Emotional Healing, Sexual Abuse & Choosing Love After Trauma with Elisa Marie

How do you parent 7 kids AND heal your childhood trauma at the same time? In this episode we are tapping into all the feels with today’s incredible guest Elisa Marie.

From overcoming sexual trauma, leaving the Mormon church, losing her sister to suicide to choosing to love all parts of herself and parent beautifully in the process. How do you do it? Elisa shares her “Elisa energy” with us today. Tune in to be moved and inspired beyond measure.

Timestamps to help you navigate this episode:
0:00 Intro
0:24 FREE Self Love & Sweat MONTHLY Calendar
5:09 The Elisa Energy
10:27 Navigating Parenthood Through Self-Discovery
20:06 Faith, Food, and Extremes
29:19 Releasing the Inner Child
40:18 Finding Safety in the Familiar

Connect with Elisa Marie:
IG: @dream_traction

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:24 FREE Self Love & Sweat MONTHLY Calendar
• 5:09 The Elisa Energy
• 10:27 Navigating Parenthood Through Self-Discovery
• 20:06 Faith, Food, and Extremes
• 29:19 Releasing the Inner Child
• 40:18 Finding Safety in the Familiar

Transcript

Lunden Souza: 0:00

Welcome to Self Love and Sweat the podcast, the place where you'll get inspired to live your life unapologetically, embrace your perfect imperfections and do what sets your soul on fire. I'm your host, Lunden Souza. Hey, before we jump into this episode, I just want to make sure that you get all the free things possible, if you haven't already. You need to get your self-love and sweat free monthly life coaching calendar. Honestly, the way to experience deep change in your life is by doing small little things over time, and so that's what you'll find in this free calendar. You can get it by going to lifelikelunden. com/calendar. Get yours for free and let's get into today's episode. Welcome back to the podcast. Today I have a very special, wonderful guest, Elisa Marie. Thank you for being here.

Elisa Marie : 1:11

Yes, thank you so much for having me.

Lunden Souza: 1:14

Right before we pressed record, Elisa and I were both talking about how we want to get to know each other more and how excited I am for this episode because I know a little bit about you. I know how I feel when I'm around you. I know, I think, to a certain extent, what it feels like to be around authenticity and I feel that when I'm around you. But I feel like, yeah, I know our listeners are in for a huge treat with this interview today and I'm just so grateful that you came over today pretty spontaneously. I text you last night and I'm like, hey, we've been wanting to podcast. Do you want to come over today or tomorrow? You're like, yeah, I can be there at 9.30. And here we are. Yes.

Elisa Marie : 1:58

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much. That's a very kind compliment about authenticity. It means the world to me. You so much. That's a very kind compliment about authenticity.

Lunden Souza: 2:06

It means the world to me. I'm curious how you feel around me. I'm like, well, I just okay. So let me start off with how we met, which I think is super cool. We met on Instagram. I had, I think, what.

Lunden Souza: 2:17

I think the way that we cross paths is because the owner of a yoga slash, kind of spiritual space, in Lehi Provo-ish area. I invited her to come to one of our Dinner on Purpose events and I think you and I were like mutual friends with her. And then you DMed me and we just kind of started chatting. You invited me to your ecstatic dance event that you had and, yeah, just kind of it is my style to do things alone. So I was kind of like, okay, I'm just going to go and show up and dance and hang out and meet you and see what happens. And it was so fun and I felt so good.

Lunden Souza: 2:59

But I think what has been what's been cool is because we've had a lot of touch points, you and I, which is cool because I went to your ecstatic dance, then you came to a Dinner on Purpose that we did outside and then you came and taught ecstatic dance at my event, at my Voice of Impact event. And then you came, I think, for just like one or two lectures of that event. And then you came, I think, for just like one or two lectures of that event. And then you came last week to my house to Dinner on Purpose and I just, yeah, I admire the way that you show up in the world and I guess I don't know if there's a specific word that describes how I feel when I'm around you. But I know from the little nuggets of time that I've got to spend with you and I know from following you on social media for those of you just listening and not watching the video Alisa's like stunning, like a glowing angel in the flesh, right and gorgeous smile, just like so beautiful.

Lunden Souza: 4:02

And I know that from what you share, what you've shared at Dinner on Purpose, what you've shared on social media that your life hasn't been rainbows and butterflies and this silver platter of perfection. I know you've gone through so much and so I think where I want to start the conversation is is like how do you find love and joy and a smile and all of that, at least some mariness, I'll call it, despite all that you've been through? Is it a choice? I know that you posted on stories, I think last week, like a video of you just like processing and crying and sharing and feeling, which, in its own right, is so beautiful as well. But like, how do you do that? Is it a daily commitment? How do you keep rising and shining? How do you keep the joy alive in your life and that smile? I know you've gone through a lot and we can talk a lot about that too today, but how do you do that?

Elisa Marie : 5:09

I know, for me it is called the Elisa energy. There is an energy, there's a vibration, there's a frequency that I am on a quest to keep level in my life and to keep that content, peaceful feeling, and I would recommend like for me I really would explain it like inner peace and personal power, like those two things having inner peace and personal power. Those are choices every single day that I feel like I've dedicated myself to so that I honestly can feel a sense of contentment. I already feel emotions to the most extreme, like the highest of highs and the most lowest of lows, and I am a person of deep, deep emotion and expression, and so for me, it is like learning to be grateful for it all.

