Midlife Burnout, Nervous System Healing & Why Your Body Is Asking You To Slow Down with Sonia | Hot Flushes & Higher Self

Welcome & introducing Sonia's journey into holistic healing

0:01 Soraya: So hi Sonia, welcome to the show. Could you just share a little bit about your personal professional journey and what led you into this type of work?

0:54 Sonia: Um I would say my own life experiences really. I grew up in a household where iron feather was just very, very normal.

How Sonia's own health challenges led her to nutrition and nervous system work

1:04 Sonia: So, you know, my mum would use all these different kinds of um little concoctions and herbs and all spices and these different kinds of things for different ailments. And I'm not gonna lie, it didn't interest me that much then. Sometimes I was just like, I just need paracetamolum, and she'd be like, no, no, you've you've got to try this. And um, yeah, so we we grew up with that kind of element, but I think for me personally, just the whole journey really shifted with my own health issues, which really I think started with IBS when I around the time I got married, funnily enough, quite a stressful time, lots going on, you know, so much pressure to you know look a certain way.

1:52 Sonia: And I think I was trying to lose a little bit of weight to fit into my um, which I fit into it anyway. I don't know why we do this, like it was fine, but anyway, yeah, I think just the stress of everything, um, I started to get IBS symptoms and I was kind of told by my GP that you know you've got to take medication, that's all you can do, and it is it's lifelong medication. So this is about 19 years ago. Um, there was really no kind of scope for, you know, no, nothing about food, nothing about nutrition, nothing about, oh, why don't you take, you know, why don't you try playing with your diet?

2:32 Sonia: None of that. And really, I think for me it started there, it just didn't sit right with me because my symptoms were pretty aggressive, like I would bloat really badly by the evening. It was a lot of discomfort where you know you'd you'd be struggling to think about what to wear if you're going out to dinner because you know you kind of knew what was going to happen. And it was just because it kind of I can't say it happened out of nowhere. When I look back, I can see exactly the stress levels. Also, I think a couple of years before that, or maybe a year before that, I was in the States for a couple of months and there was a lot of eating out.

3:09 Sonia: And I can honestly say that my gut health suffered. I could tell by the end of the trip, didn't know much about gut health, but I just knew that there was something going on with my tummy. Anyway, so coming back to yeah, around the time I got married, I just started researching food, looking into um yeah, just different ways of healing, really, but through food. At this point, my focus was on food. Um, and I started following, I think, Dr. McCola at the time. He was quite out there, you know, it's quite outspoken with just you know different ways of you know taking certain foods out, adding certain foods, and so just started there.

3:51 Sonia: Um, and what kind of happened was a lot of my symptoms cleared up just with diet change, and then I was also diagnosed with PCOS, and again, a lot of dietary intervention, and it got to a certain point. But what happened? I still feel like felt like there was something missing. So, you know, I was starting to feel a lot better, my symptoms were so, so much better, so much more manageable. But I just felt there was still something not quite right, and I think what then kind of happened was I started to look more at the nervous system quite naturally, and also actually during this time I did go and study nutrition.

4:33 Sonia: Um soon as I started to see that my symptoms were getting better, it really made me want to look out there because I was like, I have to learn, I have to learn all the all of this. I really want to know. Food is so powerful, you know, it's an energy form. I understood that I need to know. So I went to the College of Naturopathic Nutrition, and for three years I studied and I graduated as a nutritional therapist. Um, and it was, I think, around this same time I may have been diagnosed with PCOS because it was highly stressful.

5:02 Sonia: So I'm doing this course, but I'm still under a lot of stress. My kids are young, I believe, seven and five, um, still doing a part-time job, running a household. But in my head, it was just the eyes were on the prize. I've got to do this course. If I don't do it now, I'm not gonna do it. Um, so yeah, so even that we were learning constantly about the nervous system and the gut, you know, even just that connection. And we'd all joke about it, we'd say, We're all so stressed with this course, yet look at what we're learning.

