SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello and welcome to Soul Portals, exploring psycho-spiritual horizons with your hosts Cedric Speyer and Deanna Nagel. Cedric is an author and therapist who developed the interview guidance model and is a pathfinder in the psycho-spiritual realm. Deanna created the Essential Soul Care Model, a model suitable for therapists, coaches, and healers. The monthly episodes of Soul Portals feature guests sharing insights from their personal paths and professional practices. Thank you for tuning in for the Soul Talk with all kinds of trailblazing teachers and guides as Cedric, Deanna, and guests explore new evolutionary landscapes.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

A warm welcome, everyone, to the next episode of the Soul Portals podcast. And over to Cedric's fire to get started on this episode.

SPEAKER_06 0:54

Welcome again, the June episode. And we call it Soul Portals. Well, the our special guest is the portal. The person is the portal. And the person is Laura Mazzata this month. And we usually open, I have an opening invocation that goes like this. May the spirit flow freely through this conversation, allowing it to be both energizing and edifying. And then the opening quote Laura, you can correct me if I'm wrong. This is my impression of your vocation. Or part of your vocation. Because your vacation vocation has a lot of breadth. Yes. A Sufi experience. And he says, becoming more skilled in the art of illumination catalyzes transformation. How would the world be different if, for example, all of us were to reclaim our inheritance as members in a tribe of light who vow to bring enlightenment to all creation? If more and more people were to infuse the consciousness of light into their interactions, their intimate relationships, their work and physical activities, the healing effect on others would be immeasurable. Just contemplating the idea of light during conversation as an instantaneous effect, as it awakens within another his own nature as a being of light. Steadfastly maintaining the light in one's own soul reinforces the light within him as well. As soon as we encounter another person who is filled with light, his or her presence acts as a torch, sparking our own light. That's beautiful. Except for your shadow work, does that describe Yeah, that's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 3:13

Yeah, because we have a canoper question. How would you describe your essential spiritual practice? So that's the preview.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Okay. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_06 3:24

And then I found something in your own words that for me, like a complete nutshell of your mission. Um and it's merge the human and divine in a sustainable way. So that got my attention as like a capsule summary of everything you do. Merge the human and divine in a sustainable way.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

That is entirely what I do. Thank you.

SPEAKER_06 3:50

Okay. Over to you, Dionne.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

So Laura, I know that you are a um licensed therapist, social worker. Um, and many of us who are called to that work are called because of because we want to be a light worker, or our soul calls us there. Um, but I'm curious, you know, you're much more than a social worker. So I'm curious about the soul in your vocation and how that rolled out in a few sentences about how you title your role and profession at this point.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Yeah, I mean, for me, it was it was a deep knowing, a deep knowing that there was there was a greater depth that we can access that was not able to be accessed through traditional mental health approaches. And it was calling me for my own personal healing. And as I witness the expansion in myself and in my clients and loved ones, it was impossible for me to not speak a deeper truth and invite people into the same.

SPEAKER_06 5:08

That's awesome. Could you say uh who or what influenced you the most in that transition?

SPEAKER_01 5:17

I mean in the transition to what I'm doing now.

SPEAKER_06 5:20

Yeah. Like, did you have a mentor or did you have a model that influenced you?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

My soul. Because I what happened was I mean, I got sepsis and it changed my life. So that's what happened. And I it woke me up to a level of personal resilience and strength and power and love and expansion that I didn't even know existed, even after being a therapist for 20 years. And it was my body was my biggest teacher up until my soul started to show itself a little bit more brilliantly as I healed.

SPEAKER_06 5:59

So that crisis like was a portal to gaining soul strength, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Big time. I've always been very spiritual, but this skyrocketed it and made it central.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

So is that the point that you um became acquainted with the Akashic Records? Can you talk about that a little bit? Because I know that that you offer that service.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Yeah, sure. So so what happened was after, I guess it was about a year and a half or two after I'd had sepsis, I still wasn't really functioning. I was very sick and had a lot of damage to my body. And I was told that I was just gonna keep getting worse. And I just, I had always been such a people pleaser and a rule follower. And I just thought, yeah, I don't believe you. And it was the first time that I felt I was really defiant. And I was like, no, I'm just gonna figure out my own way. And so I started doing natural healing and I became a Reiki master teacher and I loved it, but um, I kept getting called to the Akashic Records, even though consciously I didn't understand what they were, and it didn't make any logical sense to me because I was still very much my logical mind at the time. Um, but then I just started listening and started playing with it and connecting and developing a relationship with that space. And what I noticed was that when I would be in the Akashic Records, I would have no symptoms. And then when I would close the records, I would be super energized. And so I didn't understand it yet, but I knew it was deep medicine that was sustaining me. And so I made it, I made it my intention to learn more about it and to integrate it more into how I was already operating.

SPEAKER_03 7:36

Can you just for those that may not know, can you can you explain what the Akashic records are? Sure.

