From Security Investigation to Energy Healing: Natalie Bedard's Journey of Courage and Transformation

What happens when a life-altering event compels you to rethink your entire existence? Natalie Bedard, affectionately known as NatNat, found herself on such a transformative path, shifting from a career in security investigation to becoming an expert in energy healing and trauma-informed practices. Her story unfolds with the courage to face fears, embrace radical honesty, and ultimately, to help others find their own way through compassion and small, actionable steps. Join us as Natalie shares her insights on overcoming self-imposed limitations and shedding perfectionism, revealing the profound personal growth that comes from embracing one's truth.

Natalie opens up about how her childhood dreams were once stifled by external doubts, only to be reignited through unexpected life events like parenthood and a challenging illness. Through these experiences, she developed a deeper intuition and a stronger sense of self-worth, which led to launching her business, Lift Oneself. We explore the healing process, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on her journey, and the essential role of practical experience and self-affirmation. Natalie's story is a testament to the power of healing and self-discovery, emphasizing the importance of recognizing one's unique contributions to the world.

Discover the transformative potential of transcendental meditation and mindfulness as Natalie reveals how these practices unlock deeper creativity and curiosity. By addressing the nervous system's negative bias and embracing truthful self-awareness, she highlights the path to genuine personal transformation without reliance on external substances. Through her work in energy healing, Natalie demonstrates the importance of creating safe spaces for others, helping them shed self-doubt and embrace their inherent greatness. This episode offers a powerful exploration of personal truth, inviting listeners to navigate their own paths to healing and self-discovery.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Embracing Personal Transformation With Natalie
• 16:49 Finding Healing and Purpose Through Self-Discovery
• 27:47 Unlocking Your Full Potential Through Mindfulness
• 41:10 Navigating Self-Discovery and Healing

Transcript

Cassandra: 0:25

Good day out there to all my listeners, and I'd like to welcome you to Is your Way In your Way podcast. I'm your host, my name is Cassandra Crawley-Mayo, and, for those new listeners out there, let me share with you what this podcast is all about. It's for those individuals who are stuck. You know within yourself, within your heart of hearts, there's something that you want to do, there's a dream that you have, but you just can't seem to execute it. You're just like, like something's just holding you, and I say that because I've experienced this.

Cassandra: 1:00

So, therefore, this podcast is also for individuals to mitigate any of those self-imposed barriers that's preventing you from living your best life, and we talk about topics related to your personal development, some business development, and it also allows you to do some self-reflection. So today, our topic is called how can I be truthful to me? We have my special guests to come on stage and her name is Natalie Bedard, but they call her not, not. So there are times that I'll say not, not, and then there are times that I'll say Natalie, okay. So, natalie, welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

Natalie: 1:43

today I'm well, cassandra, and I'm looking forward to being here. So thank you for having me and sharing your sacred space so that we can align, because your message is practically my message also, so that you know everybody wants change in the world, yet the only change is within yourself, and you got to realize what your barriers are. So you have to be able to call that elephant in the room and call it out.

Cassandra: 2:08

That's right, excellent, excellent. So what I'm going to do now? My listeners always want to get a little background before we get I will, so read some of your bio. As I indicated earlier listeners, I said that Natalie is known affectionately as NatNat, a guiding light in the realm of energy healing. In 2019, she launched Lift One Self, a platform that fosters self-discovery and emotional healing.

Cassandra: 2:37

As a single mother of three boys and someone who has faced life-threatening illness, natalie embodies resilience. Her expertise in understanding the nervous system enables her to address emotional blockages and enhance intuitive connections effectively. Her approach is rooted in trauma informed practices. She offers transformative guidance to those seeking to unlock their fullest potential. Through her small, actionable steps, she empowers individuals to embrace growth and navigate their healing journeys with compassion and radical honesty. Let's join Natalie as she helps us unlock the mysteries of personal transformation and resilience.

Cassandra: 3:23

And listeners, natalie and I were talking before we got started and I was sharing with her. You know many of you are aware that I wrote a book titled Is your Way In your Way, and I was sharing with her that I had been wanting to write a book, as many of you know, for years, and I just could not seem to get to it. And then, all of a sudden, I started worrying about what people were going to think about the things that I wrote, or who's going to listen to my stories. And I could tell, as I was sharing with her my experiences, that she could relate. So we're going to talk about some of that as well, and I'm certain that she, you know.

Cassandra: 3:59

Like another thing, I called her, I told her that I was perfectionist and in the beginning she already said something to me about it, like she already knew that I had this perfectionist behavior, and she said that was a method of protection. So I want to kind of get into that too, because if that's the case, how can I be truthful to me, right? So my first question to you is prior to you committing your life to guiding others on their journey, what was your life like, what was your backstory like, guiding others?

