Somatic Healing Tools For Safety And Connection with Wilder Akasha

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Welcome to Wisdom Rising, the podcast of Moonrising Shamanic Institute.
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Join shamanic Reiki practitioners Christine Renee and Chantel Ochoa as we dance between worlds of shamanism, mysticism, and energy healing.
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Each week we illuminate your path to self-sourced wisdom and attune you to the whispers of wisdom rising from within.
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Welcome back to Wisdom Rising.
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I am your host, Christine Renee, and today I have a special guest on.
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We have Wilder Akasha, who is, oh gosh, there's so many things in your bio that I love, but let's just start out with.
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She has certifications in somatic coaching and embodied leadership.
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She's done work with resiliency and trauma and trauma-informed mindfulness and understanding how your body fully expresses when it's gone through a lot of shit.
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And I am just so honored that you're coming on to our show.
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You're also the founder of the Hawaii School of Tantra and also a business called Cultivating Aliveness.
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And you're gonna be in Austin, Texas for the intro to Sacred Tantra Training that you and my partner Jim McDonnell will be facilitating and I'll be assisting at this upcoming January.
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And I'm super excited to have you on.
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I can't wait to hear your story about how your background has really informed the path that you're on today.
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So, what else would you like to use for your intro?
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Oh my goodness.
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Um I would say that I see life as an adventure.
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I really got that from my dad and my grandfather, and I'm really grateful for that.
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Um I would say that I'm a lifelong learner because of that and lead with curiosity into most things that I do.
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And I'm um a mom of three adult kids.
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And so that's been a part of my journey as well.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I love that.
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So I know that you have spent a lot of time in your trainings understanding the somatic understanding of how the body holds trauma.
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And I'm wondering if what kind of set you on to that particular path.
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I know that we have a lot of listeners out there who have have lots of different kinds of trauma.
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So know that if you're listening, if the emotion is there, how can we breathe through it and notice what you notice as we have the conversation?
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So just a little trigger warning from the beginning.
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Um, but I think this is a really important conversation to have as well.
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Mm-hmm.
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And just piggybacking on the last thing that you said, you know, Rumi has a poem called The Welcome Guest.
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And the premise is that our feelings are can be welcomed in our bodies as welcome guests rather than things that we need to constrict or constrain or um basically encapsulate and push aside for later because it's so uncomfortable to feel them, like the big emotions of grief and sadness and um just the suffering that we feel inside of our bodies and also in our minds when we circulate over and over and spiral on a story, trying to make sense of it, trying to gnaw at it until it makes sense.
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All of those things burn energy when really our feelings are just signals that come in and want to be acknowledged, just like we do as human beings want to be acknowledged.
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I'll go back to two things that I really took away.
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I'm first and foremost, also my background is in education.
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I was a school administrator of a kindergarten through eighth grade school for 11 years.
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I have a master's in educational leadership, learned about child development in undergrad.
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And so I've been in this space of how do people learn?
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And then what's the developmental journey that we go on slightly differently with the female brain and the male brain.
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There's um resources for that.
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And um, and in coming out of it, coming to a sense of like, who am I?
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What's my purpose?
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How do I move through the world?
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But we often get so stuck because of the stories and narratives and because of the pain that we hold in our bodies.
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Um, first thing is that when we're born as babies, we're born for connection.
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You know, picture a little baby on the floor crawling and putting, um, you know, moving towards a human being or babies that look up with their eyes trying to make eye contact.
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They're patterning their behavior, they're looking for a template for how to survive in the world.
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And the second thing is curiosity.
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So every one of us is born wired for curiosity.
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It's not a learned skill because curiosity is the part of our DNA that helps us survive.
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You know, you I think about like caveman times, caveman times, but also that toddler again putting things in their mouth, like, is this safe?
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Is this good?
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Does it feel good to me?
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All of those little experiments help them form who they are and how they're gonna make their way through the world.
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Oh, I love that connection and the curiosity and how that has really informed not just everyone, but like you and your own personal experience and how you see the world.
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I love that.
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And and that helped me realize like you don't have to learn those things.
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You just have to tap back in and remember how innate that was for you as a as a newborn coming into this life.
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Yeah.
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Yes.
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Yeah.
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So once you have that curiosity, I'm, I'm, and the connection, like I think, I think that's so true.
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How even as adults, we may have a variety of backgrounds, but we're constantly looking.
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I think it's that vagal nervous system that's really looking for is this safe?
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Is this situation supporting me?
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Do I need to make myself smaller and constricted in my energy, or can I be my expanded full version of who I am?