SPEAKER_06 7:44

Yeah, Akashic records for dummies.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

Yes, let's do it. So it's like the a spiritual library in the clouds. So I like to visualize, I'm a very visual learner. I like to visualize a library up there in the clouds that's got this light cast through it. And it's the librarians are your angels and your loved ones who have passed and your guides and ascended masters. And basically, when you open your own Akashic record, which we do through ritual and meditative practice, you have access to all the information about your soul from the time it first sparked through past lives if you believe in them, current life, future lives. And so I like to call it Google for the soul, right? This is a place where you have a question about anything along your soul's journey and what makes you the unique flavor that you are. That's the place to ask it. But it's also just a place where you are attuning to a frequency, a vibration that is higher dimensional, higher consciousness, divine perspective, and allowing your human to very gradually become more divine as you spend more time in this space and align with that frequency.

SPEAKER_06 8:52

It also includes like humanity's record of whatever, like what everyone's done, what everyone's thought about.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Correct. So you can enter, you can enter basically everybody's akashic record contributes to the collective consciousness. So every every person's Akashic record is uh kind of like a microcosm of the larger consciousness. So every time you're shifting your record, you're also depositing information into the collective record.

SPEAKER_06 9:23

So you're really solidly psycho-spiritual.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:29

Very much so. Well, and there's a question actually in the chat: where were you trained for the Akashic records?

SPEAKER_01 9:36

So I did my certification with the Akashic Academy with Emily Harrison. And then I started my own Akashic certification program, and I did that for a while. And um, and I also joined a membership with Caramelindi so that I could just go in consistently just to hold me accountable. And that was really helpful just to have something to really invite me in regularly so that I could repeatedly attune to it. And not that you ever lose this, but I wanted to keep my momentum going. So that was really helpful, which is why I created a membership and a certification of my own, because I feel like it's they're they're really supportive in the human, because anybody can do this by themselves, right? We're working with the divine, but it can be really, really helpful to have a bit of a holding place and a structure when you're learning and getting accustomed to it.

SPEAKER_06 10:28

I think that sorry, go ahead. And this vocabulary is all new to them, even though they might be drawn to you for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah, I think it's it's one of the things that I love about this work so much and how it's shifted my work from being a traditional therapist is that I'm not just witnessing the stories that they tell or how they're showing up in person. I can directly tap into their soul and be able to feel into where their soul is guiding them. And so their soul might be guiding them down a pathway that has nothing to do with the Akashic Records, that has nothing to do with what I'm doing, right? And and we get to access their vocabulary and their essence and their path very in a very pure way without noise from our conditioning and belief systems and everything we think we're supposed to move toward to be quote unquote successful.

SPEAKER_03 11:31

I see another question. Um Does anger affect the Akashic records? What causes most damage and hardest to clear?

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Let me look at that question for a second. I mean, so in the Akashic records, every emotion is neutral. It's all just energy. And so acknowledging any energy that comes forward is beneficial. Acknowledging any energy that comes forward is something that is meant to be seen, meant to be witnessed, meant to be present with. And so as you allow that to be seen, it's going to create an opening for you with deeper wisdom or an invitation into greater expansion or greater self-understanding. Um, in terms of damage, I personally don't believe that we create any kind of damage in our Akashic records. Everything is a progression forward. And I think that when we look at ourselves as damaged or parts of us as damaged, we are rejecting a part of ourselves instead of bringing that into acceptance and enfoldment into the wholeness of who we are because we're weaving all of these layers and parts of us into uh what we're becoming. So I hope that answered your question. Let me know.

SPEAKER_06 12:47

Yeah, and I hear there's a real interface with their uh traditional therapy there, right? In the in the holistic self-ex acceptance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

And that's what happened. Your watershed moment was allowing the Akashic records to you were able to view yourself more purely instead of with damage or with disease.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Tell me about it. And that that's the thing, you know. I was doing, I was doing all the work, right? I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing, and I wasn't getting better, you know. And then I realized that I was, I was trying, I was forcing, and I was in this mode of I can heal myself, yes, I can, I'll show them, kind of, you know, but it was it was forced, it was, it was desperate, you know, rather than coming from this space of of allowing what my body was desiring to express to me to really be heard and seen and witnessed and accepted and loved, and to fall in love with the process of healing and falling in love with the process of taking care of my body instead of checking off the checklist because I need to to stay stable.

SPEAKER_06 13:59

And you did this all on your own without any guide at the time?

SPEAKER_01 14:05

For the most part. I mean, I, you know, I worked with a couple of Reiki practitioners here and there. Um, but I did a lot of my own self-study and really wanted spirit to guide me because it can get it, it's very exciting and fun to start to explore all of these aspects of the divine and all of these magical things we can do to heal ourselves. But it can also get confusing and serve as a distraction. And I realized that at one point too, I did a lot of ancestral healing at the beginning of this journey because it was very clear that's what was coming through spirit was I had a lot of things to clear in my lineage. Um, but then I realized I couldn't get stuck in that or caught up in that because there was more that was being spoken to me that didn't that meant like I don't need to keep healing. There's nothing wrong with me. I get to just be and come into acceptance of all that I am. So that was a bit of a shift.

SPEAKER_03 15:01

Yeah. So do you mind if we talk a minute about being a traditional psychotherapist and making this transition to what I reverently refer to as woo? Yes, ma'am. And and for those therapists who are listening, like, do you overlap the two roles or do you stay in each lane separately?

