Return to Radiance with Danielle Venables
Underneath the layers of conditioning and societal expectations lies your true soul spark, begging to be set free. In this podcast, you'll find a mix of candid conversations, interviews and solo episodes designed to awaken and ignite the burning passion within you. This show is recorded with spiritual entrepreneurs, leaders and healers in mind as we cross through highly turbulent and challenging times and anchor in the new earth frequencies. This is a movement, and your call to rise up, own your soul purpose and embody the sovereignty and freedom that the world needs right now. Hosted by Danielle Venables.
Return to Radiance with Danielle Venables
092. Empowering Transformation with Ariel Balfour: Reclaiming Personal Sovereignty and Mental Health
What if you could reclaim your personal sovereignty and transform the way you perceive trauma and mental health? Join me, Danielle Venables, as I have a heartfelt conversation with Ariel Balfour, the Viking Queen and Reclamation Warrior. Ariel shares her compelling journey of overcoming the constraints of mental and physical health labels, moving beyond diagnoses like ADHD and bipolar disorder. With a unique blend of traditional therapeutic methods and “witchy woo-woo” techniques, Ariel unveils her mission to empower others to break free from limiting labels and embrace their true identity.
A pivotal moment in Ariel's life came when she faced her liver failing due to excessive medication. This episode takes you through her transformative decision to regain control over her life, challenging the conventional reliance on medication and advocating for informed, balanced decisions. We explore the nuanced relationship between mental health treatments and personal wellness, emphasizing the importance of marrying professional medical advice with personal intuition for a holistic approach to well-being. Ariel's insights into emotional resilience and the impact of societal pressures on mental health offer powerful lessons for anyone grappling with similar challenges.
Our discussion also highlights the significance of authentic support systems and reclaiming personal sovereignty, especially in vulnerable experiences like childbirth. Ariel opens up about the importance of surrounding oneself with people who uplift and believe in your vision, fostering relationships where authenticity and support are paramount. From reflecting on the role of mentors to the collective power of community service, Ariel's journey inspires a ripple effect of positive change, encouraging listeners to face chaos with resilience and cultivate fulfilling lives through empowerment and authenticity.
Connect with Ariel:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thearielbalfour
Web: https://www.thearielbalfour.com
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Connect with Danielle
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Welcome to Return to Radiance, the podcast with one core purpose to remind you of your innate power and essence. I'm your host, danielle Venables, an Akashic guide and soul coach, here to activate, heal and empower the new wave of soulful CEOs to become radically aligned and unapologetic. In these episodes, we will be diving into all things mystic, soul level transformation, the new paradigm of leadership, business, energetics, awakening, healing and more, as well as holding potent conversations around connecting deeply to your personal power and owning your truth. If you are here for it all, be sure to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode. While I'm confident the discussions in this podcast have the power to change your life, these episodes are for information only and are in no way a substitute for individual medical, legal or mental health advice.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to today's episode of the Return to Radiance podcast. Today, I am bringing you an interview with the amazing Ariel Balfour. Known as the Viking Queen and Reclamation Warrior, she is a force in emotional wellness, transforming how we approach mental health and trauma. With a warrior's heart forged in MMA and a soul deeply connected to Norse mythology, ariel blends ancient wisdom with modern techniques like EFT tapping to help others reclaim their power. Her raw, edgy approach shatters traditional norms, guiding people through their darkest battles to emerge stronger and more empowered. Unapologetic in her mission, ariel is a fierce advocate for emotional resilience, showing that true strength lies in embracing vulnerability and facing the chaos head on. Her journey is one of deep spiritual connection, strength and transformation, offering a path for others to reclaim their calm, their power and their life. She's not a therapist, she's the warrior leading a revolution in healing. Ariel and I have been friends for a few years now. She's a former client of mine as well and she just has the most incredible story and a heart of gold, and she really shows up from a place of service. She is deeply connected with trauma work and I cannot wait for you to dive into this episode today.
Speaker 2:Welcome onto the show. I feel like it's been a long time coming to have you on here, but I'm excited. We finally made it happen. Do you want to start by just giving everybody a little bit of an introduction? Who you are, what you do? Yeah, perfect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my name is Arielle Balfour. I am an emotional wellness mentor. I go by the viking queen and reclamation warrior.
Speaker 3:My mission in life is to revolutionize the way that we view and heal uh, trauma and mental health.
Speaker 3:I help people by bringing in traditional, scientifically backed modalities as well as some of the more also scientifically backed modalities, but less explored, if you will, and I also bring in a lot of the energetic works and what people love to refer to as the witchy woo-woo, but I think that it is some of the most potent medicine that we have out there available to us, and we've really kind of stepped away from utilizing these modalities, which has led us to a society of people that like to take pills.
Speaker 3:And so my part of this mission is to help people realize what their power is to reclaim sovereignty over their lives, over their own, reclaiming their own power and being able to live the life that they know is possible but have never grasped onto. So, yeah, it's been a deep mission of mine because, as somebody who was labeled very early on with a mental health disorder and then given two subsequent health disorders and then given physical disorders on top of that, it felt like I was always just a diagnosis and I wasn't just Ariel. I was never just Ariel. It was always oh, ariel has ADHD, ariel has bipolar, ariel has an autoimmune disease, ariel has one lung. And I started to live a life based in my diagnoses and it pigeonholed me for a long time. So I decided to take my modalities and my methodology of surviving to thriving and create it into a program that was digestible by the average human to help them do the same thing.
