Manders Mindset
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
89: Embracing Emotions & Rebuilding After Trauma with Abigail Luvisi
In this episode of “Manders Mindset Podcast,”, we sit down with Abigail Luvisi, a trauma-trained somatic breathwork practitioner and embodiment life coach, who works with women to heal from past traumas and step into their authentic selves. Abigail shares her personal journey, from a challenging childhood and the trauma she endured, to the transformative power of breathwork and somatic healing.
We dive deep into the importance of self-compassion, understanding emotions, and how breathwork helps people move past their emotional walls. Abigail also opens up about her experience with divorce, her journey as a single mom, and the path that led her to become a coach and mentor. Tune in to hear how Abigail helps others reconnect with their bodies and embrace their full potential.
In This Episode, You’ll Learn:
•How somatic breathwork can help you move past emotional blocks.
•The role of self-compassion in healing and personal growth.
•Abigail’s personal journey through trauma, abuse, and recovery.
•How to reconnect with your body and trust your inner wisdom.
•The impact of breathwork in healing from narcissistic abuse and trauma.
•Why having a strong support system is critical during your healing journey.
•Insights into the world of therapeutic psychedelics for emotional healing.
Main Topics:
[1:05] – Abigail introduces herself and shares how joy is at the core of who she is.
[3:18] – Abigail discusses her childhood, family dynamic, and the process of rebuilding herself after trauma.
[6:37] – Reflecting on her earliest memories and growing up with a difficult family situation.
[11:35] – Abigail opens up about the abuse she endured and how she navigated those challenges.
[22:31] – Meeting her current husband and the healing journey that led her to coaching.
[27:42] – How somatic breathwork changed her life and led her to help others heal.
[34:13] – The importance of finding support systems and how that played a pivotal role in Abigail’s healing.
[46:06] – How breathwork and therapy have helped Abigail recognize her worth and heal from her past.
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To Connect With Abigail & Her Resources:
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Instagram: @abigailluvisi
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You’re only one mindset shift away from changing your life. Keep showing up—and we will too!
Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people where your host, amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Mand's Mindset. I'm your host, Amanda Russo, and I'm here today with Abigail Lovisi. Abigail is a somatic black work practitioner, a trauma trained and embodiment life coach, and she works with women to heal from traumas, step into their authentic expression and learn to trust themselves again. Y'all know how fascinated I am with the power of breathwork, so I am excited to speak to Abigail today. Thank you so much for joining me, yeah thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 3:I'm excited to be here yeah thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to be here, of course, so that's an awesome bio, but I'd love to know who you are at the core, at the core, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3:Well, I just watched Inside Out too. Honestly, joy is my core. My name is Abigail Joy. I love joy and my core is love and life and loving people and experiencing joy in the day-to-day moment. In the past, you get wrapped up in what is happiness or achieve, trying to achieve happiness right, and really it's just finding those moments in the day-to-day that bring you to your authentic, truest expression and having joy.
Speaker 2:We are not even two minutes in and I think that's my favorite answer of who somebody is at the core. I loved everything you just said there. Oh, thank you, Because I find myself very similar to that. For a long time I was a very negative Nelly, but now I really find myself finding the little increments of small joy like things that bring a smile to your face.
Speaker 3:So I love that. Yeah, absolutely. I think that we get caught up in the word happiness and again, happiness at the end of the day is just a state of mind. If we were happy all the time, then we wouldn't even know what happy is. That's true.
Speaker 2:I don't think there's a single bad emotion. We need to feel them all.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, absolutely All are teaching us something and just giving us an opportunity to be closer and understand who we are, which is again being able to be our authentic selves and embodiment of who we are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so true. So I'd love to backtrack a little bit if you could tell us about your family dynamic, your upbringing, where you grew up. Any siblings? A podcast host that actually I was the first guest on, jared Carroll, always starts his with this because it lays the foundation, kind of like a house and to understand how you were built up from the ground to where you are now. So anything you want to share, yeah, so building up.
Speaker 3:when you said that I had to tear down as I got older, I want that clear. My foundation is new, right, like I had to rebuild, because my foundation I mean how you and I got connected was you were looking for black sheets, and so me hi, I'm a black sheep too. So that's how we got connected was chatting about the black sheet, chatting about the black sheep in our lives. And so, yeah, I grew up um, if you gosh, it's the my brain. Words are hard. Sometimes. There's a, the asa, ass test. Oh, my gosh, the trauma test. You know what I'm talking about. My brain is like forgetting. It's like the asi test or the ass test. I can't remember. Right now my brain is stopping because it's the fourth, which is what we talked about too. So that's fine. Anyways, it's the trauma test and I hit every box if you've ever taken it.
Speaker 3:So my dad was in prison during my childhood and I had an older brother. He's seven years older than me. My mom had a kid out of wedlock which I didn't even meet her. She was put up for adoption when she found out, when she was 18. My mom wanted to have me adopted out when I was a teenager like wanted to give me up for adoption, different dynamics that were even going on. For me as a kid that it's like where do you want to start Is honestly like where do you want to hear more about my story? So that's kind of like just a synopsis.
Speaker 3:I mean I didn't like school and I didn't like being at home. I was not. I mean again, clearly, when I forget things, which is totally OK, like I'm not shaming myself at all, it's just I didn't. I'm not a good speller, like and I own that, like I did it. I'm not good at math and like those are just not my thing. So going and a kid who had a lot of energy and loved to talk Shocking Having my own podcast and loved being around people. I was getting in trouble all the time talking, which is funny because now my daughter gets in trouble for talking at school too. So that's fun because we just like, love people and are outgoing.
