Please note, this is an automated transcript so it is not 100% accurate.

Guy (00:11):
Giselle, welcome to the podcast.

Giselle (00:13):
Thank you, Guy.

Guy (00:15):
I am so happy that you agreed to come on the podcast and have a chat with me, Giselle cuz as I’ve gotten to know you mate from the, the moment you walked into the Sydney workshop, I believe over a year and a half ago, that one day we did, or a year ago, um, to come into the retreat. Um, and just seeing you in that short space of time or getting to know you in that short space of time and witnessing the changes within you has been absolutely beautiful. And, uh, it’s been something on my mind for a while wanting to reach out and ask you to come on. So I’m so glad that you did. Cause I can appreciate coming on a podcast if you’re not used to it can feel bloody weird <laugh>.

Giselle (00:57):
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Thank, thank you though. And thank you for the journey.

Guy (01:03):
Oh mate, thank you. You’re, you’re incredible. Um, so I’m just thinking where we can start. That’s okay. I’ve had, I’ve had roosters come on. I’ve had dogs come on. I’ve had people walk in all sorts of things in the background. You’re all right mate. You’re on a beautiful farmland.

Giselle (01:18):
You have a few dogs, a few roosters and a few horses and ducks. <laugh>.

Guy (01:24):
Totally, totally. I I’m gonna, because your journey is, as I’ve gotten to know you more, is to me being, uh, jaw-dropping my lovely, like really and some of the adversities you’ve been through and, and to come out the other side and, and to see the person that’s here today. So I know I, we will get to all of those things, um, in one moment. But I’m curious to know, how did you end up, um, finding out about Living Flow and the Sydney workshop?

Giselle (01:59):
Um, I went to a wedding that was called The Love Festival, and Matt was running a workshop and I went to the workshop and then a couple years later, um, I was in lockdown. It was just after the fires and an ad came up on Facebook and I recognized Matt. And then I started reading up about it and I was thinking, Oh wow, that was that really amazing sound healer guy. And at that time I was pretty messy. I’d just been through the fires and um, the one day workshop was being advertised and I thought, Look, I’m just gonna jump in the car and do it. Um, yeah, so I I felt really, um, blessed to have come across it actually, to tell you the truth.

Guy (02:49):
Was that like your step back into this world? Cause I know like some of the notes you sent me earlier that you’d been looking at spirituality, uh, earlier in your life. Like you said you had a, um, a chance meeting with a Dai lama and um, what, so had you been exploring this work at other points in your life as well?

Giselle (03:12):
So I had a really interesting childhood. My parents were hippies, so we traveled a lot. I got to see lots of different things from a young age. Um, I think they both had an element of spirituality in them. So throughout my childhood growing up, um, I remember going to Ashrams and like, you know, really different things and Budhist temples and um, I had a very, very devout, uh, Catholic grandmother too. So I think that sort of set a bit of a foundation around prayer and and things. And then in my teens I’d get involved in a white magic group. I’d get, you know, more of that sort of sixties, seventies Indian philosophy around, um, around, um, different sort of deities and religions, Middle east religions and things. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I grew up in a pretty multicultural area where there was a lot of that around as well too, like, um, and I think, um, uh, in my, in my mid twenties I sort of got a little bit lost and it wasn’t till I, um, moved to Canberra that I sort of reconnected.

Giselle (04:28):
I was, um, it was a little thing on my auntie’s fridge about the di lama and I thought, Oh wow, you know, the di lama and I headed off and I found that a really, um, profound experience for myself. And from that I’d get into, I’d then meet, um, so Che and I’d really become quite devout in my studies around, um, rigpa and meditation. And I’d travel a lot, go to a lot of retreats. Um, and I suppose coming from, coming from up north as well, um, Northern New South Wales, there’s that big sort of splash of that sort of spiritual stuff as well. And yoga, yoga, yoga has been throughout my life and just lots of different people on different journeys I suppose, you know, that would share their experiences.

Guy (05:22):
Yeah. When, when looking at your journey as well, cuz I was um, surprised to hear about your, your brain mannerism that you had back in 2013. What, did you have spiritual practices at the time or had you found yourself falling off? Like what happened in that period? Why did that, looking back in reflection, what happened in that moment to you, do you

Giselle (05:46):
Think? I, I, I had, it’s a really interesting story. The day that I, my, my, my brain brain had been blowing up in my head for a couple of days and um, that morning I went and got a bamboo tattoo of a really ancient, um, Thai Buddhist sort of prayer and it’s on my back. So I’m lying there with a big bag, my head in a bag of ice not knowing that I’m dying from this bright aneurysm and getting this bamboo tattoo. And, uh, later that day I’d end up at a private hospital and being rushed unconscious to the private hospital and having seven and a half hours of neurosurgery and coming out of that in, um, a high, uh, high dependency unit or, you know, um, you’ll get my aneurysm cause I can’t find the words that I’m looking for sometimes. So, um, yeah, I was on life support and I’d come out of that and things would be really, really foggy.

