Sense of Soul - Healing and Awakening Through Your Body

Episode Date: July 7, 2025

Dr. Lisa Cooney is a leading authority on thriving after childhood sexual abuse. As a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, certified Access Consciousness Facilitator, and Master Theta Healer. She has spent the last 25+ years helping people across the globe move from trauma to truth—from silently surviving to radically alive. Through her trauma therapy practice, intuitive Soul Sessions, ThetaHealing®, and the ROAR® Method she developed, she has guided thousands through deep emotional healing—especially those living with childhood abuse, PTSD, chronic anxiety, or a deep sense of disconnection. Whether in a one-on-one session or a global workshop, she’s witnessed what’s possible when someone chooses to heal.  She is the author of the books: “Creating After Abuse” and her newest book is, “The Body Of Change.” This book is a profound exploration of how reconnecting with our bodies can unlock our highest potential. Her unique approach, combining scientific and spiritual insights, offers practical tools and techniques that empower individuals to break free from emotional and physical limitations and live a radically alive and fulfilling life. Praise from Gwyneth Paltrow: “After one cathartic session with Dr. Lisa Cooney, I noticed such a remarkable shift in how I felt in my body. I hope this book helps many more people who may be feeling disconnected to follow their path back to themselves." — Gwyneth Paltrow, Founder and CEO of Goop. https://www.drlisacooney.com @drlisacooney www.senseofsoulpodcast.com

It's time to awaken. Today on Sense of Soul, we have Dr. Lisa Cooney. She is a trauma therapist, an intuitive healer, and the creator of the Roar Method, a transformative approach to healing. With over 25 years of experience in psychotherapy and energy healing, Dr. Lisa's work centers on helping individuals overcome trauma and reconnect to their authentic selves. Her method integrates psychotherapy, energy work, and spiritual

guidance while empowering individuals to heal deeply and live fully alive. Dr. Lisa works with clients worldwide through soul sessions, global workshops, and speak engagements offering practical tools for personal empowerment and healing. She speaks from both professional knowledge as well as her own personal experience having walked the path of trauma recovery herself, bringing a deeply empathetic and authentic perspective. And she's joining us today to share her newest book, Body of Change. Her book is a profound exploration of how reconnecting with our bodies can unlock our highest potential. On her website, Gwyneth Pathrow commented,

after one cathartic session with Dr. Lisa Cooney, I noticed such a remarkable shift in how I felt in my body. I hope this book helps many more people who may be feeling discomfort to follow their path back to themselves. And she's with us today to tell us about her new book as well as tell us about her own healing journey. So please welcome Dr. Lisa. Thank you so much for being with me. I'm super excited to talk about your new book and about how women can start, not just women, but everybody can start reclaiming their own power by really knowing thyself, knowing their body, knowing how they can heal. I'm so glad to have this conversation with you and contributing to whomever listens to this,

now it's the best way for them and their bodies. I think it's important to bring your body to these conversations. Yeah, there you go. I didn't have this growing up, but I grew into this from my own healing, which was becoming befriending my body and actually using it like I use my navigation in the car. Before I drive anywhere, I input the address and see how the route is, see how I'm feeling. If I need to change a route, don't want to do highways or tolls or want to avoid lights or whatever it is, it's like I listen to my body and my body guides me. What do I want to wear today?

What do I want to eat today? What do I want to eat today? What do I want to drink today? It's not the same. And that's because our needs are different every single day and our body and our nutrients and our vitamins and our neurotransmitters and our hormones need something different every day. You know what, it's interesting.

I was thinking about this recently. There's so much talk about like, you know, all of the different injections that you can give yourself right now to lose weight. There's this kind of hate of our body. Kind of what? Just this hate for our body. Hate of our body, yes.

