Transcript Interview Episode with Lisa Erickson

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Lisa: [00:00:00] In relationships, girls and women tend to be conditioned more to take responsibility for other people's emotions. So, if we are empathic and that kind of dovetails with that kind of conditioning, You actually are sort of conditioned that, oh, it's, it's my job not only to know how everybody is feeling, but to take care of it.

And that can lead to taking it on. So, there's often, there's the kind of technical, energetic piece and then often there is some conditioning also that is playing into that and contributing to that. So, a lot of my work in women's energetics is boundaries, energetic boundaries, boundaries, boundaries

Laurin: Hello friends, and welcome to Curiously Wise. I'm your host Laurin Wittig, and today I have Lisa Erickson with us to talk to, and I am really excited about this conversation. It hit all the little bells and whistles on my, I wanna know more about that scale.

We'll really be having a good conversation with that. I'm gonna read you her bio first, and then we'll let her say hello [00:01:00] to you and we'll get started. So, Lisa Erickson is an energy worker specializing in women's energetics. Guess what we're gonna talk about today. Sexual trauma healing, chakra manifestation, and Kundalini awakening.

She's the author of Chakra Empowerment for Women and the Art and Science of Meditation, both published by Llewellyn Worldwide. Lisa is certified in mindfulness meditation instruction and trauma sensitivity, and has trained in a variety of energy healing and somatic modalities. She is a member of the Breathe Network, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting holistic healing, and healers for sexual trauma survivors.

For more information on Lisa's work, visit www.enlightenedenergetics.com and of course, we'll have that in the show notes too. Welcome, Lisa. I'm so excited.

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Lisa: Thank you Laurin, and I am really excited to talk with you about Women's Energetics.

Laurin: Yes, yes. To give a little background to my listeners, I was listening to another podcast that I got invited to be on, and I, I like to [00:02:00] go and listen to how it, it works, you know, how, how that all works and if I'm a good fit and I found an episode with Lisa and I listened to it and I immediately got on WhatsApp with my assistant and said, I need you to track down this person.

I need to talk to her. And so that was just like a week ago, I think. It was very quick.

Lisa: I love it. I know it. It can, and I was just coming outta summer break at this time, so it was perfect timing.

Laurin: Yes. Well, welcome, welcome, welcome. So, let's just, let's just get started. I wanna know what you know about Women's Energetics. You had in the other podcast you had mentioned that as we go through different transitions in our lives, our energetics, the energetic body also changes.

And for some reason I had never thought of that. So, enlightened me.

Lisa: Well, it's interesting cuz I think when people think of an energy body or a subtle body, whether they're working with chakras or whatever their modality is, they tend to think of it more in terms of spirit, right? But it's a, it, it really is the [00:03:00] interface between spirit and, and body might be one way of thinking about it.

The energy body is the interface between the physical body and the psyche and the spirit. And you can kind of energetically work on any of those levels and different modalities work on all those levels. So, from that perspective, our physical body, especially us women, goes through all of these different phases.

We have pre menstruation and post, we have pregnancy, we have postpartum, we have perimenopause, we have menopause, and those all have energetic body changes that occur. And because that energy body is linked to psyche and spirit, these changes reverberate through all these levels. So, getting some knowledge about that is really important.

So that's really what I work, I work with those, what we might consider to be reproductive defined phases of life, but what are the energy body transits that go with that? And then what might be the psychological and spiritual transits [00:04:00] that tie into that?

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. So where do we start with that? I mean, obviously, you know, looking back on my own life I at 11 was when I had my first period, and things change pretty rapidly after that. So where are we as children with this energetic body versus after we go through that first transition?

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, for everyone, that puberty is this time where the second chakra, which is linked to all of those hormones in this whole side of us, really awakens, right? And one of that, one manifestation of that is sexual desire, right? At some point that may not happen right when we begin to menstruate, but it happens within a few years of that, whether we understand that's what it is or not.

And so that second chakra really shifts. And if for someone who is menstruating, for once we begin that cycle, we have this energetic cycle that it ties that corresponds to that hormonal [00:05:00] cycle. That second chakra, which is located in that pelvic space in terms of the physical location, is sort of opening and closing, waxing and waning with that cycle.

And when we get close to ovulation, that energy is actually emanating outward more. And as we approach menstruation, it's actually more inward pulling and there's a whole psychological process that goes along with that. There's a pheromone process that is tied to that. It, there's all these levels to it, both psychological and physical that we may be aware of, but there's also this energetic piece that we can learn to work with.

