It’s episode #104 and I’m chatting with Elisha Halpin a sacred life mentor and embodiment coach for visionaries, creatives, healers, and coaches.
Elisha Halpin is of Scotch-Irish, African, and Cherokee descent. She was raised in Tennessee near the lands of her Cherokee and Appalachian ancestors.
As a bridge Elisha was born as one who crosses the thresholds and integrates the Wisdom. Elisha is interested in swimming in deep waters of self-discovery, starts conversations in the middle, and is a sacred rebel at heart. She is a lover of liminal lands such as where the the sea meets the forest. She is also a lover of kitchen dance parties, her cat Xavier, and a good pen with sparkly ink .
Elisha is a sacred life mentor and embodiment coach for visionaries, creatives, healers, and coaches. As the Priestess behind the Leader, Elisha facilitates sacred leaders into the embodiment of their Soul’s Essence allowing them to trust their power, create their sacred service to have an impact, and authentically express their truth. As a channel of Divine Feminine wisdom, Elisha’s mission is a revolution of leadership through reclaiming our sacred nature and expanding our nervous system capacity.
Through Sacred Soul Somatics Elisha weaves her 20+ year career as a tenured professor of somatics and dance with Breathwork, Neurosculpting, Energy work, and transpersonal psychology for a whole system approach to healing and transformation. As a professor, Elisha was an embedded faculty member in the Arts and Design Research Incubator with her research into somatic interventions for trauma and stress.
Elisha believes that our bodies are beautiful ruins, sites of pilgrimage, and carriers of the remembrances of time. This was deeply activated in her viscerally on her first trip to Ireland when she met the crumbling stones and began to move from within.
Elisha’s work teaches that our lives are constantly in ruin, continually breaking down, turning over, and decomposing the past. It is in this breaking down that we become the sacred place of pilgrimage, of magic. This is what the sacred journey of Embodiment can teach us if we are willing.
Website: www.elishahalpin.com
Episode Transcript
(note: the transcript is autogenerated by AI and is about 85% accurate)
00:00.87
Janelle
Hello and welcome to the memoir body healing story podcast where we explore personal mythmaking through the lens of story storytelling memoir writing and embodied healing these are conversations that matter. Get at the mythic undercurrents of life and how we understand ourselves and share ourselves. The common thread is meaning making through the lens of memoir body healing and story and I’m Janelle Hardy creator of the transformational memoir writing course the art of personal mythmaking and I’m delighted. You’re listening in. It’s episode 90 and I’m chatting with Alicia Halpin a sacred life mentor and embodiment coach for visionaries creatives healers and coaches. And met Alicia about a year ago when we participated in a beautiful group process with leadership coach neesha moodley her devotional leadership circle and what a marvelous experience by the way to be surrounded by. Kindred spirits doing wonderful things in the world wanting to show up and support each other in their growth and leadership. So this is how Alicia and I met courtesy of nisha’s curation of the group that we were in and. Over the course of the past year I’ve just had the marvelous delight of connecting with someone who takes their healing their creativity their commitment to the growth of others. So seriously, but not in a heavy and burdensome way. In fact, I would describe Alicia as grounded and radiant. Um and in the course of our conversations because we both have a background in dance study loving dance studying dance. Ah, we discovered that? Um Alicia had already encountered me through a couple articles I wrote for the dance current magazines that was a just so delightful. Little reminder that the webs of connection in the world. Have a marvelous way of drawing people together and revealing the connection points that were happening before we were aware that we would be meeting so Alicia Halpin is of.
02:36.28
Janelle
Scotch- irish african and cherokee descent she was raised in Tennessee near the lands of her Cherokee and Appalachian ancestors as a bridge Alicia was born as one who crosses the thresholds and integrates the wisdom. She’s interested in swimming. In deep waters of self-discovery she starts conversations in the middle. She’s got a great giggle and she’s a sacred rebel at heart she loves liminal lands those places where the sea meets the forest and she also loves kitchen dance parties her cat xavier. And a good pen with sparkly ink alicia is a sacred life mentor and embodiment coach for visionaries creatives healers and coaches as the priestess behind the leader Alicia facilitates sacred leaders into the embodiment of their soul’s essence. Allowing them to trust their power create their sacred service to have an impact and authentically express their truth as a channel of divine feminine Wisdom Alicia’s mission is a revolution of leadership through reclaiming our sacred nature and. Specifically expanding our nervous system capacity through sacred soul somatics Alicia weaves her 20 plus year career as a tenured professor of somatics and dance with breathwork neurosculpting energy work. And transpersonal psychology for a whole system approach to healing and transformation and do I ever feel lucky I got to experience some of her processes during this leadership circle. We were part of as a professor. Alicia was an embedded faculty member in the arts and design research incubator with her research into somatic interventions for trauma and stress. She believes. Our bodies are beautiful ruins sites of pilgrimage and carriers of the remembrances of time I’m going to say that sentence once more because it is stellar. Alicia believes that our bodies are beautiful ruins sites of pilgrimage and carriers of the remembrances of time.
04:58.93
Janelle
This belief was deeply activated in Alicia on her none trip to Ireland when she met the crumbling stones and began to move from within her work teaches that our lives are constantly in ruin continually breaking down turning over and decomposing the past. And it is in this breaking down that we become the sacred place of pilgrimage and of magic. This is what the sacred journey of embodiment can teach us if we are willing and this is what Alicia teaches. I am so delighted to share Alicia with you and I’m pretty sure you’ll enjoy listening into our conversation. So here. We go.
00:00.00
Janelle
Well Alicia I’m so excited and so glad you’ve agreed to this conversation. So welcome to my podcast and we’re just going to jump right into orienting ourselves in place and space.
00:00.00
Elisha
It.
00:09.90
Elisha
So excited to be here.
00:17.19
Elisha
And and.
00:19.87
Janelle
Um, and I’ll start with myself right now I am having this conversation with you from Vancouver bc canada in Mid -april um, so it’s not snowy because it’s so temperate here and I’m on the. Unseeded lands of the coast salish musquim and slavaooth and squamish peoples on this land.
00:45.44
Elisha
Um, yeah I am currently in central Pennsylvania and this is traditionally um, sasquahanak land. And the part that I’m on was really unsettled and so when the shawne were displaced. They were invited to come and reside and I live ah about 20 minutes from what’s been uncovered as a little shawnee um settlement and I am um a lineage of the um. Ani we are um so Cherokee and so I carry that land in my body and I’m upon that as well.
01:24.23
Janelle
Thank you. Can you share a little description of your surroundings as well.
01:31.98
Elisha
Yeah, so it’s very green here in central Pennsylvania and very I live in a valley but it’s it feels like living in kind of a forest and so even though my house is very low. I often feel like I’m living in a treehouse and just beautiful. Beautiful greenery.
01:49.97
Janelle
That sounds dreamy I’m ah I’m in the part of Vancouver. Well any part of Vancouver actually you’ll have this experience but surrounded by mountain and ocean and a lot of trees.
02:01.47
Elisha
Up a a.
02:08.47
Janelle
Even even in the city I still feel like the wilderness is all around and yeah.
02:12.31
Elisha
Yeah, yeah, I’m really jealous of your water. That’s really what’s missing from me here is I feel very landlocked and really really desire some wild ocean energy in my landscape. Yeah.
02:26.22
Janelle
The salt is it. The salt is all or bodies of water.
02:31.61
Elisha
Ah, so definitely yeah, bodies of water. Yes, but Salt water. Oh yes, yeah.
02:37.77
Janelle
All right, There’s um, a statement you made that I want to share with you and see where you take it because you work with the body bodies are bodies as beautiful ruins sites of pilgrimage.
02:45.20
Elisha
A a.
02:55.72
Janelle
And carriers of the remembrances of time.
02:57.40
Elisha
Um, yeah, yeah for me, um, coming into relationship with my body as ruin has been the most healing process. Um that I think I could have gone through. As a dancer I was always sort of really from the time that it was little I started dancing when I was 8 and was a professional dancer and this drive to perfection and this masking over of. Everything um, just had me in this really you know dominance relationship with my body and just this lack of compassion lack of acceptance and you know really just unhealthy patterns and. Of course my body was continually breaking down under the demands that I was putting upon it and on my first pilgrimage to Ireland I just fell in love with ruins I mean I had their pictures. Always loved them and loved the haunting kind of energy and and everything but it was really like my body.
03:58.62
Janelle
And then.
04:07.30
Elisha
On these ruins that was like this just massive shift in my understanding of how to relate to myself and how to sort of recognize that all of these injuries and these ways that my body was breaking down. It was actually. It was making space for more truth and it was making space for true essence and it was making space for me to meet and it was making space for it to be revealed and just in falling in love with these ruins I realized I could fall in love with my imperfect body. Yeah, and it just it just really changed my relationship to myself.
