, I'm 44 now. So it was 22 years ago, but I'm darn sure that this has been going on for my life.
00:40:43
Speaker
There is no question about it, but yeah so many people routinely use EFT to stay focused or to overcome issues focusing on a task, so you can simply use it to get focused before you need to do something. Or you can use it to do the deeper work that goes into that, but I mean it can be helpful with the impulsiveness.
00:41:02
Speaker
that comes with EFT, helping you to calm down, slow your thoughts, get to the root of it, be able to take that step back and realize, OK, am I numbing? Am I avoiding? What's going on here? Really, it can help with the disorganization and problems that a lot of ADHDers have with prioritizing so that you can stay more focused and rational and logical. It really brings the logic back somehow. And it's pretty cool.
00:41:32
Speaker
and it can help with poor time management skills and planning. I can kind of essentially give myself a pep talk with a round of EFT that works on my entire nervous system and just allows me to show up differently and allows me to be less resistant to things like using timers or actually doing the task I told myself I was going to do or that kind of thing.
00:41:53
Speaker
And it can also help with excessive activity and restlessness. So just, you know, to be more calm, to sleep better, to be more present. And I mean, essentially, that's that's called the H, the hyperactivity in ADHD through nervous system regulation, and actually did an entire podcast episode on calming the age and ADHD.
00:42:14
Speaker
on my becoming more me show just the other week. So if somebody's wondering how to do that, there's over a dozen ways that I share it on how to calm the age and ADHD. I'm bookmarking that right after this. And it can help with low frustration tolerance, which is really common too. And just, I mean, at the heart of EFT is learning to love, accept and forgive yourself. Because I can't think of anything that when you do truly find that and feel that doesn't get better.
00:42:43
Speaker
So, you know, that's really at the heart of that. And, you know, then it also it helps with the that high functioning anxiety to that I feel like most ADHD years have some form of that to at least the ones that I work with. I know not everybody does, but like attracts like and I tend to attract a lot that have that too. So.
00:43:00
Speaker
You know kind of like I described before how you know it helped with my high functioning anxiety and the ways that I would kind of make everything more chaotic and out of control when I wanted the opposite. And you know you gave an example, you know where it looks like on the outside, a lot of times, those of us with high functioning anxiety or like.
00:43:17
Speaker
doing great. We're just killing it. But you know, it's, it's not always that way. And you know, from the outside, it can appear like we've got it together. But maybe maybe we appear as like detail oriented and organized, but on the inside, we're struggling with like decision making and procrastination.
00:43:33
Speaker
it's a bit of a chameleon like that or under the surface you know you struggle with anxiety and overthinking and self-doubt and worrying and nervous habits and things but on the outside you might appear totally calm and in control so the problem there is that you have to at least be willing to out yourself to yourself
00:43:51
Speaker
in order to work on it and go at least a step further if you want deeper work and out yourself to a professional that can actually help you or to even go further than that and tell other people that you love or that care about you that, hey, I know it looks like I've got my stuff together, but I am having a time of it and get the help that you need and just be part of the greater effort to destigmatize mental health and mental health care.
00:44:18
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's so important. And it's something I'm so glad is finally coming to light. I think especially since the pandemic, people are more open about the fact that, Hey, I struggle with this. And, you know, and that's why I try to, to share a lot of that on this podcast too, because so many people don't know that. And I, I spoke with someone on an Instagram live on this recently, that one of the things I've learned from doing the podcast, from having so many amazing guests like yourself, that there are incredible people out there doing these amazing things.
00:44:45
Speaker
And every single one of them has had their struggles and self-doubts and has had a challenge at one point or another that may be something that resonates with the listener. It may be something that they're dealing with too, but finding the ways that we cope with it and I think accepting it in ourselves first and then kind of figuring out if it's something that we're going to live with, how do we live with it and make it work for us?
00:45:07
Speaker
What are things we can do to not push through, but to kind of clear that energy or whatever that might be, or to heal from it. And that's something I didn't really know. And I'm glad people are starting to be more vulnerable about because I, I've even done the numbing in terms of making my schedule really busy. And when you're really busy, people think, oh, wow, this person is doing all of these great things. And it's like, well, but maybe they're not getting enough sleep. And.