Elisa Marie : 5:57

When I am sad, it very quickly turns to gratitude. When I am angry, it very quickly turns to gratitude. I feel like gratitude has been my secret for fully embracing the happiness and the joy and the peace and the power. I couldn't even have the peace and the power and happiness if I didn't have those moments of despair and the moments of sadness and the moments of like.

Elisa Marie : 6:22

I'm just this multi-dimensional person that gets to fully feel, and to me the worst nightmare would be to feel numb and for me, I'm like I have gone through a lot and that's why I'm able to feel like the most intense amounts of like ecstatic ecstasy, of like pure bliss and happiness is because I've yeah, I've been on the other end where I felt a lot of sorrow and suffering and pain and I'm like kind of have this like refusal to be a victim of my life. I'm just like I am not a victim story girl. I really do focus on the good and even the bad and the ugly that's been done to me or that I've had in my life. It has been absolutely the greatest part of shaping me. So there's the. It's like I love myself and I have to love what's been done to me to arrive to that feeling.

Lunden Souza: 7:18

Yeah, and I think you posted a reel a couple of days ago. Um, that was like how do you deal with all the hard? It was not that's not what it said, but something like that how you deal with all the hard stuff, and it was just like thank God for it all, literally.

Elisa Marie : 7:30

I would just thank God for it all. It really is my secret the good, bad and the ugly. You just have a heart of gratitude, and sometimes that's hard. There's like accepting the trials in your life. But the next level to acceptance is then appreciation. And to get to the point of appreciating the hardness in your life and just having the accountability to feel like you chose it even really helps me.

Lunden Souza: 7:55

The accountability to feel like you chose it, like you chose this hard.

Elisa Marie : 8:00

Yeah, and it really is like choose your heart Absolutely. And I feel in my life I'm just on this quest for love. I have been on this beautiful self-love journey where the love for myself has been so intensely magnified and it's just this mirror everywhere I walk. It's just this beautiful divine reflection of my own love and I get to love others like so freely and I get to love them like so purely and see them as they are. And the more I've gotten to know myself and understand myself and love myself, I just so effortlessly get to know and understand and see people for like their purest form. And it's really been such a sacred experience to feel like the journey to myself is also the journey to other souls and to other people and to be able to share my gifts so naturally.

Lunden Souza: 8:56

Yeah, it does seem natural and effortless and authentic. That doesn't mean it's not hard, but it just comes off that way. And Elisa has seven kids between her and her partner, aaron, who's also wonderful, who is such a great guy. Aaron has four and you have three, right, yes. So how does that work with seven kids? How do you teach, how do you heal, while you're also a parent?

Elisa Marie : 9:27

Oh my gosh that's such a good question. The children are the prophets on earth, they are the true teachers, they are the teachers. I really believe that, like their pure, pure authenticity, before religion or culture or society comes and waters them down or mutes them, we have this unlimited amount of curiosity and freedom and unlimited amount of just authenticity and love and courage. And watching these kids, it's been really beautiful to just see them with their little like I love to look at, like childhood psychology, because they just have these little minds that are sponges to everything around them, and it's been really eyeopening that I have to be the example, that I have to be the one standing up for my beliefs so that it can ripple down to them. And I I very much so.

Elisa Marie : 10:27

Take the like I grew up very helicopter parents, like really, really strict feeling, like I had, you know, in the Mormon church. I had a lot of rules and they're just phantom rules, they're not even real rules, but there's just like endless amounts of guidelines and parenting is more about obedience and compliance and you want the child to obey you and you need them to comply. And now, my time in motherhood, I'm realizing it's not a role. Motherhood isn't a role, it is this relationship, and the relationship that it is with a child is so much more powerful to have connection and nurturement over compliance and obedience. It's about the connection and so, for me, I have given them a lot of space, a lot of self-expression, a lot of time for themselves to have self-discovery, to have self-trust, and instead of being like a helicopter parent, I'm really just assisting them in their self-trust.

Elisa Marie : 11:30

And the ages are crazy, because my man, he has 16, 14, 10, and 5. And then I have 3, 5, and 8. And so my youngest is 3 years old and it's just been a whirlwind with all the different ages and experiencing the teenage phase and the toddler phase and kind of trying to blend and embrace the families together. It has been a really glorious experience of magnified joy, magnifying love. Everything is just like totally like doubled in joy and doubled in love, and it's been a really unique and surprising experience to be a stepmom and I grew up.

Lunden Souza: 12:16

I resonate a lot with what you said because I grew up in a very religious family as well. Yeah, like you said, obey and comply and these are the rules and this is how you're supposed to be and this is what you should be in here Like, and not a lot of room to feel and express and share. And I think it's probably just been over the last few years that I've kind of unpacked that and unraveled that, because you feel so like I don't know, smothered, I don't know if that's the right word constricted until you don't. And then there was just, yeah, a lot of when I was asking you about your kids, like how do you heal and parent? I just think it's, yeah, it's really interesting because it inside of me that is like free and expressing and feeling, and playing and breaking the rules, if you will, or creating my own rules or whatever. And so what do you like? What do you tell your kids when they're feeling a lot of different feels?

Lunden Souza: 13:38

I remember hearing like suck it up, not stop whining, or like being sad is like what's wrong. Or my mom texts I was telling her something about someone who was feeling a little bit upset and she's like well, why is he sad? And I was like I'm not sure. I didn't ask, but it's okay to be sad, so I'm going to go hang out with this person that's sad, I don't need to know why. Or like there's just so much to feel that there doesn't always need to be a reason why you felt that in order for it to come up. And I don't think I ever understood that until I was an adult. Does that make sense?

