#141 This week, I’m here with the amazing Dr. Lori Leyden and a quite emotional episode. Dr. Lori is an internationally known humanitarian, a trauma healing expert, and a spiritual mentor. Dr. Leyden works in traumatized communities who have experienced genocide, war, and school shootings.

Our conversation today centred mostly around trauma and not only healing them but healing them in the most graceful and loving way. We specifically talk about EFT, Somatic Release, and the Grace Process as ways to heal.  I think this episode is really relevant to us all because we all carry hidden traumas and I hope that listening to our conversation can make you understand your trauma and help you find a way to start the healing process.

If you enjoyed this podcast, you may also like: Step Into Your Future, Let Go Of Your Past | Alja Hopkins

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About Lori: Lori Leyden, PhD, MBA is an internationally known humanitarian, trauma healing expert, author, visionary, and spiritual guide. In her private work, Dr. Leyden mentors successful transformational leaders, business people and influencers committed to aligning more fully with their destinies and becoming conscious heart-centered leaders in service to global healing.

As a humanitarian, Lori and has brought comfort, peace and healing to thousands of trauma survivors around the world from Rwandan to Australian Indigenous and Refugee communities and post school shooting communities in Newtown, CT, and Parkland, FL where the Sandy Hook Elementary School and Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School tragedies occurred.

Dr. Leyden is the Founder of the non-profit, Create Global Healing, member of the Global Evolutionary Leaders Council, Association for Transformational Leaders, and Evidence-Based Clinical EFT Master Trainer. Her award-winning documentary, When I Was Young I Said I Would Be Happy, chronicles the transformation of 12 Rwandan orphan genocide survivors and how they paid their healing forward to hundreds from Rwanda to Sandy Hook, CT.

►Audio Version:

Key points with time stamp:

• Lori’s work in her own words (3:52)
• The reception of Lori’s work (5:11)
• The tipping point which made Lori enter the field of Psychology (8:10)
• Lori’s near-death experience (10:36)
• What does it mean to give and receive, in a spiritual context? (14:34)
• What is the correlation between trauma and our bodies? (17:54)
• On Somatic Release and EFT (23:05)
• Lori’s experience with healing trauma in Rwanda (29:47)
• Are we connected to ourselves? (37:32)
• What is the grace process? (39:44)
• What Lori does in her personal life to keep herself grounded (51:11)
• Lori’s choice of a dinner guest, from any timeframe (53:48)
• What Lori leaves us with (56:09)

Mentioned in this episode:

• Josh Komen
• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma, Book by Bessel van der Kolk
• David Hamilton
• The Grace Process
• EFT Tapping
• Chauvinism
• The Stress Management Handbook, Lori’s first book
• The HeartMath Institute
• COVID-19
• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy
• Somatic Release
• Peta Stapleton
• Bond University
• Jeffrey Rediger
• Cured: The Life Changing Science of Spontaneous Healing, Book by Jeffrey Rediger
• Gregg Braden and the Divine Matriz
• Joseph Chilton Pearce and The Biology of Transcendence
• David Hawkins

Lori Leyden’s Website:
www.lorileyden.com
createglobalhealing.org
www.createglobalhealing.org/our-documentary

 

About me:

My Instagram:
www.instagram.com/guyhlawrence/?hl=en

My website:
www.guylawrence.com.au
www.liveinflow.co

 

TRANSCRIPT

Guy 00:09
Hello, awesome people. This is Guy, of course, I’m your host on my own podcast, guy Lawrence, let it in. And if you’re tuning in for the first time, welcome and if you’re tuning in as normal welcome as well, because we have got an epic conversation with you today because as you know, I have conversations that go well beyond conventional health, wealth and wisdom to inspire change in our lives. And my beautiful guest today is Lori Leyden. And boy, this is another amazing episode. This there’s not many podcast episodes that really moved me I mean, I love every episode, they move me but this, you know, I like I had tears basically, what can I say? There’s only one other podcast, which was with Josh Komen, back in Episode Number 67, which I recommend you check out as well. Got me like this, in a way. But Lori, Yeah, it was beautiful. If you’re not familiar with her work, she is an internationally known humanitarian. She’s a trauma healing expert, a visionary. And a spiritual mentor. Dr. Leyden works in traumatized communities who have experienced genocide, war and school shootings. She also mentors successfully in successful influences, and leaders committed to aligning more fully with their destinies in service to global healing. And boy, did we have an amazing conversation today I really connected with Laurie she’s just a beautiful kind soul a beautiful heart. And if you’ve pressed play today, give yourself the space to dive into this episode because it will take you on a beautiful journey. And to me as well, one thing I wanted to say with this work as well, even though a lot Lori is it’s seen some extreme cases and people and things I think this I just think this work is relevant to us all because we all carry hidden traumas, we all carry the body as the amazing book, which I recommend as well the body keeps the score. And it’s really relevant to us all. And the more I’ve dived into different aspects of myself in this work, the more I’ve really been able to release old stuff that I didn’t even knew existed. I didn’t have words for it, but just through being curious has allowed me to really evolve if you like not being closed off to things. So anyway, I felt I needed to say that it was a beautiful thing. I just want to thank you all for tuning in as well. I deeply appreciate it. If you are enjoying my conversations I know I asked but just be sure if you listen via iTunes to have hit the subscribe button. And just share these episodes a episode with one friend somebody that you know, a conversation like this will inspire them as well. podcasts are an amazing way to reach people. And I put a lot of love and effort into it and it warms my heart knowing that people are getting something out of it. So if you hit the Subscribe, share this episode with a friend or a loved one. And of course you can leave a review as well if you really get around to that as well. But it means a lot to me. And if you’re on Instagram guy h lawrence come and follow me there too. That’s where I post most of my stuff these days. And yeah, you can take a screenshot of this episode if you’re listening on your phone and tag me on Instagram. So I know you’re in there listening. I really appreciate it. That’s it for now. We got lots going on, you know what a comm galore.com delay you live in flow calm if you want to come to our retreat and john retreat retreat, or everything else we got going on. There’s plenty there. Anyway, myself for me enjoy this episode. It’s awesome. Lori, welcome to the podcast.

