Hello beautiful souls! Natalia Rachel (healer, speaker, and author of Why Am I Like This) joins me on the podcast to break down issues we face as a collective and how to overcome that to be fully healed. I highly regard Natalia’s practice in somatic work and our conversation revolved around ways to love ourselves more, how to overcome a disconnection with our bodies, and so much more.

To learn more about Natalia Rachel and her work: 
@natalia_rachel_change [IG]
NataliaRachel.com
Her book Why Am I Like This is available through her website

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Transcript

Julie Jancius 01:33

Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Angels and Awakening podcast. I’m your host and author, Julie Jancius. And friends, you know, if you’ve been listening to the podcast that I have been on this journey, over the last five years Spirit has taken me through several different layers. But the one that I’ve been on the last six months, has been really understanding somatic work. And I have read countless number of books, looked at countless numbers of teachers out there teaching right now. And the person that you’re going to hear today, Natalia Rachel, is the one that I think is above and beyond the farthest, like, lightyears ahead of everyone else. And what she’s saying, and the way that she says it and the words that just flow through her, you can tell that God Universe Source is really working through her to create massive, massive change within this world. So she has a book out. But I know that this is a person that you’re going to be seeing over the next 20 years that is going to have multiple multiple books, and a person who, if you follow her on Instagram, and you should be please go over there like right now while you’re listening to our conversation, go over to Instagram and follow her at Natalia_Rachel_change. And we’ll put that in the show notes. Because every day I get these new notifications of her posts going up. And everyone has a very, very profound impact on me. So Natalia, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for being you. I am just so excited for this conversation.

Natalia Rachel 03:22

Thank you. I’m blushing listening to that introduction. That’s so beautiful. Thank you.

Julie Jancius 03:26

Thank you. So this started for me because I’ve been working with clients for years, and I think we totaled it up and I’ve done over 7000 one on one sessions. I do a mix of energy healing mediumship working with angels bringing through messages. And Spirit brought me to this place through a lot of client questions and working kind of more so coaching clients to get where they want to be. And it dawned on me for the first time. What is whole healing? What is being fully wholly healed? And so I started to ask a lot of different guests this question, and, and everybody came back to the same conclusion, which is something that I’ve heard you say, it’s never done or never complete here. Talk to us a little bit about that.

Natalia Rachel 04:27

I think in this world, we get so set on the ideals and destinations, and perfection and completion. And these are the things that really block us from living in ways that are truly compassionate and authentic. Because we never accept ourselves if there’s a destination to get to. We’re never meeting ourselves and walking with ourselves right here. So I believe when we let go of these perfections and ideals and destinations, we move into a state of grace And that’s where we can really learn to love ourselves and also welcome other people, just as they are. So I think that there are these markers that we can sort of understand and reach for on our journey. But I think they’re just markers, as opposed to this place or promise land where everything’s all done and wrapped up and perfect. I think we need to learn to let go of that and rather, seek to find a way of living and relating that honors and welcomes us as we are in each moment. And to me, that’s what healing is all about. 

Julie Jancius 05:35

Yeah, not striving for that destination. But being present being in the here and now just being yourself I am and embracing that.

Natalia Rachel 05:44

I think so. And it gets a little bit complicated, doesn’t it because when we’re on the healing journey, we’re often trying to shift the whole amount of stuff in our life, the way that we show up the way that we experience the world that we’re creating. So while we want to enter this deep space of compassion, and self acceptance, at the same time, we want to move into accountability and conscious creation. And I think because we tend to live in a pretty polarized way, it’s like we can only have either or, and a huge part of this journey is allowing that complexity, I can be compassionate and self accepting. And I can also be deeply accountable and conscious in the way I’m showing up here.

Julie Jancius 06:32

Yeah. And a lot of that comes through community and coaching and getting the tools that you need, but allowing yourself to recognize that you are whole at all times, even as you go through the journey of healing.

Natalia Rachel 06:48

I think so. And I think this recognition or self reflection can be incredibly hard. Because if we have not been shown that which many of us on the healing journey haven’t. We haven’t had our innate goodness and beauty reflected back to us, we have not been validated. So it can be very, very hard to do that for ourselves in an authentic way. And so being in community with people who reflect our wholeness and our goodness, and our validity back to us is a really big piece we learn through dynamic we are reflective creatures in general. So we cannot do it on our own. 