Speaker 3:But yeah, and then my mom. I mean my mom was basically a single mom and she was on welfare my whole life and didn't realize until I was an adult that she was addicted to pain medications and she has fibromyalgia and chronic illness and all of these things. So there was a lot going on. I had a lot of spiritual abuse, there was a lot of, you know, sex, drugs, rock and roll in high school, and then I got married at 17. So already you know if we know, and Okay, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot there and even as you kept talking, I'm just like. She is so much more like me than I even realized. My, my mom's not addicted to the painkillers, but she's got fibromyalgia as well, and a lot, of, a lot of things you said I resonated with. So you didn't like. You didn't like being at home. How about we backtrack, even for the what, what's like the youngest memory you have, whether it's positive, negative?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I remember so honestly, like it is my memory, but I don't remember the memory. It's more like me knowing that it's from a video. You know that I've seen like I remember seeing like videos of myself as like a before my dad like had gone to prison. I remember watching the videos of like me playing with my dad and mom and they used to do this like it was like you would go, my mom would sit me on her lap and she'd like act like a horse, you know, like pony boy. I don't know I played. I did it with my kids when they were little. Now too, because I remember thinking it was the funniest thing. It was like pony boy, pony boy, won't you be my pony boy. So I remember this like song in my head but the video.
Speaker 3:So if you're asking me for my earliest memory, that I know that I was like three, but that's not like my memory, if that makes sense. I just know that it was that far back. But for me, if I like, actually like, if I'm remembering, I mean honestly, it probably isn't till like sixth or seventh grade that I remember start remembering a lot of things. Okay, so like middle school, like having trouble in school, okay, and like maybe I can remember something in fourth grade. If I start like really trying to think about it, I'm sure I can think back now you say your dad was in prison when.
Speaker 2:Approximately how old were you when he went?
Speaker 3:I was about four or five when he went to prison, so you were young.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, do you now? You don't have any memory of him leaving, no?
Speaker 3:Okay, no, none of it. I mean my parents, like I remember going there, but I don't. I couldn't tell you, like I know that I went and saw him. That's the memory. Like I couldn't tell you, like what it looked like or anything. I just know that I went because for a long time my brother and mom told me that he was sick and in the hospital. So like they didn't even tell me that he was in prison for a while.
Speaker 2:Like they didn't even tell me that he was in prison for a while, okay, and now you said you went and you would go to the prison and see him.
Speaker 3:That's what I. I know that I went and saw him at some point, but again I couldn't tell you. It's not like a memory that I can see, I just know that I did at some point.
Speaker 2:So you were raised with as well. If I could speak, you were raised with your mom as a single mom, so she raised you and your brother.
Speaker 3:Uh-huh, how was that, uh, not fun. It was a struggle for sure. Like I said, my mom was sick and then very religious on top of that, and so my mom would basically stay up all night and so I pretty much raised myself. It was very. It was a very like mentally, emotionally, verbally, like abusive home and physical as it got old. I got older. Physical as I got older, where I didn't you. It was very much like the matrix, like I.
Speaker 3:She would say one thing, but it would be something totally different. You know, like you can't trust anybody. I mean, she would have me, like, watch Dr Phil shows, like I had to watch all these so much fear to know what was going on in the world, because she wanted to protect me, which, but then she would like tell me that I had to ask to go to friends houses, but then she'd let me go do whatever I wanted. Do you see what I'm saying? Like how contradictory that is. Like it's too much that even as I got into high school you know what I mean like you're trying to tell me what to do, as any teenager, right, but then trying to tell a teenager what to do when you basically I basically raised myself, like that's not going to work out very well.
Speaker 3:And I mean she, she would tell me she'd have her god time and she would come in the room for hours at a time and read the bible or worship or do whatever she was doing, but she shut me out so I would just be alone, like she would just lock the door and tell me like to go do something and then, on the flip side of that, right like she wasn't going to church, but church was super important, and then if I didn't do chores and stuff, she had books full of like literally notes of what I did wrong and then I would have to write like I'd have to. She'd like do check marks and stuff for what I didn't do or did do and then if I didn't do certain things, like I'd have to like write. Scripture makes me think of that scene in Harry Potter where, like he had to write out, because that's what would happen to me, because then she would also spank me and use a belt okay, now do you know approximately how old you were when any of this was happening?
Speaker 3:oh, I mean again like it definitely a lot of it started getting more deeper in middle school and through high school, okay, because that's when the slapping would start, and the biggest one was like she had backed me into a corner, like with a belt and stuff, and there we had therapists and I ended up having to go live with my brother and I had lived with my friend at the time too. I don't know where it was like, but it was like in freshman, sophomore year, I think. That stuff happened. But then I ended up getting married at 17. So I was a senior in high school and she signed away her rights for me to do that.
Speaker 2:And now you said you had to go live with your brother. Did you choose to, or did you like forcefully have to?
Speaker 3:I think it was like an agreement, because she had been hitting me like they wanted me out of the house for a little bit. Okay, you don't even mean like get that separation, but that was even worse. Me going and living with my brother was even worse, because I mean to have empathy for him. I cannot imagine. I mean, he's only seven years older than I am, so he was in his early 20s, newly married, and you're dealing with a 16 year old like yikes and with all of the trauma that we have. Like it's not like he was set up for success at all. You know, like that's hard for him and it just was a lockdown and he was. He was the extreme of what my mom is, to the extreme of like I couldn't go to church or I could only go to church, home and school. It was hard and how?
Speaker 2:how long were you with your brother?
Speaker 3:not long, because my mom I was there maybe there a couple months because my mom ended up like wanting me to come home and basically manipulated me to come home, like telling me she'd buy me things and get me stuff, and my brother was pissed. She literally came and picked me up one day and packed all my things in and we were out of the house.
Speaker 2:During all this time period is dad still in prison um, I don't think he was.