Natalie: 4:31

What was your life like? What was your backstory like? Well, as you, you were very gracious with the bio. I was almost like who's she talking about. I tend to forget the context of our life and what we've gone through the life threatening illness. 10 years ago, I had lesions in my cerebellum and in my brainstem, and so I was hospitalized for almost 40 days and told that I had about six months to live. They didn't know what was causing the lesions and so my body practically shut down, and so in that I really got a firsthand seat with the nervous system and what goes on internally, because I had to, you know, bring back online thought processes and learning how to walk and talk and formulate all kinds of things.

Natalie: 5:18

Yeah, it was a very scary yet very intimate experience. Previous to that, my previous life, I used to be a security investigator sorry, what's that? Investigator? A security investor, okay, okay.

Natalie: 5:36

So with the um, canadian government, I live in canada, so when you need those top secret clearances and secret clearances, I used to be the one that would do the interview to see how your background was. And with that, you know, you learn a lot of human behavior. You hear a lot of stories because people have to reveal their honesty, and so I always had a gift of listening to people and that they felt open to reveal their secrets to me. Because of their openness some of my supervisors used to be like, why did they tell you that? Like we would have never been able to find that secret. Because even some of my supervisors used to be like, why did they tell you that? Like we would have never been able to find that in our research.

Natalie: 6:17

I didn't really tap into what that gift was. I just took it for granted that, well, everybody has this. There's nothing really special about me. Yet once the lesions happened, that's where I started to engage with my own trauma from my childhood and how my nervous system was shaped with that and it allowed me to get back connected with self and get back connected into my worth, because I was disconnected from my worth for the majority of my life and so doing that work was warrior work and thankfully, I know at the beginning of before we started recording, you had said that you learned TM, which is Transcendental Meditation. So thankfully for TM it actually brought profoundness and I was able to go more deeper within myself and do the somatic release.

Natalie: 7:16

So there's you know, emotions, when we suppress them, or certain experiences, if we haven't really felt our authentic emotions, they stay charged in our body. And so a somatic release allows those energies, those emotions, those frequencies to come out of the body with whatever way method the body needs to release it. And so, by doing the meditation I was able to get more and more profound of connecting into self. And you see, the thing about meditation is, they tell you, you probably know, with the training, to do it twice a day for 20 minutes and to cultivate a quiet spot in your house yeah spoiler alert I had twin boys that were five and I'm a solo parent.

Natalie: 8:01

That's not happening right so I used I had to take the meditation to the living room on the couch while the boys were fighting and listening to TV or doing whatever they're doing. So I got to see within myself how the nervous system tries to control things, tries to interrupt things, and I would just bring it back. Bring it back that's not yours, and better understand the impulsivity and understanding how we cut off curiosity, allowing curiosity just to see the story. We go with a lot of our judgment mind and interpret that we know what's going to happen rather than allowing things to be explored. And it's a challenging thing to do as a parent. So by doing all that, it just brought me even more profoundly into myself and how I say cleaning up my vessel so that I can be an open, empty vessel to be able to receive and also give.

Cassandra: 9:02

So when you started this work, tell us about the lesions. Did they go away? Or you were in the hospital for 40 days. So the healing and I also want to talk about the energy healing what happened for you to actually feel better with your illness or did you not feel better? Did the lesions go away? What happened with that when you started doing the meditation and your self-discovery?

Natalie: 9:37

the least, the mindfulness and the meditation. The lesions started to diminish and the neurons like I. I was with a, a team of different specialists to look at this. So the lesions started to diminish, yet there was still some scarring left in my brainstem and in my cerebellum. So you know, there's still, at times, pain in my mind, well, in my brain, and sometimes my energy just turns off. Yet what I was before, not being able to walk in where I am now, this is not the prognosis they had for me and they don't understand how I got here right. And you know, and I would explain the mindfulness and what I was doing internally you know, I think the biggest part of healing is a lot of mindset work. You have to face yourself and I faced myself because I had no other place to go, because death was on the door. A lot of us, we don't really have something that's going to hold us accountable. We can squeeze our way out of really facing ourselves.

Natalie: 10:47

So, because I was near death there, and I was a parent to two young little boys, it was like I have to take care of me and find out what's going on with my body, you know, still here in the longevity and everything else. So you know it took a lot of lifestyle changes. It took me understanding my anxiety and my trauma and how it was anchored into people pleasing. So you know there's four F's with that fight flight, fawn or freeze. So I was in the fawning. So I had to engage with you know, deactivating that people pleasing and not running and helping everybody else and thinking, oh, I don't need anything, I had to start serving my needs. And also, you know, prioritizing the parenting role.

