The Truth About Failure: Why It’s the Secret to Success | EP 80

I noticed that as soon as somebody is feeling like there's a failure, they look to point fingers to blame.

And I think that's really toxic. I think it's a way to avoid feeling something.
I fail all the time. People who are successful just keep going.
With the learning disability label, I thought something was wrong with me. But I now can see that actually that disability is an ability.
You're going to have other abilities developed. I have ADHD, I have dyslexia and I run a successful company doing what I love, making an impact in the world.
And so I just want to remind people, any of those labels, we can unlearn and we can take our power back from them and use them as a way to share our gifts that's only aligned with how we are designed. I left everything I knew.
I ended up leaving this relationship. I left San Diego.
I left the graduate program. I followed my intuition.
I worked with the fears that came up. And I wanted to have a story about why, because it was so hard to leave.
And I just remember being in my Honda Prelude with my life packed in my car. And there was a part of me that was confused.
And there was a deeper part of me that knew I had to honor this. And that was one of the most courageous things that I'd done.
And it opened me to the life that I have now, which is beyond my wildest dreams. Welcome back to the Healing and Human Potential podcast, where today's episode is a little different because I'm not the one asking questions.
My husband's actually interviewing me and I have to admit this one feels extra vulnerable. I've spent years coaching and supporting others through their challenges, but in this episode, I'm pulling back the curtains of my own struggles.
And so I'll be sharing moments that didn't go as planned, the failures, the doubts, the lessons that I've learned along the way. And I know we all face setbacks and while they can be tough, they also have the power to shape us.
And so my intention in sharing this conversation is to help you learn about the things that I've navigated through the tough times so that they support you on your journey. I hope it serves you.
We're here with Alyssa Norriga on her podcast. I have the privilege today of interviewing this incredible human being.
I am deeply grateful for all the ways you've touched my life and I'm excited to get to put you in that chair for a little bit. Thanks for holding space to share support.
So how does it feel to be on that side? Usually over here. I feel nervous.
I feel nervous because I'm usually more prepared. You fly by the seat of your pants.
I'm much more like, okay, make this time valuable for others. I mean, I really got into online in 2017.
I did 50 webinars in one year. So I'm very much trained of like making every moment count.
And I know podcasting is a very different experience. And so I'm just learning to share myself more naturally and unscripted.
But my intention is to share authentically some of the lessons I've learned in service to other people for sure. Beautiful.
Yeah. Well, I do find myself continuously amazed at how you navigate life.
Thank you. And I have a front row seat to that.
And I'm grateful that we get to share more of that. Yeah.
On that note, how do you find yourself navigating things that come up for you, like failure or things of that nature? I fail all the time. And I think that people who are successful just keep going.
So I think that I have a very much a learning orientation to life. And I noticed that as soon as somebody is feeling like there's a failure, they look to point fingers to blame.
And I think that that's really toxic. I think it's a way to avoid feeling something.
And I try my best not to do that so that I can look at everything from a learning, take personal responsibility. This doesn't always naturally happen, but I definitely have that orientation developed.
And I would say I've invested in so many different contractors or people to work with, specifically Facebook ads people who have, I would say, not really necessarily had the best decisions around how to manage that budget, like some pretty large budgets, but I never went into blame. I wouldn't necessarily hire them again.
I might talk about, you know, what was our agreements? What was mine? But if I go into blame, I know that then I'm stuck. And in terms of like a learning orientation, I remember when we first got this house, I was so excited to be able to host people.
This is why a big part of why we got this house, because I wanted to be in person and share my work. But in 2019, I didn't have a large enough organic audience to fill a hundred spaces for an event.
And I had just synchronistically connected with this group of girls. There was like 25 of us

who were genuinely here to support each other's work in the world. I had been doing Facebook ads

before that, but apparently you don't do Facebook ads to fill an event. People come to an event

because of a relationship that was already developed. Warm leads.
Yeah. So it wouldn't

be like cold leads to an event. That's not typical, or at least it wasn't back then.

By the way, I know nothing about warm leads. I just, this is symbiosis here from all these years.
Goodness, so many things. And so in 2019, I got connected with this group of girls and we were all genuinely supporting each other.
And I got on some of their podcasts. I was able to fill it.
And I got creative to say, why don't each of you bring a friend? And I just got creative with the marketing. So I filled this event.
I'd never done an event with a hundred people. I was nervous and I was pitching my mastermind.
I remember I was, I was going to pitch on, I don't know if you remember this. I was going to pitch on stage.
I had never pitched in public before. I was going to pitch on stage and invite these women to courageously stand if they wanted to join the mastermind.
And I was so