Lori 03:49
Hi, Guy! I am so excited to be here.

Guy 03:52
I have been delving into your work a lot over the last few days. And I’m always fascinated by what people have to say. Because it’s different every time but if you were at an intimate dinner party right now, and you sat next to a stranger and they got talking to you and they asked you what you did for a living, what would you say?

Lori 04:13
I’ll tell you what I said to David Hamilton, a beautiful Hay House author that many of your people will know. I said to him, go deep or go home. That’s what I do go deep or go home. It really wasn’t an answer to your question. However, it’s an entree. I’m really trying to help people reclaim the beauty of their divine hearts and and to empower themselves with the heart brain body connection where we are empowered in ourselves to have the answers that we need in connection with the divine and do that through healing the worst of traumas, because if people who experienced the worst of trauma can be resilient, then who are we not to be?

Guy 05:11
Exactly? Now, I’ve got to ask you, Lori that? What is the typical response? Because from my experience, and I mentioned the podcast before, if you had said the word divine, if you had said the word connecting to your heart, I would have run a mile as a Welshman. Right? So, but but now I’ve, you know, passionately lived this way and been through so many processes is just, I don’t even think about it anymore. But what kind of responses Do you get normally?

Lori 05:47
Well, the biggest work I’ve ever done in my life is to prepare myself to be fully present to the people I met in Rwanda, when I started my humanitarian work there in 2007. And having been a trauma healing professional for many years, I had my tools, I have my PhD, I have my books, but I knew that the answer was really going fully inside myself to see could I be fully present to the worst of human tragedies? Meaning, could I open my heart to myself, and the other person? And and, and the second piece of that is, I’ve always been in search of His love and the right resources, the answer to everything. The bookmark is I, I believe my job is to make other people feel safe in my presence, and for me, to allow them to feel safe. And then we share as equals. So I’m not trying to sell anybody on anything, I don’t. Language myself, I don’t necessarily say divine and heart right off the bat. I go slowly. But what I do know, over my lifetime, and the past 16 years is, in every situation I’ve ever been in love and the right resources is the answer. And I think now, in the tremendous challenges that our world is seeing right now, like there’s no way out, we’ve all been sent to our rooms, to get quiet enough till we get it. And until everyone’s equal, and everyone has access to health care and, and safety and sustainable living and all of that. Never in our wildest dreams. Has the stage been set? So much as it is now? And I know I’m kind of going around. But all there’s no simple answers to those questions.

Guy 07:59
No, not at all. But I’m sure we’ll keep diving in because there’s, there’s so many things that have already triggered, which for me, which the record you mentioned Rwanda in 2007. But I’m super keen to dive into that a little bit more. But before we do you mentioned 16 years, as well. So I’m curious to know why 16 years, was there a tipping point in your own life? Make you brace this work more?

08:23
Yeah. Well, I was I’ve always The reason I entered psychology as a field was to heal my own traumas first. And I have explored every healing technique known to I like to say known to man, woman, and extraterrestrials, and plants and everything. But having done that, in a search for what is the most graceful, most elegant way, most loving way for us to heal, there must be better ways. And so, through my own healing, I’ve always been in search of that, and I’ve been lucky enough to, to experience EFT tapping, which we’ll get into. But also, in 2003, after a near death experience, I asked what was the next level of healing I could bring to the world. And this formula came through called the grace process, and it came through and deep meditation. And of course, I’ll explain more about it. But I remember thinking, seriously, you’re giving me a formula. How is a formula going to help heal people, but for the last 16 years, I’ve been in the research of this formula along with tapping and several years later, I was given the opportunity to do this humanitarian work and I have taken EFT tapping and the grace process around the world to to really good solid results that allow people to experience That they have everything they need inside of themselves, and that we truly are expressions of love and divine. And I don’t think there’s ever been a time on the planet, where more people are just stepping into the river of this acknowledgement. If that makes sense, it feels like we’ve come in even though there’s so much chaos. People are hearing it differently, people are ready, they know there’s going to be something beyond the current status quo. To to support us moving forward.