Giselle (06:47):
It’d take me a long time to work in. But leading up to having that aneurysm, I used to get up every morning and take breakfast to the monks cuz they lived just around the corner from where I lived in Ang Mai. And I had a really good connection with the monks and I’d go and chat with them. And so, I don’t know, I found that whole sort of, little bit of my life quite interesting when I actually had the brain aneurism that I’d had this really amazing connection with the Buddhist monks, um, around the corner. And um, I think that has a lot to do too with my love for Thailand. Is, is that, that Buddhist aspect of lifestyle? Um, yeah, it’s very different to the, the western sort of go a million miles an hour. And so I always felt when I was over there that I was really connecting with myself again.

Giselle (07:42):
And then I think after the aneurysm I came back to Australia and I, the way I sort of describe it is when my, my lights were on, but nobody was home because my brain wasn’t working properly and I didn’t fully understand, um, how much brain damage I had. Um, it takes you a while to sort of get a grasp on everything. And um, yeah, then I went on this big recovery journey, learning things again, building my brain plasticity, being on all these crazy tablets, blood thinners and this and that. Wow. And I sort of, um, lost my way a bit after that. I became quite depressed. I had thing called aneurysm anxiety, I started to drink. I was in a quite dysfunctional marriage. I’d lost my career because of the aneurysm and I got quite lost and started abusing alcohol. And, um, my, my husband left me, which was at the time pretty upsetting. But now when I look back on it, I’ve actually got a lot of gratitude because that would then again reset me to take stock of my life and work out where I was going.

Guy (08:56):
When did all this start to happen, Giselle? Like, because you said you were in Thailand in 2013 and then you came back into Australia for to re for the recovery.

Giselle (09:06):
Yeah.

Guy (09:07):
And but then when you were made unemployed and you, and then you said you, your husband left at that point as well, what year was all this kind of sort

Giselle (09:16):
Of coming? So, so I sort of bubbled along in this oblivion about myself for quite a few years. Um, and, um, the relationship just, yeah, it was very difficult. Um, I was quite sightless about a lot of things and a lot of behaviors I had around the aneurysm. And, um, I’d finish a big government contract in 2018. My husband had leave me in 2018 and go to Thailand to live with a, a young woman. And, um, it was just like all these things just sort of went kapu and there I was on the farm by myself and I was a total mess. But, um, it was really interesting. I, I went and saw a, a really beautiful old iridologist naturopath guy and through that process I started to reconnect with myself. So with my health, like, you know, looking at my health and my wellbeing, um, I started to get back into meditation and rig pr I’d catch up with a really beautiful maid of mine who I’ve known for years, who was right into Jodi Spender.

Giselle (10:30):
So I’d get introduced to that whole sort of thing, which was really quite eyeopening and spiritual too around connecting with myself and my mind. And then I’d sort of bubble along. And then on the 31st of December, um, my property would get hit by um, the fires, the South coast fires. So that was sort of this big, big thing for me cuz I got trapped here on the, on the farm and it was, um, yeah, it was, I’ll never forget it, as long as I lived, it was really a life changing experience and I nearly died. Um, there was no air and I’d end up in hospital with bet corns and smoke inhalation.

Guy (11:20):
Good. Cause the fires happened between November and January.

Giselle (11:24):
Yeah. So the fires here hit us on the 31st of December, which was the day

Guy (11:30):
20 19, 20 20. That

Giselle (11:32):
2019. And um, I remember waking up and going to the toilet and thinking that my house felt like a microwave. And then I walked outside and I could hear this sort of rumbling in the about blackness and I ran around to all the little farms around here cuz they were sort of retirees, woke everyone up in the dark and uh, just on light you could um, you could see these two massive fire fronts coming coming from a property.

Guy (12:05):
Yeah. Unbelievable.

Giselle (12:07):
It was a pretty, uh, then I then I, you know, had the fire plan had all the sprinklers and the fire pumps and, you know, I thought I was a bit offa cuz I’d been the fire warden at a c t Health back in the day <laugh>. And um, yeah, nothing was gonna stop with what was happening that day.

Guy (12:25):
Did, did you even lose your entire house or some of it?