scared thinking that what if no one stands? And you were like, didn't you tell people to stand just in case? I'm like, no, I didn't do that. And I knew that I was inviting these women to be courageous, to invest in themselves, to go for their dreams.
So I knew I needed to embody that. I needed to lead the way.
And I like meeting my edges. It's not always comfortable, but I like how my life gets bigger by doing that.
And so I pitched the mastermind on stage and it was incredible. We had more women stand, like they stood and they had them, I brought them up on stage.
There was not enough space on stage. That's how many women joined.
It was amazing. And so then friends of mine found out about how successful this was.
And they were like, let's, let's do that again. I'm like, great idea.
So this time it was 350 women in the state on the, in the audience. And I had no doubt about this entire experience.
And so it was like, we split the pitch between three of us. And I was like, and stand.
And then no one stood. I was like, oh, they just didn't hear me.
It wasn't even in my realm of possibility thinking that they wouldn't have signed up. So I was like, and stand.
And they still didn't stand up. And then I think I said it again.
And one person stood up and that's when I knew it was a flop. And I, in the past, before having the tools, would have gone down a shame spiral.
I would have really been caught in, I'm not good enough. The ego really wants to make it personal.
I mean, something about ourselves. And I would have missed the opportunity to see that at the end of the event, there was a bunch of women lined up in the back asking questions.
And what that told me, because I didn't go into that shame spiral, and I really did, I had feelings about it, but I didn't stay there. I really offered myself compassion and self-forgiveness.
And because of that, I was able to stay creative and really see the evidence of what was happening, that a lot of people had questions, they were interested. So instead of not pitching the next day and feeling shameful, I went back up on stage and I made a clearer pitch.
I still needed to have a lot of conversations afterwards because it wasn't such a clean pitch the way that it first was, but I didn't give up. I stayed in conversations serving people until we filled the mastermind.
So it took a little bit of work at the end, but again, I think failure, I think having a healthy relationship with failure, meaning it doesn't mean anything about us, maybe our skill about pitching or sales or whatnot, but it doesn't mean anything about us has been really helpful. And to not give up when it's hard.
It's like, okay, if this is true for you, still go for it and know that you can actually have the success you want if you don't give up, if it's really alive and aligned. I get to benefit a lot from your orientation towards life.
When we have something, it's remarkable how quick you are to take your part of responsibility and to not take things personally. And what I'm hearing about failure is you take the information and really the definition of failure, how I'm hearing it from you is when things don't go as expected.
And then as you're either reevaluating your expectations or taking feedback and course

correcting.

Yeah.

It's a lot easier when the personalization of who I am, I'm not a failure.

It failed.

It's just a lot easier to do that.

And of course, like the mind can get caught up and then it's just having the tools to

come back to what's true.

I found to be most helpful.

And it's so helpful to hear it because we tend to get the story of people when they've

succeeded.

And we have a relationship with failure that is, we make it mean something about ourselves so easily. And I'm grateful you're bringing that forward because I've witnessed it with you and how you navigate it.
And it feels like it just, it's like, okay, what next? Yeah. At what point do you say, okay, I need to definitely change directions? Yeah.
Like, like, how do you, how do you discern when, when, when, yeah, keep going. Or is this feedback that this is not the right way to go? I think people can, can struggle with, with that inner decision, right? Because there's fear, there's all these things involved in there.
Yeah. I think it's a great question.
So I'll make a decision around if I keep going or not based on, is it my truth? Not from a trigger. So meaning like, if I'm triggered, I won't make a decision about completing a program or a friendship or...
So let me slow you down. So in that situation, when you're on stage and all of a sudden this doesn't go as expected, no one stands up.
You're standing there like a... Lone soldier.
Lone soldier. And stand up.
Nobody stands up. If we took that moment, how do you, how do you know, Oh, this, there's legs here.
I should continue doing this or I tend to work the trigger first. And when I work the trigger, then I know it's almost like it takes the static off of, and it becomes more clear and obvious.
No, this is still in alignment with my truth. So you say work the the trigger, what do you mean? I can, we can dive into that as well.
Like first I'll work the trigger. And then if it's really connected with what's true for me, I'll keep moving forward.
But I don't like, I don't recommend people work, make a decision when they're triggered. I think that it can lead to a lot of escapism and avoiding, and I'll tend to face the very thing that I'm afraid of and that I'm scared to feel as a way to integrate into my nervous system.
It almost like parts the clouds and then the clarity of what's true for me is revealed. So I'll share a different story just to keep it fun and vulnerable.
So most of my professional life was just geared towards getting good at what I do. So I love learning and I have two master's degrees, a gazillion certifications.
Like after I stopped going to school, I started a school. I just value learning.
And so got good at what I did. And then I really poured my entire body of work into my certification program.
I gave it my heart and soul. I didn't hold anything back.
I was like, this is my love letter back to the universe to support up leveling the coaching industry. And I remember it was about three years in to the certification where I was launching it.
And I recommend every time you're doing online marketing, track your metrics, know exactly where you are. And I had poured, I think 50 over, over $500,000 into ads.
It was a month before I was about to launch the program. It was the only program that my company was, it was not smart as a business move, but it was the only financial revenue that we had as a company.
It was this program and it was January. The program started in February.
And so it was a risky moment, a risky way to run business. Now I've learned since, but I went all in and I was tracking the metrics and where we were meant to be, how we tracked it for three years prior, the day that it was meant to be our biggest sales weren't there.
And I was deflated. And I remember just feeling like, wow, like I had poured everything into it.
I couldn, like I had also never felt more spiritual energy for anything that I'd created in my life than doing this program. Like it took a lot out of me and it also gave me so much.
Like I'm so proud of it. I'm so proud of my students and what they do, but launching it really challenged me at this year.
And so the numbers weren't there. And I remember I normally would have gone into strategizing and like really trying to change the numbers so that it worked.
And I love that part of me. I think it's great to really be resourceful and not give up like we were talking about, but I could tell that I would have been doing it from a place of avoiding feeling failure.
And so, because I know better and I know that even if this was a success, I would have taken that patterning and that programming with me and felt anxiety because I was trying to manage and control things outside of me. And so it was a Friday, and I just took the weekend off.
I was like, let's go to Ojai. And I just stopped tracking.
And I remember I did the work to really find a deeper place of peace with whatever happened. And I already knew like whoever was meant to be served by this offering would be, but I really got to come to a deeper sense of peace of like, this is out of my control to a degree.
And I need to come to a sense of just feeling failure as a sensation, not a story, but really just allowing myself to meet failure. And so I did.
And I genuinely got to a place of peace with it. I was like, okay, I'm okay regardless.
And I gave it my all. And I remember I got back Monday morning and I looked at the numbers and they just started coming in.
And they had never come in that late in previous years. It ended up being the most successful launch we had had to date, but only after I had really given up control and surrendered to what was.
And I really value somatic work. I really value feeling the thing that I was afraid of, which was failure.
And I value feeling it as a sensation in the body, not getting caught up in the story, which can loop us over and over again. And so I created a podcast episode to guide people through just like a really powerful, that exact process that I did.
I'll link it in the show notes below for people, but it was transformative. And then it was like, oh, I can have my power over this sensation knowing that I'm okay regardless.
And then I was more creative and