Julie Jancius 07:27

You talk a lot about the right and left parts of the brain, and that when we’re going through different traumas in life, or and I think that those could be big T or little T traumas that what happens is those– talk to us about that is it that they’re not communicating the right way with one another. But that when you do somatic work, you’re really taking the body and teaching it, re teaching it how to communicate with the brain,

Natalia Rachel 07:56

When we experience something that’s too much that we can’t, we don’t have the capacity to metabolize in that moment, which is the case when we’re going through very difficult or traumatic experiences. Our body and our brain are very wonderful at protecting us. So what happens is the right brain, which is connected to our somatic felt emotional experience hides the content, the traumatic content so that the left brain can allow us to continue on and keep surviving and going on with life and creating and doing and being. And so what happens if we don’t take time to go in and heal is that a functional split occurs between the left and the right brain so they stop communicating. So the right brain buries all of our content, and it shows up as sensations, emotions and relating patterns. And the left brain stays in this very cognitive rational place. So we walk around either completely oriented to our head or completely dissociated altogether. 

And what somatic work is really helpful for is learning to tune in to the right brain which is connected to the body and those felt somatic experiences and developing or opening new pathways of communication between the right and the left brain. So I talk a lot about when I teach the concept of emotional somatic. So our somatic experience exists across two layers in my opinion. So one is our physical somatic experience, which pertains to sensation, so movement, heat, call, direction, up, down, sideways, texture, taste, smell, all of these are our physical somatic experience. Then there is our emotional somatic experience, which is actually a left brain response to our right brain. So our emotional somatic experience links to the emotions or experiences or memories that are connected to those sensationary experiences. And so as we explore through the lens of somatics, we learn how to re-link those two layers, so we can both experience here in the body and the president and make meaning in a far greater context, both from the present and the past.

Julie Jancius 10:11

Okay, now this is where I think it gets really, really fascinating because I teach people around the world how to open up to their intuition, mediumship abilities, psychic abilities, tuning into bringing through Angel messages, channeling and such. And what spirit has been talking about is that, you know, you have the four Clairs or there’s more than four Clairs, Clair hearing and Clair seeing or feeling clair knowing. But if a person is, and you can get messages, right, like you can get messages through your conscious awareness. And I believe that everybody has all of the four Clairs they just use them to varying different degrees. But what I’ve found is that, for me, because I did have so much trauma as a child, the clair knowing the clair hearing, the clair seeing was really what I developed first as a healer to be able to bring through messages, the clair feeling came in later or my awareness of it. Because as I healed, and I felt more safe within my physical body, the more I was able to pay attention to the receptors within my body and use that. But what Spirit has been saying and I’d love your opinion on this is that trusting your physical body, you know, trusting yourself, is you learning how to develop your intuition, that’s it’s the same thing, two sides of the same coin.

Natalia Rachel 11:46

I agree with you, I think, when we experience trauma, there’s two important things that happened that connects into this conversation. One is that we dissociate. So we check out and we leave our body. So either we’re living here in the mind, or we’re living completely outside the body. And if we’re not rooted in our own body, we’re not going to be able to tune into sensations of either safety or threat, or intuition. We’re just not there. So number one, is we have to make it safe to come back to the body. And as we heal, and we and we do that, we will then be able to tune in to these sensations that are messages. They’re all messages. It’s all just information, everything’s information. Another piece that’s really important is often when we have unresolved trauma, or when we’ve kind of grown and developed from an origin of trauma. So if we have developmental trauma, which many of us in our generation do, what happens is that it’s like our wires get crossed. So what we might label as intuition is actually threat. And so a really big piece of the healing journey is learning to know, is this my intuition? Or is this a threat response? And I think this is such an important piece, because so many people make decisions, thinking that it’s their intuition speaking, when actually, it’s a protective mechanism speaking. And to me, this is a life’s work to tune into those impulses, because intuition is all about an impulse to tune into the impulse. And to get curious and question, is this a pure intuition? Is this connected to my higher self? or is this some diffuse, complex, protective mechanism? And often the answer is actually, it’s a protective protective mechanism. So to be able to bring in a very deep and gentle inquiry around our impulse and around our intuition is very important to get into that pure place where we are moving from, from a directly intuitive place.

Julie Jancius 13:49

Can you give people some examples? Because I think you’re spot on. But I think it’ll help people kind of absorb this and maybe pull this into their lives, if they have a couple of examples of what would really be a threat and not their intuition.