Laurin: Hmm. Okay. So that makes a lot of sense. I mean, just thinking about mood swings and all of the, all of the things you learn to deal with once you, you start having menstruation is, is yeah, it's a little overwhelming at the time. Yeah. Okay. So now that's the second chakra. Obviously the first one comes online pretty as we are born, or…

Lisa: Yeah, [00:06:00] I mean, really we have all of our chakras, but they get activated at different phases of our life, and so that is a big activation point. For the sacral chakra would be during puberty. That it's waxing and waning in this way. There's different models for developmentally and the chakras, and so some would say the first seven years of life each gets lit up.

So, in that sense, in your second year of life, the second chakra is linked to your emotions, right? And then there's the seven-year cycle. So, then it hits around 14, which is generally in the middle of puberty, right? So, there's different models for working with development and the chakras, but this, this is a big one.

And you know, in terms of that moods like you talked about. What's interesting is that what's tied with pre menstruation energetically is that our energy body is more sensitive. So, what that means is it, it's not always simply our internal emotional swings we're being impacted by, we are more empathic and more likely to absorb other people's energies at that time or more energetically sensitive. [00:07:00]

So, what, what does that translate into? It means that during that time, you may, depending on how empathic you need, we really need to pay more attention to boundaries at that time. And that will help you with the mood swings.

Laurin: Yeah. Boy, that would've been helpful to know for me and for my daughter.

Lisa: Yeah. It's like we're getting blamed for being moody and it's actually everyone else's moods we're reflecting, right?

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah, that makes so much sense. And, and I know I'm a very strong empath and my daughter is probably even stronger, and she really, she has very strong boundaries that she's learned to put up around those times where she's super, super sensitive. So…

Lisa: Good for her.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. Well, fortunately, I had begun to understand this early enough in her life.

Not super early, but early enough to be of help with that. But, yeah. That explains a lot to me about myself and about other women that I, you know, that I grew up with, that we all kind of went through. We thought we were responsible for all of that moodiness and, and [00:08:00] touchiness, and it's very, okay. It's very empowering.

Lisa: And obviously there's a lot of conditioning pieces too to that, right?

Laurin: Yeah, yeah. It's like we get PMS lumped on us. Well, maybe it's not just us, you know?

Lisa: Exactly.

Laurin: Huh. That's so interesting. Okay. Now I wish I could go back and like, you know, look from a broader perspective and see what else was going on around me or around my daughter or around my friends when we were not emotionally super stable.

Lisa: Well, and it's interesting cuz also in relationships girls and women tend to be conditioned more to take responsibility for other people's emotions. So, if we are empathic and that kind of dovetails with that kind of conditioning, you actually are sort of conditioned that, oh, it's, it's my job not only to know how everybody is feeling, but to take care of it.

And that can lead to taking it on. So, there's often, there's the kind of technical, energetic piece and then often there is some conditioning also that is playing into that [00:09:00] and contributing to that. So, a lot of my work in women's energetics is boundaries, energetic boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, which is, for me, root and naval is kind of the core one that I work with a lot.

Laurin: Nice. Yeah. That's something that I think every woman I know has a problem with.

Lisa: Exactly.

Laurin: It’s just, it's the way we're it, like you said, it's a, an enculturation kind of thing that it's, we're taught to be the responsible one for everybody's emotions, you know. So, okay. So, moving from puberty into pregnancy, motherhood, I would think would be the next stage. Or things changed.

Lisa: Yeah. Well, or really even pre-pregnancy would be just managing sexual energy and the surges, which are biological, right? Our body actually wants us to procreate. Some women that's problematic for them understanding sexual desire. There's a lot of negative conditioning, sometimes we receive around that.

I work with a lot of sexual trauma survivors, so then it can be very complicated, the messaging around that. So sometimes that's a big part [00:10:00] of that phase. And then making the choice whether or not to have children. Yeah, so really understanding sexual energy in your energy body can be a part of that if you do choose to get pregnant and, and, and, and experience pregnancy.

What's interesting is, of course that cycle stops. And during that nine months, just like your physical body gives all the nutrients to your uterus, your energy body really sort of like gives all the energy to your sacral chakra. And so, part of it can be learning how to kind of continue to bring the energy up through all the chakras can be important for mood management in pregnancy.

But, for some women, it's a very blissful time because part of what happens is the second chakra actually gets more and more and more open over the course of nine months, especially in the later months because it is the spiritual doorway for birth. As you know, we have the physical doorway. It is actually the spiritual doorway.

