21. The Body as a Guide: Somatic Healing and Learning to Trust Your Inner Signals with Alyssa Cohen

In this episode, Jess sits down with somatic healing practitioner Alyssa Cohen to explore how the body holds our stories, how chronic pain forms, and why healing has to begin from within.

Alyssa shares her journey from intense chronic illness and a life-altering concussion to discovering the transformational impact of somatic healing, inner child work, meditation, and nervous system regulation. Together, Jess and Alyssa unpack why so many women hit a breaking point - often after years of pressure, over-functioning, and emotional overload - and why symptoms show up long before we recognize them.

This episode dives into:

• Somatic healing and learning to feel safe in your body
• How unprocessed emotions, stress, and childhood conditioning become physical symptoms
• Why it’s so hard to hear your intuition when you’re stuck in fight, flight, or functional freeze
• How chronic pain is often tied to inner child wounds, shame, overpressure, and perfectionism
• What it means to build a relationship with the unknown and trust your body’s signals
• Small, practical steps that start shifting your healing from the inside out
• Why so many women on a spiritual awakening path report illness, grief, or burnout as their turning point

Alyssa breaks down somatic healing into relatable, accessible steps and explains how our physical symptoms are often intelligent responses to years of emotional load. You’ll hear about the power of slowing down, sensing instead of thinking, and treating the body like a messenger rather than a problem to fix.

Whether you’re navigating anxiety, chronic pain, burnout, or a lifetime of being “the strong one,” this conversation offers direction, validation, and real hope.

If you’ve ever wondered why your body feels overwhelmed, disconnected, or unpredictable... this episode will help you understand the deeper layers and begin returning to yourself.

Connect with Alyssa Here -- 

Substack: https://acteacher.substack.com/

Instagram: @alyssacohenteacher

Healing From Within Course:

https://alyssacohen.thinkific.com/courses/healing-from-within

If this episode spoke to you, it would mean the world if you took a moment to leave a review or share it with a friend who needs it. And make sure you hit follow so you never miss an episode of The Becoming You Project.

You can connect with me on Instagram @jesscallahan_, join my Substack community at becomingyouproject.substack.com, or explore more of my work at jesscallahan.com.

My Back in the Body Nervous System Healing course is now available! Find it here.

Thanks for listening — I’m so grateful you’re here.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:03

Hey guys, welcome back. I'm so excited to share this discussion with you today. It brings together like the transformative power of somatic healing, meditation, and inner child work. So my conversation today is with Alyssa Cohen, and she helps people navigate illness, trauma, grief, or disconnection to rediscover safety in the body and learn to trust their inner guidance again. So without further delay, let's dive in. Alyssa, thank you so much for being with me today. I'm really excited that we're finally able to connect. It's been a back and forth for a few months. And so I'm excited to have this conversation with you today. I would love to start by just like, um, I'd love to just hear your story. If you could just share your story, um, you know, what what is it that brought you to where you are today?

Speaker 1: 1:00

So I think the starting point for me, I wouldn't be where I am today if I wasn't really sick as both a teenager and you know, as a young adult, when I graduated from business school with a very type A orientation to life, I was too sick to work. Uh, I could barely walk. I was in intense chronic pain, and there were really not a lot of answers. And finally, you know, when my degree finished, it's like my life came to a total halt and had been living away for four years, and I was back in my childhood bedroom. Like, now what? How do I move forward from here? And my mind was not very open. And I was in Toronto at the time, and it was a long time ago. So there wasn't choices of alternative practitioners per se, very, very little. And um, but I found my way to yoga at the time. My question was, what is yoga? So it just sort of shows you how times have changed. And um, there was a beautiful teacher who started to help me learn to feel safe in my body and learn to exhale again, which I really hadn't been doing for a very long time. And that beginning step, you know, opened me on the path of then became meditation. Meditation has been a huge, huge part of my life, central force of my life, you know, for you know, 30 years now. So that began, and then somehow, I don't know quite how, but I got myself to an osteopath and I got myself into therapy, and from a very small world, my world started to open, and I started to really change. And I started to change my understanding of what pain is and what causes pain and how to be with pain and how to heal pain in a way that well made me not want to do my business job anymore, and sent me on an expedition to India where I was backpacking. So this is, you know, I could barely walk around the block, and now I'm backpacking to India. So it was a pretty huge pivot in my life and studying in ashrams and just wanting to understand this miraculous thing that made such a big difference in my life. Uh, I ended up doing yoga teacher training and then from there just continued to. I did a body-based uh psychotherapy training based in the body from the yoga tradition. That had a pretty big influence on my understanding of how our stories are trapped in our bodies and really formed so much of my work. I was running groups for people in chronic pain and teaching this hybrid mix of yoga meditation and embodied healing that I learned mostly from my own healing, but some from that training. And I studied with a Reiki practitioner who was really focused on somatic awareness. And so that also shaped my understanding. And I just kept growing, ended up having three kids along the way, and so learned a lot also through healing the trauma that they mirrored back to me. I do believe our children are our greatest teachers. There's not really any hiding when you have they just everything you don't want to see, everything you have been processed. You know, in my 20s, I thought I had healed my childhood until I had children. I'm like, oh wait, it's all here still.