5:32 Sonia: So it kind of felt like a um, yeah, it was quite funny actually that we were experienced exactly what we were talking about. Um, and then I think with me, so fast forward to yeah, around that time I was diagnosed with PCOS, and again, through dietary intervention, like I said, you know, leaps and bounds made you know such uh great progress. But there was always like a sticking point. I just felt like there was a plateau, and I was doing all the lifestyle adjustments, you know, working out all these things, and I it just kind of dawned on me that it's the nervous system when I really started to understand and really look at what I was experiencing, because some people know they suffer with their anxiety, like they just know because we have so much more awareness.

6:26 Sonia: But 19 years ago, yes, we'd heard the word anxiety, but nobody really thought they experienced it. Because in our heads it was this really kind of extreme, like you literally are panicking all the time, you can't do anything. We didn't understand the high functional anxiety when you can actually still do everything, but inside something is amiss. So, again, you know, being my best client, I started just looking at my nervous system and actually looking at patterns, and I think one thing led to another, and you always meet people in your life when you're in the right place at the right time, who always, you know, they'll shed a bit of light here and there, you know, and you just start to understand yourself a lot better.

7:08 Sonia: So this then changed my um I had so I had graduated and I'd started practicing part-time, and this really changed my whole scope. I was like, emotional health is massive because I understand our thoughts create our emotions, you know, and our emotions then really impact what's going on inside, and that affects our physiology. So, yeah, it kind of really started there, like that was. It was my own health issues that really brought me into the space first of all, of even thinking about healing. Because before that, you know, I had a corporate post.

7:46 Sonia: I was just, you know, getting on with life. I I did always meditate. I have meditated for, I want to say, like maybe 22 years on and off. Um, so I knew that that was something I loved, and I didn't I didn't understand what it did for me, but at that time it just brought me a bit of peace. So they were, you know, having a bit of that, and I used to do some yoga. And like I said, growing up with a mum who was always, you know, um, just pushing down Ayurvedic stuff, um, you could say that the you know there was some foundation there.

8:20 Sonia: And when I look back, my mum was actually always helping people with health issues with all these little things that she used to do with us. She would have these people like other women come to her, and you know, she'd make um these kind of things for a cough or for this or for that or the other. And I grew up around that, so it made sense to me way later on that you know the environment does kind of affect you, even though I had no interest in what she was doing at the time. I guess the seeds were sown, yeah.

The hidden opportunity behind midlife symptoms and hormonal changes

8:51 Soraya: So you know, you're subconscious, you were like actually experiencing what's going in somehow. Yeah, at the time, but obviously you saw that growing up, so it's natural that you're doing the same thing now in your own way, I guess. And so many women um in midlife feel disconnected from themselves or stuck in survival mode. How what are you noticing in the women that you work with? What are they coming to see you with?

9:16 Sonia: Um, I feel like a lot around nervous system dysregulation, if I can just if I were to just use a system in the body that you know it seems to be the most affected, is that and I feel like in midlife you're almost it's like a wake-up call. Um, I feel like anything that you've avoided, whether this is physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever it is, it kind of really you notice it at this time, it's heightened. So I feel like you're almost given another opportunity to do something about it. And this this is across the board, this isn't just um you know, ailments or things like that.

10:02 Sonia: Because what are hormones? They're chemical messengers, right? And they go rife at this time if you haven't really been listening to your body. Yeah. Yeah. And if there's been anything, yeah, screaming, exactly. And you know, these include boundaries, these include your relationships, these anything that's not been right and it's been there. I feel like everything comes up. And maybe this is what they refer to as well as the midlife crisis point. Uh, you know, I'm not sure, you know, with men, I'm sure they have their own cycle, um, but definitely with women, I think, you know, it's not really a crisis at all.

10:40 Sonia: It's actually an opportunity to use the wisdom you've gathered to use, you know, your lived experience and now decide how does this next chapter go. So done consciously, I think it's such a beautiful thing because I I hear generally for most women in their 40s is when they feel usually um the most kind of alive and together, and they just know what they want, and they just know what they don't want. Um so I I feel like it's such a beautiful point, but I feel like it's also it also can go horribly wrong if you're not connected with yourself and if you're so stressed that actually you know you're not really it's just there's just symptoms, and you just want to take something to push the symptoms down.

The pressure of juggling careers, family, relationships and responsibilities

11:31 Soraya: Again, depression, right, Sonia, yeah.