I mean, if we don't like something, why would we listen to it? Exactly. And where does that hate come from? And why do we hate the thing that is with us every single day? We go to sleep with it, we wake up with it, we dress it, we feed it, we use it to work, we use it to exercise, we use it to walk, we use it to pet our dogs and hold our children, we use it to water the flowers, go on vacation, create things. And it's only when there's a problem we don't feel good that we really start paying more attention to it. And I think that that's really interesting about how our society, or at least

for me, growing up in the late 60s, early 70s, it was a very different time about bodies back then. But that hate that you're talking about, it's either gotten worse or it's gotten more talked about and therefore it's up more. Because over the last 10 or 15 years, working with people, men and women, but predominantly women, I would say,

fit into what I'm going to say now a little bit more than men in my experience. And doesn't mean it's the truth. But women seem to have more issues going into dealing with their body and dealing with their hate of their body based on the environment they grew up in, based on what they were told about their body, about being a woman, about being different. And even with men, they were told something different

than we were told. Sometimes you're both told not to have any feelings, whether you're a man or a woman, and sometimes you're told that you're weak if you have feelings or you're strong if you don't. And so we can adopt all of these things and adapt whether we're, what gender we are. And I think there's really a lot of illiteracy out there

about specifically the women's body and bodies in general and how they can be our friend and not our enemy. Yeah. You know, I have a son who is on the spectrum and he's hypotonic. So he doesn't feel like he'll get hurt and they won't even know it.

We had to do a lot of like decompression therapy. You know, now that I look back and I have more of an understanding of what we were doing but we had to, I had to brush his body, you know, in a certain way and everything. And it was this very almost like feathery kind of brush. And for two hours is when we would teach him. So we would brush the body and then we would work on whatever we're working on. It's like that multi-dimensional self, when it's aligned, we can function correctly. Yes. It's an interesting perspective that you bring up,

Shanna, because in my experience of parents with children on the spectrum, you become more entrained and aware of that perspective. I have two kids, they're both diagnosed with ADHD, different and likely on the spectrum, not to the same level as your son would say. And it's very interesting to work with them and it's different. And you have to become more aware, more present, more present in your body especially with

children on the spectrum about the energy that you're giving out to the child when you're working with them. And it's and it makes you more I think aware of your body and aware of your energy field around. Because kids on the spectrum are very high A sensitive and they can pick you up coming from, you know, a thousand yards away or more, sometimes 8,000 miles. They can pick you up and you don't even know, and they don't even know like the teeth thing. Absolutely.

I remember when I learned Reiki years ago, that helped me understand him so much more. And actually a lot of the tools that I learned, I taught him so that he could understand his energy around him and give him power and control over that. He hated going into like the hallways. His little legs would shake. He would come home sore. And stress. Stress. Yeah. I taught him how to create a bubble around him.

He reclaimed his power with that. That was a huge exercise for him. Oh, yeah. That's a great exercise. There's a lot of kids that I've worked with that would blow out when they got home from school. They would start hitting or yelling or screaming at their siblings or their parents or something, throwing things and throwing tantrums, things like that. And I realized at one point that it was because of the energy at school and what they were

around and faced, right? Not that it's bad, because it's just a lot of people and a lot of thoughts that children on the spectrum are more in tune with feeling in their body and getting overwhelmed and blown out from it. And you don't have to necessarily just be on the spectrum to experience this. I have some highly sensitive clients as well that aren't on the spectrum. They're just highly sensitive and they're very agitated and frenetic when they come home from school. So like yourself, teaching the bubble thing is a great exercise. I also taught them how to discharge the energy,

like taking a pillow and having a set place to throw it and make a sound as they throw it. Now, some people on the autism spectrum may not be able to coordinate exactly like that, but you can adapt, you know, some things that might, the energy of just the body, like his leg shaking, right? It's like kicking it out or kicking something that you create the safety of the environment. Like I have back in that door back there,

I have like a punching bag that they have at the gym, and I have these little butacas or rubber hoses that you get at Ace Hardware. And this is not necessarily for the children, but I've used it with the children at times just to discharge that frenetic energy because they really don't even know what it is. And they're just like, and get it all out. And then they're like, this is fun, I feel great. And they're like back in their body and the energy is discharged.