Speaker: 4:45

There's more layers to peel back, right? And there's a lot more here. Yeah, there's always more layers.

Speaker 1: 4:50

There's a lot more. So lots and lots of therapy. And over time, the therapy that I found became more spiritual, more embodied, less just talking. And um I have explored so many different kinds of modalities over the years for myself, and then have apprenticed with some just phenomenal healers who've taught me so much about energetics and helped me create a relationship with the unknown, which has completely changed the course of my life and my work. And you know, I heard someone who I'm I'm doing a sacred rage facilitator program at the moment, because I do think that so much rage is especially for women, is trapped in our ailments. And she said something which I found so profound. She was talking about creating a relationship with the unknown, being able to sit in deep presence with someone without knowing what's gonna happen. One of the other trainees, I suppose, was worried that she wouldn't know what to say. And just in that conversation, it really reflected to me just how much energy and effort I have spent, although that's not exactly the right orientation, it would be probably more accurate to say how much surrendering I have done of my effort in order to create a relationship with my listening that really guides my work and my life so profoundly.

Speaker: 6:21

Yeah, I think that that's such an important idea. It's something I've been sitting with a lot lately, too. Just I think that when you can release control, we all, you know, we want to control the outcome, we want to know what's gonna happen. We, but it does it. We hold on to so much like tension around that idea that I think it does prevent, you know, effective release of emotions or healing. Um, so yeah, this whole idea of just like sitting in the unknown, being okay in any situation, trusting yourself that you'll be able to handle whatever comes up and just like trusting that yeah, just that as the unknown unfolds, it will lead you somewhere. As long as you trust yourself, um, it'll lead you somewhere wherever it's supposed to lead you, I guess. So, okay, I want to go back to um, I mean, your your journey sounds um it's uh it's fascinating. It's there's hard points, but there's magic in it in the you know, the traveling through India and exploring like yoga in in that like sort of sacred space. Um, do you think that had you not been sick? I think you said this at the beginning. Like it do you think this wouldn't have sparked this entire journey for you? You think that that was the impetus that drove you to search for more?

Speaker 1: 7:43

Definitely, definitely. I would have continued with my corporate life. And I don't think that I don't think there would have been any impetus. I think the sickness, and is often the case, is just like this is where you're going, it's a roadblock, and you know, there was no more going in the direction that I was going. So it really did, it really did change me and bring me to myself in a way that and it actually just wasn't that time. I had, I guess I hadn't learned everything the first time around when I was 40. Um I fell and had a pretty serious concussion and was immobilized for a long time and really, really unwell for many years, really struggling with just the basics of I had a homeopathy practice, I had three children, I was trying to run my house, and I was really dizzy and really just struggling. And I feel like that period of time in that struggle, it's like I had created all these layers of adaptation to the trauma and all of these ways of functioning that I thought were so awakened. And I think in some ways they were, but that concussion, it was like that whole scaffolding that I created, you know, on top of what had ailed me, it just crumbled down. And there I was on this like terrain that wasn't that fertile, and having to start all over again with an entirely new level of literally like what can I do this particular 30 seconds? And it that going through that was a very long journey, and um I think that is another example of where I was going too fast, I was thinking I could do lots of things. I was there was still a performative aspect to what I was doing, even though I didn't know it. And so that it brought a kind of raw, real and even deeper surrender.

Speaker: 10:08

How did it like when you were in it? I know, I mean, it sounds like you're somebody who you know is intuitively guided and you see the path as like leading you to where you're supposed to be. But in that moment, like, is that what it felt like that you or was it just like how did you yeah, how did you know that it was like leading you to where you are now?