Elisa Marie : 14:13

Seriously, yes, and it can be really, really harmful, I think, to the child to be like go cry in your room and I don't want to hear that. I definitely embrace tantrums in my house. I think it's really, especially because I have two boys and we have three boys like five, six and three, and so I'm just like these boys. I don't want that toxic masculinity where they can't express their sadness, where they don't feel safe to even feel anger, Like I just think any emotion is just energy in motion and when we stop making one emotion above the other and just kind of treating them equally, and it's like when my kids happy and excited, I love them the same as they're sad and angry and I get to give them my time and love and affection, even when they're kicking and screaming and throwing a fit.

Elisa Marie : 15:04

And I found for myself, going back to that logical reason of sadness, that emotions don't have any logic. Sometimes I will be violently sobbing and I have no freaking clue why. I have everything in my life to be grateful for, happy for, and there is something stored in my body that needs to be expressed and I'm going to try to logically be like is it my relationship? Is it my kids, Am I not feeling fulfilled in my career? And you're going to try to grab to things and play the blame game and we're trying to logically make sense of these emotions and sometimes, the more you're pointing blame on things or people, the more shame you're going to feel and the more ashamed you're going to feel of your emotion. And so, especially with children I know growing up in religion or anything we are trying to shame them or fear, that like put fear in them to get them to obey or to comply or to feel a certain way, and it can be extremely manipulative and it's hard to break those patterns.

Elisa Marie : 16:08

Like even me, I catch myself using those manipulations because that's like all I've ever known or what I'm used to is putting an emotion in someone to get your way, to get the tactic to get the kid to put their shoes on and get in the car, you know, and so it's been really interesting to use, like to have their emotions be very sacred and I had to be very present. You have to be very patient and it's really important and it's definitely something I have not perfected. I'm I'm only 29 years old. I definitely don't know what I'm doing, but I try my best, and especially with their emotions. I treat them all very sacred because they are, we're just emotional beings. There's no logic to make sense of it sometimes.

Lunden Souza: 16:55

Wild that you're 29. You're so wise.

Lunden Souza: 16:58

I mean, what is age? Anyways, I just turned 36, which trips me out, but wild so cool. Where did your like self-love journey start? When did you decide that you could break free from the way that you were raised and a lot? And then I know that you had kids that you raised in this religious. You know we live in Utah, so there's, yeah, a big Mormon religious base here, I guess, and I know there's a lot. I mean, yeah, there's a lot of religions everywhere, but especially here.

Lunden Souza: 17:36

And so how did you? What was that transition like out of that? I know you still believe in God and have this relationship with God because I see what you post and share and I've been in conversation with you. But how has that evolved and how did that kind of start? And then, how do you like explain that to your kids? I know one's three, so maybe you know it's when they're that young it's different, and maybe that's a conversation for later, but it's like when? So I guess the question is like when did you decide it was time for change? And then how do you bring your kids along with you on this change journey? Yeah, I know for myself.

Elisa Marie : 18:16

I was like the most lovely Mormon. I was so loving my Mormon life. I love charity, I love mercy and grace. I love everything about the community of the church because I am such a social person. So I ended up getting married at 19. I was barely turned 19.

Elisa Marie : 18:36

I got married in the temple and then I had like three kids in four years and it was like the plan of happiness. It's this set in stone If you get married in the temple, you can reach the highest kingdom. This is a plan of happiness and it was something I was taught, that was so ingrained in me at a young age, that this is the way of joy and success and happiness. And it was a really unique experience because I I just wasn't happy. It was like really confusing to like feel like I had arrived and I'm supposed to be feeling fulfilled and I'm supposed to be feeling and it's so hard to like gaslight myself for so many years of like I'm doing the thing.

Elisa Marie : 19:22

And I got married in the temple and I was worthy and I did all the things to get here and I just had the most severe postpartum depression. I mean, I was like so heavy. I was just stuffing my emotions down. I weighed like over 230 pounds and I just felt so heavy on my soul and on my spirit and I felt so heavy emotionally and mentally with the turmoil of the shame and fear. And my ex was very, very intense in the church like not even a normal Mormon, like we didn't have a TV, we didn't watch any media, we ate vegan, we didn't eat any animal products. We had a very extreme lifestyle of really harsh restriction.

Lunden Souza: 20:06

I didn't know that veganism was a part of the Mormon religion.

Elisa Marie : 20:08

It's not, but some people like to read the word of wisdom as that, because there's a scripture in D&C 89 that says to eat meat sparingly, only in winter or famine. But God's not pleased when we use animals for food. So it says that in DNC and my ex loves we just kind of we get into the scriptures and get really extremist and he just had like OCD struggles with that. So I, I, I was fine to do it, like we did it for four years, but it was like way restricted to take out any animal products no dairy, no eggs, nothing. Restricted to take out any animal products no dairy, no eggs, nothing. And I did that through my pregnancies and I was like so sick and had to have IVs and iron stuff, like I was definitely struggled with anemia through my pregnancies and anyway. So it was just like the most dark and dreary time, like it was so horrifying that I just kept gaslighting myself and I didn't understand, like what the root emotion was. But it was shame. I felt like 90% of my life was this big emotion of shame and it had to activate me to do everything, to go to church, to be a parent, to do everything. And I quickly learned that I can't shame myself into changing. I have to love myself into evolving. And I've still really stuck with that where I'm like this absolutely has to come from love. If I want to lose weight, I'm going to lose weight because I love myself, not because I want to change myself or my body, like if I want to have a relationship with God. It's not going to be a shameful relationship. It's going to be because of my love for God. And I just started to go through everything in my life and find that root of the shame and fear inside of me and start to just totally reprogram. And I had on my mirror the saying I completely love and accept you exactly as you are. I feel like that positive affirmation got me through, because in the Mormon church there's always more and more and more do, do, do progress, evolve, blah, blah, blah, and you're just always feeling like you'll never be content and peaceful with where you are, you're never going to be enough, and that not enoughness just oozed through my walls from my ex from the church, and so it was really painful to just be like I'm actually. I completely love and accept myself exactly as I am, and that's when I started to lose weight. That's when I started to see the light. Like that's where it all started to root. When I'm like I'm already whole and complete, I'm just embracing this whole incompleteness and yeah, it was.