And then they'll be like, sorry, mom, I, you know, I don't know why I did that. And then they could say, oh, you know, this person in school did that, that person did this, the teacher did this. There was just a lot of energy and I just got out of my body and now I feel fine. Wow.

I wonder if that's why some of them stem in the way that they do. I know my son would used to take a football and just like hit it after school. Hmm. Well, there you go. The body keeps the score. Now there's a great book by very amazing trauma person

that you can look up. But the body keeps the score about everything. Even in my work with people that aren't on the spectrum or not kids, or even if they are, I wouldn't do this with kids, but adults, let's say, they come into my office and say they have a sexual abuse or trauma and they think they were sexually abused, but they don't have the memories.

One of the things I would say, just during this session, if we could just, would you just trust your body that your body actually experienced something and you don't know who it's with or what actually happened, but it did experience something that was not okay for you, that did not feel right for you, that could even potentially have been some

sort of violation or boundary crossing, manipulation, or you just left a sour taste in your gut or those butterflies in your stomach, and you don't want to remember it. Could we just make that okay in our sessions? Just for this time. And then when you leave here, you never have to think about it again. And you just turn it on when you come back into the office. One, that's a way so that they don't have to deal with their trauma on their own. They have a safe space that they could come in, turn it on and turn it off.

With trauma, you have to have those kind of boundaries. And with kids, you know, when you do like play work or Santeray therapy or work with kids on the spectrum, you have to have very specific pragmatic techniques that don't give a whole lot of room to extrapolate, let's say. Usually, every one of my clients will just be like, wow, that feels so freeing to just accept that I do actually know that something that occurred did not feel right with my body and this person.

I don't know exactly what it is, but I love myself enough and I trust myself enough and I trust my body enough to give it air and time and space to see if I talk about this and just accept this and tolerate my own thought, maybe the ego that's defending me and protecting me from the memory, maybe if there is a memory there, will start to come down a little and feel safe to give the memories without you getting into, I remember years ago, decades ago, the whole false memory syndrome and all that kind of stuff

that therapists would go through and they would, there were some cases, let's just say, or a lot of cases that people didn't remember sexual abuse. And then they went to therapy and that they remembered the sexual abuse. And then if there was a trial or something, the therapist would get called in and then they would say, you know, well, how do you know it's not subjective? And how do you know you

didn't implant the memory and things like that? And that's the way I avoided all of that, because I never told them they had a memory or didn't have a memory, but I never told them that what they were feeling might possibly be incorrect. We're always gonna start not trusting yourself maybe. That's the whole thing. And so somewhere in our society, and I think one of the real sicknesses in this society, the real diseases start with how we parent, teach our children to be in relationship with their body.

And boys and girls. Boys don't have to be strong and girls are supposed to be meek, right? Emotions are powerful in both males and females. Children, males and females on the spectrum, pretty much they might have different ways of behaving because they're different, but they all have similar characteristics that transcend the gender. So it's really, it's important. I have an interesting point of view that has no data to my knowledge. It's like I feel like all these last two decades with all the or more of

the spectrum stuff coming out which is I think wonderful to when all this new stuff comes, because it really gives people hope and helps a lot of parents, let alone the kids and the teachers. I think it's like a cruel joke of the universe in a certain way to like, okay, look what not loving your body and hating your body has done. Now we're going to produce all these children that are gonna teach us about what it is to be in a body and be in a body in this world.

What could be the lesson for us with all these children? A lot of lessons. Yeah, and I think in the last two or three decades, at least as a practitioner in the mental health field, and while I don't particularly work with kids all the time on the spectrum, I have and I do know, plus I have my own kids that have their own spectrum issues. And I'm like, who doesn't right now?

We talked about that all the time. I work with a lot of 20 year olds that I'm like, I don't know how you even made it through your childhood without being seen for these sorts of things that your sensitivity is making you aware of and like blowing out in the world. Like I understand Gen Zs. They're just in a certain way. They're just like, what is all this? This doesn't fit me and my body and my thinking and my world and my mind at all.