04:32.75
Janelle
Oh this is.
04:40.88
Elisha
And the way that I was able to support and love my body and to stop demanding. Unattainable perfections. Um and just really heal things I never had an official eating disorder. But I think anyone who’s lived in the dance world as you know, um. You know encounters a lot of things and you know has a lot of disorders and just really, you know you’re either in the conditioning or you’re swimming very heavily Upstream you know a lot and a lot of inertia inside of that and learning to be my own ruin and to find that as a sacred site to return to every day.
05:06.60
Janelle
Aha mchelan.
05:16.54
Elisha
And allowing not just my movement practice. But the way I live to be a pilgrimage with this body but also to this body this this being the home that I travel with but also the only place I can go right now like wherever I’m going. It’s it’s towards myself. Um, whatever the external journey might be and so.
05:27.91
Janelle
The hound.
05:36.37
Elisha
Um, yeah, ruins have been they I think they saved me.
05:38.68
Janelle
So a lot of self-control is part of as part of you know the before I think what you were describing around perfectionism around being a professional dancer.
05:49.39
Elisha
Yeah, yeah.
05:55.48
Janelle
Um, and you also mentioned a lot of masking and I’m curious to know more about that.
05:57.12
Elisha
Yeah, yeah, definitely? um I I’ve never been great at masking my personality though not that I didn’t try. You know is wanting to fit in and and all of those things but I have a pretty strong. Implicit up swell in my system. So I was constantly leaking um through the mask anyway. But I think we’re at but I think for me, we’re masking really ah was the most was with myself. You know, masking my own desires masking my own my own um longings masking my own truth for myself in order to kind of keep the numbness at it in a way that I could quote Unquote function.
06:30.10
Janelle
Man.
06:43.00
Janelle
The home.
06:44.83
Elisha
Right? that I was afraid that if I really unmasked and like met myself in Raw intimacy there. There was like an innate fear that like I would not be able to function as human like I didn’t feel human enough as it was and so if I were to let these guards down like what would happen. Um, and in the crumbling. Um. You know I got to meet the fact of like it’s okay, not to be human human you know, um, there’s a lot more nonhuman humans and we do amazing things. Um in this world and so in meeting true humanity through the unmasking um and allowing myself to. Be fully in my humanness without trying to perform Human um I think was was really for me like the the journey of meeting the mask and and taking it off and and I think a little bit in that perfectionism you know for me, it wasn’t about performing for anybody else. Perfect.
07:23.43
Janelle
Ah, her.
07:39.30
Elisha
It really was self criticism and the inner judge that was so oh loud. Um, and just you know I really? um you know like took on that patriarchal conditioning super well and was like I will be my own oppressor like I will do it? um.
07:43.69
Janelle
This is.
07:54.81
Janelle
You enough.
07:58.40
Elisha
Yeah, and just you know that inner that just that inner enslavement um to wanting to achieve and using that to mask the fear. You know like if I was perfect that I wouldn’t have to feel afraid of life.
08:12.42
Janelle
Um, if I was perfect I wouldn’t have to feel afraid of life.
08:17.33
Elisha
Um, yeah, yeah, so now I practice being afraid. Ah it it feels like.
08:23.85
Janelle
Ah, so so what does that look and feel like for you.
08:34.15
Elisha
Being intimate and vulnerable and Raw. It feels like letting grief and sadness have their place in my life. It looks like not having false stories that to not feel fear means that I’ve done something right? or good. Um, it looks like recognizing fear and desire are always in a little Tango and that I can just let them dance their way through my body without having to stop that or fix it. Yeah or be afraid of it.
09:03.40
Janelle
Um.
09:09.00
Elisha
Um, that really it can get juicy and quite. You know, sensuously sultry when they’re doing their little Tango and that yeah fears not fear’s not my enemy. Yeah.
09:18.91
Janelle
Yeah, so let’s keep digging through body. Um, you shared a bit about your relationship with your body as ah as a dancer as a young woman.
09:33.72
Elisha
And.
09:35.52
Janelle
Ah, bit about now I’m curious when you were a child and before you got really seriously into dance. What was your relationship with your body like as a little kid.
09:43.74
Elisha
Yeah, really really close, really free. Um I was pretty feral I would say until I was in high school when all of a sudden I started getting a lot of serious social cues that I was you know, severely abnormal and. You know, needed to get it together. So I was really just I danced um my way through life and you know just loved ah the visceral connection with my body and just really felt alive and was just a really a conduit of just life and energy. Um, as a child. Um, yeah, so that was it was really beautiful in my rewilding to to have that recognition to return to that I had been so free and and open and and unashamed in my experience of myself when I was young.
10:37.24
Janelle
And so body as carrier of the remembrances of time. It sounds like reconnecting with your young wild self is is some of that remembrance of time and experience but I want to know a little more about.
10:40.35
Elisha
Yeah. Um, yeah.
10:57.11
Janelle
What body as carriers of the remembrances of time means to you.
10:59.23
Elisha
Yeah, yeah I actually had a mystical experience that was a remembrance of time a remembrance of kind of timelines converging and and finding myself in it. You kind of in and around a body system that was me but not me, Um, who was um, you know what? what I would term a priestess. She’s never act I don’t actually hear her words I just sense the feelings and see the images. Um.
11:28.20
Janelle
And.
11:33.56
Elisha
And in in inhabiting and being inhabited by this other body that was my body and is now moving my body. Um, it was sort of a cellular recognition of this is me. And it felt so familiar and also just enough foreign that I could kind of connect into sort of the call that that inhabiting was inviting. Um and and in that remembrance what. Was able to shift was a way that I had been conditioned in this life. Um, as as an other as a woman. Ah you know all of these ways to sort of have this sort of like apologetic posturing. Um you know like let me be strong for you was a little bit I feel like.
12:16.63
Janelle
M.
12:24.30
Elisha
And in that remembering it was sort of like this this kind of opening and an alignment to like simply I am strong I am I am I am earth I am strength I am you know fire and so I think the remembrance of through the body is this way that. Obviously at this point you know, many many years later I’m able to articulate it in in a story and I can and share it with you in that way, but it was not that way and I didn’t even speak of this for about 11 years it was really a reckoning in in my system in in and through the the.
12:49.70
Janelle
Hello.
13:02.36
Elisha
The body of like recalibrating to who I was and whether that is a true past life an archetypal and experience my own. You know self-constructing something I don’t actually don’t really care. It. It opened me into a part of my heart and a part of my belly that I wanted to inhabit and so I feel like those I feel like for some of us. It’s even.
13:15.43
Janelle
Over here.
13:29.31
Elisha
You know we watch a movie or you read a story and you have this sort of visceral awakening and and there’s the and and inside that if we can slow down and and listen to it. It’s like it is this call into a new inhabiting of ourselves.
13:44.20
Janelle
Moon.
13:46.90
Elisha
Yeah.
13:48.79
Janelle
Yeah, that’s beautiful excuse me, you also work with the sacred and I’m curious what your relationship with the sacred has been like as a child as a young person.
14:05.44
Elisha
Yeah I would say again now and in it and as a child there was no separation between sacred and mundane. Um that I find the most mundane things to be completely sacred and.
14:06.37
Janelle
Now.
14:14.47
Janelle
Who.
14:22.57
Elisha
You know, really holy acts and and you know and then there was a place where it was very separate and there was a place where I was in rejection like just rejection of the sacred um and and went through a lot of wounding and I think for me. What sacred like life is sacred like it’s as simple as that like life is sacred and then I think we can add construct and belief systems and and anything that serves us and I think that has to be the question is does it serve who I am you know who I want to be and and how I want to live.
14:55.34
Janelle
Who.
15:00.92
Elisha
But for me I think for the aspect of Sacred. It’s to it’s to meet our life to meet ourself in this way of of being able to hold the both and um I am imperfect I am messy I am. Turbulent and I am light and I am infinite and I am brilliant and and for me like the sacred is what creates a container that that both of those things All of those things can be true at the same time. And that I don’t have to put a mask on I don’t have to hold it all together. Um I can be both here and also there in like that fullness of of myself and so I find that when we connect to our sacred nature. It really reminds us that we are nature.
15:44.81
Janelle
The her.
15:54.56
Elisha
That that humans are natural and which you see I think so somehow we forget that you know what it’s like so like I um you know come into a different relationship with the tree and with my breath and you know and um and.
15:57.31
Janelle
Um, maybe.
16:12.43
Elisha
And love technology I Love all the things that humans have created and I don’t particularly find them to be unnatural. But I think there’s something about remembering that our own sacred nature. It’s it’s just it’s just really natural. It’s organic. It’s Innate. It’s. You know it’s it’s Life. We’re we’re We’re just the expression of life.