resourceful and less trying to manage out there so that I didn't feel a certain way. I was like, no, I can feel uncomfortable.
I can stretch the capacity to be with the range of my human experience and still find a sense of peace and safety regardless. So I got the lesson and then since been changing my business model too, so I don't have to put myself through, you know, kind of riskier moves.

I've seen you continuously do versions of that where life seems to reflect where you're at.

And the moment that you clear something within yourself, which I guess is what you were referring to through working on the trigger first and then honoring your truth.

It's like the moment that that contraction gets met, then life tends to just show up differently when we're no longer giving the outcome or power. Yeah.
Life's a mirror. Yeah.
You said something about when you're in your truth, you, and in this particular lunch, you felt spiritual energy. Yeah.
I'm curious, what's the experience of that for you when it happens? I specifically feel light on my back. It's almost like, imagine if I were to have wings, like there would be light energy on, and it's almost like tingling.
And I just felt like it was fueling my body and just pouring through. And I felt like there was this co-creative force where I was doing deep listening.
I knew the material I wanted to share, but it was also leading by listening just

and like insights would come in or I'd hear something and I would add it. And I've really continued to optimize this program because I think it's great to hear feedback and just continue taking care of your people.
So it still feels like this co-creation, but in that time of real building it. I was working a lot of hours and I have never felt more fueled by an intelligence, a life force energy, just that was moving from like essentially the back of my heart through my hands and moving out.
And it was energizing. It called me forward.
It pulled me in different ways. And I feel like it almost matured me.
It stretched my capacity to know what I'm capable of. And I know I'm not co-creating, but it did feel like that at the time.
And I've heard you talk about that in relationships as well. You know, when someone is trying to discern at what point should I continue being with this partner or not, and really just doing your work, because then clarity comes from that place.
And that aliveness that you're speaking of comes when we're less burdened by by all of our stories our resistance our judgments yeah i think i it's like again like work the trigger and then the clarity is is obvious of what to do when it's aligned when it's in truth with us and what have you discovered and as you've worked through your triggers like what's one big belief that somehow has really been hard to unlock? You're so good at this, by the way. You're rocking it.
Am I? Okay. Yeah.
I know you don't normally interview people. You're doing great.
A big belief that I had to unwind, and I tend to look at things that trigger me now and see where they result from my past. So a big belief that I had to unwind was that I'm not smart.
And I know that that got created because I was in grade school. I remember I would be, my heart would be beating because the teacher would have everybody read.
Everybody learned to read faster than me. They were better at it.
I'm not a good reader. And I remember we were in class and we would go around reading the next paragraph and I would just sink in my seat and also try to see what's the paragraph that's mine so I could read it, but I was just in a free state, so insecure and scared and publicly ashamed in comparison of what I could do.
I bought into a lot of misunderstandings about what I was capable of, my self-worth, being pulled out of class. I was in public school, given extra time to get tutoring and support and really thinking negatively about myself because of that, or thinking I needed to work harder or prove my intelligence.
A lot of that programming got set when I was younger. And it wasn't really until I went to college that I learned how I learn for one, which is I'm a kinesthetic learner.
I like, I learned by doing and sign language, like a visual learning was the only class that I rocked and I didn't have to study for. I know you talk about you, you know, there were classes you didn't have to study for.
That was never my experience. And I also in college started focusing on things that I really enjoyed.
And I know the quote, like energy is not created or destroyed. And so with the learning disability label, I thought something was wrong with me.
I thought that I was limited, but I've now can see that I just learned differently and that I started developing more of my intuitive capacities. I started developing reading people rather than reading books.
That's not how I learn. And I started using that for my advantage in my work.
And so I just want to remind people that may have a limitation, a disability, that actually that disability is an ability. You're going to have other abilities developed and that I,

I want to be a voice for people because I have ADHD.