You people are crazy. And whatever your fixed positions are in this world, they my mind at all. You people are crazy. And whatever your fixed positions are in this world, they just think you've collapsed because we're here, you're going to go, and we're going to create the world and realign what's happening. Hey, listeners, so sorry for the interruption, but I wanted to share with you one of Sense of Soul's affiliates in the network of Lightworkers, Amy Robeson. She is an Akashic Records facilitator and teacher offering Sense of Soul listeners a life-changing experience, learning how to access your Akashic Records in your daily

life and in business. Head over to SenseofSoulPodcast.com and go to the Network of Lightworkers and look for Amy's Akashic Records course. Now back to our amazing guest. You know what's really interesting is that my son, Ethan, after my dad died, and they were super close. He would never express how he felt. We were in therapy and one day, his therapist who he had had for a long time said, ''Ethan, how do you feel about this, you grandpa?'' He leaned back in his chair and he fell back like this,

and looked up and start breathing heavy. I was like, oh my God, this is how he saw my dad last. He was mimicking the last breath. Oh my God, that gives me chills. There was even part of me for the long, because it was probably a month or so after, I was like, maybe he's just not that sad.

Maybe he doesn't understand. You know, I didn't know what to think because they were so close. So that was very telling. That's a really beautiful example. I love that about your son. I mean, it must have been freaky in a moment, but... Oh, it must have been freaky in a moment, but... Heartbreaking. I get this.

There's this really weird term called biomimetic mimicry. Mimic. You have the skill set to mimic the personalities, behaviors of the people in your environment that you're close with. Your mom, your dad, your grandparents, siblings, dogs. Dogs do it all the time, right? And that's what your son was doing there. He was mimicking the pain pathway in reality of your father or his grandson.

And he was just showing you that that's a superpower of his, but that's the superpower of the body. It's called Clairsentience. And now it's just, it's, you know, it could be biomimetic mimicry, Clairsentience. There's all these different terms that have been here since the beginning of time. You're just mimicking something you witnessed

and the body has that capacity and the body has that for feelings, experiences, death, life, birth, success, failure. You know, so however you or I with my children do something, then the children do something. Same thing with the dogs. It's our body. It's a mimic. Yes.

And there's, you know, every cell of our body has ATP, adenosine triphosphate, no different than every cell that makes the trees, the sky, what keeps us connected. In this computer thing, it's very weird, but it's also in every cell of our body. And it's in every molecule in the universe that creates even the chairs we're sitting on, the computer we're viewing this from. It's all connected cell-to-cell communication. People, plants, animals,

and I think the three most, if I remember correctly, most sensitive energies that can be impacted by the environment, physiologically, psychologically, are plants, children, babies, and animals. Most sensitive. A plant can be, you know that a plant can be destroyed or killed in really bad energy in the house, like people fighting and things like that. Okay? So just as an example, this, your son doing what he did with his grandfather was really actually quite intelligent. And the body's amazing intelligence. That's why I say before you as you wake up in the morning,

kind of like before I get in my car, I punch in the navigation of where I'm going, most times. And it's like I wake up and like, our body, how are we doing today? What would you like to drink? What would you like to eat? How would you like to move? How's your workout going to be today? What are you going to eat today? Are you more thirsty than you are hungry? Just these questions that we don't ask our body. Feet. How much have you ever thought about your feet?

The feet that walk you everywhere, get out of bed, exercise, get in the car, do the shopping, do the cooking, do the podcast. You know, our feet move, right? How often do we think about that and taking care of them? Not until they hurt. Not until they hurt or you feel some sort of pain. So I can relate to this. You'll love this story. So it's a vulnerable story. When I was teaching a Reiki class one time I had this low back pain. So you know you're sitting and oh yeah I'm very calm. Word all day. Finally I got those back jacks which are

