Life Is Sound
Welcome to "Life is Sound" - the podcast that will awaken your inner potential and inspire you to be the best version of yourself! Join your host, James Mayer, as he takes you on a journey of self-discovery and growth, sharing insights, wisdom, and stories from experts and everyday people alike. With each episode, you'll gain powerful tools and practical strategies to help you overcome obstacles, find your passion, and live a life of purpose and meaning. Tune in to "Life is Sound" and let's unlock the limitless potential within you!
Life Is Sound
007 | What Is Self Love? w/ Laura BamBam
In this episode we explore self love and what that journey can look like and how we are often transported onto a path that we least expect as a result of tragedy and loss. Today's guest is Laura BamBam, a Self Love Coach, a Kambo Practitioner and Yoga teacher. Laura opens up and shares a personal experience of the loss of her Mum and how that reshaped her world in the years afterwards. Some absolute gems here so be sure to like and share.
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hello good people and welcome back to life is sound I've got a great guest with me today this is the first person who I actually don't know that is on the podcast dedicating the time so I'm super grateful for that and today we've got Laura Bambam she is I will let her describe what she is but from what I know is like self-love specialist and somebody who I know that I'm gonna connect in a great way with so Laura if you want to introduce yourself say hello to listeners and let's get into it hi hi everyone so yeah thank you for that introduction my love um so yeah I am a self-love coach and but I'm also a combo practitioner yoga teacher and and just all around on my own journey of self-love and self-development that I'm just trying to share with everyone around me and how far into that Journey are you at the moment oh how long is a piece of strange whole life life whole life whole life time yeah for sure like I'd say I'm a good 10 years deep yeah um but you know it took me to get to the depths of the picks so actually wake up to even starting the journey so you know the what do they call it like the the dark the the dark before the storm yeah you know like I had to go into a really dark place which in itself I think was still part of the journey you know I had to lose my mind on on some sort of narcotic yes I lost my mind on acid in Goa significantly yeah um everyone looked like they were Dead skeletons running at me um and I think it was because I had such a fair around this idea of God and everyone around me at the time was talking about spirit and God and I was just in such a dark negative space that I just thought everyone was just following a fight and they were just on a trend and it was really dark then we went out one night and I took loads of acid and um took more acid and more acid and I never had never had it before well that was your first time had eight tabs because I just didn't have a clue of the concept of how strong they are yeah and then all of a sudden everyone looked like Dead skeletons running at me and it was literally the scariest thing that ever happened to me but it cracked something open inside of me to so that there needs to be something more to this life to this world to myself and um yeah it really started my journey so what was the next day like after that like having that experience was it like everything just completely looked different forever or was it like after that like a gradual transition to becoming like the person you are today no it was dark for a little while it really was um so I was supposed to been go off for about another week and I literally had to get on a flight home straight away to hug my mum because it was the only person that I would have felt safe within that moment like everything felt quite scary yeah uncertain um so it wasn't like an immediate Thing by no means like it's one thing I will say is that the Journey of self-love and self-healing in all the modalities for me I truly believe it's not an easy path like you know it's somewhat easier to be ignorant I think to looking at yourself and exploring yourself because when you dive into yourself you've got to look at all the icky bitsy yourself too yeah so at the beginning you know it was difficult it was dark and then I found certain books and certain teachers I found yoga and that opened me up a little bit and then you know then I started seeing these bits of me that I didn't like because I was meeting these amazing teachers who were really loving and really caring and I was seeing like how selfish I was and how mean I was and you know bits but I didn't want to see that about myself um so yeah it's been a journey it definitely has its dark bits but you know it's been more than worth it that I'd say where I am now compared to where I was then it's I'm a whole different human yeah like I'm not the same person if I could have a conversation with me from back then like that would actually be really interesting because it would be two totally different people having a conversation like I could not fathom then all of what I know and all of what I've experienced now like that's actually a really yeah that's actually a really cool thought yeah those things if we'd be able to do them it's and like I just said to you before we started this podcast that's what I'm open to now knowing that the version who I am today there will be a different me in the future and I think I feel like we forget that sometimes now now we're on like a path of this self-awareness and like the journey it's knowing that we're still not a final version of ourselves especially at the ages that that we're at it's being open to growing even more but if I could go back and have a conversation with a 21 year old me it would be like if if I knew who I was going to be now at this point that guy would be like come on you're joking I'm like no no that's who you're going to be and it would be such an interesting thing to be able to do that and just be open to the people that we're yet going to become do you know what I mean that's that's the journey in it and sometimes it does take those dark events in your life no matter how the trauma has come like obviously you know having that that trip on acid in Goa as cliche as that sounds like something some people like ah but it doesn't matter how it comes it and you know even to like leave early to you know to get back to your mum it's not a um a short trip back from gore that's a long journey of life thinking about what the hell has just happened to be honest some people were still looking dead on that day anyway it was intense yeah it was intense that is scary but sometimes we have to see reality in a different way to realize that it's not all what we just perceive this existence to be and some people might not arrive at that in the whole lifetime and some people might be listening to this conversation and already checked out like yeah I don't know what you guys are on about but for me it is it's being open to things that you don't understand and listening to people's stories and seeing what you can get from it and I feel like people are now starting to connect in different ways and like we were just briefly talking like before people are like waking up but the term waking up has been hijacked I think like you know the word walk has got such a negative connotation to it now that I try and avoid that word like how do we show people the way without using these words that have been hijacked but I think people are now arriving at similar places from different you know locations and Journeys and realizing that uh we're all going through something similar but different so when I hear a story like that it's like for me it's like oh that's how you got there oh and then you compare it to your own and you realize that people are on a journey but what would you say that what made you realize that this was the path after that what made you start doing the things like that I'm doing like yoga oh let me go and try yoga maybe that will work yoga for me was I had back issues and I yeah I'd heard through the grapevine that yoga could really help me um and so I went into yoga for the physical practice yeah um and it was just through having really beautiful teachers who brought like the the values of yoga into the space like yoga is so much more than a physical practice it's about being a good person it's a whole way of life and it was just like these little golden nuggets of information that teachers were just dripping I was I felt like I got drip fed yeah to my past you know a little bit like Hansel and Gretel got the crumbs and I was like I literally feel like I've had if I look back at my life like it started slowly slowly and I think one of the things I would love to share with your listeners is it's really easy in this day and age to compare yourself to the journeys of others and to what you see on social media I.E you know if you've not tried yoga before if you've not tried meditating and you see people on social media in these like really fancy poses or supposedly sitting in meditation for hours at a time or you know eating a completely vegan diet or like being on a complete sober path whatever it is my biggest invitation to listens is to not compare themselves like try their best not to compare themselves it's really easy to slip into that like we all do it like we're human but the reality of it is like we don't know what anyone's Journey has been to get to that point but also what we see on social media is just a pretty glossed over version of probably what's got that person to that place you know I'm probably guilty of this you know you look on my social media and I've definitely got lots of happy pictures on there and things like that but the reality of it is I've been through a lot of trauma in my life that has made me who I am as a person and has made me want to explore these things and you know I have dedicated a lot of my a lot of my well the last 15 years of my life to wanting to connect with Spirit connect with myself deeper myself love like I've committed to this and that was a choice of mine and I'm not saying that that's what everyone needs to do because we all have a different path you know for some people it can be music you know they they get lost in like learning an instrument or