I have dyslexia mild.

I also have a learning disability and I run a successful company doing what I

love making an impact in the world.

And so I just want to remind people like any of those labels,

we can unlearn and we can take our power back from them and use them as a way

to share our gifts in a way that's only aligned with how we are designed to do. Love it.
And it sounds like you've found ways to that sort of reshaped your narrative and you were able to use all these other superpowers of yours that were actually now really more aligned with the things that you wanted to be doing. How did you pull at the thread or unravel that misunderstanding that as a young one, you probably bought into, right? This idea that you weren't smart.
Did you still have to do work around that? Or was it just realizing that you learned differently? Was that enough? No, I had to do work around it. I think for a while I was like, I think I was telling myself, this is an ability, this isn't a disability.
And it was more conceptual. And it was almost like there were different parts on my journey that helped me sink into it, where I was realizing, yes, learning how I learned, yes, seeing how I was excelling in my business.
There was a part of me that needed to prove that I could do it for myself. There was something that I needed for me.
And then it was almost like doing the work was like watering a plant where it kept seeping in deeper. It wasn't just a head knowing.
It was like, oh, I can feel this. And then living it in my business helped me settle some part that wasn't fully hadn't arrived yet at what I was capable of and hadn't shown myself that.
But when I did, it settled. Beautiful.
Because I know how tough some of those early misunderstandings can be to unravel. And sometimes there's things that happen in our early childhood that just become these huge pivotal moments.
Totally. Is there one that comes forward for you that was just like a big moment in your life? Yeah.
I mean, one I don't talk about very much from childhood was when I was in fifth grade, I felt super self-expressed. I felt really free and I was in a, I would say a class of 60.
And then in sixth grade moved to a bigger school, 600 in my class, middle school, and got a lot of attention. I was like the new girl, got a lot of attention, part of this popular girl group.
And I, soon after the girls started realizing that a lot of the guys paid attention to me and started rumors about me. And that was hard for me.
I mean, that was something that I would, that left a really deep imprint inside of me around feeling like I got the rug pulled out from me, feeling like people were talking behind my back. You were close friends.
Yeah, close friends. Like people that I, you know, at least for six months I developed friendships with.
And then I remember I was standing at my locker changing for gym. And one of the rumors that every day I was like, what's the new rumor? One of the new rumors was that I stuffed my bra because I started developing breasts earlier than them.
And so there were these rumors and just feeling paralyzed, like frozen and not having a lot of friends in middle school. And that kind of lasted for like a year and a half of like, yes, rumors, but these girls were pretty ruthless.
Like they would take socks and put golf balls in them and beat girls with them. And I think one of them is in Harley's Hell's Angels, you know, like this Harley Davidson group.

And there's a lot of trauma.

So it was not just the social breakup of sort of your core group, but also a physical threat.

Yeah, there's a lot of physical threat. Like meet me at Taco Bell after school.

Like, I mean, it was a daily thing.

And at that time, on top of that, my family was all going through, my entire family is going through a spiritual awakening at the same time through struggle. Mine was through this, starting to question everything.
But I just remember feeling alone, suicidal, scared. It was the first time I was trying on different identities in my life of like, am I the rapper, the skater? Where do I belong? Where do I fit? And at that time, I have a lot of compassion for girls because at that time, or kids at that time, were looking for belonging and safety in our identity.
And I really, life kept being like, don't identify with this or that. And I think I was spiritually connected before that and trying to play in the physical world.
Life just presented me with opportunities to really question my identity and all of that. And so anyway, I just remember feeling frozen and this being so long for having a year and a half, it left a deep impact in my nervous system, my consciousness.
I remember one time I was, the girls were, they had vandalized my house and then they called me often just to threaten me. I think it was like a Friday night, they were having a party.
They called me and were threatening to beat me up. And my brother in the other room was so tired of hearing it.
He took the phone. He's like, 1017, this is our court name.
My sister's going to fight you. Bye.
Hung up. And I was like, what? I was so scared because for one, these were 30 girls and he didn't realize that.
And so I was like, what did you just do? And he, for like 30 minutes, talked me up and I was like, okay, I don't have a choice anymore. I need to face my fear.
I need to face the bully. And it was the first time somebody helped me stand up for myself because nothing else was working.
And I was ready to fight these girls.

