Taking Ownership of Your Story with Hanna Etu

Every human appreciates knowing they are not alone. When we have an experience – perhaps one of being in a cult or being an addict or being a single mother – we all want to know we are not alone in that experience. Two of the most powerful and reassuring words in the English language are “me too”. My guest today, Hanna Etu, works with neurodivergent and mad writers, supporting them to tell their stories so that others may find comfort in knowing they’re not alone. In the introduction, I talk about how I connected with Hanna’s work shepherding books, particularly memoirs, into the world. And how my memoir, Cult, A Love Story, came into being because of an unmet need I had to read someone’s personal story of being in a cult. Hanna Etu helps mad and neurodivergent writers establish a regular writing practice so they can finish their memoirs without losing the heart of their story. She has a book coaching certification in memoir and nonfiction from Author Accelerator. Her degrees in Creative Writing and Englishas well as a professional background in traditional book publishing give her unique insight into the craft, production, and marketing aspects of the writing/publishing processes.Hanna’s work-in-progress is a memoir about the loss of her brother to suicide and her personal history with mental illness.Hanna offers one-on-one coaching for writers struggling to finish their books, is gathering interest for a group program, as well as hosting free, monthly co-writing sessions for Substack subscribers. Learn more about Hanna at hannaetu.com This episode of Creative Alchemy is supported by the audiobook version of my award-winning, Amazon best-selling memoir, Cult, A Love Story. Readers call the book ‘compelling’ ‘gritty’ ‘intimate’ and ‘not boring’ – which is what an author loves to hear. I narrated the audiobook and if you have a Spotify premium subscription you can listen to the audiobook for free as part of that subscription at alexandraamor.com/spotify. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show notes Working as a book coach with neurodivergent and ‘mad’ writers Taking ownership of a personal story by writing about it On supporting writers who have challenges with organization Getting to the central idea of what your book stands for Using specific tools to ensure the storytelling in a memoir is captivating Building small habits that support a writing practice How a first draft is often powerful for different reasons than we think Dealing with the challenges of writing about a very emotional subject Resources mentioned in this episode Hanna’s Substack piece about beginnings Madwomen in the Attic David Sedaris Mary Karr’s memoir Lit Jenny Lawson Transcript of the interview with Hanna Etu Alexandra: Hannah Etu, thank you for coming to Creative Alchemy and welcome. Hanna: Thank you so much for having me. Alexandra: Please tell us a little bit first about your background. Hanna: I am originally from Buffalo, New York. I have an English creative writing and German degree from Canisius University. I have an editorial background. I worked in publishing for a few years for a publishing company in Buffalo, and then when they were bought out by a bigger company, then I went elsewhere.  Now I am a certified book coach. I was certified by Author Accelerator in nonfiction and memoir. So now I am helping memoir writers, particularly neurodivergent and mad memoir writers, finish their books. Alexandra: Tell us what mad means, because I was new to that term when we started emailing. Hanna: Sure. Mad in this context is in reference to the Mad movement, so the mental health justice movement. People who may have had adverse mental health experiences, or people who have been negatively affected by the mental health system that may have been involuntarily institutionalized or involuntarily medicated, things like that. That’s typically what the MAD moniker refers to.  It’s comes from the ‘mad woman in the attic’ idea, from Jane Eyre. That’s kind of where that whole thing comes from. It’s reclaiming an older term, basically. Alexandra: Got it. What’s the reason that you chose to work with writers who are neurodivergent and part of the Mad community. Hanna: There’s a whole combination of reasons.  I am a lead organizer and regional literacy director for a grassroots feminist mental health literacy organization called Mad Women in the Attic. We advocate for people in the mental health system. And lately, our biggest work has been writing workshops because we’ve been able to connect with people all around the country.  It used to be more localized to Western New York, and now we’re doing work with people all around the world. Actually, we’ve had people in Canada, we’ve had people in Europe, all over the place. So we’ve been able to help people write their books, which has been really exciting. So that that is part of the mission.  The other part of it is that I’m also neurodivergent. I wasn’t diagnosed with anything until I was an adult with anxiety and general depression. And I tend to believe that I have other neurodivergences, but I’m just too high functioning to get a diagnosis. Nobody, none of my practitioners seem terribly interested in diagnosing me because I get through the day. The other the other reason is that both my brothers suffer from mental health issues, and my older brother died by suicide in 2018. So it’s a very personal issue, and I really want to connect with people who have had similar experiences to me or similar experiences to the people that I’ve worked with. It’s about a shared experience and validating people and advocating for themselves. It’s all about working through our difficulties and finding common bonds. Alexandra: Maybe give us a few examples of how you think writing memoir specifically fulfills those that goal, or helps people to heal and to connect and that kind of thing. Hanna: So with memoir, I think people find it cathartic to write their stories to talk about their traumatic experiences. I think it can be painful. I know personally it can be hard to write about difficult experiences, but I think people find it also find it empowering. In a way they’re taking ownership of their story and their writing. They’re taking ownership of the narrative, where the narrative has previously been written for them where they may have been in a place where somebody was making the decisions for them and telling a different story about who they are, and they’re now able to reclaim that. So I think that’s a big part of why a lot of people choose to write memoir. Alexandra: I think that’s so true. I was talking to somebody else the other day, and we phrased it in a slightly different way, but I think we were aiming at the same thing. Sometimes it’s the first time that someone can tell the truth about their experience, and more specifically, their own truth about their experience. And so that’s exactly what you’re talking about. That we get to take ownership of the narrative.  Hanna: Yeah, exactly. Alexandra: You mentioned that it’s a difficult experience, which it is.  What are some of the challenges or hurdles that you that your writers encounter when they begin this path? Hanna: There are the difficulties of writing about a traumatic experience and re-experiencing that and having to go through that again. There’s also the kind of experience, the kind of writing difficulties that neurodivergent writers have in general.  I’ve noticed a lot of these writers have difficulties with organization, and this isn’t like I can’t say that this is typical to everyone. Like everybody has their own individual experience, but I have noticed that many writers have expressed that they have a hard time keeping organized, keeping the writing organized, keeping a structure, keeping a regular practice-that’s something that a lot of the writers in this community struggle with.  I think a lot of writers, going back to the organization, they also have a hard time building a structure around their narrative because memoir is such a broad topic. Figuring out where to start, where to end, when to know what is the end, and and often these aren’t positive experiences.  These aren’t usually positive experiences, and they’re trying to end. I mean, you try to end the book on as positive a note as you can, and I think a lot of people have a hard time knowing when is it done? Is it done yesterday? Is it done a couple years ago? Like when? What period of time am I covering? And what is my mission? What is the objective? So there’s a lot of different issues that they deal with. Alexandra: That’s such a good point about wrapping up a book because when it’s a memoir, it’s about your life and your life isn’t over yet as you’re writing. So this may be an unfair question: Are there any tips that you have for finding a good place to end a memoir? Hanna: It’s funny because I’ve been wanting to write a Substack post about this and want to dig into some of my favorite memoirs. I think I would recommend reading a lot of memoir, especially by writers that you admire and writers who are writing in a similar subject matter, but particularly memoir writers, of course. I think seeing kind of comparing those.  I did this with beginnings. I did a Substack post on beginnings. Now, of course, I’ll have to be held to that. But I kind of analyze. I was like, this is really good because they get right into the action. They don’t give us extra exposition. They make us care. Right off the bat.  Now I want to kind of do the same thing for endings. How did they make us feel like we bookended this book with the end of the person’s arc. There has to be some kind of development. Like obviously your character development, you’re not a fictional character. Like you’re going to develop as to who you are now, so you’re not making anything up if you’re a good writer.  But in terms of any other techniques that I would recommend, I’m also liking the idea of writing several versions, and it might feel tedious to write multiple endings, but to force yourself to try different, try them on, and see how they fit.  I think it’s important to focus on where you are as a person, where you’re trying to show us that you’ve gotten by the end of the book, and that’s really where we should sit by the end of a memoir. Alexandra: Nice, yes, and very much like fiction, the main character who is us, that’s writing the memoir, is going to go through some sort of arc. I guess it’s a matter of finding the closure place for that arc Hanna: Yeah. Even if it’s not necessarily the happiest ending. Like the writing itself is a reflection for the writer. The writing itself is a reflection on that experience. So, I think even in the process of writing it, you’re finding new things about yourself and about that experience. So, it’s a hard thing to to think about at the beginning, but it is something important to think about at the beginning of the process and at the end of the process of writing your first draft. Alexandra: Right. A bit of a north star, I guess, to point to you know to write toward if you’ve thought about where you want it to end up, And then for organization is such a good point. I use a piece of software called Scrivener, which is really helpful for organization because on the left hand side of the screen, what you see is a list of all the chapters that you’ve written, or you can break it into scenes or whatever you want.  What other sorts of organization tips do you have for your writers? Hanna: That sounds great. I think I should try it. In my book coaching certification, we were trained on Jenny Nash’s blueprint for a book, and so that has been my north star in terms of organization.  I’m working on adapting my own version because I want to add some elements specific to neurodivergent writers. I use the blueprint in my coaching process, but I also use some what’s the word I’m looking for? I use some surveying to figure out what every individual writer’s style is, what their schedule is, what their needs are, because I think that that’s just as important as knowing what their book is about if we’re going to work together.  But getting off topic, the blueprint is basically it’s a set of questions, and eventually you get to an outline, and you’re talking about you’re digging into the deeper questions about why you’re writing the book, and what your book really stands for. What you’re trying to say?  It’s interesting because I don’t know if everyone really sits down and thinks about that when they’re going to write a memoir. What am I really trying to say with this? Am I just trying to write my story? Which is okay if you just want to write your book and you just want to self-publish it, which is fine, which is great.  If you’re looking to try to get it to a trade audience, you want there to be some central objective. The blueprint prepares you for the mindset of preparing your book for the literary marketplace. With the memoir blueprint there’s an impact outline, where you go through and you break down each scene and what happens in each scene and how it’s connected to the one before, and basically you’re justifying to yourself and to your coach if you’re doing it with a coach why each scene is where it is. Which is very tedious, but it’s really enlightening too. Alexandra: That sounds great because it’s so important that every scene, every chapter serves a purpose. It serves the narrative in some way.  When we’re telling a personal story, I know this from personal experience, we can kind of get out there and get lost in the weeds a bit, and think that every detail is important, and every bit of the timeline matters, and every little event that happened is important to include in the story. So that this really speaks to me as a way to narrow our focus and really make sure that yeah that we stay focused on what what matters. Hanna: Exactly. Alexandra: That sounds like a great tool. So you use that tool with your clients to help them to do that. Hanna: Yes. I’m working on adding elements specifically for neurodivergent writers because it is a lot of work upfront. Some coaches will do it in segments. Some coaches will send it to the writer all at once.  I’m also thinking about the ways in which I can customize each coaching process for the writer, because everybody works in different ways, and especially neurodivergent writers are wired differently. And some people they can say, “Okay, I’ll write an hour a week.” But some people it’s like you write in a two-hour burst, and then you don’t write for another two months. So that’s something that we always have to keep in mind, and as as as a coach for people who with with differently wired brains. Alexandra: Exactly. And you did talk about time as part of what a writer has to organize.  I don’t know if this is a fair question either, but do you have any tips for people to help them to organize their time? Everybody is so individual with what works for them in terms of writing, as you just said. Some people write in bursts. Some people are like to write every day, just a tiny little bit if they can.  What are your thoughts on that sort of organization? Hanna: In terms of writing practice, or in terms of planning the timeline of the book? Alexandra: In terms of writing practice. Getting your bum in your chair. Hanna: I like setting a particular goal. During the pandemic when I could write all the time, I set a goal of 30 minutes a day. Just set a timer, stopped at 30 minutes, whether or not I wanted to keep writing. So then I knew what I was going to write the next day when I sat down.  I’m really into the idea of setting a regular time for it, whether it’s once a month, once a week, a little bit a day. I’m very much into building small habits. I really like that. I know it doesn’t always work for people.  My other tip, which is less related to time, but I’ve been really into body doubling for writers and hopping on Zoom with other writers, and writing for like an hour and a half. So that’s something I’ve been doing as well. I have one once a month, and now I know I’m going to work on my book once a month. Alexandra: Nice, and so it’s a group of writers in a Zoom room, and and you’re just you’re all with your heads down writing. Okay, so it’s like accountability. You have to show up. It’s like a meeting. Hanna: Exactly. Alexandra: Nice. Hanna: That’s my my new favorite way of of maintaining a practice is if you have a body doubling group whether once a week, every other week, twice a week or whatever that really gets your butt in the chair because you know other people are going to be there. Alexandra: That’s amazing. That’s a great idea.  Do you find sometimes with clients who are writing a memoir that one of the things they’re looking for is permission to tell their story? Hanna: Yes, almost all the time. And especially with mad writers, because they’re dealing with a lot of stigma. I hear them saying so often, “Is anybody going to care about this? Is anybody going to read this?” And these writers are brilliant, they write the most brilliant stories. I’m sitting here thinking, this has to be in the world. You have to publish this. What do you mean? Would anyone care? I care. You’ve got to publish this for me.  I feel like a lot of people come to me and they’re like, is this even worth? Is this even worth writing? Will anybody be interested in it? I think that’s a very valid fear to have in the memoir writing space now because of how competitive the genre is and how saturated we can be with memoir.  The more popular memoirs tend to be people who are either established memoir writers or celebrities, famous people, along those lines, historically relevant people. But I never want to discourage somebody from writing their story. I’m going to tell them what I think they’re writing, and if I think they’re on the right track. But I’m not going to sugarcoat that feedback on the writing, but I think people will care, especially in these stories of people who have been stigmatized. I think that there’s not enough of those stories out there, and I think people would really appreciate to have more of that in the world. Just to feel seen, people who are not brave enough to tell their stories or talk about how they’re feeling and the differences that they’re noticing about themselves, to see somebody else feels the way that they do, like that is so important. Alexandra: I absolutely agree. To have an experience reflected back to a person is just so valuable. So incredible and so brave on the part of the writer. I want to bring this up because I had never seen this quote from Terry Pratchett. You posted it on Instagram a little while ago that I love so much. The quote is: “The first draft is you telling yourself the story.”  Why did that quote resonate with you, and what do you think it says? Hanna: I really like that because I think that writers underestimate the power of the first draft. I think that we tend to think, okay, first draft, give it a little edit, or maybe overestimate is the better term for it, but write the first draft, give it a little copy edit. It’s good to go.  But the first draft is so powerful for a different reason. It’’s important because it tells us exactly how, in terms of memoir writers, but also for fiction writers, how we see the story, how in our original voice, how we picture it. What so many writers get wrong is that the writing becomes stronger through revision and revision and revision.  I think if more writers knew how much revision their books would really need, they probably wouldn’t have started writing their books in the first place. I think that’s why that quote really resonated with me because I think that the first draft is so important and so personal that it’s very much for the writer, for you to process your story and and to just tell it, just get everything out unfiltered.  Especially with a memoir when you could be writing about people that you may eventually not want to write about anymore, or people that need to be concealed in some way for the purposes of privacy. It’s always better to write everything raw, unfiltered, and then go back and pare it down, edit it down, so that it’s appropriate for publishing.  So the first draft is always something that I think really is meant for the writer, whereas a second draft is where you start going. All right, let’s talk to a developmental editor or a beta reader. I think we have to spend more time with our first draft. Alexandra: I love all that. My experience has been the same; that it’s so true and often you know I mean there’s so much in there it’s so rich we don’t know what we think sometimes until we’ve written it down. Or we don’t know the impact that an experience has had until we get quiet and write it down. I know for me, with my memoir, I learned stuff about the cult that I was in by trying to explain it to the reader. So that’s a slightly different topic than a first draft, but it did happen in the first draft where I would realize the cult leader did this so that six months later she could do this other thing over here. I didn’t see it at the time when I was in the group, but trying to explain it enabled me to see what had happened.  I imagine that’s true for anybody who’s writing down an experience that they’ve had. Hanna: I think with the benefit of hindsight, we start to reflect on people’s motives and what people were thinking, or when we write about past experiences with what we know now about those people and start to put the puzzle pieces together, and it’s very interesting what you find, but you won’t necessarily find it unless you write it down. That’s just the way the human brain works. Alexandra: One of the things you mentioned at the top of the show was that you are sadly a survivor of suicide. You lost a brother to that, and when we were emailing back and forth, you mentioned that you hadn’t written your memoir about that yet. I think it might be valuable for our listeners to hear about your thoughts about that potential book and the issues that you’re facing finding time to write. You’ve addressed that a little bit already with the the Zoom group. You called it body doubling. I’d never heard that before. Tell us a little bit about your thoughts about what you’ve encountered thinking about writing that book. Hanna: I’ve written about 30,000 words. I wrote a lot during the pandemic. I was writing, as I said, I think I got to like a 30 minute a day writing practice, and I was in one of the writing workshops. I was trying to have something to read and share every week. So that really pushed me. The people pleaser in me really pushed me to to have something to write.  You get to a certain point where – I think it was two or three years after I lost my brother that I started writing about it, and that was still very raw, and I think I got to a point where I realized that there was still a lot of healing that I needed to do. I don’t think that’s why I stepped back from writing it.  I definitely stepped back from writing it because I was working on my book coaching business, and I have a lot of other hobbies and activities that I do, and I have just a lot of going on in my life at the time, and so I stopped making the time for it. But I definitely hit a wall creatively with it at a certain point where I hadn’t done the deep thinking that you’re supposed to do when you sit down. I had just written. I had just been writing.  I wrote everything that happened from the day that my brother died, to his funeral, and through that. I wrote all of the events that went from there to there, and then started digging into my mental health history, and digging into his mental health history, and my family’s history with mental health.  