So, to some [00:11:00] extent, during that time that Sacral chakra is open too, you could say the other side or other dimensions, however you perceive it to be, where consciousness comes from. That can be very blissful from women to women, it depends on what's going on in their lives. If they have this to experience that, the support to experience that.

If they're physically okay. If so, then it actually can be a very bliss filled time. And we talk about that pregnancy glow that actually is very much a second chakra energy emanating out.

Laurin: Nice. All right. You're explaining so much stuff to me about my own experience that I didn't understand.

Lisa: Y'all makes sense, right?

Laurin: Yeah, it really does. I was not one that was blissful in pregnancy cuz I didn't have easy pregnancies, but but I still, there was that connection at a different level with the fetus. That was, it was unique. It was, it was. I don't know. Yeah. I, I love that.

Lisa: I think that most women in some way, the experience [00:12:00] changes.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. I, I loved that part of it, that knowing that there was this person growing and I had a, a real, I mean, obviously a real connection with them. It was just the, the allergies and the morning sickness I didn't care for, you know?

Lisa: That’s it. And when someone is struggling physically, it's difficult to tune in, right? Whether it's that or back pain, or you're in a position where you know, you're having to work long hours and you're just exhausted. So, I, I, I hope for every pregnant woman to be able to have the health and space, the care.

To tap into that bliss a little bit. Maybe if it's only even a few minutes each day. Cuz that's for you. You know, it is for you and it's part of the gift. Yeah.

Laurin: And nobody, nobody, well, I, it's been a long time since I was pregnant, but nobody was writing about this, that sort of energetic, spiritual side of it, of the, of the pregnant experience.

Lisa: Yeah. I feel like a lot of people were writing about the birth, you know, the whole natural birth movement, but not [00:13:00] pregnancy itself maybe and, and what you experienced then.

Laurin: Yeah. We did have the what to expect when you're expecting came out when I was in my childbearing years. So at least that gave us a little bit of a timeline for things. But yeah, nobody was talking about the, the sort of, the emotional part of it. Much less the spiritual part of it, and it's, God, how could you have a more spiritual experience than, than growing a person inside you.

Lisa: Exactly. Changes your relationship to your body for sure, right?

Laurin: Definitely does. And I, I have so much respect for my body after going through all that. It's like, wow.

Lisa: Yeah.

Laurin: Yeah. So obviously as we, as we give birth, then again things change because now we're gonna go back eventually to a, a cycle. Now, I know that it wasn't true for me, but I know that for a lot of people that if you breastfeed, you don't get your cycle back for quite a while.

For me, it, that didn't happen. I breastfed, but, I got the cycle too. So, there's obviously an energetic aspect to that part of the process as well.

Lisa: Yeah. [00:14:00] Yeah. And regardless of when your cycle returns, even if it doesn't return for quite a while, of course, that phase afterwards, there's a huge hormonal crash. Right?

Laurin: Yeah.

Lisa: Even if it doesn't go all the way down to returning your cycle, there is a big crash. And for someone, women, this is a very difficult time, right?

It can lead to postpartum depression, even if it doesn't, even if it's a lighter case of that, it's a huge transition. You're not getting much sleep. You have this hormonal crash. Your body's physically healing really energetically. The piece of that, that that's occurring is like all the energy pooled up into that second chakra.

It was open to give birth and now it sort of goes, you know, and what a lot of women need at that time is like flow. Like there's this piece energetically of taking that energy back and moving it upwards. So, with someone who's postpartum, I'm working with really activating that second chakra and bringing it up like, oh yeah, this energy is for you again.

And that hate with the help and with the psychological state. The other piece [00:15:00] going on though is we now have a mother child energy line.

Laurin: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Lisa: Yeah. It's unlike, you know, we form lines with people all the time in our lives, right? But that line is unique because it has a biological basis that mirrors the, the, the line to the placenta.

So, it's like from our second chakra to our child's naval for that first trimester right of their, after they're born, it's often called the fourth trimester. They really energetically feel like an extension of us, right? And many women, women we like, they can sense their child crying even when they're not with them.

They feel each of their moods, you know, all of that stuff. And that, that's kind of what's going on there is you now almost have this energetic piece of you outside of you and that mother child energy line gradually lessens over the course really of your child's growth, right? But those first three years, it's pretty intense.