And I was waiting and no one came.

And I remember Monday morning being like, oh my God, this is going to be it.

This sucks.

My brother's not here to support me.

I didn't have that.

The school wasn't supporting me.

And they didn't say a thing. And it was the end of the bullying.
And it was such a teaching for me around having a voice, having my own back, standing up for myself, even if it required me to fight and not win. I remember when our oldest went to school, to a new school, and girls were bullying her.
And I don't know if it was like a few days or a week, but she confronted them. She had the courage to confront them.
Now it wasn't 30 girls, but still like that was courageous and it stopped the bullying. And I was so grateful to know that she had that courage, I think because of her mom.
And part of my work has been to be in my power, which has been to be in my power means being in my heart, speaking my truth, having boundaries and confronting the fear. And so I think part of that developed me to move towards the things that I was scared of as a way of being.
I know you like edges. I like edges.
It's not comfortable, but I know how rewarding and freeing my life is because if I cower, then my life gets smaller. And so it's not easy, but I think it's harder staying in the fierce, like staying in a dysregulated nervous system.
And it was a really hard time in my life, but I'm really grateful because it supported me in speaking my truth, going towards the things that scare me and also leading me back on a spiritual path of questioning my identity and questioning reality, everything. It was such a time of awakening for me and my whole family.
Yeah. I can imagine that being so challenging, particularly at that time.
You know, it's probably something that happens to many people in terms of learning, particularly women, I would imagine, that shining is not safe. Yep.
And I know that you've navigated that and you've had a journey with it, even since the time that we've been together, where sometimes you have a tendency to want to play small. Yep.
Just that little girl thinks it's safer. Yep.
How do you, how do you navigate that when it feels like all she wants to do is close, is be small, not stand out. Yeah.
You know, I think there's upper limits and lower limits. I think there's this like safe zone, you know, this comfort zone, which is an illusion, but it's what we've known.
And part of the work psychologically has been to insource that safety. So to really meet that younger one, to let her know that she is safe, that she can feel exactly as she's feeling, that she doesn't need to be any different, that has been incredibly powerful for me.
Not only is it instant, like securing the insecurity, it's instant, it feels empowering, and then I don't need other things to be okay, which I can't control and manage. But I just go to a deeper sense of being okay with her being exactly as she is, her not needing to be different.
And one of the things that I love, this is a practice that our therapist taught us, which is sometimes when we have old traumas, we can go back to them to whatever age they were at and ask if they want to come to our current day self to see what life turns out like. And that's been really helpful.
There's been so many moments of just being like, wow, look how it turned out. And to know that I'm okay and that she gets to be with us as parents in a way that she needed some parenting that, you know, get to reparent her essentially is my job now.
And so that prompt and that invitation. So yes, offering her the assurance that she needed is helpful in sourcing that, but then also taking her along to be like, do you want to see my life now? Do you want to be with us now? And it's been something for people to try on.
I think it's really beautiful. Yeah.
And one of the things I'd love for you to explore, because I think it's, it's easy to see like when, when people hear how you navigate through life, it can be like, okay, yeah, that sounds great. But, but I, I get to see all of you or a lot of you.
Share anything that you see, honestly. No, no.
I guess what I'm, what I'm, what I would love you to break down for people is how, how do you navigate a trigger? How do you navigate when you're upset? Because you make it sound really easy and you make it look really easy. Yeah.
Most of the time. Yeah.
So how, what happens inside of you? Part of my methodology is what I, so working things on five levels. So somatically, emotionally, the body, working at the integration nervous system level, just really presencing the energy.
The great thing about somatic work is you don't need to know the story to integrate the energy into your nervous system. So any stuck energy, like if they're, if you just feel triggered, but you don't know why somatic work is really great.
You can use that to start feeling less of the trigger. You can start integrating.
Walk me through that. You're angry.
Okay. First, let me tell the, the, the concept and then I can go into it.
So, so somatic work is one way. And however, wherever I'm presenting most is where I'm going to start.