Elisa Marie : 22:52

And I would say the biggest thing that made me really transform my faith was my sister's death. She took her life in 2020 and that was like would rock anybody, like it was the most horrific trial and it made me reflect a lot about the afterlife and death and you know, and everything they taught in the Mormon church just did not resonate with me and this is where my self-trust had to really sweep in, where I just had radical trust in my gut instinct and that's hard to go away from. Your whole conditioning, your whole blueprint, your whole like childhood and livelihood, and all of your friends and family and even my husband. I'm just like I don't fucking believe this and it was so hard. It caused havoc in my family, it caused a divorce for me, everything I mean. The minute I told my husband I don't believe in it, I want to take my garments off. He was like this is a betrayal worse than an affair. This is a betrayal against God. This is a betrayal and I I mean seriously, I felt like watching the wicked movie just barely. I'm like I want to see that. I'm like I feel like the wicked witch. I'm really standing up for good, I'm standing up for self-love, I'm standing up for my own self-trust and authenticity and freedom, and all the emotions were so good.

Elisa Marie : 24:20

But then my external life was just crumbling and I had a seven month old baby. I literally had just given birth and like my sister had just died and I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to like move in my life. I have to get momentum and and and start to make choices and actions that align with this inner light, with this inner freedom, with this inner self-trust and this amount of peace I felt and power I felt. I was like I don't care what comes to the ground, I don't care, I have to stand for like what I want and what I believe in. So I did I.

Elisa Marie : 24:57

I just ended up divorcing him and I had like, yeah, when we first separated, my kids were two, four and seven months. I had like, yeah, when we first separated, my kids were two, four and seven months. I was just like, yeah, peace out. I feel bad, but we did still like love each other, but there just wasn't working. It was very much like I got married at 19 and he proposed after two months Like I didn't know the man.

Elisa Marie : 25:18

Yeah, so it's been really healing to be like out of that religion I've been. My faith transition was about maybe four years ago. My divorce was three years ago and my life has transformed. It has become a miracle beyond miracles, like that amount of courage that it took to choose me and now my life is unfolding in complete like. I feel so blessed, like. A year after my divorce I met Aaron and he has just he's given me the greatest gift I could ever experience in this life and that is love. It is the gift, it is the game of life and it has been so fucking playful I don't know how else to describe it. It's a game and we're playing. We were playing the game of love and it's been fun.

Lunden Souza: 26:16

I love that you said it's like a game that you're playing, because when I went to your first, the first time we met, and I went to that ecstatic dance, it was a family ecstatic dance.

Lunden Souza: 26:27

So there were kids and adults, and I know there were a lot of people in your family there too, like I think your sister, your other sister was there, and your mom, maybe your dad too, yeah, and I think maybe nieces and nephews, and then of course you're in, aaron's kids were there, um, and then I know probably, like you said, when you decided to wake up that day, I like how you said it You're like I just don't fucking believe this shit anymore. All right, it's time to go. Like, and I know that and that's what I love about you is because even through all the hard, you have this like chuckle and laugh that exudes like, yeah, love even when things are hard. But how did you get to the point then to be able to like all dance together, like, how did that get to be? I mean, I know life is a dance in general, but then we were also dancing but like, how did you guys like?

Elisa Marie : 27:18

Dancing is my most beautiful spiritual practice. Truly, it has gotten me through, because me and my sisters and my mom even she suffered abuse from her father and then we all had the same sexual abuse from our grandpa, and so it's just really sad, especially in Utah I feel like Utah has really high rates of sexual abuse and harm to children and it's I don't know if religion has a way of suppressing sexuality. It's just really a devastating trial to children and it's I don't know if religion has a way of suppressing sexuality. It's just really a devastating trial to suffer. The more I talk about it, the more everyone's like me too, me too, me too. And it's just this wild and devastating experience that people have suffered in their body things they have not chosen.

Elisa Marie : 28:00

And so there was four years where my sister Becca she's a decade older than me she discovered this meditation center that was hosting ecstatic dance and it was held by a therapist that he just did it for his clients and offered it free to the community. So we were doing it with him and he he just brought in a lot of men. I think his specialty was like yeah, like with sex addiction and stuff, so his clients were there and we just felt safe and we would go in every week, every Wednesday I'd go with my two sisters and me and we would just dance and we had so much trauma stored in our body. Like specialist say, it's like the body that keeps the count, and it really is, and it's in our nervous system and you can try to pray it away, read all the self-help books, talk it away in therapy. But like talk therapy is so repetitive and really what's been harmed is your body and so every energetic part of me needed to have to process that and that's why something about ecstatic dance is where you just close your eyes. You're present in your body. It's a way of meditation, it is a way of complete freedom and liberation.

Elisa Marie : 29:16

And so me and all my sisters, we're just there, like releasing our inner child.