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Like, what is the room speaking to me?
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And right?
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Mm-hmm.
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Yep.
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I saw a um a a little uh snippet of something online of Hannah Weddington, who's the Ted Lasso um actress, the really tall blonde one.
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And she said that um she used to be asked to not wear high heels on set, and not just for Ted Lasso, but for anything else.
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And she said, no, I'm not gonna do that.
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I'm not gonna um diminish my shine for anyone else.
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But that's a birthright that we all have.
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And I think it's easy to forget that and orient ourselves to be the shape shifters that we are to then move into that survival.
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Um, Christine, I'm big on resources.
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Yes.
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So I'll drop in.
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There's a phenomenal book called The Five Personality Patterns by a man in the um Bay Area named Steve Kessler.
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And I highly recommend it.
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If you want to learn how um fight, flight freeze and appease can be things that happen to us um over time as pattern ways of behaving.
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But when those patterns really like take root inside of our bodies, in our soma, they become more ingrained, and so they show up as like a leaving pattern or a merging pattern or an enduring pattern or an aggressive pattern.
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Um, and so those are the examples of how we can be grabbed by life and then come into reactivity instead of like a more responsive, measured, thoughtful, expansive self that is taking more ownership of how we move through the world and um creating less harm because you're not blaming others, and then that authority of that we all like do all of this coaching and you know self-development work because we want to feel authority and agency in our own lives, but it's already there.
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Yeah.
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And I think there's this like so many people are trying.
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I could put that in quotations, like we're trying to be better, we're trying to do this work.
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And at some point, there's this transition into this radical responsibility of owning our past and our reactions and recognizing where did that come from and taking the moment.
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Like I feel like so often when we come in connection with someone else and it feels abrasive, and you armor up because you're like, this doesn't feel right.
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And so you there's the defensiveness there.
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And then you're having what part of you is being triggered?
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Is it an inner child?
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Is it a past trauma response?
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Is it whatever it is?
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And going, can I take a moment and recognize that?
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Can I recognize that there's a part of me that's experiencing this in this way?
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But that's not all of who I am.
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I can take a moment to really hear from the other person and then give honor to your process and how you're feeling.
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And I think so often, even in myself, it's my initial reaction is suppress that.
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Don't feel that.
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It's not a big deal.
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Don't be too much.
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You're gonna, you're gonna make too big a deal out of nothing, and I should just push it away, right?
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And power through.
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And power through it.
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And that actually isn't getting anything resolved.
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It just prolongs it.
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You know, for example, um, I was married for 18 years, and at the time of my divorce, I had a lump in my lower left abdomen that was like a golf ball size.
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You could feel it.
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And the doctors couldn't figure out what it was with testing.
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And it wasn't until like maybe six months after we were no longer living in the same home that it went away.
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It just went away.
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Yeah.
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And I call it my stress ball.
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And I think it's, you know, it's like all the things, like all the times that I shut up and I didn't speak my truth, all the times that it gave away my power because that was what was required of me at the time, of my um truth, my agency, um, when I didn't stand up for what I felt was right, it all of that energy that would have gone out of me into the world, into a communication, into a request that was heard and landed, where that energy could direct out and land somewhere, it got stuffed inside of me.
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And I think it all just got stuffed and accumulated in one place enough that it became physical.
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You know, and another example is I had a rollover car accident in 2018.
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We were on our way from Northern California to LA for my daughter's 16th birthday.
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She had friends in the car, and someone had cut my car off, and um the result was that the accident.
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And for a year afterwards, I had really bad back pain and shoulder pain, and um couldn't quite figure out what it was, except for it felt like the seatbelt.
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Except for you can see me gesturing, I'm gesturing on my right shoulder and my right back, not my left side, where the seatbelt would have been as the driver.
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And so through somatic experiencing and therapy, and it was really only one session.
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We made contact with my guilt of having been the driver of the car.
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And I got to talk to my guilt.
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I spent time and thanking the guilt for bringing it to my channel.
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I'm getting chills right now as I'm telling this.
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And after the guilt was acknowledged, it didn't have to live in my body.
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It's like a little puppy or a young kid saying, Mommy, mommy, mommy, it won't just wanted me to pay attention to it.
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And once I acknowledge it, it went away.
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It had done its job and it didn't need to take up that space.
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Yeah.
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And I love that example because I all the times that it gave away my power because that was what was required of me at the time, of my um truth, my agency, um, when I didn't stand up for what I felt was right, it all of that energy that would have gone out of me into the world, into a communication, into a request that was heard and landed, where that energy could direct out and land somewhere, it got stuffed inside of me.