Speaker 3:I think he was only in prison until I was like in middle school, but by that point my brother wanted nothing to do with him. And so me, looking up to big brother, I wanted nothing to do with him okay now.
Speaker 2:So did he come back? Did he get back with your mom, or did he just go off and do his own?
Speaker 3:no, he just by that point. I think I don't know where they got like actually divorced because they were not together. You know, since that once he left, like that was the last time they were in my life, so I couldn't tell you exactly when they got divorced, but they were never back together when he came out okay, and have you seen him, since he's been out of prison I saw him a couple times.
Speaker 3:He passed away like a year ago, almost a year and a half ago now maybe, and so we I, he had come to my wedding when me and my ex got married, which was weird. And then, um, I had seen him like once when I was pregnant with my twins and had my oldest and I think that was the only time and she was only, you know, like two or three my oldest. So, and I tried to like ask questions. Like there was a period where I was like in some deep therapy work, probably like five years ago, and reached out to him like asking some questions, but again, it was so much spiritual and religious stuff that, like anytime I'd ask about what had happened, it would be like god forgives me and I just like don't do well with people who don't take accountability but now, when, when you say god forgives me, did, where did that?
Speaker 2:did he say that? Oh, yeah, yeah do you?
Speaker 3:oh yeah, like there was just no like ability to take, there was no ability to be, like you know this must have hurt you, abigail. You know what I mean. There was no holding space and so it makes me sad for him because, like gosh, like the life you live, like you're gone, like it's done, like that's so sad to think about, like you missed out on your whole family's life. You couldn't even hold space in the end to tell your daughter that you're sorry and that you messed up like you can't be happy in that. Have have any moment of happiness right, any moment of joy.
Speaker 2:Because you're just stuck in that. Yeah, oh gosh. No, you said you went to your first wedding. You invited him to your first wedding.
Speaker 3:I mean, I was also 17. Okay, Like what am I really thinking at 17?
Speaker 2:Like I don't know. So you got married at 17. Yeah, how did that? How did that stem? Where did you meet the man? How did, how did marriage stem from?
Speaker 3:that, yeah. So he, um, I met him at a Hollister interview, like the store, yeah, okay, yeah, I met him at the store and I mean, again, we're teenagers, right, like we just started dating and he is from a like very big LDS family, so Mormon family, and I mean they get married fast. He had already had another kid, so I mean we had talked about it. There was a lot of things that were when we were married at least that we had talked about. You know, for them, his brain again as a kid right, was like, oh, to have sex, I need to get married and have a kid, right, like that's what it is. So he had already had a kid with somebody else who he was going to marry her. But they were obviously really young.
Speaker 3:So I got into this and I mean I was Christian at the time, like I was raised a Pentecostal Christian, and so my brother at the time was like, not about me marrying a Mormon, like he was so angry he didn't come to the wedding. But my mom, again, like this contradictory piece of my mom, my mom was all for it, like if you sat with her today she would still tell you I'm so happy you got married, yeah, like get married, yeah, but it doesn't. Again, it doesn't make sense, like what she was doing, what she was saying, and then like to give away my rights too, but at the end of the day, looking back at it now as an adult and like seeing she just didn't want me at the end of the day, I mean I literally I did a podcast episode a couple weeks ago and I'm actually on my podcast going through the forgiveness, like talking about forgiveness on my podcast and what that was like and bringing people into my life and we're going over like their perspectives and things that they've had to forgive in their lives, but then bringing us together and it's been really interesting and like I lost my train of thought of what my point was about, what I was trying to get to you. What were we just talking about? Your mom, yeah, what? Oh, yeah, what, wait, what about my mom? Was I saying? Because there was a point I had.
Speaker 2:You were mentioning forgiveness and you were mentioning, oh, the adoption. Okay, yeah, so how do I you up, because she didn't really want you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so I'm on my podcast and we're talking about forgiveness and she I had newly found out that my mom was even going to give rights up to this woman, like on the podcast, like I just found out that she was even going to give her rights up to her for me.
Speaker 2:So wait, wait, wait.
Speaker 3:So your mom was going to give up her rights to you? To who? To this woman. That was like in my life. So she was like just like a you know what I mean, like a mentor-y kind of figure. Right as I can find this out on the podcast, I'm literally sitting there like just like you and me right now and and we're talking about it, and she's like, yeah, did you know that?
Speaker 2:Oh, you spoke with the mentor person. Yeah, on my podcast. Okay, because I got so confused I was like wait, yeah.
Speaker 3:I knew my mom was looking into giving me up. I just didn't know that she was going to give me up to this woman, so I found that out on my podcast.
Speaker 2:How the hell did you fucking hear that I mean.
Speaker 3:Because I had already kind of known, like I did get like choked up, like it was a shock Right To kind of hear that and like process that and I think I, yeah, and I think I still Like for sure, still am. That's probably why I forgot mid-sentence, you know, yeah, so, but it's been a whirlwind like there's a lot, there's a lot there, so yeah, so no wonder I got married at 17, is my point? Long story short, right like she didn't want me around, so like I was just seeking for somebody to love me, right like that's all I was doing as a kid oh, so you get married at 17.
Speaker 2:Now how long does this marriage last?
Speaker 3:oh gosh, I mean, technically we were probably married longer than we were separated, because divorce is a hell of a process, right so but we were. I mean I would say that we were. I mean I would say that we were ended. By the time my twins were like three, and so that means my oldest was, you know, five. So there was. I mean, again, you're dealing with teenagers. I'm already a step parent, like there's a lot of room for disaster in this. Like lots of grace on both ends. He, we ended up getting married into the LDS church, like I've been sealed and endowed in the temple with him, like all of this stuff, and then we left the church but there was lots of sex addiction. He is literally been in a room with therapists where they told him he's a narcissist. There was a lot of like abuse going on in my marriage too, so it was a really, really dark, hard time going through that divorce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you guys had three kids, yeah, and now post-divorce, like how did you meet your new husband?