The first three months, it's really intense. It gets a little better. Six months is another big marker. 18 months, three years, then it kind of slows down six [00:16:00] years, puberty by teen years. That line should pretty much be dormant. But I think instinctively we all feel that energetic connection in those young years and learning how to manage that.

Learning how to give yourself times where you sort of shut the door on that line when someone else is taking care of baby and allow yourself energetic integrity is everything. Is everything. And a lot of women don't have that support or don't feel they're allowed to do that.

Laurin: Or don't know that they should do that. I mean, I didn't, I had no idea. I totally should have done that, you know, I was wiped out for, you know, the first two years of both of my children's lives.

Lisa: Me too.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I love, I think this is such an important conversation to have. So now we have given birth, we have, our kids are maybe in school age. We've got a little less of that needy connection there. So, the next one for me didn't, it didn't take too long to get there, was perimenopause.

Lisa: Yeah. Me either, cuz [00:17:00] I had my kids at 38. I'm 55 now, so yes. For me it was.

Laurin: I, I had my first hot flash when I was 39 years old.

Lisa: Hmm. Yes. For me it was 48, so we were both young. But you were younger?

Laurin: And it took me 13 years before I was actually fully, you know, past menopause.

Lisa: I'm so glad you brought that up. Be, I mean, there is growing knowledge of perimenopause, but for a while no one understood it. And yes, it can be 10 years long, it can be 13 years long. It is a phase in which your cycle's becoming more irregular. Your hormones are perhaps swinging. Usually, it's not measurable by a doctor yet. Right? So, you know it.

Laurin: Oh, you're fine.

Lisa: With the blood test, they're like, you're fine.

Laurin: Put your hair up, put a cool rag on your neck. You're good.

Lisa: Yeah.

Laurin: Or here have some estrogen.

Lisa: Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and from a energetic perspective, it is a transition, right? And it is however long it takes it is these instead of having this [00:18:00] maybe regular cycle, not every woman always has that, which is this regular waxing and waning.

You now have an irregular one. So, you have to learn to work with that irregularity and try to reframe it for yourself as an opportunity for change, which is really what perimenopause is. This is where we get into Kundalini, if you'd like.

Laurin: Yes. Let's go into Kundalini.

Lisa: Yeah, so Kundalini is often called the spiritual awakening energy. In terms of our energy body, there's several different energies that run through it. The ones that are linked more to our physical body have to do with vitality. And when you go to an energy healer for, say, physical healing, if you do acupuncture, meridian work, it's really focused on that link between the physical body and the energy body.

Kundalini is more linked into the psyche and you, the spirit, the soul, whatever you, whatever you wanna talk about, the mind stream. And it is about pushing through obstructions to knowing [00:19:00] ourself as spirit or light. Whatever word you wanna use, right? It's about mystic experience and spiritual growth. The personal growth that goes along with that.

Kundalini is, it is linked to the second chakra. And so actually these, this waxing and waning we've been talking about, it, we actually like are releasing little bursts of Kundalini with our cycle every month as, especially as we come up to ovulation. So, what's happening in perimenopause is that's happening more irregularly, which can feel jolting, but it's also happening more intensely.

And so, it's a profound time of a profound opportunity for change and transformation. Sometimes difficult because if there are things that have not been faced, they will be brought to your attention and based, or you'll really suffer a lot.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. I think this is the stage of my life. Not immediately at 39, but by my mid to late thirties or mid to [00:20:00] late forties, I, I had begun my spiritual exploration.

Lisa: So, it triggered it for you.

Laurin: Yes. Yeah, so I, I had started to work with some healers. My best friend had really gotten into it. So, we, we, you know, really talked a lot about it and, and tried things and learned about things, you know, learned about chakras and how to use a pendulum and all these different things.

And it's really when I started to open up to that. So that, that very much tracks with my experience of it. And, and some of it was seeking help for the perimenopause symptoms. You know, as part of what got me moving into, okay, well I don't wanna take hormones, but I can't be bursting into flames every 15 minutes, you know.

Time was the only thing that took care of that, I'm afraid. But yeah, so, okay, that makes total sense. It's, you know, I have, as I've moved into menopause, which was I was about 52 I think when I finally, finally got there. I had heard for years, I come from a very matriarchal family, extended family.

[00:21:00] My mom was the oldest of four sisters. Her mother was the oldest of four sisters. You know, that kind of family. I had heard from so many of those women that, oh, once you hit 50, life is so great. And I'm like, why? And they couldn't really tell me. But I have had that experience that once you hit menopause, particularly though those last couple of years leading into it weren't so bad as some of the previous ones.