Speaker 2:I love that and I didn't even know half of that about you. So here we are, learning new things. That's super cool and I I feel like that's such a common thing that we see just in society as a whole, when, when you do get a diagnosis for something, it's like all of a sudden that's a label and then that label, like you said, pigeonholes you into well, I have to operate within these parameters or within this, this identity or this handicap in many cases right, whether it's autoimmune or mental health or whatever it's like all of a sudden we feel like we're at a disadvantage and almost puts us a little bit into that, that self-limitation and that almost victimhood at times. I mean some people more than others, and obviously you've overcome the identity piece, um, but yeah, yeah and I.
Speaker 3:I think for a lot of people too, they, you know, they, they we got we went away from diagnosis being a like, a way of like understanding yourself, to now it just has become their identity, and that's a big. There's a big difference in that. Learning your diagnosis so that you can understand how to better operate, or understand your quirks and whatnot, it's one thing. But to be pigeonholed by it because it becomes your identity is a whole different thing. Like I'm a bipolar I've met so many bipolars Like I can't do, you know, I can't do X, y or Z because I'm bipolar and I'm like I've done it. Being bipolar has nothing to do with it, it's a choice, right. And so I think that that's where we've kind of switched gears. Originally, when we started being able to discover these diagnoses, it was kind of like this breath of fresh air, of like, oh, now it makes sense. But then all of a sudden we turned it into oh well, I can't do things.
Speaker 3:I had one of my friends owns a store and has employees, young employees, running in her store and one of the employees was like oh, I don't show up to work on time because I'm ADHD and I have time blindness. And they legitimately thought that that completely like got them off the hook of ever showing up on time. And I was like that that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. It's called a watch, it's called timers. You know, it was an interesting thing to me. But yeah, like, this is why I'm so passionate about this is because I've done, I've walked through the flames of breaking free of those stigmas and those victimhoods and it is possible, and on the other side is just so much more emotional freedom and so much more power.
Speaker 2:I love that. I feel like and it's okay if you don't want to answer this question but where I'm kind of feeling drawn to is like can you take us back to when you got maybe one of those first couple diagnosis and like where you were out on a personal level then?
Speaker 3:yeah, uh, actually I have one like the first one. The first thing I got diagnosed with was ADHD. I was maybe six, um, at best. I'm sure they started testing prior to that, but like that's when the diagnosis came. I've always known I'm different. I've always known that my brain operates differently. I receive information differently. I know that about myself, I've always known that about myself, and it was sad because I think that that diagnosis only came around as a result of the fact that I was in a Catholic school.
Speaker 3:So we were taught by nuns like this is down in the deep south of South Carolina and the nuns were the teachers and we were expected to, especially back then, in the early 90s, like late 80s, early 90s like girls were to be seen, not hurt. You know we were to sit down and be pretty and do other things, but I liked to rough and tumble with the boys. I'm loud, I'm proud, I'm like if somebody, if I have the answer to something, I don't want to wait for you to spend 20 minutes to get there. I'm going to jump ahead because I already see the answer. I've always had that ability and it was. I was at an age where they just wanted to control me.
Speaker 3:My parents were in a very difficult spot together. Their relationship was crumbling. My dad was in the throes of addiction. Their relationship was crumbling. My dad was in the throes of addiction. My mom was working ridiculous hours making five bucks an hour, and we were basically raised by our, our daycare caregivers. Which is great because, like me, ma was like my grandma, she was amazing. But, like, that point in our life was very difficult. We didn't have a lot of money, we didn't have a lot of resources. So when, when the school was like hey, you need to get her tested, and then doctors were like here, shove her on all these medications, it'll quiet her down, you know, my parents didn't have the knowledge to say, oh well, maybe we should look at other options. They just said, oh okay, and put me on the medication. And they did the best they could. I'm not harsh on them. They did the best they could with what they had going on.
Speaker 3:But that medication I remember the first week of being on that medication I had. They put me on Ritalin and a high dose of Ritalin and I remember it felt like I was a zombie and it's actually a side effect that I still to this day, if I don't get enough sleep or if I'm under a lot of stress, I get that same feeling where reality doesn't feel like it exists in my body, like I'm. It's like I'm walking through a dream and I think I mean I and again, this is just my opinion I think it's a side effect, because I I never felt like that until I had Ritalin for many, many years and it just and I remember feeling like I had no joy, it stripped me of all joy and so, yeah, that was the first diagnosis, and kids treated me differently, teachers treated me differently. The nuns basically told me that I couldn't get my first communion because God doesn't accept mongrels, and until I learned to be a normal child, that I wouldn't be allowed to get my first communion.
Speaker 3:I remember I was sitting in the pews while all my classmates got to go up and me and the other ADHD kid were sitting in the pews alone and I just remember looking over at him and watching him just hang his head in such sorrow and disappointment and shame and I remember thinking, but there's nothing wrong with us, like it didn't compute in my brain why we had to be ostracized like that. Yeah, and then that started down the pathway of like oh well, the medic, the Ritalin's not working, it must be something else. Right, like it did, it did. It did its job, so to speak. But it also I was still me right, I still had my little quirks, and their doctors and teachers were like oh well what, it must be something else.
Speaker 3:So yeah that's the first time that I got that, the first diagnosis, and that was a pretty prevalent time in my life.
Speaker 2:I remember like it was yesterday yeah, and I remember, um, I didn't know that like the full context, but when we were walking through the churches in Montreal together, um, you know you had mentioned that about, about your first communion and the mongrel comment and stuff like that, and I mean that just so plain clear as day shows how you ended up, like where you are now right, like it's that yeah you know it's that reclamation that you were talking about, yeah, and so what?