SPEAKER_01 15:29

So I don't think anything can be separated entirely. That's part of the holistic approach, right? Like it's all part of our wholeness and it's all going to trickle into each other. And so when I shifted from traditional therapy, what I did the first few years was really just kind of integrate some of this work into it. So at the beginning, it was just recognizing that I could witness the shift in my clients just because my vibration has shifted. Nothing else changed, right? And so they were receiving differently from me because I was coming from a different frequency. And then they started having awareness that come online. And then there were a handful of clients, maybe more than that, probably, that were very open to this work. And so I would start opening their Akashic records with them, or I would, we would talk about their energy and tuning into their bodies and things like this. And somatic work is a really good way to kind of bridge these two spaces because there's a lot of energy held within the body and a lot of codes held within the body that we can get data from. And so using somatic work was a great way as well, bringing some cards in, like affirmation cards, things like that, and just helping them tap into their own wisdom. And then it eventually got to the point where it didn't feel authentic to me to continue to be a traditional therapist because everything that was coming out of my mouth was spiritual or energetic in nature. And it's because that's where my belief lies in terms of sustainability. I'm not saying that cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, EMDR, all these other strategies don't work and aren't effective, but I have worked with all of them. And I know that they can also provide a very surface-level distraction from a sustainable long-term enhanced vitality and longevity. And that's what I'm devoted to. Does that answer your question?

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Yes, it does. And you you and I have had side conversations about this, but there's a there's a movement, particularly in the US, of more therapists embracing the holistic approaches. Um and what I'm constantly having dialogue with therapists about is that this is also being not that we push our agenda on the client, but this is also being spiritually aware, spiritual literacy as a therapist. Knowing the yeah, knowing the implicit and explicit, like when the when the client might be open to something like Akashic Records.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Right. And it's it's so interesting because, you know, when we're when we're trained as therapists, we are taught to uh gather information, like concrete information about their religious context, their cultural context, things like that. But it's almost like a checkbox. You know, it's it's not a deep meeting in that space and getting into a felt sense of how that person operates in these contexts. And so when we allow our wholeness of self and our self-acceptance to be extending from the soul rather than finding the soul after we've come to self-acceptance, it's like let your soul guide you into that because it's a much more easeful process. And it might seem a little outlandish in a couple of these things, but like if they take you down a road that you're like, oh, people are gonna think I'm weird, right? But I'm telling you, it's so much more this work, it is so much more efficient.

SPEAKER_06 19:03

Can it be as simple as asking a client what gives your life meaning? Like as an entry point, or how do you use it?

SPEAKER_01 19:12

You can. I to me, I would much rather go in and ask them what's coming, what's alive in their body right now. And the reason is because when you ask somebody what gives their life meaning, that's coming from the mind. A lot of people can answer that from the mind. Some people won't, some people will answer it with a little bit more depth, but the body is always going to tell you the most ready to integrate tender point of entry that's the most malleable and open for expansion.

SPEAKER_06 19:43

Okay. And you work online a lot, right? So, how do you do that in like a talk remote uh interaction?

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah, so I'll just sit across from them and I'll just ask them to tune into their bodies. And the people who say, I don't know, I say, well, that's not accurate because our body is literally always speaking to us in every moment of every day, even if it's just contentment, right? There's always something that your body has to express to you. And so it's a great entry point. And yeah, when you're on, I mean, when I'm on Zoom, it doesn't matter. Is it more palpable and immersive when we're in person? That's why I went run retreats. Because we get to really, really, really deep dive. Um, but yeah, um, it's about it's about that energetic and soul connection. And if that's there, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_06 20:32

And it's great because it keeps it grounded. So it keeps this whole spiritual element grounded when you start there. Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

So that's very important to me. It's very important to me. Um, that's one of the biggest cornerstones of my work is embodiment. Because I think a lot of what I have seen a ton of, particularly in the past handful of months, is a lot of spirituality from here up. You know, and I'm like, babe, where's your like are is this grounded into you? And the reason you're going like this, and you feel like you still have been doing all the spiritual work, but you don't know your purpose, you don't know where you're going, you don't have that confidence, you don't have that anchoring, is because you're not bringing it into your human, and your soul chose this body to express its purpose and its will through.

SPEAKER_06 21:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

It's it's meant to have your flavor.

SPEAKER_06 21:27

Right. That's actually the real meaning of the incarnation, right? Exactly. Like in Christianity, the incarnation is supposed to convey exactly what you're saying, right? Through a particular person, body, experience. Yeah. That brings the up the spiritual bypass. How do you manage the spiritual bypass when you see it happening?

SPEAKER_01 21:51

I mean, oh yeah, I see that all the time, and I just I just call people on it very gently. I mean, I'm just like, you know, like I can just tell that you're. You're really trying to make sense of your spirituality. And I'm like, you need to come into an acceptance of the fact that you're never going to fully know. Like there is, when we are working with the infinite, it is literally that. It is infinite. You are not going to know everything that source knows. Right. And so it's surrendering to that. And at the same time that you allow yourself to be open to continue to step into an embodiment that's closer and closer to source. So that you're really seeing the world through the eyes of the divine rather than which the divine sees everyone as precious. Nothing's wrong with you, right? It's all part of a greater purpose.

