33: Healing Shame with Sophia Wise One

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Aug 31

Healing from shame can feel overwhelming when we don’t know where to start. In this episode, I discuss the topic of shame with Sophia Wise One (@sophiawiseone).

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We talk about what shame is, techniques for healing from it, and where we’ve seen shame arise in our own lives and how looking at this shame allowed us to free ourselves from it.

Episode References:

Brene Brown - Guilt vs Shame
Check out Brene Brown’s Books

Learn More About Sophia Wise One:

Sophia Wise One (She/All) is a speaker, singer, mentor, transformational storyteller. She is the host of 3 globally top-ranking podcasts: “Vagina Talks”, “Medicine Caller”, and “Temple Erotica: Stories of Sacred Sexuality”. She supports and trains transformational professionals to trust and optimize their impact through life and world-changing healing circles. A professional Medicine Caller for over 20 years and trained in over 20 different modalities, she offers her wisdom in an approachable and powerful way.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
11:13 What is Shame?
17:17 Teaching

Connect with Sophia Wise One:

Instagram: @sophiawiseone
YouTube: Sophia Wise One
Or check out her website: https://www.sophiawiseone.com/

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This podcast was transcribed by an AI tool called Otter. Please forgive any typos or errors.
Amanda Durocher 0:00
Welcome to New View Advice, a safe place for you to ask your most vulnerable questions about life, relationships, healing, and so much more. I'm your host, Amanda Durocher, and I believe our fears and traumas are often what holds us back from living life to the fullest. Join me here each week as I offer advice on how to move through whatever is holding you back from being your best self. Let's get started. Hey, there beautiful souls. My name is Amanda and this is New View Advice. If you're new here, today's episode is actually different than our usual format. Usually I am answering listener questions and offering advice on how to connect back to our hearts. But today's episode is actually an interview I did back in March with Sophia Wise One, who is a beautiful soul I met in October 2021. At she podcast live, when I went to she podcast live, I thought that I was going to learn how to market my podcast, how to monetize it and all these things. And instead it ended up being a spiritual experience. For me, it ended up giving me the strength and courage and the confirmation that I was on the right path and that this podcast is exactly what it's supposed to be and that everything is just going to be all right. One of the reasons she podcast live was such a transformative experience for me is because of Sophia wise one. So I'm really excited that she is the one who will be having this conversation with me about shame. When I was actually podcast live, I went to a talk with Sophia. And her topic was shame and it was really healing for me and everyone else in the room. So I'm just very excited for you all to listen to this episode. Today we don't answer questions. Instead, we discuss shame we discuss how to identify shame how to heal shame. And we've talked about how shame has arised in our own lives and how lifting the veil of shame has helped us to heal and grow. So before we get started, I just want to offer a quick introduction to Sophia. Sophia wise one is a speaker singer mentor, transformational storyteller. She's the host of three globally top ranking podcasts, vagina talks, medicine, collar and temple erotica, stories of sacred sexuality. She supports and trains transformational professionals to trust and optimize their impact through life and world changing healing circles, a professional medicine caller for over 20 years and trained in over 20 different modalities. She offers her wisdom in an approachable and powerful way. And before we jump in, I just want to take a moment to thank Sophia, for being here and for having this vulnerable conversation with me. I found this conversation to be healing for my own heart. And I hope that everyone who listens is able to take away something new about themselves or about shame in general. And Sophia, thank you so much for your wisdom. Thank you so much for your heart. And thank you so much for the work you do.
Amanda Durocher 2:53
Hello, hi, Sophia Wiseman. Thank you for being here. Hello. Today we are going to be talking about healing from shame, which I am so excited to talk about and I'm super passionate about healing from shame is it's been so life changing for me. And it's something I'm still on the journey of I think that healing from shame is a lifelong journey. I think it's so ingrained in our culture. We'll talk about that. And it's so ingrained in how children are raised in the school systems. It's funny to say like, I'm excited to talk about shame, because it's one of those topics people don't like to talk about. I love it. I love it. I'm sitting here just like oh my gosh, did you just say those words? Yes, yes, yes, me too. Yeah. And I'm invited Sofia on today because when we met she podcast live in the fall. And I went to your presentation, your talk, and it was about shame. And I can't really even remember it. But I remember the how I felt right. So that's what really called to me when I was thinking of this episode because I was like, I can't really remember what it was about. But I know it was about shame. And I know I left feeling empowered and feeling like hell yeah. And being like, I love this woman. I love seeing people doing this work out in the world. I remember going to she podcasts live and thinking I was gonna go learn how to market a podcast and instead had a complete spiritual experience because I met Sophia wise one and that's my introduction. So I would love for you to tell everybody a little bit about yourself. Thank you, Amanda. Amazing introduction. I appreciate it deeply. I love podcasts conferences. I have found them to be consistently transformative spiritual experiences. Now that's like a little bit of a cheat sheet for me because that's my job every day is to experience reality as a transformative spiritual experience. I have made it my job and it is my job and I show up to it every day. So you know like any one story we can always start any were right like We can start anywhere. But I love to just throw in there that I came into this world with a lot of memories and a lot of stories. As soon as I could talk, I was telling my parents about what it was like before I came here to Earth. And I grew up in a household that not only believed me, but remembered those stories and told them back to me as I grew up, and I feel like that's a really important foundational piece to share. When people kind of look at me and go, like, how did you get here? Hey, I've studied a lot. I've paid a lot of people I followed a lot of teacher I've cried a lot of cries, I've laughed a lot of laughs I've done a lot of art. And I got here so fast, I put in quotations, right? Because there was a realness to my spirit that was not shamed, or denied from very early on, which meant that when I stepped out of my home, and it got shame, and denied, there was an insulating bubble that said, okay, but some places this is safe, this is real. And so, you know, I had a mental health break down when I was 19. Like you do sometimes like most of us do. A lot Oh, my God, love in mind and dropped out of college and went to a lot of things worked as a haunt, and a haunted house, and as a hospice companion and as a nanny, and then I went to massage school, I followed my hands. And my spiritual training I was referred to as being patchwork. So I don't come from one specific lineage I've studied with many, many teachers. And in that process, and many lineages, I've learned the consistent components that go into healing, right? So each lineage has their language has their medicine, each land on the earth has their plants has their stories of the elements, or the seasons as the teachers has the myths, right. But there's consistency across all of them, like learn how to regulate your breath, move your body, watch your thoughts, mind your words, right, like touch other people with care and loving presence, it will make a difference, right? So these are very basic components. And then they go deeper and deeper. For instance, cupping the therapy cupping form is found all over the globe. These like medicine, healing practices are found all over the place. So through my study of many places, I have found what I have begun to call the one lineage, which is that like, as it takes form, specific to place and people and understanding, there are these core pulses that I think we're all