Guy 10:36
I believe so yes, I have to ask you what happened with your near death experience?

Lori 10:42
Again, how much time do we have? So every year I set I set an intention, what’s next, my sole purpose. And in 2003, I set an intention to heal with the sacred masculine. Guy doesn’t that sound so metaphysical? And I mean, I laugh about that, because I thought, you know, given some of the traumas in my life, that I would be hanging out in the arms of God and meditation and just really hearing and feeling all those loving things that I felt I needed to hear. And instead, in the space of 12 weeks, I faced chauvinism, in my life, in my marriage, in the legal system in the medical system. The caution is be careful what you ask for. Because what does it mean to heal what the sacred masculine What did I have to face in myself, I had to face the chauvinism in myself, the opposite of sacred masculine. And my definition of chauvinism has nothing to do with a gender. It’s simply a sense of domination, a sense of competition, a sense of, or self abandonment, or not acknowledging who we are playing victim and martyr. So there’s two sides of the same coin. But I had to look at one of the ways that I was abandoning myself in my personal life. And, and then I, in the space of 12 weeks, I left my home, my marriage, I had two emergency surgeries, and a near death experience in which I received after a month in the hospital, you know, really dying, losing 20% of my body weight, in the middle of the night, receiving a message that everything in life is a choice, including taking the next breath. And I remember being quite astonished by that. Because I was very spiritual. And I, I felt very connected even in those moments of despair. And then I, I realized, wow, what if I just didn’t take the next breath? Is that a choice? Is that a human choice? So I stopped taking the next breath. And I was that whole near death experience, you know, what you experience up above your body contemplating feeling out of pain for the first time in a month, really floating into, you know, total love and all that. And then I was in a hospital room, and on the other side of the hospital bed on the curtain, three in the morning, my 82 year old roommate says out loud at three in the morning, as I’m having my near death experience. Dear God, please help my roommate. She’s really, really sick. And I remember hanging off the bed, not taking a breath, feeling very good, and then actually laughing like having a laugh. And that sucked the air back into my lungs. And I started breathing again, because I thought, well, I guess the divine is not done with me yet. However, once I get back in my body, I was wracked with pain again, and I said, What have I done? The next morning, I received another message without going into the details at the moment, but the message really was, if there was ever a time to receive, this would be it. And I realized in that moment, that my trauma had led me to block love, and to be afraid of receiving love because love always got me in trouble. Like, well, what was supposed to be love, my abuse, my trauma as a child came from being seen in a way that wasn’t safe. And but the message at this point in 2003 was receiving can be safe. And in this next part of your life, it’s going to be important. And, and well, there’s so many stories after that. But then the the I asked in meditation for the next level of my healing work to come in, I receive the grace process, which is a formula which you can talk about, but receiving is key safe receiving, and how many of us who are givers, aren’t very good at receiving. But if we don’t know how to receive, we will never know the value of our giving. Does that make any sense?

Guy 15:57
Only 100%. And I’m, it’s funny that you say that because the more I lean into this work and work with more people and grow grow here, the more I have to grow myself and and allow that, that receiving as well, is that that innate part of wanting to give all the time, but I have noticed in that one thing to give all the time, it can almost be an avoidance of looking at myself more

Lori 16:25
beautiful. Yeah, and, and so that’s why my favorite symbol is the Infinity circuit. And I believe that, you know, some in the work that I do, as a therapist, there appears to be a giver, and there appears to be a receiver. But when we meet in the sweet spot in the middle, there’s only love and we’re all transformed. And so I come to every work every session, every retreat, every anything, knowing that I will receive something. And so it makes it a balance. And so then we’re all equal partners. And when we’re equal partners, especially when we think about humanitarian work, and when we think about anything, if we don’t go into that realizing we are equal partners. It fall short, it fall short. And it becomes an aberration sometimes. And even worse. You know, obviously Australia has its own history, as the United States does in, in these situations of injustice, which is, you know, exploding through the world right now. But when we understand that we’re equal, like, wow, it’s a whole different way that

Guy 17:49
you see everyone differently, don’t you?

Lori 17:51
Yes.