wonderful. But so I was taking advantage of our time when we were meditating and stuff to just focus on my lower back. And that night I went to bed, I woke up about five in the morning to my partner wanting to have sex. And I never like to be woken up in the middle of the night to have sex. I'm just mad and I'm like, get it over with, okay? I don't want to be please just get it over with and my body tenses up like a stiff board. I mean, I wouldn't even want to have sex with that. And then I lay there and all of a sudden, I have this memory about 11 years old that I and one of my cousin's friends came in my room while I was sleeping. I pretended I was sleeping and he violated me. And not a sex, but you know, it was inappropriate

big time. And it was my first experience. And I remember being stiff as a board, wanting it to be just exactly what I was experiencing with my partner. And so my partner, so he's like, what's wrong? Are you okay? And I was like, well, actually, no, I'm thinking about this. And I've known him since second grade. So, and he says, well, you know, I would never hurt you. And I was like, I know, but my body didn't. Bingo.

And I was like, okay, I need to sit with this more. Right. Also, coincidentally, the back pain went away. And I said, we have to test the system. This is a few days, you know, I've been really letting all of this come forth. I'm talking about it. I said, I need you to try to wake me up again. And he's like, oh, hell no.

I'm never doing that again. Forget it. I said, you learned. That's a good guy. I'm never doing that again. Forget it. I said- You learned. That's a good guide. I said, and it took a few days. And finally- I bet.

And all I thought about was him. I felt safe. And it was a huge breakthrough for me. Yeah, that was pretty amazing. Wow. Thank you for being vulnerable enough to share that. And I appreciate that, the vulnerability, because, well, it's just really beautiful. And you talked about a lot of different things, and I hope I can touch on all of them besides

thanking you for your courage in talking about this. But that's how sometimes trauma gets from repression to non-repression, whereas your body just remembers it spontaneously. That's a spontaneous memory. Through a very similar experience that you would have never put together if it didn't happen exactly the way that it happened. I wondered that, I'm like, I have had so much therapy,

why didn't this come out a long time ago? These are the things I thought of. Exactly. Most people say that's why therapy doesn't work, because I've been in therapy and it didn't come up, so it didn't work. Actually, I have a different perspective, and yes, maybe because I'm a therapist, but also because I also know trauma, my own trauma. I have a couple of books out which I'm very open about, as I call it, and I can say because it's my life. I took one for the team on the abuse side. Physical, mental, emotion. I can laugh at say because it's my life. I took one for the team on the abuse side,

physical, mental, emotional, and I can laugh at it because it's my story. Physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, sexual, financial abuse, which was like beat every day of my life, abused for the first 20 something years of my life. It was crazy. And I never thought I would live past 50. I'm 55 now. And somewhere around 40 is when things really started to change for me. 40. That was a good 20 years of a lot of diligent hard work on my own trauma.

But in terms of what you have said, in the memory, that's how spontaneous regressions can come up, is sometimes the exact moment in the present is the replica of an exact moment of the original trauma. And this is why I believe in synchronicity or something larger than ourselves or a God that's my understanding or whatever besides a particular religion is like those moments to me are symbolic of something or someone coming in and saying time to wake up a little bit I'm here to help you this has been plaguing you for too long and let's let's free you from this so you can enjoy your husband or your boy partner whatever

whomever it is your beloved beloved, you can enjoy sex, learn when is better and then not, and not have that memory come up, but also not live with that person who violated you and the energy in your body for the rest of your life, because you don't address it. Most people will live with that energy in their body without addressing it it and keep,

because they don't know and they're not educated. I actually think people are more educated now than they have been in the last 30 years, but when I started in trauma and speaking about abuse, my God, my first book was called Radically Alive Beyond Abuse. Nobody read it. You want to know why? Because it had the word abuse in it. And then about three years after I published it, something like that, then I couldn't stop getting messages about it because it was in 14 different languages, from English to Hebrew to Spanish to German

to Italian to French, Mandarin to Japanese, because every culture knows abuse. And no culture has the Oscar on eliminating abuse in their country, males or females. I know people in Israel that can't even get a divorce unless they go in with a scarf over their head and only the male can speak. I can't even imagine that.