looking to, I want to say we're all looking to master. But that's not true. Those of us who are looking to master it or looking to master it, a lot of people are not actually as interested as I am obsessed. So turns out, I didn't know that was true. But it turns out, it's only some of us. But if you're listening, we are with us right now. I feel like you're we're in the Weebo, right, like we're very we're in we're in it in it to win it. As I say I'm a nerd in case you haven't noticed, I don't say one more thing about me to throw in here because I just really liked this component, which is that one of the major places that I learned about community transformative healing, healing circles, and channeling energy and messages was through live action role playing at a fantasy adventure camp that I did as a teenager, and then co owned and ran for 12 years. It was my kind of first entrepreneurial adventure into the world was running a summer camp and after school programs and weekend programs. And it was through playing and really playing that I began to feel the numinous softness, the mystery, the magic that is available to us in any any moment, like the power of pretending and being like, oh my god, did you just feel that? Did you just see that, like we cast a fairy circle and all the mosquitoes left? I love that. So that's a little bit about me. I love that that's such a great intro. There's so much there. What came to mind at the end was I wanted to touch on that creative play aspect. Because I think that that's so beautiful, because I found that in my own life. I feel like in my younger years, I was not a creative person, which is so funny for me to say because I consider myself a Creatrix that's how I flow. That's who I am. That's what I'm here to do. But I feel like talking about shame. I was sort of shamed out of creativity. And I think so many of us are shamed out of our creativity and like you said it wasn't until I started screenwriting and acting. I moved to LA to be an actress and then I discovered screenwriting that I realized how healing it was to live in my imagination, and I realized how the stories I wrote were just as much for me as for everyone else that I hope one day we'll see them on screen read them. But creativity is so beautiful. And it's one of those things that I feel like we've programmed ourselves out of here on Earth. Yeah, I'm a real, real, real, real big advocate of understanding that we, as individual beings have not programmed ourselves out of creativity, that there has been like a long, centuries deep pursuit to undermine that which liberates our being, and turns us into controllable. Hi, welcome to this part of me, turns us into controllable machines, you know, either baby making machines, you know, industrial revolution changed, that land was no longer the source of wealth, people were right. And so that's when turning people into people making machines became a huge thing. Factories became the source of wealth and control. And so there was a huge push. And even that is, I think, more recent than the deep, deep seeds of really undermining and attacking the power center and each of our beings. And I feel like this is incredibly important. The link between creativity and shame is immense. It's huge. Because one of the things I'll just go a little basic shame teaching here. Yes.
11:13
Sophia Wise One
Could you introduce everybody who might not know what shame is? Could you give a quick intro of what shame is great. So quick intro my understanding and my framework words, words are boats, and they carry unknowing an experience like a vibrational understanding a state of being, and we like send them like little boats across the, the world to each other, right, and hoping that we're carrying something. And so sometimes it can be really helpful to be, say, define our terms, right. So when I use the word shame, there's not just the definition in the in the books, but it's also like how it's being used. So I'd like to be really specific about this. So for instance, the first distinction I want to make is the difference between guilt and shame. And this is largely educated and brought forth into the mass popular culture by our beloved Brene. Brown. Yes. And that is that guilt is feeling bad about something that you did, and shame is feeling bad about who you are. Okay? Guilt is about like, Oh, I really wish I didn't do that thing. And then all sorts of degrees, low grade guilt is like, Oh, I'll do a thing to fix it. High Grade guilt is, you know, like a complex thing. Shame is goes deep into a place of I'm bad. And when we're really honest, and people can get a little upset with me about this kind of dramatic level that I go to, it's like it would be better if I wasn't here is like the honest honest place. And that's shame. And so when I talk about shame, the power of shame is rooted in secrecy. Shame thrives in being hidden, and one of my teachers should not see rose spoke from her teacher who I always just take a moment to just like, bless that teacher's name, who has like not made it through the the memory traps for me, but that shame is not processed, shame is lifted. Shame is not processed, the way that grief is processed. The way that we move it through the system, shame is lifted, and it's lifted through exposure. Shame is the blanket that covers the wound. Yes, yes, shame is the blanket that covers the wound. And so it's covering the wound, and it's lifted through witnessing, and that witnessing can be any real witnessing, like if you have a deep connection to plants, or stones or the river or anything like that, and you take your shame story, an aspect that you're really ashamed of expose it there that can be very transformative. The other places I like to say plant, animal, spiritual, or human or specifically humane, so specifically, the right place and Brene Brown talks about who's worthy enough to hear your shame story. Okay? Because the blanket that covers the wound, what's inside that wound, what happens when we lift the blanket is natural healing occurs, our being our body, our spirit, our whole self, works consistently to move into equilibrium. That's how it's designed, we want to heal, that's our design. So when we expose things that are out of balance or wounded, all aspects, all mechanisms given space and opportunity will begin to work to regulate Okay, to make action to bring in consciousness the emotional system has its own digestive system, its own intelligence system. So it's a way to experience something, digest it, pull out what's useful and then release what's not digestive system okay, intelligence system. It does that in a discerning way. That says, this is useful, this is not useful, and when we trust the whole digestive system of the emotional body or the emotional aspects of the being, then we will have an New sense an experience of everything. That's what happens, we're changed by it. That's what that deep, deep process of really processing a feeling is. And it doesn't have to be a big dramatic change. It's just a subtle thing. This is where we grow compassion. Okay, so take the blanket, expose the wound in the nugget there most of the time. And this is very, it's like I go in here, very gently, we're jumping into pretty advanced stuff right off the bat here, okay, inside the shame. Many people have shame about things that they feel bad about, right? That they have guilt about. But a lot of shame is rooted in something that we enjoy. And that we were told, we were supposed to feel bad about. And that's where we go, oh, best keep that hidden. Yeah. And it's incredibly sensitive, because it's a very important component when we're working courageously with our shame, because not only do we need to expose the hurt, and the wound or the broken of our innocence, because that happens a lot. Like, we do something that comes from a lack of consciousness, and then it hurts someone. And we are like, Oh, I'm bad, right? I didn't mean to hurt someone, right? And then there's like a shame response that can happen, but to really liberate ourselves and to come into Empower in our creativity, and our joy place, finding that tiny piece of the innocence, or the part that felt good, right, that led to it. You know, sometimes people have a lot of shame with being in relationships that were really painful, right? So it's like, we're in them. And I speak for myself a couple chapters that I had in there, of like, really just being like this is I mean, that was my drug of choice for a long time was like the highs and lows of relationship mass. And so I would come out of it, and I would feel a lot of shame. And I'd be like, you know, what was that and it's like, I couldn't really heal and reconcile all of it until I was like, Ah, this precious hope that I could feel whole.