Guy 17:54
Okay, so there’s a few things that are just playing through my mind right now. And I’m like, okay, there’s so many directions here. But something I think I want to clarify is around trauma, because I know you’ve, you’ve worked with many people that have had physical trauma, you know, something physically happened to them, then there’s emotional trauma, as well. And, and and then there’s that point, you say, in your own journey, you didn’t know how to receive love. And and so I’m one of the correlations. I don’t even know how I’m going to get this question. But what are the correlations of the different kinds of trauma that we have that actually affect the disease of our body and that manifestation of what comes out in our body because I think in the western mind, especially, we see things in isolation, we repair and fix this if this has broken down, and we don’t tend to go back to the root cause or give her acknowledgement. So I’d love to hear your take on all of that.

Lori 18:51
Um, okay. So my first book, the stress management Handbook, really was a result of my dissertation on psycho neuro immunology, which is a big word for the mind, body spirit stress connection. So back in the 1990s, I reviewed all the research on this, how trauma and stress affects the immune system, and in general, all of the thing all the research still remains definitive today, except that what’s missing in today’s the public understanding of trauma and stress is the fact that it is a brain based issue. trauma and stress create a brain based dysfunction. And so whether it’s physical trauma or emotional trauma or spiritual trauma, it creates a dysfunction in the brain between the amygdala and the hippocampus, which is the smoke detector in the brain that says whether we should go on alert and defend ourselves or whether we We are safe. That disconnects us from this heart brain connection we have, which has been studied by the heartmath Institute for the past 30 years. And I’ll come back to that. But I think what would really help people to understand is that there are four conditions for trauma, four characteristics, the first one is something unexpected or shocking. The second is a feeling of being completely isolated and alone, and the only one having this experience. The third is a sense of feeling that there’s a perceived or real threat of death. And the fourth is that I’m trapped. It’s hopeless, there’s no way out. And if we look at, like, just look at our listeners today, if you just look at COVID COVID-19 is the collective trauma right now, all four of those conditions exists in COVID. So what happens when one of our traumas are triggered? It tends to trigger a lot of our other traumas, whether little traumas are big traumas from childhood, through adulthood, so we’re seeing now. So then, as the amygdala and the hippocampus are not communicating, well, it’s triggering the flow of stress hormones into the body, cortisol, steroids, adrenaline, the body becomes hyper attenuated to those, those hormones, and the immune system starts to break down. And if you have any tendency to back pain, or stomach pain, or headaches, or whatever your kind of illness, whatever, whatever the symptoms are going to get exacerbated by those circumstances. So now we have COVID. We also have, you know, this massive social and justice issue, we’ve got politics. Dare I go there? that’s another workshop. But there’s just so much happening. And, and our personal freedoms and, and our economic sustainability, all of that is being totally impacted. So it’s very important for people to understand that we’re all we’re all under some trauma at this point. But it happens, we must deal with this with somatic releases. Because Up to now, the biggest thing we have is cognitive behavioral therapy. And or, as you and I were talking before the broadcast, traditional medicine, which is focused on symptom relief, versus holistic, mind body spirit. Organic, functional medicine, which is now beginning to emerge.

Guy 23:05
There’s a loop I want to close for the listeners in there as well. And that’s sematic release, I thought maybe you could touch on that, because I heard you speak as well about it, because of your existing background about words, just speaking doesn’t necessarily relieve the trauma. And so I thought it would be nice to tie those in… Just to close that loop.

Lori 23:24
Yes, Thank you very much. So, look, cognitive behavioral therapy gives people a lovely opportunity to be seen and heard. However, every time we tell our stories, the brain thinks we’re experiencing it again. So if there is no somatic release, during our storytelling, we are literally re traumatizing ourselves. So people will say, Well, what does that mean somatic release. So that means that if it’s all about the hormones, then we have to have a technique and therapy that approaches the release of hormones and the regulation of hormones and the regulation of immunity. I understand you have a background in functional medicine and supplements. And all of that is part of it, that we must regulate our diet like it’s all about natural supports. So now let’s add to that natural support. There are probably four or five somatic release techniques that have been thoroughly vetted and researched over the years and EFT tapping is one of them. Emotional Freedom Techniques and I partner with the leading researcher in EFT who happens to be an ausy, Dr. Peta Stapleton from bond uni. How does that happen? Um, so she’s just she’s brought this field forward. You know, in so many ways and beautiful website that people can see and download lots of resources. But what’s important is, what we do in EFT is we actually stimulate acupressure points as we introduce the therapy and the techniques so that it’s all about physiological regulation. So if I’m really hijacked, if we came to this conversation, and I was really, really nervous about having this interview, I want my physiology to to to relax so that you and I can engage in the highest form of conversation. So literally, with EFT, there are ways that we can bring our minds and hearts and bodies back to balance in five minutes. And certainly, if it’s a trauma, more longer, it’s not it’s not a it’s not a magical thing. But when I feel more peaceful in my heart and my brain in my body, I am available for transformation, and available for learning and transformation. And so that’s why talk therapy alone without a somatic release, leaves us more tied up leaves us with more adrenaline, more cortisol pumping through our bodies, and we we leave feeling worse. Or if we might feel better, a short period of time it doesn’t last because it’s a palliative effect. And then the hormonal system goes back into, you know, that trauma response. Does that make sense?