singing or listening to musical whatever it is and that can be their meditation that can be their practice that connects them with themselves like it comes in so many forms and I think finding one but I'm so going off on a tangent there but I think so finding what sets your heart on fire and what doesn't feel like a tour because I'm I'm at space now where I'll meditate when I want to yeah whereas I used to do it every day like I had to do it like I was in the Army and it was religious and actually I completely changed the energy around it and it became a tour yeah so I wasn't getting the same thing out of it whereas now like if I wake up and I've got a bit of time I'm like I want to sit with myself right now I want to meditate that's when I'll do it yeah um same with what I'm eating like my diet isn't 100 clean but on a day where i'm in good energy it feels good to put nutritious stuff into my body but it's taken me a while to not compare myself to others and that you know I'll see people who were like the perfect Yogi or the perfect Guru or whatever it may be and actually within comparing myself all I was doing was not loving myself because we are we are exactly where we're supposed to see and I'm literally going to be full of cliches today heads up I'm full of the cliches but the cliches are there for a reason like they resonate deeply like we know them as truths really like yeah I think that's a today's society and the age we're in social media is such an easy thing to fall into just like comparing like and there's no way not to do it it's just part of our nature even without social media like we live we'll see something and we'll assess it compared to our like map of the world and how we perceive life but social media now is high enough and I've definitely fell into that over the years where initially as I started to grow and get into like self-love or things that I would consider under that like bracket you know meditation or going for a long walk and it's so easy to see people doing things to like the gold standard like the perfect part of it and go am I that person do I do it that good can I even do it that good and it's such a dangerous thing because it's like I said it's easy I need to meditate every day but you realize all the time that you do it when you need it when you really actually need it that's when you're going to get the most benefit from and that's kind of how I operate in life now it's not beating yourself up for you know eating that bit of bad food or not meditating in that day or you know I just need a bit of extra time in bed today just to regenerate and not feel guilty for doing it it's these things that you realize that is the self-love it's the small things that is self-love yeah it's the little things it's the catch in your mind when it's being hard on yourself you know I'm sure whoever listens to this will resonate with this like yeah no one can be more hard to ourselves than we are than we are to ourselves you know we we're so hard in ourselves for what we eat what we say what we've done all of these things but we're all just human and we're all just trying our best yeah it's really easy to let the Mind get carried away with the negative chatter and I think it's one of the most beautiful practices that you can do for yourself is like if you do catch yourself like spiraling into a negative pattern pattern even just say to yourself okay it's okay that my mind's just done that because I think a bit of a bit of a trap can be that when we catch ourselves being hard on ourselves but then Harden ourselves with being hard on ourselves never thought of it like that it's so true and it becomes like this circular like yeah pattern of like just adding more and more layers to it and like for me a trick is catching that and saying to myself it's okay that I've just done that yeah like the reality of it is everything is okay and one of my teachers Gina she she says you've got a hundred percent success rate up until this point in your life like your hips still here you're still standing you're still breathing so no matter what obstacle you've had up until this point you've actually had 100 success rate up until this point yeah so you might not think you're doing well in life right now or you might not be where you think you want to be but the reality is you have 100 succeeded up until now and like you've just got to keep moving forward one step at a time and the reality of it is as well is half the time what we think we want or we have these like certain plans for our life if that isn't what was meant for us in life we end up with something that's a million times better than that yeah yeah and just allowing ourselves to flow and not be so uh that pressure on ourselves just that attachment to outcome that's what I'm relearning I've already learned is like I've got to relearn it again it's when you when you've got that expectation to the way things should go if that's not meant for you then it's not gonna happen and I'd say this year for me like enter in the year like most people do right I'm gonna do this this year I'm gonna make sure I do this for me as I always like releasing music making sure I'm beating myself on like last year's targets and like this year I'm gonna do this this and this and then like people in my immediate family got really sick and that just derailed my whole year kind of and then I've got like you know back problems and that's physically you know slowing me down and all these things I'm like 2022 was not the year that I thought it was going to be but I'm exactly where I need to be so at the moment I'm seeing it as like you know the metaphor of an arrow being pulled back I feel like I'm in that place now where I'm back growing gathering information yeah life's difficult and I'm going through it but I know it's gonna put me in the place exactly where I need to be where we're so used to being going our life so [ __ ] right now is you know I can't cope I can't deal with this everyone's life on social media is better than mine seen people on nights out or that person can walk normally and it's all these little bits that you've got to keep that awareness of but it's just knowing that you are exactly where you need to be and I think the key is to make sure you're still like you said doing the small things to at least know that you're not just sat there you know completely like oh my life's over this is the worst thing ever that's happening to me it's just doing those small things knowing that if you can handle these situations think how great life will be when things are going smooth you know what I mean yes I actually have thoughts and feelings around injuries um so you know if you've had a back problem this year that's going to have slowed you down so I actually believe that everything happens it's supposed to happen and you know I say that even having lost my mum so I I know that my mum had to die for that sounds so harsh but yeah I know I had to experience my mom's death for for me to experience the growth that I've experienced since then that is the most traumatic thing that's happened to me yeah the most painful thing that's ever happened to me and I have genuinely come to a place of acceptance over that because I recognize that through her death I learned so much you know and you know the film by Will Smith uh collateral Beauty yeah so like that whole idea of like there is Beauty in through all the collateral damage that happens there's still always beauty that comes out of that situation so for everything that happens to us being able to ask okay what can I learn from this how can I grow from this in all in all given situations yeah um and I believe Sometimes When We Get Physical you know just like difficulties within our bodies sometimes it's Spirit God's Universe whatever your belief is saying you need to slow down you need to just check in with where you're at because actually maybe you were rushing towards the destination that you know wasn't meant for you yeah maybe it was meant to be a different path for you when you go in that way and Spirits like no no hold up come back this way you can't like we said before life's a trip like we have all these plans and you can I want to do this I want to do that but that's not where you're meant to go everything's gonna happen from the universe or you know incidents in your life to make sure you don't go that way and like when my dad got quite ill and I was dedicating all my time you know to him and what happened is my dad was relying on me a lot you know to get him back into life and just get his life feeling a bit more normal but then my back went in a way where I couldn't drive to his couldn't get to his to go and look after him and what I realized is I needed that time for me and that actually made him click back into a better routine by not having me there every day for him to rely on so it's just weird how these things work that my back needed to go for me to have time and I believe it is down to like me not support you know me supporting other people but not supporting myself so these things emotions manifest into physical pain and make you do the thing that you need to do which is just be with you for a minute and take some time but that knock-on effect actually got my dad into a better place so I 100 resonate with that like the way emotions manifest in our body and do Force us down certain paths that we didn't really expect and there's something higher than us working at all times none of us know what it is none of us can fully like you know finalize hates this thing but there's definitely something at play that we all like feel and like you said those tragic things that happen in our lives those losses that completely reshape Your Existence one of my biggest fears is losing my mum so when I hear you know you say that it it resonates so deeply like and I've I literally feel that that loss with your life so I can only imagine what transformation that has created like within yourself yeah it's been a journey I'm not gonna like lost that date you feel like you're all being your whole identity has been mixed from you so for me I know everyone's relationships different with their parents but for me me and my mum were so close so Me growing up there was only me my mum at home like we were yeah so close um probably intertwined we'll let you know what what you call it like a codependent