But once I got there, it was, it was a couple of years and then I felt clarity…

Lisa: Hmm.

Laurin: …in my mind, but also clarity in my energetic body that I had never felt before. And I attribute it to maybe a lack of estrogen. I don't know if that's what it is or if it's just that the energy has also grown and transformed.

You're gonna tell me that in a second. But, but it is such a time of wisdom because we've been collecting it, but we don't always recognize it. And one of my focuses is on helping people recognize their own wisdom. And for me, it's been everything my [00:22:00] aunts and my great aunts have told me it would be.

Lisa: Oh.

Laurin: Yeah.

Lisa: What a matriarchal line. I mean, I'm so glad to hear that because unfortunately for some women they don't experience it that way. Well, and men too, cuz men also go through a cycle and the, the messaging around aging is just like everything's ending as opposed to wait. Okay. Yeah. The physical body is going to.

Things are gonna happen, it's gonna decline, right? But that doesn't, your energy body and your spirit actually are meant to grow in wisdom and power.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: And, we don't receive that messaging. So, you found the tools you needed, that that is what that transit was. Sometimes people don't, and they really experience it as just an endless decline, which is so heartbreaking.

Laurin: It is. It is. It's part of why I wanna get the message out that this is a very cool time of life for women. You know, it's, I, my kids are launched. We all our parents are gone the last few years, it's been a time of, of letting go of a lot of stuff. I've a lot of crap. I [00:23:00] carried around with me for, you know, almost 60 years.

Well, yeah, cuz I, I got rid of it a few years ago, or most of it still comes up though, but it's…

Lisa: What can you do?

Laurin: I know it's like, oh, there's more of that, you know. But, but it was a time of clearing out, of making peace with, of forgiving myself and forgiving others of understanding that, you know, everybody's got their own perspective, their own lives.

Cuz when we're kids, it's me, me, me, me, me. And so, anything that happens, it's either my fault or being done to me, kind of, you know, stuff. It was such a wise transit for me, and I've heard that from other women too. So, I, it's an area obviously that I'm particularly interested at this point in my life.

Lisa: Yeah, I mean, just to add, cuz you're open to so many things, you know, astrologically so Uranus in, you know, Western astrology is linked to Kundalini for those who are interested in Kundalini. And what happens around 42, somewhere between 41 and 43, one of our major life transits is the Uranus opposition, which [00:24:00] is considered to stimulate the Kundalini.

So that's happening right then. It'd be interesting to go back and see in your chart if it started a little earlier, cuz every astrological transit has a, you know, a window. And then we have the Chiron return that hits around 52. So those are considered like the bookmark. And the Uranus opposition is, is tied to Kundalini in energetics, and the Chiron is tied to gifts, especially spiritual and energetic gifts and your power and how it comes out.

I mean, some people tie it just to healing, but in other words, the arc that you went through is exactly the opportunity there that there's going to be things you have to face that are difficult. The Kundalini, the spiritual growth process pushes through those obstruction.

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: When you do a new sense of purpose, perhaps new gifts arise.

Laurin: Yep. Yeah. I started my healing practice in 2018 when I was 58 years old.

Lisa: Yeah, so I, I'm [00:25:00] 55 now and I wrote my book at 50 and it published at 52, so that's exactly…

Laurin: Yep, yep, yep. That's okay. That's really interesting. Okay. This is fascinating. I knew it would be. So, I, I also know I've watched, I don't know exactly what to call it, but I have helped usher four parents now, two of mine and two of my husbands to their transitions. And with my, my mother particularly, that was not an easy thing.

She, we never had a real easy relationship, but that itself was a transition.

Lisa: Hmm.

Laurin: And for me was a huge opening. A hard opening more than anything, compassion, understanding, changes of perspective. But I've seen what happens as you begin to move closer to your eighties.

Lisa: Hmm.

Laurin: That I see. I, I have seen it a time and again in my elders. You hit 80 and there's a, there's some other transition that happens and I don't, I haven't experienced it yet personally, but I've seen it and I don't understand what that is. I don't know if you [00:26:00] have any understanding of that either, but…

Lisa: And by that do you mean a softening?

Laurin: There's a softening, there is a, there is neediness isn't the right word, but there is a need for accepting care from other people, which our elders often don't do with grace. They fight it because it's a loss of independence. It's a loss of sovereignty of your body at times. And I understand that that's gotta be really hard. I haven't been there. I'm sure I'll fight it too. But there, it's this, it's so weird. It's about 82 or 83. I see this big change.