I began realizing I had just all these moving parts, and I had no idea where everything should go, where the timeline should be. I had just taken all the rules that I so preach to writers, and just broken all of them.  I’ve recently gotten back into it with the co-writing with the body doubling, which has been so valuable, and I’ve gone back and I started doing the blueprint, which I’ve started before, but I’ve gone back into it. That has been so valuable because it’s doing what we talked about with the first draft, where you’re just writing things out and you’re writing things out, and I started writing again.  Why am I writing this book? Because I just feel called to it, like losing losing someone to suicide, especially someone who was. I was 25. He was 27 at the time. Their life is so short, and he was so creative, so artistic. He was a filmmaker. He was also a writer, an artist. He painted. He made clay figures and different clay things. He’s a sculptor.  I think that I wanted my my original mission with it was like there was so much left unfinished in his life where he was supposed to reach a certain point. He was supposed to, I don’t know, become a famous filmmaker or he was supposed to go on to direct a movie, whatever. I had this vision of what I thought his life should become, and now I’m going to write a book to tell everybody else about this person because I want him to live on in the ways that I remember him. Which of course is also another layered part of it, in that my memory of him isn’t everyone else’s memory of him, isn’t how he remembered himself. And there are things that you learn after the fact.  It’s been very complicated to write about and figure out exactly what I’m doing. But I actually was writing about it yesterday; just free writing and trying to figure out why I’m doing this, why I’m doing this, what is the point, what does my book stand for, because it has to stand for something. I started to really have more epiphanies than I had had in a while, so I’m very excited. It’s making me more motivated to get writing and have a better structure, a beginning, middle, and an end.  I can talk about this forever. Alexandra: This is great. Thank you for your vulnerability. I really appreciate it. Hanna: I think for a while, I was stuck because I also didn’t know how it was going to end. I didn’t know what the ending would be, and I thought the ending should be me in a place where I have dealt with my grief, or I have overcome my grief, or moved forward with it. And that’s not really how grief works. But I couldn’t figure out what version of me am I stopping this book at?  For so many years after my brother died, I was in a relationship that was very toxic, and so I was not the best version of myself. And now that that is no longer part of my life, I’m finally realizing that I’m a more skilled person. It actually has allowed me to grieve more, and that’s been incredibly helpful, and really brought me to a place where I can say I feel like I’m starting to see the resolution. I’m starting to see the ending, which is a really good feeling. So those are the challenges that I’ve been having around it, but it is getting better. Alexandra: Thank you so much for all of that. You brought up so many important points. I think, or special points, one of them being that it does feel sometimes like books have a gestation period, and sometimes we can’t force it, just like giving birth. You can’t make it happen necessarily, and having patience with ourselves as things are going on, and the book feels like it’s just kind of sitting there, that can be a challenge in and of itself. Hanna: Yes,I think I needed to wait and see what the book was going to be because I was still living it,  which so many of us are. Alexandra: Absolutely. And you bring up the point about grief too, and how it’s not linear at all, and the importance of taking care of yourself, both just as a human being, but also as a writer. I just think it’s so important to put a pin in that and notice that we can’t ignore those things., especially when we’re writing about something so close to our hearts. Hanna: Yes. Alexandra: We wish you all the best with that book. Please let me know when it comes out, and I’ll make a mention of it for sure. Hanna: Wonderful, thank you. Yeah, I will. Alexandra: As we start to wrap up here, I wanted to ask you, what are some of your favorite memoirs?  Hanna: I got into memoir by reading David Sedaris, so I love everything by David Sedaris. But in terms of really deep, like I love Mary Carr Lit is one of my absolute favorites. Just one of those where I felt like I could just soak up every page. I love everything she writes. I like Sloane Crosley, who wrote recently a book called Grief Is for People. It was about losing her best friend by suicide in the last few years. I really liked that, and I tend to really connect with humour writers who write about mental health. Jenny Lawson, her name is escaping me now. It’ll come to me later. Alexandra: Jenny Lawson. I haven’t read any of her books, but I’ve seen people mention them, and her titles alone are hilarious. I’m trying to think of one now. I’ll link to them in the show notes, but yeah, they’re very funny. Hanna: I think I’ve read every book she’s written. She recently did a book, How To Be Okay When Everything Is Not Okay, and it was a little less memoir, but more about staying creative when times are tough, and that really that was a really good book. She got really serious when she needed to, but also very silly when the occasion warranted it. Alexandra: Oh, that’s great. All right.  Tell us, Hannah, where we can find out more about you and your work. Hanna: You can find me at hannetu.com. That’s Hanna with no H on the end, and you can find me on Substack. You can find me on Instagram, Hannah Etu Book Coach, or on Facebook, Hannah Etu Book Coach. Alexandra: Great. Okay. I’m going to link to all those things, but also specifically to your series on beginnings in Substack because you mentioned that because I think that would be really helpful for people. Hanna: I’ll make sure it’s up there if it’s not. So I know I wrote it. We’ll have to make sure it’s on the substack.  Alexandra: Okay. Great. All right. Well, thank you again so much for being with me here today. I really appreciate it. Hanna: You’re welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Alexandra: My pleasure. Click here to grab your complimentary copy of the Creative Alchemy journaling handbook. The post Taking Ownership of Your Story with Hanna Etu appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Bella Mahaya Carter is an experienced writer and writing teacher. In this episode she shares how she used the support of an editor to meet that small, 1000 words per month goal as a way to break the enormous task of writing a memoir into small, achievable steps. In the introduction, inspired by this interview, I talk about thinking outside the box when we are looking for support for our creative projects. And I talk about a subject very close to my heart; the idea that writing and journaling can sometimes be the first time a cult survivor, or survivor of other trauma, tells the truth about their experience. And how powerful that can be. This episode of Creative Alchemy is supported by the Creative Alchemy journaling handbook. This free ebook guides cult and other trauma survivors into the healthy and healing practice of journaling. With a gentle hand and relying on her decades of writing experience, cult survivor Alexandra Amor encourages readers to develop a journaling practice as part of their healing path. Click here to get your complimentary copy. Bella Mahaya Carter is the award-winning author of three books including Where Do You Hang Your Hammock: Finding Peace of Mind While You Write, Publish, and Promote Your Book, a guide for writers.She is currently completing Ripe: A Memoir of the Lives We Carry, which explores intergenerational trauma, creativity, motherhood, and the stories we inherit—and choose to transform. Her writing has appeared in dozens of literary journals, and her last two books have received five book awards. Bella is the founder of Write Where You Are writing circles and has been teaching and coaching writers for more than twenty years. Her mission is to help writers explore what they’re carrying so they can write and live with greater truth, agency, and freedom. Learn more about Bella at BellaMahayaCarter.com You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes: Beginning as a dancer and moving into filmmaking and then writing Discovering Shakespeare in college and falling in love with the musicality of his writing Starting to write a book about family secrets several decades ago Writing about what we inherit from family and what we choose to carry forward Finding the question at the heart of a memoir Learning to write in micro and flash non-fiction Using a monthly editorial deadline to support getting a book written What a story teaches us as we write it How it’s never too late to begin Using journaling to access the wise parts of ourselves How ‘no’ can often just mean ‘not yet’ Why being seen and recognized is an inside job Why we can begin a creative project before you feel ready Find the thing that will help you get out of your own way Resources Mentioned in this Episode Bella’s writing circles, Write Where You Are Bella’s Substack, Flying Lessons for Writers Creative Alchemy journaling handbook Transcript of Interview Alexandra: Bella Mahaya Carter, welcome to Creative Alchemy. Bella: Thank you. It’s great to be here. Alexandra: Great to have you here. Give us a little bit about your background, Bella. Maybe your education and your writing background. Bella: Okay, I’ll start with my education. My post-secondary school education started at the Juilliard School. I was a dancer, and I had a back injury and had to stop dancing, and went to college at Scripps College in Claremont, California, which is a small liberal arts college for women.  After that, I actually went to film school at USC, the School of Cinematic Arts, and I got a master of fine arts degree in filmmaking with an emphasis in screenwriting. I taught in the screenwriting department as a teaching assistant.  10 years went by, and I did a lot of writing, and then I went back to school for another master’s degree in spiritual psychology, and that really changed my life. That work, so that’s my educational. I went to the University of Santa Monica in Santa Monica, so that’s my educational background.  My writing background is-I really didn’t know I was a writer until when I went to Scripps College. Well, I didn’t even know I was a writer then. I was a dancer, and I wasn’t a great reader. I think I had some maybe dyslexia or some kind of neurodivergency, so I wasn’t a reader as a kid, which just makes me so sad even now to this day.  But I discovered Shakespeare in college, and I thought how could somebody write plays in poetry, and I just loved it. I used to listen to the old records while reading my Pelican Shakespeare in the library for hours. I could lose myself just listening to the language and the poetry, and I knew that I loved it. And then I took another class with that same teacher on contemporary women writers, and just loved it, loved it, loved it.  I didn’t know I was a writer yet. I went to film school because I thought, well, my background is dance, and now I’m interested in literature. And I thought, well, maybe combining dance and literature, I could find my way through through movie making. And I was in Los Angeles, but what I discovered in film school, I was one of maybe five women in the program. It was very it was a very male dominated environment, and I thought also I don’t really like Hollywood that much.  So around that time, I stumbled into a creative writing workshop, and I remember that the teacher he was teaching a UCLA extension class. His name was Jack Grapes, and he wrote this incredible poem about menstruation. And he read it, and I thought to myself, any man who could write about menstruation in that way is someone I think I would like to study with. And I studied with Jack for five years, and that was just the beginning of many many years of writing. Haven’t stopped writing since. Alexandra: Nice. Oh, that’s great. And you’re the author of several books, including a memoir called Raw about. Oh, my mind is going blank. Anxiety. Bella: Yeah, my three books are right behind me. Secrets of My Sex, is a collection of poems, and there’s Raw, My Journey from Anxiety to Joy. And there’s Where Do you Hang Your Hammock? Finding peace of mind while you write, publish, and promote your book. Alexandra: Right, and we’re going to come back to your writing classes and that kind of thing in just a minute. But I want to start with the project you’ve been working on for the last couple of years, so tell us about that. Bella: You mean my whole life? Alexandra: Yes, yes, exactly. Tell us about that project. Start wherever you want. Bella: My current project is called Ripe: A Memoir of the Lives We Carry, and I kind of officially started writing it over 35 years ago, and but really there were whispers of family secrets and the rupture that had happened in our family.  My mom was a great researcher, and she always would whisper the family, some of the family stories to me. Not all of them, the rest of them took me years to learn. But this seed was always planted.  My grandfather was a poet and a journalist, so I think it was kind of in my blood. But I wrote this 500-page mess of a manuscript 35 years ago. Didn’t know what to do with it, so I put it away in my file cabinet. And at around that time, I was also thinking about becoming a mother. And really, what the book is about, it’s a memoir about what we inherit and what we choose to carry forward. I think the question that is at the heart of the memoir for me was, how do I create life without surrendering my own or perpetuating inherited pain? And though I didn’t have the writing skills or the maturity, or the experience, and many other things to to write that that project in my 30s. I discovered about four years ago that I was revisiting that project.  I had discovered the 100 word story format, fell in love with concise forms and real and started mining two manuscripts. I had one was a manuscript about my high risk pregnancy, the other was a manuscript about the ancestor story, and I just started plucking from those manuscripts.  And then after about two years of doing that, I thought I’m going to ask my publisher at She Writes Press, if she thinks this is a viable way to approach a memoir. Because it was in micro and flash stories, so the stories could be anywhere from 50 words to 1000 words. And when I showed it to her, she loved it. She said, “I think this is the future of memoir because we have shorter attention spans. I think that this hybrid form is going to be very, very popular.” So that was in May of 2024, and I’m almost done. Out of the 200 stories, I think I have about eight left to write.  Alexandra: And it sounds like you had a plan, if you know how many stories are left. What’s that based on?  Bella: Well, actually, I just figured that out today. Alexandra: Oh, okay. Bella: I had a rough idea of what material I needed to cover at the end, and I am at the beginning of every month. So at the end of every month, I send my editor at least a minimum of 1000 words, and then I start fresh on the next journey, the next chapter series of chapters.  At the beginning of the month, I’m always like, I’m never going to make my deadline. I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but because what happens is I dig into archives. I have family, archives. Last month, I read 32 letters written by my great-grandmother in 1961, and I had to create one composite letter conveying her experience, like a literary piece, rather than just using her letters.  This month, the end of the story is my experience with the repair of the family, and so I actually read yesterday my journal from when I was in Italy in 1994 with my mother, meeting the family and discovering my great-great-grandfather’s diary and other primary source materials. So it wasn’t until this morning, after I read my journal from that trip, and then I was writing in my journal that the structure for the things that I want to cover emerged. And so just today I realized, oh, I have about eight more stories left. Alexandra: Amazing. So, for our listeners, we should explain this is such a unique project in my mind because you have all this archival material.  Tell our listeners a little bit about your great-grandmother’s letters. Bella: What happened was in 1918, my great grandfather, who was a doctor, he lived in New Haven, Connecticut. He got the family servant pregnant, and performed an illegal abortion on her, and was arrested, jumped bail, and left like he went to New York and disappeared because he was fugitive. And then various things happened.  His wife divorced him, this was an Italian Catholic family, so divorce was pretty much unheard of and shameful, and people whispered. And after the divorce was granted my grandfather, whose custody had been awarded to my great-grandmother, and very soon after he kidnapped his son, returned to Italy because he was from Italy, and when the authorities and when the authorities caught up with him in Italy. He escaped to Argentina, where he raised his son.  They stayed there for 10 years, on the lam, they were hiding from the law, and it just goes on and on. I thought I was writing the story of the rupture that occurred in our family, but as I started reading letters from my mother, my grandmother, my grandmother’s brother, my great grandfather. Though nobody spoke about what went on, everybody felt the need to write their version of it for posterity.  What I’ve learned over the last maybe eight months is that I’m writing a story not only of rupture, but of repair, because only half the story is the rupture. The other half the story is how the family found its way back together Alexandra: Wow! You mentioned there that one of themes of the book is whether or not we carry trauma forward. Bella: Well, this is why you know I had originally in my 30s written two books. One was a family story. One was my pregnancy story, and it was really an exploration of you know trying to like how do I maintain my identity as a person, as a creative artist, and then also be a mom. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t see that model well.  I shouldn’t say I didn’t see it modeled. I did see it modeled, but I was really worried about it. I was like, “How am I going to do that? And how am I going to not pass on the pain that I felt, even though I couldn’t really at that time articulate what the pain was. I just knew it was painful to be alive, and do I really want my child to experience that?  It wasn’t until a few years ago that when I started plucking stories from both manuscripts that I realized, oh wow, this should be a braided narrative. These two books, and I had written like I was a very inexperienced writer, so the manuscripts were a mess. They were kitchen sinks. They had some overlapping stories and stuff. So I just realized, oh, I could braid these two narratives, like because they’re commenting on each other.  One is the story of being afraid to get pregnant, and then finally deciding to get pregnant, and then realizing, and for three years I couldn’t get pregnant, and then finally getting pregnant and having the doctor call it a geriatric pregnancy because I was 36. Then so much of it was about claiming agency over my own life and my own experience because four months, five months into the pregnancy, I just felt like I was like a lamb being led to the slaughter.   I felt like I had no choice about how things were done, and I thought, you know what? I want to have a natural childbirth. I don’t want I don’t want this. And but unfortunately, my insurance company said you have a pre-existing condition, pregnancy. You can’t do that, but I did do it. I did do it, and I practiced throughout the pregnancy, having some agency over that experience while I was flashing back to the ancestral story as it was unfolding. Alexandra: Amazing, and so tell us a little bit about the challenges you’ve encountered, and I think you’ve touched on this already.  You tried writing the book 35 years ago. That was maybe one challenge. What have the others been? Bella: Oh, there have been so many challenges. I think the biggest challenge was me, because I just always felt like I wasn’t good enough. And one component of the book that I haven’t mentioned is the repercussions that my great-grandmother’s experience had on my parents’ lives, or had on these succeeding generations.  My grandmother also had a very turbulent relationship. My mother was molested by her father when she was a child. My mother married a man who was abusive. There were just ripples of this problem that went all the way down through the generations up until my generation.  Part of what I learned as a small child, who was beaten sometimes, was I’m bad, and I think I learned very early on to to be an excellent people pleaser, and to not really listen to myself so much as to just pay attention, to read the room, figure out what you need to do, to so that the shit doesn’t hit the fan. I think that kind of spilled into my writing with questions like, “Who do you think you are? What makes you think you can be a writer?” I think that was the hardest thing, and the reason why I said my U.S.M. education in spiritual psychology was the most profound for me was, I mean, it was all profound, but that was particularly profound. I entered that at the age of 40 something, early 40s, thinking that I had failed, that my life was a failure because I had five manuscripts in my file cabinet that hadn’t gone anywhere. I just thought, wow! Like, if I don’t, I’m not sure what I.  I remember when I had to stop dancing, and my identity was so tied up with being a dancer. It was like, well, if I’m not a dancer, who am I? And it took me some years, and then I glommed onto this idea that I’m a writer. But I think what I learned in that program is that we are not what we do. We are spiritual beings having a human experience, and there’s no such thing as failure. There are only opportunities for growth. Alexandra: Oh, nicely said. I imagine that feelings come up as you’re reading this archival material that you’ve got.  Is there some processing that goes on?  Bella: Absolutely. It’s funny because just today I had a little moment with my husband, a little moment of conflict as I mentioned something about the pain. His immediate response was, oh, but there was lots of love too, and I said no, no, no, you don’t understand. We have to make space for the pain. We have to allow it. We have to acknowledge the pain.  Part of the interesting thing about the story is that it wasn’t spoken. No one talked about it. It wasn’t acknowledged. The pain, the harm that was done was not acknowledged, so it’s not like I want to harp on the pain because it was a ton of creativity and love and music and joy, but to not acknowledge the pain perpetuates it. Alexandra: Have you specifically ever bumped into things like has it brought up big feelings for you? Bella: I have all sorts of ways of dealing with big feelings. I mean, I work in my journal, and I I hesitate to say I work in my journal. I would rather say I listen in my journal, and the force that I listen to that I call my wise self. When I show up there, I get guidance from a source that is greater than me.  