Speaker 3:So I was working at a coffee shop, I don't even know how many years ago. Now We've been married for three this month, oh my gosh. So we've been married for three. We've been together for six. So I met him at a coffee shop that I was working at at the time. So he would come through and it's really actually really wild, totally was platonic. But I actually started working at this coffee shop when I was married to just get out of the house and we I don't know if you guys have dutch bros there it's like a really big thing here, yeah, it's a big thing out here on the West Side and he would come through. And he was actually married too when we both went through our divorce. This is wild. We didn't know this till later.
Speaker 3:We both went through our divorce and we both like disappeared for a year off the grid. You know, you're in your healing process and you're just like gone to the world. And he started coming back again a year later and I was like I swear he was married. I didn't know, you know, and I've been cheated on, so I would never write like. So I'm like I don't want to, like I got to get my feelers out. So I'd start talking about my divorce and the kids. And you know he was, I didn't realize how shy he was. Now I do married to him.
Speaker 3:But finally I was actually going to help open another coffee shop and it was my last day, and so he actually had a different woman in the car and I was like, well, I know, that's not his wife if he is married. I was like he's kind of like flirting with me and so I put it out there. I was like you're gonna have to come see me, like I'm leaving, and his co-worker was like she's totally hitting on you. And he had no clue. He just thought that I was being nice because I'm nice, so, and I'm nice, yeah, and so now we're married. So Love that. So that was a whirlwind of a childhood for you, but you kids are resilient. And it makes and it's like, yes, we have to go through this stuff. And also it's like sad, because it's like if we just had people who had those coping mechanisms right, like to teach them. And also, though, again, if we don't have those things, then we wouldn't be who we are. So it's like the both and Right. That's so true.
Speaker 2:So you met your husband at the coffee shop.
Speaker 3:And now, how did you eventually?
Speaker 2:uncover what. Yeah, so I went. What was that? No, how did that?
Speaker 3:weave in into your wall. Yeah, well, I mean that came in after I started coaching, which you know it's like. It's like the whole process right, like I've it wove into the story because I think it was just supposed to happen. I mean, I went to a retreat for myself with my mentor he wasn't my mentor at the time, but manifesting without even knowing at that time that I was manifesting. I had read his book and I was like I swear, I swear, I'm going to work with him someday. And so I ended up working with him and when I was there, I had like heard down the grapevine because my therapist was there, that he was going to start like training for life coaching, like getting certifications for that, because he's a therapist of 20 years, 20 plus years now and I was like, hey, I heard this is going to happen Like I want, I want in, you know, and so that's kind of how it got the ball rolling for my like a career, my journey and helping other women.
Speaker 3:And so when I was at this retreat though all at the same time, he did a different kind of breath work, which I wish I could tell you what it was. That I can't remember, and it freaked everyone out seriously, like everybody, like afterward was like I'm not doing that again and I was the only one. That don't get me wrong. I was freaked out. I had never experienced something like that before and also I was like there's something here, like there's something else here that, like, is super important. And so that got me curious about, like breath work.
Speaker 3:And so as I got trained in coaching, I knew that there was more. I knew that I you know I have done therapy for years. I love talking to people and there I will not give say that that's not a place and there's not a time for it with talk, therapy and mindset work. Like, I definitely do a lot of mindset work and I think it's important, especially somebody who has narcissistic abuse. Being able to share your story is such a huge thing for anyone to be able to start to stand in their truth and I think it's so important and also that stuff that's trapped in our bodies.
Speaker 3:I knew that there was like I kept hitting a wall right, like I couldn't get past the mindset work and so being able to go in and understanding when I had that moment with breath work, the body, and so I started researching different breath work and different modalities and I just came across somatic breath work and it felt right. I had a couple of phone calls with different people and different who were teaching breath work and they just seemed like the right fit for me and the modality that I wanted to pursue. And so that's how I got into teaching somatic breathwork and it's been honestly life changing. You know, right, breathwork is huge.
Speaker 2:Now I'm curious what? What book this that you reference, that you have mentors? Yeah, it's called Finding Peace by Troy Love. Okay, finding Peace by Troy.
Speaker 3:Love. So that's the certification I got was the Finding Peace certification for my life coaching and he does a Finding Peace retreat and so, yeah, that's what I do. All of my work based off of is his work. So literally, the book is what I do with my clients, along with somatic breathwork. How does his coaching work? Yeah, so I mean, his coaching might be different than mine, right, we all kind of find our like way of coaching. But what I do is we go.
Speaker 3:I personally start a lot with self compassion. Like self compassion, I say is we go? I personally start a lot with self-compassion. Like self-compassion, I say, is the foundation. So when I renewed my foundation, as we were kind of talking about rebuilding, to me when you're rebuilding, self-compassion has to be at the bottom. So that's where I start with my clients is a lot of self-compassion work, a lot of just like learning how to ground right, getting into the body with somatic breath work. So that's like where I bring in my modality and like carrot with his, is that we have to start. We're so disconnected from our bodies so we have to be able to learn what our bodies are telling us, because if we're all up here, like our minds can be. People used to say like oh, your body will lie to you, or oh, you can't trust your body. Like, no, like, get into your body. Your body is so much more intelligent than you're getting to get credit for so, so how?
Speaker 2:what was it? The book that you've read? Oh, how did you? How did you make the transition from like you were working at a coffee shop and you went on this retreat? What led you to? I'm going to do that, Well.