00:45:33
Speaker
Even mentioning the hyperactivity, that's the one part of the ADHD I never thought that really resonated with me, but then I realized there are times where I might be dealing with something stressful and then I should be going to sleep at a normal time and then it's midnight and I'm reorganizing something I'm hyper focused on. And hyperactivity doesn't have to look like a kid running around the house bouncing off the walls. It can be in your thoughts even.
00:45:58
Speaker
and showing up in physically sedentary ways, but mentally very hyperactive ways.
00:46:05
Speaker
Yeah. And I think something else that's popped up for me as I've started to notice this a little bit more and started to kind of dive deeper into it is realizing, you know, even just sensory overload, I think in situations, I get claustrophobic and, you know, if there's a lot going on, it can be really stressful. And I think for probably a lot of people listening as well, are there ways we can use EFT if you are kind of outside, is there a safe way to practice it when you're out somewhere in the situation in the moment?
00:46:34
Speaker
Yeah, well, I mean, gosh, my hope is that it will become so understood by so many that it won't be weird for us to just kind of talking to ourselves and talking. I'm at the point where like, I'll take my walks around the neighborhood and stuff and I just do it. And you know, if a car starts coming, I might stop for a moment or some other walker passes me. But I'm like, whatever, I'm just the lady that like taps on herself and talks to herself.
00:46:56
Speaker
And that's OK, because I feel pretty good. But you can actually, if you want to implement tapping and you want to do it in more kind of like private way when you're out, you could simply use some different points, like the sides of our fingers have points on them. And you could like even just like tap with the same hand on the sides of the finger. You could do this in like you have your hand in like a jacket pocket or a hoodie pocket or something like that. And nobody would ever know. And you could be simply thinking about the stuff that you would normally be saying out loud.
00:47:26
Speaker
really honestly just as effective. I prefer and do think it's faster when you're able to voice it but I mean I know when I've worked with a lot of people on fear of flying and stuff and they know that they're going to have those moments when they're actually on the plane but they don't want to feel embarrassed doing typical tapping there that's often a method that they use and or just kind of like a visualization while while doing some tapping. You can also
00:47:52
Speaker
just tap a single point like you know like the side of your hand or whatever and that's kind of put it down your lap or whatever and nobody's really going to notice and if you have a little bit of ability to maybe you're talking to something on the phone or whatever and they don't see you I always recommend like talking and tapping at the same time like just on a single point like the collarbone and so maybe you've had a bad day you're sharing a story or something
00:48:16
Speaker
you're tapping and you're clearing that energy around the story that you had by just, you know, tapping and talking at the same time. And that can make a big difference too. And then you don't feel like telling the same story to the next person that you come across and, you know, over and over and it's like, it stops being like a ruminating thing and you just can like move on.
00:48:34
Speaker
That's such a good point because I am a ruminator very much so and so that's definitely something I want to try because again I do think that there is so much of this where the physical and the emotional just come together in so many different ways in our lives and so to be able to do something like that while you're having that conversation or yeah venting on the phone to someone I think
00:48:55
Speaker
Yeah, because then we keep it going and going and going and then it's like, oh my gosh, this is like, this is the story that I live with now. This is the only thing that's happened in the last few days kind of thing. And this is a great way to clear it. So I love that practice. I'm definitely going to be trying that. I'd love to know as well, because I think, you know, we've talked a little bit about the trauma, the stressful situation in the moment, but kind of on a day-to-day practice, do you have any suggestions for
00:49:21
Speaker
just things we can do in our routine to again, kind of almost preventively, because I think that, you know, we focus so often on healing from the specific thing that's already happened, but what can we do with this type of healing and with some of the other work that you do to kind of strengthen and build that resilience for when the difficult situation happens later on.