Speaker 1: 10:31

I I didn't. I mean, this is in hindsight. In in the moment, I was just totally broken, not just in the moment, but in the in the time period, I was really broken and really struggling and using all the skills that I know to try and heal, and they weren't working that well. So, you know, it's again like I think that when you're pushed up against nothing that I know is helping me, nothing that the people around me I know is helping either. Then then what do you do? And so many people are in this situation where they have ailments that are not for which there are no easy medical solutions. Um and you know, when the suppressive drugs don't work, like then what?

Speaker: 11:23

It's so there's so many of us that are I think on the on this path, I mean, really, since I've like started the podcast, I most of the women that I have come into contact with have had some sort of point where like they just couldn't go on any longer with what they were doing, like whether there was like you know, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, chronic pain, you know, in my instance it was fibromyalgia and having to walk away from the businesses that I built because of just like a massive, it's the same when you say like there was no more going forward on that path. I feel that deeply because I know like when you just like there's just a block, obviously the physical pain, but there's just you just literally can't, you have to pick a different path. And it's like it's a blind feel, you're really just like searching for anything that you can reach out to that will sort of anchor you along. But um, it's I think it's yeah, I think it's just so much more widespread than maybe we realize.

Speaker 1: 12:29

I think so. And and I think that that kind of profound change, you know, we become attached to our ways, like in your case, you build businesses, like you know, it's a lot of time, energy, passion, you know, identity built into that. So, you know, unless we're forced to make a change or you know, really dig deep, most people won't because like life is busy and full as it is. So unless like there's some relatively propelling impetus, you know, some kind of grief, uh like some loss, some very intense misfortune or some kind of illness is what tends to put people on a path of searching because within them they don't have the resources to cope with what life has given them. And I think that's the seed of the spiritual path for many people is like, where else can I hold myself? Like, where where is the support that you know now I feel is really all around me, under me, around me? Like there's so much support. But I didn't know that, I didn't feel it as a living thing that I could lean into at any moment that could root me, that could guide me. Like that has taken a lot of years of fumbling along until you know I became connected to something that you know, I heard spiritual teachers saying, Oh, but it's all it's just right in you. But I until you find it, it it's they're just words.

Speaker: 14:05

Yeah, yeah, you have it is. It's you have to find it, you have to feel it in order to connect with it. And that's not something that you can just make a choice to do. And I think like I think the choice to follow a new path, whatever that path is, whatever you have to modify or leave behind, it like it also feels irrational, I think. And we're like you search for more, you want more, but you're like, but who am I to like want more and want something different? And so I think in many cases we just let ourselves continue on the path until we do have physical ailments that are like, you know, okay, like it's time to time to stop now. Like if you're not gonna listen to the cues, then yeah, the small signs.

Speaker 1: 14:45

I wrote an article years ago that said, Don't wait till you fall on your head. And you know, I didn't want to be living in the city. I really wanted to be living in nature, and yet somehow I ended up back in the city, and then next thing you know, I had a house in the city, and kids were in school in the city, and a husband with the company in the city, and just like everything was city, city, city. It wasn't where I wanted to be, and it really wasn't where my oldest son was just like it was not right for him. And I remember about like I remember this very clear moment, about 10 months after that concussion. I was walking in a busy street in downtown Toronto, and there was all kinds of construction, and you know, my head was so permeable to every kind of noise. And I was walking around, like unable to brace against the construction. And I just like had a moment where I'm like, okay, I'm done. I'll never heal, I'll I will never heal living here. I can't live here anymore. Wow, and it wasn't a mental decision, it was just like a knowing that like my time here is finished. Yeah. And from that moment, like these like this whirlwind of change happened. Within three months, we had purchased a property outside Toronto, which was like not on the game plan at all.

Speaker: 16:07

And um it's like synchronicities, right? When something is supposed to happen and your trust in that feeling. It's like a gift of clear cognizance, right? Like just that like the knowing. And so when you when you receive that feeling and then you trust it, I think that's when the path unfolds and you experience the synchronicities that just say, like, where you look back and you're like, I have no clue how this happened or where this came, like, why are we here three months later?

Speaker 1: 16:36

But like it's just yeah, I knew it was that I've had many of those moments in my life where there's just a moment of very deep clarity, and it's so clear that I can't deny it, even if I wanted to. And once you've had a few of those, I think when that feeling comes, it it's easier to recognize. Oh, this is my inner voice telling me this is this is the truth, and everything else, you know, falls away.