Elisa Marie : 29:19

If we want to be that little five-year-old in our tutu, just twirling around like whatever we wanted to be, crawling on the floor like primal animals or leaping across the floor like we could just do anything and it was a free space to do it, and I lost like 40 pounds and I really do think it was because of the movement and the release, emotionally and mentally, that then physically my body started to catch up with the healing of my sexual abuse symptoms and so I feel way passionate about it.

Elisa Marie : 29:53

That's why I've started to host it, because the guy who was holding it he doesn't do it anymore, he moved to Oregon and so I'm really happy that I can do it for my sisters and my mom still and anyone who wants to come. Like we're going to be hosting it. We have a great big home in Cottonwood Heights that we'll be hosting it at, or at Sage Canvas in Lehi, and it's just yeah, sundays at seven we just get our groove on. And my partner is a musician so he makes a lot of really fun tribal music, edm music, and it's all has like positive affirmations in it. So a lot of it is to help advertise his music and get people like moving with music therapy too, and having the music and the vibrations of those positive affirmations really get into our subconscious while we're moving.

Lunden Souza: 30:43

Yeah, I love the music you guys play at Aesthetic Dance because it's a mixture of like, like you said, the affirmation music, the songs that are created to just like, help you feel and heal, and then there's always like or at least the two.

Lunden Souza: 31:00

I've been to some groovy, funky and I remember after leaving the first ecstatic dance, I was like I feel like I just came back from the most fun wedding ever. You know, when you go to a wedding and you don't know that many people but the DJ plays really good music and you dance with a bunch of people, that's how I felt when I left. I was like, oh my gosh, that was really, really fun, and I love the way that you and Aaron show up and do this together. I loved when we had the ecstatic dance at my event because we did have, yeah, men at the event too, and so I think that the way that Aaron shows up in his way and just moves and plays and you guys do that together, it gives other people but, of course, other men kind of permission to move and express and play and dance, and so I enjoyed seeing how Aaron's presence impacted the presence of the men that were also in my event and I thought that was so beautiful and wonderful.

Lunden Souza: 31:56

But yeah, I mean, I remember too last week when we had Dinner on Purpose here and we were sitting actually at this table and I'm pretty sure you were in this seat or on this here right and you shared about your sexual abuse, like straight up at the table, with a smile on your face and with gratitude and love and joy, kind of like exactly what you talked about at the beginning is just like being in this, like relentless pursuit of finding gratitude in everything, and in that moment you were sitting here and I was sitting over here and when you shared that I was like, oh, this is exactly why we created Dinner on Purpose, because I grew up in a family and even with groups of friends, where you're sitting at a table and you're just like talking but about nothing, or like talking but about like surface level stuff, or like the weather or someone else's problems, or just like and so being at tables like we do at Dinner on Purpose, where we can just share and express and say this is what's been hard, or, yeah, I suffered sexual abuse and now I'm here and this is how, and having those conversations brought to the table as well, as we do a lot of really great conversations here on the podcast, but it's always so different and especially having had that in my house, under my roof, when you guys left afterwards, I just like laid on the couch and I was like I'm so grateful that everyone felt safe to come in and share, because even like this morning I was talking to my best friend, kara, who you and I were talking about when we started this, and her and I talk every day, and she was like, how are you feeling? And I was like I think I'm feeling kind of depressed. I'm not like I don't feel like super joyful and happy and like waking up, like clicking my heels like I am used to, but I think I'm supposed to like maybe be here, right, because I grew up in a family where you pushed things down and on both sides of the family, mental health issues and on both sides of the family, suicide. And so this morning, as I was like just getting my space ready, did my exercise movement, was talking to my friend Kara, I was like maybe I'm supposed to feel this because I haven't really felt it before and I just kind of feel a little like me that's okay and you know, but anyways, when I was sharing that with her, it felt so good and then she wrote, sent me an audio message back and she's like that's so courageous of you to like just admit it and share it and that's okay and like thank you, you know. And so it was so nice to have that dialogue with her and have that dialogue with people where it's like you can be like how's everything going? And you can be like, oh, it's good, thanks, hope, you're doing well too. Or it's like how are you doing?

Lunden Souza: 34:52

Oh, I don't know, I'm feeling very like not that great, and I've been doing this feminine womb space course called Manesting magic and it's so good it's. It's a course that was created by Dr Aaron Pollinger. It's part of our Nava community membership and I was like, oh, I couldn't join that course, live when they did it. So I'm going to go back and, you know, do it. So there's a lot of, yeah, womb space meditation, which is new for me.

Lunden Souza: 35:26

I've been meditating for a long time awareness of these different centers, but a lot of what we're doing is like womb space meditation and tantric dance and welcoming all the feminine energy, right, like even the warrior, rage, anger, feminine avatar, right. So over the last two sessions it's like a six-week course. I've done two of the sessions and she has us do a lot of visualization in this womb space and the last two sessions were welcoming in like those feminine parts of us right, the sad, the guilt, the shame, the you know. And then yesterday the second module was like the rage and the anger and the wants to scream and yell and be fucking pissed and you know. So also looking at that too, of like, okay, this is kind of where you're at in your journey and what you've been bringing up, so no wonder the feelings that you're starting to feel are a little bit more dark and like I just like, yeah, I love it, and so playing with all of that has been so cool.