That is not the little complaining, worried person that I can be. It’s an eternal presence that resides within us all. I believe. I also move. I’m still a dancer, even though I don’t dance in that way. I like to move. I like to put on music. I like to move my body and let my body. I just listen with my body, and then I’ll just move. I’ll try to move energy and release stuff that’s in my body that I can feel in my body. And I practice yoga, and I do Reiki, and I do massages. Like I have a you know practices that I engage in regularly to help move them. Alexandra: Nice. And so going back to this, the wise self that you talk to in your journal, can you take us through what that looks like?  What do you do to access that part of yourself? Bella: I just sit down with my journal. I just show up, and then I just start complaining, and then eventually the wise self shows up. It doesn’t take long, and then the wise self will start speaking in the second person. I’ve been complaining in the first person, and the wise person will say, “Bella, you just relax, slow down. It’s okay. Like give yourself a break. You don’t have to be perfect. Look at what you’ve been dealing with. You’ve been traveling with your mother in Italy, and she can be very challenging sometimes. And you know, I’m sure you’re just as challenging to her. You know, just like chill.”  I’ll realize, oh yeah, I’m reminded. And then, and if I have questions, I’ll ask questions. For a long time, I did left-handed writing because I was forced to slow down when I wrote with my left hand, non-dominant handwriting, because that way I was forced to slow down and listen.  But I ask a lot of questions and I just try to listen and it’s just there always for all of us. But I think most of us don’t know that it’s there. We don’t know that we can access this wisdom within, and that it is there, and it does guide us, and it doesn’t care about the things that we think are such big deals in our lives. I didn’t get what I wanted. It’s something much larger. And knowing that’s there just means that I’m kind of okay no matter what. Alexandra: I love that. While writing this big project, this family history interwoven with your pregnancy: Have you ever had any moments where you hit the wall, didn’t know where to go or what to do next? Bella: Yeah, I mean, when I wrote the pregnancy book? Oh my gosh, I was so naive. I can remember I actually sent it out to some agents, just the pregnancy book, and I mean, it was a first draft. It wasn’t even a first draft. I remember it got returned to me, and it would sit on my step, and I would walk in my gate, and I would be like, “I hope nobody sees this. I hope nobody knows that I’m a failed writer.”  I felt so much shame around it, but I didn’t have any idea that there were certain prerequisites that I had to fulfill in order to complete a project of this scope. And so I thought I was failing, failing, failing, but in fact, when I read, I actually have it right here on my desk. This was my journal from when I was in Italy. It says summer 1994. I had made a paper collage over it, and as I was reading yesterday, the paper just was it’s so old it was just peeling off. So I just had to peel it all off and took pictures of it. It wasn’t, “No, you’re not good enough.” It was, “Not yet”, right? Not yet. And it’s and the number of not yets. Like I didn’t know they were not yets. I just thought it was no, no, no. You suck. You’re not good enough. Why are you trying? I didn’t know that.  I mean, I knew I was on my path, but I kind of hoped that I could gain some recognition or be seen. What I realized is being seen and getting recognition, it’s an inside job, because you never know where your writing is going to go. And there’s like I don’t know a million books, more than a million books published every day in America.  My joy right now is working on this project, and I almost don’t want it to end because I know what comes next. I know then it’s okay, publishing decisions and marketing and all that publicity, and I’m loving the writing so much. I’m loving the discovery, and I’m also feeling like I got to be with my mom in Rome in 1948, and my grandmother in 1950. I feel like I’m knowing parts of my ancestors that I never knew before, and so I feel just so rich. That’s the reason. I mean, that’s substantial. I don’t think anything that could happen after I’m done writing this could be as profound as that. That’s the gift. Alexandra: I was just going to say, that is such a gift. That’s amazing. One of the things that I really admire about you because we’re. For the listeners, we’re in a mastermind group together, and we have been for six or seven years, maybe now at this point.  Is that how you have held this project so lightly? It seems to me, and have let it evolve as it wanted to. I guess one of the things that I saw was you mentioned writing in the micro and flash fiction, and I at the time I thought Bella: It’s nonfiction. Alexandra: Sorry nonfiction. You started to learn about that format, and then and then realized that was the direction that you wanted to take for the book. And this question might be a little bit vague: Can you talk about the balance between having a clear vision for a project and also letting it evolve if it wants to. Bella: Here’s what I’ve learned about. I love this question, by the way. Here’s what I’ve learned: is that you must begin before you feel ready. Alexandra: Ah, yes. Bella: Every month for the last two, well, maybe the whole time I’ve been working with my editor, which is since 2024. No, 2022. So it’s been four years I’ve been working on this with her. Every time at the beginning of a new month, when I go back to my archives and I’m like, I have a general idea where, like just today, I didn’t know. I didn’t have the outline. I didn’t have a clear outline to the end of the ancestral story. I wrote the pregnancy story some time ago. I’ve been working on the ancestral story, and then when it’s done, I’ll weave them.  But what I’ve learned is that the thing about the creative process is that you just have to have faith that even though you don’t know where you’re going or you just have a hazy glimmer of where you might be going, you have to do it anyway. You have to just start.  I always think of that great E. L. Doctorow quote: “writing a novel is like driving on a mountain road at night. You can only see as far as your headlights illuminate.” Same thing with writing. You just look at what’s right in front of you. What’s the next thing that you need to do?  For me yesterday, I wasn’t sure what the next thing was. I was like, oh, the next thing is read your journal from Italy in 1994, and then I did that, and I was like, oh my god! And then it was like, what’s the next thing?  I got to write about this in my journal. I didn’t know this morning when I wrote in my journal that the outline for the rest of the ancestral story would emerge, I had no idea. So I never know, really. Even when I work with outlines, like for Raw, My Journey from Anxiety to Joy, I remember when I first started that project, my editor wanted me to outline it, and I thought, okay, I was pretty clear. Raw is divided into three sections: body, mind, and spirit.  I pretty much knew the body story and I knew the mind story. But what I didn’t know was that I hadn’t yet lived the spirit story. That spiritual stuff was going to come and hit the fan while I was working, so I fudged it in the outline, and I did the best I could. And then, as I was writing, actually in the middle of that project, we had five family deaths in three years, and I was the executor of my mom’s estate, and it was contentious. I developed an anxiety disorder, and I was scared to leave my house. I really didn’t know that I had kind of been suffering with the low-grade anxiety for most of my life until it exploded and became a full-on disorder that made me dysfunctional.  In that time, I also had some mystical experiences that showed me who I really am and what really matters. Once I lived through that, I completely revised my outline for the last section of the book. People say, are you a plotter or a panster? Do you plot an outline or do you just fly by the seat of your pants? And I would say that I do both. I really love structure, but I also like to wander, and I think both for me, my writing is served both by wandering and also figuring out what the structure is. And usually, after a while, the structure just emerges, like it did this morning when I was working in my journal. Alexandra: So well said, and I love that. Begin almost before you’re ready.  Bella: Just begin before you’re ready. Alexandra: Yes, exactly. Bella: And just have faith. Just trust the process. I tell this to my students all the time. Whatever the big trick is to get out of your own way, so that what wants to come through you is free to come through you. That’s the trick, and to not worry so much about what it is because eventually it will announce itself.  This project announced itself two years ago when I realized, huh, I’ve been pulling stories from both of these manuscripts. I wonder if I could combine these these two manuscripts and make a one one manuscript instead of like two horribly long kitchen sink manuscripts that meander in every which direction. What if I just plucked and chiseled and polished each story presented it that way? It’s a mosaic, and it’s beautiful because each story stands on its own and has its own narrative. But then it’s also part of a larger story. Alexandra: I think this project is such a good example of the right time and place. 35 years ago, obviously, you weren’t the writer that you are now, and you hadn’t learned all the things that you’ve learned now at this point in your life. I think it’s so great that we can come back to these things.  If it’s not the right time now, then it’ll be the right time later. Bella: Maybe or maybe not. I’m just reading this book by Elizabeth Jarrett Andrew. I don’t know if you know her. She’s a wonderful writer. It’s called. It’s something about. I meant to bring it with me and have it here for the interview, but because I knew I knew it was going to come up because I’ve been reading it. It’s on my mind.  She says that it’s valuable to write even if you don’t want to publish. So even if I hadn’t picked up this manuscript, working on it the way I did for a decade, I worked on it for a decade in my 30s. That changed me. That grew me. So even if we don’t publish our work, it doesn’t make the writing any less valuable. Alexandra: I totally agree. Yes, because as you say, and I believe this too, it’s what’s happening to us as we’re writing it that actually matters. The end result is a nice cherry on top, but what really matters is what happens to us. Bella: At the end of the day, the writing writes us. That’s true of dance too. When I dance, the dancing is dancing me. Alexandra: Nice. Oh, that’s lovely. So that’s a great segue. You are a writing teacher, and you’ve been doing that for a while.  What have you noticed about the healing that takes place with your students when they write? Bella: Okay, well, first let’s just break that up into two pieces. Maybe the first piece is I thought you were going to ask me what do you notice in your students because you’re a writing teacher. What do you notice in your students, just in a more general way? Because we’ll get to the healing. That’s part B of the question.  Part A of the question is the first thing that I notice is that most people don’t recognize their own gifts, and most people engaged in a creative endeavor that involves vulnerability and self-expression, or that involves self-expression which necessitates vulnerability, they need to feel safe. They need to understand that it’s a sacred process, and they need to be held and supported and loved. Period. That’s the first thing.  In terms of growth as a writer, anytime anybody wants critical feedback, they can receive that, but only if they ask for it. And there’s all kinds. There’s many ways to learn. I personally don’t think that heavy criticism is the best way to teach people how to learn how to write. I think people need to feel free and unencumbered and celebrated.  So when that happens, I’m segueing to part B. When that happens, people realize that all the things that they thought they couldn’t say, they can say. And when that happens, people are starting to connect with the divine eternal wisdom that they have inside of themselves, and that is healing because that divine eternal wisdom knows a lot more than we do, and that’s what I mean when I say get out of your own. I help people get out of their own way. Alexandra: What are some ways that you do that? Bella: I do that by setting ground rules, such as when someone’s done reading, I’m going to ask the group, “What did you appreciate about what you heard?” You’re only allowed to say what you appreciated. You’re not allowed to make suggestions for improvement. You’re not allowed to say parts that were confusing. You’re not allowed to make any helpful comments. You’re only allowed to say what you appreciated about what you heard. They’re small groups, anywhere from six to eight people in a group, and then usually every person in the group gets a chance to say what they appreciated, and that creates trust in the group. It’s not like oh that person didn’t speak. No, it’s like everybody says what they appreciated, and you can always find something to appreciate, even from the most beginning writer. There’s always something to appreciate, so I cultivate in my students an ear for listening for what they appreciate.  Then I ask the writer, “Do you have any questions? And then the writer can say, “Oh, you know, did it make sense when I did X, Y, and Z, or was it confusing when I spoke about this, or do you have any suggestions for improving the language?” Alot of times people just say no, I’m good, and that’s fine, and they learn from each other, they learn from the conversations, and it’s a powerful environment.  It’s called Write Where You Are, and I’ve been teaching for over 20 years and have helped hundreds of writers, and many of them have gone on to publish books and become authors and healers and leaders in their communities.  I will say this about that work. One time I was having a conversation with this writer. I think this was before I became a writing teacher and coach. I thought I had to wait till I had a book published before I could teach writing. Which now that I look back, I didn’t need to do that. I could have still taught writing. I waited longer than I needed to, but this woman said to me, I’ll never forget. She said, “You, madam, are a natural born coach”.  I remember thinking, “Huh”, and that was years before I became one. I think the reason is I see, I do see the sort of divine spark in everybody that I work with, and unlike writing, which was a the skill, the craft of writing took me my whole life to to to practice and learn. I do have a God given gift, or I don’t know if you want to use the word God, but I do have a gift that comes to me from the universe that just I understand what people need.  Maybe it’s because I did live in that household that was violent and difficult, and in order to stay alive, I had to be really perceptive about what was going on. So, I’m sensitive and intuitive, and I can tell what each person needs, and what each person needs is different from what another person needs, and I just tune into that.  This is the reason why I don’t write in my writing circles myself. I know the Amherst method says you’ve got to show your students you’re one of them, you’re just like them, you’re a writer too. But I find that my writer self is too insecure. I can’t focus on my writer. I can’t show up as my writer self and then also do this thing with where I tune into people and guide them. To me, those are just two different lives. So I don’t write with my students. I focus all my attention on their growth and upliftment. Alexandra: I love the point you brought up there that writing is an opportunity to tell the truth. I’m sure you encounter that sometimes it’s the first time a person has told the truth about an experience that they’ve had. Bella: Yeah, and many people have been ghosted. Many people-is that the right word? Ghosted. I feel like that. I’m wondering if that’s the right word. Well, it doesn’t matter. Many people show up having no idea, even what their truth is. Alexandra: Yes. Even just writing in a journal is an opportunity to tell the truth. Bella: And an opportunity to tell the truth and to connect with the small quiet voice within, which is the voice of wisdom, and many people once they come to the circles, they stay. They stay for a long time. There’s one every eight weeks. I have a student who’s been with me for 10 years. I have students who’ve been with me three years, five years.  I think people are hungry for the freedom of a of a small supportive community that can hold space for them while they explore whatever it is they need to explore on the page. Alexandra: I’m just having a huge epiphany right now while we’re talking about how writing is sometimes the first time a person will slow down enough, and tell the truth, even if it’s just to themselves about an experience that they’ve had. And how valuable that’s been in my life and in others’ lives that I’ve seen, and what a gift that you are able to support people to do that. Bella: Yeah, lovely. I feel like actually the gift was given to me, and I think the best kind of gifts are the ones that energetically keep moving. Alexandra: Yes, nicely said. Speaking of your writing circles, tell us where we can find out more about you and your work. Bella: My website is bellamahaya carter.com, and it has my writing there, my publications, my writing circles, coaching information. It’s all there.  I also write a monthly Substack newsletter called Flying Lessons for Writers, and I try each month to write something that I feel very connected to that I think will inspire other writers to fly both on the page and in their lives, because I am interested very much in writing. I love writing and I love the craft of writing and I love to help people become better writers and I’m constantly trying myself to become a better writer and I’m equally fascinated in becoming as large and authentic a human being as possible, and I’m equally interested in facilitating that process in others through the medium of writing. Alexandra: Great, awesome. I will put links to all those things in the show notes so people can find you and your work. This has been a real pleasure, Bella.  Is there anything else you wanted to share before we wrap up? Bella: Ah, let’s see. Gosh, this time went fast. I don’t think so. I guess I just want to say thank you for having me on your show. I’m excited to watch all of your interviews. Alexandra: Well, thank you so much. I appreciate that. All right. Well, take care, and I will see you soon. Bella: All right. Take care. Click here to grab your complimentary copy of the Creative Alchemy journaling handbook. The post Telling Our Truth in Writing with Bella Mahaya Carter appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Natalee Bigger Stockdale is a cult survivor and an art therapist. In this episode, Natalee and I talk about the healing power of creative expression for cult survivors, and other survivors of trauma. Among other topics, Natalee points out that when we use visual means of creative expression (painting, drawing, etc.) we bypass the language areas of our brain, which accesses other parts of ourselves that need healing. She also talks about how creative expression is an excellent tool for helping us recover our sense of self after being in a high-demand group. In the introduction, I talk about a recent article that highlights the art therapy being made available to wildfire evacuees in Penticton, British Columbia. This episode of Creative Alchemy is supported by the audiobook version of my award-winning, Amazon best-selling memoir, Cult, A Love Story. Readers call the book ‘compelling’ ‘gritty’ ‘intimate’ and ‘not boring’ – which is what an author loves to hear. I narrated the audiobook and if you have a Spotify premium subscription you can listen to the audiobook for free as part of that subscription at alexandraamor.com/spotify. Natalee Bigger Stockdale holds a bachelor’s degree in studio art and business from the University of Northwestern and a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling and art therapy from Adler Graduate School. She has worked in clinical practice as a Board-Certified Art Therapist (ATR-BC), Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor (LPCC), and is a Board-Certified Neurofeedback provider (BCN-L). Natalee completed a postgraduate certificate in the Psychology of Coercive Control (PgCert) through Salford Univeristy and has relocated to purse doctoral work with Florida State University in the Art Therapy Practice and Research Program, supporting the recovery journey of victims of exploitative persuasion. Self-portrait by Natalee Bigger Stockdale Connect with Natalee at LinkedIn. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Discovering art therapy after immersion in music and ceramics On meeting her husband who had also been in a cult On Adlerian psychology and its core tenant of belonging How making art reflects how we present ourselves in the world Coming to enjoy recovery work with those from high demand groups Getting involved with a somatic drumming group as a licensed therapist that turned out to be high demand When is it safe to explore art therapy after a high demand experience? How making art bypasses the language centres of the brain How to find an art therapist to work with Suggestions for using art on our own to heal Resources mentioned in this episode Article at the CBC website about art therapy for wildfire evacuees The International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) The Lalich Center on Cults and Coercion The American Art Therapy Association   The Canadian Art Therapy Association   Julia Cameron and The Artist’s Way Transcript of Interview with Natalee Bigger Stockdale Alexandra: Natalee Bigger Stockdale, welcome to Creative Alchemy. Natalee: Thank you, Alexandra. It’s nice to be here. Alexandra: It’s great to have you here. Tell us a little bit about your background. Natalee: Sure. I know we’ll probably get into the professional part because that’ll be part of art therapy. But for me personally, I grew up in Iowa in the U.S. So Midwestern girl, kind of rural and small town. I always loved art; was really drawn to that. But I was trained in classical music. That was my mom’s dream for me and our family. And it was easy for me. Still worked, but I think the thing that was the easiest and just came out of me naturally as a maybe like a native language, if you will, or native expressive mode was through visual. When I was in high school, I had a really wonderful art teacher, and after I graduated, she told me art was always easy for you, and so that helped me define myself as an artistic person. Although I had all this classical training in music, and that’s what I decided to pursue in college. Even though it’s like a maybe a starving artist degree, I’m lucky that it ended up where I am. I’ve always followed my heart that way, and really value being led. I guess, like by my intrinsic interests. Let’s see what else. I love being outside and out in the forest. That’s always something that’s drawn me back to myself is trying to get near, especially rivers. They just call me. Alexandra: You moved from undergraduate work into a greater interest in art therapy. How did that happen? Natalee: I moved from Iowa up to the Twin Cities for my undergrad degree. I focused mostly on painting and ceramics, and then I spent about seven years in production ceramics. And it is hard work. It’s takes a toll on your body, my body, and there are a lot of different things. You don’t talk a whole lot. It’s a lot of numbers. I did glaze testing for a while, mixing dry chemicals. I did a lot of slip casting for my own work and dry clay mixing, so it was pretty. I don’t know. I guess it was it was fun and playful at sometimes, but it’s also this thing that turns into a job with deadlines and the hustle. And so, along with that, I would say in that realm, a lot of folks are there just for the art and production, not necessarily self-reflection and internal exploration. I was always longing for that and missing that when it wasn’t happening in the production scene, and so I ended up moving. I had a roommate who was trying to get to New York for an art therapy degree, and I had heard about art therapy before. And it lit me up, and I had that intrinsic draw towards it, and I didn’t feel like I could pull off New York, but Minnesota had a one school that offered a master’s degree, and so eventually I was able to become stable enough. Actually, met my husband. Maybe I’ll do a little segue here. He loves telling this story. We both were in high demand groups, and he had never found really any help or anyone who understood that. He had gone to therapy and started unpacking some some of his own stuff, and he had gotten married while he was trying to escape this hiding group, and realized that that relationship wasn’t ever a match. It was more of a like escape route, and so that was dissolving. As he was in therapy trying to figure out the next direction, I guess we ended crossing paths, and I thought he was total trouble. I was afraid of being attracted to someone, and I would say he was the first person that I was genuinely ever attracted to, and which is kind of bonkers, I guess. We end up going on a date. It goes great, super great. Then the and we went to American Craft Council show. So talk about creativity. We’re in creative spaces, looking at aesthetics and beauty and craft. And we go on a second date, and we’re walking around Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, and he all of a sudden changes, and I’m like, what is going on? He just went into a turtle shell, and I think I had asked a question where the timeline wasn’t like clear. You know, you’re like trying to get to know this person you’re like interested in. He turns to me and I could tell he expected rejection, and he goes, “Well, I was part of a cult.” To this day he’ll say that he thought I was going to be like, okay, bye. And I was so relieved when he said that. My eyes got big, and I took a step towards him, and I just said, me too. We’ve been inseparable ever since. Alexandra: Oh wow! I’m getting chills all over when you said that. Natalee: Yeah. So that’s it. He’s a really big gift to me. I think we are to each other. And long story short, up to how I got into grad school. Life finally became stable for both of us in a lot of different ways when we found each other, and I was able to pursue that dream of getting an art therapy degree, and got into private practice, and this is a key point, though, with my specific degree. I was trained in Adlerian psychology, and quick snippet. I guess this is like nothing that I wrote on the paper question, but maybe it’ll be interesting. Adler, Freud, and Young were all contemporaries. Adler is easily forgotten in the history or lineage of psychology because he was actually the president of Freud’s publishing house, and he disagreed with Freud publicly in one of the forums about women being inferior, and that our core drive was of a sexual nature. Freud called a vote, and they voted him out. He was excommunicated, and all of his publishings in Freud’s journal were revoked. And so Adler went away and continued develop to develop what we call individual psychology. It’s its own branch of psychology, and it’s at its core, it’s about belonging. The desire to belong with our fellow human is our core. It determines our behavior of how this is going to help me secure a position with people around me. Whether that’s a tragic strategy to meet that need or a beneficial one is more of the question. And he was really into the creative life force, so that everybody is a unique creative expression. Their personhood, their personality, and anytime we interact with someone different, it’s actually like a whole different painting, if you will, or like a whole different, even hybrid. Like when two different people come together, that’s even a new thing. So for me, it dovetails into art therapy really well because there’s the meta level, but then when it comes down into the materials and working with someone in materials in a clinical way, it’s you’re seeing that person in a projective exercise, and not only in what they create, but how they create it, how they choose to sort through which materials they want to go towards, or how they display confidence in trying something new, or going to a familiar thing, or mixing things, or we call it containment. I hear this almost in my professor’s words: the containment of the materials. Is it all over the room? Are we needing to bring it in for them, and that’s a co-regulating act, or is it hard for them to even make a mark because they’re afraid to take up space or to make a mistake? So different kind of spectrums or directions of movement with that. I did that for about five years. And at Adler, it’s very embodied, I would say, and very relational. So experiential learning is Adlerian. He’s also very pragmatic. I love psychoanalysis, and my friendly folks who practice this invaluable. Thank you for their work. Adler had this idea of brief therapy, that it was to help people get to that strategy, resolve this strategy of how to have their need for belonging met, and if we can help them do that, then we can help them get along in their lives, and we work ourselves out of a job, essentially. So, that being said, Adler Graduate School was a nonprofit, and it was not a research institute, and my classes that I was most intrigued with were these more like assessments how they had taken art making and then applied standardized measurement tools to it, which is really hard. That’s like so abstract. But there’s several people who are in that and gathering data on that and generating kind of these themes. Or I won’t say norms, but ideas that come out of humans when they go through certain things, or when they’re connected in a certain way, or how they display a family, projective exercise of their family on a piece of paper. So that’s what really drew me into my interest in PhD. I was always reaching out to people in my textbooks, seeing if anybody would get back to me, and one did. Except Dr. Nancy Gerber, who I am getting to work with at FSU. She walked me through this process after I was licensed and working with people and really getting to know the field, she said. If you want to get into doctoral work, look for the gap. I fell in love with high demand group recovery work. There’s so little, and clinically speaking, I mean, we’ve got podcasters, we’ve got Netflix, like these are all arts, like valid collective expressions of this theme that’s emerging in the collective awareness. We don’t necessarily have that up to speed in research, scholarly work, therapeutic best practices. I’ll rewind just a second; I got involved with a somatic drumming group as a licensed therapist that sucked me down the trail where I was like, oh, you know what? I’ve been here before in my early 20s. I got involved with a high demand group. I know what this feeling is. I’ve done EEG training. I know what this looks like on a screen. My theta is off the charts right now, and I am dissociating. And they’re telling me that it’s good. No, it’s not good. It’s not. I’m getting ready to either be rewritten according to their agenda, which I don’t know what that is, so I can’t give consent, or I’m just going to float away until like nothing’s left. You can even tell, like, just recalling it. So good intentions bound me up in a similar situation, and I left. I left in time, and I had something that got brought up for me. So I guess the researcher term is like heuristic, like starting from within research. And I had this experience come up for me, where I was like, I’ve been a licensed therapist, and nobody’s ever mentioned cult, high demand group, religious trauma, course of control, interpersonal relational betrayal. All of these terms that are starting to bubble up from people having Reddit conversations and wherever we find our little threads to talk about it, and that’s the gap. I felt like I needed to do something about that, and I’ve been so humbled in my PhD practice. I’m like, okay, everybody comes in thinks that they’re going to change the world. I saw this on a meme yesterday. I was like, that’s it. Now I’m just trying to change the font on my final paper. Like I’m just trying to make the next deadline. That’s it. I mean, those do add up over time. But that’s that’s what my inspiration is, and why I’m checking this out, and really, I guess even more so, trying to find like an even smaller gap, because in dissertation we really I need to get really clear about what’s going to be most valuable. What’s gonna help people know, if I go this direction, it’s going to help me, not harm me with creative expression or writing or singing or any of those things. I’m not a music therapist, and that’s a whole other branch of clinical that I won’t be into. I’m yeah trying to recycle that for myself. Also, we have a lot of, we call it reflexivity in research, where we don’t want to project our. It’s a really hard tension and line to walk, which is I’m led by something that I know, but I can’t let that blind me to other possibilities or other ways of asking questions when I approach people for the data. And so that’s a thing I grapple with. Alexandra: As someone who has had the experience of high demand groups, how have you found art to be healing? Natalee: I love that question. I I think it’s like coming home for me. Visual art for me is simple. It’s clear, and I almost want to use the word pure for me. That might not be the case for everyone. I also am neurodivergent, so I have dyslexia and definitely have a strong spatial bent to me. I think this is really curious. Daphna Moria, she’s a art therapist researcher out of Israel who just published a paper on doing a kind of like a comprehensive overview of one’s own body of artwork, and then how to look at that from a scholarly or like researcher point of view, and unknowingly, when I heard her speak and read her paper, I am like, oh my gosh, I did that about art because I had this whole body of artwork that I had made that I could never explain. If you go through art school, your teachers are always like yakking at you about clarify your voice, clarify what you’re saying, and I’m like, how do I do that? It’s an image, like, and no one can see me. No one’s speaking to the wound that happened, so I don’t know how to articulate this or even in what direction to go. It was purely material exploration at a certain point. But these themes, as I’ve gone back and looked at them, is actually the portfolio that I pulled together to get me into the PhD program, and after doing a software program and really getting plugged into ICSA, I would say here in the U.S. That’s like the you know the thing that we kind of look to. Organization. I started getting language for it, like being able to consciously articulate. Hey, when I was working with broken shards of porcelain, I wasn’t like someone else where I was throwing those pieces away and moving towards a different material. I was determined to use these, even though they’re broken and they’re razor sharp. What’s up with that? But I I projected some part of my identity into these pieces that I had to gather and make something out of. And I still have one hanging up over there. I turned them into little pieces of stained glass where you put the copper tape around them and then solder, and then put a jump ring, and then I made them into mobiles. It was like finding balance with all of these broken pieces. I call them reimagine, and I consider them a self-portrait, because I had the imagination of what it was going to be when it first came out of the mold, but that didn’t work. So I might liken that to like approaching a group and then appealing to that glimmer of belonging, however, that hooks different people. Mine was significance, I think. Having some sort of permanence or like closeness with a group of people who are headed in the same direction. After you leave, it’s almost like I had to give up on that dream. But that’s in essence what I rediscovered with these pieces, and then articulating later in words, is, oh, it’s not the dream that my psyche and soul cast to belong. It’s just how I was trying to get there, and this this dynamic that took advantage of it, So, however that happens, I know enough to know I know very little, and there’s very complicated dynamics with all those things. Alexandra: On that note, when do you think it’s appropriate for a cult survivor or a survivor of other kinds of trauma to begin art therapy? Is there a time when it isn’t safe? You know how they say when people join Alcoholics Anonymous, for example, you’re supposed to stay out of relationships for a year. So, is there a similar rule, so to speak, around when someone could start art therapy? Natalee: That’s a good question. I guess what comes to mind first when you ask that, and I have different things written down, but the first thing that comes to mind is that art therapy was birthed in the in the most destitute, like highest acuity populations. Art therapy was the last resort for people who were beyond help. So, state kept wards and veterans, so like really severe PTSD suffering individuals, and what they know clinically speaking about the art is that the act of making or expressing through image, or play, or different materials, it bypasses the language centers of the brain. Oftentimes when we’re doing cognitive and talk therapy, we’re activating those parts of the brain to try to reprocess, but they can reinvoke the experience of that traumatic happening. So our memories, we can feel them up to 60% of when they when they first occurred to us. That’s an awesome survival tactic to map safety in the world. But when we’re in talk therapy, that can flood someone very quickly. So when we do these projective exercises, it can bypass that part. We might talk about it after. We might do containment with just the materials. We might have put it in a folder at the end of session and saying, “Okay, like we’re closing up now. This will be here for whenever we want to revisit it later.” That person can have a tangible symbol. And I guess there’s neuroscience too. I don’t know how far you want to go down these things, but I find them so interesting because I think it’s almost linked to how I naturally experience the world and ask questions and process. So I’ll tell this one other thing, and then maybe I’ll get back to your question. The part of the brain called the hippocampus is responsible for geographical remembrance and navigation. There is some research that suggests that that’s also similar to how we orient our relationships. So, like our human relationships. So we can use projective exercises, even like with blocks. It doesn’t have to be necessarily art materials, but we can use these blocks to project the experiences for warmth or coldness, distance, closeness. Is this person more emotional with me? Are they more cognitive with me? We start mapping the experience of these people or or ourselves. I’ve told everyone that’s on this board, but I’m trying to pull together a committee for my doctoral research, and I have every person that I have an option of asking. I have them printed off and then on a magnet, and in the center, this egocentric exercise. I’m there in the center, and I’m starting to map who’s who’s my team, and it mirrors it back to me, so that I don’t lose it. Somehow, that’s a a confirming circle or loop for me to be able to interact with objects that way. If I talk through it, it seems to flutter away. So that’s one of those little like neurological hacks. I think that’s really interesting about art. I try to observe that a lot with folks that I sit with in session with spatial orientation of materials of what they’re putting on the paper, even if they’re really like drawn to fibers or like knotting jewelry bracelets. There’s kind of like a bilateral soothing thing to that, like okay, we’re like doing some somatic soothing, and usually that pacing, like we can wind down in the session and get to like one or two, like maybe like big landing places for them of like whoa, I experience betrayal, and then they just go right back into knotting. So it’s not this big overdone, explosive emotion. I guess it’s really taken into the objects. So to your question about the bunny trail, I love bunny trails. They might be my favorite animal. Your question is: Is there a wrong time to start art therapy? I would say, obviously, if the person’s in crisis, like there’s a pretty big spectrum of people coming out of groups, and depending how long they’ve been in the group, what group is if they’re first generation survivor, second generation survivor can be determinants of whether art therapy is maybe an auxiliary support. If we’re in crisis management, I don’t want to be doing bracelet reading with you. I mean, it could be helpful in like an extreme case, but we want to make sure basic needs are met. So that’s part of any clinical assessment, though. With having someone come in and we’re checking, are your basic needs met? Are you experiencing the closest? Do you need medical attention? Sometimes that role is helping those those services get lined up first. I think it’s important to know too that art therapy is an emerging field. At Adler, I was dually credentialed. I didn’t really know this when I got out into the big, big broad world of art therapy, but I was trained as a licensed professional clinical counselor and an art therapist. I see art coming through in pretty much everything I do, especially as like a meta view of I’m a pretty creative person. Even with how I talk to people, so with that being said, there may be certain art therapists that have extra clinical support that they can offer. So that can be kind of a dovetailing service or support. I would look at probably like more stability of the person, and then the fit. Obviously, we want the fit of the person with the therapists to be good, and some art therapists, I’ve been trying to do my due diligence with presenting, but not all. Just like normal therapist world, not all therapists know about this, and in fact, many of them don’t. And even if they know about it, it’s are they willing to learn outside of session? The Lalich Center has a course that therapists can take. Are they willing to check that out? Are they willing to meet you there? This goes for art therapists too, and credentialing is up and coming too. I’m duly credentialed in Minnesota and in Florida, but some some art therapists aren’t, and so that’s just a different consideration to take in mind. And I would say for the person who’s looking for art therapy, or like, is that a potential for me? What do I want out of this? Am I going in with an idea of I’m going to develop skills around art that might be an art class, not an art therapy class or session. With art therapy, you’re going to probably have some really profound digging. It’s our job to itirate and stay pace with you, but it’s also this like we’re not doing our job if we’re not asking hard questions and being there with someone with the with the darker stuff. So yeah, asking what they want out of it. Art therapists are also going to have a treatment plan goal. I think they should. For cult survivors, I think it is really important that they also know an end date. For me, honestly, I sometimes shy away from engaging with my own therapy because I’m like, oh gosh, wherever. I need that because I’m in mental health, caring for other people. But yeah, I think that it is important, especially with payment too. That’s a final thing I would say for people to ask about is upfront, like what is the pay agreement? Do you take insurance? Do you have a sliding scale fee if you’re not in insurance? How many sessions do you think it might take to work through this this specific issue? I’m thinking that type of client probably is I would five to 10 years out of their group. Although, if it’s someone’s way that they process, like it could be straight out of their group that they’re like, I just need a place where someone can witness me expressing this horrible thing, horrible things that happen to me, and be able to contain it with me. Alexandra: Very good points, and I really appreciate you bringing that up because I think it’s so important for people to keep themselves safe when they’re searching. As a cult survivor myself, and you’ve had this experience too, we’re so vulnerable when we’ve just left a high high demand group. The reminder that we can set boundaries around these things. Ask for the pay schedule, like you said, and the end date, and those kinds of things. I think that’s so valuable. And I love that you said too: this is not an art class. It’s therapy; that is right in the name. Just a reminder about that as well. I loved what you said about language; that art circumvents, or I don’t know if that’s the word you use, goes around those language parts of our brain. I had never thought about it that way before. There was just such a light bulb that went on for me when you said that. As a word person, a writer and someone who expresses themselves very much verbally, I can really see the value sometimes in getting out of that kind of habit in a way and expressing myself in a different way, so that was really interesting. On that note, how would a cult survivor or anyone else find an art therapist in their area? Natalee: I would probably point them to American Art Therapy Association’s website. They have a provider directory, and within that, usually most states are having their own chapters nowadays. Minnesota just dissolved, but Florida has one, so you can check out their website. americanarttherapy.org, I believe, and you can search, I believe, by state and check out who’s who’s licensed and certified that way. Alexandra: I’ll put a link to that in the show notes, and then I’ll see if I can find a Canadian equivalent as well. Since I’m in Canada, there must be. Natalee: Yes. I think there is a Canadian Art Therapy Association. I’m pretty sure there is. So, I can try and send that to you as well. Alexandra: Okay, great. I’ll put some links in the show notes. If someone doesn’t have the resources to work with an art therapist one on one, what are some other things that they could do if they feel drawn to art making. Natalee: I think of art therapy really as a spectrum, and I don’t want to say that things outside of the clinical setting are therapy because that’s not therapy. But it’s still this really essential part of their creative self that they may have the safety even just alone to start reflecting in a nonverbal way and starting to capture notes. Not like I would say like visual notes, like like an aggregate of esthetics, if you will, I think these are powerful things that we can reference in constructing or reconstructing identity after we’ve been through identity dissolution or foreclosure. I would say get a sketchbook if that draws you. That might be get water colorings, little setup, put it in your backpack. It might be knitting for some people. Go towards the thing that draws you. Maybe go on a day trip to Michael’s, if you’ve got the budget. Set a funny dollar budget, and what’s one little thing I could acquire to inspire me? In that act, there’s these micro choices And discernment or self connection, where you get to make a choice again, and practicing that choice making, and then having an object at the end to take with you, can be kind of that anchor, if you will, in other environments. I think that’s a what I would say. There’s a really phenomenal author named. I think she’s great but she might have a cult following, so don’t get too culty about it, I guess. But Julia Cameron, She wrote The Artist’s Way, and teaches about writing three pages longhand a day. She’s got a free app. If that’s a way that someone wants to continue like catharsis or like getting the words out, the narrative out. And then the thing I just mentioned; I have to give her credit for that because that’s called what she calls an artist’s date, where you go out with your I think maybe like magical inner child and you something that delights you that you get to return to play. There’s not a goal that you’re trying to accomplish. So just practices that kind of loosen that and then get back into, I’m a human being. Alexandra: That’s such a good reminder about the artist dates. And she says things like even just going to a yarn store, even if you don’t knit, but just seeing the colors and feeling the different textures that she considers to be an artist’s date. Natalee: Yes. Absolutely. And maybe finding other creatives. I was like, yes, I remember that. It’s delicious. Like in a kind of like alive kind of way. Colors and textures, and like being drawn to different things in the store, and wonder. Oh, that’s fun to just even talk about it. Alexandra: I don’t go on enough artist dates. I need to do that more these days. This has been so lovely, Natalie. It’s been so nice talking to you. So you’re doing your doctoral dissertation now, so you’re not necessarily out in the world. Is there anywhere we can go to learn more about you? Natalee: If I have work coming out, I will put it on my LinkedIn profile. So, if there’s folks who want to follow along or friend me or connect or whatever, that’s where I’ll be for a little while. Alexandra: Great. Okay, so I will put a link to that in the show notes as well. And you mentioned ICSA as well, and I wanted to say, for those who don’t know, that’s the International Cultic Studies Association, and I’ll put a link to that in the show notes as well. We’re recording this in July 2026. You were you at their conference earlier this month? Natalee: I had two presentations with them this year on art therapy and internalized shame that was with Felicia Rosario and I think people might be able to find recordings of those maybe in their archives if that interests them. Pretty academic, so I fair warning. I think interesting, but just you know, and you can see that body of artwork that I talked about that got me into the PhD work on one of those. Alexandra: Awesome. Okay. Again, thank you, Natalie. It’s been lovely chatting with you. Natale: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Click here to grab your complimentary copy of the Creative Alchemy journaling handbook. The post Art Therapy for Cult Survivors with Natalee Bigger Stockdale appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