In the face of someone else's suffering, which is like, goes really deep. So this field, I feel like I got a little lost in this one a little bit somehow. But hopefully, there's some usefulness in it. There definitely is I like how you called relationships, your drug of choice. For me, when you were talking, what came to mind was that alcohol was my drug of choice. Yeah. And I went sober a little over a year ago. And I worked with the shame that would arise while I was drinking. But it wasn't until I gave up alcohol, because it was like, I finally stopped blanketing the woods, like that's kind of what I saw was, I would look at the shame, and I would look at what would come up and why I would drink. But it wasn't until I gave up alcohol, that all those things I was blanketing, were able to come to the surface for my attention and my compassion, like you said, That's right. For me, being raped was a big reason I drink so many beliefs get attached to that, right, a big one was the fear of being seen. So drinking alcohol was a way for me to blend in, I felt like and it was a way for me to dim my light. There was so much attached to it. And and then it wasn't till I released myself of alcohol that I no longer shamed myself for drinking, because it's kind of like what you were saying was, the shame that would arise for me is like, I'm an adult, I'm supposed to be able to handle my booze. Why am I blacking out? I feel shame, right? I often refer to alcohol and other drugs of choice or non choice for that matter, but as mute buttons. And so that can be a very important, I don't want to put this on you. But I'm saying like as an example. And so maybe this is a question of like, there's a relief, right? There's like a wisdom. There's a kindness to self, when you're in your suffering to find a mute button. Yes. I often talked about drinking with my therapist before I gave it up. And she would always be like, Can you just be kind to yourself that like what you're dealing with right now you don't have any other tools, or I didn't feel like it at the time. So I like a lot of people look at me, and they're like, Oh, you're sober journey looks so easy. It wasn't easy. But it was that I gathered the tools on how to deal with my triggers before I gave up alcohol. I didn't go cold turkey and then not have the tools. Right? Yeah. And some people can do that. I've walked a lot of people through that process. People that have worked with me often come in that in between space, right, where they're like, I have enough consciousness to watch my suffering to say I want out but I am not out yet. Right. Like I need more healing. I need more tools. I need more resources to get out. And a lot of people come to me after they get sober, right? They like have that moment and then they're just like, Okay, now I'm like in that healing, like you said with the mute button, taking that mute button off and it's really, oh my god, there's no wrong way to heal yourself. Yeah, forgive yourself, find yourself. Forgive your parents, forgive your rapist, forgive your culture, forgive the war and the centuries on our medicine people, there's no wrong way to quiet the suffering, you don't know how to get out. And there's no wrong way to heal it when you have the courage and the miracle and the method that can access you my experience doing this transformative healing work for over 20 years, if it was literally the same thing for every person, that would be its own thing, right? And there's elements, like I said, that are the same, right? regulate your breath, find out your words, you know, like, what do you say to yourself in your head? What do you say out your mouth, like, these are the tools that are pretty much the same, but it's not linear, and there's not an order in which you do them? Because we're a cosmos, you know, like, we're a complex system, and the knots that get tied. So this is we're gonna little shame piece here. Okay, so one of the things that happens with shame is that you throw a blanket over something. And then because we're not isolated beings, right, have this image of of a net, okay, like a big net. And one knot in the net is this experience that you're like, Oh, but I keep this hidden, right? So you throw a blanket over it, right. But then you walk around on the net, this is your life, you're moving around. And so you tug on the strings that touch that knot, right? And so then you start going, like, oh, but if I pull too hard, it will pull out from underneath that blanket, right? So what starts to happen is either the blanket gets bigger, or that knot starts to wrap itself, and pull that net tighter, and tighter and tighter. And so something that was on the other side of the room a million miles away, right, is now completely wrapped up in that knot and covered by a blanket. And so one of the things that's fascinating about healing shame is that when we take that blanket off, and it starts to unravel, and that net unravels, we get so much more of ourselves that we didn't know I have this one shame story, I learned to do internal pelvic floor work and therapeutically holistic pelvic care is what it's called, Tammy can woo very powerful, very powerful for people healing, menstrual issues, or sexual abuse issues. I'm pretty sure almost everybody on this planet is navigating those things. And please stand by system loading. Right? I learned that was literally like a shame pocket that was like, literally, like, what happened here was like, Oh, this, we're going into this medicine. So I learned pelvic floor work. And then I went back into my state of Pennsylvania as a licensed massage therapist. I did all this research, and I was like, Is this within my scope of practice? Am I allowed to do this work? And I did this research, and I did this research, and I met with a lawyer, and I was talking to insurance companies. And I was like, I'm gonna make sure this is what's so funny. Think about now, I'm gonna make sure this is like inside my scope of practice. Well, I couldn't figure it out. And nobody would give me an answer. So later, what I did years later, just like as a side note was I wrote this letter, and I sent it to the board and hardcopy in an email form and undocumented witness sucede form like five times. And when I got no response, I said, if anybody ever comes at me, that's some due diligence right there. Like I wrote a thing that said, this is why it is within my scope of practice. And I was like, you don't want to say it is or it isn't. But I obviously did my part and just being like, I'm gonna move forward and a good sense about it. So that's what I did. I don't know. I can't tell you whether that does anything about it. But just sharing that how I got around that in states where it was ambiguous. So I did the work. But I only did the work with close friends as clinicals as practice and then slowly I did the work. Really, it got more and more in secret, because I was waiting to hear if it was legal, right. And two years went by since I did this training, and I didn't publicly tell people I did it. So I moved to New Mexico launch a business that bombed like good old bodywork same day, and I'm applying to get my New Mexico massage license. And I dope boop, boop. And there it is clear as day scope of practice. If you're trained to do it, you can go work the musculature and the fascia and the tissue, go do your job if you know how to do it. And I wept. I wept. And I