Lunden Souza: 36:50

And then being able to express that and be like, oh yeah, I'm not really feeling. Like, yeah, what I have been conditioned to believe that I'm supposed to feel all the time, what I have been conditioned to believe that I'm supposed to feel all the time, that's it. You aren't always happy, you're not always joyful and excited, and there can be moments where you're just like Yesterday I was just right by my fridge, just on the ground, just sobbing and wailing and, like you said, in those moments where you can have the highs and lows of all the emotion. But then I was also laying there too and had the gratitude of like, oh yeah, okay, but historically on my family line, on both sides, they've been stuck in those dark emotions, or medicated which no judgment whatever or taken their life, or sometimes, in some cases, all three, or sometimes, in some cases, all three, and I was just. I really felt like that energy, was like moving through and anyways, I just share that because it feels good to talk about it.

Elisa Marie : 37:51

It's so good, right, it does feel good to talk about. I way connect with that because I've realized when I'm my most sad is when I'm doing the most healthy habits and behaviors, like when I'm getting a new habit that I know is good for me and it's benefiting me. That's when my body feels safe enough for that next layer of like, oh my gosh, I'm opening up this can of worms and now I'm feeling there's so many suppressed memories I'm having the hardest time. But it's just like, wow, I'm also doing one more layer of that onion just to heal that part and just to get it off. It's like if I'm not crying about it, then it's still inside my body and I want to get it up out and away.

Elisa Marie : 38:37

So whenever I'm feeling those feelings coming up, I do try to use like art and music and expression, because I really do believe that the opposite of depression is expression. And anytime I felt depressed I'm like I need my creation energy. And the creation energy is the womb energy. It is our sacral chakra that is here to be and build and create, and we think it's just here to create a baby. I'm like, okay, I have seven of those, I don't want another baby, I want to create a business, I want to create a life, I want to create joy, and when you can like really tunnel vision on your sacral chakra of what you want to create, that expression can really help and that's helped me to like paint my body or do lots of painting and be able to be like present in my body and just start to be like.

Elisa Marie : 39:29

This is self-trust too. I'm trusting myself to feel worthless. That's hard to do. I'm trusting myself to feel really pathetic right now and I'm okay to be really small and pathetic. That's totally okay and it's more than okay. It's brilliant, it's good for me. I'm healing it. I want to sit in the shit and I want to feel really small, and it's totally. It's like it should be celebrated that our bodies can feel that trust in ourself. To just sit in the shit. It gets so hard for me.

Lunden Souza: 40:06

But yeah.

Lunden Souza: 40:14

Trust myself enough to feel worthless. That helped me a lot right now. Thank you for sharing that. It's so cute, yeah, because I feel different.

Lunden Souza: 40:18

Since I moved to Utah it's been about a year and there's been a lot of stuff that's come up and so oftentimes what I tell myself is like oh no, your body and your heart and your soul and your spirit and everything finally feel safe and now you can express it and you're in a safe container. You're in a safe spot. You have people around you that love you. You've met some of the. I finally have neighbors that I know. My neighbor texted me the other day. She's like can I use your trash can because we have extra things to throw away? They're a family of I think five or six. Of course, my trash cans are just me. I was like of course, Please never ask me to use my trash cans again. Just knowing to have that energy and feel like you're home and landed. I feel like that's why a lot of this has been coming up, you know, because I'm like oh yeah, you're not.

Lunden Souza: 41:10

You know, when I lived in Austria, I was working so much on all these different stages, doing events all the time. There was like no time to feel, or at least I didn't know how to create the space to feel what I needed to feel. I didn't know how to like activate my emotional metabolism. Then it was like I just had to like stuff it down. I didn't even know I was stuffing it down. I don't think it was just like onto the next show, onto the next video event, whatever it was that I was doing. And then I'm after in 2020, I moved back to uh, to America, and then I was with my parents for nine months and, of course, I'm in my childhood home. There's just so much that's coming up and then from there I moved back to Southern California a bit and then found my way here.

Lunden Souza: 41:54

So I think, even the trauma of being stuck in Austria during 2020, not knowing if I was ever going to be able to come back my flights kept getting canceled and then coming back and being with my family, but still not feeling I don't think I felt fully safe to like let, and so now I just, yeah, I feel like, like you said, I trust myself enough to feel worthless and not good enough, and sad and angry and pissed and annoyed and all these things that are part of the full spectrum of rainbow of emotions that we're supposed to feel.

Lunden Souza: 42:35

We're not supposed to feel happy and joyful. I mean, we get to choose that, but I know it's not always going to be the default feeling that comes up, because there's other things stored and there's other things that need to be opened. And that's why I also love this podcast, because it allows me to share and talk it out and then also, with somebody else, be able to have these conversations of like. So yeah, when you said that that was really like a, because yesterday was like one of those days where I was just like messy- as fuck.

Elisa Marie : 43:11

I relate with that since I moved in with my boyfriend because we both didn't really have time to grieve our exes, or like he was married for 16 years and it's just a grief, it's a literal death. It's like his whole adulthood is conditioned to like be with that woman and and so it was really hard the amount of like sadness and grief and suffering I saw in him. But just it doesn't affect me, like when you're in a really healthy relationship you don't have to sweep in and what's the matter? And are you okay? What can I do for you? It's like this is so his own deal and I will be there to love him and comfort him when he needs it and when he comes to me.

Elisa Marie : 43:54

But a lot of it it's like we keep our healing pretty separate and it's been really good for us. We don't have to rely on each other for our emotional needs or be super codependent or have to. You know it's like we have each other, we support each other, but, like I said, there's this lighthearted playfulness to our love that really feels so dependent and we're not codependent on each other, we're just interdependent and it's helpful and it's healthy and it doesn't feel heavy or weighed down or oh, he's so sad and grumpy and what can I do for him and how should I help him? It's like we are so individualized and so whole and complete on our own that it never feels like this weight of like if I'm not happy, the whole house isn't happy. It's like if I'm not happy, we all celebrate my sadness. There's nothing wrong when I want to cry. It's like totally healthy, normal.