Christi Christiaens belonged to an immortality cult for 30 years. Her book, Wager on Forever, explores how she was drawn into the cult, how the trio of cult leaders applied the usual strategies to keep their followers on the hook, and how Christi was ultimately able to leave the group. Unfortunately, in order to do this, she had to leave her adult son behind. He’s still involved with the cult as of this recording. Based on what she shares in this interview, the writing process was healing for Christi, and you’ll hear her talk about why that was and what it looked like for her. It’s not an easy thing to do, to write about a traumatic experience, especially one that was 30 years in the making and I am so impressed with Christi’s drive and determination to tell her story.

Maggie Rayner is the author of In Polgamy’s Shadow. She grew up in a branch of the Mormon church that was not polygamist, but that does not mean that polygamy didn’t have an effect on her family. As Maggie shares in this interview, among the many other challenges she experienced as a Mormon child, she and one of her sisters had a very close call with being recruited into the polygamous community of Bountiful, BC in the 1960s. They avoided that fate, but couldn’t avoid the other impacts that the church had on their lives. Eventually, as an adult, Maggie was able to write her book and, as you’ll hear, the writing process played a big part in the healing process.

What happens when we use creative expression to help us heal from a traumatic experience like being in a cult? That's what I'm here to explore in Creative Alchemy. In this first episode, I share a bit about my story of joining a cult at the age of 22 in 1989 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. And I talk about how the recovery from that experience included a couple forms of writing, including journaling and eventually sharing about my experience in a memoir.

Hello explorers, and welcome to episode 68 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today with a little announcement. As you possibly saw in the title of this episode, I’ve called it pausing and stepping into quiet. I’m feeling a really strong urge lately to do just that, to pause things, step into the silence, spend a lot of time in quiet. We’re coming into summertime, here on the west coast of Vancouver Island, as I record this, and the days are getting longer and sunnier. And it’s not so much that I want to spend more time in the sun because I’m not really that type of person. But I do just want to spend time in quiet right now. And slow down a little bit and listen for wisdom, really. This episode is a little announcement letting you know that that’s what’s happening. I will keep you posted on any future directions or things that go on. Hopefully I’ll be back in a few weeks or a couple of months or whatever it is however long it lasts. I really feel drawn to just listening to wisdom, listening to my intuition, that kind of thing and following those nudges. So that’s what’s pulling me at this moment. For the next few weeks, I hope you are doing great, doing really well taking good care of yourself. Please remember that we are all always unbroken. Take care, bye. Featured image photo by Jack Church on Unsplash The post Pausing and Stepping Into Quiet appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

As we discuss so often on Unbroken, there is an intelligence and wisdom that, if we allow it to, can guide our lives to interesting and fulfilling places. As with most of us, it took Stephanie Benedetto some time to really listen to this wisdom and to trust that it would support her. When she did, she unlocked a life and a business that flow with ease, even in the challenging moments. Stephanie Benedetto is a transformational business coach, storyteller and (Un)Marketer at The Awakened Business, where she helps transformative coaches, healers and entrepreneurs unleash their heart’s message to create soulmate clients with playful (Un)Marketing — no hustle, or hype of endless social media required. You can find Stephanie Benedetto at TheAwakenedBusiness.com. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes Business as a vehicle of creation Giving ourselves permission to create the lives we want Noticing what is alive within us that wants to guide us Following the nudge to make a big life change How we create our worlds based on Thought How the pressures we feel have nothing to do with what’s going on in our lives and everything to do with what’s going on in our heads How discomfort is created when our thoughts look real Paying attention to what we’re listening to How you being you is enough Resources Mentioned in this Episode The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer Transcript of Interview with Stephanie Benedetto Alexandra: Stephanie Benedetto, welcome to Unbroken. Stephanie: Thank you for having me, Alexandra, this is a great pleasure. Alexandra: I’m so pleased to have you here. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the Three Principles. Stephanie: I have been a pretty much a lifelong entrepreneur. Definitely in my adult life. But as I reflected on my childhood, I used to play games like Office and sell at Mr. Dobbs candy shop. And I used to sell cards and things. I was actually interested in entrepreneurship, even when I was quite young. So I’ve had multiple businesses.  The most notable and successful were we’re a business as a wedding DJ, with my now ex husband for 15 years. And then we transitioned into a digital marketing business, basically, internet marketing. So I used to create courses and a membership online, for other wedding professionals to teach them about business. I’ve been in love with business for a long time.  But my first love is really people. And I love business as a vehicle of creation. It’s a way that people can create the change they’d love to see in the world, they can be of service. That’s what I see business as. And so over the years, I wanted to have deeper impact with people. And that drew me more and more into coaching.  In my prior career, it looked more like consulting, marketing strategy. And I realized that there was something missing from that, for me, that we talked about these great ideas and people that didn’t do them, because they were scared, or they felt insecure. And I saw this also in myself, because in parallel, I was on my own personal development and spiritual journey. I wanted to go deeper for me.  So I hired my first business coach. And then I wanted to do what they were doing. And it took me on this whole journey until I realized, Oh, my goodness.  The business I currently have, which is called The Awakened Business is really meant to support entrepreneurs, who want to share the truth they’ve seen, and the gifts that they have with the world. And do it in a way that really feels good. Because there’s a lot that I was taught when I was studying internet marketing inside of business that maybe we could say is unethical or feels a little weird. And certainly people who are helpers and want to be of service often have a lot of what I could call head trash about selling and marketing. None of that has to be painful or icky, like it can actually be complete joy and totally enjoyable. And so that’s what I help people do now.  As I’ve gone deeper into my journey with the Three Principles have gone from Oh, this is a cool thing to add to all the other spiritual stuff. This was like years ago, I saw no contradiction with neuro linguistic programming and Practical Magic and Access Consciousness and EFT and all the other things that I was doing. I was like, Oh, the Three Principles fits great into this mix. I really care about understanding those principles. I don’t care about explaining it to others. I’d say this to myself until I realized I started talking about three principles with other people.  Then I was like, I want to be a transformative coach. I’m interested in that until I find myself in Michael Neal’s super coach Academy and becoming a certified transformative coach. So I actually think there was a wisdom in it that I was trying not to take it seriously not to try to do it right. I just let the process unfold.  As time has gone on that is more and more, it’s really the foundation of everything that I do, not just in my business, not just with the clients I work with, but to help people to really enjoy their lives and whatever it is they’re creating, through the recognition of what they really are, who they really are, and, and how we work. How we create our experience. And when we’re really at our best, and that we can trust this intelligence that enlivens us. And when that happens, man, building a business is a piece of cake. Alexandra: Oh, that’s great, good news for all the entrepreneurs out there.  How does it look different, trusting our own wisdom, trusting the intelligence that’s flowing through us versus trying to do it all ourselves. Stephanie: Oh, my God, it is so different. I’ve been on this journey myself, for years. And of course, it’s quite natural that I also guide other people on that journey. People don’t see me this way. So often, when I say that, I used to be a total rule follower. They’re like, really? Because such a big part of my message is that you get to do it your way, you get to play the game of business the way you want to play it.  I was really devoted to doing things right. And being a good student and a good girl for much of my life.  I brought that with me into what I learned about business. And so it was doing things the way they were taught to me following the rules, and a lot of that I learned a lot from it. And some of it worked. And some of it didn’t. But at some point, the things that I was supposed to do just didn’t feel quite right. But this was, of course, mirroring what was happening inside of me.  It wasn’t until I was, I think, maybe 38 years old that I asked myself, What do I want to create in my life?  It just hadn’t really occurred to me. Asking that question sent me inward. And I began to discover, like, how do I even know what I want? That was a journey for me in itself. And then I discovered the difference between creating from my intellect, creating from the rules that somebody else gave me or the way I’ve always done it, and how limited it felt, versus those moments when I got quiet. And something would just tell me, and I would just know, to do something. So I don’t think I jumped in all at once.  I read a book called The Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer, I think about maybe eight or nine years ago now. With it came alive my own surrender experiment, an exploration of what does that mean to surrender? What does that mean to let life show me? What I found and how this looks so different is that I don’t need to figure it out, which is a great relief, because I don’t think I was really that good at it. I mean, I coped well, but I can’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. And I don’t know what’s going to work and what won’t.  I’m not very good at thinking about all things that need to happen. It’s overwhelming, and it’s very stressful. And I’ve realized that I don’t have to. Everyone has an area of their life where they know this, by the way, it might be the one place where they feel like, oh, I can just relax and I’m in flow. So for some people, it’s at work, for some people it’s with their kids. For some people, it’s when they’re out in nature, maybe they do a sport.  That’s available anywhere, including inside of our business. I am still discovering this, by the way, I’m still going deeper on this, that I can go to the source of wisdom inside of me for anything and everything. And in fact, that’s what I’m looking for is what I’m really looking for is there, including the answers about how to grow my business, how to market it, how to move past things that look like they’re stopping me. And of course, the feelings, the well-being and the peace and the happiness that I’m looking for. So that’s how it looks different. I hope I have answered that question.  Alexandra: You have Thank you. I love your analogy about how it does show up for everyone in some area of their life. And sometimes we take that a little bit for granted, I think we think oh well that it’s that one specific thing that I’m good at or relaxed about. And then we don’t realize that we can feel that way, in so many other areas, if not everywhere in our lives.  Before we hit record, we were talking about our intentions for the call. And one of the things I said was that I was interested in your personal story, and you touched on it a little bit already about being a good girl. And following the rules.  On your website, there’s some detail about how you followed your wisdom out of that way of being. Can you tell us a little bit about what that looked like for you? Stephanie: When I started asking myself, what do I want, I realized that I had been making my choices, based on a role that I thought I needed to fill, I had a lot of people pleasing behaviors going on, which made sense, because it was how I knew myself. I discovered that some of the things I was doing were part of the reason why maybe I didn’t like them after a while or became resentful or was because it really wasn’t something that I wanted. I didn’t even know I was allowed to ask that.  And as I did, as that was alive in me, I was listening. This is how I see it. Now, I don’t think I knew quite what I was doing then. But I was listening for guidance. I was always on a spiritual journey of some type. And as I got quieter in the moments when I did get quiet, which were few and far between, but I was finding them more. I was hearing things, I was getting a sense of things.  I was actually at a yoga retreat. Yoga was one of the many things that I pursued on this growth path. I had been married for I think, at that time, at least 16 years. This knowing dropped in that it’s time for you to leave your marriage. And I was like, why? This is not the first time I would get a message from the universe like that and be like, right, but I felt lots of things. It wasn’t just no, but see, I just knew there was a knowing in that. I took my time, which I think was also wisdom, because I loved my husband. This is another thing was like How can I leave there’s nothing wrong here. If there was abuse, if I was unhappy, if we didn’t like each other even, that will be a good reason. But I thought I needed a reason to make a choice. I didn’t know that because I want to, it’s a good enough reason. I waited about a year of just dropping expectations and letting go of the mess that I had and working with coaches and the mess that I had in my head. I had so much thinking about it. And until finally I felt clear, I knew that I knew it wasn’t.  I said to myself, if I’m going to leave this marriage, it’s not going to be because I’m trying to escape. That’s something I tried to do before I tried to implode our marriage earlier. Or because I’m avoiding something, but I’m going to do it from a place of peace. If I’m doing it. That’s how I’m doing it. And that is how it happened. I’m still friends with my ex husband and and I think we both…we could have done better of course, looking back I see so much more now than I did then. But we did really well navigating that.  My husband and I owned a business together. We owned two houses together, we had animals that we owned together. I left all of that. I had to close it off. It wasn’t an impulsive thing. We still worked in our business for I think almost two years before we sold it together. And I started traveling and pet sitting because I love pets, I love animals. And I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I didn’t know where I wanted to live and I didn’t just want to do what I’d always done and stay in New York, which is where I was.  That was my real experience. Surrender is I don’t know where I’m going to end up. And it’s continued. And it’s deepened. And it was almost two years ago that a similar big knowing dropped in where it was like, okay, I’m going to Portugal, go to Portugal. And there was a new relationship for me there. I had a very strong sense about what was going to happen. And I had to drop all my expectations about what that meant.  What I’ve come to learn about this wisdom is that it is in real time, it is for right now. And when it says go to Portugal, it means go to that direction now, like whatever that means, start the process. It doesn’t mean what I necessarily think it’s going to mean. So I had all kinds of thinking about Alexandria, again, like I was like, No, you’re doing this, I like my life. I’m happy here. But I also know to follow that, because that’s how I want to live.  There’s a delight and a depth to living from that place that I am surprised at what I find myself choosing and what comes my way. And it doesn’t lead me wrong. It doesn’t mean that everything works out the way I think it will, though. So that’s why it was like surrendering, surrendering my expectations about what this would mean. And if it would mean what I thought I just knew to follow those directions, just do that. And I did. And it actually went the way that I had sensed.  Along the way, I just showed up in the moment as best I could. It’s opened up a whole new world for me yet again, I didn’t realize the fear that had been driving me. It helped me see that. The world is bigger and possibilities that I never thought were available for myself. I can see them now. And I couldn’t before; they were invisible to me. And it’s not because I moved to Portugal, but that was a part of the journey.  Alexandra: Wow, there’s so much in there, I got goosebumps when you talked about being at a yoga retreat and feeling that knowing that it was time to leave your marriage. That’s extraordinary. And you touched on the good girl aspect of your personality earlier. I imagine that there was some resistance from that part of your personality when you started going in this direction more of following wisdom rather than pleasing other people. Could you talk about that resistance a little bit? Stephanie: What was interesting, Alexandra, was it wasn’t just a good girl living in my personality, there was also a rebel. So it was kind of like both were going on at the same time. And you can imagine that’s quite a war to have, when I don’t know that what’s really happening is conflicting thoughts. I thought that was part of me. My identity, right.  That started when I was a kid. I remember the first time I seriously rocked the boat in my family. I think I was about 15 years old. And I had my first existential crisis like, No, I am the good girl. Everybody loves me. I don’t do things that upset people and like, cause conflict and division and my family. That’s not me. Well, yeah, apparently it was. Because that too, was an experience that I have.  What I saw, and I’ve actually seen this recently, that the people pleasing behavior and the nice girl persona, the need to be that person came from this false belief I had built my world on, that for my own survival, I needed to never be a burden to anyone. And I made up what that was, right? Like, what does that even mean? Well, it’s definitely made it up. I made it up. So I could never be a burden to others, which meant I’ve really had to know what other people wanted and try to anticipate it and a whole world was created on that faulty premise that if I was a burden to others, I would be abandoned, and I would die. So that felt really scary and really important.  I built my personality on that. I built these habits and behaviors, and some of them served me at least some of the time, but many of them didn’t. As I grew and I would see these behaviors come up, like asking people for help used to seem impossible, then it felt uncomfortable, and then I’m like, this is trivial and silly. Why am I feeling fear? I saw that it made perfect sense based on the world I was living in and seeing the world I had created out of fear.  