Natalia Rachel 14:03

So sometimes we’ll get like a strong No, no response. No, I don’t want to be with that person. I don’t want to take this opportunity. No. And usually, it’s coming from a protective mechanism. Usually, we’re afraid of something to do with that person, or that circumstance. And so when we feel that initial no or repulsion, we can actually pause and get curious, like, why am I having this strong response? Often when we’re having a strong or charged response? It’s an indication that there is some level of activation or threat at play. On the flip side, we might have a tendency to these really intense yeses, yes, I’m going to do that 100% in very quickly, and sometimes, that’s our nervous system orienting to risk or to danger or to experiences or people that might not be very good for us and if we have had a lot of threat, and particularly threatening dynamics in the past, it will be common that we feel this strong chemistry or pull towards people in places that are not good for us. And we just think we’re following our gut instinct. But we have to inquire, is this like intuition? Or is this a learned pattern to orient towards danger, or exclusion, or rejection. So really taking that pause during this phase of healing helps us to almost recalibrate what we know as safe and what we know as dangerous. And I, my belief is that when we’re totally connected to our intuition, there’s no intensity related with it. It’s calm, it’s peaceful, it’s pure, it’s not urgent. And so when we feel urgent or adamant, to me, it’s a sign that there’s something to sort through.

Julie Jancius 18:56

When is– because there are times that come up, especially for women within their lives, where they’re learning boundaries, they’re learning how to heal, and there are people who keep pushing those boundaries or will not abide by those boundaries. When is it acceptable to say I’ve done what I can do here, this person isn’t a safe person for me. And the boundary that I need to hold is if they’re not going to abide by my boundaries, then I cannot have this person in my life.

Natalia Rachel 19:33

I think this is such a complicated question because there’s no one size fits all answer. So let’s take the example of someone in a disrespectful or perhaps mildly abusive dynamic because this would be a really common thing all around the world. So the woman is beginning to heal. She’s beginning to see that this is not okay and that she doesn’t want this anymore and she’s trying to gently Express her boundaries. And of course, somebody that’s been benefiting from our lack of boundaries is not going to like it. When we start to claim our space and our power and say no or ask for more, all of these things are part of it. And sometimes the person will get a little bit upset, but then they’ll get on board. And there’s a bit of a dance to re re establish a new status quo within a dynamic. But sometimes the person really isn’t going to offer that level of respect or care. And life is complicated. So ideally, the woman would have enough capacity and resources to say, See you later. I’m not up for this anymore. But the sad truth is, that’s often not the case. So often, there’s a codependence in the relationship, and perhaps to leave at that point, would cause more harm than good. And so something that I explore with my clients, and I think it’s really important when it comes to being an embodied practitioner facilitator is not to push our agenda on our clients. And rather than focus on helping them leave or exit, it’s actually about helping them connect to the intuition to understand what is okay and not okay to be making empowered choices and building capacity. So when someone builds capacity for their experience, and their aliveness, their ability to tolerate difficult things and make choices that have consequences, there will usually be a point later on, where they do feel empowered to stand up and say no, and leave. But I think it’s really important to explore Well, what are the consequences of me saying no walking away? And do I have enough resources and enough capacity to be with that? So I think it’s such a complicated journey.

Julie Jancius 21:46

Yeah, for sure. You talk a lot too about self abandonment. And I like that you bring up different terms, you know, you use a lot of terms that other people don’t use. And I think that that’s such a gift to the world in and of itself, because we all say the same things over and over on repeat. And Spirit says when we say the same things over and over again, like the saying, You are worthy, it loses its meaning. And we don’t understand it vibrationally as well as when you say things kind of from a fresh perspective. So self abandonment, talk to us about this, and how we can stay true to ourselves.

Natalia Rachel 22:32

I believe self abandonment is the disease of our generation. We’ve learned that in order to survive and belong, which are our two fundamental imperatives, we have to give up certain things, we have to keep the peace, we have to let go of our boundaries or our needs or our desires. So we will always seek to feel safe, and we will always seek to belong. And I guess we’ve learned that in order to do that, we need to pack parts of ourselves away and give up on some of the things that we wish for. And I think a really big piece of healing is learning to put boundaries before belonging, and to build safety that is not dependent on lack or deprivation. And I think this is the work of our generation. And that if we can do that, we become what I what I call a transformative generation where our children and our children’s children will no longer live in these ways, where they’re tying themselves in knots and self abandoning and denying who they really are or what they really want. 

Julie Jancius 23:42

And it seems to me to like when you stay true to yourself, you’re really following that inner voice, that inner wisdom, that intuition. And what’s so fascinating to me– the studies of Heart Math, where they show that the body really does know first, when it comes to your intuition. It appears scientifically like the body is the very first source of intuitional response within you. Yeah, talk to us a little bit about that. What have you seen scientifically?