Speaker: 17:04

Yeah. So I think okay, going back to like this feeling, this like embodied healing and different like modalities. So I don't think that it's easy for everybody to be able to recognize those like pings that come, right? Like there's when you're living in a way that's like not connected, I think it's yeah, it's just it's harder to hear it. Um, like how does that how does that come up for you like today? And and when you say embodied healing, like what do you mean by that?

Speaker 1: 17:36

There's lots of different formats. I mean, maybe I can speak to the question in a couple of ways. So when you take someone that doesn't have a meditation practice, doesn't really have a practice of listening within to what their body is saying, and they're they're living a life that's based on what's happening around them, you know, what their family needs, what's their job needs, what's expected of them, what they perceive they ought to do, you know, for whatever reason or another, but not really from a place of sensing from within. And, you know, for anyone that has any kind of soul that wants to be more connected, eventually something will happen to that person, which usually looks like an ailment that they can't they can't heal. And it may not be a full-blown chronic disease, it could just be an ailment. Um, or in in many cases, by the time people have come to me come to me, because I'm really anyone's first stop, you know, they have really complex chronic disease and now they're trying to unwind their way out of that. And you know, so it begins by you know, very simply learning how to spend some time being with what is, with compassion and patience, and trust that the load of life brought you to this place, that you haven't done anything wrong, and and learning how to make space internally to be in acceptance instead of in resistance. So that to me is always step one. And while it's a little hard for people to do on their own, it's not impossible and it's not months worth of meditation, you know. Like I have one practice, it's 10 minutes. That is just the beginnings of you practice this every day and you learn and with a little bit of philosophy, you know, learning how to really come out of well, I should have this, I could have that, I didn't this, he didn't this, you know, into this ailment that you have is not separate from you, it's not a disease that's happened to you, it's emerged from your life, from the very real struggles that you've had in your life. And when we can see our struggles that way, even our complex diseases that way. Even I have cancer patients that can now, you know, see that through that lens. It just brings so much relief because it's stressful feeling like something is happening to my body and I don't know what and I don't know how to help myself. So that's the first step for me in embodied somatic healing of anything, is trusting that the load of life, drama from childhood, every other kind of load that has been more than you could handle has stressed you to the point that your body, who's so intelligent, the body is so intelligent in maintaining balance. But just if you imagine like carrying a bag on one shoulder, and you know, at first it's just a pound, but then it's two and three and four. Next thing you know, it's like a 10-pound bag, and you're carrying it, but you don't know it. And so then you're so perplexed, like, well, what is wrong with my shoulder? And as soon as we come to sort of see through the lens of the things that we've been carrying that have been too much, and most people don't see it because they're so used to carrying these things that they're not aware. And so it's very difficult for them to give themselves that level of compassion. And that to me, that's step one.

Speaker: 21:29

I think like also when you're living in a dysregulated state of the nervous system, I think a lot of times that happens when we're carrying stress chronically, right? And this when we don't release the stress, we get stuck in, you know, some like functional freeze, freeze, fight or flight. Somewhere in that space, you get stuck. And I think when you get stuck, you especially in a free state, like you can go numb. And so it, you know, carrying that heavy bag on your shoulder, like you said, like it would be um, it's easy to not recognize that you're carrying the bag because you're not feeling you're not like consciously feeling many things in that state. Um, so you just overlook it and you like kind of sweep it under the rug, and you're like, it'll be fine, it'll get better when it'll be, you know, but it's not gonna get better until you like make the choice to go around.

Speaker 1: 22:22

The other thing that you're speaking to, like if people are in a freeze state and they're not aware, then there's a random pain. You know, it always starts as something that for which there's no fantastic solution.

unknown: 22:35

All right.

Speaker 1: 22:36

So if you're carrying a heavy bag and you don't know it, the equivalent of, let's say, this energetic heavy load, and then you go to the physiotherapy. And now you have a little ultrasound and you have some shoulder strengthening exercises, and maybe that helps a little bit because if you're carrying something heavy, it would be good to have stronger shoulders, but that isn't the problem. But the medical professionals are only trained to see the body, they don't see that you know, what other load, they don't see the load of guilt and the load of shame, and they don't see in low backs the financial fear, and they don't see in in asthma the grief, like that there's so much that they don't see. So when you just treat the body in a physical way without making the connection to the person, like you know, like who am I as a person in my life? What's happened to me? What's what's happening to me? And without that connection, it doesn't really work. It doesn't really work that well. Just like a band-aid, really. Well, it could be a little supportive, like depending, you know, if you are playing sports and you have a shoulder injury and you're otherwise not tremendously stressed and you're relatively well resourced and well adapted, then you could go resolve your shoulder problem and off you go. You know, if you are playing sports and you're someone who is relatively stressed, not that well resourced with a pretty large load of unprocessed trauma, the same kind of injury won't really heal. And the physiotherapist who's seen the other person or the other 10 people who didn't have that trauma load, which they're not trained to ask about, and they do these things, their shoulder heals. So they'll tell you, yeah, just do this, this, and this, and it will heal. But they don't realize that in your case, no, maybe not, because that injury has now become a pocket where all this other load that was circulating looking for a place to live is now decided, oh, there's a weak weak link, I'll live there. Wow.