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And I think it all just got stuffed and accumulated in one place enough that it became physical.
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Feel like I've had a lot of similar experiences with other different kinds of emotions in my body and really recognizing how much is just trying to get my attention so it can be seen, heard, and validated.
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Right.
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So when we can go and and move through that process on the other side, it it lessens because it it had that opportunity and it knows that we can continue to give it attention when it seeks the support, love that it needs.
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Right.
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Feel like I've had a lot of similar experiences with other different kinds of emotions in my body and really recognizing how much is just trying to get my attention so it can be seen, heard, and validated.
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Right.
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So when we can go and and move through that process on the other side, it it lessens because it it had that opportunity and it knows that we can continue to give it attention when it seeks the support, love that it needs.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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And without it, it keeps working for the attention.
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And you just brought up like seeing, heard, and validated, our our bodies, the parts of us that want that.
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And from human-to-human connection, it's also the same thing.
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Like sometimes when there's conflict or sticky situations, I kind of step back, drop in, and ask like who's not feeling seen, heard, invalidated, and in what's what ways right now?
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And how do we create space to address it in real time?
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Yeah.
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I'm wondering if there's any other stories that really have on this path of doing the somatic work.
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Is there anything that really is alive in you that like this was another like big story that kind of helped me find the path that I wanted to be on to support others?
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Mm-hmm.
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I have a program called Matriarch that I designed for women in transition.
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So I'm thinking about women from other countries who are coming here and seeking asylum, but they're carrying their home and their children with them.
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I'm thinking of um women who are victims and survivors of domestic violence, who are escaping a past life or a different life and wanting to create something new.
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I'm thinking of um, you know, women who carry a lot of responsibility and are leaders and very visible roles and how they are taking it all on.
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And I think that there's the imprinting of patriarchy that gets embedded in our soma.
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And I think of the responsibilities at home and the sequencing and the second shift work that women do that is physical, emotional, social, psychological, all of that wrapped together.
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And and so um my desire there is to create a space where women can find and create a place of home within themselves anytime, anywhere.
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Home represents to me your back body and your front body and what's happening in between.
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And from that place of home, you can then open up your arms and be of service again to others and be of service to um the bigger mission that you have.
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And that to me is then stepping into the future.
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And if we're grounded and embodied and we're creating a future, really what we are are matriarchs.
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We're creating a lineage that can pass through us into the future of our home, of our family, our community, right, of corporate um entities that we might be leading, or movement makers, change makers.
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We're all in a lineage of something, and how to be the lineage holder, creator of a new lineage energetically through the body, in the present moment, as a framework of moving through life and complexity for any woman at any time.
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I love it.
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How did you step into that archetype of matriarch?
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Um, there's a typical, you know, widely um used like maiden, mother, matriarch.
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So I'm 57 years old.
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And I've I have been the maiden, although I think I had a lot of healing to do about my maiden years because a lot of my energy was given away to the social, familial, cultural expectations of me.
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Um, and I do want to come back to something related to that.
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And then my mothering years were so busy.
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I call them the busy years, you know, where I was working full-time, raising three kids, family lived far away, um, and and finding myself at the same time, you know, I was I was doing that identity work of so many generations of women of like, is this what I'm supposed to be doing?
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Is there more for me?
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I knew there was more for me.
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I wanted to be present and love my kids.
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Um, and and the greatest lesson that my oldest son Max gave me is that when he was 10, I was working at the computer.
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He came up to me, put his hands on my cheeks, and like turned my face to him and he said, Mama, I I want your presence right now.
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I want you to be present.
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And I turned and faced, I was about to say, wait a second, let me just finish this thing.
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But I turned my chair and faced him, and we locked eyes and I felt him.
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And I felt my child in a way that I don't think I felt him since babyhood, like a really deep dropping in.
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It felt like, oh, I read books and I made dinner and I did homework and I did bathtime and and so all of that.
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And then mature art comes after, right?
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I I I started to be in more circles of practice where there definitely were elders holding space for the community.
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And while I didn't see myself as that yet, I was like, well, my kids are just now in the cusp of adulthood.
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Um, what does that make me?
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And I felt like I'd had enough lived experience and embodied knowledge that I had something to share with others now, not from ego, but from service.
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And in that owning the identity and embodiment of matriarch gives it more structure and substance to stand in.
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Yeah, I'm what I'm curious about where from that point of view, I mean, now that's that's your now, right?
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You're in the matriarchy of your of your life.
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And I'm wondering, how does that feel?
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Who do you serve?
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What helps you feel the most alive?