Elisa Marie : 44:51

And especially, I've realized that being with Aaron cause he's a dark person, he has a dark emotion, like he's so dark compared to me and I love it. He's this tortured artist. He's just this like moody artist and makes his music brilliant and he's just tortured over there and I'm like I love that for him. I don't have to fix anything or correct it or make him upbeat and happy. It's okay for him to be grumpy man sometimes, like I don't.

Elisa Marie : 45:19

I don't ever look at any emotion like one so much above the other. It's just been a very I regulate my emotions and he regulates his and it's not a burden on me to make him happy and it's and it's been really. It's been really interesting and healthy, because growing up in this Mormon household it was just so not that case and it's like happy wife, happy life, and if mom was sad, the whole household had to suffer with her you know, and so it's really been hard to kind of balance like that toxic positivity that can just be underlining weird, like optimism that's taken too far, like I feel like I do gaslight myself sometimes.

Elisa Marie : 46:03

I'm not always present or honest with my emotion. And I looked up the root word of honesty and that comes from the Greek root of hone. It means to hone in, and when I thought of that I was like honesty is really just to hone in on what is, and what is is right. And when we stop trying to make anything in our life wrong or stop trying to not be content and happy with it, there's nothing that could be wrong. There's no possible thing that could go wrong. Everything is divinely for us. And so when I'm honing in on what is inside of me, when I'm honing in, I'm like, oh my God, I'm finally honest with myself.

Elisa Marie : 46:48

I am still struggling with shame. I am still feeling worthless. I am still craving my ex. I am still feeling worthless. I am still craving my ex. I am still really missing the Mormon church. That's all part of my identity too, and it's been really healthy to just be like I don't have to, like throw the baby out with the bathwater and be like I'm not a Christian anymore, I'm an atheist. I don't have it's like. No, like I am a Christian, I believe in God. I have all of these spiritual and religious beliefs still, but in a lot healthier container for myself, and it's okay to just kind of pick and choose, I found, to hone in on what I'm really feeling, and every day it's different and every day I honor it and it's okay. Yeah, yeah, every day is different and it's okay.

Lunden Souza: 47:31

Yeah, yeah, every day is different and I feel like I should pay you for this, because this is very helpful for me.

Lunden Souza: 47:36

Right now. I feel like I'm in a good session because I like the way you illustrated you're in Aaron's relationship of healing and I think my default is, when someone that I'm in a relationship with is going through something hard, I think I did something Like what did I do? Was it my fault? Did I like you know? And you're like, like you said, I need to fix it or I need to figure out if it was, and it's like no, it just it is what it is today and that's what it is for him, or for her, or for you, or for them, and, um, it doesn't have to be, you know, fixed now, or it doesn't have to be anyone's fault, or it could just have come up today for him and that's what was supposed to come up for him today. Do you guys um, like how do you guys know where each other are? Do you use words? Do you just feel, like you guys just kind of know, like you can just tell, based on when we were?

Elisa Marie : 48:32

having, we have all the seven kids together. So like with that we would do like a percentage, like okay, sweetie, I only have like 20% in me. You need to do the 80%. Like we can just be like everyone thinks it's 50, 50 or a hundred hundred and it's like some days I'm at three freaking percent and you have to step up and we can just like tell them when we're on our last straw and I really can't do something. You know he can step up, but a lot of the time we kind of keep our kids.

Elisa Marie : 49:03

I do my kids duties, he does his. My kids have a lot of physical needs. Getting them dressed and out the door and fed have a lot of physical needs. Getting them dressed and out the door and fed. His kids have a lot of emotional needs. Their mom struggles emotionally and they just have a lot of needs from me.

Elisa Marie : 49:19

And I have a divine gift to make people feel seen and heard and loved and valued. Because I'm a hairdresser, I get a woman in my chair and it is hair-pee and I just get to tell them and give advice and make them feel loved and beautiful. And that's been a really beautiful career for me, cause I feel like I've learned brilliant social skills that way. But with his kids it's like, yeah, I'm just here to be a connection to them and love for them, and we definitely um have struggled though, trying to find like a balance, because my kids are much harder with their age and he's done so much better over time to like warm up because we're crazy, we actually moved in after two months of knowing each other. We just moved in. We've almost lived with each other for like two years now and we'll in the summer it'll be two years. So it's been this year and a half of just like trial and error and a lot of grief, and my body does feel safe enough to release a lot of suppressed memories about my childhood. I've had a lot of like new things coming dissecting my spiritual beliefs from my faith transition, dissecting my horrifying dating life. Even was really scary, and so I'm like, wow, that was stuff. I didn't even feel safe enough in my survival instinct to release those memories. But they're here now and I'm safe. I live with him and we're happy and we're safe.

Elisa Marie : 50:41

But he, he always gives me space to talk about it. But we always say like you're my boyfriend, you're not my therapist, and if it's, if it's too heavy, that it might weigh on him too much emotionally, like I have other people who are a lot healthier and stable to talk about stuff with, and that's really important in a relationship to kind of have a boundary with that so we can keep it lighthearted. We don't want to feel this heavy weight of like my loved one is suffering and you're worried about their mental health, or if they're my loved one is suffering and you're worried about their mental health, or if they're they're spiraling out of control and it's just been like his choice is his and my choice is mine and I will never forsake myself. If it becomes unhealthy mentally or emotionally for me or becomes unsafe for me in any way, I know I will choose me. I chose me before. I can always choose me again. But but like it's just been playful and fun and we are able to regulate ourselves and it's healthy.