Natalia Rachel 24:20

Our nervous system is the governing system of our experience. So it experiences first we have 1000s and 1000s, of tiny little neuro scepters. And they’re picking up information all the time, I’m sure you’ve heard the saying your energy speaks before you do. So we are feeling we are both picking up information and giving off information in a very physiological neurophysiological way first, and what happens is, our nervous system picks up all of these 1000s of pieces of information called qualia. And they send them up to the brain for integrated processing. And that’s where we begin to pattern match and make meaning And then send information back through the body and through our psyche to then respond. And so it’s really important we learn to tune into well, what is my nervous system experiencing? And how is it making sense and the way that we make sense, which will then inform the way we either respond or react is based on what we’ve learned in the past. So we can retrain it as well.

Julie Jancius 25:25

Interesting. When it comes to belonging, because you talk a lot about this as well. And I think that’s another word that people just don’t use. But it gives like such a deep vibration that you can really feel. Belonging, a real sense of safety and security. For people who haven’t had that. belonging. It’s one of the biggest things that I hear people saying, I felt different I felt, you know, not like I fit in all throughout my childhood and young adulthood. Where do people start? To feel that belonging? Again, how do you heal back into belonging?

Natalia Rachel 26:08

I think belonging is both an internal process and a relational dynamic process. So there are two pieces. So when we’ve gone through trauma, it’s really common to feel like we don’t belong, in our family, in our friendship circles in the world, in our body, inside ourselves. And that’s because no one ever showed us how to belong, we weren’t treated as if we belonged, or we were told you have to be a certain way in order to belong. And so it’s really common that later in life, we might have all these friendships or relationships, but we still feel different, or outside or like we can’t connect. And so to heal, and to feel a sense of belonging, we need to learn to cultivate vulnerable, authentic relationships with other people where we show our true selves. And that’s really, really scary, because we’re at risk of rejection or harm when we do that. But similarly, we need to learn to look after ourselves, and to tune in to all the parts of ourselves that we’ve been packing away in order to belong, and invite them into our own compassionate care. And the journey of parts work or exploring fragmentation is a really big piece of that, because we tend to deny certain aspects of ourselves either really consciously, or there are these pieces that are buried into such deep, deep, deepest unconscious inside us that we actually need to go in and explore and unearth them. And that will only come through over time. So it is quite a long, complex journey to feel like I belong inside my body. I belong inside these relationships, and I belong inside the world at large.

Julie Jancius 27:48

Okay, let’s break this down deeper, because there’s a lot here belonging inside your body. Where do you start with that, because I think there are so many people, especially in America, who lived through all of the magazine covers that we had over here, and the 90s, and the 2000s, where we really kind of disassociated from our physical bodies.

Natalia Rachel 28:14

Well, we were told that our bodies are bad, wrong and shameful, not good enough. And many of us were showing that they’re not a safe place to be. So if we were harmed or abused physically, we’ve been shown the body’s not a safe place, and all of the messaging through media, and society has told us your body is not good enough, you know, you better diet or get plastic surgery, or dye or hair or all of these things. And so the first step to belonging to the body is to associate to the body. And so again, that’s why somatic work can be super helpful. 

So you can start with things such as body scans, and really getting used to the body, you can also start with gentle practices around caring for the body. So for example, to some of my women clients, I’ll ask them to gently massage their body with moisturizer every night. And it’s so interesting that that can feel so distressing to begin with. I don’t want to touch my body or care for my body, I hate my body. And so I often ask my clients to challenge that gently because that self hatred or self shaming that we were offering to our body perpetuates that cycle where we don’t belong here, where we’re self abandoning, and not looking after ourselves. So what is it like to gently gently be with and care for our body, and when we meet ourselves in this way, it will always if we have this level of unresolved trauma, bring up shame, to process and be with and when we have unresolved trauma, we are often riddled with shame and we need to meet it we need to look at it and we need to need to let it go and actually learn to say no, like I’m going to start looking after this body, this temple that has carried me through my whole If, and when we can connect to our body with that level of, I guess, recognition and validation and gratitude, things begin to shift slowly. But it’s a journey.

Julie Jancius 30:11

Which is really, really fascinating because there’s so many different layers of healing to peel back. And my husband and I went through marriage therapy eight, nine years ago, and we went through it for very long time. And as we were going through it, we knew that we were right for one another, we were committed to our relationship. But it was a lot of work to peel back layers with one another. And it was a very long process to learn how to communicate well with one another and not bring shame into it. And immediately when you start talking about, you know, like, will you just give yourself the homework of, of, you know, lotioning yourself up every night and just touching your body that immediately triggered like this, no, you know, like, that feels uncomfortable. That doesn’t. And so obviously, there’s something there. And would you say somatic work is kind of like counseling or therapy in a way where it is this process of peeling back layers, and it doesn’t always feel comfortable. But where’s the commitment in there, I guess you really have to have this strong commitment to yourself, because my commitment and doing the marriage work was like, we have to get on track, because we’re not in a good place. And, and we have to be better for our child and for one another, and just to live better lives. And is that the commitment that we need to bring into somatic healing work as well, like, I am worthy of this. I am committed to myself?