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Like, give me a snapshot of where you're at at this point.
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Well, there are days when I'm like, I I cracked the code.
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I'm so like uh so juicy about life.
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Um and on those days, I am having um great sexual connection with my partner.
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I am um getting out of my way in terms of my mind making up stories of what's happening.
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I can just drop into presence.
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I'm spending more time in the eye gaze because then I'm feeling myself and feeling another at the same time.
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And that's not just in the bedroom, that's like walking and talking through the day.
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Um, I have a purpose, like maybe it's um a right size purpose.
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Like, what am I gonna do today that feels realistic?
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Right, that also moves the dial for what I'm doing.
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And it feels like it's coming from within me.
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I'm not being pushed at my back by pressure or urgency.
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And um yeah, and there's some delight and playful energy around it.
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Then on days where I feel some challenge where I'm not getting enough sleep, maybe I didn't eat well, maybe my schedule is a little bit more off, um, or there's conflict in my life or complexity in my life.
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Like I'm trying to deal do too much for my capacity.
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So I call on spirits to guide me.
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Um, I will call in spirits.
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Um, in my um work with my energy teacher, her name is Linda Sesara.
00:20:57.119 --> 00:21:02.880
She um taught me to call in the electricians, which is our joking name for them.
00:21:03.039 --> 00:21:06.400
So spirits are always out there wanting to guide us and help us, right?
00:21:06.559 --> 00:21:08.960
And they can bucket themselves into themes.
00:21:09.039 --> 00:21:16.559
Like sometimes I'll work with the joyful ones, and they can't do work of joy unless they have a body or physical manifestation to like work through.
00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:20.640
So I offer myself up in service, and sometimes I ask for help.
00:21:20.799 --> 00:21:35.119
Well, often I will ask for help, but specifically from the electricians, to say, please help me expand my capacity for holding all that is happening in my system today for now.
00:21:35.279 --> 00:21:44.160
Please, through my arteries and my veins, my nervous system, please expand my capacity by 10% or 25%.
00:21:45.039 --> 00:21:54.720
And pretty much instantaneously, I feel like the room is wider and there's just more spaciousness around me to like take a deep breath.
00:21:55.359 --> 00:21:59.759
And like that helps me ground and center and come back to myself so that I'm not.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:08.000
Being buffeted by like the pressurized cauldron of complexity and conflict that you know can happen.
00:22:08.319 --> 00:22:09.119
I love that.
00:22:09.279 --> 00:22:10.640
I love that example so much.
00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:18.960
And I think our audience will as well because so many people who listen in are energy practitioners, shamanic workers, like those types of things.
00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:44.480
And I just find so much of when we can tap into our healing helpers, our spirit guides, all of those, you know, helper and entities also kind of put the path before us of like leading us down through synchronicity, through connection, through all of these things.
00:22:44.559 --> 00:22:49.599
Like we're getting the golden nuggets along the way to bring us an alignment to our passion and purpose.
00:22:49.759 --> 00:22:55.039
And I just see so much of that coming into your life of like where you are now.
00:22:55.200 --> 00:23:00.640
I know you've recently developed the Hawaii School of Tantra and cultivating aliveness.
00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:06.079
And I just um I know that you've got so many different threads going on.
00:23:06.160 --> 00:23:06.240
Right.
00:23:06.480 --> 00:23:10.720
All of like energy is just coming out of you all over the place, all of the time.
00:23:11.359 --> 00:23:18.079
And and I'm like, and now you just gave me, gave us your, your, your, your, your hat.
00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:20.880
Right, right, right.
00:23:21.279 --> 00:23:22.400
Well, you can feel it, right?
00:23:22.480 --> 00:23:26.720
When you feel like you're overloaded, like you can feel like I'm about to explode.
00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:27.200
Yes.
00:23:27.440 --> 00:23:32.880
Or I'm gonna say something that I'm really gonna regret in in an hour or tomorrow.
00:23:33.119 --> 00:23:40.720
Um, and I can also feel it as like it feels like adrenaline, but it feels like too much for me to handle.
00:23:40.880 --> 00:23:42.880
And so that capacity thing works.
00:23:42.960 --> 00:23:53.440
And as does like running energy down into the earth, you know, the reminder that Mama Gaia is there, has been there our whole entire lives and will be there our whole entire physical lifetime.
00:23:53.759 --> 00:24:00.960
And so she's there to just hold us, you know, in her uh womb and um nourish us that way.
00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:06.160
And um yeah.
00:24:06.640 --> 00:24:19.759
I was just thinking that um all of this is for me, um comes down to my ability to sense myself, sense others, and then sense the world.