16:30.90
Janelle
Yeah, and I noticed when you said I’m here and there you gestured the here you gestured inward with your hands towards your heart and your body and then there was gesturing outwards which I’m naming just because this is a podcast.
16:36.66
Elisha
Yeah, yeah, yeah, who.
16:49.66
Janelle
Audio as well as video and I think it’s significant. Um, how you bring body into the sacred.
16:56.64
Elisha
Um, yeah for me, it’s essential I Just um I’ve been writing on this because I I’m I’m loving that regulation and somatics and all of these things are kind of having their day and have arrived. And also I’m really concerned about the way we’re treating the arrival of regulation and somatics and and all of these aspects into the mainstream and you know my concern is if we treat them like the next self-help trend.
17:26.30
Janelle
For her.
17:29.42
Elisha
That were really, we’re really missing this understanding that you know regulation is a journey to made ourselves a sacred It’s not to fix the trigger. You know the trigger is the information about what’s going on in my system. It needs support not fixing. Needs to be uncovered and excavated and met and worked with and I think that I think even the idea that the trigger is a problem is a problem right? and I think you know I think when I really began to shift my regulation journey which I’ve been on for twenty plus years at this point you know.
17:56.56
Janelle
Yeah, yes, yes, yes, that’s yes, but.
18:08.63
Elisha
Um, that when I fell in love with my triggers I was could be grateful for them and could understand even in my biggest mess ups even in my largest triggering events in all of these aspects. Something was being invited for me to meet in the sacredness of this journey something was being invited to be revealed to me that’s bigger than me fixing how I feel in an emotional distort in emotionally distorted ways right. And so I Just think that holding it as sacred just allows it to be a little deeper than manipulation of people and the external and of feelings and I Just don’t think that I just I think that if we if we’re just trying to manipulate something. That’s not that’s not what for me. I view as a regulation Journey. Um.
19:04.24
Janelle
Yep I Just read your newsletter this morning. So All all of these topics and I really appreciated it and something. Maybe we can expand on is. I agree with everything you said, especially about dysregulation and trigger being viewed as a problem to be fixed or something else I’ve noticed is ah.
19:23.44
Elisha
Yeah.
19:33.48
Janelle
Viewing it as something that will that we’re assuming so this is very specific to kind of the you know the the worlds that I’m in of I I don’t even like the word somatic anymore I have to confess like people say somatic as if it.
19:52.28
Elisha
Um, it’s a yeah.
19:52.95
Janelle
As if it a somatic therapy as if it means something and like it just means of the body for all use it just means of the body like maybe we should just say body. Ah I’m being grumpy right now Alicia but.
20:07.34
Elisha
I’m with you I’m with you I’ve had I have had I didn’t use in body men until last year and I have just now brought somatics back into my language and really in in count like in a way to counter the current assumptions.
20:20.86
Janelle
Um, yeah, so yeah, words become buzzwords and start to lose their meaning and get so diffused and that’s I think one of the problems is the the popular meaning stops.
20:22.75
Elisha
So I’m grumpy with you. Yeah, you know.
20:36.17
Elisha
Yeah, right.
20:36.90
Janelle
Being understood and having the meaning of what it’s rooted in. Um, so anyways, let me collect myself off that grumpy train of thought and move on to a different grumpy train of thought. Um, okay so my work is like embodiment somatic.
20:44.00
Elisha
Um.
20:56.43
Janelle
You know, healing trauma healing is part of that all of that world. It’s also in the creative. It’s in the you know reclaiming our mythic nature which really is also sacred work. It’s like supporting people to to tell their stories and get rooted in it and also.
20:58.19
Elisha
Right.
21:04.70
Elisha
And the. And.
21:14.97
Janelle
Heal in the process. Um and something that has that is becoming more and more common that I view as really problematic is announcing trigger and content warnings for all sorts of things and there’s even research. About how trigger and content warnings do not help they actually increase distress and anxiety and yet it’s like a tide I’m working against in my own writing circles is please don’t say trigger warning and it gets blurted out and I notice like.
21:39.96
Elisha
Correct.
21:47.75
Elisha
The.
21:53.70
Janelle
Ah, people brace eye brace because it’s like oh no something bad’s gonna be shared right? but but also our triggers for a challenging experience may have nothing to do with the subject matter and everything to do with a sent.
21:58.69
Elisha
Um, um, yeah.
22:10.18
Elisha
Yeah.
22:11.78
Janelle
Which no one can predict or prevent and also why are we trying to get people bracing avoiding, beautiful art, avoiding vulnerability avoiding story um under the assumption that whatever is going to be shared is going to be too much. You know. So anyway, it’s my rent.
22:20.59
Elisha
Right.
22:26.26
Elisha
Right.
22:30.54
Janelle
I’ll contain it there and um I’d love to hear your thoughts.
22:32.40
Elisha
Oh My gosh So many. So I I am in complete agreement with you and it’s such a. It took me a while to kind of move through my my personality pet peeve about that I’ve just being like ah. To really dig in deeper about like ok why? why is? why do I find this to be a problematic behaviorally right? And the first thing I would say is why are we so Afraid. To let other people have their experience right? And why are we so afraid of hard experiences. Why are we so afraid? Why are we so unwilling actually to get our empathetic tone working.
23:03.62
Janelle
Yes, exactly? yeah.
23:18.42
Elisha
So we can be empathetic without being taken over by someone else’s experience right? Which I know is facilitators like that’s work that you and I have done and continue to do right? So how do we? How are we with people in their hard moments without being tanked ourselves right? How am I with you.
23:20.80
Janelle
This is yeah. A home a her.
23:36.69
Elisha
And empathetically and compassionately there without making it personal about me right? I think there is a real an aspect of like social media that I think is so unserving is that everyone believes they’re starring in their own reality Tv show and.
23:50.56
Janelle
Um.
23:53.66
Elisha
And that includes then your like your response or comments about someone else’s reality Tv show and I just think like we obviously all need to read 4 agreements over and over and over and over and over and over and over again until we understand it.
23:57.81
Janelle
The.
24:07.87
Elisha
But I on an energetic level I think we are really doing a disservice to ourselves to and sanitize life and I think that life is very messy. It’s guts and blood and.
24:15.97
Janelle
Who.
24:28.60
Elisha
Fluids and flesh and and and purposefully purposefully and if we just want to package that up into tidy little you know, squares of curated you know. Pretense. We continue to be afraid of life which means we continue to perpetuate in our own self stories such as oh you know I’m really sorry I’m low energy today right? And so. Not being able to be with big triggers is also the same as not being able just to be where we are right? and I think this way of backing off. Um you sort of overexplaining before we explain the thing we’re explaining to give people.
25:06.69
Janelle
Le.
25:20.20
Elisha
Ah, context so that they can then go into their personal filters right? It just it’s again, it’s like we’ we keep moving further and further and further away from center right? So I I am I think that we need to be doing a lot more emotional resilience Neuro resilience.
25:27.75
Janelle
Ah, her.
25:39.27
Elisha
Um, energy resilience works so that we are able to meet things that are hard I also think we need to stop sanitizing life for everyone because I think then when when big things happen such as war. We all tank because you know what we’re all pretending that everything looks like. You know Kardashian world and it’s it’s this It’s this interesting unwillingness to see through the illusion right? and I’m not sure why we’re so afraid of triggers there I mean literally if we would stop being afraid of them. We’d actually be able to meet them. You know, but we can’t when we’re running from them you then that then they have to sort of grab our attention louder you know and I think that the cues that our body is giving us around tension when something is quote unquote a trigger is.
26:25.50
Janelle
They will.
26:37.82
Elisha
Good information so rather than running away. What’s the willingness to get curious in that space right? and and to be interested in why I’m having a reaction rather than making meaning from my small brain.
26:44.69
Janelle
Yeah.
26:57.10
Elisha
You know about what I think that trigger means you know.
26:58.63
Janelle
Yeah, and I’m going to add ah another facet to this is um, people offering Trigger warnings often for what they’re about to share being a. Kind of rooted in I’m too much I am going to overwhelm other people. They can’t meet me where I need to be met so I need to offer this warning um and losing sight of of the goodness as well. Like being.
27:19.19
Elisha
Yeah.
27:27.46
Elisha
Yeah, yeah.
27:34.59
Elisha
Um, yeah.
27:37.47
Janelle
Just in the I’m way too much and people can’t handle me or meet me.
27:42.36
Elisha
You know there’s an interesting way that we’re so conditioned to um, Overten someone else’s experience so we’re we’re like we can’t even let ourselves have our experience because we have to make sure everyone else is going to be. Ok, with our experience. You know, um and I think this apology for who we are or what we’ve gone through whether we mean it to or not. There’s it that that makes it There’s a negation there.
27:59.80
Janelle
Who.
28:13.86
Janelle
This is.