Natalie: 11:41

It's so easy to be busy with you know, the career and with the friends and doing all these other things where it's kind of an escapism from being present with your children, because when we're present with our children they're showing a reflection to us that we need to look at, that we possibly may not want to look in that reflection because we don't want to do the work, because how I see it is the highest spiritual practice you can have is be a parent, because you're going to learn so much about yourself that you may not want to see Yet if you do engage with it. There's such a delight in it. There's an honesty in there.

Cassandra: 12:36

Yeah, I remember you saying. I read something that said having a child helps one learn more about yourself. What did you learn about yourself when you had your child? You had three boys. What did you learn about yourself when you had your two? You had three boys. What, what did you learn?

Natalie: 12:56

I learned that I was in a lot of my masculine energy to protect myself because, like I said, when, uh, I had sexual trauma at a very young age and, um, some of my childhood there was a lot of emotions, that weren't really validated, um. So, as a child, with my first child yeah, it's nothing to how I parented the twins right now and that's because of the lesions. Also, it allowed me to see myself in my first child I was so in the feeling not good enough that I wanted to build them up in such a way that you won't feel like a failure or you won't feel like you're lacking certain things and in that caused some anxiety in him and some wounding. And then now with the twins, that not good enough feeling is still present, but nothing like it was, because I'm willing to be accountable with it. I'm willing to acknowledge my stuff, not just shut it down and be like that's your stuff and there's nothing about me.

Natalie: 14:20

That's in here. It's about having a dialogue and showing my humanness. I didn't really show my humanness with my first child, the sensitivity. I was there and mama bear, and you know, don't mess with my cub, and we'll be there. Yet the intimacy and the tenderness wasn't always there where I am with my twins now. So it allowed me to really come back into my feminine and allow that nurturing aspect and allow me to feel safe in my body.

Natalie: 14:54

So that parenting has allowed me to come back into my body and create safety there.

Cassandra: 14:59

Right, right, and we talked about a little about self-discovery and you know, a lot of today's society is a hurry up, let's get it now. What's taking me so long to get this? And it's a process and you got to like, trust the process and if you want the change, you have to do something different. I mean, how bad do you want it? You know that's what it comes down to. You know, in regards to being intentional, and I think for me, I was like I was kind of sick and tired of being sick and tired. I just got to that place. So, as they say, when the student's ready, the teacher will appear. So certain things come to you, certain people come into your life to kind of help you through these things.

Natalie: 15:46

Now, when you so you're able to walk now right, oh yeah, Walk and run and dance.

Cassandra: 15:52

Okay, you do all of that.

Natalie: 15:53

Yeah, that's great.

Cassandra: 15:55

So, once you were able to come back to more of your physical self, how long did it take so you were even working during this time? Is that?

Natalie: 16:09

No, I actually had to retire. I was blessed to be able to retire because, like I said, I worked in the government so I was able to take a disability, a pension disability because of that. So and if I didn't have that, I don't know where I'd be right now because the financial stress that can wreck anybody's havoc and even if they're in full health. So, as I say, I'm very blessed in where I am. I know that there was an anointing on me being able to have a space to really understand the depths of healing and understand the nervous system and really support the life that I'm engaged with and the space that I hold for others.

Cassandra: 16:49

Okay, now, like this is a podcast is like is your way, in your way? So you realize, during this illness uh, number one you healed yourself. You did what you had to do to get better. Um, was it what you had gone through helped you make a decision of the type of work you wanted to do? Was this the work you're doing now? Was that? It probably wasn't a dream before it happened, but after your illness it's like how did that? You know, because I want my listeners to listen to. You know, maybe you had a dream when you were younger, but as time passes and you go through different facets in life, you have something else, because people are really big on what my purpose is. You know what's my purpose, and they're trying to figure this out and they're just unsettled about it. And I'm asking so did you?

Natalie: 17:57

no-transcript. It wasn't really my decision, it's just an innate thing. Okay, you see, when I was young, I would say I was about 13, 14. I said that I was never going to have children Because, like I said, I had trauma when I was young. So I didn't want to bring children into a world that was so cruel and I wanted to be a child psychologist. So that was in me that I really understood children. I understood the pain and everything else moving along.

Natalie: 18:27

Those around me didn't encourage me to follow through with that. They said that you know, education is too tough and then that's gonna require some entrepreneurship and it's taking two risks. So all the naysayers I listened to that rather than what was in me. Right, okay, how life would have it, I became a parent, and what better way to know child psychology? Yet be your own parent and have it very subjective.