Giselle (12:27):
No, I lo I lost, I had two big massive sheds and Right. I was going through the divorce as, as you I’ve mentioned, and I’d packed up everything I owned and had put them in the sheds ready to go to settlement. And um, what would happen then was that, um, I’d lose everything that I owned in the sheds. The house would be on fire, I’d try and leave the property and it was so hot that my car wouldn’t start and my partner had, was like left in front of me. And, um, and, and yeah, I’d get out of this car, um, then I’d then I’d um, stagger from the car back here and I’d be screaming out to God, I’ve got a video show you one day. But, um, yeah, just going, you know, like, I’m gonna die. And I actually caught the spa in the corner of my eye and it was off so the water was cold and I crawled into that and pulled the lid down and there was about that much air. So that basically saved my life

Guy (13:34):
Far out. Yeah, yeah. Coming out of that just to continue the timeline along to Zel. Yeah. Like, cuz obviously I met you after all the fires had happened. I mean, you’ve been through a brain mannerism. You then went through recovery, you know, you spiraled like you said, into some depression, drinking, your partner leaves. You, you start to see, uh, a natural path before the fires. Did you feel like you were coming outta that darkness? Or do you feel like you were still in it? Because then once, once the fires happen and you nearly die and lose your home, it’s like one thing after the next.

Giselle (14:17):
Yeah,

Guy (14:17):
Yeah. You know, how, how were you feeling, you know, um, look a month after the fires, like did, where were you at? Um,

Giselle (14:29):
I was seeing, I was seeing a psychologist and I was doing compassion therapy and I felt like I was making progress slowly out of that big black hole I was in. Um, and then the fires had hit and I just was totally traumatized by that experience. Um, I couldn’t see properly cuz my corneas were burnt. Um, I had smoke inhalation and I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and I would have these really, really intrusive nightmares night after night where I was trapped in flames and I’d wake up screaming. And I, I just found that through not getting enough sleep and having these constant intrusive, horrific nightmares, I was exhausted. Like I was really tired and I was totally emotionally and spiritually bereft. Um, it turned to alcohol, which I know, you know, it’s a quick fix. But, um, and sort of a part of me sort of just, yeah, I just was just totally messed up by the whole thing.

Giselle (15:41):
And, and I think too, like after the fires on the south coast, I, I don’t, I don’t know how to explain it. Like, imagine you’ve got no power, you’ve got no lining, no water, you, you’re just surrounded by all this stuff still burning days later. Um, and um, and, and, and um, it was just really confronting and it was devastating and everything I’d own my whole life, like traveling and collecting things, all my books, like everything that was me was gone. And I always remember explaining it to my sister, like being flesh less. Like it was like I, I had like skinless, like I had flesh, but I had no skin. It was like my skin had gone. I, it was just this really raw, um, unsettling, um, feeling that I was experiencing. Yeah.

Guy (16:37):
Wow.

Giselle (16:38):
Yeah,

Guy (16:40):
<laugh>. So then fast forward a few months, you wander into our Sydney workshop,

Giselle (16:46):
<laugh>. Yeah. Well, um,

Guy (16:47):
The me and Matt ran the one day, uh, which that

Giselle (16:50):
Little window of that little window of no lockdown,

Guy (16:54):
It was lockdowns.

Giselle (16:55):
Yeah.

Guy (16:56):
Yeah. And there was a big crowd that day and we actually, um, I think about 20 people didn’t actually turn up because they were worried about covid because the suburbs were actually locking down around us. But we were technically still legally allowed to run the workshop at that point. And, you know, we, we were in a big unknown and um, so

Giselle (17:18):
What were you that David that day was really powerful for me. That was just such a powerful day. Um, I’d be running late cuz I, we’d go around, my friend was dropping me off and there’s beautiful guy called Chris met me at the door with just this beautiful smile and gave me a hug and I just got this amazing warm feeling and I walked into the room and you guys were already talking. I’m like, Oh, you know, here I go. The only secrets right down the front, you know, like, you know, sat down and in between these ladies and was yeah, just sort of focusing on you guys talking and then you’d ask us to turn around and sort of share a little bit of ourselves with the other person. And that was really incredible for me. Cuz the girl that I turned around and talked to, she’d been up the coast, um, probably, I don’t know, 40 minutes drive further up north from me.

Giselle (18:19):
And she had experienced the fires too. So that was a bit of a dirt dear moment for me. And I think, um, when I look back on that day and, and the processes that, that you took us through on the whiteboard and taking notes and then us all lying, I’ll never forget how we just fitted into that room. It was like that much space. There was so many people from so many different walks of life and it just was so powerful. Um, you know, we were in Covid, a lot of people were fire affected and it, and I just remember, um, totally, what’s the word I’m looking for? Just totally, um, surrendering myself to the process of that day. And, um, there was just this amazing shift when we went through the meditation and the sound healing. I just was blown away where I was transported to that day. And I can remember, um, after, after the workshop sitting next to the girl and you were talking about the retreats, and I just looked around to that girl and I said, I’m going to that retreat. Like I’m, I don’t care what it takes, I just had this immediate connection with the work that you do. And, um, I felt safe. I had a sense of safety that I hadn’t had in a long time. Wow. So I, I knew that I, I wasn’t there yet, but I was about to embark on a journey.