Speaker 3:I mean again that I've always been the person that people come share their life story with. For one, people just open up to me and feel safe with me, and I've been told a lot of times that, like my gifts are my presence and being able to meet people where they're at, and so that was woven in to that. And then I had. I remember I was in therapy and it was super random. It was during my first marriage and the therapist like stuck her head in and was like oh, oh, I just wanted to tell you that, like God I know this is gonna sound weird, but God told me if you wanted to be a therapist, you'd be a good one. And like at the time I was like I had just had my first kid and I was like you're crazy, like I'm not gonna be a therapist, like that's wild good joke and so, but that really like it was a seed right, like it was a seed of something that I didn't realize was there.
Speaker 3:And again, I went through my divorce but I had this therapist, this different therapist, and she actually worked with Troy and she was my therapist, so she worked at the retreat and so she told me to come and what I was in a group for sex addicts and wives of betrayal and they really go off of that, that, that book. So that's where I really like you know what I mean? That's kind of like where it all kind of coming was coming together. I knew that I wanted, as I was doing my own work, I knew I wanted to speak to women. I mean, I had never been in a space until and I again I've gone to therapy my whole life and I didn't people didn't get me.
Speaker 3:I didn't feel like people got me until I sat in a room with sex addicts and wives of betrayal, like until I was in that group, and it was like, oh my gosh, like you understand, like you you get it because it's a world can, can you, can you explain a little bit, just kind of for me and the listeners, like, what type of world it is?
Speaker 3:I, it's like I'm trying to like recall some memories of, like, just the uh, the emotional like somebody, the pain of what your partner is doing and how it's not your fault. I think again, as women like we can sit and think like, oh they're, they're looking at porn, oh they're cheating on me, oh they're going to strip clubs, they're doing all of these things and we think it's us Right, we're so hard on ourselves. And to be able to, even in that space, sit in a room where they're, you're dealing with a bunch of other women and their partners who are doing the same thing, and the mental and emotional toll of choosing to stick with your partner too, like what that's like to walk through this with them and their addictions. I mean women who had their husbands, had lost their jobs and, you know, had had to go, and people I know, women who their husbands had got other women pregnant, like, and were staying with them, like to be able to be in a space like that and have other like-minded women was a life-changing for me. I, you know that's what I base off, my groups, my women groups too, now, and my women groups are very much more broad, like all walks of life Because, again, like when we kind of like share the resilience right, resilience is trauma, like to me is like equals trauma, right, like we all have trauma. So being able to sit in a space with other like minded women who are in healing, right For right for me though I also was so young and you don't know what, you don't know.
Speaker 3:So when I say sitting in a room space anyways, like that was already enlightening. You know, I was 20, 21 at the time right like that I'm sitting in this space where somebody's asking me what I was feeling, like that that alone was like shocking to me. I was like I don't know how I feel. I'd say, fine, right, I'm fine, I'm okay, right, like everything's good. What is that? My kid? That's gonna be like the things that my kids like when they're older, that they say like, oh, I hated when my mom did this, because anytime my kids say like I'm fine, good or okay, I'm like those aren't feelings, try again so I love that they think fine, good, or okay, you say those aren't feelings, try again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, literally that's what I say to them.
Speaker 3:So then do they give you a different answer yeah, I mean, my oldest is 13 now, so sometimes she'll, you know, roll her eyes or laugh, you know. But but yeah, they all know, even like us going side note, even us going to see inside out. My, this is my first time. My oldest was like can I sit away from you as my friend mom? I was like what a movie to ask that, like break my heart. But they all laugh at me. It's like a thing in the house they all look at me because I'll just cry at the end of every movie. So they all had made a pact to not look at me and let me have my moment and inside out too, to cry this time.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh oh my, gosh, my always oh, go ahead, no go, you're good. Yeah, so anyways, just being able to be in that space. I mean, I remember them like handing me a feeling wheel and asking me what I was feeling in my feeling wheel, and I was, I remember, right, like that anxiety because I didn't know what was happening. It's all of these unknowns you don't know, and the anxiety of like, oh my gosh, when they get to me, what am I feeling? And you know, listening to other people share what they're feeling and it's like, well, am I feeling that way? Just the lack of trust in myself. Right, I had no idea who I was, because it was always told who I was to me by everybody else. So being in a space where I was something was, you know, healing in of itself okay, no, what's the?
Speaker 3:what's the feeling wheel, the feeling well, you've never seen the feeling wheel. No, yeah, it's like a big wheel. You can look it up like gotman has a big feeling wheel. It's like a big circle and it just has like different feelings on it.
Speaker 2:I just typed it up on. Okay, yeah.
Speaker 3:I give them as stickers to my clients that they can.
Speaker 2:I like this, okay. Yeah, I'm going to create emotions for emotional Okay, or you?
Speaker 3:could always, always. I mean, this isn't the feeling wheel, but bernie brown has a great book out, atlas of the heart. That she has. It has so many of the. She's a shame researcher, but she has, but it has. The book is full of words like, or emotions excuse me, full of emotions. It goes in a depth about what the emotions are interesting, wow.
Speaker 2:But you know, what really stood out to me and everything you were saying is that you were unaware, you just you didn't have the awareness of how you felt, which I think a lot of people experience. Oh yeah, you, you don't know what you don't know. I say that all the time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like you don't, like, you can't. And again, that's why self-compassion has to be the foundation, because once you do start to know, you start to beat yourself up and it's like dude, you didn't know, like, be kind to yourself.
Speaker 2:That makes so much sense. So it seems like the support system was a big factor for you in that group.
Speaker 3:Sex addicts and wives of betrayal. Oh yeah, that was huge for me because I didn't have support. I was homeless for a time after my divorce.