28:16.15
Elisha
Right? Like if I’m coming if I’m sharing from this place if I’m too much that the the energy there is is is one of of denial of myself. Um, and. I Think that. Ah I I am of the firm belief that I cannot hurt your feelings right? Um I am a firm a firm belief that that is a call that’s that that we both participate in that right? like I might do something., But there’s there’s a larger part to the equation and so if something comes in to me that hurts my feelings rather than having an automatic switch to Blame. Um. Is there space for everyone to be responsible right? Is there a space for me to say I’m curious Why that hit me like I’m curious. Why my door was open for that arrow to fly through not because I’m to blame but because I Ah, apparently there’s an experience there. That’s waiting for me.
29:14.90
Janelle
Even.
29:29.73
Elisha
To meet it. There’s a wound there that I contend. Um and so again I think rather than being afraid of these experiences or having ideas that there’s a good or a bad aspect to these experiences they’re they’re revealing life to us am I here to live the fullness of life or.
29:31.80
Janelle
The home.
29:47.78
Elisha
Am I going to stay shut down and I think in even in in sharing if we feel like we have to put a trigger warning there then what we’re saying is I had this full experience of life. But I’m really sorry that I did and I’m sorry I have to share it with you Even though, that’s not what we mean like we’re coming with this full desire of like I want to be able to give my story I want to be able. To heal and to be to be Seen. There’s such.. There’s such healing and be in when we’re when we’re able to be witnessed and we can’t be fully witnessed if we also have to come with like and I’m sorry and don’t read that part and also you know probably I should have edited that so it’s it’s almost like.
30:11.52
Janelle
Ah, who.
30:18.49
Janelle
I will.
30:25.43
Elisha
I Don’t know it’s It’s so complicated I mean it’s not but it is in our behavior. Our behaviors are so complicated around it I think it’s really simple in that it’s time for humans to take a journey in our our emotional maturation.
30:37.73
Janelle
Yeah, and the thing is when my students share their writing share an experience that may be really tough or and also it could be so profound and illuminating.
30:47.38
Elisha
Yeah.
30:54.42
Elisha
Yeah.
30:56.46
Janelle
With the toughness or it could be and a story about joy and and sometimes that gets apologized for as well like in incredible pleasure as if that’s going to make people sad when they don’t have the experience but that’s that’s also just life. Um, but.
31:02.71
Elisha
And absolutely yeah. Yeah.
31:15.27
Janelle
When people and especially in a space where where the expectations are set that we’re going deep with each other that we’re going into our truth. First we’re sharing with each other um and when someone. Shares a really true story even if it’s very tough. The thing that is so beautiful to witness for me as a facilitator is how grateful everyone is for each other for sharing.
31:49.46
Elisha
Yeah.
31:52.50
Janelle
Human experiences with such depth and messiness right and tears or like nerves and and it’s so rare.
32:03.54
Elisha
Yeah, it’s amazing and I think that’s what’s so important about doing this type of work in community with facilitation is because it starts to teach us these places where we didn’t maybe know we were living an apology or we didn’t know we were still holding on to too much I am. Continuously confounded to run into my too muchness over and over again and I’m like it’s a piece I have worked ah over and over around like okay, well apparently like I signed up for the Ph D and working that piece. Um, so great doing really well in that study. Um.
32:26.80
Janelle
Then will be.
32:39.41
Janelle
Yeah, um.
32:42.99
Elisha
And and so I’m actually really grateful when I’m in facilitated spaces that I’ll that allow me to Confront that part of myself that will hold back and what I’ve noticed for me just as you said it’s It’s often that I hold back the joy.
32:54.66
Janelle
Whom me too. Yup.
32:57.91
Elisha
You know that I that I hold and that I hold back the the the bliss and the pleasure and you know that I’m actually much more comfortable in commiserating or venting or sharing a trauma or all of those things and I feel much more that I’m going to be related to and supported in that.
33:13.90
Janelle
So here’s here’s another weird interesting dynamic along these lines right? is this idea of being too much for sharing a trauma also feeling an expectation that you need to like give a coles notes version of trauma in order to be.
33:16.85
Elisha
Yeah.
33:28.72
Elisha
You think.
33:32.58
Janelle
Like ah have suffered enough in some way to be accepted into whatever group you’re entering into isn’t that interesting.
33:35.17
Elisha
Right? Yeah It’s so interesting I’ve been I’m in a decoupling process the past almost two years at this point and. It was you know, not what my understanding of the typical going through a divorce was and it’s I had quite a few other people not in close community. But in community going through their own version of this and I felt really um. Ah, alone not not in a lonely kind of way but just sort of like on my own trajectory because my experience was not one of trauma or you know I mean I I hesitate to say it’s been really good. Um, it’s not that has been hard and not that there was not plenty of grief pieces to work and plenty of.
34:18.94
Janelle
7
34:26.10
Elisha
You know things to unpack and along with that. But you know it’s interesting. This aspect of even giving permission to have our own full journey without regulating it either to trauma or ecstasy but just sort of like actually it’s all of those things and so you know like.
34:32.23
Janelle
The.
34:39.29
Janelle
Yeah, yeah.
34:41.83
Elisha
There’s you know, like 1 journey has space for all of these aspects and if I continue to unpack my my too muchness what it actually make space for is my ability to be with like my my whole experience. Um, and and then now I’m really curious about how do I how do I live in a way that that’s available for sharing. Um, ah without me sort of feeling like I have to censor or give the you know the all of the disclaimers and you know I’ve sort of have a rule in my class. It started teaching choreography.
35:04.97
Janelle
Ah.
35:15.61
Elisha
When you know doing our compositions and I would say there you no disclaimers before you show your work you know and I’ve I’ve could can write and I’ve continued that and into other aspects of my teaching of just like let’s show up without the disclaimer if there’s thing to.
35:21.99
Janelle
Um, yes I have that same rule.
35:32.24
Janelle
Now.
35:35.70
Elisha
Discuss after the fact we will. We absolutely can dig in. We can talk about all the stuff but like let’s not lead with the disclaimers and I think that’s a it’s such an apology I didn’t do this and didn’t do that and you know I know it’s not really great here and.
35:40.58
Janelle
So because it’s usually about apology. It’s usually about like at this isn’t as good as I would have liked it. This is you know.
35:53.11
Elisha
You know something I call my clients on in sessions. All of the time this out of both sides of our mouth like will we we support and negate like just almost automatically like it’s so it’s so hard for us to hold our center.
36:07.42
Janelle
Who.
36:09.12
Elisha
Of the full experience but it’s especially hard I think for us to be like I am amazing. Ah I did really good and and sort of not ah automatically go into like why should I fix this next time and did it. You know? um.
36:13.42
Janelle
This significant has been so.
36:24.92
Elisha
So I’m I’m always curious about what it would be like just to accept that we’re always in progress and that second drafts and third drafts and Twelfth Drafts of course, get stronger. But what would it be like if we just really stood in the power of like boom. This is where I am and this is what I’m doing even if I’m bawling while I’m doing it even if you know it’s a disintegration like just that that power of our own experience.
36:43.44
Janelle
The hern.
36:49.39
Janelle
Yeah, yeah, and also disclaimers. They immediately bring everyone’s attention to your discomfort instead of the work right? like it’s a massive shift of attention in the.
36:57.23
Elisha
Um, um, does it want? Yeah yeah, yeah in it. It is. It’s such a you know I think we’re.
37:04.64
Janelle
Direction that the person doing the disclaimer actually doesn’t want. But.
37:16.34
Elisha
So uncomfortable ah revealing art so you know it’s it’s like preemptive like let me tell you everything that’s wrong with me so that I’m protected then if you saw any of those things I got the first. Ah.
37:28.77
Janelle
Yeah, so if you criticize I got there first I know I I know that strategy very well. But it’s very it’s very like searing like you’re shredding yourself all the time trying to find the faults that other people might see.
37:36.21
Elisha
Took repeat to me to all the time. Yeah.
37:47.62
Janelle
And then displaying them.
37:48.55
Elisha
And and and and time and time again, you know, hopefully most of us have had the experience that that’s not what other people are seeing right that we get reflected back that like but nobody saw that but us you know, nobody’s but now they’re looking for it because we have pointed out.
37:53.80
Janelle
Yeah. But now they know we’re really self-conscious. Yeah.
38:05.90
Elisha
And even if and even a lot they’re looking at it to tell us they didn’t see it. We still are you know it would. It’s just curious. It’s a curious experiment that we might all try of not living with a disclaimer but.
38:15.97
Janelle
Yeah, and and like orienting towards and I think this is a real strategy and habit that Academia cultivates for sure. But Also when we’re the viewer like not. Immediately orienting towards critique like not looking for What’s not done. Not good enough but instead orienting towards celebration I Remember when I was doing my master’s degree in dance. One of my classmates was like a senior dancer who was a teacher at the University and um.