00:24:20.400 --> 00:24:25.839
And one thing I had to heal in order to sense others is uh my relationship with vigilance.
00:24:27.039 --> 00:24:32.880
So going back to the soma, I used to feel vigilance like a big knot in my heart chakra.
00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:44.000
It was like between my heart and diaphragm, and it almost felt like one of those superhero vests, you know, with like a spotlight on it, and it would like spotlight the world and look for vigilance.
00:24:44.240 --> 00:24:45.599
Eh- is it here?
00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:48.319
Ah, danger.
00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:52.319
And it was always on, and I was exhausted.
00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:54.319
I was really, really exhausted.
00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:00.720
And one day I realized that um I couldn't just turn it off.
00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:05.279
I realized once I realized that it was vigilance, I realized I couldn't just turn it off.
00:25:05.519 --> 00:25:07.759
So I gave it a different job.
00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:14.799
I I said, instead of looking for danger, vigilance, you're you're welcome to stay in my body.
00:25:14.960 --> 00:25:19.839
You're welcome to take up space right where you are, but can you look for good instead?
00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:21.440
Right?
00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:28.480
And so it's still the same energy of going out and looking at the world, but now I can repurpose it for looking for good.
00:25:29.119 --> 00:25:30.160
I love that.
00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:38.160
And that's, you know, I literally wrote an email this morning on vigilance and how my own vigilance is a trauma response.
00:25:38.400 --> 00:25:46.960
And I was definitely in an emotionally abusive long-term relationship where I had to watch everything.
00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:50.319
I mean, every little thing could set off my husband.
00:25:50.400 --> 00:26:00.160
And so my job was to be quote unquote the perfect wife who micromanaged the home to perfection, or else I would be screamed at.
00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:11.039
And so that um vigilance within me is still like it not only scans my house constantly, it's scanning the world.
00:26:11.200 --> 00:26:13.680
Like, are all men this way?
00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:15.680
Who's gonna be on attack next?
00:26:15.839 --> 00:26:28.480
And I think there like so much from my childhood was every man is going to be a bad guy, was kind of the overall training I got from the women in my life of you have to watch your back.
00:26:28.559 --> 00:26:30.640
The rapist is right around the corner.
00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:33.039
You you cannot let your guard down.
00:26:33.200 --> 00:26:47.359
Like, and I know logically they were trying to protect me, but now to move through the world where my vigilant is constantly looking at all the danger signals, all of the red flags, all of the fill in the blank.
00:26:47.680 --> 00:26:56.960
And I love that there was a repurposing for you into honing that skill into identifying positivity.
00:26:57.279 --> 00:27:06.480
Is there any other like, is there any other skill or tips or things that you can help support that transition?
00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:10.720
Yeah, I mean, what you're talking about is a bridge skill, right?
00:27:10.880 --> 00:27:12.799
Like, like I'm a bridge biller.
00:27:13.039 --> 00:27:18.720
I used to do um diversity equity trainings, but I wasn't one of those people that went to burn the house down.
00:27:19.200 --> 00:27:23.200
And I wasn't there to spark anger or um be disruptive.
00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:31.200
I was there to what's the right language, what's the right tone, so that I can create safety for everybody in the room, because without safety, we're not learning.
00:27:31.440 --> 00:27:31.680
Yeah.
00:27:31.839 --> 00:27:33.039
And right, right?
00:27:33.359 --> 00:27:37.519
Because without safety, you can't take anything in and learn.
00:27:37.680 --> 00:27:44.240
And so um another thought I have is how can we better understand when we're in the comfort zone?
00:27:44.400 --> 00:27:47.599
So if you think of a bullseye target, there's three concentric circles.
00:27:47.759 --> 00:27:57.519
I'm speaking to the middle one, which is the comfort zone, where you might be a little tucked in, a little bit cozy, and knowing that I'm protecting myself and I'm staying here, there are times for that.
00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:00.720
Like absolutely, absolutely, there's times for that.
00:28:00.960 --> 00:28:02.880
And then there's the stretch zone.
00:28:03.119 --> 00:28:11.039
And stretch zones at different times in our life in different containers, different relationships, it's gonna have a different boundary all the time.
00:28:11.200 --> 00:28:14.319
So, how do you sense how far out it is from you?
00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:25.519
And how do you have the skills and tools of language, um, frameworks, like a desires, fears, and boundaries conversation that help you kind of make it very visible and communicated?
00:28:26.079 --> 00:28:28.160
And then there's the panic zone.