Natalia Rachel 31:50

Yeah, I think there’s got to be a decision, a choice, a boundary intention, that says I don’t want to show up in the world for one more day, where I’m hating on myself, or hurting myself or denying myself. And, you know, it’s so much easier to do it for someone else to do it for our partner to do it for our kid. But to come back and say, I deserve to create a life for myself where I feel celebrated and welcomed and expressed and alive. Again, we have to come back to this layer of shame that says, I don’t deserve that. Why would I do that? I’m a piece of, you know, I want to swear, but I’m not going to swear in it. You know, but we treat ourselves so awfully. We can be love and light for other people. And then when we try to turn the spotlight on ourselves, we so often turn it off. We’re so much harder on ourselves. If you think about the way you speak to yourself, it’s often you’d never speak like that to someone else. And so I talk in the book about the inherited voice, I call it so that shaming voice that self hating or self loathing voice. It’s not innate in us, it’s not part of who we are. It’s something that we’ve learned, and I believe it’s an amalgamation of all of the voices in our life that have shamed us before. And they travel through generations and all of this conditioning through social media and commerce and capitalism that tells us we have to be perfect and this unattainable version of ourselves in order to be accepted, validated and loved. And I feel like we need to set a boundary with that voice and catch it, I still catch it inside myself. Even after all of the work I’ve done. It’s still very strong. And I have to meet and say, That is not how I’m going to be with myself. I’m not going to hurt myself in that way. And this is the work of self compassion. And to me that is eternal.

Julie Jancius 33:41

Yeah. One of the other things that you said really hit home in my heart too, which was, and I’m gonna preface this with, I do believe in astrology. If you read about different signs, I am a Capricorn to a T. And one of the things that they say about Capricorns is that they can look really aloof in social situations. So I’ve had people throughout my life feel like I wasn’t interested in a friendship with them, or even though I’m looking at them smiling, nodding during like a conversation or social outing, there is something that comes through with Capricorns where we just look aloof a lot of times, and I am very sensitive to that when I’m in social situations now. But I don’t always feel like I belong. And in fact, I would say most times when I’m in friend settings, I feel like everybody else maybe has a closer dynamic than I do, and I still feel like the odd ball out. And I had never really even noticed that within myself until you said that, But belonging in relationships and allowing yourself to feel welcomed in social situations. Where do you start with that, too?

Natalia Rachel 35:10

It’s a really big piece, I think the more we come home to our bodies, and the more we meet our shame, and there’s layers and layers and layers of it, that will rush through the journey. And the more we work with our fragmented self, and bringing our parts into our compassionate care, the more useful it is to show up in situations and not feel it’s like, we can feel a glaze or a veil between us or other people, or we can feel a little bit awkward, or we can feel like yeah, we’re just not who we really are in the dynamic. And the more we come home to ourselves, and the more we welcome our complexity, and love all these parts of ourselves, the less we feel disconnected externally. So remember, before I said that belonging is both a relational process and internal process. So the more we welcome our parts into our compassionate care, it will immediately transfer. We won’t feel disconnected with others when we’re not feeling disconnected with ourselves. And we won’t feel a part, you if we’re feeling close within ourselves, so we really need to bring it all back here. 

Another piece is to check on– when we’re healing, often there’s a huge relational restructure going on. So as we come home to ourselves, and as we integrate all of our parts, it’s common that friendships that we’ve had in the past may not feel as resonant anymore. So it may not be that we’re feeling disconnected, it might be that I mean, you would, you would probably use the word frequency, the frequency has changed. And a huge piece of healing is learning to acknowledge that and either accept it and accept the disparity or the disconnect in a relationship, or to begin to own to weigh and form other relationships, where you do feel that that frequency match that connection, that belonging.

Julie Jancius 37:04

Yeah, fascinating. And I’m sure another piece of it, too, is something that you mentioned before, which is, I could see where you said, you have to be willing to be vulnerable and open up and talk to people about things that allow you to deepen that connection with them. And so often, I feel like, maybe I hide parts of myself away. And I think more of that stems from working in certain careers where you’re pulled aside and you’re told you have to be on 24/7, anything that you do represents the company, you can’t make a misstep. So you just gotta stay inside the boundaries. And so I’ve always kind of played that par.