Speaker 2:when did the reclamation part start? Obviously, like you know hearing that, you knew deep down that there wasn't anything wrong with you. It was just different. And you were, you know, strong willed enough and resilient enough in who you were that there was an element of like I'm going to keep being Ariel, I'm going to keep being Ariel, I'm going to keep being me deep down. You know they can say what they want, but this is me. But when did the journey start of that?
Speaker 3:that real reclamation, that real like coming home to full, full acceptance of yeah, of self, yeah, I, you know as much as it was always there, of course, societal pressures and things like that for many years, as much as internally I knew I was who I was and like there wasn't anything wrong with me. I received different input from the external world that there was something wrong with me, like even dating, like people were like if they found out I was bipolar, they, anytime I had any emotion outside of happiness, joys and pleasing my partner and in doing things they wanted to do, it was my bipolar was acting up. It really became this thing where I learned from external sources that I was broken and I. The battle was real. I used to always tell my mom it's like I have a war raging inside of me and I don't know which side is going to win. And, luckily for me, the Viking Queen came out victorious. And it was when I was 21.
Speaker 3:My liver was failing due to the amount of medication they had me on. They had me on so much medication because nothing was working. I was still sitting in my psychiatrist office going, I'm still depressed and I feel like I have no purpose and I feel like I understand my triggers but like I don't know how to fix this and they couldn't give me an answer. So I felt like I just was spinning my wheels over and over again. So their solution was always more medication, and my liver began to shut down because they had me on a medication called Seroquel to help sleep and it my body didn't know how to process it. So as I was taking dose after dose, it started to build up in my system and so instead of taking a 50 milligram dose, let's say, it was hitting my system like a 900 milligram post. So I was like I couldn't even function. It was so bad. And then they discovered that my liver wasn't actually filtering it properly and I had to go off everything immediately. And when they said that, there was a sense of relief in me. But then they came back with it's never successfully been done.
Speaker 3:For somebody who has bipolar and you might want to get your affairs in order, you know there's a possibility of a psychosis break, a possibility of a manic or severe depressive state, like we want to get you into a halfway house or a home that can provide the safety net that you're going to need. You know this is kind of what your life's going to be like now, and to me that was like a death sentence that meant I didn't get a life. My disease took my life and it was in that moment where I was crying and I was confused and I didn't know what the next steps were. And I remember my mom was sitting on the bed with me and she said she was like choose whatever the fuck you want. Choose whatever the fuck you want. It's your life, you choose.
Speaker 3:And although she had said this to me multiple times over the life, my span of my life, that moment, given everything that was going, it just hit different and it was like the war inside came to its final peak. And I reigned victorious because internally I was like I get to fucking choose. I get to choose, meaning I don't have to subscribe to their outcome. That is not an option for me. And the minute I decided that was not an option for me, the doors for all other potentials and possibilities began to open. I refused in that moment to let that be my outcome To never have love, to never live on my own, to not know whether or not I'd unalive myself because I'd have a psychotic break. I chose not to subscribe to that ideology and story and what they had put forward for me.
Speaker 3:And it was in that moment that I reclaimed my power, because I said to myself I don't care how hard it is, that's not my ending. I don't care how hard it is, that's not my ending. And so that started my journey into trying anything and everything. And when I say anything and everything, I've done everything, from your traditional talk therapy, you know, to your physical therapies, to literally running naked in a in the woods burning sage like that has been a thing, you know. Because I thought to myself I've tried everything else. What do I gotta lose? Like maybe there's something to it. Like don't get me wrong, it was super magical and beautiful in its own right, um, and I don't regret it. But like I've literally done everything.
Speaker 3:And so I, from that, I pulled the lessons of each thing that I did and tried to pull from it. What was it that actually worked? Why did it work? And then I created my own surviving to thriving blueprint, and this is the blueprint that I walk my people through. And I'm still adding to this blueprint because just when I think I've done everything, something new through.
Speaker 3:And I'm still adding to this blueprint because just when I think I've done everything, something new pops up and I'm like, oh, let me try that, why not, we'll do this new thing. And so that's actually how recently like three years ago, four years ago, no, actually, it was during the pandemic, the start of it I joined and became a rest practitioner, which is rapid reprogramming, emotional stress technique, based in the world of NET, based in neuroscience. I was so fascinated because it melded the worlds of science and energy into one and it made so much sense in my brain, and so that has been a big. It made so much sense in my brain and so that has been a big shift in my surviving and thriving blueprint, because now I have this superpower that I can deliver to clients that I didn't have before, and it's a lot of fun. I love it.
Speaker 2:I love that so much. Yeah, do you want to just walk us through a little bit of what that process looks like?
Speaker 3:you're surviving the thriving, yeah so I mean really this, the process. There's multiple modalities and I always say to my and my clients when they come on board there is no one way to do this, there is no right way to do this and there is no wrong way to do this, we just do. And I think, as as loosey goosey as that sounds, it also alleviates the pressure, because when we start a style of therapy, inevitably I can't even tell you. Even when my Bell's palsy hit, I heard the same thing oh, I can fix you, I can fix you, I can fix you. This is the be all end all technique and nothing worked. And it was the same thing in mental health and I was like, hey, but you can't claim to be the be all end all if it's not working. And so I don't ever claim that.