Natalie: 18:53

And, like I said, with the security investigation work that I used to do, I was always told I was a sunshine in a very gloomy place, because in security it's very negative and there's a lot of, you know, things that you have to go through with humans, that it's pretty dark. Yet I was always told, like you're this sunshine, like, why are you here? And I used to not feel the full fulfillment of doing these interviews. And so, once the lesions and me understanding the nervous system, just this innate wisdom started to develop within myself and, like I said, once I cleaned out my vessel, the you know, calling from within just activated more and more, and that's where I would come into my intuition.

Natalie: 19:39

And so, you know, I went to my doctor and said, like I want to start helping others. You know, went to my doctor and said, like I want to start helping others. You know with what my transformation was. And she said you know, you almost died and if you go back into a workforce, the stress will kill you. There's no negotiable with this. She was like I will allow you to do it part time so that you can, you know, do it a little. Yet as soon as you know any symptoms or anything starts coming back, you got to shut it down.

Natalie: 20:09

Yeah no, no coachable, Because like you know you're, like you're you're your podcast says in your own way, we don't always see what we're trying to attain and my big thing is validation. So I need that validation that I'm, I'm worthy and I can contribute and see my worth. So, really understanding that wound. So I meditated on the title of lift oneself. So I meditated to find out, okay, what if you want me doing this work, what does this look like? And so it came with lift oneself. So it's lifting the ego, which is the defense mechanisms of the nervous system that that guard you from your vulnerability, so you can be oneself, the one energy that connects us all. And so that's where that name came from.

Natalie: 21:00

From that meditation, okay, and from that, as we had it, covid happened, right, you know, six months after I start my business.

Natalie: 21:09

So things I got to learn more about myself in the pandemic and my parenting and you know, dive even more deeper and simplify the language even more, yet also cultivate the confidence that the things that I know, I know and how I can explain it, and that people can actually access the practical work. Because, yes, like you said, you know, if you want change, you want it bad enough. Yet if you don't know how to do something, you're trying to do it and it's not working out. So it's like what am I doing wrong working out? And it's because a lot of us consume a lot of theories but we don't put it into practical experience and lived experience. And to do that, as you can probably attest, being in that perfectionist, perfectionist part of the anxiety, being messy and making mistakes, doesn't feel good. I, I don't want to do that. Yet if you navigate in that, then you understand more. That is the process of learning and change.

Natalie: 22:12

You're going to interact in places. Yet it's also to start affirming yourself that you're good at things, even though that you may have been ingrained that it's not enough yet, or it's not there yet, or you aren't there yet. It's like I'm actually good at things, even though that you may have been ingrained that it's not enough yet, or it's not there yet, or you aren't there yet. It's like I'm actually good at things.

Natalie: 22:28

I'm learning I'm in the process of getting better at things yet I am actually good at contributing at certain things and standing your confidence of whatever it is that you're good at. There is something that you're good at right might be baking some you know cornbread, or it might be photography, or nurturing somebody, or listening yet there is something. So you have to start being grounded within yourself. Okay, so the work just innately became and then people were coming to me and talking and it's the co-regulation with the nervous system and that's where it just became more and more that, okay, whatever you need me to do, I'll follow. Like when I started this podcast back in 2021, I completely ruptured my achilles. I launched it yeah, I launched it and then complete rupture. So I was doing interviews in my bed, oh my gosh.

Natalie: 23:24

My perfectionist was like this is not the way it's supposed to be. And I had to go through these life experiences of no. You can make it whatever you want to. I think the biggest part of really understanding is remembering you have to give yourself permission. We tend to wait to get permission from others and we forget that's our responsibility, right? Give yourself the permission to take yourself off the hook right.

Cassandra: 23:52

It's kind of like the title of this podcast is how can I be truthful to me? And it sounded like your meditation was the core. So what so define? Because I always hear and I think I think it was like 2015 you said you found meditation. Explain what meditation is. How did you find it?

Natalie: 24:20

well, I was, um, a friend that is dear to me right now. She reached out when I first was ill in 2014. She was getting the tug um about reach out to this girl and she was like I am not and, but she listened to the call. Like I always say, god is always calling, it's just sometimes people aren't answering the call because, whatever the reason is, I I'm thankful she listened to the call and she said to me one day she was like I'm going to go learn about meditation because I want to find out about it. You want to join me?

Natalie: 24:53

So I was like OK, so it wasn't anything that I was looking for, ok, and you know, the day that we went to go learn, it was the day of her brother's birthday, who had already transitioned. I think it was eight years before. And so when you understand the other side of love and if you really understand the connection of ancestors and how you can be guided with a higher power, you just surrender into that. And so by learning, you know, by listening to her and her bringing me there, that's how I went into the meditation and I learned with a mantra, at first, with TM, yet now I just go with the breath and if you would honor me would I be able to guide you in like a two minute meditation right now, for you and the listeners, sure.