Guy (19:53):
On a journey. Yeah. The one, the one day is, is the perfect place to really get a taste for the work and understand what it is because not, not, there are no quick fixes. Right. This, this takes time, it takes dedication, it takes practice and uh, and and a deeper understanding of why we’re doing it. But if like, like eating well every day, like, like moving the body every day. If we’re willing to do these things over time, when we look back over a 6, 12, 18 months period, the, the shifts can be huge. We just don’t realize them at the time. And you know, it’s interesting you sharing about the experience with the fires and then meet the lady at the one day workshop because what you probably don’t know, Giselle, and uh, and I don’t think I’ve shared this on a podcast so I might as well know, but we ran a retreat in January in UK just that year.

Giselle (20:44):
You know, so the locked up Covid hadn’t broke, broke out yet, or the lockdowns had not, but it was all about the fires and we weren’t sure if we were actually gonna run the retreat because the fires were in certain proximity and wind direction of uk. Yeah, yeah. And when we got there, there were so, um, there were several people that were nervous, worried about their homes. They’d come and if um, there were, um, gonna be shifts in the weather patterns, their house could have been under threat. So there was a lot of tr traumatized people naturally walking into this, cuz this is when everything started to really, um, the world started to really go upside down in all directions for everyone out here. Right. But I’ll never forget on the, the, on the last e the last night where we do that intention, um, healing work that, um, one of the girls said, I, I just, I just pray for rain cuz it was so hot and we hadn’t seen a cloud or rain or anything and no word. Once we did the process, Giselle, the moment we stopped we heard a massive clap of thunder <laugh> and it just started pouring down our rain.

Giselle (22:00):
Right. Yeah.

Guy (22:02):
And we were so excited. We, we, we all were just in awe of just what happened cuz the moment, and you know what it’s like when you’re in the octagon. Yeah. We all decided to celebrate and we all just ran fully closed and we all just formed a ring around the swimming pool and we all just jumped in the swimming pool in the rain. And it was just, just an absolutely magical moment that, um, that stood out. You know, so it kind of ties in when you were sharing me, just took me back there for a moment and how these things can start to happen, you know? So

Giselle (22:34):
It was a bit like, a bit like the first five day retreat that I came to, we, we experienced about 30 minutes of sunshine and it just rain the whole time. But I really didn’t mind the ring. Like people were going, Oh, when’s it gonna stop raining? But after you go through drought and then you experience fires that were, that horrendous, um, rain’s a really nice thing. I think you have a lot more gratitude for it. Absolutely. And after the fires it, it did rain here. We actually experience floods down here in this little part of the coast, which didn’t really make, make the news because, um, Covid was the, the in thing at the time. But the little village where my little village here Mogo, it actually went underwater. And, um, that I was overseas actually when Covid broke out. Um, and I just knew that we needed to get back to Australia. Like I just, Cause I’ve got some background in that sort of stuff and health, I just knew it was really important to get home. It’s a pretty safe, safe play team,

Guy (23:42):
Which you did. And so I would, would because then the next time I spoke to you was actually on the phone and you were in hospital and Ah,

Giselle (23:50):
Yeah. Oh

Guy (23:52):
Yeah. Because we

Giselle (23:53):
Had done

Guy (23:55):
Yeah,

Giselle (23:56):
Yeah, yeah. Cause

Guy (23:57):
We were, were supposed to run a five night retreat, I believe in August. I can’t quite, it’s all blurry.

Giselle (24:04):
Yeah, yeah. No, no, no. And I think I’d signed up so I’d, I’d, I’d, yeah, no, I’d signed up for the retreat, but I’d signed up to do the, um, online, the online um, group. And um, I remember, oh no, maybe that was after, I can’t remember exactly,

Guy (24:24):
But, but you basically, you were supposed to come to the retreat and Yeah. Lit and the retreat ended up being canceled anyway because of the lockdowns. I think we were gonna run our first five night at the end of August. That’s right. But you, you then, after the fires had come off your horse.