Speaker: 24:39

Wow. So okay, that was so step one is trusting that there's like a how would you summarize what step one was?

Speaker 1: 24:49

I would say trusting that that there's a lens through which your suffering makes sense. That there's a lens through which life brought you to this place that you became overloaded and it isn't your fault. And cultivating compassion and acceptance. That's that's step one. Cultivate compassion and acceptance. And trust is hard for people who are like I think maybe more like trust isn't really a step one thing. To me, it's more understanding. And if you can come to some kind of understanding, most people can't really come to trust initially, they have nothing to trust. Uh step two is slowing down and learning how to shift your awareness into your sensing rather than your thinking. And that takes a fair degree of regular practice. But again, you do not need to be a monk, you know, meditating in a cave for years, even short practices like 10 or 15 minutes a day, when there's an orientation to sensing in the body and listening in the body and becoming available to what's happening in the body. I'm I'm actually shocked to see the rate at which people are able to learn this now. It's it's kind of an interesting phenomenon because it's a tangent, but I think it's an interesting tangent, is that I think it's because the collective is much more conscious that when one person has done it, their neighbor has an easier time. There's a frequency that people are leaning into. And I've seen this maybe every five years, there's there's a notable change. But right now, you know, in my practice, I have two women in particular who are extremely ill. And the rate at which they're learning, growing, and healing, it's like I'm gonna say it's like at least five and maybe 10x what I would have seen five years ago.

Speaker: 26:55

I see it too. It's like um, it is like a connection to collective healing. There's like a ripple effect that it's because other people who maybe aren't even related to you in your like immediate sphere. Maybe it maybe it is the neighbor, right? But I think it can also be just like because there's like momentum that builds around it and people are healing and awakening and able to sort of go inward at a at a different level. Make like, yeah.

Speaker 1: 27:24

And it's I think it's more normal, you know. It's not uncommon for me to meet people who, you know, are just everyday people telling me about their yoga and meditation practice that they do before they go to work. So in our nomenclature, in our language, you know, that's that's not a crazy thing to do. That's that's a normal thing to do now. So that makes it easier. Now, I think there's a lot of those people who are still just using it to slow down their mind. You know, a lot of the meditation is just think slower, which is great. It's better to think slower some of the day. Doesn't quite get from orienting into the head to orienting into the body and into developing our intuition and developing our sensing. And that is not so far away, but just needs the guidance of how to do it. And that opens, okay. So now we've accepted, we've cultivated compassion. It's not like one day acceptance check the box, but we're in a process of accepting, we're cultivating compassion, we're learning how to slow down, and we're learning how to sense in the body. So then step three, we're learning how to listen to the pains in the body. And we're coming to those pains the way you would sit beside a sick child or tend to a sick wounded animal. You know, you're beside them, not expecting them to change, not trying to fix something, just really seeing like, but what is this? What's needed here? And with a fair degree of listening. And in time, and it doesn't take a lot of time, but a little bit of intuition will start to come about what that body part needs. What's needed? Where is it guiding? And then we could go to step four, which is you know, in my experience, the pains in our body they largely lead to the wounded child. You know, if you sit around with pains long enough, they will lead you to some part of the wounded child within. And those wounded children, they're just there waiting to see if anyone will show up with enough love and presence to tend to them. They want to be loved, they want to be cared for. You know, some of them they've been waiting for a very long time. They don't necessarily trust right away that. That you're worthy and trustworthy. But eventually, if you keep showing up, there's a nurturing of ourselves, you know, and giving ourselves what we didn't receive. That starts to have a tremendous change on the anxiety, the depression, the pain, and even the cancer, which is a bold statement, but I have seen it and it's remarkable.