Speaker 2:Oh, ok, you didn't mention that we go from divorce to the next marriage. Meanwhile, you are homeless in between the two.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I told you there's a lot there. We could unpack so many other things within my story that it's just, it's like a bowl of spaghetti. You just got to take a noodle and pick one and we can go over it. So it's.
Speaker 2:It was wild so you were homeless post-divorce of your first husband. Yeah, where was he? Where were the kids?
Speaker 3:He had control of the money. So I'm young and don't know, and I didn't have a high school diploma, I didn't have a college degree. I'm working at this coffee shop that I said I had taken for you know, for side like to just get out of the house because I was going to lose my mind. And at that time you got to remember, well, I had just had twins and, true, at that time I had just found out that, like, during that space also, like my ex had been cheating on me with his ex, who I'm a stepmother to. So that was like a huge you know what I mean like it was just all around not going well and so I needed to get out of the house. I needed something for me. But when we he sold the house because it was in his name, he took control, control over that. He wasn't even going to give me money until finally he had talked to a lawyer and they told him he had to. So that was the only reason and that was what got me into an apartment and I was able and I mean, I don't even know how I did it from that point, honestly, I remember opening up to do taxes and I had made twelve thousand dollars that year, living in an apartment by myself with three kids. And I remember opening it up and just bawling Like, how do you? I still look back and go like, how did I make it? How did I do it? Like it doesn't make sense on paper. What do you think about it? Make sense on paper, what do you think about it? No, I was making over a thousand dollars, like or a thousand dollars just for my apartment. So does it add up? It does not make sense. And I'm like something had me, something was protecting me and so good, no, I keep, but so anyways. So I I remember sitting in where I was working in my car and having this conversation with my sister-in-law at the time and she was got to get out of the house. You got to try to get somebody control over the finances.
Speaker 3:But again, I'm young and I don't know, and I'm in an abusive relationship who has control over the money, like you don't know what to do in that. And at that it was like set on saving my marriage, like I still like again, the blinders were on. I did not see it because I just thought it was me. I thought I was the problem. Growing up the way that I did and getting into this abusive marriage, I just thought I was a problem and I needed to be fixed and I didn't know what to do. He was moving in with his mom and he, I mean, I wasn't gonna live there, I couldn't. And so she's another level of abuse as well, like super, I mean super toxic, like it was very demeaning, like I couldn, couldn't you know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Like, again, there was one time in the beginning of our marriage just to give a scenario of that relationship, where he was like threatening that he didn't want to live anymore, my ex-husband and she called me and said, like if he does, it's your fault, like this is your fault, and so, like, just you know, so I like knew that I couldn't be there. So there were some you know friends at Dutch Bros that, like you know, they let me sleep on their couches, and that probably happened for a month or two until he finally was told that he had to give me money to get into an apartment. So, yeah, so that was really hard because I didn't have a place and because I didn't have family, because my mom like wasn't supportive or around, and again, everything was my fault. I mean, she had even told me too that at one point, like him cheating on me was my fault. So, like you gotta think, like I got all of these people around me telling me I'm the problem and no support, and then I went to go try to find support by one of his sisters too, and she even she, I fight.
Speaker 3:I remember I sat down and had a really hard conversation with her, looking for support, like asking for her to believe and trust me, and she's like, well, you're just so angry all the time and again like it's so sad because like anger is such an emotion that people are like so disconnected to, so disconnected to and it's like, of course, you know. Again, looking back now, of course I was angry, like of course, and like that's all other people they'll look at right Was like, oh, she's angry and it's like so my husband at the time like went back the next day, even though she said that she believed me and wanted to be there. A narcissist talked to you and now it all makes sense and it's all good in the world and Abigail's wrong. Again Again, I can see that now, right, but at the time it was completely devastating because I was looking for hope and my brother I stopped talking to my brother at that point.
Speaker 3:Again, another side story I had stopped talking to my brother at that point because the last time I had a conversation with him was it's really interesting, and I still haven't totally like unfolded this thought, but that was, honestly, I would say, like even there are pieces of it that were even worse than my divorce or even worse than like my marriage or my mom, I think him being like kind of like a father figure to me there's still stuff to unpack there because he was older and have that space.
Speaker 3:But he, him and his wife and my ex-husband, who was my husband at the time, sat me down to tell me how horrible of a mother I was, and I left there and really did think that I was going to go kill myself, like that was when I was ready to be done. So that was probably and I know that seems a while that that was the moment, but that was probably like the build up to like All right, I'm done, like I'm I'm obviously not a good mom, I'm not a good wife, I'm not a good person Like we should just end it. And this song came on the radio and that was called. It was from this, it's from this Christian band that was called breathe into me, and I don't know. It stopped me and and I kind of just picked up from there. I mean, I didn't know what I was going to do, you know, but for some reason I knew that there was something bigger than what I was currently experiencing.
Speaker 2:First of all, I am so glad you did not take your life that day. But wow, that sounds so hard. Yeah, it was. How did you come to be able to know your, your worth being here, I mean?
Speaker 3:it's again, it's a lot of it's. It took time, I mean, I think it's a. I think we all still you know there's pieces of us that are still like working on it, like I'm still working on it every day. When you have that much abuse, like is relearning to trust myself, like that kind of I mean, is CPTSD right? Like that kind of complex trauma is, oh, it's hard, like the dissociation is difficult to break down and break through, and so I would say that you know that's where breathwork came in, that like breathwork being able to really get more into my body.
Speaker 3:But I did years like I said, years of therapy and I have an amazing, I had an amazing therapist Like I cannot. She really was an embodiment of what to me, like what a higher power or God or whatever you would say is, like she was my light, like I am so thankful for her and that's all I feel like I want to give to somebody else is to know that when you're in the trenches, like I'm in it with you because I want to be what I didn't have right yeah, no, I think that's great and I think that's what a lot of us are trying to do is be the person we didn't have.