Or if a client is with me, that's where I'm going to start. If they start with tears, I'm going to do some emotional mastery work.
If it's really stuck in the mind, I'm going to do mindset work. If it's somatic work, they don't know, or they're really looping in avoidance, I might have the backdoor in of somatic work.
So there's unconscious reprogramming, stuff like unconscious reprogramming is really great for earlier childhood stuff that, um, upper limits. It's really good for, it's also really good for some deeper trauma, like that may be ancestral and meaning like more of our lineage for me, like in my lineage over responsibility as a thing that I work with through unconscious reprogramming.
So I'm hearing somatic, emotional, mental, behavioral. Sometimes it's just about learning a skill and behaviorally shifting and then unconsciously.
So there's five levels and I will, if it's a core wound, it's a core trigger. I will work all five of them.
So over time, but I will access it wherever it's presenting inside of yourself or with someone that you're working with. Yeah.
And I would highly recommend only working with one trigger at a time. I think it's ego play to then pull in, you know, like if you and I have a challenge, then be like, oh, in 1940, it was like bringing up all of the things.
It's just going to be overwhelming. So one pattern at a time, I tend to look at what is, and I think a lot of people get lost in the person and miss what's happening with the pattern.
So for example, I could help heal my relationship with middle school experience, but what's the pattern? Oh, the pattern is how I'm seen. The pattern is not feeling safe.
If somebody is talking about me behind my back, what's the pattern? And if I can resolve that at the root, then it doesn't matter where it shows up. I feel a lot freer.
It's just more bang for your buck. It's just a deeper way to work.
And I think it's like, if you have a weed, you're pulling it at the root rather than to the tops of the weeds. Where can someone learn more about the door of somatic, the door of emotional, the door of mental? Because I think there's probably tools in each one of these categories, right? So part of my intention with the podcast is offering free tools and perspectives and especially my solo cast so that people can have this accessible.
Where I go deeper into it is my certification program so that my coaches, healers, therapists, they do their own embodiment work. They really live the work and then they can more confidently serve others with it but for people that are just that either don't have the budget or just want to practice or try these the solo casts that i do are really intended on giving people free tools to try on and and sort of relationally right because you get triggered it's likely someone you get with someone.
Do you first, how, how much clearing do you do within yourself before you bring it to the other person? I know that there's different schools of thought around that. I think one of the most important things is to take personal responsibility for what's being triggered inside of me.
And, and to look at what the pattern is, where did that, what's the source of that? What's the root? And how can I really heal that from that original misunderstanding when I was a kid reading, not feeling smart enough? So if somebody triggers my insecurity, then I know it's not their fault. Maybe I won't put up with the way that they're talking to me and I'll have a boundary.
And boundaries are really important to speak to what I'm going to do to take care of myself, not trying to manage or change them. I may speak what a boundary is, but I'm still going to go back to the original wound or misunderstanding to heal that insecurity from grade school.
And ideally, you do your work before setting that boundary, right? Well, ideally, yeah, that tends to be. Otherwise, the most important thing, I think, is not blaming.
Because people are going to knock on the door and your triggers are going to answer. And if you've done your work so that the triggers resolve, you have a different relationship with it or it's no longer there, people can keep knocking.
But there's no more buttons to press. There's no one at the house.
And so I think that's a better way to go about it. I tend to be really proactive with the work because my life gets better when I do that.
And then I use any trigger to get free. I think of those triggers as breadcrumbs to a deeper sense of freedom in life and looking for the learnings, looking and really just doing one thing at a time, developing the toolkit.
And even if somebody has, say, like three to five tools, I think that's fantastic. That's it.
Like you don't need to have more, but I would say have them on multiple levels because some people really get stuck in the mind. Other people get lost in their emotions or we go through different phases of our life.
And so the more we've got a integrative framework or a robust toolkit, the easier we can actually go to the route to resolve it. That makes sense.
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And sort of, I think, bringing that back, sort of the relational piece of getting upset and then working your process. And then you talked about discernment and truth and knowing that truth.
can you give an example? Sometimes knowing your truth is not congruent with your thoughts, right? Like there's, there's a part that really wants to convince you otherwise. How, like what's an example of you really getting clear on a truth of yours that made no sense? So once usually the, if the trigger is gone, then yes, the truth, the clarity of what's my truth is there.
A time in my life where I just followed my truth and intuition where it made no sense, what you're asking? Yeah. Yeah.
I think a lot of people are like, well, this is my truth, but I've had it myself with like business opportunities. I was like, this doesn't feel right.
And, and there's a lot of convincing evidence, right? Of why, you know, this is so allure appealing. Yeah.
I, so before I met you, I remember I was at San Diego state. I was becoming a marriage and family therapist.
I had my life perfectly planned out in my mind. I had a beautiful man that I was with who was saving up to buy a wedding ring.
I started going to, I was doing two master's programs at once. My overachiever was definitely alive.
And one was for my head, one was for my heart. And I remember just as I started doing some really deep work inside myself, it's almost like I shifted timelines and it didn't make sense to my mind, but I left everything I knew.
Like I ended up leaving this relationship. I left San Diego.
I left the graduate program to follow an impulse. It wasn't even an impulse.
It was a knowing. And I wanted to have a story about why, because it was so hard to leave because there was nothing wrong.
This man was beautiful. My life was planned out in my mind.
And I just remember being in my Honda Prelude with my life packed in my car. And I'd gone to an acquaintance that I met.
She let me stay at her place for like a week and her walls were so thin and I just wanted to cry. So we went to my car sitting in my Honda Prelude with my life in my car and just bawling.
And there was a part of me that was confused. And there was a deeper part of me that knew I had to honor this.
And I had no idea where it was going to go. And that was one of the most courageous things that I had done in my life.
And it opened me to the life that I have now, which is beyond any of my wildest dreams that I could have even, I didn't even, I had so much low self-worth that I wouldn't even dream of the life that I have now. But I was, I followed my intuition.
I followed what felt true. I worked with the fears that came up.
And I feel like, you know, the more I follow my intuition and I test that and I took it with smaller bites, the more I test that I've never regretted following my truth, my intuition, like it's always turned out and I had to develop that muscle. I can imagine how hard that must have been because the way you speak about him is with so much love.
So not having something have to go wrong in order for you to choose a different path. I know that requires a particular kind of inner resolve.
How can someone nurture that resolve, nurture that relationship with their clarity? Yeah. I think we're all intuitive.
I think some of us just pay more attention to it. I think some of us care to develop it.
And the way I sense things intuitively is through my gut. Like there's just a gut knowing.
And I would recommend people start small where it may be like, I remember I'd be on a run and I'd be like, should I turn left or right? So small things that didn't have a lot of consequence to help build it. But one thing that I did that was really helpful was an intuition journal.
So kind of like a dream journal, the more you pay attention to it, it helped build the confidence in it. So I would write down how I received the intuition.
Was it through a thought? Was it a felt knowing? Was it a seeing? And then what was my intuition? Then how did it turn out? I did this for like a month. I didn't always have the result, but it helped build the confidence of saying, oh, actually I'm already receiving intuition.
And when I look back, and I think this is really helpful for people to do, like look back at your life at the times where you made intuitive decisions and choices and see how that did work out for yourself, or if it didn't use it as feedback to refine. And then you just keep testing.'t have to trust it but just small ways that have low impact it will build that muscle and then you can have that as a superpower in your life like there are things that i know that i don't need anyone else to confirm and i just know and it's very well developed now and what's like one of those things that when you look at your life has been most transformative for your journey? Like what are those, one of those like nuggets that just transformed your healing? I think the biggest thing that has changed my life is self-inquiry, questioning who and what I am.
I think most of my life, I had this conclusion and story. I was talking about like low self-worth.
Most of my life was, oh, I'm not good enough. I'm not successful enough.
I'm not smart enough, just not enough to some degree. And I remember really, I think with the inner work, if we want to go faster, slow down to really just bring presence and mindfulness.
I've started to see that the I'm not enough and that I am enough are both stories that the mind was creating. That who I am is prior to those stories.
So thoughts come and go, feelings come and go, people come and go, but there's something that doesn't come and go. This presence that is prior to all of that, this presence that is here now.
And we've probably been on 20 silent retreats. And for me, the practices of stillness of just like, just being still and then questioning everything, but especially the identity of who I take myself to be has offered a conscious freedom that I, if I could offer it to anyone, that would be it.
And I think spirituality is beautiful and it's a huge part of what I value. And I think we, I could get really lost in the spiritual teachings and all of them are helpful, but the deepest, most important one is identity is, and who is the one that is talking? Who is the one that you think you like moment to moment coming back to that is more of an unraveling that opens a deeper level of freedom beyond any story or life experience.
And I have so much to owe to grace and teachers like Adi Ashanti, who's an incredible meditation teacher, A New Earth, that book, powerful, is something that I've come back to again and again. And then Byron Katie, had her on the podcast, her inquiry.
And I would invite people to do it around self-inquiry. You know, I am Alyssa.
Is it true? I am a woman. Is it true? So really going through identity, unraveling and looking at each belief and discovering what's beyond all of that, all of the mind.
When you speak, it almost makes it seem like there's these two different approaches, right? There's the psychological, and then there's the, what could be called spiritual, but it's really just sort of almost existential in one way or another. And it sounds like they're both integral or have been integral to your journey.
Yeah. I think I've always, the most important thing for me is awakening.
And so I've always used relationships or business as a path to awakening. So any life triggers become the, you know, business is fun, but without that, it's not as valuable to me.
Same as relationships. Relationships are everything and beautiful.
And I want to share more about relationships because I think it can serve. But without looking at where's the source of love, what I am, I think we can just get so caught in manipulation and control innocently, the psychological tendencies to look for the safety outside of ourselves versus waking up to the context, like the presence that is, rather than getting lost in the content.
That can be hard for me, I think, of my life. I was going to write a book.