Lisa: Yeah. Well, it's so interesting because the cycle that I mentioned, Uranus opposition, I said that happens around 41 42. So that means the Uranus return, cuz it runs on an 82 to 84 year cycle is then.

Laurin: I'm so observant.

Lisa: Yeah, I know. I'm like, oh, okay. Cause I, I, I didn't necessarily clue into that. I have seen it in my own parents.

And I didn't clue into it as being a certain age. I did view it as part of the aging [00:27:00] process and yeah. That window of when you need to accept how it is, almost like things coming full circle and really accepting the cycle of life in a new way. You know, if you make it to that point, which some people don't, right?

But if you get like that, that real recognition of the cycle of life is almost how I'm perceiving it as you speak of it.

Laurin: Yeah, and that's how I have often described it for my own purposes is that, you know, it's from diapers to diapers, basically. You know, is really to get just very goofy about it.

Lisa: It is.

Laurin: It's diapers to diapers and it is, you know, when you're born you need everything. You don't, you can't do it for yourself.

And as you get into those very old years, especially if you live into your nineties or hundreds, you have to be able to accept. Or it would be wonderful if you were able to accept the help of others even with these things that we are, you know, get embarrassed about. [00:28:00] You know, if, if you're old enough you can't clean yourself. I wanna do that with grace.

Lisa: Yeah.

Laurin: And I think that, I think my grandmother did it with a lot of grace.

Lisa: Hmm.

Laurin: But most of, like my parents, no, but my dad didn't live past 65, so he didn't really have a chance to get that old. My, my in-laws, they, they both, you know, were, were denying and, and we all knew they needed help. I wanna do it with grace.

Lisa: Yeah, I love that. I think what's, it is a very beautiful transit and I see different variations in my in-laws and parents as well in terms of which ones have been able to accept it or not. And I know myself will have resistance cuz I'm a very autonomous person and our whole adulthood is oriented around my daughter. My first just went to college, right? She wants to be so like autonomous, right?

Laurin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lisa: For us to do anything. So, our whole sense of adulting is autonomy.

Laurin: Yeah.

Lisa: And at that point in life you have to start [00:29:00] prioritizing connection. Right. It's really like this moving into know it's about connection, right?

Laurin: Mm-hmm.

Lisa: You have to be able to accept that help is really about connection with others and interdependence and it's a beautiful wisdom journey in terms of wisdom.

Laurin: Yeah, yeah. There's something about allowing others to help.

Lisa: Yeah.

Laurin: That is a gift, especially in that last part of your life because they're disconnecting too. And it gives them, gives the, whoever is being the caretaker, at least the person who helps, some it gives them an opportunity to, first of all, learn from you how, how it can be done.

You know, instead of kicking and screaming, maybe we go with a little ease in grace. But it's also, it gives, for me, with my mother, it gave me time to come to terms with her.

Lisa: Yeah.

Laurin: And she had dementia, so, so it was a gift to me.

Lisa: That was my mother-in-law. Exactly. Yeah, that was my mother-in-law. Exactly. And I did see the change in my father-in-law because she had [00:30:00] always taken care of him and he had been an only child. So, you know, he got that his whole life, right? And now he had to take care of her and that, and he's still alive.

He's 95 now. But that growth of what it took for him, which is first he was resistant to, but then it eventually really embraced to be able to care for her. That was an incredible opportunity for him and changed him.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a gift in both directions. If you can accept the help, it can be. It can, it didn't feel like a gift for me at the time because it was such a, I spent a lot of my time protecting myself from my mother. But, but I was able to finally forgive her for not being the mother I wanted.

Lisa: Yeah.

Laurin: And to accept her for who she was and the good she did in the world. Took me a long time to get there though.

Lisa: As it does most of us.

Laurin: Yeah. So, and a and a lot of help getting there too. I'm not, I'm not one to say, no, don't help me. I'll go, yes, I'll take the help. You know, so but yeah, so it's, it's [00:31:00] so interesting to see the arc and how the energy cycles come through these different phases.

Lisa: Mm-hmm.

Laurin: Okay. That's really interesting. So, I know there's this term, Kundalini awakening. And I know that I've heard of people, I don't know anybody personally, but who have had real problems because it's like they awoke too soon or they didn't know what was happening to them. So, can you just tell us a little bit about what that means, a Kundalini awakening?