have a video that's I think, called confession sessions, like from 2014 or 2015, in which I tell the story, and I say I'm doing this work. This is an example of how important this work is. I spent two years doing it in secret and it was transforming people's lives and I couldn't talk about it out of fear. And what happened was, I loved the work so much, right, but I was like hiding it and hiding it and what happened every day for work weeks was something else about myself and my life would unwrap in me. And day after I told the world that I did this work, I started singing in the mornings, like, I'd wake up and I would just be like singing to myself. And I was like, I haven't done this in years. And so when we talk about that creative, right, like, there's no direct link between me singing to myself in the morning, and telling the world that I go inside vaginas and anus is to heal lineage and ancestral and physical issues, right. But they went right together, and my lifeforce got Tangled. Tangled in that. Yeah, I love that. And I completely relate because I had never thought of it as the net you had described. But I love that visual, because that's really what happens. That tangling, you know, I always describe it as a layers. So it's like you start with one layer, and then you're like, I didn't know this layer was under that layer. And this layer, how is this connected to that? But it's like you said, it's because it all gets mixed up. And it does, it usually starts with lifting the shame, and then the layers, you start to be able to process them and see them and lift them. Yeah, they reveal I always I just do I think about a tangled like a vine gold necklace that gets tangled in itself, and how you rolling it in your fingers, right? Like a chain and a chain necklace, right? Like how you gently rolled in your fingers. And it's just this like not a thing. And it's chained. And it's kinked. And in there. And then as it comes undone, it's like, you undo one piece, right? And then it's like half the work gets done, right, and like one on move. And then all these little tiny micro moves, micro moves, micro moves. And so I think about that knotted space of being like you untie one thing, and it's like, poof, all this stuff becomes revealed, one of the cards in my deck is revealed to heal. And that's essentially my shame card. You know, it's this idea. And one of the things that's so powerful about revealing to heal is that, especially when we have a deep spiritual practice, exposure can happen both by opening up and taking things and putting them outside of us, right, like sharing a story or making art or doing something that we're afraid to do. Okay. So for instance, if you remember from early on, and you're discovering of your body that you like, loves to lick your finger and put it really deep in your ear, it soothed you and made you feel really good. But then at some point, you were like, oh nuts, like, you can put your foot that's weird. Like that's too far. So you stop right? Doing that, you can tell a story about it, right? You can make art about it, you can expose it that way. Or you can gather the courage to just start doing it again, right, and just being like, Oh, this feels really good, right? All of those ways are ways to kind of heal it and move it and move it forward. And I'll say if you go to do things that you know you want to do, and you just can't often there's a shame hook pulling you back. And so taking the time to go and look around at that. I love that. You mentioned that because I did an episode a few weeks ago where somebody asked a question, they were like, I want to content create, but I can't get myself to take that next step. Because I do believe like you said, I think sometimes you just have to do action. I think sometimes just taking that step. But I found with my own journey since I experienced so much trauma at a young age. Sometimes the action is just I'm unable to I will self sabotage to the end of time and I will go straight into freeze response. So I can't do anything. Yeah, I'm a real advocate of trading the self sabotage language, which is and this isn't towards you. I'm like really having a moment about it of just being like that is some victim blaming bullshit, like that is called self protection. That's what that is. I go into self protection, which is freeze shutdown. You know, I used to go catatonic I would get really activated I would I just remember my brother would bind me standing in a room still and I love my brother and he would just wrap his arms around me he would just squeeze me and start to move my body until I'd move or when it would happen to myself. I just stand there and I'd be like move Sofia move, move like move anything move anything you know, and sometimes I could sometimes it would pass sometimes someone would have to find me go catatonic. Well, when I did a lot of healing of my trauma, I stopped physically having activations, which is the word that I use for instead of trigger. I wouldn't physically go catatonic. But I noticed that I would mentally go catatonic and that's what I just happened. We had a little little example of that where and when it first happened. I thought, Oh, that's good. She'll cut this out. But of course here we are talking about this long pause that I had, which was my brain. It's a self protection response that was like, Are we really going to talk about it's like, that's my grief, right? The years in which you just tangled yourself in fear of being prosecuted and being taken away from working with teens, which was the most important thing to me for so long. That was just like, someone comes after me like and I'm not allowed to be I was so afraid. And I have a very different take on all of that now of just being I don't know, maybe it's because I'm older and so my peers are moms Though it's you know, that space. So yeah, that self sabotage is self protection now, is it effective self protection? In terms of? Is it thriving self protection? No. Is it defensive? Self Protection? Yes. Right. And the process of I think this is a really, really big piece of just being like this note, I get really worked up about coaches out there. This is another shame piece about coaches or empowerment work out there that loves to push the JUST DO IT button, just push past just do it, just do it, just do it. And I'm just like, you know, what you don't know, you know, they're voicing another bully in your life telling you that you're taking too long and that your trauma is not real. You don't need that now, is trauma real in terms of a spiritual perspective? Like, Has God ever left me? No. Have I ever been injured? Right? In any of my lifetimes? I have a deep, very real sense, right? Have I ever been truly broken? Even though I do believe that I have had soul splitting experiences over and over and over again? Do I believe that in that way, I am absolutely blessed and part of a divine magnificent, incomprehensible experience. Yes. And his innocence being harmed intentionally or unintentionally, biochemically, and very real in this earth plane manifested trauma shit real? Yes, yes. And you absolutely can hold both those perspectives at the same time, and make space for very, very real healing. And sometimes it will take a little bit longer than the JUST DO IT button. But what happens is who we are when we do it is more of ourselves what we do when we heal shame what we do when we heal ourselves