We'll see if I ever do, but I was going to call it Stillness and Stilettos. And so my life journey has always been having a foot in both worlds, honoring both equally, but from the context of presence, from stillness, that being the most important thing.
So my invitation for people that are interested is to question who you are and you just stay with that long enough to keep coming back to and let it unravel you into the mystery and the miracle of what you already are. And what's one thing that this human character, Alyssa, is still struggling with? Like, what do you find yourself still working through? Yeah, a few things.
One of them is there's a part of me that still cares what people think. And when I don't feel safe or I feel dysregulated, I'll go towards control because control is really a fear-based pattern and I'll go towards perfectionism.
And so again, like I think one of the intentions of this podcast and sharing, I'm used to like moving my business online and doing webinars and also being a psychotherapist where you don't share as much of yourself. And so part of the intention of this and more long form media is to share a bit more vulnerably, meet that edge, and then also just be with the part of me that cares.
And I feel like there's been so much growth on that psychological because of middle school and some of the trauma that happened from that. And there's other trauma that I'm not speaking to in my past because it's not appropriate to bring up here.
And maybe one day I'll do a podcast on it just involves other people to get permission around. But the ability to just insource that safety and the sweetness that comes with really seeing that one, I think if I were to ever tell myself to just let go, I feel like it's another concept I would use to judge myself.
It's never helped to hear let go. And when I just hold on to the one that cares to create safety for that part of me, knowing it's not the whole of me, that I talk about essence and ego in my certification program.
So the essence of who I am wrapping the part of me, the ego that cares is the thing that's not only instant, but it's so loving and nourishing. And it's almost like as the psychological clouds, like fear, insecurity, whatever the trauma is from the past, as I meet all of it with love, with presence, it parts the clouds to open to a deeper safety and presence that's here, that's always here for me, for anyone, for underneath all the insecure thoughts, underneath all the insecure feelings, but by meeting it with presence, with acceptance, parts the clouds to feel more of this wholeness, the safety.
And I'll say this again and again, but one of the greatest gifts I have found through this work is the thing that I'm afraid to feel holds the key to what I deeply desire. And so a big part of my