38:35.11
Elisha
Oh.
38:54.21
Janelle
Ah, had her own company for years and we were in this discussion. She was probably around 60 at the time and I would have been 24 um and is stuck with me still but there was something about the subject of critique came up and she just she was very quiet and very gentle.
38:59.17
Elisha
And.
39:12.84
Janelle
And she just quietly said I Just don’t do that I know how much work goes into these and I don’t I’m not interested in critique.
39:22.11
Elisha
yeah yeah I wish I had gotten there sooner in my life. Um, yeah, and but I feel very much that way I’m not interested in critiquing and I like there are some things that I’ll have a hard conversation with myself about if I’m not in integrity. But for the most part I’m like you drink water you’re doing so good you you put on clothes Today. You are winning right? I just celebrate everything now because for so long like I couldn’t look at anything I did um from a place of celebration and.
39:42.80
Janelle
Um, is in. Ah.
39:58.11
Elisha
You know in terms of like artistic work and and growth work like I could not enjoy. Um, you know I walked off the stage in 2016 and was like that’s it I’m done I’m done I’m never going back I’m miserable. This is ridiculous and about ah a year or so later I was cleaning off my computer and um I’m going to cry I say this.
40:16.26
Janelle
Um.
40:17.84
Elisha
And I stumbled into the I I was like what is that file I hadn’t even labeled it and click to see what it was and it was the last dance that I choreographed and um was our last show in New York it was so beautiful and I couldn’t take any of that in at the time and I just I missed it right.
40:30.40
Janelle
Um. No.
40:37.97
Elisha
I’m just I’m done missing my life because I’m critiquing it I’m done missing the joy of being me as weird and as silly and as awkward as I am because I want to be perfect or I want to critique that.
40:40.39
Janelle
And hall.
40:54.10
Elisha
Will there always be things to work on I bet I bet if I’m in this human body. They’re going to be things to work on and I’m just going to accept that and continue gently on my journey. Um, yeah, but I’m really done with critiquing myself and thus.
41:02.79
Janelle
And more.
41:10.37
Elisha
The freedom of that means I’m not looking to critique others because I’m not holding that orientation towards Perfectionism you know, which means um yeah, it’s It’s so much more supportive. That’s a weight of flipping ah who knew? ah.
41:21.72
Janelle
Um, yeah, who knew like we could create without being so mean to ourselves and others.
41:29.39
Elisha
Who do? yeah yeah I mean one of the things I really ah have held as a curiosity is like how do we motivate from self. Um you know from self-support rather than self violence.
41:41.16
Janelle
The.
41:44.30
Elisha
And you know I had students who would say to me like oh just you know like I’m just not dancing as good as I used to because you don’t yell at me. Oh dear, Yeah, only only to yelling and I’m like oh my gosh? well.
41:50.10
Janelle
That they are just really trained into responding only to the yelling right.
42:03.23
Elisha
Yeah I mean it just it just reveals a lot about that the paradigm of violence that we’re living in which I think is really important for those of us who are in a privileged um resourced place to look at right because I’m not living in a war torn country right now.
42:09.30
Janelle
The.
42:15.63
Janelle
The health.
42:22.87
Elisha
And yet if I’m not willing to take responsibility for how I’m perpetuating violence in the world through things like critiquing through. Um you know I this the interesting instant that’s happened recently you know in um, you know, kind of star culture.
42:37.77
Janelle
Um.
42:38.66
Elisha
Yeah, if we’re not really to look at I’m not talking about the violent of that event I’m talking about the violence of us gawking at that event and being obsessed with violence and and all of these things like there’s a way that until we take responsibility for that. How can we expect things like war to not be necessary.
42:55.95
Janelle
The.
42:57.99
Elisha
And part of our paradigm right? So I think it starts with like looking at where we’re in self violence.
43:02.41
Janelle
Yes, yes, for sure. Okay, so I roamed around on your Instagram because I enjoy coming up with like researching people and coming up with.
43:05.50
Elisha
Yeah.
43:12.34
Elisha
Um, okay I’m a little nervous. Um.
43:21.47
Janelle
Curiosities based on what you share? Oh no, no I mean no, they’re just things I’m really curious about your experiences I want to know more and so in one of your posts. You mentioned that.
43:28.86
Elisha
Okay, all right.
43:36.82
Janelle
Ten years ago you were at your lowest point and decided magic would be your mindset and first I want to know and part of why I’m asking is that I know that people and you have thoughts about seeking which I’m going to ask about as well. But um, people.
43:40.19
Elisha
Boom.
43:54.45
Janelle
When they’re feeling really stuck. It helps to to hear specifics. So what was your lowest point and how did you come to that shift of mindset that magic would be would be the mindset your mindset.
44:06.52
Elisha
Um, well I think for me, my lowest point was not a particular event. Um, my lowest point was that I really accepted. That I was in a very unhealthy relationship with myself that I was in extreme self-loathing masked as ambition and that I was miserable.
44:32.54
Janelle
Um, of her not her.
44:39.90
Elisha
And that my life looked great on the all outside. Um, and so I think felt my lowest point was like finally admitting to myself. This isn’t working and all the selfviolence and all of the getting the things and getting tenured and you know all of that stuff like I’m Miserable. This is Awful. You know and is if this is all there is like I’m not sure how to go On. Um, and so I was and in the shower. Um as you know great ideas happen in the shower.
45:03.82
Janelle
A home.
45:13.58
Janelle
Ah, they do ah.
45:16.44
Elisha
Finally, our parasympathetic self is like thank goodness I’ve got space. But anyway so and and I heard myself kind of like start like in my head I’m like teaching at something that I’d been teaching but I’m like saying it to myself you know and I was like oh. Right? I’ve been practicing I’ve been teaching these things for 10 years so that I could finally learn them here I thought it was about training dancers and performers to you know, go on to Broadway and be and you know do all these great things. But it’s like really no I was so I at my lowest point.
45:41.57
Janelle
Send me out.
45:54.57
Elisha
Could be like hey here’s a teaching for you but but and so they were you know of course like there was all starting with like really like what were you know, just grounding. Um you know Concepts and movement so about overreaching before you’re centered.
46:09.64
Janelle
Um.
46:11.80
Elisha
You know? and so I just really took that to heart of like how do I each day This is what really got me like firmly rooted into doing a daily practice was like how do I get centered before I go out there into all of the reaching and all of the things that I have to do you know and how do I yield right? So it’s you know yield to push don’t just.
46:22.83
Janelle
And the.
46:31.99
Elisha
Jam at it these just like how do I soften before I make contact and just like taking these really simple movement Concepts and began to applying them to to how I lived. But what I also felt in in this low point was that life would like it literally felt like life was gray like I would just I mean I’m looking at colors. But I’m not seeing colleges is really gray and I just really had this craving for for magic and you know I.
46:48.57
Janelle
Now I need.
46:55.62
Janelle
The her.
47:00.79
Elisha
I think I always have through my whole life and I felt really close to that when I was little and then progressively of course as you know, grow up and like magic’s not real and all of these things and I just really decided that magic was going to be real and that I was going to make it my life and so. You know it started with silly things about buying the fun folder for the class rather than just than you know the normal serious teacher folder it was you know, letting myself wear colors again because I’d been wearing Black. You know I mean as we do as dancers as a default you know.
47:23.66
Janelle
1
47:30.21
Janelle
Hello.
47:35.15
Elisha
And I just started bringing color back into my wardrobe I changed the music that I was listening to I sang while I was doing dishes I started going back to having dance parties in the kitchen. Um, you know which I forgotten how to do I Just begin to lighten the load.
47:50.20
Janelle
Who.
47:51.90
Elisha
You know and and really let beauty and magic and things that I love to be part of that and I think for me like that’s the simplest definition of magic. It’s like what you love like that’s magical. You know like if you love Comic books That’s your magic. You know if you love Crystals like that’s your magic and I think that.
48:01.95
Janelle
Um, yeah.
48:10.51
Elisha
Just giving that permission and magic to me really began to open me up to possibility to seeing the potential in the moment rather than living for the future which I was in that future projection. You know like I got a I got a tenure track position when I was in my 20 s.
48:22.80
Janelle
Um.
48:29.37
Elisha
Because on paper they thought I was a decade older like I was really forward focused and so what magic did for me was it was like no, it’s right here right? now. it’s not it’s it’s not 10 years down the road. It’s it’s right here. It’s what you’re experiencing right now.
48:43.61
Janelle
Over.
48:46.53
Elisha
So one of my most magical practices is blowing bubbles. Yeah I Love Bubbles I Love bubble machines like it’s just to me like that’s just like that is just the most joyful thing in the world and so I just um.
48:50.52
Janelle
Yara and.
48:56.11
Janelle
What.
49:05.12
Elisha
Blow bubbles. That’s one of my biggest magic practices. Yeah and I write in colored ink and just you know anything that’s like reminds me of play and beauty.