Speaker 3:I say that I have the multiple modalities and what we're doing together is building your own personal blueprint based on your own energetic, physical, mental, emotional needs. And everybody's needs are different, right, some people need to be seen, some people need to be heard more, some people need to just rage at the top of their lungs and get out all the physical, pent up anger in their body. But I hold no judgment as to where they're going to go on this blueprint, but basically there are some guiding lines that I have that I follow and so like. The first thing is is like I always tell people that you have to make a decision. You have to make a decision as to what it is that you want in your life. You can either be a victim to your circumstances or you can be a hero of your story. The choice is always yours, right? So when I say that you know like people are like, well, you know there's this, that or the other, and I'm always like you've got to be stronger than your strongest. Excuse not to it has to be a non-negotiable and only you can decide that right.
Speaker 3:Even taking a pill is not going to fix the situation. It just sometimes covers it up and, in a lot of cases, can make it worse. Did you know the number one side effect of most antidepressants is may cause suicidal tendencies. What is that? You're supposed to be avoiding that right? So you know, the first thing, this first process in this, is to accept that you have the choice right, and I want to preface this for anybody listening. I am not a doctor and I am not telling you to go off your medication without care and without a proper mentor, coach and doctor on board to ensure your safety. I'm not saying that you need to do it appropriately and it needs to be right for you at the right moment in time. So please, if you're listening to this, do not think that this is me saying go off all your medication all willy nilly.
Speaker 3:For me it was a three year process. It was a three year process of weaning down, finding out what worked, what didn't work, because, like a lot of those medications have addictive properties and so you can't just cut them off cold turkey. Plus, on top of that, when you take away the Band-Aid, what do you? When you take off a Band-Aid, what do you expose? The wound underneath? And if you don't, if you haven't cleaned the wound, it's probably festering, right? So it's the same thing emotionally Like.
Speaker 3:Once I've made this decision, my second thing is I need to ensure I have a plan in place to deal with the emotions that are coming up and the hurts that I need to heal. Right, because inevitably I had this medication to cover up a feeling that I need to heal. Right, because inevitably I had this medication to cover up a feeling, but if I'm going to hop back into my body again, I need to be ready for what's to come. So first thing is making a choice. Second thing is to have your plan. Third thing is to choose your appropriate team right. Don't just go with the doctors and the people that you think you have to go see. If you are called to running through the forest naked, burning sage, then go do it right. There's no wrong answer. It is what feels good for you and what works for you right.
Speaker 3:And so a lot of the time with my clients, I sit there and I I'm like, if I have somebody super religious, I actually can adjust everything I do to fit their belief system, where a lot of modalities and a lot of doctors can't do that or won't do that right. So you got to find somebody who feels good to you, that listens where you feel, seen, heard, understood. There's nothing worse than having a doctor that you talk at and then they don't understand you at all. I've had so many of those doctors in my life or where their only response was well, how do you feel about that? I know how I feel about that, sharon, and it doesn't feel good.
Speaker 3:Help me fix it and then so after you have your team set up, number four is to stay in the faith of what your vision is for yourself, because you're going to hit dark times. You're going to hit dark times where you know you question what's happening, you question if this is the right decision. You have to hold faith in yourself and in your vision above all else Right. So there were times where, like life has hit me really hard, like there's.
Speaker 3:I had postpartum depression with both my babies and I could have easily have gone to a doctor and said I need need medication, I'm not doing well. Instead, I had. It allowed me the opportunity to look really deep internally and hold the faith for myself, to know that I knew how to get out of it, to hold the faith of my vision of staying off medication and being able to live a happy, thriving life. But I had to hold on to that faith in moments where it was tough for me. And again, I'm not saying, if you're in your dire straits, not to go get help. What I'm saying is that you have to ask yourself legitimately how does this feel right now in my body and what is the best course of action for me yeah it.
Speaker 2:It's that sovereignty like you were saying. It's not. It's not this regarding any one thing, it's just staying in your sovereign power and keeping true to what do you really want, instead of going back into, say, the medical system and overriding yourself by following doctor's orders 's, you in the driver's seat figuring out okay, who am I going to go to for for this right?
Speaker 3:yeah, well, and I mean you, your body holds so much wisdom and unfortunately, due to social media, phones, you know, it all has disconnected us from our bodies. But our bodies are temples full of wisdom. Full of wisdom and if we just sit and listen to the echoes within, we will hear the answers. And for me, it was never to go back on this. I did not want that for myself. It was something that I I still feel very strongly about it.
Speaker 3:Ask my husband if I have a headache. He's like take a Tylenol. I'm like I'm going to make it through this, it's fine, right? You know, I'm the last person on earth to take medicine just for no reason. I have to have a reason where I'm like okay in my body, I've tried everything I know to. Now I need the intervention, right, but that's my sovereignty, that's my truth, right, and that's what feels good to me. Because if I go and I start shoving a bunch of stuff in my body, that doesn't feel good. I feel out of alignment and I was doing that and, funny enough, we're talking about this.
Speaker 3:This happened a few weeks ago, where I was really stressed out with a bunch of stuff after coming back from Montreal and had a lot of neck tension and I was like, oh you know what, I, as much as I don't want to take meds, I'm just going to take meds so that I can not feel the pain and get the stuff done. I'm a busy woman, you see, and it didn't feel in alignment with me, but I was like, oh you know what, I'm just going to do it. And I did that for about a week and a half and it was very much out of alignment for me and it didn't feel good and I kept arguing in my brain, I kept telling my brain to shut up, and then, all of a sudden, my back went out, my back fully went out. I could not bend to touch and my toes couldn't touch my knees, like, I was straight, could not move. And it was funny because the message I got in that moment was if you're not going to be in alignment, neither is your body. I was like, oh no, I did this to myself. Cool, cool, cool, cool.