11:33 Sonia: Yeah, so you can continue on the hamster wheel almost. So I feel like stress um definitely is a huge one, all areas of life, you know, from you know, using social media all the time, that's a massive stressor because we were never meant to take in that much information, you know, in in one sitting. There's that, and then there's just a fast-paced life. There's work, there's all these responsibilities, you know, keeping up with whoever, you know, who um there just is a lot. We're just in a time, and you know, we we weren't made for that masculine energy either, but we've we live in it quite a lot, and it's okay to come in and out of it to do, but then to be.

12:20 Sonia: But when we're just doing, doing, doing.

12:22 Soraya: And yeah, and I think that women in general, we do have more than men to have on our shoulders because you know, back in the day when women were expected to be at home, we were taking care of our children, our family, our home. It was different. You had that duty, whereas nowadays women are working plus taking care of their home, plus taking it, and it's like a list of things that we have to do, and it gets too much, right? It's there's only so much for we are to do before we actually break down.

12:52 Sonia: 100%. And it there's always going to be a breakdown because, like you said, we we're not we weren't built for that. It's not meant to be like that. So, like you said, you know, women women had their part, right? And I know it it's it is nice as a woman to work a hundred percent, but I think the balance just tipped like a bit too much.

13:16 Soraya: I think so many women are so hard on themselves because we're trying to juggle so many things, and you know, we don't think we're doing enough, you know, not being a good enough mom, not being a good enough wife, not and I I feel that at this age probably it's all coming to like a collision when you just like had enough of doing it all.

13:34 Sonia: A hundred percent, yeah, because every you know, you are gonna have everyone's gonna reach that point where enough is enough, and your body usually starts communicating that to you as well. That I just can't, and this is when people just then say, I can't do it anymore. Like I physically cannot do it. It's because you're worn out, you've you know, you've thrown everything you know at yourself, you've you've done, you know, said yes to everyone, you know. It's just you just it's impossible to maintain this.

14:05 Sonia: It just you just can't do it. You can do it for so long, yeah. And I feel like it's it's it's so normalized. And when you see the other thing, is not everyone talks about how they're struggling. So you might look at somebody else, and you know, she seems like she's got everything together, and then it's like, oh, what's wrong with me? I need to, you know, I can do it too. And you know, we're not they if the communication's not there, and people aren't being open. I feel like now we're being more open than ever.

14:36 Sonia: But you're also just everyone's kind of there's this bar, invisible bar that everyone's trying to, you know, raise themselves to.

14:44 Soraya: And there's nothing that comes out of it, especially with social media, there's this pressure, everyone's watching everyone else's stories, thinking they've got it all together, and they're able to think, Why can't I? But actually, they've got their own stuff going on behind the scenes, and you know, and that's what I see with so many clients. I'm sure you see the same on the outside. They've seen everything is great, they've got their lives together, they look perfect, but actually, when you peel back the layers, there's so much stuff that they're not actually expressing, and it's being held inside.

15:12 Sonia: And that is the human experience, right? It's not meant to be perfect, it just isn't, and I think we need to be able to share the other side. Is well, you don't you don't have to share everything, carget it, it's personal, but we've got to have some sort of a balance because the human experience is ups and downs, that's just the way it is. It's how you navigate those ups and downs that can really change, shift from you know, it, you know, from doom and gloom to actually, you know what? I know how to handle this or I got this because I've been through it before, I've been through something similar.

15:49 Sonia: And it's it's okay as well to be vulnerable, to cry, to let your emotions up.

Sleep issues, headaches, anxiety, chronic illness and the body's warning signs

15:55 Sonia: That's what they're there for.

15:57 Soraya: But it's about having these conversations as well, like you know, sharing with people that are close to you, actually, you know, when it's very English when someone asks you how you are, you say, I'm good. But actually, a lot of the time we're not, and I think that's the important thing as well, right? Just to kind of with people obviously you know, not strangers, don't go telling everyone how you're feeling, but it's just expressing yourself, which goes back to the question before we we mentioned about um women holding on to stress.

16:24 Soraya: In your experience, how do stress emotions and the nervous system show up physically in the body?