as we get ourselves back, and then our self who's like, I want to do it can say to the part that goes, I'm scared. What are you scared about? What do you need? Right? When we don't have the resources to take care of ourselves? Because we weren't taught to do that we were taught to deny ourselves right, then the way we save ourselves is by shutting down in lots of ways, right? Yeah. When you were talking, I also thought of that big concept that I play with in my head is victim how people say you're not a victim. And yes, in the big scheme of life, I am not a victim. I am an aspect of God. But at the same time, when I was raped, I was a victim. And when the trauma lives in my body, I continue to be a victim. And yes, I'm also a survivor, because I did survive it. But there were many nights I wish I didn't, because it would have been easier not to. And I get really upset when I see these videos, because this is the one that gets me is when people are like you're not a victim. And it's like, yes and no, right? Yes, so victim huge, so huge, huge, huge, huge, there is a place where the victim story is empowering. And that is in our innocence, right? When we're connected to our innocent self, that place of like something, and someone should have protected me because I was innocent. I was in a place of innocence, to have that viewpoint of victim is whole and holy and kind and empowering. Because what we're doing is we're honoring the beauty and the power of innocence, which is incredibly important and counterculture. Because we are told that innocence is something that is to be broken and dominated and is childish and problematic. Even your teens, I want to say 18. But it's really like when you hit 13 You're not supposed to be innocent anymore. Yeah, right. The shaming, it's like, don't be so innocent. And it's like it is sense is incredibly whole, it is incredibly important. It is the thing that allows us to love and forgive the people in our lives over and over and over again. And that is what allows us to have lasting intimacy because nobody's perfect, without our innocence without our unbridled optimism that says, let's give it another go. Right? Or the innocence that has an idea that doesn't care about possibility. That's where visionaries come from innocence doesn't no limitation in that way. Right and it doesn't expect attack. I want everybody to hear that right now. I want you to really listen to that statement. What would it be to live from a place that did not expect to be attacked? So free, right, I have been training my nervous system for decades, parasympathetic nervous system dominance, to be at regular state of being in which I am not anticipating being attacked. I have worked my tail off to get it as much as I have gotten it. And it is been a miracle to experience I mean, it's what I was told no what you could have, right? It's like what we're told this lie I was gonna say myth we are told A lie, right? That innocence is dumb. Yeah. And they are not the same. I used to confuse innocence in naive, right? I used to think that they were synonymous being right, innocent and naive, and they're not synonymous innocence is more like curiosity. It's that compassionate nature. And you can be discerning and innocent. Yes, yes. So I had this really fascinating experience I had last summer I had an experience with an ex. At the time, I was not fully embraced to the fact that we were exes. Okay. I was like, we're in a process. I'm here for you. And my innocence. When they came back into my life had some stuff, they were given to me that we're meeting up in person, and they said, Can I come stay with you? And I said, Yeah, I offer as I'll come to you and get it. And they said, No, I'm gonna bring it to you. So they said, Can I stay with you? And I said, Yes. And then we ended up having this very intimate and intense connection. And then months later, they came back and said, that didn't feel good for them at all that it felt like it went too far. And they didn't feel safe, even though I experienced this experience as tiptoeing consent, obsessed, every question is this. Okay? Lots of things of being like, I didn't offer this, I didn't ask that you offer this, you did this, right. And the realization that I had after this was that my innocence was like, I love you. And I want what is possible in this moment, right? I had this healing that happened through this process. So like, Thank you, teacher, right, thank you, thank you, teacher. And I said to myself, I had this realization, I said, Oh, I shouldn't have been in such intimate space with this person for so many hours, because my innocent being was just going to keep saying yes, and go with it and get what it wanted, as much as it could fit, like trying to be careful but wanting right. And I had this image of this new woman that erected in me, this mother in me, and I had this image of this heartbroken 16 year old turning to her mother and saying, My ex is coming by and bringing me some of my stuff. They asked if they could spend the night and have dinner with us. And mom says, No, we're not going to host them, they broke your heart, you're still into them. You want them back, they're not coming to win you back. They're coming to give you your stuff. So you can sit on the porch. And you can talk for a few hours. And if you want to see each other again, they can come back the next day, and you can talk for a few hours. But no, I'm not going to host them. No, I'm not going to feed them. I'm not going to offer that space and give my care because that's what innocence do innocence will sign up all of your greatest gifts to someone who is not there. So for me, it was helpful to have this discerning to me it was that place is like it doesn't really matter age or whatever. But that was this image for like this discerning energy that's like, this is not where this goes, actually. Yeah, I love that because I talked about inner child work all the time. And that to me is part of inner child work. I talked about the image like that you described the mothering yourself, the fathering yourself, the being the adult to yourself, and there's so many layers to the inner child or because it's the sitting with the Woot, but it's also the in that situation, when you feel the innocence or the childlike wonder come up the adult self setting the boundaries, right? Or little 16 year old who was like, okay, but like, maybe we can make out, you know, I miss them. And I have chemistry and it's just being like, yeah, chemistry, it's a thing. I like the way this person smells. That's a chemistry thing. Yeah, I'm near them is going to do things to me, you know? And that's funny, because then we grow and change and sometimes those things shit. Yeah, right. And that's one of those things of just whether we're healing shame, or healing trauma or healing, anything that we shift, we shift in those places, and then what we find attractive, or what, you know, I'm having this incredible experience with this lover right now. Unprecedented for me. I've never taken three years to get to know someone before becoming really kind of how do I say this, because we were friends before. And then it was like this, oh, we have some chemistry. And we'd like to see each other a couple times a year and was very intentional and very limited and controlled, and in how much physical intimacy, we'd really like brooder together, and then we'd have this space. And over the past six months, it's been more and more of this communication, emotional support and resource as you can imagine, that's one of my greatest gifts that I can give people when people come into my life as I'm like, I'm here for you, right? Yeah, I can hear and my wisdom is here for you and I'm here for you. And so to have a process move slow enough that I don't freeze in the intimacy is a result of all of these things. I have this thing that I say to people now when I meet new people that I have chemistry with. I do this thing now where I get to know people before I make out with them or put them inside my body. I'm trying it out trying out this new situation, because the thing is as psychics