49:05.25
Janelle
Just about.
49:16.85
Janelle
Yes, you mentioned that you love Pens with sparkly ink. But.
49:20.63
Elisha
Um, I Do It’s a serious addiction. Yeah, right? Yeah yeah.
49:24.56
Janelle
Um, oh that’s so great. Why not right? Thanks for sharing that? Um, so so then so that was ten years ago ish tenish years ago and then you share a little bit so I want i’m.
49:40.80
Elisha
Yeah.
49:43.24
Janelle
Want to hear you expand on this, you share a little bit more about what sounds like a real transformational point which is your and I might be mixing up the details so you just tell me, um your brigade pilgrimage to Ireland in 2015 and
49:43.71
Elisha
Yeah.
49:53.10
Elisha
Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
50:03.30
Janelle
In that you also share about eating the pomegranate seeds as your process of transformation. The myth of perphony right? Um, and curiosity is the path to healing in the Pilgrim’s path so I want to hear about all of that.
50:09.14
Elisha
For Stephanie yeah.
50:16.17
Elisha
Oh yeah, so good. so yeah so um since twenty eleven I’ve been taking pilgrimages to um, it firstly Ireland I’ve also done prague um and glastonbury as pilgrimage paths as well and i. You know it just started with the ruins and it started with with um, just being on the land and then I began to be obsessed with lament rituals and just really dove into researching and was creating a lot I think for about 5 years all I created.
50:45.25
Janelle
Little.
50:56.70
Elisha
Creatively were were laments um and and and lament ritual pieces and in that of course um, found this well culture that still exists in Ireland of of um.
50:56.59
Janelle
The.
51:11.31
Elisha
Cir ambulating and you know different days at at the wells and things like that and I you know come from a pretty traditional Christian background um evangelical and you know so there aren’t you know. There are no saints. There’s no, not none of that kind of iconography I’ve always been obsessed with catholicism and you but it was really not my It’s really not in my my family and so I always thought always an outsider. So I sort of knew about mother Mary and that was cool and all but I have like a real connection to any divine Feminine. Um. Kind of in that and so in 2015 and sort of doing sort of my my lament Well pilgrimage research kind of fell into goddess research just organically as I guess it would um.
51:54.65
Janelle
Okay, yeah, but.
52:01.16
Elisha
And so and then you know and then of course I was like oh well, you know godss virgint and st bridget like we’re really the same Bri you know and I was like all of this color of like overlaying and and in Ireland um, you know there’s there’s something so still indigenous about the way that people are so open. But and in that openness I think what we find in in cultures that still have that is they don’t see difference right? So like why? So the the reason why I love sort of like even um, christianity through more of the the celtic or the the irish lens is they’re just like yeah it’s all the same thing. You know the nature and the god and the sun and the. Ah, this is like the there’s like no this lack of difference. They were very much or something like yeah I go just go to the bridget thing and you’ll get the goddess thing and still. It’s like okay so I take off this just go just go like all right? So I find that there’s a center in kill dare.
52:45.23
Janelle
Yeah, like there’s no mystery to it just go. But.
52:55.47
Elisha
Um, Bri. Um, so this brides was britus and so I go to see the brigadine nuns and they tell me about the well down the road and so I take off trekking down the well and I’m you know, excited. But. No idea what I’m doing and just making it up and and arrive to this this well and this beautiful statue and it’s just so beautiful and um at the stream there and um, just feel this overwhelming longing. That had been inside me that I had not been and like I had been suppressing like I just didn’t know what to do and it literally felt like when you’ve been so parched and you finally get a drink of water and I was like I didn’t know I’ve been looking for I did not know I was looking for you like I was searching for that feminine image.
53:37.35
Janelle
Mallo.
53:46.94
Elisha
Of the sacred of the divine in human form and really found that through Bridget and just was like in awe just really fell in love with her in that moment and was just like I am yours like show me what we’re doing. Um, and and just really you know in my own heart at that moment kind of dedicated my life um to the goddess and to to to sort of finding how the divine feminine wanted to come back into my body and my life and and that’s my work.
54:19.86
Janelle
Um, so you just said there show me what we’re doing So how what did she have what how what has she been showing you.
54:22.86
Elisha
Yeah, yeah, well, the first thing she showed me was kind of as I’m like I’m being all serious like this feels like a serious moment in my life like I’m like the god is I didn’t know and here we are and it’s. And you know so I’m like you know having this very serious moment and feel like I’m you know here we are I’m at the feet of the goddess and literally start hearing laughter cackling cackling and what’s what’s hilar that my 7 year old nephew is with me on this pilgrimage.
54:53.18
Janelle
Ah.
55:01.18
Elisha
And um I thought it was him at first just laughing which would you know he laughs at me. He laughs at everything right? It’s like no big deal I sort look at me doesn’t look like he’s laughing and I said you laughing he said no but I heard that heard that laughing and I was like yeah me too and he goes. It’s the goddess. Um.
55:16.36
Janelle
Oh yay.
55:20.60
Elisha
I was like you bet it is as just is such a beautiful moment. So the first thing she she took she showed me was laugh laugh it at all laugh at it all cackle. Um and and have fun. Um, yeah so I think it’s she’s she’s really that that path of showing like that the serious.
55:26.54
Janelle
Ah.
55:39.77
Elisha
The depth and to to hold it hold it in joy hold it in laughter and be able to laugh at yourself be able to laugh at this cosmic joke that we’re It’s serious work and also we’re kind of funny. Yeah.
55:55.62
Janelle
Um, yeah, thanks for that story so eating the pomegranate seeds as your process of transformation.
55:59.50
Elisha
Um, yeah.
56:07.00
Elisha
Oh yeah yeah um yeah I think this was really that next step kind of on you know meeting the body as ruin was the first step and then sort of eating the pomegranate seeds and really.
56:11.98
Janelle
Stepping into Midlife tell me more about that.
56:25.14
Elisha
Falling in love with um I would say the myths of perophony and Anonna Um have really taught me not to be afraid of the dark goddess not to be afraid of the underworld not to be afraid of um, the dark. Um, even of shadow you know all of these things my willingness to stay into the dark night rather than running back into the wilderness before it’s complete. Um you know, taking that throne in the underworld and you know being willing to return there over and over again I think has been. Probably a ah big journey of like coming into relationship with Sovereignty um not being afraid to be my own authority of my life not of anything else just my life’s all I You know what’s it that’s on called to do. It’s just be with my life.
57:09.90
Janelle
Little.
57:18.19
Elisha
Um, as that Authority and I think that yeah really this practice of saying like I choose all of life. Not just that not just the Blossom parts not just the um you know height of Summer I Choose Winter. I Choose Fall I choose to descend I Choose to return again and again and again to the parts of me. Um, that need rest the parts of me that need to be integrated the parts of me that just need a place to lay down and take off all. Of the Accoutche Ma of life. Um, as I come into the underworld. Yeah.
57:57.90
Janelle
Um. So you also shared in one of your posts that over the last five years you’ve been actively breaking up with survival. What does that look and feel like.
58:13.10
Elisha
Who Yeah, so spoke a little bit about perfectionism. So my survival shows up as Perfectionism shows up as striving it shows up it as overdoing and overholding and.
58:22.72
Janelle
Um, ah.
58:29.18
Janelle
No.
58:32.68
Elisha
Yeah, and so about five years ago um when I had done I was kind of coming through a pass where a lot of sees me the trauma that I had been that’s kind of the overt trauma that I was working through was like yeah. We’re working. Yeah we’re we’re integrating. We’re doing okay like that’s not as active in my system anymore and so I was really able to meet these other aspects of survival and of my stress persona and to me what I felt was that.
58:52.12
Janelle
Um.
59:06.80
Elisha
I Wanted to do better I wanted to be more for people who actually in honor of people who are living in true survival I wasn’t living in true survival and even the traumas that I’ve gone through.
59:15.87
Janelle
None.
59:22.62
Elisha
Not to classify. But I I haven’t had to go through what a lot of bodies have gone through and I just decided that one of the ways I could be of most service was to stop pretending that I was in Survival. Pretending was obviously not conscious I wasn’t consciously going like I’m going to stress myself out over these things but I had come to a real understanding that it was me choosing to stay in a survival paradigm when there were no tigers in my life.
59:42.90
Janelle
The hers.
59:53.78
Janelle
Um, none of.
59:55.18
Elisha
There was nothing for me to be fighting or fleeing and that the best way I could be of a greater service to the world was to heal that part of my conditioned self that automatically went into survival and to really really. Come into a new relationship with nourishment and what I found is like my capacity to serve has increased a thousand fold in that process of not needing to rely on survival as my way of life and I’m still continuing the work. It’s something that I meet newly in every season. Um.