Seeing that we create it, seeing the fact that we create a world with thought. And then we call it my beliefs and my values and my identity. And this is the way the world works, meant that I didn’t have to create it that way anymore. And so now, sure,  maybe those habits of thought, those habits of behavior may come up. But I see them in a way I couldn’t see them before. They were invisible to me, they looked real before.  I don’t feel the resistance of it anymore. I don’t care, honestly, it’s like, I just went to the market today. And I feel nervous. Sometimes I freaked myself out. I’m learning Portuguese, and I don’t understand the numbers they’re saying when I’m paying for things sometimes. And so the nerves are so bad, I feel nervous. It’s really okay, I get over it really fast. And it doesn’t mean anything.  It used to look like it meant something. It used to look like it was life and death to me. And I didn’t see that. And now it doesn’t. Now I know, it’s just another experience like any other. So it’s not that all those things disappear instantly. But they don’t have the same hold over me. And actually, a lot of them have kind of disappeared. I notice things slowly just dropping away.  Alexandra: I want to ask specifically, we touched on it a little bit, but how the messages from your life pointed you toward another way to show up. So you talked about at the yoga retreat and you just had a knowing.  Are there other ways that you experience feeling wisdom or feeling being guided? Stephanie: Those are my first big examples of it. But now, it’s every day. Now, I see it everywhere. So for example, I wake up and I can just like kind of tune in like, what will be good for my body to eat today. I take supplements, but I don’t take them every day. I kind of just check in. Okay, not today. Just interesting. I don’t always do this, by the way. And it’s not a practice. It’s just something that started happening.  As I’ve been on my business journey, I’ll weave it into my business a little bit. So in business, I was taught a lot of different things. First, I was taught that you’re supposed to schedule all the important activities in your business to make sure that you do them. And so then I would like time block my calendar and I felt all this pressure. So I was like, I don’t want that anymore. So I stopped because somebody else told me that you should only have appointments on your calendar, and you should have space so you can see the spaciousness of your account. Neither one of those things are true, by the way. They’re just someone’s opinion.  So I did that for a while. And I realized I was kind of drifting. So I started going how do I want to experience this? Like what experiment can I do? So I started experimenting with adding some structure back in. The way I’ve kind of settled my days are often quite full.  But the pressure I feel has nothing to do with how much is on my calendar and everything to do with how much is in my head.  I know that now, I didn’t know that when I wanted my calendar spacious and free. But what I do is I do sometimes is time block activities to set aside time to work on writing this thing or editing these videos. But I give myself full permission to show up fresh with it. So that if it doesn’t feel right, or something else is occurring to me like wisdom like go now you really need a nap right now. That’s what I’ll do.  Because how could the me from a week ago know what would be perfect for me right now. So that’s kind of an example of how wisdom shows up in small ways. And even recently, I’m seeing oh wow, I can go there for everything and anything. I didn’t realize how much I was still going to my intellect, which is great. You know, it’s served me so well, if I want something really fresh, if I want to grow my business, if I want to create money, why am I going to my intellect, which is only aware of these certain ways to do it? Why am I not going to the source? And asking there what occurs to me?  This is a fresh journey for me. But there’s always something that occurs from there. And sometimes it’s surprising. Sometimes it’s common sense. Just the fact that I can look there is amazing. Just the fact that something’s there for me. It almost doesn’t matter what it is. Alexandra: I love that. And I love that you use the word fresh, because that’s a word that I’ve been using more and more lately. We have this wisdom that’s within us and comes to life moment to moment is so fresh, and creative. And wise, of course. But yeah, that word fresh is just so important to me these days.  You may have already addressed this in some of what you’ve said, but tell us a little bit about your ideas about that. Let’s talk about what the awakened business looks like. Stephanie: That’s funny, I really don’t think of it in those terms of like, there is an awakened business and one that is unawakened. I really wanted to call my business the awakened entrepreneur, honestly, but I couldn’t get the domain at the time. But what that means to me is coming fully alive, inside of your business, inside of your life, really, because they’re not separate.  Your business is a part of your life and when a person comes alive, and by that I mean begins to feel life, moving through them. Whatever way they might experience that begins to really be in their experience, give themselves permission to create what they want and enjoy. What’s happening now. Because aliveness is enjoyable.  The feeling of aliveness is, I mean, even when something crappy is happening. The aliveness that flows beneath and in all of it is amazing. And when that starts to happen, not as a state to achieve at every moment, but when it begins to happen, even in tiny moments, throughout your day, and you create a business, that way, you have a business that feels alive, you’re up to cool things. It’s easier to communicate what it is that you’re up to so that the people you’re here to help and serve understand that. You’re no longer creating it, because somebody said you should. This way, you’re creating it, because it feels right for you. And you get to do it wrong. I’m putting that in air quotes, I don’t think you can do it wrong. You get to make mistakes, and change your mind and make shit up. I do that all the time. I’m constantly making things up. Things don’t work. And I know I’m okay. I know that something new will occur, that something fresh will occur. So that’s what it looks like to have a business that’s alive for me.  Alexandra: Do you find that either yourself or your clients when they’re starting to learn about doing things this way? Is there a discomfort that comes up for them? Stephanie: Oh, yes. Alexandra: Is it uncomfortable? Stephanie: Yes. It often is. Because the first time like, I’m allowed to do that. Yeah, you’re making up your business. Because if you go into the typical business training world, people and I’m going to assume that most of them are well intentioned. I know they all are on some level. Ultimately, they all are. They want to help people. But what they do is they’re training people. They’re giving people their wisdom. And that’s not going to be the right fit for me or you, in parts of it might, it might inspire something for me. But that’s not the source. And it’s not going to be the perfect fit.  We’re taught that there’s a certain way to do things, you have to have a website, and on your website, you need to have this thing called the lead magnet, and you have to an email list and you need to do social media and the answer to those things. Is that true? No, no, no. And no. Or maybe yes, yes, yes. And yes. Only you would know.  It’s really weird for people at first, when I’m asking them like, well, what’s the current view? What do you know? So the people who do find me are kind of onto that, already a little bit like, they might describe it as I want to have a soul led business, or I want to follow more of my intuition or do things my way, because they’ve been around the block, and they haven’t been enjoying the way it feels.  But they still run up against that old thinking of there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way, and I better figure it out, because bad stuff’s gonna happen if I don’t. So yeah, that is uncomfortable. And I think, actually, something I’m seeing that is a bigger discomfort for people is letting go of the pressure, and the trying, and the doing and making ourselves figure it out. It’s all on me that many of us have used to drive our actions and our behavior, especially in our business, like actually going, I don’t have to figure it out. You mean I could listen to my wisdom, and that wisdom tells me seriously, that even seems like more of an uncomfortable thing for people. Alexandra: I’m so glad you said that. Because that’s something that I struggle with as well. I go along for a while and then I noticed myself drifting off, and feeling like it’s all on me, and feeling a lot of pressure. And then I remember, and I bring myself back. But it’s a habit. It is a little bit uncomfortable to break it, to know that there’s something else there that’s going to catch us and support us. Stephanie: At first it’s uncomfortable, but it’s only uncomfortable because I have a thought that looks real, that says something like, If I don’t do it, nothing will happen. I have to be the one to do it. I just feel the discomfort of that thought if without that thought it’s amazing to know I don’t have to do it. It’s a miracle that I don’t have to do it. My job is simply to be me. And to do what occurs to me. That’s it. Can it be that simple? Yeah. And it’s a great relief. Alexandra: That’s so true. The discomfort, the way that it feels is the clue. The discomfort that we feel about taking it all on ourselves is the thing that lets us know that that thought is a lie. I love that built in feedback system. Stephanie: It is becoming more and more black and white to me. As I am like, oh my really anytime I don’t feel good, peaceful, calm, I’m caught up in my thinking. That’s all it means. I don’t even need to know the content of that thinking. That’s what’s happening.  I know in that from that place, I am not seeing the world clearly. If I feel crappy, I am not seeing clearly, period, every time. It’s incredible to see that because it keeps pointing me back to look within. This is where I find what I’m looking for. And I start to settle down. If I’m not settled down, I know it’s just going to be a little while until it passes. It always does. Alexandra: You mentioned that you were at the listening seminar recently. Tell us about that experience. Do you have a highlight from it? Stephanie: There were so many little moments. It was amazing to be there. The first day we really just talked about and listened to people talking about listening. Some of my favorite mentors from inside the Three Principles, Michael Neill was there. Mavis Karn was there. I got to meet people in person who I’d never met in person before. And so we are all in a really lovely state.  This is a highlight I’ll share with you because it was unusual for me. Stephanie’s personality and my past, even though I like hugging people, I’ve always been a little weird with people in my personal space. Unless I know you, don’t come too close.  I was just in a really beautiful feeling listening to this presentation, I think it was on the first day. And I just look at this woman. And she just was so cute. She had a little bow, she had like a little flower in her hair, and this cute little dress on. And I looked at her and I see her look at me. And I’m like, it felt like we knew each other. I look away and I look back, and she’s smiling at me. And I’m smiling at her. I just went up to her and hugged her without saying a word. Without a thought. And as I hugged her, I was like, you have such a beautiful smile. And she was from the Czech Republic, I could tell by her accent as she responded.  She said, I was just thinking you’re such a beautiful woman. And that was it. We hugged, we spoke those words, we might have smiled and waved at each other at another point during that conference. But that was all. And it was such a perfect moment. I think this is what’s possible when we’re listening. When we’re just being. Listening isn’t about hearing. It’s an openness, it’s a receptivity, it’s what happens when I’m really present. Again, anytime I’m not feeling present, I’m not listening. And that’s what’s available, little miracles like that happen. nd I don’t even think about them, they just happen. Things move me. I don’t know why I hugged that woman. It just was the thing to do. Alexandra: It occurs to me that when it comes to listening, it feels like it’s pointing toward the opposite of where we normally live, which is a lot of chatter in our heads about ourselves, about other people, about things that are going on, about life, about whatever. And as you said, listening is more like an openness, or receptivity.  I love that distinction. Because it’s not just about our ears. Stephanie: My dear friend says, we’re always listening. Our listening is always perfect. What are we listening to? Most of the time, we’re listening to the chatter in our heads. And it’s not particularly productive. Sometimes it’s great fun, but other times, not so much. And we know by how it feels right.  When I’m listening within, it’s different. And things drop in, instead of me being caught up in them. It’s like they rise up or they drop in. That’s kind of a funny way to express it. But that’s how it feels. And it’s very different than when I’m listening to the contents of my intellect and my endlessly churning mind. Alexandra: As we’re coming to the end of our time today, is there anything we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share with our listeners? Stephanie: What I’d like to share is that you being you is not only enough, it’s amazing. I didn’t know that for a very long time. And it feels so good. That’s how you know you’re being you. It feels easy. It feels effortless. And I’m most myself when I’m not thinking about myself at all. And it’s a gift. It’s a gift for us, but it’s a gift for the world. And I would love for people to know that or know it a little more deeply. Alexandra: Nice. Oh, thank you.  Where can we find out more about you and your work? Stephanie: The best place would be TheAwakenedBusiness.com. That’s my website. I’m not active on social media. I’ve been doing some YouTube and a bit of LinkedIn, but I’m allergic to the rest for right now.  I do have an email list. If people would like to follow my adventures in life and business. I share a lot of my personal experiences and experiments, they can hop on my email list and learn more. Alexandra: I will put links in the show notes to your website. Thank you so much for being here with me today. I really appreciate it. It’s been really nice to meet you. Stephanie: You too, Alexandra. Thanks for having me. Alexandra: All right. Take care. Bye bye. Featured image photo by Natalia Slastnikova on Unsplash The post We Don’t Need To Figure It Out with Stephanie Benedetto appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

We all have a built-in GPS, a guidance system that never lies and that always has our best interests at heart. We can call that guidance whatever we want – wisdom, intuition, insight, knowing; the name isn’t as important as learning to listen to it. And, as Bonnie Jarvis points out, figuring out how your guiding wisdom speaks to you makes life so much easier. Bonnie Jarvis has a BA in Graphic Design, MS in Computer Science, MA in Spiritual Psychology and has completed several coaching programs. Using the skills she learned over the years, she’s helped many coaches with the technical details of building successful and thriving online businesses. For 9 years, Bonnie worked for 3PGC, a non-profit organization with a mission to share the simplicity of The Three Principles as uncovered by Sydney Banks. She developed all areas needed for their online business to thrive and significantly expand the understanding globally. You can find Bonnie Jarvis at BonnieJarvis.com. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes On being a ‘secret seeker’ Following the breadcrumbs of insight, interest, and synchronicities How the Three Principles explain what is before other philosophies and traditions Having the courage to leap into the unknown based on inner knowing The importance of coming back to the present moment Getting really familiar with how wisdom speaks to you Resources Mentioned in this Episode 3PGC Raymond Moody’s book Life After Life Azul Leguizamon’s Unbroken podcast episode Bonnie and Azul’s monthly free webinar, What Has Wisdom Shown You Lately? Bonnie and Azul’s The Heart of Service program Transcript of Interview with Bonnie Jarvis Alexandra: Bonnie Jarvis, welcome to Unbroken. Bonnie: Thank you so much. Thanks for inviting me, Alexandra, I really appreciate being here. Alexandra: Oh, my pleasure. I’m so thrilled to talk to you one on one. We’ve been in events together. I think I was trying to recall when that was. I think it was a class with Cathy Casey. That was last year, I think. But anyway, so it’s lovely to talk to you one on one.  Bonnie: I keep seeing your name around the community. So I’m glad that we’re getting this opportunity. Alexandra: Me too. Tell us about your background and how you discovered the Three Principles. Bonnie: Well, like so many people who have come across the Three Principles, I was looking around for a very long time. I know people come to this understanding, or the understanding finds them maybe as a better way of saying it, when people are looking for very different things. For me, my seeking, if you will, started when I was really young.  My dad was in a really horrendous accident when I was four. And this was 1960, giving away my age. I won’t into the details, but he was electrocuted to the point where two silver dollars melted in his pocket and then he fell three stories. And he obviously was given his last rites, no one thought he was going to survive back then. But he did.  And I don’t know, maybe when I was around six or seven, he shared his experience of what happened to him. Now we know of what people call near death experiences. But that term wasn’t even around back then. And I don’t really know what it was he said that impacted me so deeply. But I think the quality of what he was sharing just touched me so deeply, that I knew this physical reality was not all there was, but I didn’t know what else was out there.  I was really young then, I was going to Catholic school, and I learned really quickly to not talk about it in Catholic school, because it was not approved of, and it wasn’t a well known thing. I think that experience made me a secret seeker. I looked at so many different things, I dipped my toes into so many different things once I got out of high school, different religions. I sought out channelers, I did different self help programs that were spiritually oriented. I did a spiritual psychology master’s degree. This was over a period of like, maybe 40 ish years.  In the spiritual psychology program, the organization about 10 years after I graduated from there, they were doing a coaching program. I should say, my other parallel life was that I got a master’s degree in computer science and worked in many corporations. And definitely was a secret seeker through that because it was okay to be in a religion, but everything else was very woowoo. So I really didn’t talk about anything. But I would pop in and out of corporate America jobs at that time in the 80s and 90s. And even early 2000s, it was very easy to leave one job and find another because not a whole lot of people knew a whole lot about technology then. In 2013, I decided that was it. I was leaving corporate America for the last time. It was not where I wanted to be. And one of my very, very close friends became the admissions director of the organization that ran the spiritual psychology program. And she called and said, Well, if you don’t have any plans, which I didn’t, I just knew I didn’t want to continue on the path that I was in Corporate America why don’t you take this coaching program? I was like, okay, I have the time, I have the money, I’ll do it. It turned out to be the best thing ever, because one of the facilitators introduced a little video of someone talking about insight.  At the time, I had to go research everything. So again, it was 2013, there wasn’t a whole lot on the web at the time. But I did manage to track down what the Three Principles were, and it was on a Wikipedia page of all things that I was reading it and, and it just hit me. Like, oh, this is what is before all of those other things that I was looking at, all of those paths that I took, I couldn’t get to the beginning of them, because there was usually a lot of things to do.  And, and so I’d follow something for a year or two and then look for the next thing. I can’t say I understood anything that I was reading, but I just had a knowing. So would you like me to keep going? Alexandra: Yes, please. Bonnie: I was following breadcrumbs really. I kept looking and looking. In 2013, there were some videos, but there wasn’t a whole lot out there. I finally came across that there was a conference going on in St. Paul, Minnesota, like a month later. So I hopped on a plane, and I went to that. And then that led me to meeting the woman who would organize the 3PGC conference. And the woman that was organizing them lived near me. So we got to be friends. Then at the conference, I believe it was there, I learned that Christine Heath, who was one of the original board members for 3PGC and still is on the board, was doing a workshop in Hawaii. And I was like, Oh, I can I can go there. I’m not working now. So I went. I think it was like September, October was the conference. And then November was this workshop. And then I learned about the Pranskys doing the first practitioner retreat in February 2014. Went to that then went to Salt Spring Island.  Then I volunteered to help with the next in person conference that 3PGC was doing and got to know Chris a little bit more. Looking back, it was so much following that little voice that said, yeah, do this next, do this next. But I think when it was happening, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you, that’s what I was doing.  I think it was Chris that asked me, maybe this was 2015, they were trying to start a free webinar program. And it was sort of a start and stop. She asked if I’d be interested in volunteering to do that. So I did and and then it went from one a month to two a month and that program is still running. And then the the woman who originally did their newsletters and updated the first website was leaving and and that’s when I actually went to work for 3PGC very part time and learn more about the organization and then had a ton of ideas about what we could do online because that was my background I started to talk with Chris a lot more and with the then president about what else we could do. And finally I think it was 2018 they they said yeah, go ahead and let’s build the new website. And they needed it done by the current for the in person conference in 2019.  I’m kind of telling the story because looking back I feel like my finding the Three Principles and 3PGC when I did was incredible synchronicity. Because once the new website was done and we could we could create a membership site. I think that’s when I started working for them full time for 3PGC full time and started suggesting online programs and that wasn’t really a well known thing at the time.  