SPEAKER_06 22:42

Maybe you could uh for people not familiar with the term, maybe you could just say a bit about what this spiritual bypass is, what that means. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

So it's really about it's it's kind of like an escape, right? Where you're saying, like, I probably did a little bit of this when I was recovering from sepsis, let's be real, where you're just like, I can't deal anymore. So I'm gonna go up into another dimension and I'm gonna hang out there and just forget that I have a body and like forget all this drama here on the planet, right? And so it's very easy to do that or to get in the head so that, and this happened to me when I was when I was really deepening my meditation practice. And then when it dawned on me, I was like, oh, Laura Mazzada, we're not doing this because I was realizing like I really wanted to be the best meditator. I was like, I'm gonna be the best meditator, right? And I was like, that's not so bad. I could tell that it was very ego attached, you know? And so it's it's recognizing anywhere that you have attachments to, well, I want to learn this because, like, why? Why are you interested in pursuing your spirituality? What is the reason for this? Right. Because really it's meant for service, really, it's meant for coming into a greater unification of love within yourself, within your loved ones, within your community, and etc. Right.

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Well, and I've experienced a lot of a lot of people who spiritually bypass are are really just not willing to sit with their shadow side. You know, they're they're sprinkling pixie dust with a smile, but but they're they're not willing to look at the dark in their own in their own being.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

I agree. And I have to tell you, the people that I've run across more lately in the past few months simply don't even have awareness that the shadow exists. And they look at me and they're like, Yeah, okay, you say feel it, Laura, but where do I feel it? You know, and then and and they they really have no, like they have addressed the shadow, but they've addressed the shadow from a cognitive standpoint. They haven't addressed the shadow from like a deep, you know, like where where is that potential trauma being held in your body? There's there's the crossover to traditional psychotherapy. We talk about Russell Vanderkolkin talking about, you know, that that trauma is stored within our cells and it is right, energetic memory stored in the body, which is why this person who's asking, is the body an Akashic record? Is DNA the Akashic record? Yeah, it's all part of your Akashic record. Absolutely. You can open the Akashic records of your DNA. You can open the Akashic records of your, of your address, of your home, of your property. You can open it of, you know, any object, this crystal. So it's it's just it's just a a place that has been defined by humans to understand how the divine works. And it's, I like it because I think that it's a really great marriage between this feminine and masculine energy. Reiki's this very feminine energy of like flowy, it feels good, it's loving. And Akashic records are a little bit more structured and data-driven, where you can kind of gather information. And so any you can extract information from any energetic entity.

SPEAKER_06 26:03

How do you relate to all your I'll say colleagues on Facebook who present themselves as light workers and they don't cast a shadow? Right? You can it's you can see that right away. How do you personally relate relate to them because they're in your ballpark but with without the shadow work?

SPEAKER_01 26:29

I think that everybody has their own path, and like my favorite mantra ever is I trust the journey of my loved ones and release attachment to it. And so it's just a witnessing of that's where they are in their process. And if they desire to be open to receiving an invitation into greater depth or expansion in a different direction, wonderful. But it's it's holding the deepest faith in all of humanity and knowing and trusting that they'll be invited, they're always being invited, and their awareness of that invitation is up to them.

SPEAKER_06 27:09

Great answer. So you're not gonna let me get you to judge anyone. No, that means there's judgment in my shadow.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

I mean, listen, friend, it does judgment come up every once in a while. I mean, we are human beings, sure, but it's like it's catalyzed immediately for me because the second I see it, I'm just like, nope. Like I've I've gotten so good at detachment, and it's really, and it's not like uh I'm redirecting my mind and I'm shifting and I'm putting effort in and I'm journaling about and all of that. It's instantaneous now. And it wasn't like that all the time, right? I went through judgment detox book. I went I went through all of those layers as well, right? But now when it comes up, it's just like, is that the light? No, you know, and I don't even ask that question anymore. It just shifts. So how because I feel it in my body.

SPEAKER_06 27:58

Yeah, how do you do it? What would you recommend for people with the judging mind?

SPEAKER_01 28:05

There's so many avenues to take with this. I mean, if if if the judging mind comes up, I think the first thing to do is just witness it, right? Don't judge your judgment, which happens a lot. And then we get into shame and frustration with ourselves and self-criticism. And instead, it's just like, oh, there's my human. Thanks for stopping by. And then you move on and you recenter, right? You can also laugh at it and laugh with it and be like, I totally get it. I totally this isn't what we're doing anymore, though. And it's like a reparenting and a re-patterning of remember, we are we're focused here, we're focused here.

SPEAKER_03 28:43

Yeah, my biggest clue if I'm judging is if I say, I don't mean to be judgy. And the second part of that is because I'm about to, because I'm gonna judge you, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:55

And for me too, this is about like deep self-presence, like presence and and awareness of yourself and your own cues, whether that's in the body or in your energy field or in your spiritual awareness. Like if I'm judging, I feel it, and there's there's like a constriction in me, and it's like ah, and I can just literally just breathe into you know, bringing that lightness of being back, and there's no space for that in the lightness of being.