relationship I'm not gonna lie um so when she left it was like it was like half of my body was missing yeah um and learning to re-navigate the world when that person isn't in it is a Madness you just it doesn't feel the same anymore you don't feel like in the beginning I just felt like love wasn't the same in the world anymore everything just felt yeah everything just felt really different it gave me the opportunity to really see where I was at with my own self-love you I know that sounds crazy but when the biggest part or the the biggest expression of love in this world dies you know it does push you to look inwards it does push you to start looking at yourself I think in the beginning I was trying to seek it all kinds of ways all kinds of unhealthy ways with like lovers and and different things and it just made me feel more empty you know they were never going to be able to hit their level of love that my mum could give me unconditionally it did bring me my dad closes together you know I didn't live with my dad when I was a kid um however because he not parented me from Young he didn't know how to be the parent that my mum was and I think I tried putting a lot of pressure on him at first and I would get angry and frustrated at him because he wasn't saying the right things and then but then I ended up teaching him how to parent me he said there'll be times when I'd be wanting to cry and I would just say to him just sit there it's fine just listen started being like the fix of my emotions and I'd be telling him what he needed to do in that moment because he just didn't have a clue that so he wanted to and yeah you know I love him for it but you know nothing was ever going to hit that level of love that my mom gave me um and so yeah it just led me deeper into it just exploring different ways of self-love like I knew that's what I needed to do um so I found lots of different practices um went on south of course which has actually led me to now becoming a self-love coach myself there's something really powerful in just having someone hold space for you and when I say hold space I know that sounds a bit Airy fairy but it's just been someone having someone there to listen to you and help you with your own process you know there's all the teachers and gurus in the world but we are our own best teacher we are our own best healer and I truly believe that for everyone because it's only ourselves that really knows what works for us it's only ourselves that knows every step and every experience that we've had in our life up until this point and I think so many people look externally for people to help them like I've done many a time um and it's great like we can take tools from people and we can take practices from people all day long but I think when we actually give ourselves time and space to to be with ourselves and to nurture ourselves and nourish ourselves and I think that's where the juicy magic is of just being able to love ourselves more yeah and and I'm I'm truly blessed in that I've got some really amazing friends as well who you know hold space for me you know they'll let me vent they'll let me scream they'll let me shout or I'll mess up and they won't judge me for it or they won't stop speaking to me because maybe I've said or done the wrong thing yeah and that's given me the opportunity for growth as well um I just realized I've gotten up on such a tandem and it's flowing um but yeah so losing my mom was the hardest thing but the biggest gift as long as she was here I was always someone's baby um yeah yeah and the minute she left I had to become my own mum like my own parent an adult yeah [Music] um yeah it changed it changed everything and don't get it twisted I'd have a back in a heartbeat like yeah the guilt levels are unreal that you feel when you lose someone that you love and I recognize that that's normal um and you know I try and even within that like everything I do now I try and bring it back to like acts of self-love so like those days where I've hated myself because of how much I've regretted maybe the way I spoke to my mum or the way I behaved or that I didn't listen to her or whatever it may be because there was this list as long as my arms of what yeah I feel like I would change looking back however you know in that moment she was here and I was me and this whole levels of complexities in all relationships whether your family whether your friends whatever it is and it's all well good when someone dies saying that you would have done it different but had mom not died we still would have been arguing and fighting with each other whenever that came up it's just it is live but you know it's an opportunity to it's a cultivate more self-love a more self-acceptance you know I'm not a bad person my mum wasn't a bad person but neither of us were perfect yeah both had our flaws both had our things that triggered the yeah the life out of each other and um but yes I heard times just helped me to to be able to look at all the bits of me the bits that I love the bits that I don't love um but there's a practice that has massively helped me on my healing Journey over my mum that I'd love to share yes um so I wrote my mum a letter um this wasn't that long ago actually honestly it was been such a Healer for me can I just ask you as well how long ago was it that you won past two and a half years yes yes it's not it's not been that bad I'm still in there I'm still in it I'm definitely still in it but I am already seeing the beauty in it for sure but I know that I've still got a journey to go for sure um but yeah so I wrote my mum a letter where in the letter i apologized for everything that I wanted to apologize for you know explored all of the things that I wanted to I wish I had done different and I just got it all out on paper all of my girl all of my regrets all my upsets how much I'm missing I literally wrote it to her as if she was going to be reading it and um and I don't know what made me do it but I then decided to imagine that I was my mum so like really just thought about how my mum felt about me like what I meant to her and then I wrote a response from my mum to myself wow and I actually thought the first part I did I thought that was where you know that's where I was going to get the healing from was just like getting it all out of my head so I wasn't like overthinking these things all the time but actually allowing myself to rather tune and said well I know you know when you know someone you know what their response would be to these things so yeah like for me to give myself a time space I actually think about what her response would have been and it was all you know don't be stupid that wasn't that serious or don't be deaf like I don't want you to be upset I don't want you to be feeling guilty I don't want you to be feeling like the last thing on earth my mum would have ever wanted was for me to be holding so much guilt and regret and feeling like I was a horrendous daughter because actually she thought it was the best daughter that she could ever had she was so proud of me she loved me so much like you know and I was I was there letting myself be riddled in all these feelings that would have just broke my mom's heart if she'd have actually known that that's how I would have felt after she died yeah so actually I was doing her disservice and myself a disservice in holding and coming around all this regretting girl there's no way she would have wanted that and it helped lift such a weight from my shoulders um by tuning into her love um and now I get to because I've really let myself go into that space of how she loved me I get to give myself that love now which is just Priceless that's really powerful for someone who is like a part of you as well because if there's anyone that you can tune into it's somebody that you share DNA with like personality traits you know we literally come from our parents and sometimes I when I laugh I just hear my dad and it shocks me I'm like [ __ ] that was that was my dad and it happens more as I get older and you realize that you literally are just your parents so for you to have that awareness to tap into that I've never heard anyone do that before like that's really new to me and it's just triggered loads of thoughts about how powerful that actually is like if you lose a parent someone that you you share everything with like you come from these people and a lineage of ancestors before them that we share treats and personality traits or little mannerisms that you might or knowingly do that is literally like your mum would have done the same thing so to be able to tap in and give that healing back to yourself like you said we are even though your mum's not here you are still your mum's daughter and you you you want to hear those words from her to to know that it's okay and you we're human the human existence is to feel everything and not get things right all the time and it is really easy to do that and beat ourselves up and torture ourselves but you just triggered something for me like I've spoke on this podcast like I lost my girlfriend when I was 24 so she died of um cervical cancer she was older than me she's five years older so she passed at 29 and I've had years of you know arguing or things I've said or I could have been here for a bit more in a different way and now I'm older and I've got all this life knowledge and experience what I could have done different as the 24 year old me who was literally a baby didn't know how to handle that situation was just doing the best I could at that time and now I think about things in a different way as the 36 year old me what I would have done different how I would have dedicated my time in a different way it's a very weird time for me like professionally I was I was in a band with my friends and we had like a record deal like huge pressure to you know go out there and perform at home my girlfriend's battling cancer and I had to juggle the two and it was so tough at the time I don't know how I was doing it but I had to sometimes sacrifice being there for you know the girl that I I loved him was a huge part of my life to go and work and keep this dream like right in and not giving up on it but also making sure I'm not too much this way and not being there for a and I've never thought about you know writing a letter to her and releasing over a decade of stuff that's built up so for people