Guy 26:46
Yeah. And would it be fair to say that we are we’re over time rebalancing the body to to a new homeostasis? Would that be fair to say?

Lori 26:57
Well, not even a new homio… well , I think every time we say, yes, yes. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, well, and I and and both are true. Every time we reset, we do give the body an opportunity to be even more resilient. But if we’re constantly in resetting mode, that might be difficult. So, for example, early in my career, I dealt with people who had physiological illnesses and diseases. Who were because of a holistic approach, were able to rebalance and reset their immune systems and doctors who said that their conditions were uncurable. Because they don’t have the training in medical school, they just don’t have the opportunities to understand what you and I have been able to study all these years. And those my clients were going back to their physician physicians, and they were able to get off their blood pressure medication that their tumors went away. heart diseases started to rebalance. Now, I wasn’t doing any magic. It was simply love, trauma, healing, functional medicine, or like a basic reset of a lifestyle. And the doctors could only say that was spontaneous remission. And when my clients wanted to say, but I’m meditating, and I’m eating healthy, and I’m doing this thing, this trauma healing thing, they were like, Yeah, no, not so much. But we know now, so many years later, that this is the future this is well this is the present. This is these are the the lifestyle changes we have to make, to be more in communion with ourselves and to honor our that we have the power inside, especially if we have a loving presence to work with, you know, as a coach or a consultant or whatever.

Guy 29:16
Yeah, absolutely. I am… I interviewed. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with his work, but you should definitely check him out as Dr. Jeffrey rediger. He recently released a book called keyword the science of spontaneous healing, because he spent 18 years studying it while he was still working at the hospital. And and he just mentioned, you know, dive deep into all the things you just mentioned. Like it’s it’s it’s showing up everywhere. I’m intrigued as well, too. I want to talk a little bit about Rwanda and what you experienced there because like you said, you put yourself in a position where you you would have seen I can’t even imagine what you would have witnessed there. Would you mind talking to Because I think it’d be great to give reference to how powerful this work can actually do to support people.

Lori 30:07
Well, I mean, first of all, I’ve had a love affair with Rwanda. Since 2007, I thought I was gonna have a love affair with a man. But I got a country. So I went with it. But as I mentioned earlier, just preparing, or maybe my preparation was the most important thing, because I knew that I had my PhD and my MBA and all of my academics and my books, and all of that stuff. But I knew that there was something deeper that I had to do, so that I could be fully present to what I was going to be seeing and witnessing. So I read everything I possibly could. And I spent three months deeply, deeply, deeply. Looking into my ego, and transcending my ego, could I be fully present to someone who had murdered 100 people? Could I be fully present to a woman whose entire family was violently massacred in front of her and she raped and left to live with AIDS? Could I be in front of orphan head of households who were six to eight years old at the time of the genocide and left to to raise two to six other children? Could I be fully present to that? Because I also know that, you know, so many of us who are helpers, we really want to help, we want to volunteer, but in many circumstances, which, you know, we’ll talk about my work in Australia as well. We ended up taking care of the volunteers because they haven’t done the internal work because they’re looking for some other fix for their woundedness. Now, that sounds a little harsh. And I’m not saying everyone is in that circumstance, but I’m just inviting people to be really diligent, have you healed your own trauma enough to be fully present to someone else’s. And I’ll just tell a little story, if I, if we have time. That the answer to all of this was so apparent, because after all those months of doing that work, I was in Rwanda for about five weeks. And for the first two weeks, we just went and visited and enculturated ourselves, we went to the genocide museums we visited in communities. I didn’t speak very much I didn’t try to do my work, I just realized that I needed to know more about the people in the country that I was going to work in. And 13 years after the genocide, there was no mental health in the community in the in the country, except for a cathartic a church experiences where the notion was that if you cathartic your story over hours long period of time, that you would become exhausted and heal yourself from telling the story. Well, that’s a whole nother thing, because basically, that just screws with your hormonal system and the adrenaline system gets overloaded and you become numb to the story, but you don’t become resilient to it, which is what EFT and the grace process help us do. Anyway, I was at this three hour church service, only white chicken the room, not a lot of happiness for white people, understandably so. No, translator, everything in Kenya Wanda, which is the language of Rwanda. After three hours of people kind of looking at me like what you’re doing here. At the end of the service, about a dozen elderly Rwandan women circled me. It was very clear that they were living with wounds from the genocide. They were living clearly with amputations and scars and was very also clear that they were living with AIDS. And in that moment, I had nothing. I didn’t have a translator. I have no money. I have no medical supplies, I have no food. There’s nothing that I can offer. And of these dozen women who surrounded me one woman stepped forward. And she took down her shirt and she showed me her chest, which had been mutilated, clearly by some form of violence. And in that moment, if I had not done all the work I had done to be fully present I think I would have just capitulated into a pile of mush or tears. But instead, this moment of grace came over me, and I put my hand to her chest, and I took her hand and put it to my chest. And we just gaze into each other’s eyes. And there was nothing except connectedness. There was no separation. And what’s and then, when the moment past, we dropped our hands. And I was not aware of anything, except that we had seen each other, that we were complete with each other in that moment. Now, that sounds kind of crazy, given everything that had gone on, and this what this woman had experienced. But the whole room was affected by this moment of connectedness, no words, presence, there was presence. And I don’t know what this woman received from that. But I know that I received that I was enough in that moment. If I was present. Now, it doesn’t mean that there’s not a lot of other work to be done. But because I could feel complete in that moment, in presence to another human being, then I had the resilience to think about what was possible. And while that was in 2007, I said I was only going one time, the 17 times later. But that is seminal to my message to my experience, to what I’m trying to teach as many people who will want to learn, being fully present to another human being without any agenda with no contraction. If that makes sense.