Cassandra: 25:41

Absolutely Well. Could you tell us what your mantra was?

Natalie: 25:45

You know what, cassandra? I don't remember. Wow, I don't. And I somebody asked me that, like I've been asked that a few times on the, on interviews, and I'm like you know, I don't even remember they make a certain mantra for you, so a certain sound that they connect, but I don't remember and I'm going to really have to meditate and try to bring that recall of what that was. I know I could use something to bring me into the nervous system and just be in that stillness, yet I don't recall what it was. Do you know yours?

Cassandra: 26:24

in that stillness. Yet, yeah, I don't recall what it was. Do you know yours? Um, I have. I have mine or not. I have different ones.

Cassandra: 26:35

So it's really not a mantra, you know, and I always use things. I use a lot of scriptures for me, you know, to kind of help me to, you know, to get out of myself like you're wonderfully made. I'll say something like that or you are value, all things work together for good according to your purpose. So it's kind of like you, things just come up, you know, or God, you said you die so that I could live, you know, okay, so you know, I remember my hard times.

Cassandra: 27:06

I used to say, well, you said that if, if I gave my life over to you, things would be great, I could live more abundantly. And I'm not living more abundantly. So what's the deal, you know? So I, you know, and you talked about curiosity, and I think curiosity is an element of wisdom. You know to be curious about certain things and I used to test God, you know, if you said that you know you love me, what do you mean? Show me, I don't feel like you love me, you know, and what I was finding out. I didn't love myself, so I would just use certain scriptures that would just come up based on what I'm going through. So I have to answer your question. I just have different ones.

Natalie: 27:49

I don't have one specific one yeah, well, with TM, it's not a, it's not words as a mantra, it's a sound. So they connect two different sounds. So it distracts the analytical mind so that you can just go more profoundly into the subconscious and then into the stillness and everything else. So that's what they use with, uh, transcendental meditation. It's not a specific word.

Cassandra: 28:12

It sounds that you're using the process and what we're talking about now is, um It's like our listeners, you know, um, how we can be truthful to ourselves. stuff. You know they want to do this. They want to change jobs. Uh, they want to get out of relationship. They know that's not working for them. Or, um, they want to be an entrepreneur, they want to write a book. So they're talking about things that can help or support them to move forward. Is that what we're going to do? How can I be truthful to me?

Natalie: 28:44

We're going to do a meditation and a month we're going to do a meditation, we're going to get guided by the breath, so I can bring you into emptiness, so that you can see that there's another dimension in you, cause a lot of people don't even know there's another dimension within themselves. Okay, all right, and so I'm going to bring them in there and so that they can see something more profound within themselves.

Cassandra: 29:07

All right. Ok, let me ask you this before we get moving and I want you to talk to, people say I'm trying, I can't, I can't get there, I'm not, I'm not getting this. What do you say to end the doubt? And I guess that's the perfectionist, or, as you indicated, doesn't mean everything's going to be quiet because you had your boys and everything wasn't quiet. But yet you know, it's just like hypnosis. People like, oh, you can't do this to me, you can't hypnotize me, you know all these doubts and that's fine.

Natalie: 29:38

Okay, all right, that's protection. That's your inner critic. I call it the inner critic. It's part of the. That's the job of the nervous system. Okay, that's the job of the defense mechanisms that we're going to protect you from going into your vulnerability.

Natalie: 29:52

Okay, you're not safe to go into your vulnerability. So it's better understanding why there's all these naysayers and why. You know our nervous system is built out of negative bias. It's always looking for problems. So if you don't allow yourself to disarm the nervous system and get into your executive function, the front of your frontal lobe of your brain, you're not able to get to the solutions and the possibilities and that creativity and curiosity. Okay, you need safety.

Natalie: 30:22

When people are like I'm not able to do this, I'm not able to do that, it's because they don't even acknowledge that they're feeling fear. Our society doesn't even allow us the safety to say I'm afraid because what happens? Don't do that. You're not supposed to be afraid. You're not supposed to, rather than question what's the fear? Saying Mm, hmm, well, saying I'm not good at this, is that valid? So you, it's to work with people, not shut them off and tell them they shouldn't be experiencing what they're experiencing. It's meeting them in their experience so that they can come out of the pit wherever they are. Ok, we want to pull people out and then they go right back in where it's like. You want to empower them so they understand where their mind is bringing them right.