Giselle (24:43):
Yeah, I, I actually jumped off my horse to save a friend of mine that was sort of hanging off her horse and this wild dog that had attacked us would lunge at my horse and my horse would lunge at me and I’d be in mid air and go face first full, full body weight into the ground. And I’d, I’d be, um, not in a good way at all. I’d, I’d be, um, shipped up to Canberra to see a number of specialists. I had nine facial uh, nine hairline fractures all through my face. I’d smash seven of my teeth. I had to have 14 stitches before I even got to Canberra in my mouth. I had a smash sternum, I broke my nose in six places and I had a massive big wound. And um, it was, we were in a lockdown as well. So, um, that whole process was pretty mind blowing.

Giselle (25:42):
And if you could have said, I mean like, you know, I don’t have to look okay now, but my whole face was just, um, because of these, these big hematomas cuz I’d smashed my, um, sinuses. So I really wasn’t in a good way and it wasn’t really a good time to have a really sort of horrible accident like that because I needed lots of different people and, cause I’ve got the brain aneurysm here above my third army. Yeah. There was a whole lot of hoopla about who do what. So I think they decided to put my septum back together and that was one lot of surgery. And then, um, my face was so swollen that they had to wait for different things to go down. And that was a bit of a process and it was really traumatic. And, um, having had a brain aneurysm and then to have that sort of an accident, which was a major head injury. So my eyes were black for months and, um, I still actually suffer a little bit. I’ve got a lot of nerve damage and I need to get my teeth fixed up, which I’ll get time to one day in the future. But, um, yeah, that was, that was really full on <laugh>. It really wasn’t my idea of fun at

Guy (26:58):
All. No, no. And I remember speaking to you just thinking, Oh my lovely, like, you know, my heart went out to you and, and the other thing which I didn’t learn at the time, was that your partner Kraver as well at the time? Yeah. Was he diagnosed with

Giselle (27:16):
Um, no. No. So he’d been, he, he he’d been going to the doctor for about a year and a half after the fires and they kept diagnosing him with PSD and giving him antidepressants and then, um, I’d get outta hospital and he would be really unwell and we, cuz it was locked down, you couldn’t have visitors when I was there and he’d be really unwell and I’d go to his GP and say, Look, stop giving him antidepressants. I’ve got a, I’ve got a clinical background, there’s something wrong with him. So they’d run a whole lot of tests and about probably three or four weeks after, um, I got outta hospital, he’d be diagnosed with, um, stage four cancer and we’d be in lockdown again. So we kept ringing the oncology ward for three weeks and never got a response. And he ended up in a fetal ball and nearly dying. And then we were still in lockdown and I took him to the Hospi, the little country hospital here, and they try and discharge him with 10 Don and to Maxon. And just with my background, health background, um, I sort of took the ed doctor to task and asked to speak to the head of the hospital. And that would result in my partner being airlifted to Canberra to have emergency bowel surgery Yeah. By saving surgery. So yeah, it was, it was, and and, and being in lockdown, it was just all just crazy.

Guy (28:45):
Yeah. I I I don’t have any words what a sage jelle. When you, when you, you know, when I first started learning of the things that you’ve gone through, what, what allowed you to keep it together? Like, because it just felt like one thing after the next. Right. Um, I think and even get yourself to the retreat, like you made it to that retreat in January 20 beginning of

Giselle (29:18):
This year. I kept, I kept, I kept, I kept focusing on the fact that, that I’d paid for the retreat and that I was going to the retreat and I had wanted to do the online course, but because of the horse accident and Trevor and all these things that were going on, I couldn’t commit to that. So I just kept focusing on the fact that I, I was, I was coming, I know the area up there very well. I lived there, my family are up there. So I know I was coming to a really healing space, especially around new kind and the mountain and stuff. And, um, I just kept focusing on, I suppose, um, that the workshop, like the, the shifts that happened to me in that one day workshop were really profound and it wasn’t that full connection, but I’d scratch the surface.

Giselle (30:11):
So I just kept hanging onto that. I’d like watch some of the podcasts I’d I, you know, you guys would get on and have a chat to everyone. Um, and, and I, I, I was reading some books, I can’t remember them cause of my aneurysm, but, um, I, I, I grabbed a few books when I was in Sydney and started reading them and I found that a bit helpful. And as well, I, um, went back to yoga. So I started going, I just knew that, you know, I had to do something and there’s a lovely lady just down near the beach that runs the yoga class. And so I started dragging myself off to that. I was able to, with the support of my neighbor, re refe the property and get, get the horses back. So that was really, really, um, good for me too to sort of, um, we were able to move, move out of the van and we were able to repair half the house.