Incorporating EFT into Daily Life
00:49:41
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, in addition to the tips that I just gave on that last question, I would say to focus on whatever is like top of mind and bothering you the most. So if you're going to give yourself, you know, five minutes to do a tapping round every day, which is very doable for most people, just take a minute to get conscious and realize what's actually bothering me the most. Is it a physical pain? Is it an emotional pain? Is it a fear? An anxiety? What is it? And then just spend your time on that and
00:50:10
Speaker
you know, we always measure at the beginning of a tapping round, then at the end, kind of what that distress level is so that we know what's changed. And then you can either note what's still left for you when that's done and tackle it the next day, or just just know and be conscious of what's left for you. But just by focusing on the thing that seems worse for you every day, then you can really get a lot cleared in the course of a week, a month, a year.
00:50:33
Speaker
I like that. Do you do that as kind of a morning practice or more of a before bedtime or does it whenever you want makes no difference. I feel like, you know, with people's schedules as crazy as they can be, then whatever feels right for the person that wants to do it. I really love this practice. I'm so excited to try it out myself and to kind of even just again, implementing it when I'm on the phone or when I might be.
00:50:56
Speaker
I think it could be so easy doing the, you know, just the simple fingertips if you're in a meeting or something like that where there are things coming up that are maybe stressing you out or, you know, bringing up some feelings and so I think that this is a practice that could be so doable it's.
00:51:11
Speaker
I think, you know, the daily practice and the self care of that you're investing in yourself, but it is kind of free to do in a sense because you're tapping and just trying this out. You're not causing any physical injury or anything like that. And if you're afraid of needles, you're still getting the points that you need. Yeah.
00:51:27
Speaker
There's pretty much no way you can hurt yourself or make anything worse doing this technique. That's incredible. Is there anything else that you'd like listeners to know when it comes to this kind of work or how it ties into some of the other modalities that you work with? They are welcome to.
00:51:43
Speaker
to seek out more information from, you know, my website at chorizalierlaveen.com. And of course I hope, you know, they'll check out the session that we're going to do by emailing me chorizalierlaveen.com and putting wellness and wanderlust in the subject line. But I just feel like I've collected the ultimate toolbox of things that have worked really well for my
00:52:04
Speaker
busy minded nature and being able to impart those things to other women who I know feel a lot like I used to is just such meaningful and fulfilling work to me, because
00:52:18
Speaker
I had no idea a lot of these tools existed 10 or 20 years ago. And I know there's so many people out there that still don't realize how much relief is so readily available and what kind of, you know, just community and help and fun therapeutic methods are out there to really make a difference in how they're, they're feeling and showing up in the world every day.
00:52:36
Speaker
I think so often we think that if the method is available, it's going to take 10 years in therapy, which I think therapy is fantastic, but that, you know, that it's going to take all this time and it's going to be something that, well, I don't have time to do this where, you know, I have kids, I have a job, I have
00:52:54
Speaker
school or whatever it is. And five, 10 minutes a day, I think that's, I mean, I spend way more time on that, you know, on Netflix for sure. Sometimes the scrolling and all of that, we can certainly take five or 10 minutes out of our day to, you know, to incorporate these practices and, you know, what a difference it can make. And then to spend a little more time.
00:53:13
Speaker
Healing can happen in an instant. It's beliefs that keep us from allowing that and resistance that keeps us from letting it in. But healing can happen so, so fast. So people do often get stuck in the belief that, oh, well, this thing, whatever it might be, took however long to manifest or to get as bad as it is or whatever else. So it's going to take me equally as long or longer to figure out my way out of it. But it's not true. There's not truth to that.
00:53:43
Speaker
I think that's something that probably every single person listening to this needed to hear because again, yeah, we often think, well, it took me 31 years that I felt this particular way about this situation, but that can go away. I was in a two-year verbally abusive relationship, I would say, and it was maybe a few weeks of doing a specific type of therapy where there was energy being released that
00:54:08
Speaker
truly helped me to heal from that. And that did not take me the two years or however long whatever the formula is to get over a breakup or whatever that may be, it didn't take that long. But it took just the investment in yourself and I think recognizing to some capacity whatever that is for yourself that you are worth the healing and that you're you're worth feeling as wonderful as you are and as you should feel. But you don't deserve to suffer.