SPEAKER_06 29:25

I used to practice in the gym when I'd find myself looking at people working out and saying, Come on, give it up, like you're not gonna get into the shape you want. And and then I'd say and interrupt it by saying, Bless you, my soul, and using the mind, you know, that they're not the other.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

I really love that. And I also think that that's a great example because you're talking about comparison, which we all fall into. And it's beautiful because when you look at that, there's medicine in what you're judging as well, and so you can look at that and recognize that your scrutiny is highlighting what you just said earlier. Clearly, there's some kind of judgment in my consciousness, right? Like it's highlighting where your desire is not being fully honored by you or fully executed, and so it's like, oh, okay, I'm I'm criticizing this person, but there's clearly something there that I desire or that I covet, and then you get to be with that.

SPEAKER_06 30:30

Is this the shadow only the dark side, or is it because some definitions are whatever you exclude and shut out? Like so, what's your view of my?

SPEAKER_01 30:43

I mean, you're gonna ask me, I don't think there is a shadow. I think that that's a term that people have placed on things that they consider heavy, uncomfortable, negative, which is a judgment. Instead, I feel like it's I look at it less as shadow and more as I'm going to meet myself in whatever I'm in. And so if that means that what I'm in is anger, I don't consider that a shadow. I consider that a gateway. Right. I think that's a gateway into deeper illumination of who I am. And I want, I'm eager for more of me. And so I think that for me, it's about that devotion to self and devotion to expansion. And if that's there, shadow doesn't really need to exist because if it's meant to arise, if something's in you that's meant to arise and be seen, it's gonna come up. And if you're in a welcoming space of, hey, come on in, let's have some cake. Like, come on, hang out. You're allowed to be here. You know what I mean? Like you're not shunning any parts of you. And I think even labeling it shadow to me almost feels like we're placing it in this like squashing position, and that's a part of us.

SPEAKER_06 31:56

You know the roomy poem, The Guest House?

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Oh, yes, I love that poem.

SPEAKER_06 32:01

I knew you would.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 32:04

We can we can uh post that. So if if I can venture a little philosophical question, like you might be in the camp that evil is the absence of good, evil is not any kind of presence in itself. Right? And yeah, that becomes hard when you look at you know what appears to be pure evil. Like there was a book about it by Scott Peck, right? People of the lie, where he said, you know, of the many, many clients he had, you know most are pathological. That can look evil, but it's actually pathological abuse. But he said there were a few who were evil, and that that book was controversial, but it's a great it's actually a great book. People of the lie.

SPEAKER_03 32:56

Well, but in order to embrace the the idea of good and evil, you have to embrace a dualistic theology or existence. So I can see how some people would be more more easily dismissive of the good evil conundrum.

SPEAKER_01 33:19

Yeah, and I think it's I that's why I think it's when we look at this from like unity consciousness or oneness that everything is, right? Duality still exists. It's just that it's not wrong. There's not like a wrong or a or a right. Like I always I always liken it to magnets, right? There's a positive and a negative pull of the magnet. One is not better than the other, one is not wrong and one is right, but they're both necessary to attract one another, to create electricity, to power and move and create momentum, right? And so it's like being in recognition of whatever comes forward without necessarily labeling it, but being able to say, yeah, like this is what's being presented right now. And and again, just not being not being in judgment of it and recognizing that it's all fuel, even if it's extremely uncomfortable and nauseating to the human. And that's like in Michael Singer's book, The Surrender Experiment, he talks about releasing egoic preference, you know, like releasing the preference of the ego. Like this is uncomfortable to me. I hate this. Go ahead, you're allowed to hate it. Right? But there's also that deep trust in what is and what's being created. And that's that's it, that's a challenging surrender, especially when we're looking at the world in the state that it is sometimes.

SPEAKER_06 34:38

Oh, yeah. I was gonna say earlier, Ramdas had a great definition of insanity, which was using any one level to push away the others. So that's what I hear from everything you say that you're not doing that.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Yeah, I love that. Which which would make you say it was so funny because I literally just pulled a card the other day that said to me it was like it was kind of like I'm obviously not got not going to do this justice, but it was saying something eloquent about you know that you are I just lost my train of thought. You were just what were you just saying, Cedric?

SPEAKER_06 35:19

One level using any one level to push away the others.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

No, it was a specific word you used. That's okay, don't worry about it. Not important. It'll come back if it's meant.

SPEAKER_06 35:33

It's in the Akashic record.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

It is, it's there.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

So Laura, I wanna I wanna shift gears a little bit, um, so it's not a complete shift. Um I know from your work that you while you're endeared to the Akashic records as a method of holist of achieving holistic mental health, that you are also very open to many holistic approaches. And can you talk a little bit about your efforts in harnessing that for others?

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah, it's very customized. And that's why, you know, I feel when I invite people into my programs and things, it's it's very much around, you know, kind of where are you right now? What are you looking toward? What is it that you desire to resolve? Because every single person's different, and every single person is going to respond to different modalities in a different way. You know, some people love tapping, some people hate it, some people love um theta healing, some people don't get anything out of it, some people love the emotion code. And so I think it's just being able to not only tune into their soul and allow that to guide, but also to feel into their nervous system, their body, kind of what they're because especially people who have gone through immense trauma, they may not be in a space to feel safe enough to be able to sink into a receptivity and an allowing and being able to even have the conversation we're having today. They're just gonna be like, listen, I am way too hyper-vigilant. I can't even process what's coming out of your mouth. And so it's how it's it's being able to meet them where they are. And and sometimes we need to start with the body. Sometimes we need to start with nervous system regulation and and anchoring safety. And sometimes we can start right off in the Akash or right off with their soul, right? Um, but everybody's modality is very different. And what's so cool is that every single week of my life, a new cool one comes up that I haven't seen before because we're working with the infinite. And I'm just like, ooh, they've never brought this through like this before. And it's it's really fun because you get to see how these energies work uniquely through people, you know, and some of them are through shamanism or you know, plant medicine, or you know, there's a lot of different layers that that people play with.