Cassandra: 31:10

So this is kind of like a methodology that would help people to unlock their full potential yes, right, okay. Everything's within us, within ourselves okay, I'm just reiterating for my listeners, because I know some of them and they're like okay, here we go.

Natalie: 31:25

Whatever. I know, you know, and I always make fun because I'm like stop telling me to breathe. I don't want to hear about breathing. It's garbage, and I already do that on a day-to-day basis. What's missing is you're not bringing your awareness to your breath, you're not being aware of what's going on internally. You probably don't even know how to acknowledge what emotions you're feeling in the moment. Okay, you don't know how to be intimate and be honest about what, and it doesn't mean it's just one emotion. There can be a plethora, there can be conflict going on, yet I am not able to feel my emotions because I have to keep just pushing through right okay, you pushing through, or are you able to really be connected?

Natalie: 32:15

are you seeing the gentleness in the face of somebody that's in front of you? Do you see all their character features? Do? You actually feel your own tenderness? Can you see the sensitivity for yourself?

Cassandra: 32:29

but I get it, yeah. So this is kind is like the power of mindfulness.

Natalie: 32:33

Yes, okay, so it's. It's regulating the nervous system. When the nervous system is activated, it changes our perception. We don't, we were not able, we're locked into rigidness. When it's deactivated, you're open and fluid and you know people can say things and it's not hitting you. The same way when you're frustrated or angry and somebody says something, but if I'm in a loose state, say whatever you want to say, it's not bothering me, that's right so it's, it's our, our states, of our nervous system, of how the information is being interpreted.

Cassandra: 33:10

Not, not. This just came up, came up in my, in my spirit. I was thinking about when people drink alcohol and or an alcoholic or not, but they drink and I find that they're more open, more vulnerable, you know when they do that. So how does that relate to what we're getting ready to do or does it Well, because they're hiding something?

Natalie: 33:36

Yeah, like you know, drinking is another coping method. A lot of times, people are drinking because of this social anxiety.

Cassandra: 33:45

Yeah.

Natalie: 33:46

Unless they're a a lonely drinker and they drink on their own. Uh, yet a lot of times it's been embedded in our society that we need to drink to be able to be in, in connection with each other, that drinking helps to communicate, which is true, because we understand, like almost people go and talk some things and they think, well, truth hurts and it's like well, no, the way you present things, you have to be responsible for that. You're not just able to just do verbal diarrhea on everybody because of what you're feeling. Okay, what I'm doing is bringing you into honesty without needing substance, because those substances numb a certain part of you being able to be vulnerable on your own. You're, you're using some liquid courage and then, once the liquid courage goes away, then you get a bit of a truth hangover and then there's more armament and you can be more prickly with people and then there's this passive aggressive in these different things that go on.

Natalie: 34:47

So what I'm doing is you can access these chemicals without any external substances. You can be high on your own supply and you can access it anywhere. You don't need to go somewhere, it's always within your reach.

Natalie: 35:03

Good Okay good and it's you know. A lot of times people are like, okay, well, I want to learn how to do this when the fire is here. And it's like, well, you don't learn something in a high state, you learn it when in the day-to-day, so that when there is a high state, you'll know to access it. Because when you're in a high state, you aren't trying to access your breath, you're trying to get rid of the hot potato, of whatever's going on inside you. You haven't learned to regulate, to take a breath, and you know inquire. What am I feeling inside, what's really going on? What's this process? So that's that emotional intelligence and being able to validate yourself and acknowledge things Okay.

Cassandra: 35:49

I'm ready.

Natalie: 35:50

This isn't a miracle cure or anything like that. It's letting you know that there's a different way and there's a a power that you're able to access.

Cassandra: 36:00

Okay.

Natalie: 36:01

Okay. So for the listeners, because a lot of people listen to a podcast driving, so safety first, please don't close your eyes. The other prompts you're able to follow that I'm going to guide Cassandra and myself in. So, cassandra, I'm going to ask you to get comfortable in your seating and you're going to gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose. You're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose. You're not going to try and control your breath. You're just going to bring your awareness to watching the rhythm of your breath.

Natalie: 36:48

By now, there may be some sensations or feelings coming up in the body. It's okay, let them come up. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go. Surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be, be with your breath, drop into your body and keep your awareness on your breath. By now, there may have been thoughts or memories that have come up, and it's okay. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, creating a space between your awareness and your thoughts and just staying with your breath and going deeper into your body. Again, more thoughts may have come in and it's okay. Just gently bring that awareness back to your breath, creating space between the awareness and the thoughts and just being in your breath and going deeper into your body and just going deeper and being with that breath and just letting go and being with that breath and just letting go and being open Now, while still staying with your breath, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to slowly open your eyes while staying with your breath.