listening like I'm I'm now you said that I'm gonna do that 100 that's that's so powerful I've never thought of that I've lost grandparents and you know people around family but Hannah was the closest person in my life that I've ever ever lost I've not touchwood lost a parent at this point in my life but that's one of my my big fears and life is always going to come with loss it's one thing we can't avoid if it's not us it's going to be somebody else and whilst we're here that's the gift and unfortunately we can't be in this human experience without experience in both sadness and joy and we can't know one without the other like you can't know what it's like to be on this self-love Journey without going to the darkest depths that you've ever known and I think it's such a beautiful thing when you fight when you find people like yourself that I've gone through something and you know gone to the darkest point that only you know what that that looks like for you I would say it's probably different for all of us like when we're in that moment but to come out of it and work on yourself and then go you know what I'm gonna take this and now I'm going to help people with it I feel like it's such a beautiful transition and period to see people like yourself actually wanna right now I've learned this in such a powerful way just sharing these little nuggets like you said you got from your teachers along the way what we fail to realize is we now start to become the teachers for other people and like you just taught me that I'm going to practice that that's amazing so thank you for sharing that because it's not easy to to share but for the listeners if you guys want to try that I'll be trying it with you so on another podcast I'll um I'll share how that's going but it is it's those those places you know like you said I did when I lost my partner I did all the things I needed to do at that time just to get me through it so for me it was I must have stayed in bed for I'd say four to six months just smoking weed from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep I was just high all day and the only thing I did was take my dog out for a walk and when I was interacting with people I was so high that I wasn't really engaging with humans it was just I was just doing what I needed to do to get me through that moment of the girl who I went to spend the rest of my life with not being around anymore the strange thing like you said losing her catapulted me onto a path that I never thought I would have been on as as you know the 21 year old me that met her if you would have told me this is who you'll be when you're 36 no way but he's in losing her that triggered these events and new Pathways of thinking that actually has made me the person that I am today collateral Beauty so when you think about again and this is the difficult thing in life you lose someone like your mum a partner these really crucial figures in your life and I said this on another podcast but that's not the final person so then it's like right I've lost this I've grown I've grown from you know losing this person and it's not like right now I'll be safe for a decade you could lose somebody tomorrow and it's it's such a scary thought but it's knowing that if it's not you all you can do is try and take that and transform it into something positive at the right time when you're ready and you've processed stuff and try and help people from it because we're all heading to the same destination and we're the the place we're at now on the planet everyone's just arguing on the way there and we'll all go into the same place there's no other destination you can do whatever you want along the way but at the moment we're all just screaming at each other along the way there and I'm just at a point like let's just try and make it all a bit easier for each other and realize that that what we're all here just doing the same thing like but I just think it's a beautiful thing when you see people like yourself like me who are now arriving at this point in the lives where we're like right let's take this pain and knowledge from that pain and turn it into something positive for people and it's a very vulnerable space to be in like but it's so needed on the planet at the moment vulnerability honesty truth and sharing with other people that have been through powerful things and as I said to you before we started recording this is what I'm trying to make this podcast about you know for the listeners to hear other people's experiences and in a positive way compare it to their own and how they can take something like you just taught me I'm going to apply that to my life and then find another person and cherry pick that little thing and that's how you start to create your own magic it's just I like your little bit then your little bit and I'm gonna mix my a little bit you've got your own little you know cake on the go rather than copying someone else's cake so thank you for sharing that because it takes a lot to to do that and what would you say like when you lost your mum when you're in that darkest space and you know you said you were doing all the things that you knew weren't good for you and deep down we know it but sometimes we still have to go into it because it's just what we need to do what was the first thing that you started to step into that that you started to feel that that shift after that that you were something clicked and you're like oh this is what I need to do more of um one of my biggest shifts I don't know if I can say I thought I'd quickly attack uh it was Ayahuasca no golf yeah we're here for it everyone's here everyone's here for it yeah so um I have a friend who supports in ceremonies with ayahuasca and um she obviously knew what I'd gone through and she offered me a place in exchange um you know they're not cheap didn't have much money at the time because work was difficult because obviously I was going through my loss and so yeah so it's in the kitchen in exchange and it changed everything for me so having that experience so on my first experience I really got to feel my mum's pain when she was in like human form so it wasn't an easy Journey you know some people see fairies and unicorns and it's all pretty and fun mine was quite hard but again like I said earlier on you know I feel like we have to go through dark bits to come back into the light did you feel like before you went into that because one of my things I've always wanted to do Ayahuasca but I know I'm not gonna have that easy oh that was amazing like oh everything just floated I know some stuff is gonna come up that I'm gonna see some things that I'm not sure whether I'm yet ready to go like into that and did you know that going into it that you were gonna have this other side come up which obviously unlocks something as well but did you have that awareness that it wasn't going to be all plain ceiling going into it um I don't think I know what I thought before I went into it to be honest I think I was in so much pain emotionally and my mind was a Madness like I'd never experienced anxiety before my mom died and if I was in the same room and someone had a knife in the hand I'd be in panic mode thinking that they were going to stab me it was all like really you know um yeah unrealistic and and my mind is doing a Madness because the anxiety level was just Peak I think so my body was feeling what I've decided that that was was I think my body was feeling so much pain that my mind was assuming there must be some sort of threat happening yeah because it had become so physical in my body the pain um so I think I was just up for trying anything and it was a dark experience and Ever After nairobasca quite a few times now and I never get the rainbows and glitter and butterflies I just don't but I'm always grateful for whatever comes up and I've got to the point where I realize that spirit the grandmother Ayahuasca only gives you what you are capable of managing yeah like I know I speak to a lot of people who are fearful of of sitting in ceremony because they're scared that it's going to be really really dark but there's nothing that you can't handle that's going to come up I truly believe that I think it all comes up for a reason because the reality of it is whatever comes up is what is totally suppressed either in your psyche within your body within your mind it's in you already like that's the reason why it's coming up to be cleared out so I believe that it's already holding you back anyway so I'd prefer for it to come up yeah and have that moment of that experience for me to see what I need to work with and for it to be cleared out um so that helped me massively being with Community helped me massively I set up a community garden and I got given a bit of land by this farmer and which was really cool I'd watched a documentary called the need to grow so we're like the soil in the world is all getting so depleted of nutrition um and I would just like I need to do something I also just needed a project to put on the energy in so this guy gave me a bit of land in the community that that belt like was really nourishing for my soul as well um I think Community is is so important and I think the way the world is the way we more of us are working at home in our little single boxes and you know we're getting further and further away from community and you know I know a lot of people especially following the pandemic struggle to be in group settings like people have a lot more group anxiety than what they previously did um but there's lots of ways to navigate that and you know there's lots of different support groups of different things I'll just even reaching out to people on social media I know we've mentioned you know all the negatives to social media but there's lots of positives with social media as well and it can be a way for us to connect with other people and so I highly recommend people finding whatever Community it is resonates with them you know it doesn't need to be a community garden it can be you know it can be a yoga class it can be I don't know a men's group or women's group whatever it may be I think it's so important for you not to feel alone and it makes it easier to go into those dark events because when you feel lonely and you're going into the dark that can feel so much harder and people do do that and you know for some people their Journey looks like a lot of