Guy 37:18
Totally, totally. Oh, my gosh, are you You’re the second person to make me cry on podcast, you realize that was beautiful. Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing that. When you see when you think of what’s going on in the world, with with that is the one thing we lack, we have no, those deep connections, we don’t even have those deep connections to ourselves, either. You know. And it’s, and it’s so powerful. It’s so healing, even on my own journey, that that’s where you know why I’m so passionate about this work and be able to bring people but we’re not even aware of it off the time. You know,

Lori 38:04
and Isn’t it amazing? Again, I know that many people are suffering during this time, I know that it is grabbing us all in our essential wounding in our our fear of survival, fear of not having enough. And yet, the most beautiful miracles coming from this are people searching, reaching even more deeply to find out what’s important? How much is enough? And if I have more, will I offer it to someone else? Or if I have something that somebody needs? Is there a way for us to do that? And is there a way for us? In a world where we are all being affected? I’ve waited my whole life, for the world to be focused on one thing. So that we have the opportunity for global healing. We are all faced with our mortality, we’re all faced with our health and our sustainability, the world will change. The world is changing. So we have a choice to make. How will we respond to that? Will we resist it? Will we contract will we move into fear and paranoia and and hoarding? Or will we open our hearts and join together and see our connectedness with all with the whole world? It’s it’s an exciting, exciting time even through the contractions if we allow our hearts to open just a bit.

Guy 39:44
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I couldn’t agree more. I am. I think we should touch on the grace process. I would be a nice place to pivot to. Can you break it down for us a little bit?

Lori 39:56
Yes. So These meditations as I said, I always have to try on everything myself, right? So get this formula and meditation Like, seriously. So for the last 16 years, I’ve gone in search of the evidence that it’s true. And Gregg Braden’s work with the divine matrix, Joseph Chilton Pearce with the biology of transcendence. David Hawkins, so many other people. Now, clearly the research supports this work. So very quickly, it’s a simple formula. But the practice, and the integration of it takes a little time. So we start with choice, what is it that we’re choosing to heal? Or what is it that we’re choosing to receive? And then we look at? What are the judgments I have about that choice that I’m making? What judgments of myself, another person, a circumstance or even the divine? So if I say, Oh, I want to bring in my spiritual romantic partner, like, what are my judgments around that? You know, I’m too old, It’s been too long. I haven’t had good luck with that, whatever. Those are the judgments of myself judgments of other people. Well, my parents told me, it was supposed to look like this, or my relationship, the people I’ve been in relationship with did this or the circumstance did that, or the divine is not blessed me with this. Then we look at what needs forgiveness in order for us to receive what we want. Again, forgiveness of myself, another person, the circumstances in the divine, and forgiveness is the fulcrum, right. So when we withhold forgiveness, and we are attached to our judgments, we can’t receive, because we’re saying that’s the The, the, what I call the, the ego, that’s where the ego resides, edging God out. So the ego is not a bad thing. It’s simply the thing that we came into this life with, that would help us navigate separation from the divine, into living our divine purpose. So I think we have to make friends with our ego. But if I am holding on to my, I can’t hold on to my judgments, and unforgiveness, and still receive what I want, because I’m saying that my grief and my trauma are more important than what I really want to receive. So once I deal with the ego piece that opens me to live in my heart, and the highest human resonances of our hearts, are the energy of gratitude, love, joy, and wonder. And I’ll just ask people to to win, I’ll offer some resources, also. But if everyone does a rage of gratitude every day, just notice how gratitude gives rise to the energy of love. And then we’ll move in gratitude and love. Some spark of joy may want to emerge. And if joy is elusive, Wonder can come from that, the wonder that our healing is unfolding, the wonder that there are gifts and miracles supporting us in our healing, when we’ve dropped our judgments, and open to forgiveness, and then our focus can be more about that. And then we meet the divine in the field of the Divine. Because what is that we meet God and love, whatever you call the divide. And when we meet the divine, in gratitude, love doing wonder, everything is possible, and we embrace drops in instantaneously. And by grace, I often tend to forget to even talk about what the definition of grace is, because I feel like everybody knows it. But it’s just that transcendent feeling of oneness where everything drops away, whether it’s a nature or an elevator, looking at somebody or with a child, or, or whatever experience is, it’s just that notion that all is well peace and understanding and connectedness. And why wouldn’t so here’s my question around that. I asked people. So how long do you want to hang out in your suffering struggle in your grief and trauma? And how quickly do you want to move into gratitude, love joy and wonder? Hmm, let me think, Oh, do I want to bring my healing in. Do I want to do that suffer and struggle? Or do I want to do it in with, with a sense of humor, a sense of humaneness and a sense of wonder?