Giselle (31:12):
So like re plumbing, re electricity. Um, and I, I suppose, um, you know, just that, that support, the support of, um, I live in a little sort of little kind away spot and there’s five little farms and it sort of seemed to me that there was just the fight, like the little five farms and we all had each other and you know, we were just trying to survive. And, and, um, the other thing was that I, I started to grow a whole lot of veggies after the fires. Like I’d lost my big veggie garden, um, and the beach and the bush and the animals and nature. But really holding onto the fact of that connection that I made at that one day, um, mini retreat Wow. Yeah. Was really, and and what had shifted inside of me in, in, in, in that on that day was really quite profound.

Guy (32:08):
Yeah. That, that really makes me smile when I hear you say that, Giselle, honestly. And, but I remember, and I, and I, I remember you walk <laugh>, I remember you walking into the five night retreat. You’re running on the fir on the first day and Yeah, pretty much. And I, and I remember, and I mean this with the greatest respect. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But I remember thinking and feeling, Okay, gi Giselle’s holding it, you know, is I didn’t know what all I knew you’d come off that horse. That’s, that’s it. I didn’t really know much about the bush fires. I think you might have mentioned a little bit on the, the

Giselle (32:42):
Phone or the cas or, or that I’ve been doing that came most

Guy (32:45):
Your journey, you know, and, and you know, and for us, our job is to be as facilitators, to hold a sacred safe space for people to really start to move through whatever they need to through and find their way back to their hearts and really connect to that deeper aspect of ourselves. And that is our intention. That is my intention with every soul that walks through there for those, those times that we, we were in that space and I remember thinking and feeling, Wow, Giselle is, is holding a lot. And here goes, let’s see what happens over the next five days. I’m all in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, and, and you know, I remember seeing you on the last, I think it was literally the last process of the last day. And, and I saw within you a shift that was so incredible and like, cuz you, you kept showing up every day. You, you’re just doing the work. You, you were, the determination was there and it’s, it’s like 90% of this work is just showing up. The rest takes care of herself and you, and you did that mate. And I remember seeing you and you were in yourself and in your heart in a way that I’d not seen. And it was like, wow, Giselle has finally come home to herself in that moment. You know? And it was such a beautiful thing to see mate.

Giselle (34:03):
I, I just found like every day was like I was peeling layers off and more layers off. And I was reconnecting with myself because I was so far removed. Because when you go through a whole lot of traumatic experiences, you’re running on all this sort of brain chemical energy and energy that, that really doesn’t serve you well. And I found, um, I’ll just be honest with you, I found the meditations that you were doing really fabulous. I could start to steal my mind, clear my mind, create some spacious abiding, a real shift for me was when Petra did the inner child work. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I got a real shock actually, cuz having done a lot of work on myself earlier on when I was younger, I, I didn’t realize, but there was a whole lot of stuff in this little girl and that just blew me away.

Giselle (35:01):
Like, you know, I can remember just tears streaming down my eyes and me connecting with my little girl and going, Oh wow, you’re a fucking mess. You know, <laugh> like, I’m a mess. You’re a mess. You know, like sort like that. And I found that really healing. And the other thing that I really found was the, like I’ve done lots of different yoga, but I really found Petra’s yoga very therapeutic. And, and, and I don’t know how to explain it, but it’s sort of two, it was twofold for me. It wasn’t just yoga, there was sort of an element of, um, meditation or I can’t put my finger or the word I’m looking for, but that yoga every morning and that meditation with you were just like, for me, they were the foundation of my day. Yeah. And then I think the next best thing was, was Ron’s breakfasts, you know, those really healthy, you know, really pure food.

Giselle (36:00):
Like her food is medicine and, and, and then just to, to every day be guided through these incredible processes on, on different red levels. Whether it was you, you, you know, on the white whiteboard or Matt doing a sound healing or doing a past life regression. And that was another thing that absolutely knocked me for a six <laugh> actually. Um, the, the first time we I did that, I just, um, I was just in awe of the, the personal journey and experience that, that I went through. And, um, I was a bit surprised actually cuz I’d never really gotten on with my, um, stepfather and he’d passed away a couple of years before. Here I am out in the <laugh> and who’s the guy that I should, you know, have this big conversation with. So that was really healing. It was really, really healing. And it was really like I really was the last person I, you know, I I probably wanted to, you know, hook up with some other people. But, um, that was really, um, yeah, that was mind blowing. Yeah.

Guy (37:10):
Yeah. No, cause I was gonna say just for the listeners as well, just to things to ponder on, because I love the way you described that because it’s not just a yoga class. We’re not just doing a meditation, we’re not just doing a sound healing session. You know, everything is built upon each other through the period of time that we have done. And there’s a through line with a set intention and a set outcome. So when you’re in that bubble and the collective group energy starts to continuously raise. Yeah. Yeah. We, we are physically, um, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually start and, and energetically like start to shift.