16:30 Sonia: Um, I think before before it kind of gets serious, it there's there's subtle things that will show up in the body. Could be you know not being able to sleep so well. That's an indicator of overwhelm. Um, it could be just headaches. It starts off with quite things that we we think they're very normal, right? Headaches and you know not being able to sleep, everyone. But a lot of people, a lot of my clients tell me they can't sleep, they have sleep issues. When we unpack this, of course, it's a lot of dysregulation, it's a lot of stress, it's a lot of fight or flight, all of those things.

17:08 Sonia: But I think as we ignore these more gentler symptoms, I think the body gets louder. And you know, aches and pains as well. Sometimes, if we look at metaphysically, uh, you know, what different parts of the body represent, there's huge clues as to what's what's really going on behind the scenes. And I think over time this is what is known as disease, really. Um, you know, and then we get into more chronic health conditions, just even with something like you know, autoimmune conditions, there's a huge link to trauma.

17:46 Sonia: Yeah. And then when you kind of look at the subtle things that the body was communicating before that, it would, you know, there were symptoms, but they were ignored or and and some of it is you know the medical world as well. Especially now, I feel like your symptoms have to be very loud to really for anyone to even look at it. Whereas 20 years ago, there was still scope for that. And I feel like as things get ignored, the body does get louder, and then you know, it goes into panic as well. And that's when your nervous system becomes really, you know, full of anxiety, you know, it could bring on low moods, um, you know, physically stopping you from doing things, so that kind of freeze response as well.

18:35 Sonia: And it's different for everyone, right? It's it depends on um, you know, the type of dysregulation they're experiencing, and yeah, so in the body, really, I just feel like it it will get it gets louder and louder the more you ignore it, and that's why we have these more chronic health conditions over time.

The conditioning that keeps us busy, overwhelmed and disconnected

18:55 Sonia: Yeah, absolutely.

18:57 Soraya: And why do you think so many women struggle to just slow down, receive or prioritize themselves until like the body shouts and screams at them?

19:07 Sonia: I guess it's something we've never really been taught. Um you know, if most of us watched our mothers, grandmothers just you know, morning till night, always doing something, although they weren't not all of them were working, but they'd always keep themselves busy. And then I think also it's the world we live in. It's not it's normal to be busy. And in fact, if you're not busy, you might be seen as a little bit lazy, maybe, yeah. Or you know, you could be doing more with your time, you could be doing you know, extra.

19:41 Sonia: And so it's it's like a collective thing, this whole busyness, and you know, it's it's something that everybody seems to be doing. And on top of that, it's not just everyone likes to keep busy, like we were just saying earlier, there is so much more pressure, there's so much more on that to-do list, and we want to we want to ace it all, you know, and we don't want to drop anything either, we want to do everything, we want to be able to have um, you know, our careers or our businesses and things like that.

20:17 Sonia: We want to do the best for our children, we want, you know, um nice cooked meals at home, we want spotless homes, you know, we want the dog to walk a couple of times a day, all these kinds of things. Um and nobody wants to really take things out. It it's just normal, it's so normal.

20:40 Soraya: It's just normalized, though, isn't it? Normalized, yes. We expect of ourselves, yeah.

20:46 Sonia: Yeah, I feel like now it is, it's it's the norm. It's like this is what everyone's doing, and to go against that seems a little abnormal, although again I feel like we're heading in the right direction. There's so much more awareness um, you know, around this for men and women, you know, for both really. But I think women more so because you know, we we kind of got the raw end of the deal where we already had all this going on, yeah. And now, you know, we've kind of added that, you know, the other side, if you like.

21:18 Soraya: It's all like we've stabbed ourselves in the back because there was a spite for women to work and everything, and now we're working, but we're also doing the original stuff we were doing as well, and there's all the expectations of being a housewife and working, and it's so much, you know.

21:34 Sonia: It is a hundred percent. It's we weren't built for this, and this is why we're seeing such a huge rise in um, you know, even for women, like a lot of chronic health conditions, and from earlier on, from earlier ages, as opposed to you know, 70s or 80s. Now we're seeing a lot of this even in 30 year olds. There just is this, and I think. Social media again, it's a whole different, a whole massive, massive layer that we've only had in the last 17 years, and so people growing up now, I feel like it's much more difficult for them because they've got so much noise, and you know that again, the mental space, like we weren't made for that much noise.