Speaker: 30:27

Yeah, I mean, I think that's really powerful. I think that um I have lots of questions from that. So, okay, the first thing I'm gonna ask you is can you go into like a little more detail about how you get like not specific detail, but like how do you get from listening to the pain, developing that like intuitive connection to then finding the source as the inner child? Is that like um you know, shadow work, journaling? Like, is it just a path that we're tracing back to you know figure out the parts of us? Okay.

Speaker 1: 31:01

For me, no. For me, it's you know, I find it's most effective when it's not we don't mix the mind in.

Speaker: 31:09

Okay.

Speaker 1: 31:09

No, it's not that we can't journal separately or shadow work as much as you want, but in this process, it's literally listening with well, there's there's another step, you know, if we're talking about this listening. So who's doing the listening? You know, we need to connect, we need to become a bit more resourced, particularly people who have a lot of trauma in their past. There's a risk of they the trauma comes up and they're not resourced enough to tend to the traumatized one within. And so there are there is a step in the slowing down and in the sensing, which is not just sensing in the body, but also connecting to a source that we can lean into, which for most people, you know, the idea of the universe, God, however you call it, is too abstract. Most people can relate better to a source in nature, a place where they feel that ha. And if they learn in their in their short, again, we're not monks, you know, short meditation to call on that energy and learn to pull the energy of that place from the ground into the space around them and learn to feel that they can rest into that place. Okay, so then they're more resourced, then they're listening to the pain with that greater resourcing. And it doesn't take long before within that pain, there's just a snippet of memory, there's a familiar feeling that's uncomfortable, and it that's the door right into the wounded child, and whatever aspect of the child that needs us most that's held in that pain will present right from our sensing, right from our listening.

Speaker: 33:00

That's really powerful. So when you talk about in um a moment ago, you mentioned like even cancer, right? And so I think that's an important point to make. I remember when I was first starting to really heal myself, um, the role of emotions kept coming up on a healing journey. And I think that it's like, I think that there's just there's so much that does get stuck in the body that just it just lives there and you and we don't have the tools to release it, you know. Like I think that I mean, I remember like having to even just like remember like tell myself, like, wait a minute, like if I if somebody gets nervous about public speaking, their hands start to sweat, that's a physical response. They might throw up physical response to an emotion. And I remember having to like think like, oh, I guess there is a connection between emotions and sickness, or you know, so so a lot of this, like a lot of what's being released or worked through, would you say that it's like it's different things that are being like the the energies that are being stuck in, you know, the body? Um, what's the role of like how we go from the wounded child to having like physical sicknesses? Do you know, like do you have insights on what that is? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 34:23

So let's take let's take a child who was chronically chronically pressured. We'll make it relatively you know, light for the purpose. So someone, but a child feels chronically, chronically pressured, and whatever they do isn't enough. And it creates a tension in them. You know, initially they're they're trying so, so hard to meet these expectations and to you know get the love that they need by trying to meet what their parent wants of them. But at a certain point, no matter what they do, they still feel pressured. It's like they the message that they feel is like I'm just not enough. I'm not worthy of love, which we all need to feel that we're loved. Okay, so what happens to that child who's so pressured and doesn't feel like enough? At a certain point, their system can't stay on that overdrive. So at a certain point, different people will react differently, but there's there's just a break that happens internally where that child just becomes walled off and they conclude, okay, I'm like they stop trying that hard because they can't anymore. And they may conclude that they're unlovable. There's like a shrinking that happens, some kind of walled offness as an example. And that can even lead to shame that they're not able to meet these expectations, they're not able to be loved. They conclude, I'm unlovable, I'm unworthy. It's become very, very small. And then they could be afraid that other people might know that they're this unworthy and that they haven't succeeded in all of these things. So, like, imagine this person's going through life with this internal pressure, with this feeling of unworthiness. And because they feel that inside, everywhere around, life reflects that back to them. So they become quite afraid and quite contracted, and they're constantly navigating and sensing around other people to see what they might be thinking. And do they know this about me? Probably not consciously. And over time, the nervous system is really stressed because there's too much hyper-vigilance, too much sensing to try and make sure, too much contraction, you know, not enough just like here I am, ease, flow, allowing. And so at some point in time, you know, we have only made a small sketch of this person. So we need to know a little bit more details about them and the specifics of their pressure and how it's held in the body, you know, in order to really know what disease that will create. But it will create some kind of disease because the body can't live in that state of contraction forever. Eventually, the state of that state of contraction. And, you know, in in our scenario, I gave our poor character some shame. And shame is just it's so contractive, it's it's so injurious to the body. And it's it's not, it's mostly subconscious, it's difficult to heal, and it can create capsules inside the body. Those capsules can become fibroids, they can become tumors, they can become extreme menstrual pains, they can, they can become many other problems.