Speaker 2:You know, I saw, I saw a meme recently that said and I'm probably gonna butcher this, but it said something along the lines of the woman I am today would have protected me as a child and and that's all I need you know what you can care of me as a child, or something like that. And it's, you know, and that makes me, yeah, you know, like I would have taken care of younger me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but you're taking care of younger you now and that's like where the healing is. That's true, the inner child work.
Speaker 2:That is very, very true, wow. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. Yeah, I really appreciate it. Now, have you heard of a man named jay shetty?
Speaker 3:yeah, I actually did, uh like with somebody that he I don't know who she is, but I actually did like a mini podcast interview with one of them on his page at one point, like a year or so ago oh okay, aren't you cool, no I would it'd be cooler. It will be cooler when we can have like jay shetty on my podcast. That will be really cool.
Speaker 2:That'll be the manifestation, right so so what you were on, what was this you did?
Speaker 3:They did like a mini series at one point where they had coaches on and like, yeah, so I went and did it. Okay, that's cool. I don't know how long ago it was, like through his Jay Shetty, like coaching certification thing. Okay, long story short, I know who Jay Shetty is.
Speaker 2:Sorry, no, okay, we got that long story short. I know who. Jay shetty is big fan of his podcast and now he ends his podcast with these two segments and I stole them and I incorporate them in mine because I think they're great. So the first one is called the many Sides to Us. There was five questions and they've got to be answered word each. Okay, number one what is one word someone who was meeting you for the first time would use to describe you?
Speaker 3:One word of someone who's meeting me for the first time describe me.
Speaker 2:Open Number two. What is one word that someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you? Describe you One word.
Speaker 3:Just a few. A few Say like trying to think of an overcompensating word, maybe light.
Speaker 2:Okay, what is one word you'd use to describe yourself?
Speaker 3:A present. What is one You'd use to describe yourself? You Present.
Speaker 2:What is one word that if someone didn't agree with you, didn't like you or agree with your mindset, Would use to describe you. Contradictory. What is one word You're embodying right now? Expansive? What is one word you're embodying right now? Expansive? Now the final five, and these can be answered in a sentence. Okay, number one what is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:the best advice? Oh man, that's a loaded question. I mean probably the phrase that I use a lot like you don't know what you don't know I say that a lot too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I say that a lot, even in terms of podcasting. So many people have said to me why do you do it this way?
Speaker 3:and I'm just like listen, bro, I don't know what, I don't know yeah, but if you, I think that, like you'll get stuck if you, if you just wait to know no, I agree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what I mean. Like, so no, but I I say that voice literally, like, listen, because, like, when I first started recording videos, I was using zoom. Why don't you have a better video platform, bro? If I don't know the wow, if I don't know the other platforms, I don't know the other platform exactly that's what I say.
Speaker 3:But you like, good on you, you were doing it. That's my point. Like you just took the next step right, like you were doing it and I love that.
Speaker 2:That's true, but I love that advice. Number two what is the worst advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 3:Oh man, the worst advice there's. A couple come to mind. I had a pastor once tell me to forgive and forget, and so I think that that was probably the worst advice to somebody in abuse that could be given. Can I add another one? Yes, just for people who have or are dealing with some kind of sex addict abuse that just have more sex with them, probably top two okay, people told you to have more sex with him oh yeah, you're just not having more sex with them again, like it's your problem.
Speaker 3:It's your fault, I know wow, wow.
Speaker 2:Number three what is something that you used to value that you no longer value?
Speaker 3:so this is like a a double-edged sword, because I do value marriage, so I want to state that. And also, I don't value divorce the way that I used to. If you met me when I was going through what I went through, I wore it like a badge of honor that I wasn't the one who asked for divorce. But looking back now and seeing how much abuse was going on, at the end of the day I just didn't love myself enough or didn't. And again, you don't know what you don't know there's grace there that I didn't see my worth on how I was being treated, and so I would never ask myself to go through what I did again, or anybody for that matter. So that's why I choose that. That's why I choose that.
Speaker 2:Okay, if you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it, what would you want it to say?
Speaker 3:My legacy If somebody was reading it. I mean that when you were with me, that you knew that you were loved, that you knew that you were loved, that you knew that you were valued and that you matter, and that when you sat with me, everything in the world was going to be okay and that there was more for you.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's beautiful. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be?
Speaker 3:and I want to know why, hello oh my gosh, it makes me think of um. I have like a two-part answer like it makes my husband and I joke about this. Well, so it's, this is more of a jokey one, but like we joke about like that when babies are born they should just like all the guys should just have um, like they're to have their like incision like be cut, and then you have to have like therapy before you decide to like go have babies, like what is it the vasectomy? Like they should all have a vasectomy before, and then you have to you get married and then you have to go through a process to have kids. So we joke about that one. I mean, think about it. Like that could be could set a lot of people up for success, you know you know it, I I.
Speaker 2:They let just anybody have kids, like you were certain fucking license to fish, right, that's what I'm saying, though like so it didn't need a life.
Speaker 3:You wasn't exactly so if you had a baby and just if it was a boy, like vasectomy and it's easily reversible for them. So, like, once they decide and you've gone through therapy and, like you and your partner, you know what I mean. Like sounds like a good idea to me. Okay, that was the funny part. But Allah, I mean I don't, I, I don't know, I don't, I don't feel like I can play God in that way. That's a tough one, like to say what somebody shouldn't or shouldn't do. I think we all have this life experience and we're doing it the best that we can with what we've been given. So that's a it's a hard one to say. I think I'm just gonna stick with the joking one and now I have one more question for you.