22:20 Sonia: We're supposed to actually not even multitask, we're supposed to give our attention to one thing at a time, and when we multitask, we kind of scatter our brain.

Understanding the body's connective tissue and stored emotions

22:31 Soraya: Yeah, so true. Um, so going back to the work you do, the fascia release, that's what you know. I obviously I've experienced it with you, but before I talk about my experience, um just explain exactly what the fascia release is and how it works.

22:48 Sonia: So the fascia is a connective tissue, and we can imagine it to be kind of like a web almost, that is holding all our organs, holding everything in place. Um, you know, our bones, just everything. It kind of encapsulates all of that. And over time, you know, the things we go through, um, our emotions, things we couldn't feel, you know, things we weren't able to process, we didn't know how to process them, our kind of old stories, our traumas, they all end up in the fascia. Um, and you can imagine that depending on where which parts it goes to, it will affect in the long term even the organs, like anything around that area.

23:41 Sonia: So, really, it's it's a very intelligent web-like network that stores all of these things, and you know, it in it will stagnate energy, it will keep energy stuck, energy blocks, things like that. There's no free flow if a part of the fascia is being pulled or is stressed or is you know tense. That's the best way I can describe it.

24:10 Soraya: Yeah, and it's a good explanation. I think it's very, I mean, when I find it difficult to explain what I experienced with the fascia release because it was a very much you have to experience it to understand it. But the best way I can say it is like you you kind of applied pressure to different parts of my body, and I could feel like they felt different before and after. So and then as you applied the pressure to different parts, I was experiencing different feelings, and that was kind of coming on, and we we talked through that as you were doing it, and then I felt how it felt lighter after.

24:46 Sonia: So, um yeah, so applying the pressure is part is the tech part of the technique, really. So, you know, metaphysically, like I said, the body is a map, it represents you know so many deeper things from emotions to um, you know, just the way it connects to certain organs, the meridians, the chakras, you know, it's it's just one big grid, isn't it, really? So when I am applying pressure to certain parts, what we're doing is we're causing like a compression, and it's like things that need to arise in that area will, and you've it's important to I guess be quite open because if you're shut down, like with you know any other modality, if you are already quite shut down, it takes a few sessions just to break into that.

25:36 Sonia: With you, I felt you were really open, like you were already obviously the work you do um as well. So you came with that energy of yeah, I'm doing this. Um yeah, yeah, and and it you just have so much more of a different experience, and yeah, you're when you're going over different parts, different thoughts come up, different emotions come up, different stories come up. Um, sometimes traumas, you know, come up. And it is it is the body is just expressing what it's been suppressing, and then we do use breath work with it as well in certain parts where we feel like it's still quite sticky, it needs more support, and with the breath work, what we're doing is like we're we're bringing in, you know, we're bringing fresh energy in as well, we're bringing, you know, um oxygen to the areas, we're livening things up, we're removing stagnation.

26:30 Sonia: So it's it's a paired approach, you know. There is, you know, we we talk back and forth in it as well to kind of guide you to see because sometimes it's hard to it's hard to put into words what you're experiencing as well. It's oh you did a much better job than me, Sonja. It's difficult, it's just like, oh, what's this? You know, like why am I feeling tightness in my chest, for example, and that's grief. And most clients I've worked with all have tight chests because it's it's not necessarily even grief of um, you know, like a loved one passing on.

27:12 Sonia: Sometimes it is sometimes it's just grief about the person you once were, sometimes it's grieving relationships that are actually still here, but you know, we're not part of those relationships for whatever reason. So there's you know, grief is such a uh like an umbrella term, but there's so much that comes underneath that. So that is all in you know our chest lung area. And then we usually go to the heart center as well, just to because once you've worked on the lungs, on that grief center, you notice that the heart lightens up a little bit because it's all it's it they all they're right next to each other, right?

27:50 Sonia: So all that that energy center is just right there.

Reducing anxiety, improving emotional wellbeing and reconnecting with yourself

27:55 Soraya: And so, what are some of the biggest shifts you witness in people through this work, fascia release?