Natalia Rachel 37:50

Yeah, I think it’s really difficult to show up vulnerably and complex Lee. And it may be partly because we’ve been told you have to fit a certain mold, and you have to portray a certain image. But we also tend to do it for ourselves. And I think there’s a piece in here, around entering the role of healer, or spiritual guide, or therapist or any of these space holding roles, we adopt a persona. And when we’re helping others, our role isn’t about bringing all of our stuff, you know, we’re holding space, there’s a clear dynamic, and I think we need to learn to switch it off. When we’re connecting outside of a space holding dynamic. And for many healers, and therapists and guides, it becomes so much part of them. And it also can be an unconscious protective mechanism. Because if I’m in space holding mode, I’m not sharing myself authentically, I’m there to just support another person. And it can feel far safer to be in a mode where you have this, you know, costume on or or you’re adopting a role. And I think for all of us in these spaces, we need to learn to step out of it, step out of it with our peers, our friends, our partners, we can’t be the space holder all of the time.

Julie Jancius 39:13

That and I would add to that too. I just heard Jay Shetty say, and I’ve heard this before other places, but that we’re not our perceptions of ourselves. We’re not other people’s perceptions of us. We’re what we think other people perceive us to be. And it’s interesting because I have been out in so many different social situations since coming into my gifts where people want you to be on and giving them readings, you know, at the party, and you’re like No, just here to have some fun. And, and they’ll be like, Well, why can’t you do both at the same. And it’s to your point of what you just said, like you need space to be you and to just be and to have fun and to cut loose, and you need time to practice and do your work.

Natalia Rachel 40:12

I think this comes back to the boundary conversation. Yeah, and to be able to say, in a beautiful, gentle way, hey, I’m not in work mode, right now, I’m in, you know, human mode. Also, if you want a session, you’re gonna have to pay for it. You know, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a strength that’s required to be able to, like, not get triggered by it, not feel like going to self abandoning mode and do it anyway, and say, Hey, like, I’m all about that. But right now, I’m not working, you know, and if you if you want to, you know, if you want to session with me chat to my assistant, or book online, or whatever the process is. And I think to get to the place where that’s just a super natural flowing thing, which it is, to me, is very liberating. Because we do want to cast each other into roles. It’s normal, I don’t think it’s Malicious or bad in any way. That’s how we process that’s how our psyche processes we want to project ideals onto people and put them in boxes and categorize. That’s how we make sense of people. But I think a big piece of spiritual work is noticing when we do that, or when other people are doing it to us. And again, setting that boundary and being like, okay, that’s how I want to make sense. Now, let me stand back and get curious about who this person really is, you know, and that’s how we belong is when we stop projecting onto people and just meet in the present and be curious about who is this person? And how do I feel in the presence of this person? And where are the unique boundaries that I need to create here, and where are the unique points of resonance, which parts of this dynamic and this person do I lean into, and I think it needs to be a very conscious process, or we will always be casting roles for each other. And we tend to make people either perpetrators or heroes. And I think noticing that is something really important that shifts the way we relate and, again, helps us to all belong to each other. In the end, we don’t want to be in a fictional storybook, where everyone has a role, we want to learn to relate with each other.

Julie Jancius 42:16

Amazing, I want to go back to something else that you said, too, because you were talking about how we really care for ourselves. And we’ve looked at that I feel like a lot in the earlier years of the podcast of how you look at that voice within that’s talking negatively to yourself, and you stop it and you care for yourself, instead. When you talk about the fragmented parts of yourself, though, and really learning how to work with the fragmented parts. What do you mean, and what are the some of the steps people can take to start working with those pieces?

Natalia Rachel 42:54

The first is to acknowledge that we are all fragmented. So trauma, or no trauma, we are all complex. And we all have different parts of ourselves that have different preferences, desires, needs, triggers. And so that just is for all of us. In the context of trauma, we have what I call trauma-born fragmentation, which is just taking the example of a little child that’s being abused, it’s not safe for them to speak up and set a boundary. So they pack that part away, it’s not safe to ask to have their needs met to be cuddled or cared for. So they pack that part of themselves away, it’s not safe to run and protect or have a breakdown, they have to survive, so they pack it away. And what happens, particularly when we’re going through this, when we’re little is all of those packed away, parts get suppressed. And we create what I call the external shell, which is a version of ourselves that feels safe from which to interface with the world. 

