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Welcome to The Activate Change Podcast, where transformation is just a conversation away. Join Gabrielli LaChiara, renowned healer and creator of the LaChiara Method, as she guides individuals through powerful healing sessions. Alongside her, Chloë Faith Urban breaks down the frameworks and tools Gabrielli uses to bring deeper understanding to the profound process of healing. Each episode offers an intimate front-row seat to authentic, raw, and real personal breakthroughs, spiritual healing, and emotional support, allowing you to see yourself in the journeys of others. Experience the power and magic of the LaChiara Method, learn practical tools for self-growth, and unlock your potential to activate change in your own life. Whether you're seeking healing, inspiration, or a deeper understanding of yourself, this podcast is your gateway to a more rooted, resilient and radiant YOU.
To experience or learn more about the method go to: https://lachiaramethod.com
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Hello, this is Chloe Faith Urban. I'm the co -director of the Lakiara Method and -host of this podcast. And I just wanted to invite you to our free gift offering. It's called Transform Your Life in Three Minutes a Day or Less with these eight simple questions. And this is an eight -day mini course that comes straight to your inbox with a daily question, a short meditation,
and it has been very transformational for many people. If you are interested in this free gift, you can go to lachiaramethod .com slash podcast dash gift.
Ad On Free Gift - Chloe Introduces Herself (00:41)
can also find that link in the show notes to this episode.
Alternate Introduction For Variation (00:51)
Welcome to the Activate Change podcast where transformation is just a conversation away. Each episode offers an intimate front row seat to an authentic and unscripted personal healing session with renowned healer and creator of the Lakiara Method, Gabriele Lakiara. Our incredibly generous and courageous guests.
explore their genuine struggles, longings, and deepest desires in these sessions. And we, as listeners, have the honor and privilege to witness their sacred and profound healing journeys. As you listen, we invite you to receive as well.
Feeling into where the healing and insights that transpire might spark transformation in your own life. And stay tuned until the end because I, Chloe Faith Urban, will discuss the session and share a skill or framework that Gabriele used, which you can apply to your own personal healing. This podcast does contain adult language and content. So if you have little ones around you,
you may want to use headphones.
Gabrielli LaChiara (02:05)
you
Mae's Introduction (02:15)
In this episode, Gabriele has a session with May, who struggles with chronic Lyme disease, body dysmorphia, and a complex relationship with food. Listen as May explores her underlying beliefs, shame, coping strategies, and perfectionism, uncovering new insights that offer her a more generative relationship with food, her body, and her health. May has quite a bit of experience with the method.
Let's dive
Gabrielli LaChiara (02:52)
A.
Mae (02:53)
Hi Gabriella, good to be here with you.
Gabrielli LaChiara (02:56)
Thank you. So happy to have you present in the space and I'm just gonna name that you do know the work so we're diving right in. Thank you for being with me today in this journey. Yeah, let's take a breath together, huh?
I'll invite you to take either a longer exhale if that helps you to calm your nerves or a longer inhale if that helps you to stimulate a little bit of energy and action if you're tired.
and I'm just gonna feel myself shake off anything not required or generative that would block me from being present for you here in your session.
Mae (03:38)
Hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (03:51)
good, already feels more landed. May, tell me how can I help you today? What would you like to focus on?
Mae (04:00)
Sure, yeah, I'd love to focus on my relationship with food. and just that I've, I pretty much all my life had some sort of relationship with like body dysmorphia and, you know, yeah, and never feeling good enough and, you know.
Gabrielli LaChiara (04:06)
Okay.
Mae (04:23)
all the things, but then I do have a chronic illness and I have a lot of food sensitivities and allergies. And over the past several years, I've had a lot of severe reactivity. And so it's sometimes I feel afraid or just second guess, even though I have a healthy diet, it's still I second guess. And I'm like, how do I figure out
Gabrielli LaChiara (04:37)
Hmm.
Mae (04:52)
what's safe to eat. And it's really, really challenging. It makes me really sad.
Gabrielli LaChiara (04:54)
Okay, bye.
Hmm. Hmm. That makes so much sense to me, the chronic illness, that we could have some of that body distortion or dysmorphia like anyway, but you're talking about it and it's kind of the stimulus of having a chronic illness. And then I don't know what that has meant for, you were talking like how pervasive any food sensitivities were and or what it means to come to terms with what that looks like now.
Mae (05:12)
Mm -hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (05:28)
How are you gonna show up for yourself? What foods are safe? What foods are not safe? Really hearing the whole context even that I guess when we have injury like this, it doesn't necessarily matter if we're eating healthy quote unquote or not, we could still be really confused, right? Right.
Mae (05:32)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And then also, for me, there's a shame piece. So then if I eat something that quote unquote, I shouldn't have had, you know, I'll be like, no, like, I shouldn't have done that. I'm so bad. You know, all these things come up and it's like, so not how I want to relate to food at all.
Gabrielli LaChiara (05:50)
Hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Right. I really felt that and I felt the tears kick in even in my eyes of like, that's so much to hold and process and the shame game as well as the, that when you said bad, I really felt that like, I'm bad. Like I'm doing something wrong. And the first question that leads me to is really like, have you decided that some part of your chronic illness or some part of your struggles is your fault?
Mae (06:19)
Yeah.
yeah, definitely. I feel that way. Have felt that way. Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (06:36)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. So maybe, right, maybe we go there a little bit and unpack where we can feel so hyper -responsible for what's going on in our bodies that terrifies us about any choice we make and where it is on the scale of good or bad and kind of gets us to feel like we could throw ourselves into major sickness again by like one thing we eat, right? Or I could imagine, I know that story for myself, so I could imagine some version of that.
Mae (06:56)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (07:05)
So maybe we start there and we just begin to unpack and play in the discovery process with like, what's tangled in the connection to food and safety and how can we begin to map or tease apart the different aspects of what's happening for you so that you can over time really dismantle them one at a time or relate to them differently. If that makes sense, yeah.
Mae (07:32)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (07:34)
So I'm having that pull to start there.
Mae (07:35)
Mm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (07:40)
Let me feel, yeah.
Hmm. I'm getting a like taking that question to the max. Like when did you decide decide that all the bad things going on in the world in you or around you, including things happening to others, are actually your fault?
Mae (08:02)
I mean, it feels like very young age, you know, baby, three years old, maybe even past life stuff, you know, but definitely really young. When my parents got divorced when I was six, five or six, yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (08:05)
Mm -hmm.
Hmm.
Mm -hmm. And somehow having some subconscious awareness that if you had done something differently, things would have gone better. You would have been safer. People would have made different decisions. The world would have gone maybe in a way that felt safer to you. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Yep.
Mae (08:38)
Yeah, yep, right. If I'd just been better or good, you know, maybe something wouldn't have happened.
Gabrielli LaChiara (08:43)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Right. Right. So all of the ways in which it makes sense to me that I guess at any age we can do this, but especially at three when we're kind of me -centric and supposed to be, that we would think like we are the center of the problem, therefore if we did something different, the problem wouldn't be happening. And I think there's a lot in that because I think it is just developmentally.
Mae (09:06)
Mm -hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (09:12)
appropriate to think that way. And then we can also get messaging. So that doesn't even include like what might have happened in the environment around you, what people were saying or doing or rejecting you or accepting you or encouraging you to be you or not. Right. So so any way in which that three year old or the six year old or any version in this lifetime of you decided that one way to cope with a reality that is really painful is to put yourself in the center and
Mae (09:26)
Mm -hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (09:41)
Maybe blame yourself. Maybe that's easier than feeling like a victim to the rest of the world, right? I don't know. That's what's coming up for me.
Mae (09:46)
Yeah, yeah. Mm -hmm, that feels true.
Gabrielli LaChiara (09:52)
Mm -hmm. And let's feel where it is in your body. Blaming yourself as a way of coping. Shaming yourself as a way of coping. Putting yourself in the middle as the problem as a way of coping with situations, crises, traumas, events that you couldn't control, other people's energy or emotions that you couldn't control. Where does that live in you?
Mae (10:21)
And it feels really strongly like in my chest and my throat space. And just as you said that, I feel tears. I feel like I wanna cry, like there's something welling up.
Gabrielli LaChiara (10:28)
Mm.
Hmm.
Hmm, hmm. Yeah, let's stay with that. And I know you know this, but because our brains are what they are, I'm gonna say there is a delete button. I'm gonna stay bold, just saying what's coming up and I know that we can clear out or delete or you're welcome at any time now or in the future to just say, nope, that didn't resonate. I can let that go, okay?
Mae (11:00)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (11:02)
And let's be in the place that feels teary, the chest and the throat as well, and just to feel, is there a story that still lives unconsciously in your body?
that traps you in feeling responsible for what's happening inside or outside.
coping by making it your fault.
Mae (11:36)
I mean, what's arising for me is like, well, if I had just been more careful, I wouldn't have gotten Lyme disease. If I had just slowed down in that first round of antibiotics, I took care of myself, I wouldn't be sick 10 years later. And I repeat that over and over and over again. If I hadn't done this or that or this or that, then this wouldn't happen.
Gabrielli LaChiara (11:45)
Mm.
Mm -hmm. Mm.
Mae (12:06)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (12:07)
All right. I'm so sorry. Just bringing my heart to your heart and acknowledging how I can get, I could feel the confusion how on one hand it's like helpful to say to myself, if I didn't do that, this wouldn't happen. So maybe that means if I do better in the future that I won't have a worst thing happen. You know, like it gives us some false sense of control maybe. Or maybe a good, I mean, maybe those awarenesses sometimes are good. You know, they do help us, you know, I.
Mae (12:32)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (12:38)
Maybe you are more aware around tics than you used to be and that's a good thing, right? But there's something about it too that's just so plummets in my belly as like, you know, like it's so fatal to, because I don't know that we can be that perfect, you know, and that like what happens therefore then when you make these little errors and they feel like they're going to turn into something as big as Lyme disease for a decade, right? Yeah.
Mae (12:52)
Yeah.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it feels so like restricting to me. It's like, I can't do anything. I can't go outside. I can't do, you know, I gotta like stay in my little bubble. But that's not even true. It's just what I feel. Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (13:14)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, right. Well, it sounds like a phobia, you know, in the primal brain work, where in the survival brain, we develop coping skills, you know, to accommodate or adapt with situations that are life threatening. And those coping skills sometimes have storylines, you know, and those storylines can be very fixated. And this sounds to me like one of them that was here before you were diagnosed with Lyme that maybe was already fixated in place.
And maybe it was the trauma of your parents' separation. Maybe it's a storyline, you're here because you want to work it out while you live on this earth, you know? But clearly it feels like some of it has been instigated by the crises or traumas in your life. Yeah.
Mae (14:07)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (14:11)
Yeah, so maybe let's hear you say, if this feels okay for you, like more generative for you to say, if I stick with the lyme pattern, just because it's so logical in a way, like if I hadn't, if I had done it differently, I wouldn't have gotten lyme for a decade or however you'd want to say that. What's the thing you would, or wherever you want that to go, but what's the fixated kind of phobic line, the one that's like,
I've just decided that if I didn't do this, this wouldn't have happened. And how would you say that as a way of catching the energy of it?
Mae (14:41)
BLEH
Mm.
It's like...
If I had been able to slow down and listen to my body, then...
Bye.
I wouldn't have.
in lyme at all or or held on to it for so long.
Gabrielli LaChiara (15:22)
Mm -hmm.
Hmm, yeah. Hmm. Maybe we can try saying, I didn't slow down and listen to my body. Maybe try saying that three times just to feel what it brings up.
Mae (15:37)
Yeah, I didn't.
I didn't slow down and listen to my body.
I didn't slow down and listen to my body.
and I didn't slow down and listen to my body.
Gabrielli LaChiara (16:04)
What are you noticing?
Mae (16:06)
like more tears and release, but then also, what came into my head was you didn't have a choice.
Gabrielli LaChiara (16:21)
Right. Yeah, let's go there. What does that mean? You didn't have a choice to slow down and listen to your body. What was your consciousness right now trying to share with you about your experience? What's also true? Right, maybe you didn't slow down and listen to your body in one particular way, but what's also true?
Mae (16:42)
I mean, it didn't.
I didn't feel safe to me and I wasn't taught how and it was...
Gabrielli LaChiara (16:52)
Mm -hmm.
Mae (16:57)
you know it's like I was taught to work hard and be perfect and just to keep showing up you know and
Gabrielli LaChiara (17:05)
Mm -hmm.
Mae (17:10)
And also, you know, just that chronic never being able to say no to other people. You know, other people, please.
Gabrielli LaChiara (17:16)
Right, right. The people pleasing. Yeah, hearing the two things, the people pleasing and the perfectionism and how indoctrinated those are in our society as coping skills, right? Like people pleasing is fawning and it is part of the survival brain. The fight, flight, freeze structure when we feel threatened, that's an option. We might freeze, we might flight, we might fight, but we also might people please. And it's kind of huge as a way of protecting ourselves.
Mae (17:23)
Mm -hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (17:45)
So I'm really hearing that. And that perfectionism similarly has that drive. Like if I just did it perfect, I would be safer.
Mae (17:47)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (17:56)
Right, and that's, I mean, societally such a huge indoctrination, like how many of us struggle with perfectionism, probably a lot of people too. Yeah.
Mae (18:04)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (18:08)
So holding all those pieces of the storyline, letting those exist. Let's just clear all that for a minute and see what else is here and activate change and generate healing and immediately.
Mae (18:15)
So.
Gabrielli LaChiara (18:23)
Hmm.
So what else is true? You didn't have a choice. You didn't slow down and listen to your body. Truth, what else is true, May, for you?
Mae (18:40)
you
I mean it.
What's coming in is needing like acceptance and approval and love.
Gabrielli LaChiara (19:00)
Mm.
Mm -hmm.
Mae (19:05)
That was my way of you know keep going going going of getting that you know obtaining that
Gabrielli LaChiara (19:11)
Right, right. And how amazing that you needed acceptance and approval and love because that is human being human. We do need those things. That's good that you needed those things that some part of you was willing to work hard or even turn yourself into a theoretic pretzel, you know, of some sort to get what you knew you deserved from life. Because you wouldn't have been fighting for it if you didn't know that the need was real. And those are ways.
Mae (19:20)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (19:39)
we can try to get acceptance, approval, and love. And I guess I want to hold with you today, like, wow, if those are still operating, can we open the door and say maybe there's one or two different ways to get something that you need, that you know you need, acceptance, approval, love, connection, right? Can we open it and say, what are the 50 ,000 other ways to get that? I need men.
Mae (20:00)
and
I have.
Gabrielli LaChiara (20:07)
So in relation to food, right, is like if that's the frozen need in it, which is like there's still some part of you trying to get acceptance or approval or love by the way that you're eating, is that true first? Like, does it feel true that maybe the frozen kind of primal need is for more acceptance, more approval, more love, maybe more connection?
Mae (20:30)
Yeah, no, it's definitely... the food definitely ties into that and I'm really feeling like it's bringing up a lot, so yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (20:36)
Yeah.
Yeah, stay with that.
Hmm.
And maybe there's something you know about the relationship between food and acceptance and approval and love, or maybe food doesn't have to be part of how you get that need met, right? It could be any of these and more options. I think for today, I feel like if we could just open that space a little bit more so that we can see if there are...
Mae (21:07)
Hmm
Gabrielli LaChiara (21:21)
If that is the need you're trying to meet, are there other ways to meet that need so that it doesn't have to be overlaid on food, right, or on your body image? Yeah. Yeah.
Mae (21:25)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (21:36)
Right. Or on perfectionism or, you know, the other aspects of that that came with it. Right. Can I just ask in relation to that, like what's occurring to me is just to ask in a conscious way, like, is, does perfectionist actually get you more? Does perfectionism gain approval or, or like validation or love?
Is that still true now? Does it work?
Mae (22:08)
not now. No. I mean, I think it did then, you know, given my profession as a gardener, but now, no, it doesn't. It's kind of makes me sick actually. Does the opposite. Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (22:11)
Mm -hmm
Right? Right. So something that once met our needs can run obsolete. And not only does it not work anymore, but it can eventually start making us sick. And so the very thing that created safety for you before that you did for safety seems like it's actually making you unsafe now. And that seems like an important thing for us to notice that it doesn't really work.
Mae (22:38)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (22:50)
that being perfectionist about your food is potentially making you sicker. Right? And so let's clear all the energy on that and all of the ways in which we don't catch up with ourselves because that's just what happens, you know, and that every opportunity you're giving yourself in this moment, I celebrate this moment of taking the time to peer in and ask, like, what else is this? And what am I doing? And is my coping skill working? And can I create more?
Mae (22:54)
Hmm.
Mm -hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (23:20)
and activate change and generate healing immediately. Because these habits don't birth out of nothing, they birth out of real need. Usually they did start when we really did need the coping skills. Yeah.
Mae (23:28)
Mm.
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (23:38)
Now, unactivate change and generate healing immediately. Let's see what's going on for you now.
Mae (23:46)
fuck.
Gabrielli LaChiara (23:49)
A lot of energy moving there, huh? You got there fast too. Shaking it up. That's so appreciated. I mean, how amazing to imagine that even if you did the same thing again and you like...
Mae (23:51)
Yeah, so much. I'm just like, didn't know that was all there.
Yeah, I know, like here I thought it was like, this won't be too bad. It's like, removing it. Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (24:18)
ate something and then you heard yourself in an hour or a day, you realized, I've been really hard on myself about eating that, you know, whatever extra handful of potato chips, or maybe I had butter on my green beans. Who the heck knows what I thought I was supposed to do or not, right? And then you catch yourself. It feels like it could be helpful to pause and just whenever that pause comes, if it takes a minute or a week or whatever, you know, to be able to ask yourself, is what I'm doing helping me to stay safe or not? Just to ask.
Mae (24:28)
Okay.
yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (24:48)
Like, do I need to think this way for my safety? And that might be a nice step, which is just to ask, and not to assume you don't, but just say, wow, do I need to be so hard on myself? Is that actually helpful for my survival or not?
Mae (24:51)
Mm -hmm
Yeah. Right. Right.
Gabrielli LaChiara (25:04)
And if not, you know, can I shake it off and replace that with something else? And what is it that I really need? Do I need validation somewhere? Where am I gonna get that then? What am I gonna do? Unactivate change or generate healing or immediately, or maybe I need love. Maybe that validation is to myself. You know, like, maybe it's really that. Yeah.
Mae (25:22)
Okay.
Mm -hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (25:28)
What need is this behavior serving? And is the behavior still required? Feels like just a simple play you could do with yourself if you wanted. Yeah.
Mae (25:36)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
It's definitely not required anymore, yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (25:50)
Hmm. Good. Yeah, probably not full -time. I mean, I guess what we know is if it is required for some minute somewhere, he'll know how to do it. You have it. I wouldn't want you to take the coping skill away and throw it out. Like, they're coping skills for a reason, right? So if we're in a setting or a situation where that's all we know and we need that for our survival, well, we, you know, we put it on for the day and maybe we don't love it, but there it is, right?
Mae (25:56)
No.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (26:19)
And, and, you know, my hope is that you do, you know, just get to cultivate a huge amount of other options over the year to be able to say, wow, that's one option of many, you know, how else can I do this? You know, how else do I get to get my needs met? Yeah.
Mae (26:34)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (26:39)
Activate change and generate healing immediately. And let's liberate you from the societal grids specific to food and perfectionism and dysmorphia and the ways that which were very much cultured to think we're supposed to look a particular way, do a certain thing. And even there's subcultures, right? Like I found when I struggled with my own illnesses that coming out of like dealing with something for me, it was cancer, that there were these subgroups where like
this subdivision on cancer, I'm supposed to do never eat sugar and don't have coffee and have these, these were the rules which were different than maybe other societal rules. And how tricky it was to figure out if I was in a box or not. And sometimes those grids are useful. It's like, anti -inflammatory diets do help get rid of inflammation, right? And sometimes I could find myself going too far over the edge of feeling like I had to grip onto it because
Mae (27:28)
Right.
Gabrielli LaChiara (27:37)
I would die otherwise, you know, right.
Mae (27:38)
Right. Yeah, exactly. And that has come up with some of my practitioners I've had in the past in Lime and just, you know, them being like, you have to do it this way, you know, and just that, what is it, orthorexia or something. But yeah, it's, but now having
Gabrielli LaChiara (27:52)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Mae (28:05)
Right, I'm noticing like, right, can I have a discernment to like figure out what's safe? I mean, you know, what's safe and generative and what's not and enjoying food, like actually having relationship with food.
Gabrielli LaChiara (28:15)
Mm -hmm. Mm.
Right. Isn't that its own validation or its own love, you know, that sometimes there is just a really, the relationship gets missed because the food becomes just a control pattern. And, and I, you know, love that possibility that, I could step back and see, am I eating right now for the relationship to this food and what it's bringing, what I'm learning, what I'm experiencing? Am I eating for the relationship with someone else to share a meal in a certain way?
Mae (28:24)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (28:48)
Or am I eating because functionally I need certain types of nutrients in order to survive well. And those are good for me and I want to do that too. Cause it's not, it's not like throw it all out, but what's the, what's the bigger possible relationship, you know? And sometimes there's not, you know, sometimes our illnesses do box us in and we just have to control it for a while. But it sounds like you're on the other side of that part. Yeah. There's a, there's a lot more that can open. And so wanting to help you by.
Mae (28:53)
Okay.
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (29:16)
supporting you and just energetically at least liberating those grids and the constructs that get fixated in us and become permanent and helping you to know when to loosen up and let the grid go and when you might need it again and a different one that could arrive. You know, it's like, so feeling more fluidity in there. So liberating the grids, constructs, structures, forms, beliefs and systems that are in you, that are circulating inside. And then also we're around us circulating around food.
around weight, around body image, around control, around health and chronic illnesses and survival. And these things do exist and we want to be able to look at them with the soft of an eye as possible to be able to receive the gifts in them so that we know when I'm supposed to adopt, not adopt, when I'm supposed to use some kind of a...
Mae (29:56)
Thank you.
Gabrielli LaChiara (30:13)
support for myself and when I want to be on the grid to help myself and when it's actually hurting me, right? Yeah. So feeling that feeling like I want to bring in the suppleness for you to be able to perceive differently. And so opening up all the possibilities as we liberate these grids from every cell and particle in you and all those that surround you and they're all time, spaces, dimensions and universes activate change and generate healing immediately. that feels really different.
Mae (30:27)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Yeah. Definitely.
Gabrielli LaChiara (30:48)
I love it. I feel like we could wind down from here, because this feels like a beautiful piece all by itself, you know, and see how to maybe integrate it and how you want to walk away with it, right? What's your takeaway in this? So let's take a minute here and have you just feel.
Mae (30:56)
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (31:09)
Like feel for what's changing in you.
But from this conversation or experience, can you root into or begin to root into?
around being you in relation to your body and food, body image.
Mae (31:41)
Yeah, multiple things. I mean, it feels like this acceptance that's not complacency or stagnation, but just that unconditional divine love. And then creating relationship and intimacy with food too. Being like, right.
Gabrielli LaChiara (32:00)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Right, right.
Mae (32:10)
I, this is my primal need, you know, and also same with my body, you know, and just.
Gabrielli LaChiara (32:13)
Mm -hmm.
Mae (32:23)
Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about, you know, ritual or prayer or some of the questions you brought up around like, I don't know, I can't do it each meal, I don't think, but like, you know, just around food in general to try and change, you know. Yeah. Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (32:29)
Mm.
you know, and here's, here's where you really have a lifetime because we kind of always need food, right? So there, there isn't a race to a finish line. Like I, I'm hearing and feeling the invitation for like any step of change. And then, you know, having yourself have your eye on like, right. There's aspects of this, which is like, how was food part of those early years when those
Mae (33:04)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (33:05)
Yeah.
changes were going on in my family or those traumas were happening. Was it a part of that or not? How is my body image a part of that? How is someone else's body image? Then there's just soul speak. What does my soul hear to help learn, therefore maybe even teach others? What's the message in there that feels important that I'm learning? And then there's this daily relationship, which is I love the piece you grabbed, which is like, can I just even every once in a while stop and be like, right, food, you're a whole relationship.
Mae (33:13)
Yeah.
You.
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (33:35)
thing that's on my counter, you know, it's like, I can talk to you for a minute and, and feel, I can just pick up the food and feel it and feel what's that conversation going on. What's my relationship to what I'm choosing. And none of that has to be perfect. Just to be really clear, activate change and generate healing immediately. It kind of can't be, when we have these primary needs like food and even honestly through relationships or love or connection, like one of the things we, I think,
Mae (33:38)
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Gabrielli LaChiara (34:04)
we'll always, as humans, have to grapple with is that they always fail us. You know, like we fail them. You know, we can't do them perfectly. It's impossible to always eat perfectly. Sometimes there's no food available, nevermind eat perfectly, right? Depending upon the structure we're in or the most loving friendships will betray us by mistake. You know, they'll forget to call us back or something will happen, you know? And we're always looking at the gradation of health in that, like how much is a...
Mae (34:20)
Right.
Gabrielli LaChiara (34:33)
To me, I think what I hear in another invitation of maybe future play in this work with is like, what's a healthy amount of imbalance related to food? Like, what is normal? Like, what am I supposed to just be like, that amount of fluidity is just part of eating. You know, that, cause the perfectionism would have the bar so high that we're not even allowing ourselves the.
Mae (34:54)
Mm -hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (35:00)
relax of like, and then sometimes there just isn't the food that my body needs to eat. And so I'm going to eat something else, right? Or sometimes I eat too much because it tasted so good. Okay, whatever, you know, like, it's okay. You know, even if my belly hurts, like that's, right? So almost like wanting to invite you over time to really think about a different goal, you know, around eating to not.
Mae (35:04)
Yeah, yeah.
Right, right. Yeah. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Gabrielli LaChiara (35:29)
have the bar so high, to ask yourself, how much can I handle in the middle of letting go? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mae (35:36)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Yeah, I love that.
Gabrielli LaChiara (35:43)
Now, and activate change and generate healing immediately. Let's see if there's anything else here.
Mae (35:52)
I guess what's just coming up for me, which might help me with my relationship with food is having food more with others, like besides my husband, you know, like just like, or eating in different places and breaking the patterns. I mean, like, let's go take a picnic. Like, let's, you know, invite our friends over and have a delicious meal. Like just like having the different vibration around food, you know?
Gabrielli LaChiara (36:04)
Mm -hmm.
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Yeah, yeah, that sounds great. Love that. I love that. And that we can just go outside and sit in a different spot sometimes. And even that helps, right? Yes, I love that. What a beautiful inspiration. Just changing habits. Any habits, any time we break up the monotony of something, it allows us an opportunity to heal more and to see more and feel more and develop more of our relationships. So any interruption of habits would be brilliant. It's a brilliant idea. Yeah.
Mae (36:23)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ugh, yeah. Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (36:50)
And that we have this, I don't know, we're in this day where we have FaceTimes. We can actually just have a meal with someone even if they're not in our house. Yeah, we just have learned it with my, I'm a great auntie, and I feel like, I do these things with my grand nephew that I wouldn't have been able to do years ago. I can watch him eat breakfast, and that's just so cute to have breakfast with him, and he's in California.
Mae (36:58)
Yeah, that's true. Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (37:19)
and I'm in, you know, Massachusetts. So thinking out of the box too, inviting you to keep that brain open again and supple towards like what else is possible and where else could I change this up and give myself an invitation to get out of any patterns that aren't required, right? I love that, good. Good. Yes, feels really complete for today. Yeah, good.
Mae (37:20)
Yeah.
Mm -hmm.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's good.
Gabrielli LaChiara (37:47)
Can I offer you a blessing in our closing? Thank you. I just want to invoke and can't proclaim and pronounce that as you melt the primal brain and survival brain's relationship to body and food that you are also receiving your primal nature to embody. And that primal nature to embody is in that same circuitry, but you do know how to be you.
Mae (37:50)
Yes, please!
Gabrielli LaChiara (38:17)
that some deep parts inside of you also do know how to relate to the world. You came here for that, to learn, to grow. You wouldn't do a call like this if you didn't know and want to grow and have that be part of your nature too. So just invoking those parts awake and alive in combination with all of the parts of you to be in your field to receive and activate change and generate healing and immediately, wow.
Mae (38:30)
Yeah.
Gabrielli LaChiara (38:46)
Thank you so, so much for that journey. It's really beautiful. Thank you.
Mae (38:50)
Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it.
Chloe's Comments On Mae's Session (39:02)
what a moving, moving session to listen to for me. I know I keep saying, I can relate and I can relate, but I can really relate to this one having been someone who has navigated Lyme disease and chronic illness and still cleaning up the repercussions of what Lyme has done to my body, but also who has navigated a lot of
allergies and navigating issues with food and what that means and all the different layers of that and then of course the body dysmorphia and how that weaves into so many of our lives. So this one, wow, just wow. Thank you May for going so deep for sharing yourself so vulnerably and really getting in there. It was so...
Such an honor to be listening in on your process.
The thing that really stood out to me, I've spoken a bit about this on another episode, but wanting to really hone in particularly on Gabriele kind of already hit right on it in the first 10 minutes even of the episode.
where she speaks about a phobia. And in our work, we talk about the primal brain a lot. And I've spoken about it around the either or thinking, that black and white thinking, the yes, no, right, wrong, good, bad, all of that, that we can all get so hooked into in life. But I wanted to hone into a particular part of this.
primal brain work that we do and how we speak about it. And just for context, when we say primal brain, we're talking about the survival brain. We're talking about the fight, flight, freeze, sometimes fawn response. We're talking about what happens to the brain, to the body when something is perceived, whether it is life threatening or not, it's perceived as life threatening.
where a trauma happens or you witness someone who either is close to death or dies or you're witnessing abuse that might feel like in that moment someone's life is at risk or your life is at risk. So it could be witnessing, it can also be experiencing whether there was a moment where you felt like your life was in danger or you did face actually
And our work we really talk about the emotional facets of the primal brain and how important, like for us as humans, we really do need love. We need care. If we're abandoned, then we don't actually survive as a baby, right?
if we aren't in a place of getting acknowledged or validated or really seen in the world, that can also feel life threatening to us,
you know all the different ways in which our survival brain kicks in and can think that we're actually in harms way even if it's an emotional issue and so this can there's i mean we we have taught
many, many, many weeks on this very topic, it can get very complex. So I don't need to go too far into it at this moment. And I will continue to talk about this more in different facets and components of this emotional primal brain work that we do. But I wanted to just speak about a phobia. And she said the word phobia and like shivered throughout my whole body when
they were at the very beginning sort of speaking about this like this feeling of like it was my fault that I got Lyme. If I had just listened to my body and slowed down, I wouldn't have gotten Lyme or if I had gotten Lyme, I wouldn't have gotten it. It wouldn't have hooked into my body and I wouldn't be sick still 10 years later. And where that could actually really be a fixated primal brain phobia.
where we actually, you know, what a phobia means to us is that really when something like a trauma happens, it fixates in and the brain decides like, I'm never going to be safe, or I'm always going to be abandoned, or I can never have love, so why even try? Whatever the different ways in which it shows up for us each personally, those are some of the storylines.
And instead of living our whole lives like I'm unsafe, I'm unsafe, I'm unsafe, or I'm never gonna be loved, or I'm unlovable, or I'm always gonna be abandoned, I'm always gonna be abandoned, it's almost too painful to, well, it is too painful. It's too much to live with that storyline, present, conscious, there all the time. So what our brains do is they, it goes unconscious. And then that becomes an unconscious belief that I'm always,
always gonna be abandoned or I'm never safe in this world.
Alternate Introduction For Variation (44:38)
A phobia is when we get really chronically stuck in those frozen emotional experiences, meaning that you've decided that you're chronically wrong or bad. It's as if we give up on healing altogether and instead it becomes unconscious programming in the background that can have a huge impact on our lives.
Alternate Introduction For Variation (45:00)
And as I said, this is a much bigger conversation that I can't possibly cover in this short bit here.
But if you're curious and you want to learn more in depth about any of this, you can always join us for our radical life coach training that happens in the fall and in the spring each year. One thing I want to make clear though, is that we're talking about emotional primal brain issues. Meaning that's an emotional response to what happens, whether that is a physical safety issue or an emotional safety issue that's actually happening.
Because as we talk about this, we don't want to negate the fact that of course there are some things we can't control in life that make us unsafe. Like the color of our skin, our gender identities, sexual orientations, illnesses, physical or emotional abilities, the list goes on and on and on. But even then, what we are talking about is the emotional decisions our primal brain makes.
when we are living in a physically unsafe reality or an emotionally unsafe reality or that we've witnessed something that doesn't, is not perceived to our brain to be safe. And that could be even a hurricane or something like
Alternate Introduction For Variation (46:22)
And before I wrap this up, I just want to mention that in this method, we get much deeper into how oppression weaves into all of it and how internal and external oppression play directly into some of the phobias that we walk around with every day. And that if you're living in this world, oppression is unavoidable. And living in the soup pot.
and just having it be around us all the time and in everyone that we're speaking to, it can also really feed into how we can oppress ourselves inside, like internally, with our stories about ourselves, about others, self -hatred, shame, perfectionism, the list goes on and on.
Alternate Introduction For Variation (47:09)
It really, as I'm just speaking here, I'm being reminded of recently being in Tanzania. And just to say, I cognitively know that there are many places in the world where being gay or trans or queer is illegal and even criminal. But it really hit me even harder being on the actual physical land and in real conversations with queer and gay people over there who navigate this fact on a daily.
They were telling me about how they were only able to have pride parties at the embassies because everywhere else in the country, you could be arrested and thrown in jail for life if you are found engaging in any sort of activities that are considered gay. It hit me even deeper to be there and to have this reminder so in my face. Like those
magnetic, amazing human beings I was talking to are being dehumanized and criminalized for just existing as who they are in the world. Now that is just one of a million examples I could give of someone living in a physically unsafe environment constantly. And we never want to suggest that we can make that experience just of feeling unsafe just like go away. Of course not.
But what we're talking about is when it really comes to a primal brain phobia, it is the countless emotional phobias that can arise from that experience of being physically unsafe all of the time. They could begin to internalize that oppression and dehumanization as if there's something inherently wrong or bad about them, and then live their whole lives with that in the background. That's what I'm talking
When I'm talking about these emotional phobic states that our brain can lock into chronic.
Alternate Introduction For Variation (49:11)
So as you take this all in, I invite you to just get curious.
Has anything sparked in you as I've been talking? Are any of your phobic patterns or beliefs starting to bubble up to the surface? I hope this has been a helpful discussion and I so look forward to doing more of this on the next
Chloe's Convo About Jake's Episode (49:39)
saying a huge thank you to Allie Halpert, who's the amazing musician who wrote the songs that you hear in this podcast. We have had the privilege to be able to sing some of Allie's songs in our retreats and workshops, and they've been really powerful additions to our work with people. You can hear more of Allie's music and check out more about Allie on Allie's website, Allie Halpert.
That's A -L -Y -H -A -L -P -E -R -T dot com.