Guy 45:12
Yeah, beautiful. It there’s always with people, and I’m just speaking for the listeners here as well, that because our feelings are how we interpret the world, you know, and we the way we feel, and we meet our exceptions in that feeling, it can be, it can be very difficult to feel like there is other ways beyond it. And we keep resorting back to those judgments to those stories to the like you say the holding on with it with this process? What would it be…So first fair to say, then it’s a practice that is something that you come in comes in daily? And then you know, like, I always think about these things like moving a great big ship liner slowly. And then and then it’s just the trajectory seems small, but you end up in a completely new destination?

Lori 46:13
Yes, well, a couple of things there. Because my, my lens is that the thing that trauma is the thing that holds us back from having healthy emotions. So if I have a trauma of feeling isolated, or all alone, or no one has ever understood me, or, you know, I’m the only one in the world who could never experience this, these are essential traumas related to those wounds of separation. And until we deal with that, there’s always going to be a little grab on, oh, there’s going to be a weight on what we’re experiencing in the present. And so if I have patterns, so what I do with in my private practice with, so I work with influences, I work with leaders, I work with people who want to have a big influence in the world. And I work with people who realize that they still have some wounding that’s holding them back. They’ve done a lot of work on themselves. But there’s still something that keeps them in old patterns. And we connect what’s happening in the present with the old wound the original wound, and then we release it somatically, so that it’s no longer part of the physiology. And so then you can’t run the same story anymore. Like, well, that’s, I talk a lot about our ego stories. And, and, you know, if I have a story about the fact that, you know, I can’t get a date, I got to change that story. And so I go into that, and see what’s what that’s all about, it seems really simple, right? On the surface, but Whoa, pull lots of stuff. So same thing with illnesses and symptoms. Ah, people will say to me, I’ve had back surgery or I’ve had, I have all these different things. And they’re like, I saw the I saw the X rays, I saw the brain scan, I saw the MRI, and I’m like, That doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. That’s just a some kind of device that’s trying to measure something that we don’t know, the whole thing about. And I always go back to what was happening at the time that the symptom arise. What What was your earliest memory of feeling that way? We always go back to the origin of what the physical symptom was in the moment. And it is. It’s magic. It’s not magic. I mean, it’s it’s part of the whole brain body connection. But people are always they’re like, Oh, no, that can’t be. I saw the X ray of my back. I’m like, welcome. We just did three sessions and you don’t feel any pain anymore. So I say that because I want to invite people into the empowerment that we all have all the tools we need right inside of us, but we also even I need people to hold space for me when I’ve come up against an edge that happens to be so triggering for me, but I might need somebody else to hold space for me. But it’s being willing to be authentic and vulnerable. And and also to laugh. Oh, guess what Lori could I couldn’t figure this out myself. You might have to ask for help. And you might have to receive it.

Guy 50:04
Yeah, beautiful. And then once the charge is not there, isn’t it? It’s amazing how quickly we forget as well. So Oh, I, I’ve noticed because I’m not noticing that anymore. You know, I

Lori 50:17
think it’s actually good. I’m sorry.

Guy 50:18
No, I think there was a term I came up on the podcast before apex, isn’t it?

Lori 50:22
Yes. Yes, that’s right. Yeah, the apex effect is that you don’t remember that you ever even had the issue? And I was just going to comment that the evidence of forgiveness is that there is absolutely no contract contraction. There’s like, it’s like, oh, that happened. But yeah, I don’t have any emotional relation I’ve learned from it doesn’t mean I’ve tapped out. The problem, but I’ve learned boundaries. And I’ve also learned without the emotional or hijacking is that I can bring myself fully present without the physiology hijacking me.

Guy 51:05
Yeah. Beautiful. I’m gonna ask you a few questions, Lori?

Lori 51:10
Sure.

Guy 51:11
The first one is, is that what do you do in your personal life, to maintain yourself with the highs and lows of life that we all get, you know, if you’ve got any practices or things that are like non negotiable for you?