And so when we’re operating from this external shell, this persona or character, it’s really hard to feel deeply connected. And so number one is to understand, oh, there are parts of me that are not expressed or that are not not welcome into the fold of the way I’m connecting in the world. The second is to tune into those parts and begin to listen to their stories. And this process will happen over time. And it may be that to begin with, there’s only one or two parts of ourselves available. But if we have complex trauma, which many of us do, there might be many, many, many. And so what we can do is learn to ask, what is this part of me? And many of us have voices in our heads. We just never talk about it. The voice that says oh, you’re bad. You shouldn’t do that. Oh, come on, go on, do it. You can do it. These are parts. And so we can start by tuning into those voices and inquiring what part of me are you You know, and we can begin to ask what are you? What are your needs? What are the thoughts that you’re having? What are the sensations that you feel? What age did you emerge and so something that’s really common is these parts will fragment and separate at certain ages in our life. So some of my clients actually call their parts by numbers by age. So this is, this is four, or this is 24, or this is 12. So something’s happened dynamically and in the past to cause this fragmentation. So what happened? We want to understand? What were the emotions that were unexpressed? And what were the needs that went unmet at that time. 

And once we understand this, then we need to learn well, how can I meet you this part of me and give you what I need in a way that is also appropriate here and now in the present. So there’s a piece around, getting the needs met and listening to the stories. But there’s also often a piece again, about boundaries. So what happens when we have suppressed fragments is that sometimes they’ll hijack our experience. And they will lead us to make decisions or choices or express in ways that either are really not good for us, or are really not good for other people. And so while we’re wanting to tune into their stories and care for them, we’re also wanting to set these firm boundaries that say, I’m not going to let you take me into those difficult situations, or I’m not going to let you disrespect me in that way. Or I’m not going to let you disrespect someone else. So again, there’s that requirement for both this compassion and care and space holding, but also that boundary setting and accountability piece. So they’re both required for us to become integrated. So if these parts of us are fragmented when we’re a child, not only did they not get their needs met, but no one taught them boundaries, and limits and respect and all these things. And so this, in essence, is a process called RE parenting, where we tune in to the parts of ourselves that didn’t have the care and guidance that they needed early on. And we provide that. 

Julie Jancius 46:58

Is it possible to get in touch with all of the different parts of ourselves? Or is it that we are  journeying through life constantly evolving, growing, and that as we grow, there are always new pieces of us that are going to come in to the picture.

Natalia Rachel 47:19

I don’t think there’s a finite answer to that. I think when it comes to getting in touch with trauma-born fragments, I believe we can get in touch with all of them. But I also believe that we are evolutionary, and that we are always evolving and developing. And my belief is that sort of the whole point of this kind of healing work is to be able to bring all of those parts that kind of got buried and left behind into our compassionate care. So they can catch up. So when you connect with a fragment, often that part of us has frozen back in time. And when we start communing with it, it will go through a growing up process and evolutionary process. And so there might be a space where we’re making space for that four year old that wants to have a tantrum, or we’re making space for the young woman who never got to date and celebrate and have this playful time in her 20s. That’s been a big part for me, when we give them a space to catch up. What happens is integration. And to me, that’s the goal where we feel like we are welcoming all of those parts, they’ve all caught up and had their experiences. And now we can move as one cohesive, yet complex human. So there’s no longer this disconnect or discord inside us. And when we get to this place, then we move into a very evolutionary flow like graceful existence. That’s my experience. 

Julie Jancius 48:45

Incredible. I had this beautiful vision, while you were talking earlier of, you know, our souls being this blank slate, where your soul is this energy of I am, it’s just presence, it’s just beingness. And then coming here and living through existence, we’re we’re taking on these different parts of ourselves our humaneness part of ourselves, and that there’s all of these different versions of us, all wrapped up into one body to your point before the four year old version of us, the 12 year old version, the 22 year old version, and now they’re all coexisting in my 41 year old self. And how do we do that as healthy as possible?

Natalia Rachel 49:34

Yeah, I think that’s such a beautiful vision. And it’s a complex journey, and all we can do is to continue to meet ourselves with great self compassion and also a call to accountability to say this is what I wish to create is a version of myself where I feel personally inclusive and expressed.

Julie Jancius 49:56

Yeah, amazing. So, Natalia, would you mind I am leading us in a exercise maybe to help us feel like we belong inside our bodies.

Natalia Rachel 50:08

Absolutely. So, to begin with, I’ll invite you to look around the space you’re in the room and orient between the walls, the four walls, and also the floor and the ceiling. So just find your space within the physical place you’re in. And if your feet are on the floor, be aware of your feet. And if you’re sitting in a chair, be aware of where you are making contact with the chair, both your seat and if your back is touching the chair. And if you haven’t already done so you can now turn inward by closing your eyes or adopting a downward gaze. And take a nice breath in. Just turning inwards and take a few more lovely deepened breaths now, belonging with your breath noticing its qualities, its length, its texture, how far it expands or travels through the body. And just letting yourself sink a little deeper into your experience of connecting to your breath in the physical space you’re in. Next I invite you to become aware of your feet and your toes. And you might like to give your toes a little wiggle or articulate your feet, on the floor in the air wherever they are connecting to their gentle movement. These feet that have carried you through life. Just acknowledging that how many steps they may have taken and how many steps they have yet to take. 