Speaker 3:And so I I ended up, you know, despite being in all that pain, uh, I went off of using the medication and I went into doing it like and that's funny because I was in a ton of pain, like more pain, and instead I went back into knowing what I like, trusting my body and doing the things I needed to do to nourish it rather than ignore it, which is a really good phrase nourish your body, don't ignore it. Right? It has so much wisdom and, it's funny enough, I healed very quickly from that. Even my doctor was very shocked, and it was because I became back in alignment with myself. I think, energetically speaking, your body, the body keeps score. It knows when you're not being being in alignment with yourself. So, yeah, it was. It was definitely a funny situation that happened to a really good reminder for myself, but I think that that's a big thing is like you have to do what feels good for you and I don't think we talk about that enough.
Speaker 3:Everybody always says they're going to fix you or that this is they'll be all end all. But at the end of the day, does it align for you or does it not right? Yeah, yeah, I think those are the big things for surviving to. Thriving is like you put yourself in the driver's seat. Stop allowing somebody else to be in the driver's seat of your life. You get to drive, yeah.
Speaker 2:I love that. All of that so good and that that really is. I mean that's the foundation of of reclamation, right, like that's. That's the foundation of remembering who the fuck you are and what you stand for and what's true for you, and sort of pulling back all of those pieces of where you were giving your power away or where you weren't trusting yourself or where you were overriding what your body was saying or what your soul was begging you for or you know all of those things right, and I mean it's the same obviously with the with the birth work that I do. It's the same thing, right, like we're so trained to.
Speaker 2:Oh, go to the doctor, give your power away. Oh, they say you need a cervical check, you better get one. They say you need blood tests, you better get them. They say you need, you know, an emergency c-section because you're gonna die. Better get one, even though there's no actual I mean barring very extenuating circumstances. But in many cases you know they're planning a c-section because, oh, your baby's too big, it's gonna die on the way out. You're like what you know?
Speaker 3:yeah, well, I mean both of my births. My sovereignty was completely taken away from me in both my births and it was. It was tragic because, like even when I had my emergency c-section because in their opinion I had been in labor for too long. But you know, his baby was fine and at the end of the day, when they did the c-section, the surgeon said there was no reason he couldn't have come out on his own. They said the only reason he was taking his sweet time was he was sitting like this in there with his elbow up just chilling, like he was taking a moment before his big entrance you know, and uh, yeah, it, uh.
Speaker 3:There was a lot of extenuating circumstances that happened there, but I mean, it was like medications I didn't want and I, you know they didn't.
Speaker 3:They wanted to check me and then I said no students, and then they had students anyways and broke my water and it was just like it was such a cluster and like this. It took me a while and I think that's why the Bell's palsy came. It was a lot of repressed anger during that first birth, because of the fact that, after working so hard to reclaim my truth, my voice, my sovereignty, to have all of that stripped away, as if I had no rights over my own body, was very unsettling, you know, and like, honestly, I wish I had had you back then to to be in my corner, because I'm sure we would have had the most magical, beautiful birth. You know, because it really it is sad that this is where our women are these days and in going to the hospital, c-sections are on the rise all the time and like there's no reason for it you know they're really and sometimes there is, but for the most part, you know, just let calm mom down and let baby just come when they're ready.
Speaker 2:You know, oh yeah, it's incredible how many issues arise just from impatience or oh, this isn't quite textbook, so let's, let's do this and let's go here. And honestly, it's hard not to see it from where I stand, having done both types of births, and truthfully, I mean my own hospital births weren't like. They were very uneventful, which is the best you can hope for in a hospital setting, um. But even after that, comparing the two, it's hard not to feel like the modern obstetric system is just a traumatizing machine to traumatize women, to shake them, to fracture their, their sense of self, their sense of um, even their own instincts, their own voice, like you know, you said your voice was completely overwritten, right, like it's so hard to not feel like it's a systemic issue.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2:And I mean you have a framework that, honestly, people can take. You know the surviving to thriving that you just described. I mean anyone can take that and cultivate, you know, their team and their people and get their way out of whether it's birth trauma or whether it's life trauma or religious trauma.
Speaker 3:Birth trauma or whether it's life trauma or religious trauma. Well, and there's a piece that I didn't add into that that I think warrants mentioning is that when you're choosing your team of people to work with, to also choose your support systems wisely, right, your parents, your, your siblings, although they love you, their fear of of what could happen and their fear of wanting to protect you a lot of the time overrides and they actually become your biggest hindrance, right. In my case, I was very lucky in that my mom was very supportive of me doing this, but my dad had a lot of fear, a lot of fear. My grandmother had had overdosed on her lithium meds, being a bipolar, and had left us. When I was around seven and, uh, my aunties had all OD'd on their meds and it was for him it was very, very, very scary at the prospect of me going off meds and like, despite the fact that I was like that, that doesn't make any sense because meds were the problem.
Speaker 3:For him, it was this fear of the unknown right. This is like you know what if I got worse? What if something happened right? And so you know I I say that one of the biggest parts of choosing your team is choosing your support systems because you need to have the people who aren't going to. They're not going to put you down, they're not going to place fear in your heart. They're going to be the people that are like see the vision with you, are going to be able to hold the vision when you're struggling with it, you're struggling with it, and that are going to actually give you the confidence to move forward and remind you of how far you've come right, because if you surround yourself with the people who are constantly second guessing you, you know, like oh, are you sure you want to do that?
Speaker 3:like I heard this, this and this because I'm a facebook doctorate now you know is they can actually be a very big hindrance to your healing journey. So you know, like for me I say you are the sum of the five people you surround yourself with. It was like when we met for the first time in person in in Montreal. You know we've talked how many times on, zoom on, on everything and but like walking in person with you was like walking with a friend that I've known for years. It felt so easy and like this. That's the feeling you want, even if you cultivate relationships online, because that's a true friendship. That is.
Speaker 3:That is the moment that you know you have always been authentic with who you are, with this person because, it just feels easy, right, and I know that, no matter whatever back shit crazy idea I throw you know I'm gonna get the support I might get that. Oh, have you thought about this, you know, as a? You know, like not a devil's advocate, but somebody to look outside of the situation, but like, yeah, looking for blind spots, yeah, but that's the person that you want in your corner, is somebody who's gonna lift you up and have your back, but not have your back in a way that is detrimental, because they're afraid for you.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:And I think that makes a big difference, one thing with like mentorship, and you know whether it's coaching or whether it's, you know, therapy or doctors or really anything where people have access to kind of your, your inner circle, where, like you are letting them see the messy, you're letting them see the vulnerabilities, those kinds of things.
Speaker 2:The biggest thing is finding people who are capable of just holding the space without trying to fix, without trying to project.
Speaker 2:You know they can set their own judgments aside, their own fears aside, their own whatever comes up for them aside, and just really hear you and understand you. And, like you said, there's that level of understanding that just comes, like when you meet someone and you just know and you feel yourself relax, like you were saying, with the body wisdom, right, like your body relaxes, you feel at ease. But then making sure that those people also have the skill set because it is holding space is a skill set that we're so lacking in the world of information and you know just how accessible, you know, webmd is and different things. It's like it's so easy to get projected on and to start to kind of override somebody's will or their vision because you think you know better, because you've received different information. So to be able to hold space for someone's intuition, to lead like that's a really, really rare but important skill set to find when you're picking your team in life Right Like not just your trauma team, but like your people. Right your tribe yeah, yeah, 100.
Speaker 3:I mean, there's nothing worse than having other people's fears and perceptions projected onto you when you feel so in alignment with whatever it is that you're doing. You know, and uh, like a really, yeah, I just, I honestly think that there's no better wisdom than the wisdom we hold in ourselves, and no, two journeys are gonna look the same and so, like I don't know why we have these.
Speaker 3:Like, oh, you go to talk therapy, cool, but like then what? I can talk about it, but if I don't actually have the tools to move through it, what's the point of talking about it? And so it's just like I think we lost that by having all these. Like now you got to see 18 different doctors to get to your own healing plan, but most people can't afford that. So it's like why, why don't we house it all in one area of like and then let them? It's kind of like the choose your own adventure story. Right, you're choosing your own adventure in your therapy and like, let's see how this goes right. Maybe you're drawn more to EFT, tapping, talk, some stuff out, and then all of a sudden you move again and now you're into, like, doing some rest therapy and really get diving deep into that inner child work. Like it.
Speaker 3:Everybody's journey is so vastly different and I love that. I think it's. I think that's my favorite part about what I do is I never know what I'm walking into. It. It never gets boring because I'm always like oh, it's a choose-your-own-adventure day, let's see where this takes us, you know, and it just, I think the results are more magnifying, like they're just. They're so much more potent because they have really chosen their own journey and therefore, when they reach a success point, it feels so in alignment with who they are, that they are, like they genuinely are celebrating on every level of their being.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah, and it feels like it feels like their win right. It's not someone else, it's not a doctor that came in to save them. It's not, you know, this outsourced sense of oh, I got a breakthrough and like thank, thank god for this doctor. It's like, no, I did that, I got myself there and I'm fucking proud of myself and like also props to my guide, my team, my people, my community. Like obviously, props to them. I couldn't have done it without them, but I did this and that's yeah exactly and that's what builds that, that, that sustainable resilience.
Speaker 2:Right, like you know you do that, you have the wins. You, you credit yourself to that. Now, all of a sudden, you're not necessarily looking externally the next time, because you know that you've already overcome it and you know that you can overcome more, and it's like all right, bring it on yeah, yeah, it really.
Speaker 3:It really builds that inner trust as well.
Speaker 3:Right, because if I'm choosing my journey, when I get to that win like I, I now know that I can trust myself to get me there, and I think that's what really cultivated such a strong, powerful side of me was constantly showing myself that I could do.
Speaker 3:It, built that inner trust with myself that you know and a lot of people and I know they used to when I was little used to say, like you, you can always ask for help or like you need you need to ask for help, and it was like had nothing to do with this ego being in the way and not wanting to ask for help. It had to do with I wanted to follow my inner story and know that I could trust me, because that's the biggest. The biggest person you need to trust that actually has the biggest effect on your life is yourself, and it is the one person we don't trust at all as a general whole in society. We are always looking externally for validation and externally for like did I do the right thing? Did I do the wrong thing? Whereas if we just started working on this inner trust like you're unstoppable at that point, because you'll know whether or not it's in alignment absolutely.
Speaker 2:It reminds me of um, you know, obviously we're kind of in the age of like helicopter parenting and stuff like that that we see everywhere, and my aunt actually works in like sort of the childhood development type fields and with that, like we were having conversations about, like letting kids make their own mistakes instead of the oh, be careful, or whatever it's like letting them take reasonable risks in order to, for one, learn things for themselves, right, like when they do fall and hurt themselves, like they learn from that, and that's an important part of development. But the other side of that is they learn what they're capable of, right, they're willing to try things and succeed. And what we're seeing now, with gen z especially, is a bunch of kids who were told, oh, be careful, don't do that, you know you're going to hurt yourself, blah, blah, blah, who are now too anxious to take reasonable risk because they don't. They haven't cultivated that self-trust at all, because they haven't proven to themselves that, oh, I can actually do something yeah, 100% like it.