Giselle (37:51):
Totally.

Guy (37:52):
So the processes are built upon with that intention. So it’s not just a yoga session, it’s actually done with a, a lot of, um, Petra does this so amazingly intuitively. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like we are actually doing specific movements to work with specific parts of the body that are ready to heal and release the traumas or release whatever’s stuck Yeah. For us to become back deeper to our true selves. And I think that’s what’s, that’s what’s not understood. And until you actually go through a contained container like that in an experience, you then start to, you get it, you know, But then Totally, totally. But until you do it, it’s like, how do you know, how do you, you know, what France is gonna be like if you’re only looking at a magazine, but you’re not actually in France front. Yeah. Experiencing it, you know? So it’s kind of the same thing.

Giselle (38:44):
I just, I just, I just honestly, um, the, the, the, the surroundings were fabulous and the group, the power of the group and, and the vulnerability that, that we get to within ourselves to open up and share and, and the check-ins. And like, I don’t want, I don’t wanna give it all away, but, but, um, for me, I can re it’s just funny for me cuz cause of my brain aneurysm, like, I sort of say things that I don’t remember. And I remember we were doing a, a round lit circle share, and I’d just been through this mind blowing experience and I can remember the next day this lady came up to me and she said, you know, Oh, do you realize that you swore? And I’m like, Oh no, I didn’t realize that. And, and um, I just remember though just feeling so blessed.

Giselle (39:40):
And, and one thing I wanna share with you was, um, you talk, you, you talked a little like, you know, sometimes people are sharing and they’re talking and they’re communicating and, um, I I, I remember like, there was this real moment for me in the workshop where you were sharing something really personal about yourself, and it was just a real white bulb moment for me. And I felt really grateful that you had shared from your heart and, and that connection. And, and I found a lot of the time that, that everyone’s different, but through those processes of, of that narrative that we go through within the group, um, you can identify with lots of things that other people are sharing or talking about. And I found that really powerful as well. Um, and, and I suppose to, um, towards the end, you know, we, we’ll talk about those layers of things and the processes.

Giselle (40:44):
So, you know, you’re building and you’re building and you’re building and you’re building and you’re growing and, and, and you’re opening up and you’re leaving your head, you know, which has been going a hundred zillion miles an hour and you’re starting to connect with your heart. And, and I really loved the, um, chucker energy work that we, we were doing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, like that was, that was so healing for me because I was just so blocked up because I’ve just been through all this stuff. And so when I, when I I, I was just on cloud nine when I left, and I, I had a new purpose and I felt totally connected with my heart. Um, however, I’d have to come home and look after a really unwell person, and that was really heartbreaking. And it didn’t really give me the space that I needed to focus on this new journey that I’d been on.

Giselle (41:41):
So I think for me, it wasn’t till I unexpectedly lost my partner in quite tragic circumstances, I sort of fell over again. You know, like I just went more, I was exhausted. And I can remember coming up and doing the Canberra one. I actually bought my partner before he passed to the one day workshop and a couple of friends and he just loved it. And, um, he really wanted to come to the, the five day with me, like we were gonna go together. But that never happened. And then I remember, um, after he passed, just knowing, like I just ended up in this big black hole again. And because I had this new knowledge and this new connection with myself, I sort of understood what was going on. But I live on a farm by myself. Um, I don’t have family or a lot of support, so I just focused on the retreat again as being something that I could go be in a really safe place.

Giselle (42:44):
Be, be you know, like, like, you know, what is it holding space? I can’t remember all the terminology, but you know, um, when you, when you go and you bear all, you know, and you totally come from your heart, um, and the energy that, that, that, that through those processes and the sharing and, and the sound healing and all of those things, for me, they’re really, really healing. And, and that then takes me to this next level, you know, um, where I’m, I’m, how can I explain this? Like, so I did the first workshop and that was really good and I got to this place and that was fabulous. And then I had to sort of come back and deal with a whole lot more trauma and rigmarole, and then I get to come back and do the second, um, workshop. And that was a lot different for me.

Giselle (43:40):
Um, I had these, you know, how you sort of been through something you went on, you know, I know what’s gonna help. No <laugh>. And, um, I found, I found the second workshop, um, even more powerful than the first one. And probably because I was more in tune with myself because I’d done the first workshop. So I had some sort of reconnection with myself. And, um, I just found that the last workshop was probably, um, it, I like, yeah, it’s, it’s just put me on this totally different trajectory of, um, where I’m heading, how I feel in my life, what I want to do, what do I wanna accomplish. And, and I I just feel like, I feel like I’m loving myself. I’m love it. Like I’m, I’m not up here anymore. I’m, you know, everything that I make this conscious decision, you know, in, in how I conduct myself to come from here and not from here, you know?