Lisa: Yeah. Well, so Kundalini, as I had mentioned, is the particular type of energy that runs through the chakra system related to enlightenment, awakening, and really a lot of yogic practices and certain meditation practices that work with the chakras are meant to gently and in a paced way, bring the Kundalini up in a way that is supportive.

Right? And most chakra techniques, healing techniques and stuff, they aren't really, they're not activating the Kundalini. There's a lot of chakra [00:32:00] working. It doesn't have to do with activating the Kundalini. I always say that just cuz people will be nervous about working with the chakras.

Laurin: Yeah. Yeah, because that's, I, I mean that's, I, I work with the energy of, of the body and the, the, you know, all the rest of it, but not specifically Kundalini. So…

Lisa: Yeah. So, if it's done in a natural paced way, it is, you know, it's the natural spiritual growth process. You went through it. You may not have been working with specific Kundalini techniques. I don't know, but this growth process that you went through, the, the Kundalini awakening was happening.

So, you can work with techniques for it, or it's happening because of other seeking that you're doing that process is happening anyway.

Laurin: And that's, that was what I experienced. Yeah.

Lisa: And sometimes it is, but I will say I, it is the exception rather than the rule. People either overdue techniques or they have spontaneous Kundalini experiences where it is almost like too much [00:33:00] electricity got put through for the wattage they are ready for.

Because what happens if it's happening gradually is like you're a light bulb and your wattage capacity is increasing over time. And it's like too much got. So, there's this sense of almost the energy body, short circuiting. And then you need to work that to bring it back into balance, which is primarily stop whatever you were doing to trigger it if you were.

And ground. And that may take and allow yourself to psychologically process whatever you experienced for an extended period of time, usually. Right? So, that's what that's referring to when we talk about Kundalini crisis, et cetera. I think most of the time people just don't have the tools afterwards to process it.

And if they did, it wouldn't be such a traumatic experience in retrospect. But what happens is the initial experience and then without having the tools afterwards to handle it, it sort of builds and builds and builds. Yeah. But for most people it's not like that. It is a pace. It’s a beautiful thing. If you're a seeker, you are activating the Kundalini, whether you're working with those techniques or not.

[00:34:00] And it's just the breakthroughs, epiphanies. Every time you have an epiphany and insight, every time you feel like you shed something, the Kundalini moved through. It cleared something out that was stored in your energy body.

Laurin: Yeah. Okay. That makes sense to me. Yeah. Yeah. I got started with, consciously with it, with I was working with a massage therapist, and I asked her if she knew anything about chakras and she said, yeah, you want me to do some energy work on you? And I was like, okay. And I, it was, it was dramatic.

It was not it didn't like throw me off kilter cuz she was helping it, you know, she was working with me while I came online. But I then learned how to pull it up from the ground, how to, you know, how to ground and then how to pull it up into my body. And it took a while to learn how to get it past my knees, you know, but I could feel it.

And so, it was a gradual thing and it, and, and it felt good. It was, it was very cool. So that's why I, I'm always a little, [00:35:00] I, I didn't even realize that that was what I was doing until I went to your website and started reading stuff. So yeah. So, it's hindsight's very alive.

Lisa: Beautiful. Well, no, and that's great. And so, you're an example of where it did happen in a supported paced way. And I do think that's the norm, cuz I never want people to be scared.

Sometimes people read things and they'll call me up scared and to do techniques and I'm like, no, no, you can work with your chakras and you can work with the Kundalini, you can meditate.

You're not going to you know, it's really very, very rare.

Laurin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that grounding thing is, is really, I think, the key thing cuz that allows Mother Earth to help you acclimate, rewire, whatever it is that you need to do so that Kundalini can move through with ease.

Lisa: Yeah, and what I'll, I'll just say just for any listeners out there, I would say if someone has trouble grounding, you know, I work with a lot of trauma survivors and in that case, trauma or abuse, if you have patterns of disconnecting, disassociating, often that's reflected in the energy body as coming up off your root. [00:36:00] And those are often people that do initially have problems managing Kundalini.

Laurin: mm

Lisa: They have problems managing grounding. So, then the first step is really just working with tools that help you stay present in your body and bring that energy down and then you will be able to, to manage it.

Laurin: Yeah, yeah. And I, I think I learned to ground before I learned about the other stuff, so about the Kundalini.

Lisa: There you go. So, it happened. Yeah.

Laurin: Yeah. So, some, the universe was guiding me in a very careful way.

Lisa: Yeah. Yeah.

Laurin: So. All right. Well, this is fascinating. You've answered so many questions I didn't even know I had.