00:54:36
Speaker
Exactly. Nobody does. So I really love what you're doing and how you're helping women to just unblock that and to find that worthiness in them because this is something that so many of us struggle with to some capacity. And so I'm definitely going to ask you more about what you offer through your program. But before we do that, I wanted to ask you a few rapid buyer questions as well to the listeners. Yeah, well, they'll get to know a little bit more about you. And some of this we've been talking about, of course, but this is always fun. And I love to
00:55:05
Speaker
I love to hear what our guests have to say for these. So my first is one that we've been getting into, but your top wellness tip. Yeah, I've given a ton of those. So if I'm going to reach into my pocket and grab another one, which would be like based on breath work, I guess. So an easy thing that people can do on a daily basis would just be to, you know, obviously breathing is important, but not just any kind of breathing. And sometimes I think people really struggle to get that deep breath in. So what you can do is you can, um,
00:55:33
Speaker
you can put pressure on the front of the thymus gland. It really opens you up when you breathe. I'll try to make this part of the session that we do so people can see it in action, but you just locate the point between that suprasternal notch between where your clavicles are up top and like the nipple level on your chest. So right in between there, you put a hand of four fingers and four fingers on either side of your sternum there,
00:55:57
Speaker
and you just press in and you inhale and exhale and you'll get such a deeper breath doing that like press pretty firmly and we'll just inhale and exhale and you can release so much stress doing that like whenever I feel like I'm not getting a deep breath or I feel short of breath or whatever I just pause and in like 20 40 seconds you know I've been able to take a few deep breaths and just really really get centered again and
00:56:27
Speaker
Oh, it makes such a difference. Did you feel the difference? I did. And I think so often when we're in that stress state, it's, it is hard to get that deep breath. You're kind of hyperventilating almost. And you feel like I can't get a deep breath. I'm not getting oxygen. And of course you are, but so does to do something like that. I did definitely feel better. It lowers the anxiety, the stress, the resistance in your body really quick. So I'll be my.
00:56:49
Speaker
That is so cool. I'm going to be trying that now on a completely separate note because we are wellness and wanderlust. Where's your favorite travel destination? Oh, anywhere tropical or mountainous. I love the energy of a place more than the place itself. So I'm always kind of seeking out like the energy that I want to align with.
00:57:07
Speaker
but like on a regular basis, cause I don't like to travel like far and wide to the same places over and over again. I'm kind of like a one and done kind of gal, but we travel repeatedly to the Delaware beaches because that's where my family is. And it's only about two hours from our home in Maryland and there's great things to do and awesome restaurants and family. So that's probably my favorite destination that I repeatedly go to.
00:57:30
Speaker
That's lovely. I always love a good beach and I do think the energy is so important. Um, when you go to that place where you think, Oh my gosh, I could live here or just the people that there, there's just something about it. I yeah. Or you have that calling to go and you just know there's a reason you need to be there. And for me, the energy is aligned because like there's relatives, my mom, my sister are there. The kids are taken care of. If I want to go like take a sunrise walk, I can balance my work and my pleasure and everything. It's like a home away from home. So I love it for that reason.
00:58:00
Speaker
I love that. Now if you were an animal, what animal would you be and why? I would be an elephant. They're really like emotionally intelligent and they're nurturing and they're compassionate and they're also playful and they're full of a lot of like really interesting quirks and surprises that I kind of feel like I'm a little quirky and weird too.
00:58:22
Speaker
I love that they really are such great animals and I've heard so much about the emotional intelligence with them that that I didn't even know and they and they bring good fortune to the you know the symbolism around the elephants that you can't see it on my zoom screen but behind the computer I've got a couple of elephants on a shelf.
00:58:39
Speaker
Oh, mine's up there. Yep. I have a crystal one. I've got all my crystals and stones. Oh, yeah. But yeah, I've got one that's an elephant also. I love them. Yeah, the Hindu god Ganesh, who removes the obstacle. Actually, I guess blockages in a sense, but he removes obstacles. And one of my co-workers brought me a
00:58:56
Speaker
Ganesh from India. And so he's right next to me as well. And I just, I align so much with the elephant too. So I love that answer. If you could master completely new skill, and it sounds like you have done a lot with, you know, learning different things with these different modalities and all of that. So if you could master a new skill, what would that look like? What would that be?