intuitives and as empaths, and all of these things, we have very intense connections and knowings with people very quickly. Yeah, my sweetheart calls me a demi sloth. So a demisexual for people who don't know is someone who has have an emotional connection with someone to get really turned on. And I made a joke about being like an aspiring slut has been a huge part of my reclamation of ashaming. Set. This just in case people don't know sex is not bad or dirty. Our problem. And pleasure is not the issue. It's not the enemy. naked bodies are not the enemy. Sex is not the enemy. orgasms are not the enemy. And they are not, they don't need to be privatized and sold through legal documents called marriage. That's not what respect of innocence or care for intimacy or loving your body is. Those are different. They're different things. So as part of that, I went through this process in which I was really embracing this phrase of D shame, you know, on shaming, and D shaming, and being like, I'm an aspiring slut, I'm gonna wear laundry in public, and I'm gonna wear red lipstick at noon on a Tuesday and all of these things and just being like, I'm gonna be in my sexuality and not apologize for it. And then go home and cry and weep and weep or like, get dressed, and then sit in the car and have a panic attack and being like, I can't go into a coffee shop like this, I can't go to a coffee shop like this, you know, and then being like I can, I'm free. I'm not a problem. Having cleavage isn't a problem. So liking my cleavage is not a problem, okay. And one of the things that I discovered is that chemistry, the sex chemistry, and I don't even mean if we have like actual body touching, touching sex, being inside that energy with someone. And I really do sharing fluids. Again, this just and fluids carry vibrational frequencies very powerful. So when we share anything, saliva, or you know, juices or things like that, we're doing dosing, we're really dosing each other before we even get to like a climactic orgasmic level of coming, which is a whole nother level of vibrational coding that we're navigating. So you have this experience with someone you would meet them. You have this intuitive, you're like, I can feel you I know you're a soulmate, right? I've known you a million times, we're here feels so good. And I mean, that was like such respect, like our literal star cluster Light Beings light up and our eyes get sparkly, and our mouths start dripping. And we're like, Oh, it feels so good to be near you. Like, this is so fun. This is so great. So it makes a lot of sense to be like, This feels so good. Sex is not the problem. Let me open my legs, let's have a good time. This just in knowing someone on a soul level is not the same as knowing someone on a daily behavioral, biochemical level. I don't know how they are going to act as this person, if I knew them in that other life, and that other life and that other life, then I know a frequency and there's a home and there's a beauty there. But I still don't know what they're gonna be like a when they get a cold, which is like the classic, or I don't know what they're gonna be like, when I activate all their stuff, and I'm their mother. Yeah, you know, and I don't know what they're gonna be like when that high comes down. And I don't know what they're gonna be like when that high takes them past and they have an identity crisis, unless I get to know them. And what happens when we merge our energies and we merge and our sex fields like that, is that we feel like we've known someone for 1000 years. And then when we when they do something that we didn't expect, we can get very upset and very hurt because it is surprising to us. And that's very confusing, right? It can be very confusing. And so as I've learned and unchained as parts of being like, oh, you know what I need I need someone who can handle their emotions and not spill them onto me on an on a regular actually, you know, that's what I need for my inner circle right? I don't need people who are learning to be different learn get a lot of help, like I did, thank you, all of my teachers walk with the people who can walk with you, but my job now knowing what I know is to regulate what who I share myself with in this way, you know, and so I've been taking this journey these three years of you know, having these experiences where it's like, oh, one of us will get triggered or something about Earth time is really magical. I watched them go through both of us are ethically non monogamous. So I watched them go through this, you know, breakup heartache thing that took months and months and months for them to kind of move through and I watched them stabilize. And then I watched them meet someone new. And then I watched them navigate that. And then I watched them. I watched this stuff with their family and not super close. But again, this is where the gift of being an empath and an intuitive and a psychic is I got a lot of information, even in small amounts over time about who they are. And then I got to see how they change. And this is very important when we're looking for peers to do intimate relating with and this is knowledge shaman a number of different ways, but it's very important that we have companions that will heal with us. Yes, because many people will look at the healing that you want to do and go that's so neat. Yeah. And they're not there. Yeah, they're not there. And some people aren't there and they're going to get there and some people are not going to get there. This is my innocence. I used to Thank every buddy I knew I wanted to heal. I did, too. I had to go through a grieving process of learning that they didn't huge grieving process and that they weren't going to change. We're going to change. I said, I thought everybody 10 years from now would be different. Yeah. And what I've learned is that 20 years from now, a bunch of people are doing the same things that they're doing, and that these people are completely different beings like I am. Yeah, right. But here's the other thing about shame. I want to be very clear about I've also come to a place of when I meet people, and I say, some of my older friends, and I say, Do you have anything they want to tell me and they go, I don't really want to get into it right now. And I go great, because if you can sleep at night, even a little bit, and wake up and show up to your life, and you're okay with that right now, that's enough, this idea that you have to go after, like, my agenda on myself and my healing, even had a shaming bullying element to it. And I'm like, You know what, the hardest thing to do ever in my entire life has been being conscious. Yeah, shit is fucking hard. Yeah, it is excruciating. walking in faith, blowing up my life over and over again. Because Spirit was like, we're going this way. Because my mission was to go to a place of consciousness and service that was beyond. And I look at other people, and I go, I wish that on no one, I dedicate the results to everyone. Right? But I wish that on no one. And so like, when people can say to me, things are going good. And we're, I'm just kind of writing it. I'm just gonna like coast for a little while. I'm like, great. That's great. That is, that's great. You know, and I have so much more appreciation for myself now of just being like, I'm having a good time. I'm just gonna let it ride or like, I'm having a hard time. I'm gonna let it ride. Like, I'm going to show up to my practices, and I'm going to work it but I'm not going to go after it. I'm gonna let myself be as I am in this way. And that's been really important. For my peace. Yeah. To not be so aggressive with myself or others. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's been my last three months, I read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. Oh, great book. Yeah, it's like I realized my upper limit problems, right. And it was really, that in my meditations, the messages I keep getting are like, how long can you sustain your happiness, Amanda? Like, how long can you just allow yourself to be happy before you yell at your partner for literally no reason? Because things are going so well right now? Like, how long can we sustain it? And I'm like, I'm up to a few days. Yes, I hire that it was mind blowing for me. When I first hit a few days in a row. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I just got weird about it. Yeah, I mean, that was years ago. Now, you know, and it's still the same practice, right? But with that practice having more and more of just being like, it's real. I'm telling you, it's real. I think it's very important to us this sentence, I didn't think inner peace or happiness were real things. Yeah, I didn't think they were real. I didn't want to kill myself. Particularly, I stopped thinking about suicide when I was nine. When I stopped. I had pre verbal images of ending my own life from when I was a very small child. And I walked myself to the kitchen, looked at all the knives, freaked myself out and said, I'm not going to do it. And so that was when I was like, eight or nine. And then I never really contemplated again, I just waited to go home. That was what I signed up for at nine. I was like, I'll just wait it out. And in my early 30s, I started to be afraid of death for the first time. And I got so excited. I was like, Oh my God, I don't want to die. I don't want to die. Like I don't want to die. That's a newsflash like, I don't want to die. I want to stay alive. I had to come up with a whole new coping skills, yes, to figure out how to like want to be here. And so I decided my prayer that I use for that when that started to rise in me was like, Okay, God, greatest impact in or out of body. I trust you if I'm better service out my body take me any time. But if I can do it here, I want to stay. I want to live. I want to be alive. And I'm here for it. I trust you. You know, and that would be my comfort prayer. Yeah, I love how you said you didn't believe in happiness because mine was like the opposite. But at 23 was when I sort of woke up I talked about all the time my friend died. And all of a sudden, I was like, wait, I am wildly unhappy. Like what is this life? I describe it as the lights got turned on in a room and the rooms a mess. And I'm like, How did I get here? When did the room get messy? Who broke the window? That's right. And so my goal at 23 became to become happy I was like, I don't care what I'm gonna follow the happy but I mean for the next seven years, it was like still unhappy, still happy still not happy. This is a fantasy. It was actually in January, I had one of those divine moments this is how it usually happens for me is I have a big breakthrough like, and I felt ecstatic bliss and I had all these divine knowings like, Oh, I was always enough like it just impact It didn't me and I was like, oh my god, I was always enough. Everything else is extra. And like, Oh, I'm of service because I want everybody else to get here. There's no competition. There's no rush, if you want to come your common, that's it. Yeah, that's it. But then I shot, I shrunk up because I felt so big, that then I thought it was gonna be like that forever. I always think that, and then all of a sudden, all this unworthiness came to the surface. Yeah. And it was like, Do you really believe you're enough? I love that. I love that. Because the expansion, contraction, rhythm, right. And it's like, we have these visions, and then we know where we're going. And then everything that's in between us and that vision gets to come up and we get to sort it. You know, one of my favorite things that I heard years ago, now, this woman was talking. And she was saying that when we have really big visions, a lot of the time we think I'm not the person who can do that. And she's like, that's the point of a vision, you will become the person who completes that vision by walking with that vision, right? And when you're in the midst of that vision being lived, you'll be a person that you're not now you'll be a different person. And you'll have another vision. And you'll say, I'm not that person. Right? Like, I'm not that person. And I'm having this exquisite experience right now, for those. I don't know, if you've done this, Amanda, and those of you listening, doing the experiences of traveling to your future self doing meditations, where you're like, meet your future self. I've been having these experiences for the past two years. I'm like, Oh, my God, I'm like, I'm her. She's the one that was talking to me. I'm, that's now I mean, it's been magical. I found a drawing that I did when I was a child. And it's the story of this child weeping at the edge of her bed. And this beautiful lady shows up with his hair, these wings, and she climbs down on the floor with this little Sofia and, and she helped me so close. It's like we were one being. And she said to me, what I wrote this little story, and she said, Hi, I'm your but my little Sophia cut her off and said, I know guardian angel. And little Sophia said, What shall I call you? And the way that I tell the story now, is that I said to her, you can call me anything you like most people call me, Sophia. But that's what she wrote in that story. her guardian angel said to her, you can call me whatever you'd like. But most people call me Sofia. And I read that story after I had had the deepest dip. And if anybody wants to hear the journey of the deepest dip the revisited deepest dip, and 2021 Should the shutdown happen. I did all of these episodes with all of these medicine callers. And I just was like, Yo, this is so hard. And I was in a heartbreak at that point that had just demolished me before the shutdown happened. I literally was taking the inhale when the shutdown happened. And I said, this was the most painful experience that I had been through since I had had my like deep mental health awakening break down that I'd had at 19. I said, but this time, I had all the skills. And so instead of taking seven years, it took me seven months, I kept referring to it as the fastest dark night of the soul of my life. Right. And it was amazing, because I used my deck and my book as a