01:00:27.14
Janelle
Um, no.
01:00:34.76
Elisha
You know and looking at different pieces and patterns and things that’ll creep back up, but it’s been so freeing to really not have to have that to live to recognize like there’s a lot more capacity inside of the human resiliency than than we currently are.
01:00:43.24
Janelle
The hers.
01:00:54.10
Elisha
Inviting ourselves to tap into and that I’m of great I’m of of I’m of more great service to people who are actually in survival if I am not in the pretense of survival and it also then has made it when there has been a tiger in the room like oh I.
01:01:03.95
Janelle
Um, as love is known.
01:01:12.70
Elisha
No I can trust myself actually to to navigate this because I’m not already in a heightened state. Um I’m not already living in in that sort of survival state. Yeah.
01:01:24.80
Janelle
Yeah I think that is you mentioned overholding and then how your capacity increased as you stopped doing those including overholding and I find that really interesting because I think overholding is a.
01:01:30.52
Elisha
Of yeah yeah.
01:01:43.30
Janelle
Is a strategy of trying to serve but but the shift into not overholding and having your ability to serve expand is exciting to hear about.
01:01:43.54
Elisha
Ah, yep, yep.
01:01:51.30
Elisha
Yes, yeah, it was because I think that that overholding came from a true desire right? like it cut it came from a place of like wanting to be of service and wanting to to to do the thing and to make change and to be of impact but it came with control. Because it came with the fear that I wasn’t enough that I wouldn’t do enough that I wouldn’t do it right? and also came with a lack of trust in other people’s Journeys you know and I think that what’s really grown in my ability to hold is that I just I don’t have a.
01:02:11.89
Janelle
Um, with no.
01:02:17.69
Janelle
Um, other.
01:02:27.14
Elisha
An agenda about where someone needs to be or what that journey has to look like yeah.
01:02:29.83
Janelle
Um, yes, okay, a couple other things that I’m curious about um your statement about which I agree with and I just want to hear more about it.
01:02:45.39
Elisha
Um, ah.
01:02:48.42
Janelle
Curiosity as the path to healing and teaching and working with the threshold.
01:02:54.23
Elisha
Awesome! So curiosity for me is I told you like I didn’t feel fear right? like I was like this is the way there is 1 right way you know like is very like militant in my judgments. Um, and so.
01:03:01.45
Janelle
E.
01:03:12.51
Elisha
Like there wasn’t room for curiosity right? like you was right or is wrong and usually that also meant like it had to be fast and had to be right and we had to get on with it and curiosity is a pathway to healing was like this way of sort of being able to be in the moment and see like ah.
01:03:12.91
Janelle
Ah, who.
01:03:31.19
Elisha
Look There’s there’s more than just one Choice. There’s nothing for most things right? There’s not a right or Wrong. There’s like a lot of like you could go a lot of different directions. You could try a lot of different things. And Curiosity also requires that we trust right? So I think that when we’re in the control.. There’s There’s like there can’t be real curiosity because we actually don’t trust us why we’re controlling everything and so curiosity.
01:03:51.51
Janelle
Ah, then.
01:04:02.86
Janelle
The whole.
01:04:06.91
Elisha
For me was like this restoration of like innocence and allwe with life which requires that I trust life right? that I believe like believe life’s for me and that I’m part of it and you know and so this ability to sort of like take off the arbor and be like yeah I’m just.
01:04:11.97
Janelle
Ah, her.
01:04:26.19
Elisha
Ah, frolic right here and be curious about what’s going to happen and not have to control it and not have the right answers and not have to fix everything and you know it just curiosity just became this way of like opening to the joy and that was so healing and I think it also. For me when I was in my autoimmune journey and was so like oh like I just got to fix I got find the thing that’s wrong with me so I can fix it because I get just got to get rid of these things as I can’t do this anymore and it was had that it had such ah that kind of energy with it and then Curiosity was sort of like.
01:04:54.51
Janelle
The home.
01:05:03.90
Elisha
Well well let me get curious about what else is here if I’m good. Absolutely absolutely. It’s a place that you can cross over into something different right? and you know so for me like that like.
01:05:05.48
Janelle
Um, so is curiosity be at the threshold. Okay, no.
01:05:20.68
Elisha
Oh let me let me cross into curiosity rather than control. You know I think sometimes too like we we think about threshold as being like the like at the door but I often think of threshold as being like at the place where the 2 paths meet.
01:05:25.90
Janelle
Um, the home alone.
01:05:35.14
Janelle
Ah.
01:05:38.36
Elisha
Right? And like that being a threshold place too and like this place of like I could go that direction and keep trying to control and keep beating myself up for not getting better or I could get curious about Well. How do I live fully even if I’m gonna have a cough. How do? how do I live fully if this is the if this is the fullness of energy that’s in my body. How do I like what does you know? what does beauty look like if you’re quote unquote sick like you just I like what else what else you know.
01:06:08.50
Janelle
And more.
01:06:11.65
Elisha
And to me curiosity became so much more fruitful because it’s like okay if I’m going to be here alive um then Curiosity invites me to be involved in how I’m being alive. Not just what am I doing to be alive.
01:06:24.57
Janelle
Right? yeah.
01:06:27.22
Elisha
So it it’s changed the quality I think of my life a lot. Yeah.
01:06:29.44
Janelle
Um, I think that’s reflected in. There’s a beautiful picture I just roaming around your Instagram I haven’t looked at it in a while I was really moved by.
01:06:42.61
Elisha
Um.
01:06:46.87
Janelle
How joyful you are in all of your imagery. There’s this radiance. That’s just beaming off of you and there’s ah, there’s so many beautiful pictures of you but there’s this one. It looks like you’re in a cave with lights.
01:06:49.19
Elisha
A.
01:07:03.90
Janelle
Dreaming down from the top all over you and kind of just wanted to describe that picture because it’s so evocative and what’s the word I mean I’m seeing this radiance.
01:07:10.90
Elisha
In.
01:07:22.32
Janelle
Coming forth from you but in that picture you’re just bathed in light and radiance. Yeah.
01:07:24.55
Elisha
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh thank you? Um I Love that reflection about the pictures. Um for a long time I work was called Wild radiance. Um, yeah.
01:07:37.97
Janelle
Oh well, there you go. Ah.
01:07:42.12
Elisha
Or Wildly radiant and I really think of those as being like the two states of being that are so like are kind of like for me the highest way to live like our wildness being our sympathetic system accessible to like. You know do the things and you know be out there and movement and expression and creation and then this radiant part of us being that like parasympathetic part that’s just like open to the beauty and the experience and feels um you know, safe enough being ourself.
01:08:14.64
Janelle
Ah, her.
01:08:16.85
Elisha
Right? Like to be if I had a word for what confidence is it’s radiant. It’s just knowing our radiance. Yeah.
01:08:25.12
Janelle
You’ve also mentioned being of mixed race culture ancestry and trusting the breaking and I’m curious how that well trusting the breaking the the gaps the um.
01:08:27.85
Elisha
And a.
01:08:34.85
Elisha
Ah, and.
01:08:40.64
Janelle
And your lived experience of difference in your own body trusting that and this shift into Radiance I Just want to hear more about all of that.
01:08:44.59
Elisha
Yeah.
01:08:51.89
Elisha
Yeah, so Interesting. Um I think it’s been really hard to find that in my body when it wasn’t performatively directed or performatively. Um, curated so I feel like how I really came to know myself and wholeness was through movement right? and I don’t mean performance is in like it was a song and dance you know dies guys and Dolls kind of thing but just like through that that through through learning to perform as myself.
01:09:26.97
Janelle
Ah, who.
01:09:29.56
Elisha
Is really where I I was able to both meet those gaps and then to learn to to lean into the to the breaking points I think being mixed race as ah, when I was a child and when was young was really hard like I was. I was the mixed raced kid in my year at school and you know there might have kind of been one of us and every year maybe I don’t know you know, but it was definitely not It was definitely not a norm. Um you know in the 70 s and eighty s and at least in the south.
01:09:55.55
Janelle
Well.
01:10:07.66
Elisha
Um, and it was it. It was like having a neon sign of difference everywhere I went and even through my twenty s I would get the comment like the question like this of like so what are you.
01:10:15.22
Janelle
The moon.
01:10:24.24
Janelle
Um, the hill.
01:10:26.68
Elisha
And I think caring that from like such an early age and so on was just like the the implication or the the like the subtext of like well you’re not whatever like you’re not human, you’re not right? You’re not it. You know, Welcome. You’re not and so I think caring that not ne in my body as not was really an interesting journey of of kind of of becoming and of reclaiming and.
01:10:52.40
Janelle
Um, well.
01:10:58.58
Janelle
So.
01:11:04.59
Elisha
Why I learned to just the breaking was like those knots had to be broken down. You know like I couldn’t just carry those boulders in me and yeah and even live close to myself much less close to anybody else and so I just had to trust that.