Cassandra: 38:42

Now, how was your experience with that? Well, my experience was number one. I was having hunger pains. I'm like, oh, I'm hungry. And then what was interesting for me is I was thinking about what I should have said, like, for example, when I was in, in the process of quoting scriptures, I forgot them and I'm like but I forgot them and I'm like but I know them, you know. So in my head I was like, oh, I should have said you died so that I may live life more abundantly. What's up, you know, not saying, you know, just going over what I didn't do, critic. That's what was going on. Was the critic part of me?

Natalie: 39:22

Yeah. So if I would have taken you a little bit longer, more profoundly in there, you would have been able to go a little bit more of surrendering that and being like, okay, I get it, you're trying to protect me. Your nervous system is trying to indicate wait, we made a mistake and before we weren't allowed to do that. So more than likely, what happens when we have this is that from a young age you were instilled that if you don't have perfection, you're not going to have a sense of belonging or a sense of worth or that you're valued at. You are only valued when things are perfect Right, and you're not going to be safe in this world if you don't have things perfect Right, exactly.

Natalie: 40:12

And so your nervous system is always on the default of we've got to protect ourselves and what you have done to be able to engage with that is I'm here now, like Cassandra is here now. Cassandra, where people talk about the inner child work, it's recognizing your nervous system of okay, there's not these caretakers or parents that we need to depend on. We're safe, and we're safe to be able to feel whatever we're feeling, and especially the fear, and be able to navigate still and take some steps in that fear to go through the fire per se.

Natalie: 40:52

And and you know, and that is what that inner child in that maturing and growing needs, because a lot of us are still seeking. Can somebody else tell me everything's going to be okay or that sense of validation? Right, so your, your nervous system was doing exactly what it what it's? It's annoying. I already know not to do this, right? Yeah, when you do more of listening to the breathing, you can start to disidentify with it, that you don't need to listen to it you can just let it rant right and go on, but I don't need.

Natalie: 41:28

I don't need to listen to you anymore. It's just like you know, if you you're a parent or you have your fur baby, when it's yelping and stuff, there's certain parts where you can let it yelp and it doesn't bother you.

Natalie: 41:39

Other times it can really get to you, but the more and more you can. Just you know what. That's your stuff, it's not mine. So the nervous system just trying to protect you where, where it's like it's, I don't need to listen to that. I get that there's a fear that something bad is going to happen because of this, because what people don't realize. For the nervous system, death is death. You know, failure feels like death to the nervous system. Embarrassment feels like death to the nervous system. It's painful, so it wants to protect you from feeling those feelings.

Natalie: 42:18

Right, okay, once you start feeling them and you show we can navigate through those waves, it's okay.

Cassandra: 42:25

Right, those waves, it's okay, right, so that's a tool that can be used to be not only truthful to yourself, but for the listeners who are stuck, that's been wanting to write that book or change jobs or get out of a relationship, there's something going on. Perhaps that's protecting them while they won't make the move, they won't take action on things of that nature.

Natalie: 42:52

We have conflict. There's always conflict with in ourselves what do you want? I want the divorce, but I don't really want the divorce. I want my partner to change, but I don't want to do the work in the changing yet. So let me just do the divorce because I know that's what's best for me. But really I'm still longing to still be in this marriage. But I can't stay in it because it's not working and my worth isn't and I have to look at what I've enabled. But if you want to still stay in the marriage, that means you have to do the work within yourself. But you think, if I just divorce, right, everything will fix itself and it's like well, no, you're going to repeat the pattern we're pattern makers you have to be honest about that.

Natalie: 43:35

Like, intellectually you can understand that something's toxic for yourself, yet your nervous system? You can't override it. So if it doesn't feel that there's safety in the change that you're trying to make, it will do all kinds of things to stay where you're used to, in your patterns. You have to be able to face yourself and face that nervous system that we're going to go through change. We're going to go into the unknown and the unsafety and we're okay with it. Like we, I'm not separating from self anymore and we're okay with it. Like we, I'm not separating from self anymore. I'm going to feel my emotions and I'm going to feel my vulnerability and still keep taking baby steps, because this stuff isn't overnight success. It's like how do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time, but we want to just get the elephant all over. And it's like a lot of people have the misconception also that healing is about being a new person and it's not, that Healing is removing the layers of pain. To come back to your greatness that's already inside you.

Cassandra: 44:42

So that's why you are and that probably defines the energy healing specialist that you are. It's all about energy, right? Okay, Go ahead.

Natalie: 44:57

We're feeling bodies that think when you go into a room, how many times does your gut tell you something's not right, and how often do you listen to it?