00:59:16
Speaker
Yeah, I love learning and I love learning new things. So, I mean, I'm constantly learning new things for my business, but like on a personal fun level, I want to learn paint pouring art. Like this, I really like dump the cups of paint and then you like jiggle it around and it looks all amazing and we'll see if mine does. But I've actually, I just got the paint pouring kit as a birthday gift. It's like sitting up on my shelf. I'm looking at it right now and I got some canvases. So, I think I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna be mastering that new skill soon.
00:59:43
Speaker
That is so cool. I'm definitely you'll have to you'll have to share it on social media. Well, I think it'll become my new back. If it's good, it'll become my new backdrop. So yes, we'll see. Like I can't wait to see a picture of it because I think that type of art is so cool. Yeah, I love watching people make it. I think that might just be like, I don't know, just it's a fun thing to watch. Like I could just watch all day on like, you know, Instagram or YouTube or whatever the videos of people like dumping the paint and then coming what it becomes like that to me is as fascinating as the finished product.
01:00:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's so therapeutic to watch. I come from a very artsy, creative family, but I feel like sometimes I don't indulge my like hands-on art kind of stuff as much. I mean, I guess EFT topic is actually very literally hands-on art.
01:00:27
Speaker
I had the revelation this morning because we went to a concert for the first time since like the pandemic earlier this week. And I was just thanking my husband this morning. I was like, thank you so much. I'm so glad we took the time out to do that. It really like reawakened something that felt kind of like, I guess I didn't know it was dead kind of inside me. And I was thinking about like, wow, you know,
01:00:45
Speaker
The lead singer had mentioned something about trauma and mental health and everything else and he wrote a song about it and I was thinking gosh you know I used to write songs I used to be in a band I used to love all that kind of stuff I don't do that anymore but with EFT tapping and being a practitioner I'm constantly writing scripts and rounds and
01:01:04
Speaker
off the cuff. It's like freestyle and I'm like, you know, and I'm like, wow, there really is a parallel here to like what I'm doing in my current iteration of life and what I've always loved doing. And that was just kind of a really cool thing to realize.
01:01:17
Speaker
That's amazing because it is it is something creative and it's um you know it's a little bit like you're thinking outside the box for how you're you're helping people to heal and to to unblock energy so it's it's a different way of thinking but it is very physical which which art is and so I think there is there's an art and a science to it which I think is so cool you kind of have a little of both yeah but my final question for you in terms of our rapid fires what's next on your bucket list?
Theresa’s Future Aspirations
01:01:43
Speaker
Um, becoming a published author. Ooh. Yes. Yes. So, and you love to write too, right? Have you, have you published a book? Not yet. Not yet. Must be on your bucket list too. Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. That's like, uh, I'm hoping to cross that one off the list in the next year. So yeah.
01:02:02
Speaker
That would be amazing. And I'll definitely, um, you'll have to let me know so that I can, you know, I'll definitely check it out. I'm going to get a signed copy of course. And yes, we'll promote to all the listeners and everything too. But yeah, I think that's so cool. And you have such a powerful story to share. And this is such a, I would it be about the energy work that you do or.
01:02:23
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think much like my business, it'll probably be called Becoming More Me. And I'll be sharing my stories, how they relate to the work that I do. I'll be sharing actionable things that people can do to get results also and whatever else brings it all together.
01:02:41
Speaker
I love that. Well, I think that there's, there's such a need for it. And I think it's a, again, it's a powerful story and something that, you know, when, when even just reading your bio, I could relate so deeply to a lot of your story. And I'm sure that so many listeners as well, and those who read it, they'll be able to learn from and to be able to find their own ways of healing from. And I think sharing our stories is so powerful in general for, for helping the world to heal.
01:03:05
Speaker
It really helps me. I mean, I'm a huge, I suck up books like crazy and I love hearing other people's stories. And my book will definitely have an audio version immediately because I'm an audio book junkie. And I feel like if it's not offered on audio, like I don't read it because with four kids and, you know, two businesses and everything else, like I've got plenty of time to like listen to a book. If I'm like emptying the dishwasher or driving someplace or whatever, but I have zero time that I allot for sitting down and reading a book.