isolation and a lot of darkness and they feel like they never get out of it but for whatever reason the universe Spirit God whatever you want to call it has a plan for that person to feel the depth of that Dart and normally it's those people that come out and help so many more people because I think you know we have polarity in the in this world you know we have we have a good we have evil we have joy we have sadness and I believe that whatever you feel the depths of on that scale it's the other side where your gifts ends up growing from so for example if you've struggle with anger like for example if you've gone into the depth of Angie you've been a really really angry person normally it's those people who end up being like the most helpful in society once they come through that anger they end up being like those people that are really really helpful and because I think you need to know for me everything is a spectrum it's not like for example hot and cold are both temperatures there's no start or end to where though where one becomes hot and one becomes cold so they're not different things they're literally of the same they're of the same graph they're of the same timeline so I think when you experience the complete one end of something you then get the the amazing magicalness of experiencing the other side of it yeah so for me I experience so much so in so much pain with my mum dying but actually the level of self-love that I now get to experience and therefore that is what I now share with others and I support others in loving themselves more because I went into a space where I felt no love like I felt like my mum wasn't all of my love in this world so when I lost that I felt like I lost all the love in the world and it's because I lost well it felt like I lost all the love in the world that I then got to go so deep into my own self-love journey and now that's what I share with others and I help others to cultivate that within themselves so like for anyone who's listening if you are in a dark spot whatever that looks like for you feeling that like I don't I don't believe in like avoiding how we feel and I know for some people that can be scary and uncomfortable and it's why so many people smoke weed yeah you know drink alcohol take drugs have loads of sex watch loads of porn whatever it may be or things to just numb out feelings that's exactly what it is yeah 100 whereas if we can go into those dark feelings the more we go into and we realize okay I've done this now and I felt this now okay I've done this like I get this I understand this part now and then you can start seeing okay well if this is where this is if I just turn this direction and go the other direction actually I can literally feel the opposite of this and by knowing the depths of it even when you're in like the positive end of it so to speak whenever you come across anyone who's in the depths of what you experienced it you are going to be able to empathize with them better you're going to be able to hold space for them better you can be able to support them better because you know the depths of it yeah and like all like healers and teachers and Natural Health people like everyone I know who's like into like any form of like natural medicine so whether they're like an acupuncturist or a nutritionist or whatever it may be most of their Journey started with ill health like they they had like a back problem or you know that's how I became a yoga teacher because I got into yoga because of my back yeah and I healed my back through yoga so that's why I became a yoga teacher because I'm like I know the benefits of that I want to share that yeah so like by knowing the darkness of whatever it is you're going through for whatever that is right now like You're Gonna Shine because of that like you're going to come to the brightness because of that I truly believe it I feel like that's one thing I've really been thinking recently is everything has its opposite so whilst you're in a certain space knowing that word like you're Transcendent at some point and you will go back to what looks a bit more like normality or positivity nothing is permanent you can't stay in a certain state forever and I don't know why but this lyric like Ronan Keaton life is a roller coaster you just got a ride in yeah you couldn't think of a better metaphor for life like it's gonna be up it's gonna be down and it's what you can learn in that process and what you just said then's resonated with me for years I'd self-sabotage and when you're in those dark spaces and just I have a numb myself or probably even add to it and I suppose over the past three years where I don't smoke or I don't really engage in anything like that because I realize it doesn't serve me anymore in any way it just takes my mind to a place that it helps me like if I was to smoke it helps me see things in a different way and makes makes my mind go to that that deeper place but I realize I'm that without it it's just all that does is really like blocks everything else out and makes me hone in on it but when I think about it I can sit on my couch and do that any night if I choose to so whenever I used to experience loss after losing my girlfriend got into another relationship that broke down what I would do is I'd go back to smoking because that was the thing I did when I lost my girlfriend when she passed away that was my crutch my safety net me knowing this is the thing I do and I need to heal and identifying with it as well isn't it really leaning on it and thinking well that's just what I do that's me and it's took me a long time to now realize that when I go through things to stand there with no crutch no you know nothing that you think saving you or helping you through this to stand there just as you and go right I'm gonna feel through this and face it head on that's where the true power really lies because you're just there and there's there's no shield and there's no sword it's just like this is me so let's see what I can grow through and get through this on the other side and like you said certain people when you feel those dark spaces when you've been there you can empathize with other people and help other people in in a way of like true experience and true knowledge and it's an amazing thing to do and I would encourage more people to do it to show up for people I'm someone that like my close friends or even people Beyond friends you know sometimes I see someone on social media just posting certain things and you can see they're having a tough time I might not even know them but I just say you know if you ever need to speak just message me it's not a problem like just being there for people or letting someone know that you're there for them my friends know I'm there like any time of day but especially like male friends that still carry burdens themselves even though I've said bro if you need me no matter what time of day it is four in the morning just call my phone yeah I appreciate it bro I love you yeah I love you too I know you ain't gonna do that because there's something like I still feel as men we feel like we need to carry and hold this this thing widows like this responsibility it's also it's a thing of self-love though it's like people fear burden in someone 100 and you know it's it's actually a two-way thing like when you need someone to help you or you just need someone to lean on or you want a bit of support the other person actually gets fueled because we get good hormones released in our body when we know that we've been in service of someone when we've helped someone yeah it actually makes us feel good so actually whenever you reach out to someone if you need support obviously you check in and be like have you got capacity to you know help me right now or support me right now that person's got capacity then you're actually giving them the opportunity to feel good that they were there to support you yeah so it's a two-way thing for sure and I think so often we're we're scared to take space like so many people are scared to take space in different contexts you know and everyone wants to play it small and just keep themselves to themselves and not put themselves out there and not put themselves on people but actually the more for example if I reached out to you because I needed a bit of support if you're then going to feel more comfortable in the future to reach out to me or to reach out to someone else and we end up having this Snowball Effect on each other and we end up all becoming such a wider community of support onto each other yeah exactly then we all get to all get to rise higher yeah and we all get to grow more we all get to evolve more we all just get to be that little bit happier because everyone knows that everyone's helping each other like we're stepping away from this this world that we're currently in where it's all just to fight against each other and um competition against each other and it's just every man for themselves like we don't need to live like this like and you know I think the world of the Matrix that we currently live in I think that I can see it slowly unraveling now like I feel for men massively because it's such a I feel like it's such a hard battle for you guys to allow yourselves to be vulnerable to be a lap to allow yourselves to be truly be seen in your emotions to ask for help like I think it's why I like I feel like women are on the rise in the sense because we're all here uplifting each other supporting each other asking each other for help like we're over here supporting each other which don't get me wrong men and women can do it for each other but there's definitely a power in doing it as women are as men I truly believe that and I feel like men will change the world so I know many other people have got different views on this but I think the change in the world lies with men I think the day that men allow themselves to be vulnerable the day that men ask for help the day that men unite together and are not competing against each other and they're not just you know on this mission of like self-destruct because that's what it is like come on we all know the the statistics around young men who take their lives yes you know it's it's massive so the day that men can love themselves more like I see so many more women like as a self-love coach 9.99 of people that approach me for self-love coaching are women women want the