And notice what that acknowledgement or validation does to your breath. Does it deepen does it slow knows if your hips are able to sink a little deeper into your seat

Next time by either bring attention to your hands, your fingers, all 10 of them. And you may like to give your fingers or wiggle or open and close your palms a few times. See what it’s like to bring your breath to your palms and your fingers breathe into them acknowledging all the times you have lifted, carried, held or connected with these hands and how much more giving and holding they have to do. And take a few more breaths in there. Again, noticing if there are any changes as you validate your hands and all they’ve done and all they’ve yet to do and you may like to bring your palms together gently exploring each one with the other. And you might circle your palms or strike the length of your entire hand the palm of the fingers you might explore the backs of your hands. What is it like to allow them to canoe?

Good. And just notice as you engage with this very gentle practice, if there is any emotion or thoughts that are arising for you meeting them lovingly and welcoming them into your compassionate care. Knowing It’s okay, it’s okay to have an emotion. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to have a little shake. And if you are having an experience you might like to bring your arms around your chest into a beautiful hug position. That’s right good. Yeah, it’s okay, taking a few lovely breaths, being with what’s there knowing that there is so much to validate and to acknowledge, always, and that as we meet ourselves here in this way we begin to belong to our body to all it’s done for us all it’s carried us through all its gifts, all its pain. And perhaps knowing that this practice is something to return to again and again, in ways that are gentle and safe, in ways where we can integrate that sense of belonging, and validation, over and over and over again, so it becomes a way of life and a feeling a state to return to again and again. Take a few breaths in here with your arms across your chest, if they are just thanking yourself for meeting yourself in this very gentle caring way. Developing this new deepened relationship with your beautiful body. Allow your breath to deepen, a little jaw to relax your hips to relax. Again, feel your feet on the floor, articulate them, wiggle your toes. And if you wish, you can bring your hands down and again, open and close your palms or give them a wiggle. Take a few more breaths, being aware of your seat connecting again to the room around you the space that’s been holding you. And when you’re ready, you can open your eyes complete.

Julie Jancius 57:10

I don’t know who’s watching on YouTube and who’s at home listening. But oh, I was like sobbing through like the last half of that I felt so much I felt so much love and felt so much. Holding of my daughter like in the past when she was an itty bitty baby. She’s 11 now and felt just so much love and gratitude for this life. i felt a lot of my grandma’s energy and her holding me and my grandma, my mom throughout the years, especially when I was touching my hands. That scene from the movie Beaches touched me when I was a little girl and my mom’s still here. But I always thought to myself, you know, when she leaves, I have her hands. And I could feel that when I was touching my hands. So much so much emotion. That was just so beautiful. I felt so connected. Thank you so much for leading us and guiding us through that.

Natalia Rachel 58:14

My pleasure. I think when we bring such reverence to our body and all that stands for us, our our relationship with it just begins to change. And so yeah, thank you for for being vulnerable and engaging with it. So, so openly. 

Julie Jancius 58:29

Thank you. To everybody listening, Natalia is just this beautiful energy within the world that I think, as you could tell today is just above her more advanced than the time and I think that there are certain souls that are called here to Earth, who are this advanced in order to help lead the rest of us forward in this way. And so, Natalia, I would love for you to share your Instagram handle, your website, your book where everybody can find you.

Natalia Rachel 59:06

Thank you so much for having me and the kind words and support of my work very grateful. So you can find me at NataliaRachel.com, or on Instagram at Natalia_Rachel_Change. And I’m also very active on LinkedIn every day. And my book is available on Amazon globally. It’s called Why am I like this illuminating the traumatized self. And it covers basically the whole healing journey and every chapter there is some self inquiry questions and a somatic practice a gentle one, just like we explored today to engage in on your healing journey.

Julie Jancius 59:44

Thank you so much for being here. I just want you to know too. I think it’s your voice to some people say this that your voice carries vibration and healing within it as well. And you have one of those voices.

Natalia Rachel 59:57

Thank you so much. I’m a little bit croaky today but I’m Okay, I’m glad that you can connect with it anyway.

Julie Jancius 1:00:02

But yes, thank you everybody for listening and being here. We’re sending you all our love.