01:03:33
Speaker
And I think it's so cool, especially when it's read by the author to get to hear it in their voice. I haven't gotten much into the audio books yet, although I know that that's something, um, as we're kind of going back out into public again and having more of a commute, I'm definitely going to want to be doing, but I listened to Glenn and Doyle's book was the first one I got on that was, I think gifted to me on Audible. And I'm like, wow, this is even more powerful, I think, than reading it.
01:03:55
Speaker
And I love to read, I love to sit with a book and I love the feel of a book, but there is something, hearing someone's story in their words, in their voice. And yeah, well, I will definitely have to experience both. I think that's, I think that's so cool. And I absolutely love what you're doing. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about Becoming More Me, what you offer and just ways that they can connect with you?
01:04:16
Speaker
Sure. So I do regular workshops, typically free workshops where people can come learn things with me. I do group coaching programs throughout the year at different times. I do private coaching. I have, you know, longer programs, more like VIP programs for people that, you know, really want, you know, longer term help.
01:04:40
Speaker
and to kind of break through all the things and have that ongoing support. A little bit of everything. I also do public speaking and retreats and things too. You can find a lot of that information or at least how to get in touch with me right on TeresaLirLavigne.com and I'm also the host of the Becoming More Me podcast and there's links to that through the website too.
01:04:59
Speaker
And yeah, you can find, as an ADHD person, I always know that like people like getting things in different formats. So even if you just Google my name and you put Teresa Lirly Vina in, you'll either find videos or blog articles or whatever. Like, however you like to consume things, it's out there in some format that I've created because I honored the
01:05:17
Speaker
the differences in the way that people like to learn and uh you know even like pinterest and stuff so it's it's everywhere that's amazing and i can i can definitely relate to that i've been a little bit on a tick tock kick lately in terms of consuming my information but then i'll go back to podcasts and then sometimes i just want to read something and so it's nice that you have resources in a lot of different places for listeners and for those who yeah they just consume it in different ways so i'll make sure i link all of that in the show notes and
01:05:45
Speaker
Um, of course. And I can't wait to check out, especially that recent episode that you mentioned about the age and ADHD. I think that's going to be such a huge one for me personally, but I just want to thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your story with us today. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for having me. It was a great conversation. And, um,
01:06:03
Speaker
Yeah, I love what you put out there with your podcast and the topics that you get to explore, so keep doing what you're doing. As I mentioned at the top of this episode, Teresa and I did a private tapping session right after we wrapped our interview. It was honestly such a cool experience and it really did help me release some of the stress and anxiety I had been experiencing that day. It was a Friday, end of a long busy work week.
01:06:25
Speaker
I'm always so fascinated by the mind-body connection and how our emotions manifest themselves physically. So of course I loved learning about how all of this could tie back to ADHD and anxiety. That was something I could definitely relate to and I hope some listeners felt seen and heard when listening to the episode as well. I've decided to definitely put some more focus into learning more about EFT in the coming weeks so that I can add this technique to my toolbox as both a daily practice and as a way to deal with difficult emotions and experiences in the moment.
01:06:54
Speaker
Be sure to email Teresa if you want a copy of our private session so you can see it for yourself.
01:06:58
Speaker
and connect with her on her website and through social media if you wanna learn more. As always, I say this every week, but I wanna thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for tuning in, for sharing this part of your day with me, and for being a part of this community. If you have a topic you'd like us to explore in a future episode, if you have a guest you'd like us to have on, or if you yourself would be a good guest, don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'm on Instagram, at wellnessandwonderlessblog, my DMs are open, or you can always email me at Valerie, V-A-L-E-R-I-E,
01:07:28
Speaker
wellnessandwonderlust.net. One of the best ways you can lend your support to the show is to leave a rating and review on Apple podcasts. It helps other people find the show and it takes just a few minutes out of your day. So if you find yourself tuning in from week to week, it would mean the world to me if you would share your thoughts. I hope you all have a fabulous day and I can't wait to see you next time.