support women recognize they're not loving themselves enough and want that yeah like they know that somewhere in them knows that they're worthy of loving themselves so they're willing to you know step into that whereas men for whatever reason they see it as being soft or a feminine thing or you know so yeah something that's for the women actually when our men can love themselves more and be confident to give themselves time and space to get a nice hot bath like little simple things like that I do that all the time nice hot bath yeah get out in nature more have like a little self date way to take yourself to the cinema and get like your favorite food like it can be simple things like that where you're saying to yourself I am worthy to give myself time to do something that I enjoy like it's it can be as simple as that it doesn't need to be like these big massive grand grand things you know it can be you know I find letter writing really profound write yourself a letter write yourself a letter of all the amazing things that you are of all your amazing qualities like take a minute to appreciate all that you are but really make time for it light a candle put your favorite song On and write yourself a letter of appreciation like men have got a barrier to this and I honestly think that as well is going to change when our men drop these barriers and step into more self-love well as I've like explored this journey and gone down that path like not even willingly sometimes it's like right this is where you're going as I've like opened up to other people you definitely feel that outside Judgment of yeah over he's lost his mind or he's so soft like he's and it is like as males were taught to be so dominant and you know that's why we all go gym when we're 18 and we get as as big as we can like a lot of us do that and it's just growing through that stage in your life where you're around over men and you're just all figuring out that animalistic dominance hierarchy that is in our DNA as animals because we are human animals like we're still we've still got treats of animals so I remember at that time 18 to maybe 22. for me it was all just about going gym getting big strong and seeing what that was like and there is like a A brotherhood within that that you are kind of like still getting something from it but as I've got older and I've gone through what you could say you know tragic events that we just spoke about that if softened me in a way and probably bought in like a more feminine energy it's me realizing that merging those two things together is where the power is and if someone wants to look at me and see oh he's weak or listen to what he's talking about on a podcast self-love like what's all that it's like I'm good because I know how powerful this this stuff actually is when you delve into it and if we can get more men on board to that you realize that for me I can only speak from a male perspective but when you've got the vulnerable side you know the soft the softness the understanding the empathetic with the fire the fierceness the physical strength those two things match together like who's going to stop you in any power there's no one's going to stop you in anything and that doesn't mean you have to go and live lift the biggest weights like I'm not into the gym for a while I've got back problems I'm not lifting no weights but it's it's the metaphor of you know the fire the strength I feel like truly in you know the most powerful place I've been in my life but physically I'm being held back at the moment there's things going on but again going back to the self-love I don't see any problem with running the hottest buff I can to help my back or you know about a month ago I said you know I just don't feel right like what I'm gonna do today too I'm just gonna go for a walk and I went on a walk and I put a handpan playlist on Spotify I just let that run in my headphones and I thought I'm not going to check my phone once and it must have worked for about an hour it's a beautiful day it's like cold but the sun was out and I was just walking and I had a bottle of water with me and by the time I got back to my car I felt so high of like natural that playlist would just the move in motion of just being out on my own no no conversation no you know distractions once 20 minutes went by the thought stopped and I was just in that state of just presence and being and when we can get there that's where the magic is and I came back that day and I was like I think I said to like one of my friends was like bro I just been for a walk is the best thing ever it's probably the best work I've ever had and it's those little things as as men that other men can like take the piss out of people he went for a walk on your own what like but he's connecting with you that's the self-love it's those little tiny things like we said at the start of this that really do start to add up to the bigger picture and again it's great being around Community we still do need that and that's something I'm relearning after the pandemic because I'm really comfortable in my own space now maybe a bit too comfortable where like I can go into hermit mode and really just exist as me and you know have friends there to chat to and connect with but you could leave me for two months and I'd probably be okay I still need to go Outdoors if I was indoors for two months I started to crack up but I can really exist in my own space and own existence with minimal connection for quite a while but I'm starting to realize that the effects of the outside world just got to be aware of you know the balance of things not going too far into one side and making sure you're stepping back into the other and it is good to hear these Little Gems that you're dropping today because like you said about social media I think that is even though for all its negatives and all the you know things it causes within us and stirs up all this negativity there is so much Beauty in being able to connect with people now you've dropped these gems I'll be connecting with your way way more you know messaging and obviously we'll get you back on on this podcast again but that's the beauty of of social media it is creating these new connections and forming a brand new society which is needed as you see things like expression being suppressed and freedom of speech being suppressed around the world like we need to form these new Pathways of individuals who arising in the power and people who aren't quite yet you know there yet just nudge them onto that that path of like come with us like let's go and it's happening and it's a beautiful thing to see and about I'd say four years ago I was part of um like a men's Circle in Manchester called Mentor so it was a group that was created for men to sit in a circle and speak with each other and it was all about holding space and I saw so much in that the first meeting was probably about six of us seven eight maybe around in a circle and none of us knew what we were doing we were just there everyone had been through stuff and all we had was like a tennis ball we just fought right when you speak just passed the ball to the other guy that's all we that's all we knew that we thought should happen but in that listening to other people's stories you realize there's so much healing that happens within yourself because here in what that person said just triggers that new way of ah that relates to me and they did that and oh yeah that makes sense and when you see the stereo type of like let's say like a builder who watches football at the weekends and goes to the pub in the unions when you see a guy like him sitting in a circle and opening up I'm being vulnerable and then at the end of it going wow I've never done that that's amazing it would be beautiful if we really could get to that point with with men because I think when for example most Barbers that you go to as a man the conversations are women and football never transcends Beyond it and I remember let's say probably like eight years ago I was in a Barbers and I had a book about Reiki I was waiting to stop and reading my book and the bar was gone no James what's that were you reading it's probably like four other guys sat there I went uh it's a book about Reiki when Ricky what's Reiki so I still like it's like an ancient Japanese healing technique the conversation died nobody knew what to say because it's outside the boundaries of what we speak about as males in these four walls have you heard about the barbers in London what they're doing at the minute no no so there's um a scheme in London at the minute where they're training Barbers um around mental health amazing so because it's a space where men come comfortably they feel a bit more relaxed like their guards down a bit they're trying to train them in supporting people to open up and talk and also to keep an eye out for you know any signals if anyone's struggling and what they can do with those men and how they can guide them and support them through The Barbers that's amazing yeah because for me one thing I look forward to is sitting in a barber chair sometimes I don't even I go with the flow but sometimes if I get a day where the barber doesn't really want to talk I don't really want to talk and you just sit in that silence and have someone kind of like look after you in a way and then like the hot towel on your face afterwards after that I feel like a million dollars but if we can get men opening up in those spaces and not just talking about you know football and women that's where I feel like we'll see a true shift when we can break those things in culture that men do in a cycle like continually like I'll go to the Bible say every week if we can get those spaces opening up I feel like that's where we'll really start to reshape men and change the world as cliche as it sounds like so to hear that's happening that's amazing yeah how don't you do men's circles so I was I was a part of it and to be truthful it's not something I've spoke with the guys about I was a part of it did it for a long time where my life path was going and how the path of that was going I I started to not align with what the whole thing was transitioning to it started you know men circles helping people talk then that became a charity transitioned into a charity and now these people that are doing amazing work you know raising funds and expanding that out but for me