28:02 Sonia: So I think the um bigger releases is sort of over time becoming um more aware of themselves. So the self-awareness increases, the connection to self increases because they're now able to pick up um on subtleties just in their, you know, in their body, um, and able to perhaps name it, perhaps understand, you know, why they're going through it. To me, I feel like that's huge because it's not easy to do these things, it's not easy to read yourself often. It's easy as practitioners to work with other people, but I, you know, me and one of my colleagues, we always joke that there's more of a blind spot when it's you.

28:50 Sonia: Um, I feel like that veil thins and there's nowhere to kind of hide that shadow stuff. You really become away. So to me, I feel like that's that's the biggest thing. But people experience um, you know, much less like anxiety has gone away because it was it wasn't something from the present, it was something from the past. Moods have improved, um, breathing has gotten better because when you're literally working, say even on the uh, you know, the lung area, the chest area, shoulders back, you're also opening up the diaphragm.

29:37 Sonia: And as breathing changes, your anxiety, your nervous system is going to change. So I feel like the nervous system ones have been the biggest ones where people are so much more regulated. Um, and then where people are working with me nutritionally and um using the fascia therapy, what we're noticing is their body is responding so much better to even making changes that they once found really, really hard or unable to stick to. Because while we're making the body lighter energetically, we're clearing space for new habits to be formed, for new changes to be incorporated.

30:22 Sonia: So I feel like it's such a um like it marries up so nicely and doing the body work and also then you know, people working on their health issues. Um, you know, for example, we've had I've had a client whose blood sugar has you know gone down quite significantly through fascia work and through some nutritional changes, whereas she has done a lot of dietary stuff before, but her markers were not going down. And she has changed her diet somewhat, but she feels like what she's done through the fascia, through the releasing, through the integration, to the connecting back to herself, she feels like that's been like massive because she wasn't able to, she was in quite a like a frozen state, wasn't able to even really like vocalize what it is that she's experiencing.

31:21 Sonia: So that there's a lot of breakthroughs. There's honestly, and each person is so different. Um it it still just you know, it blows my mind when I'm with somebody. Although, you know, in your head as a practitioner, you kind of know what to expect, but I see different things all the time, and I'm just wherever like, like, wow, I did not expect that to happen that fast, or I didn't expect this person to really just um, you know, and the way that people are able to not everyone, but quite all people, the way they're able to interpret themselves during the session and just come out with things, and I think that's just the space.

32:06 Sonia: I think there's nowhere else to go. There is, we're there, you know, the body's there, we're applying the pressure, and I think it just it just comes out.

32:16 Soraya: Yeah, and I think it's because, you know, like you said, we all have the answers inside of us anyway, but it's just about creating that space where we're able to let it out as well. And obviously, the fashion really is what you're doing. There's that the physiological things, I don't know, the mythology that you're using. So, um, yeah, which brings me to the next question. What misconceptions do people have about holistic or energy-based healing?

Why nervous system regulation matters more than most people realise

32:42 Sonia: Um, I feel like in the past, like even the word holistic, not a lot of people understood it. It was not woo-woo, but it was almost like, well, you know, we understand this modality and we understand that, but what you know, holistic, oh bit of this, bit of that. And I think especially when people are coming, um, which most people are, you know, they're coming from the traditional medical world, right? Well, not so traditional, but medical world and everything's so black and white. And when you're now talking about, you know, lifestyle and you're talking about meditation, and you're talking about, you know, um, the nutritional changes people get.

33:25 Sonia: I think there's enough out there. We know you change your food, you know, you really you change quite a lot. You can change out a cellular never really, um, depending how you know how far you go. Um, but yeah, it's like it's sorry, just remind me of the question.

33:46 Soraya: That's okay. Um, it's fine. I do that quite a bit. So bring bring us back. I was asking you, um what misconceptions do people often have about holistic or energy-based healing? What what do you hear most?

34:04 Sonia: Is it really gonna work? Yeah, so with even with nutritional therapy, you know, oh, is it really gonna work? Can't I just exercise and can't I just, you know, if I change a bit of this, a bit of that, and you know, there's lots of ways around it. But I think even with the fascia, that's still not really understood. Like you said, until people don't have a session, it's even hard for me to put into words. I can say I do this and I do that, but till you don't experience it, you don't really know what it is.