Speaker: 37:44

Does that answer some of your questions? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It did. It's like, I think it's such an it can be such an abstract like thought if it's like how like, you know, energy or how experience manifests in the body as like a physical. Yeah, it's a hard, I think it can be hard to conceptualize for some people.

Speaker 1: 38:02

And so I think that that was a really great illustration of how a really like a childhood that seems pretty normal, you know, can see this pressured, this pressured child, nothing traumatic happened to this child. There's no like sexual abuse, there's no horrible death, there's no fire, the house didn't burn down. Like this is just a relatively normal family with intense parents that think they're doing the best, but don't really see their child because they don't really know how to see themselves, and they just pressure that kid to the breaking point. All the while thinking that they're just like helping, I don't know, them learn and grow.

Speaker: 38:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 38:44

It can happen in very everyday ways.

Speaker: 38:46

I think it's it's like just a testament to why it's so important. Even if you like, even if we tell ourselves, like, I don't, I don't have trauma in my past, I don't have big events, like who am I to, like, what would I be carrying? Um, I think it's just so important to take that time to just explore, even if you're not in a massive chronic pain flare-up or some sort of, you know, having some sort of like physical ailment, maybe the beginning stages, maybe it is like the beginning stages, but um, just to go inward. And so that's my next question for you then. Like, what like how do you work with people in this way? And like at what stage ideally would people start to like do this work?

Speaker 1: 39:30

Well, ideally, to me, like these are life skills, like knowing how to sense. And uh, I want to do some work with younger adults, like 18 to 25, who I see so much anxiety, so much ADD, so much trouble focusing. They're so digitized and teaching them. I've been doing some work with young people. I find it so fascinating. Just firstly, they heal much quicker even than the adults. And also, it gives them like all of these extra skills. So the short answer is everybody needs to sense their body. The body is always talking to us. We live in a world that's very disconnected from our sensing. And so everybody ought to learn. And ideally, you learn when you're healthy because it's just a normal way of taking care of yourself. And that could even look like people don't know how to rest when they're tired. They don't know how much they can do during the day and like that that be a good day. They don't know how to trust that, like when things aren't flowing one day that they could take some time off or slow down and trust that that that rest is like compost for their super productive day that's coming in two days. But they don't know, they don't even trust that they can like get off the rigid path that that they've that they're holding themselves to and just like let there be more authentic flow with the body. So that's a healthy person who's just headed towards problem problems that they don't know, but because they're 20 years out, just from living, you know, disconnected from the feelings in their bodies. So I'd say everybody can stand to learn these skills. They're super useful. And then, of course, if you're further along and you have any kind of ailment, then it would be more compelling, more pressing.

Speaker: 41:23

And so, how do you like how do you work with people? Like, how could people could people reach out to you and say, I need your help?

Speaker 1: 41:30

Absolutely. Yeah, I work with people individually in in a six-month plus healing mentorships. And I also run group programs uh where people learn through a combination of online courses and live Zoom calls where all these principles are taught. I'm a homeopath by training, which is partly how I have a lot of perspective on how chronic diseases develop. And so the philosophy of chronic disease for the layperson is and then what to do about it through somatics, through meditation, through knowing yourself in a different way. I have a course, a digital course actually, that you could also people can also do on their own that's quite affordable called Healing from Within. So that's another way that people who want to just experiment and get started can. I actually had a really large course, but the request was okay, where do I start? So healing from within is the starting point. It's the 101 of everything we've been talking about, you know, how to sense yourself, how to develop the boundaries you need to be able to protect your space. There's five or six modules that contain all of the core principles. It actually also explains a lot of how to find the lens through which what ails you makes sense. That's very important, and how to find acceptance. Many things.

Speaker: 42:51

It's so important to have that starting point, though. I think that's such an important point, just that like it is really overwhelming when you're in that moment of like, I know I need healing, I know I need something else, but you're still like living in whatever the state is where you're not really connected. And and so, like, just to have that one thing to follow, and then no, you know, opens you up to a path of yeah, it's good to have a start, it's good to have a starting point.

Speaker 1: 43:19

Um it's good to have a starting point. That program is a really good starting point that's that you it's very small chunks so that people don't get overwhelmed, and you can just work through the modules at your own pace. And if it's something that you want more support with, then the group or the private sessions would be you know a great way to go on. And I have a network of people also that I work with because people often need, you know, depending on what ails them, different kinds of care.