00:28:28.720 --> 00:28:32.799
When you go past your stretch and you go into panic, you're no longer learning.
00:28:32.960 --> 00:28:38.079
So, how can you start maybe taking an inventory of your panic zone traits?
00:28:38.319 --> 00:28:48.160
Like for me, my heart rate will start um going, my palms might get a little sweaty, I start getting phlegmy in my throat and my voice catches or it gets scratchy a little.
00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:56.319
Um I start telling, I start saying bad things in my head about the situation or people, right?
00:28:56.480 --> 00:29:01.680
And catching yourself and knowing what I call that a body snapshot, like a Polaroid picture.
00:29:01.920 --> 00:29:13.920
How do you um take a snapshot of it, put it in your, you know, card catalog inventory, and use it as a way to stop yourself, like, oh, I'm actually in the panic zone right now.
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:14.480
Yeah.
00:29:14.799 --> 00:29:16.240
I need to come back in.
00:29:16.640 --> 00:29:17.039
Yeah.
00:29:17.279 --> 00:29:17.599
Yeah.
00:29:17.680 --> 00:29:26.559
I think that neuroreception is super important for people who are wanting to learn how to stretch, but they're also not, you don't need to dive into the deep end.
00:29:26.720 --> 00:29:30.240
It's more like, where's where's those baby steps?
00:29:30.319 --> 00:29:35.519
But what's actually a little bit even more than a baby stretch, but you're still not in the panic zone.
00:29:35.839 --> 00:29:36.160
Right.
00:29:36.640 --> 00:29:39.119
Because we're here to build building blocks for our own lives, right?
00:29:39.200 --> 00:29:43.759
The I um when I did corporate consulting, we said go slow to go fast.
00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:45.680
It like people are like, why are we doing this?
00:29:45.759 --> 00:30:09.359
And it's like, well, we're going slow to build the foundation of trust, to build the foundation of communication, so that when you're taking on bigger projects, when you're living life that in you know, more traumatic situations, then you can go fast because you have the skills at the ready and they're working together as lockstep rather than you having to uh piece it together in real time.
00:30:09.599 --> 00:30:10.160
Yes.
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:15.440
I want to go back to something you said about the bull zone, the center, the the comfort zone.
00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:28.160
But it also feels like the phrase that you used coming home to yourself, the sovereignty, the agency of like from that point, we're able to really help ourselves identify all of these things.
00:30:28.319 --> 00:30:30.000
Do you want to speak towards that?
00:30:30.319 --> 00:30:33.920
Yeah, I want to introduce the concept of self-determination.
00:30:34.720 --> 00:30:36.640
Um, it comes from education.
00:30:36.880 --> 00:30:40.000
It's why um the trans movement is so important.
00:30:40.640 --> 00:30:51.119
It's why we um fight throughout our lives because we're born, we have a birthright to be in this body, in this spirit, in this time.
00:30:51.920 --> 00:31:24.000
And when our agency for ourselves is taken away, no matter how much our self-expression and our self-determination is different from our homes that we grow up in, you know, our parents' images of how we're supposed to be in the world, or the culture that we're living in, or the, you know, for those of us who are lucky, you're born into a very nurturing place that lets you solidify your identity from a young age and have that solidity serve you as one of those foundational building blocks ongoing.
00:31:24.319 --> 00:31:39.359
Without it, as humans, we're wired for curiosity and connection to ourselves as well, to keep pulling on threads and feeding ourselves and nourishing until we can find that core self that is really solid and true.
00:31:39.599 --> 00:31:44.319
It's like that our lived essence is aligned with our true essence.
00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:53.279
It comes in through like this verticality of the self where we can feel, oh yeah, that breath of like I'm home and I can feel it.
00:31:53.440 --> 00:31:55.200
Yes, and I know it.
00:31:55.839 --> 00:31:56.079
Right.
00:31:56.160 --> 00:32:00.079
And I don't have to waste energy code switching and other things.
00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:03.200
I don't have to waste energy being something that I am.
00:32:04.400 --> 00:32:04.880
Yes.
00:32:05.119 --> 00:32:05.759
Yeah.
00:32:06.240 --> 00:32:06.640
All right.
00:32:06.720 --> 00:32:14.160
I feel like I've got a pretty good picture of your philosophy, like how you live your life, how you support others.
00:32:14.400 --> 00:32:17.519
I'm curious, what projects are you currently working on?
00:32:17.680 --> 00:32:18.640
How are you?
00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:22.960
Um, I know that you spoke already to the course of your matriarchy course.
00:32:23.119 --> 00:32:24.240
That sounds phenomenal.