01:11:07.35
Janelle
Um, and home.
01:11:23.69
Elisha
In the breaking I could metabolize and integrate all of those places and and it’s hard and it’s a lot and I think it’s really fruitful work.
01:11:33.64
Janelle
Um, no.
01:11:39.26
Elisha
And I think that in those breaking points those breakdowns those breakthroughs the disintegrations. However, they arrive on noddings you know, whatever it might be. There’s there’s such precious tender gold of ourself.
01:11:54.71
Janelle
A her.
01:11:56.71
Elisha
Inside of that that even in the hardest breakings like I’ve just really learned to trust that I’m going to get to re home an orphaned part of me. Um, that’s been living inside of that boulder or that not um and. That for me I think my one of my biggest devotions is learning to love and accept all of my parts. Um and that I really trust that there was something about coming in with the lineage um kind of you know prescription that I came in with that was. Was part of what I wanted to experience through this body and so learning to to to love to love those parts and to love the other that is me. Yeah.
01:12:46.39
Janelle
Yeah, yeah, I wanted to hear more about trusting the breaking and your experiences because I think it speaks a lot to your own process of healing and offering healing.
01:12:59.97
Elisha
Ah.
01:13:04.14
Janelle
And there’s 1 other thing that you made mention of which is kind of the danger of being a seeker what it means about what’s going on in your nervous system that you’re very skillfully avoiding acknowledging by being on this virtuous introspective deep path.
01:13:16.60
Elisha
Um, right.
01:13:23.50
Janelle
And it’s so contrary to the way you just described trusting the breaking of the knots inside and what comes out of that So I’d love to hear more.
01:13:29.29
Elisha
Yeah I I think we’re so um, rewarded for being a seeker I think it’s so it’s kind of an a noble path. Um. And I think for me what I what I see ah more than the aspect of the seeker that finds is the seeker who always stays seeking um which I think for a lot of us can look like over consumption.
01:13:53.90
Janelle
The home.
01:14:02.62
Elisha
And this belief that the continual verocious ingesting of knowledge that we’re seeking will somehow finally save us right? but and.
01:14:11.26
Janelle
Yeah I know that place ah over research if I just know more about whatever it is.
01:14:21.53
Elisha
Yeah I know this place really well too. You know I’ve got I have more modalities and degrees than anyone has any business having right like it just doesnt make any sense and and this this way that like it just takes us away from that Juicy center within right. And it has this in the perpetuation. Even unconsciously that the answer is out there. So One of the ways I started switching this seeking pattern of me is even when I’m reading a book I imagine that this book was written by my soul for me.
01:14:45.67
Janelle
6 is.
01:14:56.92
Janelle
Um, was.
01:14:59.95
Elisha
So I let the author’s identity. Go I don’t even pay attention to the titles of the book like once I get into it right? and I’m like oh this is this is information that my soul wanted to make sure I got how amazing that this other person was willing to like show up for me so I could get this.
01:15:04.77
Janelle
Results.
01:15:17.97
Elisha
And like just bringing it in right rather than reading it at a distance like reading close like really bringing it in paying attention to my body when I’m reading when I’m taking in information so that I don’t just go into cognition and I’m not sort of up in the head.
01:15:18.40
Janelle
The more. Let me.
01:15:33.81
Elisha
Which is meant slowing down like I noticed a few years ago I had to really meet the story that like I’m not reading out books you know because like the list of books was like a lot shorter because all of the sudden I’m requiring myself to slow down and not just consume you know information. Um.
01:15:44.41
Janelle
Um.
01:15:50.59
Elisha
I Think that we’re over processing I think we’re too externally focused and that those are aspects of the seeker. But I think the biggest aspect is that many of us start wholeheartedly true pure desire in our seeking.
01:15:53.50
Janelle
Um.
01:16:04.83
Janelle
Ah.
01:16:08.90
Elisha
But we never update that or we never ask ourselves am I willing to find the answer right? and it’s it’s it’s because when we find the answer we will be required into transformation.
01:16:12.82
Janelle
Oh we ask.
01:16:23.88
Janelle
Yeah I think so seeking and Perfectionism easily are a good pair and also I think seeking and being addicted to longing but not having right.
01:16:29.20
Elisha
Oh yeah.
01:16:35.72
Elisha
But not having but not having and I think even being addicted to longing in a way that like it means so I’m actually I love longing I love longing. Um I mean I’m a good emo you know like.
01:16:44.76
Janelle
Um, this us. Um, yeah.
01:16:54.80
Elisha
I Love longing? Um, but again is it’s like longing for me has become a way of like turning over the inside like a churning of that stirring of the Earth right. And rather than longing that has me reaching for something out there right? and so I think even even some of it is just like what’s the orientation that we have to our seeking right? So is it like that I’m seeking something to bring it so that it makes me go my precious tenderheart.
01:17:12.43
Janelle
Right? yeah.
01:17:29.44
Elisha
My gorgeous belly My this experience me all then let me metabolize that and then let me do something with what I’ve sought found metabolize like how does it become a gift So I teach a lot of like the Hero Hero Heroin’s journey.
01:17:32.79
Janelle
Who.
01:17:41.45
Janelle
The zone.
01:17:47.82
Elisha
And there’s this part that like we always forget that it’s like you have to use the boons right? You have to once you get them. It’s not just you going on your journey and getting your jollies. It’s that it becomes alchemy for others right? and so so often when we’re seeking.
01:17:56.94
Janelle
Um, her.
01:18:07.49
Elisha
We’re unwilling actually to seek in the fullness of finding for ourself and then we’re unwilling to take this finding for ourself into alchemy for others returning? Yes, the returning and you know so I think that it’s like.
01:18:10.70
Janelle
Um, the her.
01:18:18.59
Janelle
Returning right in in that story returning.
01:18:25.56
Elisha
We have to remember that seeking is just like one third of it. It’s not the whole point. It’s not the whole picture you know? and so if you don’t have something else in that archetype that invites you into some type of returning or some type of metabolation or integration then it just becomes a drive and a strive and.
01:18:26.85
Janelle
Um.
01:18:42.58
Janelle
You hear.
01:18:45.37
Elisha
Um, yeah, as someone who like that mode is still really easy I can still get into drive strive like as much as like my entire life is centered around practicing not that it’s still such like.
01:18:55.19
Janelle
Um.
01:18:58.49
Elisha
You know it’s like that unconscious like that that muscle memory is still there they like I just click strive on it I’m like go you know like I noticed yes I was like oh my shoulder again like oh right there we go. So I just I think it’s a really important aspect for us as as modern day.
01:19:06.62
Janelle
Flu.
01:19:16.97
Janelle
The home.
01:19:17.72
Elisha
Pilgrims to be curious about how we’re seeking and what I’m ah, always a a proponent of self-definition. So like what is your definition of seeking right? and just to check it and notice if it’s only outward.
01:19:26.30
Janelle
Um, right now.
01:19:32.38
Elisha
Does it have an arrival right? Does it have ah of a place of of bringing back in does have a place of using what you’ve sought.
01:19:38.59
Janelle
Yeah, so when you said that is it only outward. Um, my attention went like right into my torso and dropped down into my pelvis and that whole area was like oh thank you, Thank you for bringing your attention here. So.
01:19:48.20
Elisha
- um dollar it in draw it in so good. Yeah.
01:19:57.45
Janelle
Thank you Alicia for? you’re saying that are reminding me to draw inward this has been this has been such a wonderful conversation and um I’d like to invite you for everyone listening who’s going.
01:20:14.67
Elisha
If.
01:20:16.49
Janelle
Alicia’s the one I’ve been seeking as a support so that that you can help all the seekers that might be listening ground and land if you could share what you do and how people can find you online that would be great.
01:20:23.24
Elisha
yeah yeah totally yeah I have a couple of different components to my work. But I love working 1 on one with people to really um, you know to to to amplify our myth of poetic journey through really working our nervous system. So unlocking the nervous system so that we really have access to the full journey that we’re here for um I love doing that work 1 to 1 and the other thing that I’m really doing right now is helping to support leaders. Um and facilitators and things like that. To hold deeper regulation so that their co-regulation is really able to be amplified inside of their work and really learning to infuse their work with nervous system tools. So that’s that’s what I’m doing right now. Um I also have a mystery school component for those who.
01:21:20.87
Janelle
Um, me.
01:21:24.30
Elisha
Sort of have that pilgrim um Alchemist heart. Yeah yeah, oh yes, Alicia Helppin Dot Com and um I play most on Instagram and I’m just Alicia Underscore Ho and I believe there.
01:21:27.44
Janelle
Moon and where can people find you online.
01:21:41.30
Janelle
Yep, great.
01:21:42.90
Elisha
Yeah.
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