Speaker: 43:49

Yeah, different kinds of. Yeah, really. I mean, I think that it is, it's there are just so many, so many ailments that feel so hopeless. And so it's just like nice to know that there's a starting point in any level. Like I remember when I was living in my like chronic pain flare-up, I think I would have been like, I mean, I was I was just I became a full student of my healing, right? And like I'm inclined, I love learning and I love like just understanding the connections between things. But like if I wasn't that way, I don't know where I would be now. I, you know, because like just to, I don't know, just to have somebody who can who can look at the whole picture and say, like, we're gonna throw the whole book at it and just like get you healed, it's um, I don't know, it's just powerful.

Speaker 1: 44:36

Yeah, but you know, I'm not so sure about throwing about getting someone healed and throwing the whole book at things. There was a time I would have agreed with that, but now I feel like the most empowering thing is for people to do practices that they can easily integrate in their lives and begin to sense that oh, I can make a shift. You know, that that that's enough to make a shift. And then if I can make that shift, that is when people can start to develop trust. You know, trust comes from our embodied experience. When I do something, because I through my sensing, and when I listen to that, and when I respond, and then I can immediately see that I feel better, that gives me trust that this voice inside is real and true and that I ought to listen to it. And that's how the trust comes. It's not I can't tell you to trust. You can only trust what I say, hey, these are things that that can help. Let's feel this together in this moment. I had a woman who had uh very intense pain in her lumbar spine and was told she had a herniated disc, shooting nerve pain down her legs, taking all kinds of painkillers, going for treatments, nothing is working. This is kind of a crazy story, but it's true. So I think I might have been working with her for maybe six sessions, and then the other things were more pressing. Then we decide, okay, what about this back pain? She starts to do this practice to increase her stability, like her sense of stability and support. Because she was very overwhelmed in her life. Okay, that's all. It wasn't very in my mind, it wasn't it wasn't a huge intervention. Separately, that was in body in her mind. I told her there are a lot of people with herniated discs that have no pain. It's possible, we don't know, that this herniated disc is not the source of your pain. It's possible to have a herniated disc and feel no pain. And she went off and asked her chiropractor if that was true. And he assured her, yes, it's it's true that that you do have a herniated disc right where it hurts you. But yes, people have these herniated discs. So that was opening her mind to the possibility that maybe she could keep her herniated disc and not have pain. She practiced that meditation, I think it was 10 minutes for a week, maybe two weeks. Her back pain got 90% better. Wow.

Speaker: 47:04

That's incredible. It's like a like you said, small shifts. I think that it's a that's a really important distinction to make that like big change can happen in really series of small shifts. Yeah, very small, very small, small moments. I think the point like I was making it was that it's a feeling when you do have that feeling, maybe it's her, her needed disc, or like it's a feeling of desperation, I think almost, and wanting to throw the whole book at it. It's wanting to do whatever you can to heal. And so I love your point that like when you're like you just you're just yeah, ready to do whatever it takes, it can really just be a matter of a series of small shifts that can change everything.

Speaker 1: 47:53

It doesn't it doesn't take like just one one to the next, like one one step of that that feels a little more spacious, then another, then a little deeper, and you know, like in the same way, like it's a winding in to ourselves and into our presence in a way that can be very nurturing and loving, and people become very afraid that they're gonna face their trauma and it'll overwhelm them. But it doesn't need to be like that, it can really be being more resourced, being more grounded, feeling more connected, feeling more possibility, feeling more space, and you know, slowly tending to the ones within that need more in the case of our pressured person, you know that that person needs more acceptance, right? Right how they are.

Speaker: 48:49

Well, I I could just keep I think firing questions at you, but I will um we'll talk again, I think for sure. Um, but okay, so if some I'm gonna include it in the show notes. If somebody wants to get in touch with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 1: 49:06

Uh email alyssa at alyssacoen.ca. That's the best way to reach me.

Speaker: 49:11

Perfect. That's great. I will include that in the show notes and then any other links that you want me to include, they will all be there. Um, so thank you so much for being with me today. I've enjoyed this conversation so much, and I'm glad after months of trying, we were finally able to connect. My pleasure. Thank you for having me. All right, guys, that's all we've got for today. I'll be taking next week off to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. So, to all who celebrate, I'm wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving, and I'll see you in December. Bye.