00:32:24.400 --> 00:32:29.759
I love that you're serving those um communities and especially those marginalized communities.
00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:35.599
And I'm wondering, what other, whatever, what other play spaces are people finding you in these days?
00:32:35.680 --> 00:32:37.440
I know you've got the Hawaii School of Tantra.
00:32:37.519 --> 00:32:38.799
I know you have cultivating liveness.
00:32:38.880 --> 00:32:40.720
What's going on in your world right now?
00:32:41.200 --> 00:32:42.640
I'm in creator mode.
00:32:42.720 --> 00:32:46.799
I think when, you know, that you're starting a business, and I am starting a business.
00:32:46.960 --> 00:32:54.079
I just closed down a business consulting company in December so that I could focus on energetics.
00:32:54.240 --> 00:32:56.319
I could focus on healing.
00:32:56.480 --> 00:33:06.160
Um, I know in my core core that I'm a healer on this planet and that my services are um valuable and um necessary.
00:33:06.559 --> 00:33:09.519
It's just finding the right places to participate.
00:33:09.680 --> 00:33:11.680
So I'm experimenting in Hawaii.
00:33:11.759 --> 00:33:30.240
I do immersions that are one-on-one with clients who come here, live here with us for four days to seven days, and we custom curate things like inner child work, watsu, massage, family constellations, um, gestalt practices.
00:33:30.400 --> 00:33:35.119
I do a journey mapping where I draw as I'm listening to you and surface things.
00:33:35.200 --> 00:33:42.720
Um we've seen really deep, I call it sticky transformation, you know, transformation that lasts until the next milestone.
00:33:42.960 --> 00:33:47.119
And then also couples retreats here on the big island.
00:33:47.359 --> 00:34:01.279
Um, we're also working to attract uh a growing Chinese population that's coming to the island for personal growth and development to come and actually experience tantra here as well in a safe um trauma-informed container.
00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:07.200
And then online I have sensing, uh, which is a 30-day text-based program.
00:34:07.279 --> 00:34:10.239
It's self-paced prompts, but it's a choose your own adventure.
00:34:10.559 --> 00:34:17.920
You do the prompt, and then as you reflect, you can go deeper, you can go wider, you can choose how you want to interact.
00:34:18.159 --> 00:34:21.599
Um, and then following that is discernment and radiance.
00:34:21.679 --> 00:34:26.480
So those are the three within an arc of transformation that I like to provide for people.
00:34:26.719 --> 00:34:41.039
And then collaborations, you know, Jim and I are going to be in Austin, and um, I'm collaborating with Richard Bach here on the island to produce a uh facilitator training on quantum light breath in person in Hawaii in September.
00:34:42.320 --> 00:34:51.519
And I'm open, you know, at this point, I'm using my sensing to figure out like where what brings me joy and where what can I do that brings the most impact?
00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:52.559
I love it.
00:34:52.719 --> 00:34:53.119
Yeah.
00:34:53.280 --> 00:35:09.280
I feel like there's so much in my life when I wake up, I'm like, what do I want to do today that's going to be inspiring for me that feels like it's um allowing me to be of service to the divine and take those next steps through that inspiration?
00:35:09.440 --> 00:35:10.960
And that's what I'm hearing from you.
00:35:11.119 --> 00:35:15.519
It's like you're in this openness of, oh, this is coming through.
00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:16.800
Oh, and this is coming through.
00:35:16.880 --> 00:35:23.760
And look at how well it serves your communities and your, you know, your clients and your clientele.
00:35:23.920 --> 00:35:26.800
I I think that that sounds really beautiful.
00:35:26.960 --> 00:35:30.639
And if you're able to do it all, why not?
00:35:30.800 --> 00:35:38.079
I'm really excited to see you again here in Austin for the Intro to Sacred Tantra retreat.
00:35:38.239 --> 00:35:47.760
And, you know, I know that there's going to be future podcasts on that, but I would love just to get your snapshot definition of what tantra means to you.
00:35:49.199 --> 00:35:54.480
I almost want to close my eyes and drop in because I don't like to have a pat answer on that.
00:35:54.639 --> 00:35:58.800
I'm writing a book right now with one of um my teachers.
00:35:58.960 --> 00:36:01.280
Um, the book is called Coming Alive.
00:36:01.920 --> 00:36:11.360
And um, it's all about Tantra, but we don't talk about it as Tantra right up front because it's really tantric principles that you can use to bring in your life.