Lisa: Yay. Well, you ask great questions.

Laurin: Well, I, I love to learn about myself because it helps me help other people. If I can understand it in my body, then I can maybe help you understand it in yours. And so, and this is a piece that I've been missing, even though I've been working with energy and doing energy healing for a number of years now, but so I'm very, very grateful.

Thank you for so much for sharing your wisdom with us here. So, we're gonna go [00:37:00] to the Rapid-fire questions. These are again, just for fun. Whatever comes up first is good. It's what we need to hear today. Keep it in that frame. So, the very first question is, who is or was the wisest person in your life?

Lisa: Oh my gosh, so many, so many come to mind at once. You know, right now I, I would have to say Lama Saltram Alii, who is an American Tibetan Buddhist teacher, and I study with her, in a personal level as opposed to my energy work. And you know, her wisdom is just right front and center for me. Yeah.

Laurin: Nice. Okay. And what's your favorite self-care practice?

Lisa: Meditation for sure. I'm a daily meditator.

Laurin: Do you do guided meditation or just breathing or…

Lisa: Yeah, I have my own practice of chakra work and I also do Tibetan Buddhist practices because I am a practicing in my personal life Tibetan Buddhist. My energy work is not particularly Tibetan Buddhist. Yeah, so I have a daily meditation practice, so there's a few different things I might do. Right now, I do a lot [00:38:00] of Tara practice who's the compassion. It's about compassion. So right now, that has been my, my healing practice.

Laurin: That's what we need in this world so much.

Lisa: Yeah.

Laurin: Compassion and understanding. All right. What lights you up when you're feeling down?

Lisa: Walking. I live, I'm very fortunate to live by the beach and just getting out and walking along the water will always be sort of my go-to, but really walking anywhere in nature.

Laurin: Yeah, that's my, the woods are one of my favorites to take care of myself. I'm not at the beach, but we have amazing woods here in Virginia.

Lisa: Trees are amazing.

Laurin: Oh, love them. And do you have a favorite mantra or affirmation?

Lisa: Hmm. Well, I do. I like I cuz I'm into Tara right now, I would say the Tara mantra, which is Tara to, which is kind of like Tara come swiftly. And although we talk about Tara as if she's outside of us, really these practices are about my own compassion arise quickly, my own compassion activate. [00:39:00] That's kind of what you're saying with that mantra.

Laurin: Nice. Okay.

Lisa: Include self-compassion. Of course.

Laurin: Yes. Self-compassion and compassion for others. It's that it's all we need it on. Yes, you're interlinked. If we can't be compassionate with ourselves, it's hard to be compassionate with anybody else, so, all right. Tell our listeners where they can find you online.

Lisa: So, I'm at enlightenedenergetics.com and also my books are on Amazon Chakra Empowerment for Women, and the Art and Science and Meditation are both on Amazon. And then from my website at Enlightened Energetics. You'll find me on Facebook and Instagram and all that good stuff.

Laurin: Good. And we will have links to your books as well as your website in the show notes.

Lisa: Oh, thank you. Great.

Laurin: You can find them very easily. All right. I wanna thank Lisa for being here with us today. I have really, really, really deeply enjoyed this conversation, and I'm gonna take away so much more wisdom. I'm gonna be so much better at what I do for others, for understanding all of this a bit deeper.

[00:40:00] So I really appreciate you taking the time to be here with us today.

Lisa: Thank you, Laurin. I think your podcast is named wonderfully, Curiously Wise. I love it. And yeah, and I just loved hearing everything you had to share too. Thank you so much.

Laurin: All right. Well thank you friends for joining us today and I hope that you'll return next Tuesday for a new episode. We release new ones every Tuesday at Curiously Wise. And yeah, that's it for me today. Have a beautiful day and I'll see you next week. I hope.

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Thank you so much for joining us today on Curiously Wise. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future fabulous conversations. And if you had any ahas, please share them in a review on Apple Podcasts so we can continue to pay forward the unique wisdom we all have.

If you want to know more about me or my intuitive energy healing practice Heartlight Wellness, please head over to my website [00:41:00] www.heartlightjoy.com.

Curiously wise is a team effort. I am grateful for the skill and enthusiasm. Arlene Membrot, our producer and Sam Wittig, our audio engineer bring to this collaboration. Our music is Where the Light Is by Lemon Music Studio.

I'm Laurin Wittig. Please join me again next week for another episode of Curiously Wise. From my heart to yours, may your life be filled with love, light, joy, and of course, curiosity.

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