The board was a bit hesitant because getting the feeling in person was something they just weren’t sure of, if that could be sort of transmitted or really felt across the internet, but we finally said, Yeah, let’s do it. And we were originally shooting for a 48 hour conference, but it turned into like 54 hours of continuously running sessions, which was a lot of work to put together but it turned out to be incredible. People loved it, we had something like three or 400 people participating, people who couldn’t travel to the in person. It truly was a global event, and it was run at time periods where anybody could watch it.  And here’s the synchronicity of it. We ran it the last two days of February and the first day of March of 2020. And then the pandemic. And so we were set, we were all set up the board could see this was a great platform to do things and so we were able to build a practitioner program through and we had maybe four or five incredible programs. Not full on conferences, but programs where people could really participate in. And we were able to to really keep sharing this understanding when everybody had stay at home, basically.  So it was again, looking back, like, while I was in it, I didn’t see the beauty of following the breadcrumbs and the timing of it. But looking back, it’s like, wow, that was perfect timing for somebody like me to come in, and do it, because I just happen to have the right skills to help them out. And yeah, so that’s how I got involved with the three principles and 3PGC. Alexandra: Wow, that’s so great. I have a few follow-up questions then.  For our listeners, 3PGC stands for Three Principles Global Community. So it’s sort of like the governing body, for lack of a better word, for the Three Principles.  You said that you felt like the principles explained what was before all the other things that you had been seeking? Could you say more about that? That intrigues me so much.  Bonnie: At the time, I didn’t know what I meant by that. I just knew this was underneath. I dippd my toes in Buddhism and Sikhism, and all sorts of all sorts of self help. And I knew there was something more to all of those things I was looking at. I just couldn’t get to it for whatever reason. Now the words that I would put on it, and now what I understand of it is that the Three Principles truly are the formless principles that explain the human experience. So those are the words I would have put on it now. But at the time, I didn’t have those words.  Even in talking about my Dad’s experience, in looking back at that, what I think now, the quality that I felt, I think was when he talked about the light – a lot of Near Death Experiences talk about seeing the light and he was drawn to this light. And he felt that it was warm and loving and he did not want to come back. He wanted to go through. But in his words, he was told to come back. I think that feeling that he shared when he was talking about that was probably what what drew me into looking for what that was Alexandra: Did that you said you were raised Catholic, so he was Catholic at the time this happened? Bonnie: I was four when his accident happened. So I don’t really remember whether he was a churchgoer before then. I don’t think he ever went. I don’t remember him ever going to church after that, and possibly because of what he felt in that experience, I don’t know. I never talked to him about that.  I remember when Raymond Moody came out with his book Life After Life he coined the term near death experience. We were like, oh my god, other people have this and we talked about it. And this is the thing you didn’t make this. Because I don’t know this for sure, but I’m going to guess, that if he shared this with any doctors or nurses at the time, they probably thought, Oh, you were in a coma, and whatever.  We talked about it a lot, I would say the last six months of his life, and what it really brought for him that I got was, and he lived, this happened to him in 1960. He passed away in ‘98. So he lived a long time after that. What it really gave him was that he did not fear death. I remember talking to him and he said something like, No, I know where I’m going next. I’ve already felt that. So that was I think beautiful.  I think that’s one of the things he gave me is that I have never had a fear of dying either. I’m not really crazy about having to go through what you might have to go through before that. There can be a lot of suffering in that, but with this understanding of the Three Principles that might even give me a different perspective of that statement. That off the tip of my tongue, but in reality, this understanding and and constantly looking and seeing things more deeply. Seeing new insights. You come back with a different perspective on the same thing. Alexandra: Yes, absolutely. I’ve been thinking about this a little bit lately as well. I feel the same way that the idea of death doesn’t bother me at all. I’m interested in what that looks like. And the steps leading up to it, I hope they’re not too painful or terrible.  And then because our experience does come from the inside out, I realized that it is possible to experience peace, no matter what we’re going through. And yeah, so all of that is just so interesting. I could talk about that for hours for sure.  What a fascinating experience your dad went through, and just that idea that he must have thought he was alone in that for so long. And I imagine coming from a Catholic background too he was probably very anxious about ever bringing that up with anybody. Any adults, I guess I should say? Fascinating. Really, really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. And it makes me wonder, too, about any conflict that he felt? Betrayed. But you know about that experience? Anyway, fascinating. Bonnie: I can look back and say, I wish I would have been in this place where I am now to ask him more questions. But I’m glad I got the opportunity to talk to him about it at the end of his life.  I also just want to say this, a near death experience is not what happened with Sydney Banks. I remember sharing this with some one of Sydney Banks’ original students, and I kind of got corrected. It’s like, this is not what happened. I was like, No, I didn’t mean to suggest that. It’s like he my dad just happened to leave his body and see that there was something else but the experience that Sydney Banks’ had was completely different and deeper and amazing.  Alexandra: That’s a great clarification. Thank you. It’s important for people to see the difference.  So you worked for the three PGC for a while. And I want to ask you two questions about that. I think you’ve already addressed the first one actually, I was going to ask you what did the job teach you and you’ve already talked about looking back and seeing the way that life was leading you in a direction.  It sounds like you didn’t fight that too much there wasn’t too much fight in you. Is that true? Bonnie: That is true.Before listening to your wisdom, I would call it intuition. I’ve always had a strong sense of intuition. I didn’t always follow it. So following the breadcrumbs and just listening to what was coming next, which was not a huge jump for me. But there were certainly plenty of times when I could have said, I don’t want to follow these breadcrumbs anymore. But I didn’t. Something else was saying that keep following these keep doing this. Alexandra: It led you in seems to be anyway in such a nice direction, to something that you needed. Bonnie: I think that’s true. Whenever we really listened to our inner guidance, if there was anything that I would want to share with people, it’s that learning what that feels like or sounds like, or however you you get your guidance from wisdom or your intuition, whatever you want to call it, really get really cozy and familiar with how that feels different than what’s coming from your intellect or your personal wants and desires. Because it really does seem to me it really looks to me, like, that’s the way to go to have a happier life.  Alexandra: Speaking of which, how did you know that it was time to leave that experience? Bonnie: That was a knowing too, I that about mid 2022, I started to get nudges. You’ve done what you’ve come here to do, and it’s time to move on. I did give notice. I think it was the beginning of December of 2022 for two months. I’m kind of a jack of all trades, master of none, when it comes to the online business. So I could do a whole wide variety of things. But in replacing me, it took a little longer because because they ended up having to bring on a number of people.  So I didn’t leave in the beginning of 2023, I waited until everything was completely set up. And then I left at the end of it, I think was September 2023. But again, that was an urge and I didn’t have anything planned next.  That’s the part that can be really scary. It’s the part of leaping into the unknown. I guess that’s what that looked like to me. But I had done that so many times in my life, left jobs without really knowing what was going to be next and everything worked out. So I felt okay doing that.  It’s been incredible what’s unfolded since then. I was pretty busy minded when I was working for 3PGC because I was doing a broad range of things behind the scenes; I was taking care of just a lot of detailed things for the online business to keep running and it kept my mind really busy. I feel like I’ve had this massive download of understanding coming. But I was so busy with details that I didn’t really see what I was, what I was what I could see, because I had so many details on my mind all the time. After I left, it was like this, because I really didn’t have the next thing lined up. There was this vast opening of space. And that was a wonderful opportunity also, to really I let things unfold. One of the things I did was I met Azul Leguizamon. She and I became friends maybe a couple years ago. I kept hearing her name, but I never met her. So I reached out to her one day, and we just really hit it off, and we started talking regularly.  She’s so wonderful. And we would share insights. What we found was, I mean, that’s one of the things we did, we talked about a lot of things. But what was so wonderful about that is that we started to notice how sharing our insight was helping, we were helping each other see more of how we were being guided. It was like hearing what we saw, what was helping the other to look more to see how we were being guided.  One of the things that came out of that, I think we started in November, we decided to offer a free webinar series where once a month we offer an open call to anybody. And we call it What Has Wisdom Shown You Lately. It’s an open discussion where everybody can share or just come and listen.  Then what grew out of that, which I honestly did not really expect at all – I guess I really thought whatever I did next was going to be a technical thing again, because that’s what my background is. But we started talking about what would we do if we did a program to teach this understanding or point people in the direction and help people to learn to share it? And help people start up a business of some kind.  I’m going to say it came through us, we ended up writing a year long program that we called The Heart of Service in like a week or two. And then we put together the webpage. And I think we only sent out three emails and we filled our program. It’s very small, we didn’t want to have a big group. And that’s been incredible. And again, following those breadcrumbs, those nudges. Right? It was just the next thing to do.  It’s been really great. We have guest speakers in it. And it’s just been a phenomenal program so far, and the participants seem to really be enjoying it as well. And we’re in the third month of a year long program. Alexandra: I’m thinking that it really doesn’t surprise me that that’s the way things unfolded after your job with the 3PGC. Because that’s how they happened going into it.  Bonnie: When I first learned about the Three Principles I had a handful or two of practitioners as clients, and I did their online website, membership site, etc. So I really saw myself more as a background person. So I think that’s why it surprised me. Oh, I’m facilitating co facilitating with us all.  Alexandra: That makes sense. I love that.  Shifting gears slightly, one of the things that we corresponded about as we were setting up this time to talk was you said you were really interested in one of the more famous quotes from Sydney Banks.  Why don’t you share that quote with us? And then tell us what you’re seeing in it lately? Bonnie: I’m going to read it because, okay, terrible with remembering quotes. If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world. Alexandra: That’s right.  Bonnie: That quote has so many levels to it. You can read it at first and say, oh, yeah I can unless a gun’s being pointed to my head, I probably don’t really have to be afraid of my experience.  And then as you start to look deep, burrowed into the principles and start to understand like, alright, we really create our experience. Our experience is truly an inside out experience. And there is nothing to be afraid of. And it just goes deeper from there.  So I do that, that is one of my very favorite quotes from Syd Banks. I do have another favorite quote right now, that’s not a Sydney Banks, quote. It’s a quote by Rumi that I probably first learned about 30 years ago. It just has taken on such new meaning for me in the last six months.  You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.  That’s another one with so many layers, but that has such deep meanings. Like, yes, when you really start to look down this path, when you really start to look at the three principles as truly being principles in the formless, that create everything. And that we are part of and we are people people say and I guess Syd said this as well – I think he would use the words divine mind, thought, and consciousness as opposed to personal mind, thought and consciousness, but it’s really one thing. We have the opportunity to share in that and to listen to the wisdom that comes through that. And, and so we truly are the entire ocean in a drop. That’s just so delicious. Alexandra: There’s so much there isn’t there? And when I heard you say that quote, I felt that thing that happens when something makes the leap beyond my logical brain and it resonates within you. I love that feeling. You mentioned the webinar series that you did with Azul and I will link to her episodes, she has been on the show. So I will link in the show notes to her episode.  Why don’t I ask you what has wisdom shown you lately? Bonnie: That is a great question. Let’s see how to describe this. What I’ve really been seeing is that we all have so much that we can see if we listen to our inner guidance, to wisdom. We also have conditioning; beliefs that are hidden, that we don’t even realize they’re there, until a light is is shone upon them. As my mind got really quiet all the learning that I was absorbing, but not really realizing how much I really saw brought this, I’m going to call it a bubble of additional thinking that sort of unraveled itself. Some of the things I don’t even really know what they were, but I knew I felt so much lighter.  The latest image I have of it was like if you have a ball of yarn, and you hold one end, and you just push it and it’ll just keep going until it reaches the end. It’s like that. That’s what the experience felt like. It’s like just all these beliefs that were so deeply ingrained, that I wasn’t aware of how they were sort of controlling my life, because I would make decisions. Because I thought those were truths, not beliefs that I could see through.  So as that all came to the surface, it was years of weights lifted, and some of it, I didn’t really know what they were in particular, but I knew something was opening. And some were very painful. When I’d see them, because I could see how it drove actions or reactions in my life, that I thought, because I believed it needed a reaction. All of that opening up has been phenomenal.  Around two or three months ago, I feel it’s because I let go of this whole bundle of condition thinking that what I’ve been noticing is that the nudges that I keep getting now, it’s like when we all seem to feel our feelings in different ways. Some people have very specific things in their body, that they feel about their emotions, and I don’t really, but what I do notice is sort of a wave of energy. Like nothing really specific. But what I’ve been noticing is that I’m getting nudges more quickly. As that wave of energy comes in it’s the same nudge, very often, it’s come back to the moment, come back to the moment.  And I’ve got to tell you it’s been the most incredible experience, to keep getting reminded to come back to the moment. I get them when I’m starting to have some kind of judgment or something going on. Because in the moment, that doesn’t exist. When I first started to get this, I was calling it, it’s been pushing me into my puddle of kindness. I could feel so much kindness toward whatever I was judging, especially judgments that were coming against myself.  Since then, I’ve morphed it into this, this ocean of liquid love. That’s what it feels like, it’s like I can nudge back into just taking a dive into it. And even if it’s just for a nano second, and then I pick up that thinking again, I come out of it with such a different perspective; the feeling changes. That’s been luxurious.  And every once in a while, I get to stay in it more than a nanosecond. People will call it being in the flow.  I can be there for a little while longer before thinking takes me back into whatever I’ve decided to make up. And everybody can do that. That’s what everybody can do.  We were taught a lot that now is the only moment there is like, now is as the only thing there is, and it’s so true, it’s like because all our thinking is either thoughts from the past or thinking about the future. And so when you come into that moment, even if it’s just for a nanosecond, it’s no attachment to thoughts. And it’s so beautiful.  So I would say that, that to me, at this time the most significant thing that I would really say that wisdom has been showing me lately, to just keep coming back to the present moment. Alexandra: Oh, that’s beautiful. And I want to pull out one thing you said a little bit earlier in that, which was, you talked about how when some of your beliefs were unravelling, that could be a little bit painful.  Could you share an example with us? Bonnie: You know, nothing is really coming to mind now. But what I can tell you is that I’m not a big crier. But man, I would sit and sob. All the things are coming to light. I’m not even sure if I always knew what it was when I would start. But what I did know is not to try to stop it, not to do anything about it.  When people who talk about the three principles say there’s nothing you have to do, that’s where I think that applies. It’s something that was coming through me. It was coming out of me, it was energy moving through. And there was nothing that I had to do about it. I didn’t have to look for better thoughts. I didn’t have to make myself do something else. I could just sit there with it, and wait for wisdom to tell me what to do next. So to me that’s one of the misunderstandings I think a lot of people have when they come into this understanding.  There’s nothing to do. That’s where I think that applies. It doesn’t mean you’re going to sit on the sofa for the rest of your life and do nothing. There’s nothing you have to do.  Alexandra: I loved your wool analogy, your ball of wool analogy, because it reminded me when I was a kid, my grandmother used to knit a lot, or was it crochet anyway, one or the other. She taught me that when you have a skein of wool, if you pull one, there’s two ends, right? If you pull one of them, it can kind of become a bit of a tangled mess, but if you find the other end, it just comes out effortlessly. It doesn’t get all knotted up in itself, and it almost just sort of falls apart. And it’s all very easy.  That was touching me when you spoke about that. There’s two ways to approach this.  Bonnie: I love that you just said that, because that’s so true. It’s like they’re some of the memory, the condition thinking that what’s coming up. I saw it before, but I was probably pulling the wrong end. I love that. Thank you. I was pulling the wrong end and making the ball even tighter. But yeah, so I got a hold of the right end. It all flowed out. Alexandra: Yes. Bonnie: That’s beautiful. Alexandra: We created that together. That felt really good. That’s great.  As we come towards the end of our time together, I want to ask you, is there anything that we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share with our listeners today? Bonnie: I think I already said this, but this would be what I would share. And that is if there’s anything that you set an intention to do, it’s to really get cozy and familiar with how you hear wisdom or see wisdom. I’m sure it comes to everybody in different ways.  Even when I think about how I connect with that, sometimes it’s just a knowing and there’s no words, I just know what to do next. But I’ve also had times where it’s yelled at me, because I wasn’t following it. So I heard words.   I’m sure it probably comes to people in feeling, too. However that is, if you can get familiar with that, with listening to that, hearing that and distinguishing it from your personal wants and desires it just helps life unfold in a magical way.  There’s no techniques and you can’t make it happen. I think you can set an intention or create an environment with being open. But as far as I’m aware, there’s nothing you can do to make that happen. Other than being open to listening to hearing it. Alexandra: That’s lovely. Thank you, Bonnie. That’s great.  Where can we find out more about you and your work? Bonnie: I do have a very succinct one page website. BonnieJarvis.com  I had a website years ago, but once I started working for 3PGC full time I closed it down and recently rebuilt.  I have a couple of things coming up: there’s the What Has Wisdom Shown You Lately is something that Azul and I do for free every month. And there’s also the year long program that we call The Heart of service that we are talking about doing again, because we are just loving the program. So we set up a waitlist or a notify me list for that.  And then I’m also fortunate enough to be doing another program with Cathy Casey and Mike Heard and that is called, Stress and anxiety are just an illusion. It’s not what you think, or is it? I don’t have all the details of that. I believe we’re going to start in July and it will be for four sessions over four weeks. But more details will come out of that soon. That’s what I do. I have been doing one on one sessions. I’ve been calling them Heart to Heart conversations. That’s all and there is a way to contact me on that website as well. Alexandra: I will put a link in the show notes to your website and BonnieJarvis.com. Bonnie: Thank you. Alexandra: Thank you so much for being with me here today. Bonnie. It’s been just lovely chatting with you. Bonnie: Thank you so much. I’ve always considered myself somebody who was more like, numbers, math and coding oriented and not very eloquent with words. So I hope I was able to share in a way that at least one person is touched by it. If just one person sees something I’d be really, really deeply grateful. So thank you so much. Alexandra: You’re so welcome. And I would bet that way more than one person is going to be touched by what you’ve said, you did a great job. Bonnie: Oh, thank you. Alexandra: All right. Take care. Bye bye. Featured image photo by Matti Johnson on Unsplash The post Listening for Guiding Wisdom with Bonnie Jarvis appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.