SPEAKER_06 37:50

That brings us to the book that you just edited, where you had many chapters and many different modalities.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

Exactly. And that's exactly thank you, Deanna. Um, that's volume two of Holistic Mental Health. And I swear I could publish one every year and and never never be done with it because we're always learning more. But it's the intention there is exactly what we just talked about is that I originally started that project because God was inviting me into being kind of a liaison to connect people to practitioners that they felt like totally spoke their language and saw them for who they were, and they felt like, oh my gosh, finally, someone who gets me. Um, and that they could click with that person and feel support, especially for people who have avoided the traditional mental health system for whatever reason or felt like it hasn't helped them entirely. And it really gives them a taste of not only connections that they can make, but tools that they can use and start to practice and actualize that they can feel into what works for them and and what doesn't.

SPEAKER_03 38:57

Well, and so going back to the Akashic Records for a minute, you um I I see all of these various modalities and tools and the facilitators of those modalities and tools as as gifted. So for instance, I've taken an Akashic Records course, I've had Akashic readings, but I'm not that girl that's gonna do an Akashic reading with anybody because it's not that's not my gift. Correct. And but the other so your gift is Akashic Records, but your other gift is finding the tribe of people who have their gifts and allowing them to share, and in in this respect, it's in the form of a book, um, but that you know translates to podcasts and interviews and you know a lot of other things. But you have that gift of bringing us together to talk about our gift and then allowing us to give people somehow self-help tools that don't require any facilitation. And I think that's why I was so endeared to your book project. Um, because it's you know, it's not a it's not a how-to, it's here. Here's a whole book of different tools you that might resonate with you. Some will, some won't.

SPEAKER_01 40:22

Right. And you know what it is too? I'm so glad you brought that up because first of all, for any of you who study human design, I don't know if any of you do, but I am a four-six profile, which means that I'm all about networking and community. And that's that's how I develop, right, in in my in this particular incarnation. Um, and so, yes, bringing people into community is part of it to spread the word, but it's also I keep, I always come back to this word intimacy, because I feel like when somebody can feel in their heart, when they can feel your heart and their heart, they're going to then be motivated to love themselves more, to do something to expand that feeling in their heart. And that's the whole idea, right? Is that if we as authors are a community and can connect our hearts and express our hearts on these pages or in the summit, like we did afterwards, right? Then we are we're really opening ourselves and allowing people to to witness and feel an intimacy with us that invites them into intimacy with themselves. And that I think is is the the cornerstone of it.

SPEAKER_06 41:30

Do you know the Enneagram?

SPEAKER_01 41:32

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 41:33

So which type are you on the Enneagram?

SPEAKER_01 41:35

I'm a three.

SPEAKER_06 41:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:38

I don't know a ton about the Enneagram. I studied it for a while and it just didn't really resonate a ton with me. Um, but I know a lot of people who who live and die by the Enneagram for sure. Yeah. I remembered my quote from that I was gonna share earlier. It was insanity that you were talking about. And the card that I pulled was talking about how um they were telling me, like, be a little insane, be insane, because if you if you are intentional with being your unique insane self, you're actually going to become sane in an insane world. And I was like, so anyway, that's what came up. I knew it would arise if it was meant to.

SPEAKER_06 42:18

Well, you're a very good mix.

SPEAKER_01 42:21

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I got both going on.

SPEAKER_06 42:24

And I may ask about your own upbringing. Did you have any kind of religious upbringing?

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Yes, I grew up Presbyterian. And what was funny is that I was um enrolled in the seminary to become a Presbyterian minister. And um I ended up not, and I had a job at my church, and so I was gonna be doing youth ministry there, and then I was gonna be in becoming a Presbyterian minister, and I realized that with my schedule, I would never see my husband, who I've been with for 27 years, who lived in New York, and I was gonna be doing this in in Pennsylvania, which is where I grew up. And um, we had been together for about four years at that point, and we knew that we were each other's future and that I would never see him. And so I said, let me wait and put this on pause and go to. I tried advertising in New York City, I did all the other things that were on my list, and it's just hilarious that I've kind of back to spiritual leadership just in a different form.

SPEAKER_06 43:24

But you mentioned an awakening as a child. Sorry, The.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 43:29

Do you have an early memory of that or uh not really?

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Um, I mean, I remember, I remember having a lot of very angry conversations with God, especially around when my parents got divorced. And I remember, I mean, I would sit in my room and speak to God for hours. God was my bestie. Um, and but I was very raw, I've always been very raw and open and honest with the divine. And then I remember stopping going to church when we would go camping every other weekend. And I was laying on the top of our van looking at the stars. And that's when I always felt closest to God. And where I felt the most reverent. And I was like, I don't need to go to church for this. I can connect to God this way.