Lori 51:26
Well, I think we queued into them already. EFT and the grace process, but I’ll tell you, embodiment, if I could, there’s one word that the whole world needs to understand right now a spiritual practice it is embodiment. So I meditate every morning I, well, most of the time, I journal, I do the grace process, I do tapping when it’s necessary. And it’s become such a physiological regulation that I know, instead of understanding when I’m when I’m not hijacked, I just understand Oh, my gosh, my body is so is barely in tune. That the moment I’m holding my breath, or the moment I’m getting hijacked, I know to stop everything, turn off everything. And if all you can do is simply say, got to go to the bathroom, because nobody can argue with that. And, and get yourself quiet for a minute and come back. But seriously, my biggest thing is embodiment, which is you can you can take all the Himalayan salt baths, you can go to the Get your massage, you can go to the spa, you can do your yoga every day, you can do meditations. But if you get out of those experiences, and you kick the cat or yell at the whoever, that’s not embodiment, embodiment, is when you’re like, like, seriously, able to be fully present, no matter what’s going on. That’s to me. If, if a critical mass of people in the world can do that, and it won’t take many, we can hold space for whatever needs to happen in this time of uncertainty. And this time, when so many things seem to be deconstructing we must we must choose to be fully present.

Guy 53:39
Totally, totally. I mean, it takes courage to do that. A lot of it, that’s

Lori 53:45
a whole other workshop.

Guy 53:48
I know, I know, I know. If you can have dinner with anyone this evening, from any timeframe, anywhere in the world, who do you think it would be? could be multiple people on there?

Lori 54:05
I know this is gonna sound whatever. But Guy, I think our conversation is deeply satisfying and expansive. And like it’s not about celebrity, it’s not about it’s the time is, okay, we need authentic leadership. And it needs to be horizontal. We need to understand that we are the first people we need to lead is ourselves, and that we are all leaders. And so there’s many people that I’ve actually had the immense pleasure and honor to meet and have conversations with but it’s in these exchanges. Moment by moment, meaning by meaning, that’s to me, that’s my That’s the satisfaction. That’s the that’s the beauty of of what I’ve been able to do in the world that leads me to have these conversations with people like yourself. So it’s not about somebody out there. It’s about right here. What’s happening right here?

Guy 55:17
In this moment? Yeah. Yeah, beautiful. It’s interesting, like I’ve been podcasting, this podcast for two years now. And, and it’s continually growing like the people are hungry for these conversations. And they need to be heard, and they need to be part of it. And I love the fact that it feels like give people a chance to almost feel like they’re at the coffee table with us right now. And I’m listening in you know.

Lori 55:45
They are! We are all part of the coffee table. No one can be left out anymore. We are all part of the possible.

Guy 55:58
Hmm.

Lori 55:59
There is not one person among us in the whole planet that is not part of the possible if we open our hearts.

Guy 56:09
Totally, totally. Last question. With everything we’ve covered today, what would you like to leave all the listeners to ponder on?

Lori 56:26
I want them to understand that whatever we choose to heal, and ourselves, creates the resonance field for that healing to unfold in our world, so that when I choose to heal something of myself, that is the greatest service work I can be doing in the world, if I can imagine if I can forgive those who have betrayed me or hurt me if I can, if I can choose healing. And that creates an ease in the world for other people to step into that healing. And my greatest work in the world is to do my own work first.

Guy 57:08
Beautiful, and everybody where can I send them?

Lori 57:12
Yeah. Yeah, that’s it. There’s some free resources that Lorileyden.com. My humanitarian work is on createglobalhealing.org where people can also watch our full length documentary for free and see this humanitarian work that has unfolded now and is now in work in Australia, in Aboriginal and refugee communities. And it’s only because of COVID that I’m not there right now. But that’s a whole nother thing. We’re going online. You know, we’re working to do that online. So yeah, yeah, we just invite every heart to be involved inspired to simply take care of yourself first.

Guy 58:05
Yeah, beautiful Lori, and everyone if you press pause, and scroll down the links in the show notes and the references and the people that have been mentioned today will all be below in this podcast as well. So we’ll all be there for you. And I Laurie I just want to thank you for coming on here and just talking so beautifully and sharing with an open heart and and everything that you’re doing in the world. It truly is inspiring. And hopefully people I have no doubt actually know hopefully I’ve no doubt people will be inspired by listening to what you have to share with us today. So thank you. I really appreciate it.

Lori 58:38
Thank you Guy. I honestly it’s been delightful.

Guy 58:42
Epic guys. I hope you enjoy that conversation myself and Lori today. Be sure to check her workout. She truly is a champion. And of course if you want to come on my get amongst it we are running going ahead with our retreat in January here in Northern New South Wales of Australia. If you want to join us there there’s a couple of spots left to come back to guylawrence.com.au or liveinflow.co , and everything else we got coming up soon as well. Yeah, I hope to get to meet you in person one day, much for me. An amazing week.