Speaker 3:It's so prevalent right now. I mean, with my own son I have like a five and a three year old for those listening who don't know um, and they're both boys and they're both wild and crazy. But the one thing I try and remind myself is that I don't have to intervene. That includes when they are fighting. You guys and I like I step back and I'm like okay, like y'all are gonna figure this out. Like you pushed him, he's gonna push back. Okay, let's see how this ends.
Speaker 3:And I know some parents, especially at the park, are like are you gonna do something? I'm like no, this is they gotta figure themselves out. They really do.
Speaker 3:And it also comes to things like I always ask the question. Instead of saying be careful, I say does that feel safe in your body? And if he, if my child, says yes, I don't question what he's doing. Because now my five-year-old, like he'll do something and like my mama hurts, like oh, oh god. And I'll be like does that feel safe in your body? He's like yeah, but the look of sheer pride on his face when he accomplishes what he set out to do is the most amazing thing to watch.
Speaker 3:But in the few rare times when he does hit a point like he's learned his own limits to the point where he'll stop and be like mama, I don't feel safe, can I have your help Right? That also means that as an adult, he's going gonna be that kid that comes to me and says, mama, I don't feel safe, I need your help right, instead of hiding away behind shame and like, oh, I shouldn't have done that thing because I was told not to. Like he's gonna be the kid that's like I need help now or no, I don't need help, you know, but I watch it. The Gen Z's right now, especially Just the victimhood that they live in All the time Because they were bubble wrapped Literally, you know and it's sad like there are some really magnificent souls out there who could do so much more with their lives, but they're so afraid to launch and so afraid to take that risk that they'll just be frozen and they'll miss out, and it's sad because there's so much potential there.
Speaker 2:So much potential? Yeah, absolutely. And so that brings me to a question Do you feel like, as a trauma expert, do you feel like we can be equally traumatized by the things that we are afraid of doing than the things that actually happen?
Speaker 3:Yeah, okay, hold on, let me, let me rephrase, let me reword that in my brain. So all right do you?
Speaker 2:think that we can be equally traumatized by the things that we don't do because we're afraid to do them, as we can be by the things that happen in our lives oh, 100, 100 it's uh.
Speaker 3:Staying in fear and not making moves is just as equally traumatizing. It can actually cultivate quite the dangerous cycles where, like, at the end of the day, things don't just happen to you, they happen for you. Good, bad or indifferent, right, you know my back going out. Good, bad or indifferent, right, you know my back going out. I could have looked at that and had a pity party and been like, oh, my life sucks and all this stuff. I saw a gift of an opportunity to realign myself emotionally, mentally, physically, right, right. But I think that when we stay stuck in the fear, we actually do more damage to our brain in the long run. We do more damage to our life in the long run because what we're doing is we're just basically flooding our brain with cortisol, because we're constantly stuck in fight, flight, flee, freeze, fawn, faint, right, and we're like literally dousing our body in cortisol and like our body doesn't have the means to get rid of that. Like um, a hormone specialist explained it to me once too if you have high cortisol, you probably have a non-existent progesterone which causes hormone issues, because the cortisol feeds off your progesterone to kind of balance itself out, and once it's depleted, like once your progesterone is depleted now the cortisol runs rampant and your hormones are so out of whack that you feel like a crazy person. And so I think that when we stay in these states of feeling completely chaotic and frozen, that we actually are causing more damage physically Right, not just emotionally, but physically to our body. You know there have been studies about like not speaking your truth leading to thyroid issues. Right, when you hold back all the things you want to say, having an autoimmune or thyroid issue is a prevalent connection. You know the body keeps score. It really does. And so I think that when we stay stuck, we actually are doing more damage in the long run, because the thing that could happen I was I'm going to actually give the listeners a really great tip.
Speaker 3:I just talked on this in my self healer sanctuary membership um was that there's questions you want to ask yourself. This is how you're going to survive everything, right? You're sitting here in this swirling anxiety, let's say, which is what we see a lot of today Like so much anxiety. I don't know how to talk about the anxiety I'm having. You know it's just too much, too much too much.
Speaker 3:Well, anxiety is a sign that you are living in a future that has not happened yet. Depression is when we live in the past of things we cannot change, right. So when I feel anxious, I ask myself what am I already trying to predict happening that hasn't actually happened? So that's the first thing, is I sit there and I go okay, am I in anxiety or depression? Am I sitting in the future or am I sitting in the past Because that's where I'm going to start? The next thing I do is I ask myself, if I'm sitting here in the future and this anxiety is, am I going to die right now? Is my physical being in danger right now? The answer is always no. I'm not being chased by a saber-toothed tiger. But, honestly, your body doesn't know the difference between a physical threat of being chased by a tiger and the perceived threat that you have in your brain of like, oh God, if I do this, if I take this leap of faith, everything could come crumbling down. Your body doesn't know the difference, right? And so, when you can sit here and stop the emotional turmoil happening in your emotional brain, your lizard brain, monkey brain, however you want to refer to it. Emotional brain your lizard brain, monkey brain, however you want to refer to it. Now you can kind of stop that fight flight response in its tracks Cause now you're like, oh well, I'm, I'm not actually in danger, and you'll hear the inner critic be like, yeah, but no, no, I'm physically like nothing is here to kill me, like I'm fine.