Speaker 2:This is not from jay shetty, this is just a question from me. Okay, if you happen to have the attention of the whole world for five minutes, what would you say?
Speaker 3:oh my gosh. The attention of the whole world, that's a lot of pressure. Oh my gosh. I I mean go to therapy, go do therapy, you're enough. Go do psychedelics, therapy, psychedelics. I know a whole nother line that we could go down right like we might go back on that comment like, go do therapeutic, don't just go do it.
Speaker 3:Okay, therapeutic psychedelics yeah, get support. Like you got to have support, get support. If you don't have support, like seek it out. Like you. Sometimes you have to look for that support. Right, like, listen to my story. I had to seek it out, but it's there. You just got to keep going and look for that support. Right, like, listen to my story. I had to seek it out, but it's there. You just gotta keep going and look for it. Know that you are worthy. You're not deserving like I hate that the you deserve, you deserve something. Or that you can like earn your worth. No, like, you are already worthy right now, exactly how you are. It doesn't matter what has happened to you, what you've done, you are, you're worthy. I said today now psychedelics.
Speaker 2:What psychedelics have you? I love them. Yeah, psychedelics have you done? Yeah, I mean, I'm very intrigued.
Speaker 3:I did a little bit of um ketamine treated therapy, and then I also just I'm actually getting I don't know what you would call it like trained to hold space for bufo, and so I've done bufo too, okay, which is the sacred sonoran toad earth medicine so, and now does bufo.
Speaker 2:Do you have hallucinogen effect with that one?
Speaker 3:oh yeah, you can, I mean you can like have it definitely can look like.
Speaker 3:For me afterward it was like very like kaleidoscope, you know, coming in.
Speaker 3:It's the way that I'm being taught by my facilitator and I'm actually doing this at my retreat in August is holding a Bufo ceremony with it's a women's retreat and we're they don't do like a big dose, like it's a meditative dose and the reason I really appreciate this again, if you had dissociation, if you've had CPTSC right like you've had dissociation, if you've had cptsd right like you've had these like narcissistic, emotional mental relationships, it can be really scary to like give up right, like give up the control and be afraid of the unknown, and that's me.
Speaker 3:So if you relate to that, like having a meditative dose of this, you're still present enough taking this. They call it god's molecule, so it's like very purpose driven, like understanding your purpose and like being able to root into that, and so the meditative dose really just allows you to be present, but also like if you choose to let go, like you get the choice, and I think that that's really important for people who have those things and what's really cool is we go into breath work right after I like how you mentioned the meditative state and I think I think that's also really key with psychedelics.
Speaker 2:I think they're very, they can very helpful, but be cautious where you do them. Yes, don't just do psychedelics anywhere. A lot of places offer psychedelics. That does not mean it's a safe mentally, emotionally, physically, et cetera place to do that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and think about your reasoning. You know what I mean. Why are you going into it? It's very, it is very sacred, like certain ones, and I do know that this is very wooey for people who might not be very wooey listening, but it really is interesting when you start like getting curious. It is it does call to you. If you are open to it and you will, if you can learn to trust yourself and your body, like you will be guided. Like there are some that I have no interest in and then there are some that I do and maybe I'll be interested in later, but like really trusting that process of knowing what is being called to you and building that relationship with that.
Speaker 2:I love everything you just said there what's being called to and building the relationship with it, because I say that all the time. Now I've done ayahuasca. I did that two years ago, but prior to doing it I was in a relationship with this man who was going to do it and he really wanted me to do it with him and I did not feel called to it, wanted me to do it with him and I was. I did not feel called to it. It actually stemmed a big to do between the two of us because I wouldn't do it with him but I didn't feel called to, even though then I then still did it a year later. It was then right for me. You know, like it might not be for you today, even if that's not psychedelics, whatever it is is. It might be for you today, but it might not be you know, yes, yes, and you're 100% right.
Speaker 3:Like, really, and I commend you for sticking to your guns and not doing it. And again like the fact that a year later it did call to you though, right, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like and yeah, he tried to get me. He was like I'll pay for it.
Speaker 3:I'll pay for it, I'll live, I'm like I bufo, I haven't, okay. So that's the really beautiful thing about bufo, too, is that it's only about 15 to 20 minutes. So that's why we're able to go and do this, and then we go right into breath work. So that's the so you're still in that space, because then we're really able to like let go if we choose, and then go into breath work and really, like embodies, bring in what you're wanting to bring back in that's fascinating.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, thank you so much for speaking with me. We will have to do this again at some point. Yeah, I, I have more I could say to you. I really really do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I'm open, we can totally come back around too.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much, and well, can the listeners connect with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so thank you so much for having me on. I appreciate it. I hope that you or your listeners got what they needed from this episode. I really am an own book, so if anyone needs anything, please know that I'm here for you or your listeners. You can find me at really on any platform with Abigail Lavisi no space. That's my website and my Instagram and all the things. I gave you my link tree, which will be in there and that gives you all my stuff. I have free daily practices on there and has all my links, so I tried to make it easy for them. But if you are interested in Bufo and breathwork I don't know when this is being released, but that will be available in Carlsbad, california.
Speaker 2:So California, that's exciting. Thank you so much. Yeah, now, before we close out. That's exciting. Well, thank you so much. Yeah, now, before we close out, is there any final words? You want to leave with the listeners? No pressure whatsoever. I do just like to leave the floor to the guest.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks, no, I thank you for being here. Thank you, listeners, for listening how I usually close out my stuff is when it's mine, I say I show up, so you can too. But then when I leave, I say keep showing up, because I will too. So that's how I'll close out is keep showing up because I will too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, guys, keep showing up, because I will too. And thanks for listening. In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm rooting for you, I'm booting for you and you got this, as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks, guys, until next time.