Cassandra: 45:14

It depends. Like, if you want to go with your intuition, then you know something's not right, right, but yet you know like, okay, I think. Then you talk yourself out of it because you want to be safe, you want to be comfortable with it, rather than making the move because you know something's not right. It's no different than being in a relationship and you know it's something. People call them red flags. Yeah, yeah, but yeah, it's something, but yet you still go into it.

Natalie: 45:43

Exactly. And then there's also green flags, and we don't want to really focus on the green flags. Especially if you've had trauma, you're very easy to find all the negative, yet you have to open yourself up to receive the good and that you're deserving to, to to have good in your life. You're you're deserving to have a soft and easy life.

Cassandra: 46:07

So that gift that you had when you were in the government, you know how someone said people just open up to you. At the time you probably didn't question it anymore because that's the way it was. You know they just tell you everything, they just spill it all out the way it was. You know they just tell you everything, they just spill it all out. Based on that gift, do you believe that gift is helping you with your business?

Natalie: 46:42

Oh yeah, okay, oh yeah. It's. What I do is I help, co-regulate with people so their nervous system feels safe to surrender. And then that's where the honesty can come in, because the amount of times I would be a millionaire, the amount of times that I've heard people strangers start talking to me and they're like I've never told anybody this. I don't even know why I'm telling you this, right and before my head I'd be like I don't even know why you're telling me this, like why, what's? Yet it's that safety that I feel safe around me. Okay, I just feel that they can be seen in their naked truth and they're not going to be weaponized, they're not going to be vilified, and that there's acceptance yeah, that's, I never thought of it that way.

Cassandra: 47:21

I talked about that in my book. How, um, you know, I traveled a lot, I flew a lot and I met the most amazing people. Whoever I sat by, they tell me everything and I was like, why are they telling me this, you know? Then I think that probably because they won't see me again. So I dismissed it, like, oh, they just won't see me again. Then there's some that says I like to stay in touch with you. Can I get your information? So I like that spin you put on it for me not to be like what, what you know, so what? Maybe I had a, they felt a safe space, or or I was exuding, you know, vulnerability and trust or whatever. So I like the way that you put that scenario. That was great, great.

Natalie: 48:08

Safety, it's safety. We're not going to be honest. If we don't feel safe, we lie because we don't feel safe. Right, our truth isn't acceptable. We learn to lie before we learn to tell the truth, because truth has consequences. People say they can handle the truth, yet it doesn't go to their standards.

Cassandra: 48:28

Wow, that's good. That's good, nat nat. How can my listeners get in touch with you?

Natalie: 48:39

My website's liftoneselfcom, so that's L-I-F-T-O-N-E-S-E-L-F dot C-O-ML. I F T O N E S E L F dot C O M. They can message me there. They can also do a 15 minute discovery call to see if we can work together. I also, like you mentioned, I have a podcast that's called lift oneself, and I'm also on social media where I leave a lot of free content there so that people can, you know, engage in different tools, or all of a sudden, it's like, oh my gosh, you're in my head, you're saying exactly what my experience is, and the reason why I want to do that is because I want realness in social media. Like, a lot of people are struggling mentally. Like you know, a friend of mine died of mental health challenges like three weeks ago, and so there's a lot of darkness that people don't even know how to reveal to other people, because there's so much judgment and a lot of people don't even know how to really talk about mental health or you know what suicidal ideation is.

Natalie: 49:40

Or or you know they just feel that I don't want to burden anybody else, or I don't want inconvenience where it's like you know what. We have to open up as a village and community to let people know, know you belong.

Cassandra: 49:54

Good, excellent, excellent. Well, my listeners, you've heard, nat nat, she has provided a lot of what I call nuggets, but I also want to call sprinkles of diamonds. I mean just, and I would highly recommend that you listen to this podcast over, because there are a lot of things you know. People say you get some things and you don't.

Cassandra: 50:19

And I think and not that, I think I know that you'll hear something that you didn't hear the first time and I also know that you are in that space that she was talking about and think about what are some things why you haven't moved for, why you stuck, why are you in your way?

Cassandra: 50:37

You know and I know not not share some things that even though you don't want to be like, you know you're uncomfortable with it, even though you don't want to be like, nah, you know you're uncomfortable with it, but still I just think and I know I don't want to say think I know there are some nuggets in here that's going to help you move forward and it's going to enable you to do a lot of self-reflection on this conversation. So I want to thank you, nat nat, I could talk to you more and more, but we can't, we don't have that time. But I say again that this podcast is going to be on all platforms and I want to thank you, nat nat. I want to thank you for sharing. How can we be truthful to me? And thanks again. God bless you and bye for now.

Natalie: 51:23

Bye. Remember to be kind to yourself.