it just took a different direction of where I felt I was going in life on my journey um I just feel like I had a different path and those guys are still doing really amazing work but something wasn't connecting with me like it initially did so I had to honor that I had to just be like right that doesn't feel like it's for me anymore maybe I've helped be a part of that and nudge it on a certain path and people will take that to a place where I'm not going to take it too so it's just honoring myself and yeah and realizing that maybe there's other spaces I can I can be in and since then you know the work that I've been doing I've realized that that was the right decision and I still speak to the other person but I don't speak to many people from it but to see that they're still doing the work all these years later it's amazing and hopefully that'll trigger more people to do to do the same yeah so it is great to see these things popping up for men and you know when you see like a women's circle like the stuff that you you'll hold or other people I know from like similar communities it is great to observe that but it's so different and I know we spoke about it before it's a very different thing when you see like women's circles sometimes sometimes parties like once the messenger's got can I just come and sit in on my knees because like that that [ __ ] looks fun and that just wouldn't happen in a men's circle like it's completely different energy like I said I know women are just more open there's less there's there's not as many there's no guard there it's still difficult to get some women to women circles though I think for some women they can still see women's Circle what's that like what's going on there um but once you get a woman down to women's haircut normally it's it's a lot easier to get them in flow where can people find you as well so if they want to reach out and contact you yeah best place is Instagram uh Laura Bam Bam love um so you can get me there for information on Cambo on self-love coaching on women's circles um and just anything that I've spoken about today if anyone wants to reach out please do for just a chat as well I mentioned I'll put all that in in the description in the podcast as well or the info so if you want to contact Laura you can do we're just talking about combo as well obviously you'd be in a practitioner of that how did that come about I would assume it would be from exploring like things like Ayahuasca and then that leading on to the next thing so when we first spoke and you mentioned that again there's these things that I wanted to do for years and I've like not quite stepped into for me I know it's about letting go and that's something I know I still have to let go like the worry of letting go do you know what I mean so at some point I definitely want to do that but for the listeners I've never heard about that like what what is that yeah so combo is a secretion from a frog that the tribes have used in the Amazon for hundreds if not thousands of years so it's a deep cellular level detox it gets all the toxins out of your body it's a physical cleanse but it can also be like an emotional and energetic cleanse as well in the tribes they The Men Who go out hunting take it the day before and because it gives them more concentration more energy more stamina and the women take it because it makes it more beautiful it gets rid of light skin conditions helps with fertility issues massively as well and in the west we've had it for about 30 40 years and we've realized it massively helps with things like anxiety and depression and as well as anything connected to like the digestive system the lymphatic systems that anything connected to like inflammation in the body anything connected to hormones as well so there's peptides so peptides are like one of the smallest structures cellularly in your body that make everything up in your body so it's even what your hormones are made from what your bones are made from your blood everything and the peptides in combo because it's so similar to that in the human body the body just welcomes it in so the camera goes into your cells gets all the toxins out and then you purge you be sick so a lot of people are a bit apprehensive because it makes you be sick but it's not like when you're sick after a night out and our food's coming up yeah because you've fasted beforehand so you drink water and it's just the water is the carrier for the toxins to come out um but it's just great for anything where or your liver because they work so hard at detoxing your body so the combo really helps with things like that and but it's just a massive reset as well you know we abuse our bodies most of us you know we put a lot of toxins in be it junk food processed food alcohol smoking um and just even like old energetic trauma that we've pushed down in the body you know it's it's a normal thing for someone's like yeah I'm holding it all together that we're not supposed to hold it all into our bodies we're supposed to release and we just don't it's combo really really helps with that um it is a strong process you know but it only lasts for 20 to 40 minutes it's not going on for hours the way Ayahuasca does and it's not psychedelic in any way it's a very physical experience yeah um a lot of people use it to help with addiction as well it's had really positive success rate with addiction with things like Crohn's and disease which is connected to the gut and like I said before with fertility so it helps with such a range of things and people are a bit like how can one thing help with so many conditions but because it's going in on a cellular level and getting all the toxins out your body energetically gets to flow if you look at things like Chinese medicine it's all about the the chi of the body of being able to flow at its natural rate you know we get blocks for different reasons we get blocks because of the toxins we put in our body we get blocks because of stress we get blocks because of trauma all these different things the body there's a book and I can't remember who's by called the body holds the score you know our bodies hold on to everything that's happened to us yeah so Cambo is a thing that just helps release um like so physically emotionally mentally um yeah so that's like would you would you say if someone was like on the start of a self-love Journey would you say try some other things before Campbell or is combo something straight to go in if somebody has like no awareness of what self-love looks like or self-lovin come back I mean they do come together but they are two separate things as well if you're wanting a deep detox if your body is feeling stagnant or if any of the things I've just mentioned are something that you you are dealing with at the moment you can definitely go straight to Canberra like Cambo the way they receive it in the jungle like they receive it from being children and we don't have in England it's like minimum 18 but um you know in the tribes anyone of any age can receive combo and it's to them it's just like you know they're regular check-in just keep everything clean and yeah um so for me I don't I think if anything I've said resonates and you feel a call into it if you start seeing frogs after you've just heard this popping up their fighting center that is the canvo calling you yeah that is your sign that you are right you should be receiving um but yes no I don't think you need to do other things before you do camber and what what would you say to anyone like who hasn't really ventured into anything on a self-love Spectrum or is not really fully aware of that like what that would look like what would you say like really easy things for like the beginner to get into to start practicing self-loving this these words that we like easily have a bit of fear of like self-love like what what is that wow what is self-love self-love for me is like self-appreciation self-celebration self-acceptance and I think little tools that can be used um a massive one is at the end of the day just before going to sleep so it's a new psiq are you sleeping it's just having a pen and paper next to your bed and just write three things that you appreciate about yourself for that day it could literally be you held the door open and like I love myself because I held a door open for someone I love myself because I took my mum shopping today I love myself because I made myself a healthy meal today like just little things like that and do that every night for at least to try and try your best we also we all slip off so if you slip off one night just let yourself jump in the next day yeah another one is a practice that I learned recently is have um two small notebooks and I'm one of them anytime you have a positive thought that one's for your mind write it down and whenever you have like a negative thought in your mind write it down so what you'll soon and quickly notices the negative list is so much longer well then the positivity yeah so you know even if it's you just look in the mirror and you think oh I need to lose some more weight or I don't like he's closing me up oh I look tired today or whatever it could be a million things or you just sort of um I'm no good at that or I can't do those things like try and catch yourself so just that act of catching your thoughts you actually becoming more aware of what you're thinking so we fuel our bodies in so many different ways you know it's not just through food and water but what we read what we listen to and that the thoughts in our mind is all fuel for the bodies or what we operate from so you could do everything like in quotation marks perfectly in the outside world you know you could eat really clean you could go to yoga every day you could have a really good job you could have like the perfect marriage kids whatever to you seems like the perfect world on the outside world but if internally your mind is doing one on you on a daily about that you're not worthy you're not good at this you shouldn't have this you're stupid you're ugly you're useless whatever your mind is doing you in over if that's constantly going around in your head you're never going to find happiness and like for me self-love is a journey to actual happiness like we all is what we all want as humans we all want to be happy like and we so often crave that from materialistic things you know bigger house oh once again