34:33 Sonia: And I feel like now it's it is a lot more accepted. Like the modalities I'm working with, the people that are coming to me, they're quite they know about them, which is brilliant. Um, because before, like I said, when people would come and be like, Oh, why are you giving me a meditation? Well, yeah, we're trying to regulate your nervous system, but I'm not here to regulate my nervous system. I just want to, you know, um improve my cholesterol, or I just want my periods to come back, or I just want to balance my hormones or correct my gut.

35:07 Sonia: Um, they like they don't always get like why you're why and I'd and I'd say things like, well, you know, the meditation is the most important thing, you've got to do that, and then you know, do ABC. But why, but you know, why? And it's like then really it's it's the explanations and it's the education around that. Obviously, with your clients, you can do that, you can tell them that you know your nervous system is the foundation and doesn't matter about all the other things we do. If that doesn't, you know, if we haven't got a good handle on that, a lot of the other stuff's going to be really difficult, sometimes impossible, because you know, there's already so many stresses.

35:45 Sonia: Um I feel like people who come to me are quite open-minded and have been quite, you know, um, they normally do a little bit of research so they kind of know what they're walking into. But the biggest ones I've had is around um, yeah, is around kind of the lifestyle changes when some people just just tell me what to eat and I'll do it. But I'm not sure I want to meditate, I'm not sure I want to do breath work. Yeah. I suppose I suppose in their eyes it's not um it's not that there's not enough information around it because now there is, but it's still seen a little bit out there.

36:25 Sonia: Like it's just like really, what's what's this gonna do? Like, what's breathing gonna do for me when it's actually the foundation of everything?

36:34 Soraya: Yeah, I agree, but you're as you're saying, I I think it is becoming much more talked about and more accepted, but slowly, slowly, right? We're getting there. People that I think are kind of looking to alternatives to the regular medications because you know, regular medication has all its side effects, and it's big pharma, they're making all this money. And actually, there's not much money in healthy people. No, there isn't open it.

37:00 Sonia: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Because I think, like you said, it it's everyone's got more of an open mind now, and it is massively as well, because what they once relied on isn't working, yeah. You know, and and and sadly, a lot of people that used to come to me were really they'd tried everything, yeah, and their you know, chronic health condition was just getting worse and worse. And usually I was the last, you know, last port of call. It was just resort. Last result, yeah, yeah. Let's see, and you know, they they'd be blown away by what you can do, you know, how you can support the body, how you can look at it holistically, and say, well, actually, you've got that issue.

37:41 Sonia: Well, if we do a little something here, that's gonna support that. So, yeah, I think people now, yeah, they definitely get it much more that, yeah, than they have.

37:53 Soraya: Yeah, no, it's good. Slowly, slowly, we're getting there, Sonia.

Where to begin when you're overwhelmed and running on empty

37:56 Sonia: Yeah.

37:57 Soraya: And um, what would you say to someone who feels emotionally exhausted, lost, or disconnected from themselves right now?

38:06 Sonia: I'd say just to begin by slowing down. You know, just time for yourself, even if it's five minutes a day, just to start with that, because just those five minutes, just to check in with yourself, just giving yourself that time, you will start to understand perhaps what you need or what you don't need. It's it's creating that silence, that you know, solitude, stillness, whatever you want to call it. It's just giving yourself time and then to actually look for you know some something, a therapy or something, as a starting point that might help you.

38:52 Sonia: Because it's it's hard to do it by yourself, especially when you become so dysregulated, it's hard to read yourself. Yeah, and you become, yeah, so kind of far gone, you don't, you know, you're not that connection with self is just not there. So sometimes you downplay things, you're absolutely exhausted, but you tell yourself you're okay. Yeah, you tell yourself, oh, you know, oh, it's you know, I've just got to do this till this day, till Friday, then I've got the weekend, but then on the weekend you've got all the weekend stuff.

39:22 Sonia: And it it's it's an it's giving yourself permission just to slow down, and I think that is an a great starting point because we can all give ourselves five minutes a day, just those five minutes, and as they build up, you'll start to see, oh, what am I doing here? Why do I do this? You know, why am I adding this when actually I'm so exhausted? Just little, I think the penny just starts to drop, but it's just by having a bit of time to yourself, and then you bring in things like, Oh, actually, you know, um, yeah, maybe I might try a bit of breath work, maybe I might try a bit of yoga, maybe I'll just go for a coffee with a friend.