life of not feeling good enough, I was trying to run away from it. I was trying to succeed away

from it versus just stopping to be with it and to allow it fully. And as I did, it opened me to my

wholeness. And it also just makes sense.
If I'm pushing a part of me away, I'm not going to feel whole. And as I welcome that, that one that cares or just, you know, without getting caught in the story of, I think I used to get caught in the story of, I shouldn't be that way or more identity in these parts of me.
I shouldn't care how I'm seen. I shouldn't care or I should let go or whatever the shoulds or stories are.
But as I just embrace that and allow it and feel it, there's a softening, there's a relaxing, there's a naturalness. And I think people can feel that.
And it's always available for all of us when we have the courage to just meet it. But feel it as a sensation, not a story.
We can loop in the stories again and again. So your access point for that one is the semantic.
The semantic to just drop into the energy of the thing I've been avoiding, the energy of not good enough, the energy of failure, the energy of rejection. And part of what I teach on this is like, for example, rejection, if I'm avoiding rejection, I'm rejecting that part of me.
And that will show up in my sales conversations. It will show up in relationships and dating.
And again, as we work it at the root, we don't reject the one that's feeling rejected. We welcome that.
We feel it's not only magnetic, people are attracted to that, which is what we wanted those things anyways, with the sales or the partner friends, but those things matter less because again, life's a mirror. And so we feel more of that integration and that wholeness.
And so I just share any of that because those are some of the things that I've discovered that I think can really help people along the way. Things that I've taken my whole life to realize that I hope serves people in coming home to themselves.
One of the fun practices that I know we've done in the past sometimes is when we're looking for something from someone other than giving it to ourselves, we also have played with imagining what they would tell us, right? Like, what did we want to hear? Here's your audience who you feel like, oh, I want to look a certain way. i want to be seen a certain way yeah what do you want to hear from all of them okay last time i had my husband interview me no i love it because i did this with you one one time where i was like i wanted you to say something to me and then i said it to me and then you called me and it didn't matter by that point.
But I think just in my vulnerability and my audience.

Yeah, this is the audience talking to your little girl,

the one that really wants to be seen.

That feels tender.

I want to hear,

thank you for having the courage to share yourself,

to do something that's uncomfortable.

Thank you for wanting to help me. And I can see that you're human and it's helping me accept the parts of me that are human too.
And you don't have to be perfect to be loved. There's space for you to be exactly as you are.
As I see you offer it to yourself, I'm learning how to offer it to myself. Thank you.
I do see your life as that. As an invitation.
As a way to model what's possible. So I am truly grateful that you get to share in this way.
Yeah, thank thank you especially given everything that you've shared today around your background of wanting to play small or not thinking that you were smart or good enough or now all of a sudden here you are super exposed yeah yeah and i think it's just about me accepting those parts of me and i'm really grateful for the people that i get you know i know that know that I'm a mirror for people. I'm a mirror for people's shadow and light and people will project.
And I know when I give myself permission for them to have their experience of me, regardless, I'm free. And so I don't need part of my philosophy is I don't need other people to be different.
And I will do my work to find freedom because that's what I'm committed to in this life. And it doesn't mean that it's easy because it still hurts sometimes, but I know when it hurts, it's pointing to something in me that I feel insecure about that's needing tending to.
And so rather than trying to get other people to be different, I will keep using it as a mirror. And I know, and I'm a mirror for, you know, a lot of my students positively project, like I will hold that mirror until they step into themselves and their greatness and see that I've always just been that a mirror.
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you for creating safety for me to be able to share myself more organically and authentically, especially when storytelling and linear thinking is not my natural way of orienting. I love you.
I'm very grateful for you. Me too.
Thank you so much for doing this work that changes the world starting with yourself. It truly does make a difference.
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I can't wait to share with you. And you can find all this information in the

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I'm at Alyssa Nobriga. Thank you again for being here.
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