and it's always once I this you know we so often are like oh but once I start that job or once I get that house once I get that partner wants to have those children but it's always one day I will be happy and we're not calling it in in the here and now yeah you know self-love is a practice we can do in the here and now to cultivate self-appreciation self celebration self-love all of that we can call it in in the heaven now and bring those moments of Happiness now and I'm not saying it happens overnight and you're just gonna in 24 hours feel like a whole new person but it's creating new habits that create new new Lifestyles that create new new love New Life new everything and for anyone who this is like all totally new Concepts to or they've never given themselves space to try any of these things just know little and often because here's what will get you there right so don't think you need to spend hours every day on this it could just be a few minutes each evening or if you're more of a morning person like me a couple of moments in the morning when you wake up to just wake up and think oh I'm just grateful for my body that I woke up this morning I'm just grateful for this roof over my head whatever it is for you and but on Mains campaigns I've got like loads of suggestions that can help people guided meditations is an amazing one like I know so often people like I can't meditate I hear that more often than I hear anything else people tell me they can't meditate meditation is anything that brings you to the present moment it doesn't need to look like cross legs looking like the Buddha yeah like anything that brings you to the present moment focused on your breath dancing singing listening to music even reading a book getting lost in a book like whatever works for you like but giving yourself that time like say like it's a meeting in your diary you know book a meeting with yourself to give yourself a bit of time um yeah just dedicating that and just setting something aside I think that's we all get so caught up in life and it seems as as we get older life just becomes quicker and the hours in the day become shorter and you do one thing then all of a sudden like you've got no time to do anything else but it is as you hit that pace in life just checking in with with the small things and setting that time aside and I think like you said diet is not only what you're eating it's everything we're consuming and one thing I'm gonna do soon because it's been coming up a lot I've just not done it yet is see if I go on Instagram something might trigger me and I'll swipe to the next thing that might trigger me so I want to start writing down what my triggers are and exploring that because they're coming up like quite a lot and I'm realizing that like I said social media can be a trap but it is also that opportunity to explore like what is triggering you and take things out your diet so I want to explore what's triggering me but over the past year or two I've removed a lot of things off Instagram if it's divisive or it's stirring up so much in me I'm like take that out my diet I don't need that because all these things were consuming it is creating the makeup of who we are and how we see the world so I don't ramp with horror films since about I'd say 20 years old I used to watch horror films love the fear oh jumping scared I don't need to see that now because I'm putting some evil into my mind and since he's psyche isn't it exactly yeah especially because most of the time when people watch scary films it's just before they go to bed yeah yeah so then you're sleeping on it you're chewing on it you're like just building all that energy up in your body like everything is energy like so it's choosing what energy you want in yeah some people listen to this might be like oh it's only a horror film it's not that deep yeah but like everything I think is either like everything is either health and well-being or it's not yeah I'm just gonna say or not on the other side of that like whatever you want to call the nut but like it's it's either gonna be in your best interest or it's not I don't think that's like that much of a gray area with that um because I think yeah I think prior and again it's self-love it's like prioritizing okay is this thing like in my best interest yeah is it serving you in a positive way and it's like coming back to the thing of like where I'm at now with how I try to love myself is almost like Through The Eyes of my mum so it's like I give myself that love it's like would you want your child yeah yeah doing that to themselves I think that's always a really good question for any parents like I'm not a parent but it always seems to resonate with most parents that I know is like those thoughts that you've got going on in your head being hard in yourself that you're not worthy you're not lovable you're not deserving how do you feel if your child was saying that to themselves that's very true and I think it's a great thing that you're continuing to do see things through like the eyes of your mum such a powerful thing and keeping it with you in that Spirit knowing that she's she's with you and you know you are a part of her so if anyone can see from that perspective it's you but I actually wanted to touch on something from you yeah of course that's okay yeah because I was mindful of like we were talking about parents and there's obviously people out there that either don't have a relationship with their parents whatsoever I've never known their parents yeah and the tool of writing a letter um to my mom can be can still be used for someone who doesn't have a relationship with that parent or never knew that parent because what you can do is if you imagine your parent in their high self so in their best self imagine them being sick they've been sat on top of a mountain in the Himalayas meditating for the last 40 years and they've just literally become the best version of themselves so really tuning into that frequency that energy of your parent in their higher self and then engaging that conversation with that person in that state so like I'm aware of like so for example I didn't have much of a relationship with my dad until I was an adult you know and I held a lot of resent and anger and all these hurt feelings towards him and something I've done is I've wrote a letter to my dad then to support my inner child on that healing Journey so as much as because I'm just very aware not everyone has the relationship that I was blessed to have with my mum and I just want to honor and respect that with anyone who who hears this that you can still do these processes and still heal these parts of you and have these conversations you don't need to have these conversations directly with people and these these tools can be used with anyone it doesn't even need to be a parent like if you've had if you've broke up from a relationship that was like super toxic and it's really affected you you don't need to tell that person because you don't need to keep engaging in that and keep reinforcing that energy within that that situation that's hurt you so badly but you can have this conversation with that person through the same technique with this letter writing where you write a letter to them and then you imagine their highest self so imagine that they've healed they've grown they've become the best version of themselves and imagine that it's that version of them that's responding to you and to have that dialogue to get that healing and that's on a self-love journey I think that in a child that's the one that takes a lot of trauma that we all suppress and push down and go that's not part of me and some things will just pop up in life and it will remind you of certain things you know throughout your childhood you're probably not addressed then some things you might not even think were trauma but they 100 were as you get further into that self-love exploration that inner child will present itself at some point and it's okay to have conversations with it it might sound crazy to some people like how do you have a conversation with your inner child that method there you know writing letters to former versions of yourself they still exist within you they're still there you might not be that actively every day but it's still a part of you and who you are to communicate with that subconscious part of you and try and correct little bits that still might not be working in your favor such a powerful thing something I've learned within NLP as well and practice of NLP you know talking to those parts of your subconscious and reprogramming and how that will help you in your current state that obviously takes a lot of work you know to start delving into that so for listeners if that sounds overwhelming just start with the little things and know in a year two years three years however long you can start to you know delve into those deeper things but today I've learned so much from the gyms you've been dropping so I appreciate you know you've come in and given your time because time's the most valuable thing that we all have and you've dropped some gems today so I want to say thank you for comment on the podcast I'm sure this will be first of many I've really enjoyed this as well obviously guys if you wanna support the podcast you know this is not about money it's a labor of love but it takes a lot of time and dedication and we want to build this into something special which helps you guys and Beyond so you can do that in the links in the description from wherever you're listening to this podcast Laura I want to say a big thank you for today this has been amazing and is there anything else you want to like share a little little last minute Roundup the best thing you can do in this life is Learn To Love Yourself is to unpick all of the teachings that have led you to think that you're not aware not worthy of of your own love you are exactly who you're supposed to be you're exactly where you're supposed to be and I am grateful if you're listening to this and this even plays One spec or one little Drop in the Ocean of anyone's Evolution into yeah just totally loving themselves and accepting themselves but thank you so much for having me amazing I appreciate it thank you and remember guys no matter what you're going through no matter how difficult life gets life is good life is sound we'll see you on the next one stay blessed