SPEAKER_06 44:11

Now the stars have your back there.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. See?

SPEAKER_03 44:16

So, Laura, as a as a point of commonality, when I was deciding what master's degree I was going to get, I was at the time a card-carrying Presbyterianist myself. It was whether I was going to get a pastoral counseling degree at the Presbyterian Seminary. That's where I was headed. But then I got a scholarship for rehab counseling from UGA and that one. So I too feel like full circle.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Right. And so now here I sit.

SPEAKER_01 44:47

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Exactly. And I'm so grateful for it all, right? I mean, it obviously took us down a path that we were meant to walk, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 44:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

So cool.

SPEAKER_06 44:57

In in your personal life, what uplifts your spirit and allows you to lose track of time.

SPEAKER_05 45:05

Oh God.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

I would say so reading with my daughter, um, hiking with my family. I love being in nature and hiking with my family. Um, I would also say singing. I love singing and I love chanting and I love getting into just very like sound healing rituals, things like that. Um, and I just lose time. But yeah, I would say reading's a big one for me. So whether I'm reading with my daughter, I'm reading on my own, I can get so engrossed and then I have no idea what time it is, but music does the same sound.

SPEAKER_06 45:47

We we should leave time for any questions.

SPEAKER_03 45:51

Does anybody have any questions they want to put in the chat?

SPEAKER_06 45:59

The other thing we like to ask is are you a lamp and when you help people, are you a lamp, a lifeboat, or a ladder? And you're not allowed to say all three, of course you're all three, but are you like a lamp, a lifeboat, or a ladder?

SPEAKER_01 46:14

A lamp.

SPEAKER_06 46:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

For sure. Because and that's the other part of my four-six profile in human design, right? Is just being a role model, like just embodying. And and that's that's one of the greatest things when we're talking about comparison, judgment, all those things too. It's like just focus on your own embodiment, you know, focus on your own, taking full responsibility. And that that kind of knocked me for a loop at the start when people after I had sepsis. And I remember a therapist said to me, I was seeing a therapist at the time, and she was like, What do you think your role was in creating this? And I was pissed. I was like, What do you mean? Because this is like way at the beginning of my journey. I was like, I didn't create this. Um, but it is, it's taking full responsibility for your own vibe, for your own confidence, stability, vitality, etc. And from there, people witness. I used to be a lifeboat though, when I was a bleeding heart social worker. Yes, and then I learned boundaries. And then trying to save other people, and then I was trying to save myself, and I was like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:23

I think a lot of us go into the field as a life as a lifeboat.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 47:28

100%.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Presbyterian, I think Cody's talking about.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Oh, okay. Presbyterian is a Protestant um Christian denomination, probably more popular in the United States than the UK.

SPEAKER_06 47:46

Um Pastiferian, that's an Italian.

SPEAKER_03 47:50

It's also it's a long story, but there's the story behind Aposterian. I went one year and to a Halloween concert dressed as a Postiferian. I don't even know what a Postifarian is. Apostosion is a joke of a religion that somebody came up with, I think, two decades ago. And if you Google it, it's a real thing. Oh, that's hilarious. Now I have to look it up. We'll put it in the notes.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Okay, thanks.

SPEAKER_03 48:21

In the spirit of being, you know, spiritually literally literate, we need to know what apostarians are. Absolutely. Yeah. So any other questions. Well, I'm gonna ask the big question. Because I'm curious. Yes, ma'am. What is your favorite or most um influential movie and or book?

SPEAKER_01 48:58

Oh, that's so stressful. That is so stressful. Um thank you, Cedric. Yes, you you hear. So song, I would have to choose gratitude by Brandon Lake. Um, because makes me want to cry. Uh, that helped me so much when I was recovering because he talks about how it says, Come on, my soul, don't you get shy on me. Lift up your lungs because you or lift up your voice because you've got a lion inside of those lungs. And really what it told me was stop laying on your butt and being a victim. Right? Like open your mouth. God has things to send through you. I don't care how you feel, you've got you've got a voice, you've got a heart, you've got a soul inside of there, regardless of how you feel. And that'll tell you, I I every year on my Spotify, it says that that's my number one song. Um, because it is so, it's so deeply reverent at the same time that it's deeply um activating for me, and says, um, don't let your soul get shy, don't let it shrink back because you're afraid, because you're hurting, because you're this, because you're that. You've got a lion inside of those lungs. Like be courageous, open your mouth. So I'd say that one. Thank you for the song suggestion, Cedric. I was much less stressed.

SPEAKER_06 50:37

And Rumi has a book of poems. I mean, Coleman Barku translates him that has lion in the lion in the title.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

And it's all probably why Lion's Gate is my favorite. You mean the company or the no, the the spiritual holiday on August 8th. I love it. It's my favorite time of year.

SPEAKER_06 51:02

No, I never heard of that.

SPEAKER_03 51:04

Lion's Gate, it's a huge, it's a huge portal opening on eight.