00:36:11.599 --> 00:36:43.519
So um, Tantra for me is the ability to generate and move energy through your physical system so that you may feel the support of the earth and the inspiration and connection to source, whatever you call that spiritual guidance, and have as healthy um set of relationships to support you on your journey in life.
00:36:44.239 --> 00:36:44.880
I love it.
00:36:45.199 --> 00:36:46.639
Thank you so much for sharing that.
00:36:46.800 --> 00:36:58.079
I think there is so many different definitions of tantra, and everyone you really have to ask the question to know what people mean by it.
00:36:58.320 --> 00:36:59.519
And right.
00:36:59.760 --> 00:37:07.440
And I think that it's um it's good use to really have that transparency.
00:37:07.599 --> 00:37:19.840
Um, you know, I've been in different tantra circles where it feels very like sexuality focused, and then you go on the very other end and it's like, no, we're just doing breath work and doing Korea chanting.
00:37:19.920 --> 00:37:23.440
And it's like, great, all of that can be tantra.
00:37:23.599 --> 00:37:28.639
And so whenever I work with someone, I'm like, oh, what's what's your definition?
00:37:28.960 --> 00:37:29.920
Korea chanting?
00:37:30.079 --> 00:37:30.880
What's that?
00:37:31.119 --> 00:37:31.599
Right?
00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:33.679
Exactly, exactly.
00:37:33.920 --> 00:37:35.760
So um, I love it.
00:37:36.159 --> 00:37:37.039
Yeah, yeah.
00:37:37.199 --> 00:37:41.280
And it's for me, it's about um how do we have relationships with each other?
00:37:41.440 --> 00:37:48.239
Because we can be in relationship with ourselves, which is a huge part of the work, but then ultimately we want that connection.
00:37:48.400 --> 00:37:58.159
And so it's heartbreaking to know that we have so many bad skills that break connection, um, even if you're in a really healthy relationship, because of our past.
00:37:58.320 --> 00:38:01.199
And so I call that, you know, our shaping stories.
00:38:01.280 --> 00:38:03.039
We carry it around like a backpack.
00:38:03.199 --> 00:38:22.159
And how do we like learn to put it down in appropriate moments, address it in appropriate moments, but so that we can live in our home base of our present body between our back body and our front body, and be in our verticality so that we can be seen, we can be felt, we can feel and see and receive others.
00:38:22.320 --> 00:38:24.960
And that is, I think, the whole point of life.
00:38:25.119 --> 00:38:27.360
It doesn't get much more complicated than that.
00:38:27.519 --> 00:38:29.440
The complexity is how we do it.
00:38:29.760 --> 00:38:30.159
Yes.
00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:31.519
Oh, I love it.
00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:35.679
Any final messaging for our listeners out there?
00:38:37.199 --> 00:38:39.360
I want to come back to go slow to go fast.
00:38:39.679 --> 00:38:43.760
Like, don't expect you're gonna eat the whole hamburger in one mouthful.
00:38:44.079 --> 00:38:49.519
And you can imagine having a little dial on your like right shoulder, and it's like a radio dial.
00:38:49.599 --> 00:38:52.719
And you can titrate your experiences wherever you are.
00:38:52.960 --> 00:38:56.719
You can turn down the volume so that you can feel yourself.
00:38:56.800 --> 00:38:59.280
And feeling yourself is the most important thing.
00:39:00.719 --> 00:39:02.000
Such wise wisdom.
00:39:02.159 --> 00:39:06.639
Thank you so much, Wilder, for coming on the Wisdom Rising podcast.
00:39:06.800 --> 00:39:08.400
I can't wait to have you on again.
00:39:08.639 --> 00:39:18.559
And know that all of those resources that Wilder mentioned throughout our discussion today will be in the show notes, as well as all of the links to reach out to her.
00:39:18.719 --> 00:39:25.760
Um, follow her on all of the social media platforms, do the things, make sure you like and share this episode.
00:39:26.000 --> 00:39:27.679
And we will see you next time.
00:39:27.840 --> 00:39:29.199
Thanks everyone for listening.
00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:31.440
Thanks for tuning in to today's show.
00:39:31.599 --> 00:39:36.159
The Wisdom Rising Podcast is sponsored by Moonrising Shamanic Institute.
00:39:36.320 --> 00:39:45.280
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite podcasting app and be the first to know when we release a new episode.
00:39:45.519 --> 00:39:53.519
You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube at Moonrising Institute, or visit our website, Moonrising Institute.com.
00:39:53.679 --> 00:39:56.000
Once again, thanks for sharing space with us today.
00:39:56.079 --> 00:40:01.360
And until next time, may you awaken to the whispers of wisdom rising from within.