40:04 Sonia: You have to create space to begin with. If there's no space, you it's just that hamster wheel, isn't it? And you know, we've all been there. Absolutely, and it just keeps turning, and at some point you've got to break that cycle.

40:23 Soraya: Yeah, and because I was gonna ask for my next question was how can women women begin reconnecting the intuition and inner wisdom again?

The importance of slowing down and creating space to hear yourself again

40:30 Soraya: But that's I think you kind of answered it, you've got to slow down, don't you? The first step to take part.

40:37 Sonia: Yeah, slow down, try and tune the noise outside you down, and that means more time and space for yourself, not giving everyone else not being the yes person, not do you know what I mean? Like not always overcommitting on the outside, so turning that noise down so you can actually hear what you know your body is trying to communicate to you. I think there's no if you're not gonna slow down, it's just gonna carry on and on and on, and before you know it, um, you know, it will show up in in symptoms, you know, from something quite acute to something quite chronic.

41:19 Soraya: Yeah. So I've got a couple of questions I always ask my guests. The first one being, what does living as your limitless love mean to you personally?

41:31 Sonia: To me, living limitless means really um expanding, you know, growth, expansion in all areas. So in your physical, you know, in your mental, in your spiritual. So, you know, to me that is kind of limitless, like addressing all the areas, growing in all directions.

41:56 Soraya: I love that. Yeah, okay. And what's one small practice or piece of uh wisdom listeners can begin using in their own lives today, other than slowing down? We know the first like five minutes each day, what else can they do?

A powerful daily tool for calming the nervous system

42:12 Sonia: I'd say connecting with your breath is a massive one. It's so simple. Um, so many people talk about it, but how many people actually do it? Just five minutes of connecting to your breath. Yeah, that's it. Putting your hands on your belly, putting them on your heart, wherever you feel they land could be different each time, putting them on the sides, open, close, up to you. Just let your body lead. Just that, just focusing on your breath, allowing your thoughts to come through. You're not you're not trying to go into uh, you're not looking, you're not you're not looking for peace as such.

42:52 Sonia: You're not, you know, because you just want to see what's going on, you just want to be. So just breathing five minutes, letting your thoughts come up, acknowledging them, coming back to the breath. That practice done consistently, I can't tell you how powerful it is.

43:09 Soraya: Yeah, I think that's great advice because I I don't feel we realize just how shallow our breath is. Because even me sometimes when I get stressed, I do take a moment, I'm like, oh, wait a second, I'm not breathing properly. So it's about reconnecting with your breath, like you said, and even breathing out. I do quite a bit when I just I'm really overly stimulated, I was and that really helps bring my my you know me into a more relaxed state. So yeah, breath work is really underrated.

43:36 Sonia: It is, it really is. I mean, the breath has the ability to you know take you out of certain dysfunctional states and quite reasonably quickly put you into a whole new state. So that's really, really powerful. You know, we might not need all these kind of you know drugs. Um, I'm not saying you know, completely we don't need them, but there's a lot that is prescribed that actually when you know, if somebody's always going to breathe from up here because of all the stress they've been through, you know, all the traumas, what have you, whatever it is, if they're not even breathing correctly, if they're not getting that oxygen, I don't know how much a you know pill can really do for them.

44:20 Sonia: Once you start breathing correctly, it just makes a huge difference. You feel more regulated, you come out of fight or flight.

44:29 Soraya: Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you so much, Sonia, for today. Um, before I let you go, can you just let me know how listeners can reach out? They want to work with you.

How to Work with Sonia

44:40 Soraya: What's the best way?

44:42 Sonia: So I'm on Instagram um under alchemy off body mind soul, and you can also uh visit my website, which is again alchemy body mind soul this time, no off in there. Um, yeah, and you know, it's just got some information about me, my practices, um, ways to work with me. Yeah, and yeah, those two are the best ways. Instagram's just it's got a lot of things I do, it explains the fashion more. It's got testimonials and things like that. So, yeah, great places to start.

45:17 Soraya: Okay, well, thank you so much, Sonia, for today, and I'll catch you soon.

Final Thoughts

45:22 Sonia: Bye. Thank you for having me.