SPEAKER_01 51:09

Huge. It goes from July 26th to August 12th. And August 8th is when it peaks, and it's the alignment of the Sirius star, which is considered our spiritual sun and our sun and our planet. And so the most light enters the planet during that time for the year. And it was really coined by the ancient Egyptians because the ancient Egyptians considered it a very prosperous time because of all the light coming in, it was always when the Nile would overflow and really enrich the fields of harvest. And so they got like a really, really solid harvest. And so it's been celebrated every year because of that. And I just find that, you know, I don't always follow all of those spiritual portals and things, but that one every year I feel very, very palpably and deeply. And it's not a coincidence that I got sepsis on August 4th in the middle of that portal. So very interesting. But that month, I'm always so on fire, so spiritually aligned and feeling like I'm high up in other dimensions. So what is my favorite counseling modality?

SPEAKER_04 52:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:16

Um, I would have to say that the counseling modality that I feel is the most reliable right now is IFS, Internal Family Systems. Um, because it's really when we talk about, you know, talk about self-acceptance and wholeness and holistic growth and all of that. And when we talk about IFS, what they're really doing is taking parts of you. So, you know, in IFS, they're talking about parts of you like, you know, your trauma, your mind, your body, all of these things. Whereas in spirituality, they look at it more as like your inner child, your chakra system, your heart space, your third eye, you know, things like that. But um, but I like it because it really does allow us to see that there can be parts of us that have been segmented off based on certain experiences in our lives. And the whole point is to kind of put our puzzle back together and bring ourselves back to wholeness. And in terms of the layers or the parts of yourself that you're working with, you can really go wherever you want with that. There's no rigidity within it. Yeah, like a mixture between person-centered and gestalt. Yep. Because gestalt is really the whole, right? Um, and person-centered is really focusing on that individual and what's coming up within them. But I think it's also when we're talking about IFS, it's not just about that part of you that's coming forward. We're actually reaching for the part, we're actually inviting the part forward. We're not just like allowing it to arise. With IFS, you're really you're really going in after it and searching for it.

SPEAKER_06 53:48

There's there's a lot of faith that there's a core self in there, right? A true self, the core self, an essential self in the IFS system. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

Yeah, it's like bringing yourself to completion.

SPEAKER_06 54:02

And do you have a practice that you do every day? Um, do you probably have a few of them?

SPEAKER_01 54:07

But I do have a few, and I don't I don't lock myself in like I used to. I used to be like more rigid about you know what I did. Right. And um, and I, you know, now I'm I'm so in the flow. I always do multiple things per day. And it just depends. You know, I always enter the Akash. Sometimes intentionally, sometimes I'm just invited in and I happen to find myself there. Um, and I pull cards, I journal, and most importantly, I move my body in nature. I that's really, really important for me to move the body to bring that energy into your day-to-day. And and I think for me, it is being really intentional about choosing joy moment to moment and being in presence with my body and allowing it to guide me.

SPEAKER_06 54:55

Well, this might be the last question, but how do you find time for everything that you do?

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Right. So it's funny because when I when I was a traditional therapist, I used to be so neurotic about time and my schedule. And I would be like counting my clients and figuring out when I could fit people in. And I just never felt like I had enough time. And then I just started setting aside intentional space. And I was like, I can do whatever I want with that space. It can be two minutes, it can be five minutes. I can eat chocolate and just sit there and just like eat chocolate if I want. But I'm opening space because I'm going to show the universe that I'm being intentional about space. And it's wild when you do that, it opens. More space opens. It's wild. And now what I do, which is brilliant for my nervous system and otherwise, is that when things come in that feel kind of harried in either in my mind or in my nervous system, I remind myself immediately, I'm like, I can access spaciousness in any moment of any day. I can access it within the body. And so that's what I do. I can create space. And it is my responsibility to bring in that vibration and frequency of spaciousness to embody, no matter where I am or what I'm doing. And the more that I choose that frequency, it's wild how it just arrived. And then I get to a point where I'm like, I don't feel like I'm doing anything. I feel like I have so much space. What happened? And I realize that it's because of the work I've done, but now I'm freaking out because I'm like, wait, I are I supposed to be doing something? And so it's just multiple iterations of like adjusting to spaciousness.

SPEAKER_06 56:27

That calls for a workshop because we all suffer from information overload and time management. It's that would be a great, you know, uh teaching workshop, seminar.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

Thank you. I'll jot that down.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

Well, you know, time and space are not linear. Correct. So yeah, we we've been trained to follow the time master, and that that's uh that's just one lens to view that from.

SPEAKER_06 56:59

So speaking of time, we're a 1259 uh ESD. The time master says exactly. Oh Laura, can you uh can you do the closing blessing?

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Yeah, absolutely. Just taking a nice deep breath in together. Placing a hand on the heart space and just deeply honoring your receptivity and openness to what was shared here today, allowing yourself to receive whatever came forward for you in a way that is felt and the way that comes through sensation, so that your body remembers, so it's something that you can always access and know that the depth will continue to unfold and expand who you are. And just in deep reverence for the beauty that is unfolding into your becoming. And whenever you feel ready, you can open your eyes.

SPEAKER_06 57:55

As it is said, so shall it be.

SPEAKER_01 57:58

Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Thank you guys for having me. This was wonderful.

SPEAKER_06 58:06

Cody says amen.

SPEAKER_01 58:08

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 58:10

What a wonderful conversation. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that. And thank you for the colleagues that have been here with us too for this last hour. We really appreciate your presence and Jeff and Erwin for making sure all the tech is working. Also essential in these experiences. Um