Lunden Souza: 51:37

Yeah, it sounds really healthy. Yeah, you guys are awesome. I love being around you guys. I love the way that you guys connect and then being able to hear in this conversation today, like a little behind the curtain, of what healing and being in a relationship and parenting and all the things can be like. Because, yeah, we oftentimes do outsource everything to our partner of like you're my therapist, you're this, you're this, you have to be this, this and this. And it's like no, you need more people in your tribe. Just like it takes a village to like they say it takes a village for a child, I think it takes a village for every human. Like we all need our villagers when we need them, when it's time to reach out or have these conversations that our partner may not need to have the capacity for, you know.

Elisa Marie : 52:20

And it's important when you get in a relationship to like do their Enneagram personality type or figure out their human design or whatever you want, to try to get into their inner world a bit more. It's extremely valuable. We do the Enneagram coaching. We learn their instinct, we learn their wings, we learn everything about each other, and we did that before we moved in. And then now I've learned how he, like is responding to triggers or responding to fear, and I know that he's going to. You know, we just kind of got down to our blueprints of like, tell me about yourself and your childhood and this.

Elisa Marie : 52:58

And is it nurture or nature? Did your parents nurture you this way or is it your nature to just respond this way and to really get down to the nitty gritty? It's like we're both very broad, um, broad philosophical thinkers, so it's been really helpful because a lot of people don't have that like self-awareness. To like really have the patience and radical compassion to understand their partner's inner world in that amount of depth and to never push the boundary on it. Or to, yeah, you just you'll know their limits. And yeah, it's only been a year and a half of dating, but it's just been really fun because love. Yeah, I am way passionate about love. I think love is like, seriously, it's just what I'm passionate about. So it's been really fun to give my love to all my friends and my family and my partner and realizing there's no one that doesn't deserve this energy and this love. Like every person I come across will get the same amount of power from me that they'll feel loved and full in my energy.

Lunden Souza: 54:03

I feel that I know everyone listening feels that too.

Elisa Marie : 54:05

Thank you.

Lunden Souza: 54:06

People that are around you. I was telling Aubrie. Aubrie was the one who I hosted Voice of Impact with.

Elisa Marie : 54:12

Yes, oh, my gosh and her and I are podcasting later.

Lunden Souza: 54:14

I love her and I was like, oh, Elisa's coming over and we're going to podcast. And then later on after lunch, you and I can podcast and she's like Elisa's coming on, oh my gosh, I can't wait to listen to that episode Because I think her, like me and she's had less doses of you feel like, oh my gosh, I want to know you more and I know that she is excited to listen to that and everything too. But thank you so much for being here and for coming over spontaneously. We've been saying we want to do this for a while and today was the best day. I love it.

Elisa Marie : 54:48

It was the best day On this one table girl. I love it. It was the best day, thank you.

Lunden Souza: 54:55

Is there anything that you feel like you want to share? Lastly, with our listeners and then you can, of course, tell them how to find you on Instagram and all the places, but is there anything that you feel like you want to share that someone needs to hear?

Elisa Marie : 55:06

Right now, it truly is the gratitude for me and I do want to share that that, like, if you are on a journey of self-love or self-trust, it's going to start with feeling grateful for your shame. It's going to start with feeling grateful for the emotions that have been holding you down. And as soon as you can not only accept that you're feeling worthless or pathetic or sad or like a failure, as soon as you really start to be like I'm more than accepting this, like I'm to the point of freaking, falling on my knees and sitting in it and really thanking it, and once you can be grateful for like the good, bad and the ugly and every part of this experience, like you then can start to trust that more will work out for you, that miracles will happen for you, like miracles truly happen through the grateful heart. So yeah, with it being like Thanksgiving, that's just been like totally like hitting me harder and harder, that like every miracle that I've been able to like perform this year, I've just been walking on cloud nine. I've just been this like invincible human being with unlimited amounts of power and peace, raising seven kids and falling in love again and dissecting my faith transition and I'm just like starting this business and it's been beautiful, like Aaron and I were home all day.

Elisa Marie : 56:28

We do music and business full time. Neither of us really work and we just are on a mission and quest for the world to be more grateful and have more peace and have more power. So my Instagram will post all of our events. We do art, therapy and intuitive movement classes. So if you want to come to any of those, my Instagram account is dream, underscore traction. So, yeah, just dream traction, you'll find me. And thank you, I am. I'm just grateful, like I feel really happy that I was able to do this, thank you.

Lunden Souza: 57:02

Thank you for being here. I appreciate you so much. I'll link your Instagram and any other things you want to share in the description. Thank you for you and thank you, guys for listening. Yay, thanks, thank you, you're the best I love you.

Elisa Marie : 57:19

I love you too. That was so fun. You're the best.

Lunden Souza: 57:24

I'm going to cry. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Self Love and Sweat, the podcast. If you enjoyed this episode or were inspired by it or something resonated with you, do me a favor and share this episode with a friend, someone that you think might enjoy this episode as well. Episode with a friend, someone that you think might enjoy this episode as well. That's the ultimate compliment and the best way to make this podcast ripple out into the world of others, and also you can leave us a review up to five stars wherever you're listening to the podcast. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you at the next episode. I appreciate you.