Giselle (44:42):
And even though I’ve got all this stuff hitting me a lot of the time, the whole way I’m processing and, you know, um, walking through life, it feels really different. It feels a lot lighter. I don’t feel as dramatized and I feel like, um, I’ve found my purpose within myself to do this work and do this practice on a daily basis. And what I’ve from that, by doing it intensely in the workshops, is that I benefit from it. You know, I’m not ripping myself off with alcohol anymore or, or that crazy thinking that gets me in that big black hole. And it’s given me a lot of hope, you know, a lot of hope for the future.

Guy (45:30):
Well, you know, Giselle, like, I, I mean, I I wouldn’t have asked you on the podcast if I hadn’t seen the, the shifts and the transformation, the trajectory you’ve set yourself on and, and the way you showed up. I mean, the way you showed up in July in the, the, the second time you came to the five night retreat, you were the, you were, you know, you were a very different person to the one that walked through the doors in January. Even what you’d been through between January and July through those two retreats with your partner passing and all the things you had to hold and deal with and like you say, falling back into, um, a bit of a hole within that. But I mean, it’s so normal and but to see how, how much you’ve come in, in the spaces from, from Sydney to then to now, and I always look at this work, um, I, cause I used to day trade, I used to do stock trade and quite many years ago, but I always look at it like a rising stock chart.

Guy (46:26):
Yeah. You know how they zigzag, they go up, they go down, they go up, they don now, but the actual trend mm-hmm. <affirmative> is north is is a bull market. Like we go that way and it’s kind of like this work, we fall off every day. Yeah. But if we’re willing to, if we’re willing to keep leaning in, explore and have these, these, these, um, these processes and these moments together through our life, then we continue to, we continued on the upward trajectory over time, which is, yeah. Sorry, I’m gonna ask you one last question to wrap it up today, Giselle. Yeah. And that is, um, anyone listening to this, what would you say to them if they’re considering coming to a retreat, they come into a workshop? Or is there anything even that you just wanna leave people to ponder on from everything we cover today?

Giselle (47:17):
I just, I just think that if you by chance have seen this on Facebook or you meet somebody that tells you about this experience they’ve been on, or you, you are at some, some point in your life where you are questioning stuff and you are, you are, you are wanting to, you know, I, I think, I think, um, I dunno how to explain what I wanna say, but what I wanna say is that, that deep down inside of us, you know, there is this, this energy, you know, and when it’s not right, somehow we are drawn to things that we probably need to do that sometimes with our head we go, Oh no. But when we actually come from our heart and, and, and we, we do, we do engage in, in something that’s so beneficial, like stopping for a moment, putting your phone away and actually focusing on yourself and going through this amazing journey of living in the flow.

Giselle (48:18):
Um, just say, do it. Like, just feel the dirt fear and do it anyway. Cuz um, I really believe, I really believe it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life, and I’ll be back to do it again and again, I <laugh>, I, I loved, I loved meeting one of the, the guys. Um, he, he, he, he was, he was a lot younger than me and he talked about like, he, he’d done windows something and now he was doing Windows 10 or something, and that, you know, and then he sort of shared his story and it was really resonated with me. And I, I thought, yeah, you know, you, you take your car to get it tuned up and you do this and you do all these exterior things in your life, you know, but, but doing like taking care and loving yourself and nurturing yourself and, and, you know, um, for me it, it was like getting a tune up and, you know, an oil change and new filters.

Giselle (49:15):
So the whole way that I’m seeing life and perceiving life is totally different than I, I, I did before. And I feel, I feel a lot more invincible. Like, I, I sort of felt really weighed down by all those horrible things that had happened to me. But however, however I realized that they’ve got me to where I am today, they got me to live in the flow. And I’d say, Look, if you are honestly considering doing a mini workshop, a day workshop, a three day retreat, a five day retreat, or you see the, the, the thing about Portugal, just do it. Do it, do it, do it. You know, I’m, I’m always, I’m, I’m, yeah, I, I I just think that I’ll have this connection with living the flow and, and the amazing, the amazing people that I’ve met and, and you guys, you know, and I just can’t begin to express the gratitude and love that I feel, you know, today that, that I didn’t have. So thank you.

Guy (50:15):
Oh, it’s beautiful. And thank you Giselle, thank you for everything. Thank you for showing up. Thank you for being you and really just, yeah, I, I’m always inspired when I talk to you and think about your mate and every, your journey, what you’ve been on, what you’ve been through, and, and who you’re becoming as a person is just beautiful. So thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you much love. Take

Giselle (50:38):
Matt, take picture and take the.