We all have one: an inner critic. That voice inside our heads that is critical of so much that we do. That voice can become debilitating, if we let it. But when we apply what we know about the Three Principles of innate health, we can teach that voice to take a back seat, where it belongs. And, on a positive note, hearing the inner critic can even become an ally in helping us to practice stepping into a better feeling. You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. Show Notes A neurosurgeon’s explanation for the inner critic A reminder about the purpose an unwanted habit is serving How the feeling that comes with the inner critic alerts us to its falsehood On the possibility of having a different experience at any moment The beautiful feeling that’s always available to us How our thinking can be like the grooves in a record Resources Mentioned in this Episode Mind Magic by Dr. James Doty Transcript of episode Hello explorers, and welcome to episode 65 of Unbroken. I’m Alexandra Amor. I’m here today to talk about the inner critic or that negative voice that can dog us all the time. And this is a subject, particularly close to my heart. I feel like it’s something that I’ve wrestled with for a long time and for a long time, couldn’t see it.  Years ago, it was invisible to me, even though it was going on. And then gradually, I became more and more aware of it, but didn’t know what to do about it. And then I came into this understanding, and I put it off to the side. But it’s come up in my awareness lately. And I’ll tell you a bit more about that in just a moment. I was reading a book recently about brain science, called I think it’s either called Mind Magic or Magic Mind by Dr. James Doty. And one of the things he mentioned in there was, how his approach to our inner critical voice or his understanding of it was really interesting. And it was about the evolutionary process that we’ve gone through, and how our brains are wired to look for danger. Given the society that we live in now and how generally safe we are – I hope I can say that about you – that the part of our brain that’s looking out for danger, even looks out for it in our own behavior. So it’s able to be critical of us, or it believes it’s being critical of us, in order to serve a purpose in order to keep us safe.  I probably haven’t explained that, as well as he did in the book. But it got me thinking about the negative voice, the inner critic, that so many of us hear, and maybe don’t hear, that’s maybe silent. I find it at times just kind of running behind whatever else is going on, in my mind, and I’ll talk about in a minute how that doesn’t actually matter if we can’t specifically hear what it’s saying. So that’s some of the good news.  Let’s jump in and talk about this. The reason I wanted to bring it up was that, in the past, we’ve talked about how unwanted habits are working in our favor, even though it might not look like they are. They are a solution, not a problem. And one of the metaphors I use is that unwanted habits are like the valve on the top of a pressure cooker.  The habit itself lets off a bit of the pressure of what’s in the pressure cooker.  So this got me thinking about how that inner critic, that negative voice is contributing to the load of what’s in the pressure cooker, it’s contributing to all the stirred up thinking that’s in there, and not in a good way. It’s adding to the pressure that’s in the pressure cooker. And so that means that in a way I think it would help for all of us to look at that kind of negative thinking specifically, and learn how to deal with it, learn how to resolve it. And so that’s what we’re talking about.  Today, I’ve got three tips for helping you to deal with your inner critic. I’ve been experimenting with the tips I’m going to share for the last couple of weeks, and it really feels good. I’m really really enjoying it. It has opened up a space of a good feeling within me. It has taught me at a new level to not take my thinking so seriously, which I really really appreciate. And like I say I just feel this a greater sense of tenderness or compassion, kindness for myself since I’ve been practicing these things, and so of course, that feels really good. So let’s talk about the first tip that I’ve got for dealing with your inner critic.  The first one is pretty easy, and it’s something you’ve probably been looking at a little bit already. And that is to know that: The thinking that we have going on in our minds is not the truth with a capital T.  Thought, of course is like energy, and it’s moving through us all the time. And it is not the absolute truth, even when it looks like it is. So let’s take an example of you are walking along one day and you trip and fall. And there are so many ways that you can react to that situation. In the past, one of the ways that I’ve reacted to any kind of accidental thing that I do – I drop a bottle and it breaks or I trip and fall or the other day, I bumped my hand on a kitchen cabinet knob, and it’s quite sore – my inner critic really flares up in situations like that. So it really takes a hold, and beats me up and it takes the opportunity at that time to tell me that I’m clumsy, or I should have watched more carefully what I was doing, it really does beat me up a little bit in situations like that. And that’s been a historical pattern.  What I found is that as I’ve been using these three tips that I’m going to talk about, it’s actually been fairly easy to break that habit, given what I see now and what I hope to share with you. So we trip and fall, there’s a lot of negative talk in our heads and whatever that looks like. And so the first thing we can realize is that all that thinking that’s going on, it feels so real. And it feels so true. And it’s so easy for us to live in, in the illusion that everything we think is true, and real. And it isn’t.  How our thinking reacts to a situation like that, when we’re being hard on ourselves, is probably based on historically the way we’ve treated ourselves, and probably the way that we’ve heard other people treat us or treat themselves as well, growing up. What we can recognize, and we’re going to dive into this more in a future tip is that whatever the inner critic is saying in that moment, there are so many other possibilities for what could be true.  So to stay with this example, if I tripped and fell on the inner critic told me, or was beating me up, because it was saying I should have been paying more attention. And that’s kind of the one note that it’s playing on, just by understanding that that thinking isn’t that the truth with a capital T is really helpful.  What can be more helpful to seeing that there’s all kinds of other things that might be true in that moment, as well.  Maybe there was a little uneven spot in the sidewalk and that’s why I fell. Maybe I was getting out of the way, I tried to be kind to someone and just kind of caught my foot. Maybe my shoes are too big. There’s all kinds of reasons that that particular circumstance that could have happened, which simply points out to us that whatever the noise is, the critical, negative noise that’s going on in our heads that’s not the absolute truth with a capital T.  And again, I say, Yes, it does feel like that. And yes, it’s so easy for us to be completely wedded to that thinking and to imagine that everything we think is true. But looking in this direction, about what other possibilities are available to us, is really helpful, especially in this case of dealing with our negative thinking. So that’s tip number one. Remember, you know as often as you can, that the critical noisy thinking in your head isn’t necessarily the truth with a capital T.  The second tip is that the feeling that you have, when that negative or critical thinking is going on, is telling you that it’s not the truth.  So, in other words, we don’t need to turn this into a situation where we’re monitoring our thoughts all the time, and trying to catch them all. Because that actually will take us in the wrong direction. We will add more thought, more pressure into the pressure cooker. So we can let that go. We don’t need to manage and monitor every thought that’s happening.  Our design is built so that it lets us know when our thinking is critical.  The way that we feel when that happens is the alarm bell, or the barometric reading, however you want to call it, it’s the thing that’s going to let us know. And sometimes we can skate past that, especially if we’re used to a lot of critical thinking, and used to the inner critic. And yet, what we can do, as we gradually begin to notice this happening, the feeling that we’re having, and the fact that the feeling is alerting us to the fact that we’re having some negative thinking, it becomes a habit it becomes it becomes a habit in itself.  It becomes automatic to notice what’s going on.  I’ll give you one specific example. I experience a lot of urgency when my inner critic is really flared up. I notice that urgency pretty quickly. So I feel that in my body, I feel it in my solar plexus, like there’s a tightness, there’s a clenched feeling. And then I kind of feel it in my I would say, my chest and my shoulders that I need to, yeah, there’s just this impulse inside me, it’s almost like it’s telling me to run. And what it’s telling me is to go faster, to do more.  I know that that comes from a habit that I picked up. So as soon as I feel that feeling I can be sure that I’ve got some thinking going on, that’s not serving me that the inner critic has flared up. And those feelings in my body will always tell me the truth about what’s going on in my head.  If we’re thinking it, we’re feeling it.  When that happens, I can go back to tip number one, and think to myself consciously, that there’s another experience to be had here.  I had this happen this morning, actually, when I was having a conversation with somebody. And I felt that urgent feeling, come upon me for absolutely no reason. I wasn’t in any kind of a time crunch. So I just did a little bit of silent talking to myself, and reminded myself that that feeling was letting me know that my thinking was not the truth, that I was feeling like there, I was thinking that I needed to move quickly, I needed to get out of the conversation that I was in and move on. And that wasn’t true at all.  Through that little inner process, I was able to relax into the conversation. That didn’t resolve the feelings, all of them, immediately. But I was able to step into a much more peaceful place in that moment by remembering that my body was alerting me to what was going on in my mind.  This brings us to tip number three.  Tip number three has to do with the awareness of the possibility of a different experience.  In that situation that I just mentioned about the conversation I was having, I simply became aware that there was the possibility to have another experience in this conversation with this person I was talking to. Now, we don’t need to get too attached to what that experience is going to be.  For example, let’s go back to the trip and fall example. So you trip and fall, having a lot of negative thinking about it, you notice, first of all, you remember that your thinking is not the truth with a capital T. That’s tip number one.  Then Tip number two, you, again, you’re noticing the feelings in your body, and how maybe you’re having a physical reaction to the thoughts that you’re having, or they just don’t feel good, they just make you feel kind of yucky. So that’s tip number two, you’ve noticed that the feeling the feedback that you’re getting, is that the thinking that you’re having isn’t the truth, and your body is alerting you to that or your experience is alerting you to that.  And then you remember that there could be another possibility. There’s another way to think about this tripping experience. And again, what’s important to know is, you don’t have to know what that alternative is that the universe is there with its wisdom, with its intelligence, and its creativity, its infinite infinite creativity. When we feel like we’re in the grip of a bunch of negative thinking, and this is the reason why this tip is so important, is that there’s always a possibility of another experience to be had. And when we know that it softens things and, and opens them up a little bit.  What I was picturing when I was preparing to do this episode was a tight little ball of string, and it’s all tangled in knots. And when we’re aware that there’s a possibility, for another experience, I just see that tight little ball of string kind of loosen. So you know when you see a ball of wool that’s quite loosely wound, that’s the difference between the tight little ball of string and the availability of possibilities.  So that’s tip number three, being open to the idea that there is always the possibility to have a different experience in any given moment.  We like to feel of course, and our minds like to feel that we’re in control, and that we know the outcome of everything, and we know how things are going to go. But when we can soften a little bit and open up to the idea that there are infinite possibilities available. That, to me, anyway,  creates a much better experience of life. My grip isn’t so tight on it, and it it can flow much more easily through me. That sounds kind of wishy washy, but I guess I mean, it just does, it feels like to me, like, the more open I am to the idea that I’m not in charge, that life is flowing through me, and that it is wise, even when things are going wrong, even when things are not going the way I would like them to go.  I had a different conversation this morning that was difficult and things are not going the way I would like them to go in that situation. And by remembering that there’s a greater intelligence involved and that it is flowing through both myself and the other person I was having in the conversation with and that there are, as I said earlier, infinite possibilities available that could you know, come to light, could occur to someone or could change the situation, that allows me to let life flow to a greater degree within me and just seems to make things honestly so much easier. It lessons my suffering about what’s going on.  That’s the key really, isn’t it, for all of us; we don’t want to suffer. We want to suffer less.  Relying on that universal intelligence, that wisdom that’s always available to us is, to me, it seems one way to be able to do that.  The final thing I want to wrap up with is reminding you I’ve said this before, but I want to say it again, because it’s so connected to what we’re talking about today. A few episodes back, I think I talked about how Michael Singer who’s a spiritual teacher, talks about how there’s really only one practice. And that practice is to relax. That’s the one thing we can do, that will ease our suffering.  That points to exactly what I just said, when we relax, we allow the wisdom of the universe to step in and to flow much more freely through us.  And my friend, Tania Elfersy, who’s been on this show a couple of times, she phrases that slightly differently. She refers back to Sydney Banks who said, over and over again, to look for a beautiful feeling. And that, again, really ties into when we’re talking about this inner critic, that inner critic doesn’t feel good. And when we notice it, when it gives us those signals in our body, another way to say that we can look for the other possibilities are that are available, is to say, look for a good feeling.  There’s a beautiful, or a good, feeling available to us at all times.  It is the thing that will loosen us up, that will change the thinking that’s going on in our heads. When I have a lot of critical thinking, I go through these steps, remember them, I tend to imagine myself stepping into a good feeling, a beautiful feeling. Now, that doesn’t necessarily mean I can feel it all the time. But it does mean that I’m open to the fact that it does exist, that there’s a good feeling to be had.  Even if the needle inside me just moves one little notch toward a good feeling, you know, one little notch away from the yucky feelings that my critical thinking have been giving me that my body’s been giving me that feedback, that’s a victory to me.  Circling back to the brain book I was talking about, I imagine that there is a physical result from doing this. So in other words, we are physical beings, of course, as well as spiritual beings. And we have those physical, neural pathways in our brain. And they can be like the grooves in a record. So when something happens, when we’re triggered, like, your spouse doesn’t load the dishwasher properly, and they never do it the way that you want them to do it. The needle inside ourselves can fall into that groove and just go running with all the usual things that we say about the dishwasher and our spouse and how they never listen and all that kind of stuff.  But by practicing the tips that I’ve talked about today, what’s going to happen is new neural pathways are going to be built. So that needle falling into that old groove is going to happen less and less. And that path is going to be built somewhere else.  In other words, it feels like this is both a spiritual practice and it’s going to have some physical results in our brain. Now I’m not a neurosurgeon, and I’m not mapping my brain at this time. But I suspect that that will be happening as well, as we practice these three tips.  I hope that’s been helpful for you. If you’re someone who struggles with a lot of negative self talk, the thing we often call the inner critic, what I’m realizing is it’s not as complicated to change my relationship to that kind of noise, that kind of negative thinking, as I used to think it was. And like I said earlier, there’s a balance.  There’s a way to do this without monitoring our thoughts and adding a lot more work to be done.  And that’s the balance that I would love to see you strike. And so like I said earlier, this isn’t about monitoring your thoughts. It’s not about managing what you’re thinking, because your design is perfect. And it will always let you know when you’re thinking. And when it alerts you to that with the feelings in your body, then you can do something about it, but until then, you don’t need to worry about it. And when that happens, it’s just very simple. Knowing that there are other possibilities and stepping toward a better feeling, knowing that it’s possible to have a better feeling in that moment. I hope that’s been helpful.  I look forward to talking to you again soon. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it. And I will talk to you on the next episode. Bye. Featured image photo by Uwe Conrad on Unsplash The post 3 Tips For Dealing With The Inner Critic appeared first on Alexandra Amor Books.