major tool in that time. And I had just finished it in January. I was like, Well, I really trust this work now. I can really stand by it now. Like it worked then and it worked again. It worked at this time I turned to those pages. I was like, tell me Sofia, like tell me what you know, I didn't have to learn the practices. But I had to do them. And I did them. And I did them and all these episodes of talking to all these people that were having these same experiences, practitioners of 20 years, 30 years, 15 years going like, Yo, this is rough. I'm practicing like the old old Buddhist day practicing like my hair's on fire, right? I've just like practicing and practicing and practicing. And so I had had that seven months at the end of that seven months is when I found that paper. Wow. And I read that story. And I had spent more time going back and pulling that inner child and pulling those wounds in to this being who said I love you. There is no shame here. There's no apology. You are enough. You're doing enough. It's not your fault. Come home to me turn away from these people who are doing their best but cannot hold you and turn to me because I can hold you like nobody else could hold you. I can hold you and I held her and I held her and then I found this drawing the story of me finding her Wow, that's so beautiful. And what a divine timing to find that story. Yeah, with what you were saying to like with doing it doing the work we talked about. In December I had a similar experience. Well, I don't know if it's similar, but I had an experience with my inner child where she was like we've processed so many memories. Can you just sit with me? Oh, congratulations, Amanda. That's like let's I feel like weird saying this but I'm like that's like a thing that's like a level
Unknown Speaker 55:00
Let the level thing that's so wonderful. Oh my god, I'm so excited for you. That's so important because now I'm crying because what she's gonna do the more time you spend with her, that's what her is. That's her creative, her generative. Her play with me, her like, you know what feels really good. I mean, our inner children have the central knowledge of what brings our body health and pleasure and cart connection and good relating, like, I mean, the wisdom is so there and it absolutely comes from that spaciousness from that being like, we have to clean up, right? It's like, it's hard to have a dance party and we do we have a dance party in a messy room. You know, it's a very different dance party, when it's a clean room if we've cleaned the floor space. Yeah. And the image that I get is her like sitting in this room. Have you just like, sit with me? I hope this is landing. Well, for you. I just celebrate it. I just honor You. I honor her. I am so grateful that you are together and that you are with your own heart in that way. That is awesome. Thank you. Thank you for honoring that. We don't need outside validation. But sometimes it's just nice when somebody just gets it. Yeah, you know, yeah. For me, it's like celebration, right? Yeah. Like, I'm not validating. It's real. Yeah. It reminds me to slow down and be like, yeah, that is, you know, like, that's an accomplishment of man. You don't have to rush through it. Right. Like that's an arrival point. Like that's a thing. You know what I mean? That's it. That's a huge thing. And that's this thing of like, I didn't think happy was real. I didn't think interviews was real. Like, I just thought they were things that we talked about, or that we would like aim for that they were visiting things but this idea of don't miss it. Yeah, this is it. Yeah. And then we're gone. It doesn't matter. If I drop my body in one minute or 1 million years. This is a precious moment. Scarcity is not what makes things precious. Yes. That is a lie. Yeah, water is not precious, because it's a lot of it's poisoned. Water is precious. Period. End of sentence. Children are not precious, because there's only so many of them, their children. Yeah, that's why they're precious. They are spending every minute of every day building an entire body, while also learning how to be a human while also being a star galactic soul body coming and vibrationally pulsing inside this web. They're precious. That's why they're precious. We grown adults and elders are precious. Yeah, not because we're scarce because we're precious. That's why we're precious. For me. It's like we're all aspects of God. And God is precious, magnificent and all these other things right. And we are all that and we're no better than anything else. Because what flows through me flows through the tree outside and through the rocks on the ground and through the ocean. And it's this beautiful web of life which makes everything it's like the concept that everything is special and not special. But also special at the same time. Right? You don't have to make something special. Right things just are and so if if it is, and we're in we want to look at special things, it's special, it's real. A tear. I have a song that just popped in my head chasing it. Yeah. Okay. We are not separate from the clothes we wear. We are not separate when we breed this. Or from the ground we walk upon, or from the heat that keeps us warm. When we are in this together. We are in this together. Where when you're in this together, we are in this together. We are not separate from the oceans waves. We are not separate from the deep dark cave. Or are from the blueness of the sky. Or from the boat. As they fly. We are in this together. We are in this together. When they are in this together. We are in this together. We are not separate from the ceremonies or from the people and their dream. We are not separate from the cow as she lays her calf. We are in this together. We are in this together. We are in this together. We are in this together. We are not separate from the speaking trees. Is we are not separate from the songs they sing. We are not separate from the bells ringing. We are the weaving of every thing. Thank you for sharing that with us. Thanks. I was so beautiful. I feel like that's such a great way to end this. I feel like Yeah, I kind of took my breath away in a good way. I feel like that song says it all, you know. Thank you for your work. Amanda, thank you for your work. Thank you for your work, dear listener, wherever you are. I honor your courage and your curiosity and we are in this together every time you choose love and lay down a weapon. You make this world a safer place for me and all my baby's grateful for that. Thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Peace darlings.
Amanda Durocher 1:01:06
Thank you to everyone who listened to today's episode and I just wanted to give a special shout out again to Sofia, thank you so much for joining me here on New View Advice and thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. Your authenticity and your vulnerability are beautiful and courageous. I am just so grateful to know you and thank you for all that you do if you enjoy today's episode, or if you are interested in connecting more with Sophia wives when you can reach out to her at WWW dot Sophia wise one.com Or you can find her on Instagram at Sophia Wiseman. Thank you again for listening to another episode of New View Advice. As always, I hope we were able to offer you a new view on whatever you may be going through. See you next time.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai