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What if you could get more of what you want in life? But not through pushing, forcing, or pressure.
You can.
When it comes to money, time, and energy, no one’s gonna turn away more.
And Kate Northrup, Bestselling Author of Money: A Love Story and Do Less and host of Plenty, is here to help you expand your capacity to receive all of the best.
As a Money Empowerment OG who’s been at it for nearly 2 decades, Kate’s the abundance-oriented best friend you may not even know you’ve always needed.
Pull up a chair every week with top thought leaders, luminaries, and adventurers to learn how to have more abundance with ease.
[00:00:00] Kate: Hi, welcome to Plenty. I am so excited to introduce you to a guest that I have today. She has been a friend of mine for over a decade. We've seen each other through a lot of seasons in life and her name is Elizabeth D'Alto. She runs the School of Sacred Embodiment. She is the host of the Embodied podcast.
She's a mystic, and she teaches us how to live an embodied life, how to live a sacred life. And in this episode, we talk about what to do when you feel like you're really different than the rest of your family. How she learned about God and where she found her connection to spirit, her connection to soul, her connection to the sacred.
We talk about what embodiment actually means, how we can bring the sacred into our relationship with money, and so much more. Elizabeth is soulful, she's funny, she made me cry at the end with her answer to my final question and I think you are going to find this conversation as yummy. So, enjoy. Welcome to Plenty.
I'm your host, Kate Northrup, and together we are going on a journey to help you have an incredible relationship with money, time and energy, and to have abundance on every day. possible level. Every week, we're going to dive in with experts and insights to help you unlock a life of plenty. Let's go fill our cups.
Please know that the opinions
and perspectives of guests on the Plenty podcast are
not necessarily reflective of the opinions and perspectives of Kate Norsrup or anyone who works within the Kate Norsrup brand.
[00:01:51] Elizabeth:
Hi, Elizabeth. Hi, thanks for being here. I'm so excited.
[00:01:55] Kate: Okay, so when I met you, so I think it's really interesting how you've always been a body person, but in like a very different way than now. Well, maybe not so different. I don't know, you tell me.
But when I met you, we were like in early days of our business. I 2011 2012. Yeah. Yeah, and you were selling a program called Tighter in Ten. Yes. Which I still think is like, I know that that's not what you're doing right now, and it's perfect. I also just love the name.
[00:02:25] Elizabeth: Marie For like It's so I did not Oh, you didn't.
Marie really Okay. She was the mastermind behind the name. That was Marie. Anyway. But it's I wanted to create a jumpstart, and of course Marie was like No one's laying in bed at night thinking they need to jumpstart their body, and I'm like, she's right.
[00:02:41] Kate: Okay, and we're gonna talk about just sort of like our own journey, specifically yours, because this is about you of learning about marketing and like the ways in which marketing and mysticism like may or may not mix.
But for you, it's always been about the body, even when it was back in the day when you were a personal trainer. Right, and you were, You're selling online digital like fitness programs. Yes. Okay. What happened, so many things, but what happened, like, was there a moment when you realized like I'm selling online digital courses about like fitness and you knew you needed to go a different direction because it's like really different than what you do now, you know.
Well, I mean, it's the same. It's about the body, but, so I want to know about, like, what were some of the turn of events that took you from Tighter in Ten to the School of Sacred Embodiment?
[00:03:36] Elizabeth: So, it's actually one big distinct moment, but it was leading up to this because in 2012, so I did Marie's Mastermind in 2011 when Tighter in Ten Days was born and I was still working as a personal trainer up through 2012.
I did this was in a little boutique studio in the West Village in New York City. And at the same time, I was also getting into studying energy work and psychology and human behavior. So I had done my first two Reiki attunements. I had created a class for the studio that I worked in called Aspire. It was a lower body conditioning class.
It was A S asterix. P I R E. That's amazing! Right? So and the owner of the studio had worked at like Equinox and all these kind of fancy places in New York City. And the clientele was kind of upscale. And you know me. You know I'm not a fancy person. So I always felt a little bit out of place there. But I had some wonderful clients.
And... And the studio owner, someone from Marie Claire, reached out and wanted to create a video, like a little snippet of my class, for the website. And so, you know me, my spunky little, make my own videos, whatever, I just like brought my little camera, my tripod, I like shot the little snippet, I sent it to the owner of the studio, I was like, I made the video!
And he was like... Oh, no, no, no, no, you didn't like I hired like a film crew and hair and makeup and I'm going to train you for the next month, which by the way, let's zoom out on that because that was part of it. At that point I was in the best shape of my life and I put that in air quotes because best shaped by societal standards, right?
And I mean, I had my own visible abs. And as an Italian and Puerto Rican person, I always like to emphasize, do you know how hard it was for me to obtain visible abs? So but even so, on the day of the video shoot, they put so much makeup on my face, you couldn't see my freckles. An amount of lip gloss that I wouldn't even wear to a club, let alone the gym.
They straightened, I wrote this on my website once, and I was like, they straightened my curls within an inch of their bouncy life! And and then they painted contour lines on my stomach. No. And I was like, can I curse on your show? Yes. Yes. I was like, fuck this. Yeah. And, but also, like, during that whole day, that whole afternoon that this was all happening, I was just realizing that I was more contributing to what I was trying to help combat, right?
Because for me, fitness, the body was always about feeling strong, right? Feeling powerful, feeling connected to yourself in, in a way. that made you feel more confident, you know? And, so these things kind of coalesced. I was getting more into energy work, human behavior, psychology. I was having these insulting experiences, and questioning if I was contributing to an industry that I could no longer really get behind.
And so, and then I, later that year, moved out of my apartment in New York City. Early January 2013, I moved to California. And so, going from like, the concrete jungle, and being an East Coaster, to now being in this like, vast nature, with the ocean, and all of the good smells. That's one thing, like I was just in New York a couple weeks ago, and I was like, God, the smells.
Stinky. Like, the number one thing I don't miss about New York City is the smells. You go to California, there's like, jasmine. You're like, walking by Bougainvillea. I don't know if that's how you say that, because I always... Just guess. But it's like, everything is beautiful and bright and there's space and things just really started to shift and open up for me.
And also in the year 2012, in the Lord's year 2012 I started doing healing work. Like receiving healing work and realizing like, oh, there's a lot of stuff under the hood here that needs to be unpacked. And as well, I stumbled into just a couple of books. that were such an invitation to connect with a part of myself that I hadn't before.
Which was a bit of a tangent off of, in the very last retreat in Maria's Mastermind, one bit of feedback I got from the group, which, you know, over a decade later I'm like, whatever, but, was that I was too masculine. And so I became very interested about, interested, like a lot of people, I'm sure people listening have gone on the journey of like, What's my feminine energy?
And, you know, I do that and it kind of like makes me roll my eyes and kind of poke a little fun at it tongue in cheek now. It's an important thing for everyone on a level, if that's something that you resonate with, why integrate your masculine and feminine, but so much of the messaging around it is basically just like.
Do we want to just be, you know, weapons and tools of patriarchy, but make it cute? So I was starting to read books like Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes and I connected with the wild woman archetype. At the same time, I discovered the Hindu goddess Durga. I was reading a book by a woman named Sally Kempton, who actually passed away recently, called Awakening Shakti.
And so I had been holding on to this. I'm not feminine enough, whatever. What the fuck does that even mean? And then I get to the chapter on Durga. And there she is, riding a lion, with eight arms, with a different implement in every arm. And some of them are weapons, but there's also a lotus flower. There's also prayer beads, and I'm like, This warrior, goddess, multi dynamic, I love you but don't fuck with me energy.
I'm like, oh, I've actually always been feminine. It's just, I don't fall into one of the like, three or four boxes that, you know, society at large goes, these are acceptable, right? Which are essentially, maiden mother, whore. Yeah. Not that whore is even acceptable, but it's just widely
[00:09:43] Kate: acknowledged. Yeah, but it, it, yes, it exists.
Yes. And it gets to, well, depending on who you are. Yeah, it gets a lot of air time. Certainly in marketing, like if we're talking about it from the perspective of just like marketing our sexuality. Exactly. Even though I am not saying if you were a sexual woman, you were a whore, obviously. Right, right.
[00:10:01] Elizabeth: No, no, no.
But like, again, that's, that, that, that singular dynamic of that, right? Like there's, one of my favorite essays that I actually have everyone in my Sacred Embodiment Specialist Training read, Every year is called uses of the erotic erotic as power by Audre Lorde Which was handed to me by one of my mentors Rie Kadegiri Whose erotic movement arts training I did when I was in LA and like that's like yes Let's like let's build out this archetype.
Like let's see all the different dynamic ways and the layers That erotic energy really moves and works through us Outside of like, again, the patriarchalized version of it. So, all those things, within like a year and a half, were kind of coming together at the same time. And then I ended a relationship, and I was in California.
Essentially on my own. And so that just kind of started me out. I just felt like I had different options. And I couldn't not, like, pull the threads and see where it was going to take me.
[00:11:01] Kate: Right. So,
did you grow up, I mean, I know the answer to this question. Like, I want folks listening to know, one of the things I'm most fascinated by, because you know, I grew up in a household that's like pretty spiritual, and believes in a lot of things, and like, energy work was like totally normal, and we talked to trees, and that was part of the deal.
So, I'm endlessly fascinated by folks like yourself. Who have come to their own connection with soul, spirit, you know, you describe, you are self described as a mystic Without being raised in that environment that like it found them or they found it on their own Yeah, so talk to me a little bit about The soup you were raised in and the end like what you've learned Yourself out here on the streets of the world outside your family conditioning about God or That's
[00:11:58] Elizabeth: a great question.
What'd you learn on the streets about God? What'd you learn on
[00:12:03] Kate: the streets about God? Yeah.
[00:12:04] Elizabeth: Well the soup I was raised in was the Roman Catholic Church in Staten Island, New York. Everyone's favorite borough. And You know what's interesting is, you had asked me when I got in here before we started filming what's, my pendant is Mary Magdalene.
And when I was little, I remember every Easter we'd watch that. Damn, I forget the name of it. There was some Easter movie. And I distinctly remember being like a very small child and wondering, what is the difference between these two Marys? Like, they're very rude to that one and they really love this one, right?
Mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. And then, you know, many years later, again, 2012, that same friggin year, I'm reading your friend Megan Watterson's book, Reveal, and she mentions Mary Magdalene, and I remember thinking that as a small child. And I was like, ooh. And then I started tugging the Mary Magdalene thread.
But, You know, we were, you know, go to church every week, Catholics. I went to public school, not Catholic school, so I went to CCD. Which, you know, for people who don't know, I don't remember what the letters stand for. But, catechism I'm sure is one of them. Where, you know, on Wednesday afternoons you get to, Walk across the street, because my public school, PS 29, was across the street from my church, St.
Teresa's. You and a bunch of your friends walk across the street, and you go get your Catholic lesson for the week. Okay. So that you can like, make your sacraments. You know, your holy communion in second grade, your confirmation in seventh grade, and you know, so that's what I grew up with. I grew up with a bunch of rules and religion, but for me, I was always kind of, Taking what I vibed with and ditching what I didn't, which my mom was not a fan of.
I remember my mom being like, You can't just pick and choose what parts of our religion you like. And I was like, well, that's what I'm doing. You know? Why not? Even from a young age. But, the things that I loved, were the things that connected you directly. Right? Prayer. Love. Lighting candles. Love. And I really was into, you know, some of the stories specifically around, like, Jesus and Mother Mary.
Like, a lot of the other characters and stuff, I'm like, eh, I don't know about you guys, but these people seem to have a really deep connection. And so, later on, when I decided in my 20s that I didn't want to be Catholic anymore, I'm like, I'm going to keep the characters though. And angels. Loved angels, archangels, you know, all these.
I loved the idea of, you know, when we would lose something, my grandma would be like, pray to Saint Anthony. You know you're going on a trip, you have your Saint Christopher medal. Like, I liked that there were characters for things, you know? Yeah, that's cool. Archangel Michael is your protector. Great.
Like, my dad wore an Archangel Michael chain. So, you know, there were... But there were aspects of mysticism moving in, because mysticism is really just about cultivating your own direct connection with the divine, you know, whatever you call it. So that was, that was, that was my soup. And confession.
Confession is an interesting thing, because they make you say this prayer, the act of contrition before you go, and then you tell your sins to the priest, right? But you start doing that in the seventh grade. You think I'm really telling that priest? Everything? No, but that was like a conflicting thing because sometimes I'd be like, I'm actually gonna say this to this guy, like, I masturbate, I have impure thoughts, like, I stole something from the grocery store, and you're like sitting there almost like waiting to be yelled at, but he just tells you to say some Hail Marys and All Fathers.
Yeah, I was gonna say, what happens then? Then you have to say some prayers. And he absolves you of your sins. And again, even at that young age, seventh grade, eighth grade, I remember being like, this is it. I'm like, I could do this on my own. So I added an act of contrition into my nightly prayers. I was like, I could, pretty sure I don't need to go to the booth and talk to the guy.
I could talk to the guy, you know, and we could work it out ourselves. So
[00:15:48] Kate: you got that information yourself, like you knew, I don't have to talk to that guy, I can talk to the guy or the, maybe not guy at this point. It's not that I knew, but
[00:15:57] Elizabeth: I felt like that was certainly an option. It's like, why am I listening to this person in this robe that looks ridiculous that doesn't really know me or care about me?
And why
[00:16:05] Kate: do you think you, at a relatively young age, like let's pretend you were in seventh grade, why do you think like, you got that? That you could have a direct connection, and that other folks don't? Like, do you have any idea
[00:16:20] Elizabeth: about that? Well, one idea I definitely have is looking around at all the people in my family who were so devoted to all of these roles.
Yeah. And they were disaster areas. So, like, being a very logical, like, again, I don't like to hinge everything on astrology, but as a person with a Virgo sun and a Capricorn moon, your girl, even at 12 years old, is looking around going, I don't know if this works. Right.
[00:16:43] Kate: Right. The receipts are not here.
[00:16:45] Elizabeth: Yeah.
Like,
I'm just not seeing the evidence that this is a path that produces an experience I would actually want to have. Yeah.
[00:16:54] Kate: Would you identify, and I don't know if this is a phrase that you would ever use, but like. You know, I know that you're different than your family, for, in a variety of ways. And a lot of folks who, who are in my community also feel like, maybe it's like one of these things does not, is not like the other one of these things, just doesn't belong, you know, the little Sesame Street thing.
Yes, yes, yes. And some people call that a black sheep you know, I don't know. And I, I know that, like, you've had your own. Stuff with your family, right? And we don't have to get into all the details. Although share whatever you want, but like That's a really hard thing for people. That is a really hard thing for people like Feeling like they're the one person in their family that is different and like what are some of the tools you've leaned on or?
What are I think you've just like said like I mean I see this as your friend. I love you so much like I think you're a miracle, you know, like, and you've done a lot of beautiful work and for anybody who is struggling feeling like Was I born into the wrong family or like I feel and I don't know wrong family I know you wouldn't say that at all.
You know what I mean? Like is there anything you might share that might be useful for them from your own
[00:18:03] Elizabeth: challenges in this department? First let me say this as dysfunctional as a lot of people in my family are. They really loved the shit out of me. Right? They really wanted to provide an experience that was different from what they had.
So, this is like, and, you know, after all these years now of doing healing work, as opposed to fitness work, and getting to be with people, and like, their deepest wounds, and a lot of things, one of the things that I notice most consistently, is people who have the hardest time never felt loved. were deeply or truly loved.
And that was not an issue for me. Right? No matter how different, or how weird, or whatever, or curious, or challenging I was, my parents wanted to accept me for who I was. Now, wanting to do that and actually doing it are two different things, right? So I had a lot of mixed messaging. And this is something, actually, it wasn't until later in my 30s I realized how much gaslighting happened.
And why, one of the things that drives me to be so curious, and really want to understand what makes people tick, is because essentially I grew up in an environment where people are just like constantly gaslighting you, but without realizing it, like they're not doing it on purpose. Which, to be quite honest, and you know, who's to say, to me that's almost more mindfucking than people who are doing it on purpose.
Because, you're like, but you don't even know. You're actually deluding yourself, and therefore you're deluding everyone else. But, because you think you're telling the truth, And because you think you're being real, and you think you're not, like, lying, you're so emphatic and passionate about it. And the energy behind that is so intense.
So, for me, I didn't feel like, you know, a rainbow unicorn or whatever is the better term for black sheep that people are using now. But I always felt like, I really remember just looking around being like, These people are the example of what I don't want to do and how I don't want to be, you know? So, but again, so beautiful in their own ways, right?
Like, so many times these dysfunctional behaviors come from having so much love to give and just not knowing how to do that in a healthy way. But the mixed messaging, that was the thing that really fucked with me because they'd be like saying, we love you unconditionally, we support you, you can do whatever you want.
But not like that. That is confusing. That's a little confusing. So, you know, that affected me and what it did was set me on a path of like deep Self love and appreciation, but also reliance, which sometimes that's useful and sometimes it's really not. And so I had to kind of get in the stew of all the shadowy aspects of the like, I'll just do it myself.
I'll just take care of myself, like, nobody's really actually here for me, or support always comes at a cost. There's always a hook in it. So, that was what the experience was like for me, that I had to. Unpack and transmute and alchemize.
[00:21:11] Kate: So you are not alone in that feeling of like, either I have to do everything on my own, or if I, if I accept support or ask for it, it comes with a cost.
Yeah. That's very common. And, and certainly like I also want to be honest, humans are complicated. And the truth is, like, when you have a relationship with another human, it is complicated. No matter who they are, how much work they've done, no matter how much work you've done, like, it is true. It, it is. And, just having turned 40, which is like, the best.
wHat do you, what are you experiencing now about self reliance versus inter, Dependence or other reliance or community like yeah, what is that constellation look like now? What are some of the lessons you've learned about being able to receive that support from you know, you've you've moved You left a life in New York.
Then you left a life in LA I know the pandemic was like a Challenging time because of just like community. So yeah, what do you what do you know now? Just after your 40th birthday around community and support that maybe you didn't know before and what are you still learning?
[00:22:19] Elizabeth: Well, first of all, it took me the whole of my thirties to really understand and explore the depths of my sensitivities, being an extroverted HSP, being,
[00:22:31] Kate: Highly sensitive person for those who may not know.
Oh, yes.
[00:22:33] Elizabeth: Highly sensitive person. But there's an extroverted version of that which, and even that was life altering to realize. So many of the descriptors of highly sensitive people make it sound like you're a big introvert and I love time to myself I love my solitude, but I'm not necessarily super introverted.
I'm just very discerning so reckoning with my sensitivities Reckoning with how you know my role in my family. It was just kind of like I'll I'll transmute everybody's stuff Right. Nobody's dealing with their shit here. I'll do it Because I can't deal with it just, like, floating around in the air. So, taking on other people's stuff.
Different from, a lot of people talk about being empaths, where they're, like, feeling other people's stuff. It was more like the conflict, the unspoken stuff, the, again, there was so much gaslighting happening. So the things that I knew that nobody was actually acknowledging, it was kind of like that stuff.
Let me, let me take that in, take that on. And so I don't do that anymore. And you know this, I'm kind of like, the queen of boundaries. Which rubs a lot of people the wrong way. And I'm totally, I'm so comfortable with that. Because not like, peace and contentment are like, the most incredible thing when you're just used to.
Like, Chaos and like other people just like drama and stuff right so also realizing what was mine, and what was not mine So these like kind of personality things or identifiers, because my family is big on like, you know, the Dialtos, like, we do this, we do that, or my mom's maiden name, like, you know, we do this, we do that, like the, the identifying with the clan, which is very like, you know, root shock or a bottom of Maslow's hierarchy, like that kind of tribal stuff, as Carolyn Mace would call it, and I'm sure many other people will call it.
And so I was like, okay. I was born to you all, but this is not, this is not my family, family, you know? So finding like, soul family, found family, people who I could actually be myself with. And one of the things I came to realize too, is that I don't need to be able to be my whole self with everybody, right?
Like there's some people that I can really deeply express parts of myself with, and that's great. Like, it's a miracle and a blessing to have anyone you can fully express any part of yourself with. Right? So, that is something that helped me so much to realize, categorically, there could be people that I could be so, like, feed and nourish this part of myself with, but maybe not that part, and it's fine.
I love that. Yeah. How freeing. So freeing. And then, because the other thing it does, is it, it unhooks us. It unhooked me. Let me, I'll just speak from the first person, but I know this applies to other people too. It unhooked me from like, needing and wanting others to be all kinds of things that they're just not 100 percent gonna be, right?
They're not built to be that, it's not their values, or it's not their priorities. That was hard for me because I'm a very values driven person and I have a lot of strong stances about stuff as you know, with And the thing is, I don't need people to agree with me about everything, and we do live in this time where that's just like a foreign concept to so many people, like people can't fathom that I can vehemently disagree with you about something, but not be like, you're fucking trash if you don't believe, if you don't agree with me.
I could be like, ah, alright, you don't agree, and then I just get to decide how I want to engage with you based on that disparity. And our values.
[00:26:05] Kate: And certainly I'm sure that there are, like, issues that if you vehemently disagree with somebody that would be you know, there's, which we don't even need to talk about what they are, but like, there's stuff, right, that would be like, that is a deal breaker, I can't actually have a relationship with this person.
But I think you're right, in the moment we're in, in history right now I agree with you, like, I think we've gone. Many folks have gone too far in the direction of I cannot have a relationship with someone who I don't agree with on every single point of being a human. It's so,
[00:26:40] Elizabeth: like, because we need conflict to grow.
[00:26:42] Kate: We do. My friend Aaron Rose shared with me something because he's a permaculturist. Not as his job. But, like, he's, he studied it. And he, there's something called the The, the growth edge, which is the, the place, you know this, right? Yeah? Do you want to say it? No, go ahead. Okay. Because I'm gonna botch it a little bit, so fill in the details.
I see
[00:27:01] Elizabeth: you're doing that, but I'm gonna let you, just
[00:27:03] Kate: gonna, you can do this. The place where the two ecosystems come together is the most fertile ground. Great. Because the diversity and the difference is actually so important for fertility.
[00:27:15] Elizabeth: Amazing. Right? You would like to add to that? Well, we're like that too.
Yes! Right? So, you know, that was, that was a big thing I navigated throughout the course of my thirties. And then really just right in the tail end, being 39 years old, I treated my whole year of being 39 like a portal into my forties. And the biggest thing that came up for me that I was like, what am I still like, I wouldn't say struggling with, but what is still like very hard for me?
And I was like, I need to be more discerning about Who and how much access, who I give access to, and how much access I give. And especially in my work, because I freaking love my work so much. And I am like a delightfully without consort person, I don't have a partner, joyfully child free person, I don't have children.
And so, and I am also not a workaholic, right? But I love, I have so much energy and space to pour into my work, because I don't have those two pretty big other commitments that a lot of people do. And so it's just such a joy for me, it's so pleasurable for me to be able to put into me and put into my work because those two things, embodiment, really go together.
Often time the work I'm doing on myself is also opening me up to things that I'm going to be able to integrate into my work as well. And so, just realizing, you know, I came from a super codependent family. For the most part, I've rooted out. Codependent behaviors and things like that. Although I always like to say like given the right circumstances Anyone is capable of a codependent relapse totally But also just realizing Especially at this point and I wonder if you feel this way too.
We're over a decade into our businesses now, right? And also we're at our big big age of 40. We're in our on to years and so I'm like there's a level on which people can't fuck with me because I like It's different now. Like, we've earned some stripes. We've put in work. We've developed personally and professionally to an extent that's like, things are different now.
You know, we've put in the frequent, we're seasoned. The word is seasoned. I know, it feels so good. It feels great.
[00:29:22] Kate: It feels so good, and I really resonated with what you said on your first episode of your 40 Lessons of 40 Years about how you feel like you are finally at an age that you are catching up to who you've always been that like 40 feels very appropriate and that possibly It might actually be 50 but And she did an amazing Rendition of Sally O'Malley and an homage to Sally O'Malley.
[00:29:49] Elizabeth: Look up Sally O'Malley's SNL if you don't know what that is.
[00:29:53] Kate: Or just go listen to Elizabeth's podcast episode, which we'll link in the show notes, so that you can listen to her laugh by herself, which is also the best part. I love how much you crack yourself up. I really do.
[00:30:05] Elizabeth: Unbelievably. That's the greatest.
I'm so glad you picked up on, clearly I'm sitting in my apartment, by myself, I know exactly where you're sitting when you're doing this. That's so
[00:30:13] Kate: good. Dying laughing. Dying laughing about Sally O'Malley. Okay, anyway. But like that sort of catching up to a sense of wisdom or age that you've always had internally.
Yeah. Okay. So, tell me, what does embodiment mean? What does that mean? For you. Then I have a lot more questions.
[00:30:32] Elizabeth: When I talk about embodiment, I'm always talking about integrating the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of yourself. Bringing it all together. So it's about being able to speak your own body.
What I've been calling this for years, you're in body language. Your body's unique language of the senses. Because, you know, there's so much stuff online about trust your gut, listen to this. We are all gonna feel, sense, and experience things in different places at different times depending on what is the circumstance, what's the situation, what's going on, how regulated we are in our nervous systems, how much energy we have or don't, are we distracted, are we not?
All kinds of things, right? So learning how to speak your body's own unique language of the senses. And I'd like to break down the word feeling into a couple different things. Because the word feeling kind of gets a blanket over a lot of different things. First of all, there's sensations, right? There's like, what's hot, cold, tingling, tight, you know?
There's sensations that we feel in our body. Fluttery, I have butterflies in my stomach. That's a sensation. There are often emotions associated with sensations, but sometimes we just get a hit of something that's not directly related to an emotion or a thought or whatever. We're picking up on something in the environment or something like that.
So like we have these physical senses and we have emotions, but then, and emotions, you know, I love referring people to the feelings wheel. Right? There's like 5 or 6 core emotions and then every other emotion that we could describe stems out of one of those. And then there's feeling states, is what I call things like being tired, being hungry.
Cause like, that's not an emotion. Right. It's a feeling though. And again, there's sensations that go with these things. But I like to separate them out so people can get a sense. And again, we also live in an age where I find many people are quite lazy with language. And they'll say, I'm feeling all the feels.
And you're like, okay, but, what does that mean? And it's not even just...
[00:32:30] Kate: It's one of my least favorite phrases actually. Because it's non... It's so ambiguous. It's so
[00:32:34] Elizabeth: non specific. It's so non specific. And listen, if you're just kind of like... Yeah, that's right. The, the range of feelings, that's fine, but you know, it's pretty useful in a lot of cases to know what you're feeling.
Even if you don't know why. We don't have to obsess over the why, but to be able to articulate, and so I also describe, there's another element of this when it comes to embodiment, I call it going out on an emotional limb. Developing emotional literacy, intelligence, and maturity. So these things all go together.
And again, , this is the School of Sacred Embodiment. So we add in that spiritual component and the energetic component of, okay, so you have your physical senses, but then there's also your extra senses, right? Your Claire's right, your CNOs, your Claire, or your Claire Cog, your, you know, all the things. Claire, Ian, anyone is capable of developing those things.
Some people have some things more naturally than others, but sussing out what's what is so worth the time, effort, energy, and attention. To be able to have yourself, you know? And then when you're navigating experiences with other people, then you know what's yours and what's theirs. And so embodiment for me is all of that.
All of that. All, and so again, but if we want to put it in the concise way, it's integrating the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
[00:33:56] Kate: What I love about this is you are bringing a body of work That we are not taught, even though I can't think of a more important skill set, because we all live in a body, we all have emotions we are all energetic beings and spiritual beings, and we are not taught to navigate, like, our emotions, our sensations.
The number of women who I hear from who start using the Do Less Planner, and it just, like, has a simple question about, how do you feel in your body? And they'll say to me like, I just didn't realize how, like most days I'm numb because I never, no one ever asked me. We, we aren't raised in a culture that has us value.
In fact, we live in a culture that has us devalue sensation, our inner knowing and however that shows up. And we're, we're taught all kinds of ways to numb and not feel. So, in your spaces, knowing that you're kind of like, unpacking some gnarly stuff how do you do that knowing, you, you do live retreats, I know you do live stuff but mostly it's online, right?
So how do you, what are some of the skill sets you've built and what kind of support structures do you have in place to do that in a way so you're not just like, Helping people unravel all this stuff, and then like, they don't know what to do with it, and then you don't know what to do with it. You know what I mean?
Like, cause I think that like, as our culture becomes more and more trauma literate, and emotionally literate It gets a little like, You know what it can be? I don't know how to describe it, but that's the feeling.
[00:35:43] Elizabeth: Listen, I lived in North County, San Diego for a little while, and Los Angeles. There you go.
So, what you just did is actually quite a specific reference. It's like very ungrounded, and then it's
[00:35:52] Kate: like, you just open up all this stuff, and there's no way to integrate it. It's boring. And it's like, it's not actually the safest thing. No. In some ways. Now I know you do it in a safe way, so I want to know about
[00:36:04] Elizabeth: that.
But also everyone has to get there somehow. And this is where, you know, I have a couple different frameworks that I've developed. One of them is my Wild Soul Liberation Framework. One of them is my Embodied Self Love Framework. And trust is in both of those frameworks. In the Liberation Framework, it's trust in general.
In the Self Love Framework, it's self trust. And the thing is this. This might not be a popular opinion with some folks, but I've just seen it. With thousands of people over the years and in myself, so I know that for some people I would never say something is correct for everybody, but for some people It's also a matter of trusting that if it's happening.
It's the thing that needs to happen Right if some people if some people are just like Bypassing their trauma and not taking responsibility for their stuff. Sometimes they do need to stumble into a thing that's gonna like crack them open and then they're gonna be like, What the fuck? Because now they have to deal with it because they can't not.
Right? However, is that like the best means? It's not. So, for me, when you learn about trauma, there's this great term that I love so much that comes from chemistry called titration. Which is just about introducing a little bit to the system over time. So the system can adjust, adapt, get used to it.
Instead of just like blasting. So we don't do peak experiences. Right, we're not, well might people have breakthroughs sometimes, sure. Right, but everything we do is about going at the pace that works for you. And inviting people to discover as they go what that pace even is. But also putting the responsibility on the person.
And treating them as a person who can handle whatever happens in this room or during your practice. You're gonna be fine Yes, you know and I got you like we're here. Okay, and I'm clear about like what my scope is I always tell people this work. This is not trauma healing. It's very complimentary to trauma healing.
In fact, it's so So it's almost like an accelerant for trauma healing not the trauma healing needs to happen quickly right, but because it's just It's just, you used the word earlier, it helps you integrate, yeah. It's so integrative and that's the thing that we also really emphasize for people.
Everyone needs space to integrate. People want to rush through it because they want to be over it, but that is the only surefire way to make sure that you will prolong it. Because when you don't actually face everything and so I'm like, it's unpopular, you know, like I'm never going to be one of these people out here with like millions and millions of followers because when people come into my world, I'm like, great, we're actually going to deal with all of your shit.
It's going to take however long it takes. You know, I'm not going to act like this is some fancy do this. Everything's pleasurable. Like we're all having orgasms all the time. Like. It gets yucky and ugly sometimes, you know, and that's just not, it's not as exciting as a cell as like masturbate your way to 100k or something like that, you know.
So feel free.
[00:38:55] Kate: Knock yourself out. So you spoke about something before we started recording about self love. And it's a, it's a body of work that you're currently like really chewing on. Right, body love and reverence. But none, not from a, you said something. It was like, not from, from a mystical perspective.
It is from a mystical perspective. Yeah, so can you, I, I, this is not a question, but just say more. Yeah, yeah,
[00:39:19] Elizabeth: so. You know, we have these movements, body positivity, body liberation, body neutrality, and within all of those things, one of the things I've noticed that is, you know, never my favorite, it's certainly not the intention of the movements, but these things go in the direction of becoming very performative, right?
Especially in social media and the hashtag world that we live in. And so and also none of them are coming from, like, a mystical place. They might go there. They might catalyze people to get there if that's where they want to go. But everything I do is from, you know, the root is sacredness. What are we returning to?
Sacredness, right? The sacredness in all of us. The sacredness in all of life. And so I wanted to create something to help people have This, you know, when I talk about self love, I talk about making a relationship with yourself. One of the most wild and passionate love affairs of your life. So I'm like, okay, now let's make your relationship with your body one of the most wild, passionate love affairs of your life.
Now, some people might be like, I don't want that. I'm not interested. Great. But if you're even a little bit curious, I'm like, and this is going to be a mystical process. So the pillars of body love and reverence are sensual healing. So we were talking about the senses. Creating a relationship to sensuality that is separate from sexuality is actually super important.
Especially as women, because everything gets, like, over sexualized and objectified and pornified. So, of course, sensuality and sexuality make incredible partners, but to be able to have sensual pleasure and joy that has nothing to do with sex, because, you know, there's also a percentage of the population that's not even interested in sex.
So... We do sensual healing, learning how to work with your intuition, beauty as medicine, which is so like even walking in here and seeing like the plants and the setup and these little glasses and everything like, oh, the little, all these. All this, all this beautiful stuff, it, there's, there's texture, there's sensation, there's energy, there's, oh, like it's a vibe, you know?
That's another term that gets kind of brushed over everything, a vibe. But, you know, when you're out in nature and you're watching a sunset, you know, there's awe, there's wonder, there's a little bit of God, Goddess, in everything. And when attune yourself to experiencing the God in everything. How are you not going to experience your body as this miraculous sacred vessel that it actually is regardless of age, shape, size, condition, health, illnesses, injuries, whatever you've got going on.
Everyone's body is sacred, right? So we have the sacredness in every body. And then energetic awareness and reverence. Because that was, that was such a big part of my journey, and over the years as I've woven just little energetic tools into the embodiment practices, into our meditations, bringing people into awareness of like, their chakras, their energy center, their aura, like the subtle energy, their subtle energy field is like, oh, There's just so much more going on here that is awe inspiring and worthy of my reverence and respect.
So, it's also really fun. Again, for people who are mystically oriented. Some people don't give a shit about that stuff, in which case I'm like, that's not the thing for you then, and that's fine. But if you are, and if it feels exciting, it's like, you know, I love to say that the body is a bridge between heaven and earth.
Just the same way that our heart chakra is the bridge between heaven and earth. Heaven and earth in the chakras, right? So it's like we get to be, what are you gonna do with your bridge? Like and how, again, like awe inspiring, mystical, sacred, reverent, pleasurable, enjoyable. Can that be in a way that allows you to transmute and transcend all the traumas?
The pain, physical, mental, emotional, whatever. Right? When we can also be having these experiences. So, it's not a bypass, because we don't dismiss, we don't not look at all the crappy stuff, but we go, look at all this shitty stuff, but look at all this incredible stuff, and they can coexist. That's so... I'm up in it
[00:43:34] Kate: right now, so I'm a little obsessed.
I'm like, I can feel it so deeply, it's powerful. Yeah, thank you. So, God. And the sacred. The show is Plenty, and I want to know, how, if at all, does The Sacred connect to your relationship with money, as a business owner?
[00:43:54] Elizabeth: I love this. So, as you well know, cause I've sat in like, little mastermind rooms with you all, like, with some of like, your friends, and people are talking about like, all this money, and I'm like, I just don't need that much, you guys, like, I'm fine, like, people are setting like, their big ass goals, and like, all these things they want to do, and I'm like, yeah.
I'm good with like this. I, I also last year, I'm like again, my, my mercury is also in Virgo and I have all this Gemini to like, I love, and I have teacher archetype is like everywhere in human design. I'm a six too. So I love frameworks. I kind of just like accidentally speak frameworks sometimes.
And I'm like, Oh, there's a new one. And so last year I created, or actually at the end of 2021, I created it. What I call the Soulful Prosperity Framework, which is sustainability, sufficiency, soulfulness, and satisfaction. And so, the soulfulness and satisfaction piece are what bring the sacredness in, in like a mystical way, but then the sustainability and the sufficiency are what bring it in, in a very practical way.
Because it's like, what do I actually need? Again, as a person. doesn't have or want a partner, and doesn't have or want children, I, I can chill a bit around money. Like, what's sufficient for me would probably not be sufficient for someone who has kids and is thinking about their future and education and school.