Speaker 3:The next thing I ask myself is what do I not have control over? What is out of my control? Right, this is usually things like other people's actions, timelines that are based on somebody else's timeline. You know, anything that is not has nothing I can't change. Right, I can't change Right. I then write all these things out and I go. I release myself from holding these things because I cannot change them. Right.
Speaker 3:In doing so, I've now brought myself into my working brain, which is my brain 2.0, because now I've let go of shit that I have no control over. Right, we, for instance, like a great example is like my husband got shortlisted for a job in Cranbrook as an RCMP officer and we were on the waiting post waiting for them to tell us are we going? Are we not going? We have a trip planned, christmas is coming. Like, are we having to sell our house? Like, are we having to get everything ready, like what do we do? I could have lived in that chaos, but instead I was like these are things that are outside of my control and until they are within my control, I do not need to think about them. And now I'm back into my working brain of like, okay, we're good, we're safe and I don't have to worry about these things.
Speaker 3:Now to get back to your logical brain, which is your brain 3.0, and the brain that you want to sit in because it's where you make the most rational decisions is you ask yourself what do I have control over? And that inevitably always falls to the first thing being how I react and the choices I make. You always have control over those. Right? I always have a choice. How do I react to the situation? Am I freaking out? Or am I going to choose to take a breath and be like, okay, go through all these questions and walk myself through this moment, right? Maybe? The choice is that I allow myself 30 seconds of like complete freak out and then laugh at myself for being so ridiculous, and then I come back to this. Either way, it's my choice and inevitably, I always have the choice and ability to control how I react. Right, and so I start there and then I say what do I physically have control over?
Speaker 3:Well, when this was a potential, we'll go back to my job, my husband's potential job posting, which we, to clarify, we did not get, which is fine by me, but the thing I could control was okay, why don't I take a look at the housing market there? If we do, in fact, get this job and we do have to move, I'd like to know what's on the market. That way we have a list of things we can look at. So I started looking. What were the options? That was within my control, you know. I also started to make a list of things that, whether we moved or not, would be things I'd want to purge, like rooms. I'd want things I knew that we needed to get rid of and sell, even if, even with not moving, I've sold a bunch of stuff that we don't need anymore, and the clearing of that energy was so good on multiple levels.
Speaker 3:But these are things I could control and in doing that, not only are you in your logical brain now, because you're thinking things through, but you are reclaiming your power by stepping into what you can control. Continues on like it's just. It is one of the the sequences that I use in every single situation, and I'll tell you right now it doesn't matter how chaotic it feels in the moment, if you walk through those steps, you will come out the other side and you will go huh, I can do this and I can do the hard things, and I'm not out of control. I do have power and it really works in every situation, right? So just to recap for anybody listening, first things first, are you in immediate physical danger where you're going to die right now? Are you being threatened in this exact moment? No, okay, move on.
Speaker 3:Number two what do I have, can, what do I have no control over, what is outside of my control? List it off, let it go, because you cannot control it. Number three ask yourself what do I have control over? Or you know. So what? What can I do? What choices can I make? Right? And then, last but not least, number four is just breathe and celebrate, standing in your power. And that is like you can use this for everything, like literally everything. You throw a situation at me, I can walk you through those steps and it all works the same. It's great, it's one of my favorites.
Speaker 2:I love that yeah that that feels like a beautiful spot to just close out with. That's like key takeaway point why people are here here. Um, where can everybody connect with you after the episode?
Speaker 3:yeah, so the best way to connect with me is on my instagram at the ariel balfour. So b-a-l-f-o-u-r? Um, pretty easy to find. I'm always the short red short hair is red. Uh, well, like albany, I guess. Um, I'm not your typical, not your typical therapist is how I like to refer to it or the viking queen you will find me under as well, um, but, yeah, at instagram, at the aerial balfour, or you can go to my website, wwwthearielbelfordcom.
Speaker 3:I've kept it pretty simple for you guys. I have not changed my Facebook name, but if you do want to connect with me on Facebook, it is Ariel Summers, with an o, not a u. So s-o-m-m-e-r-s. I have not changed from my maiden name, so that is the only one. That's not the same whoops, but other than, I'm pretty easy to find and I'm always open to questions, concerns. If you want to just have a free consult, to ask anything that you need to or get clarification. I am not somebody that you have to fight for my attention. I am here to serve and I am here to help in all ways possible. Um, I am definitely not your typical mentor by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, yes, and that is why we love you. It's also why you've won the. What is it people's choice down in, in Kelowna, or whatever it is that you've won what is it?
Speaker 3:I've got 2023, 2024. Uh the uh colonna votes best of colonna. Uh platinum winner.
Speaker 3:It's uh my pride and joy to yeah you don't get that by being shallow and fake, so congratulations for that thank you, thank you, yeah, I do want to serve my community to the best of my ability, and today I had the beautiful honor of every year I donate gifts and sponsor families for the Mamas, for Mamas. Christmas hampers for single or struggling mothers always brings so much warmth to my heart, and so I just dropped off an entire carload of stuff there today. And those women they just were so, so grateful, so like in awe of what we were able to accomplish, and so like people that come into my world, they are a part of that and I just I, to be honest, I'm not here to make millions, I'm here to make a difference, right, and that's that's. My clients are just as much of a part of that as I am, and for that I am like eternally grateful because I want to make waves of change in this world, and that's how we're going to do it.
Speaker 3:I love that and I love your soul. I love you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this podcast, it would mean the world if you'd take a moment to download a couple episodes and rate the show to help it reach more like-minded leaders. If you loved today's discussion and decide to share it, be sure to tag me on Instagram at Radiant Soul Coach to help expand the ripple effect of this podcast.