And all of the expenses, I mean, it's expensive to just be a person. There's all these memes now, right, that's like you can't leave the house without spending 100, right? Can't imagine having, like, extra humans. Then you probably can't leave the house without spending hundreds of dollars. So when Penelope asked, this was one of the most adorable things of 2023, Penelope asked Kate if I could take her to shop for Ruby's birthday this year.
It was a specific ask.
[00:45:40] Kate: It was specific. For Elizabeth. It wasn't like, I want to go to Target and get a present for Ruby. It was, I want Auntie Elizabeth to take me to Target. So,
[00:45:47] Elizabeth: I Had no idea how expensive kids toys were in the aisle. Like you would give him Penelope a budget. You gave me a little extra money too, cause you were like, listen, it gets a little pricey.
I was like, all right. But, and it was like 60 bucks and I'm thinking back with like when I was a kid and what things were and I really, cause again, I have no context. I have a niece, but I don't buy her like toys. She has plenty of stuff. I like do things with her. So I just had no context. For how expensive the damn toys were going to be.
So anyway, I'm on a big tangent here. But the sufficiency piece, what I love about that too, it also brings in one of my favorite things about being a mystic, which is humility, right? Like I, you know, people who have deep desires for like status and, you know, fame or attention or influence or whatever, like that stuff doesn't do it for me.
You know, I am a person who's built to be like. I have a microphone in my face and talk about things and like create things and so by that nature I have a platform and whatever but for me that's not about amassing more and more and more and more and more. That's just not, I don't know, that's just not what does it for me and so I deeply enjoy being, I don't want to say like a normal person because that's not it, but it's just like I have my little one bedroom apartment on the beach in Miami.
You know, I don't, I'm not a minimalist, but I also am not a big person on stuff and like enoughness. I love the feeling of enoughness. And even when, even when things might be a little tight sometimes, I'm like, it's still plenty. Look how much I have. And that's kind of a cornerstone of the sufficiency and the sustainability, which brings, which makes the soulfulness and the satisfaction so much easier to acquire.
[00:47:32] Kate: Yes. That conversation around sufficiency, I want to turn up the volume on that and just have conversations about that in more places, so thank you for bringing it.
[00:47:46] Elizabeth: Yeah, and you know the worlds that we came from, our marketing upbringing, you know, all the different rooms that we sat in when we were, you know, 28, 29 years old I remember being so judged, because I just wasn't In a race to make hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars.
You know, I was caring about the impacts of, you know, these marketing things. Things felt like a little scummy or weird to me. And I remember people really kind of dismissing anything I had to say after that because I, I specifically remember one person being like, am I interested in what you're saying because I make more money than you?
And I remember being like, Ooh. Ooh, a thousand percent. I'll tell you who it was after. I don't even know if this person is still like on the internet or what they're doing, but I remember being like cool, bro. Like, good
[00:48:35] Kate: to know. Yeah, really. Yeah, if we're not listening to people from all perspectives, like, right?
That was the permaculture, the growing edge. Yes. So, as our final question, even though I have 30 million more things I Well, if you could go back and talk to Elizabeth, like, right around the time you were graduating college coming out into life on your own for the first time, what piece of wisdom or insight could you deliver to her about money specifically?
[00:49:08] Elizabeth: So any kind of question like this, like, what would you tell yourself? I always have the same answer. I love being me and being exactly where I am and how I got here so much. I wouldn't want anything to be different, so I wouldn't, the only thing I would say to her is, You got this. Ugh, yes. Because if she did even one little micro thing differently, I might not be sitting in this like, plush little chair with the fake plants and the pretty
[00:49:33] Kate: grass.
Okay, so I'm going to ask it now. I love that answer so much. It's great. What would you want my daughters to know about money?
[00:49:40] Elizabeth: Okay, this is great. Let me think of their little faces.
So there's, there's just The world is weird. And you're gonna meet a lot of people that are gonna make you feel like you should want things that you know you don't want. And a lot of those things are gonna be attached to money. And so, it's more important to know who you are and what you actually want than to have all the things that other people might make you feel like you need to want.
Of course, we couldn't have gotten through without some tears. I was shocked we'd gotten this far.
[00:50:21] Kate: Well, we did the laughter, we did the tears. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. So good to be with you. So good to drop in. So if folks want to connect and learn more about your work, obviously podcast.
Please, please tell us all the places.
[00:50:36] Elizabeth: Yes the podcast is called Embodied. That's it's third name and I'm probably never changing it again because that's all encompassing now. So the Embodied podcast with Elizabeth DiAlto and I actually quit social media this year so you can still go to my Instagram.
There's a ton of stuff there but the website is the best place. UntameYourself. com
[00:50:53] Kate: Beautiful. Thank you. Of course, all those links will be in the show notes. Thank you Elizabeth. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening in to this episode of Plenty. Isn't Elizabeth delicious? We had so much fun. I know that I am walking away.
I love the frameworks, particularly the one around prosperity. I'm going to really be thinking about those four S's. So please go check out Elizabeth's work. She's just amazing. The way she thinks about things is so multi layered. She has a lot of depth a lot of skill, a lot of insight, and thanks for listening in.
If you liked this episode, please screenshot it, share it on social, tag us, text a friend, let them know about it. You can go ahead, of course, rate the podcast, leave us a review, it helps get this in front of more people, it helps them access more plenty in their lives, which is better for everyone. Thank you for listening, and we will see you next time.
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