No offense to any cultures, I believe in free will. Not sure if this is some of these things are free will, but I do believe in free will and I don't think anybody should be caged in a choice that isn't from their highest and best expression, or highest and best good, or just their divine birthright. But that's just me getting off on a little tangent. And also, you said a couple of good things. You said, I was violated, but it wasn't sex.

Now, I'm not challenging you. I'm using it because I've said that, my clients say that, and still to this day, a lot of people say that. They justify that it wasn't penetration, that it was only oral or fondling or whatever. Doesn't matter. You're right. If that was my daughter, it wouldn't matter.

Right, exactly. You understand that. And, but that's the difference in society, right? From when you grew up to when your daughter's growing up. And that's the education of women right now. Beautiful, beautiful, brilliant education that you just told us all right now. So I hope you all were listening

because that's what we have to tell our children. My parents didn't know about body awareness, body intelligence, body as your navigation system and never knew anything about feeling. They were pretty much all obese and some sort of addiction, food addiction, alcohol addiction, sex addiction and whatnot. So I grew up hating my body, not really wanting to be a woman or in a woman's body, because

it was so, let's describe to me, as weak or ugly or not as important or not as good enough to men for some reason. And that somehow translated to business and all these things. But I was lucky in a certain way, cause I had a father who I can't say wasn't patriarchal on some form, but he was also the only one that ever said to me, and the first man in my life that said to me, Lisa, and I was seven,

not just a man's world, it's a woman's world. Remember to do what you love and always be your own boss." That's what my father told me. He didn't care what I did. He didn't say go into real estate like me, go into bookkeeping or accounting or CPA like me, thank God, because I would have been. I mean, I would have liked the real estate because I'm in a little bit of it now,

but he was so brilliant with it. He died 12, 14 years ago, so it's been a long it now, but you know, and he was so brilliant with it. He died 12, 14 years ago. So it's been a long time now, but I do wish I had that possibility of learning from him because he, it was really brilliant with numbers and real estate. Long story short, that was the first thing I wanted to just go back on before I go on any other topic is like, you were violated, period. Anybody that touches you and comes into your room when you're sleeping and

doesn't have consent and you're not even awake, that it doesn't even matter. Doesn't even matter. There's nothing to discuss. It's a violation. But what does happen in those moments, like you said, stiff as a board, your body is like file not found, file not found, file not found. Some people on this podcast listening might be a little too young to know what that's from, but when AOL first came out, they used to have the hourglass or something.

And it would say something like file not found, file not found, file not found when you were searching it. But that's what happens in trauma and abuse. The abuse is occurring and you're lying there, most likely looking up and you don't know what to do because you feel the shame of what's happening, but you're paralyzed. And the other person is acting as if they have the right to do what they're doing.

And so they're overpowering your free will just by that choice. And we sometimes get paralyzed. Yes, of course, sometimes we fight. Sometimes we try to fight, but most times we fawn because we're afraid we're gonna die. And also, file not found. Abuse is insane.

Thank God, I don't wanna grow up in a world where I think I'm always going to be abused. But there's a lot of people that grow up in the world today that are thinking they were always somehow going to be abused. And I actually did grow up in a very violent childhood home where I was abused and no police were called. This was the early 70s. I remember walking to a friend's house just a mile away. Some car, I'll never forget it, pulled up to me, opened the door,

some guy and he's like, I'll take you, where are you going? I said, just to my friend's house, they're right over there. I'll take you. No, I can walk. But there was a moment, I'll never forget my body. I moved forward, I don't know if you can see, I just moved my body forward a little bit as if I was going to go.

Then a really bad feeling came over me. I said, no. I just darted toward my friend's house and I said, Maria, whatever I said. But that was really scary. And you know what? I never talked about it with my mom or anybody when I got there. I just let it go.

So that stayed in my body and actually did create a lot of fear that you could walk down the street, some person can open their door, invite you in, and you might never be seen again. I don't know how at a young age I was that aware of that feeling, but that's what I do every day and what I've been doing every day for 13 years is like helping people navigate their own body navigational system because it wouldn't

really save your life and it did me. navigational system because it wouldn't really save your life and it did me. In Spanish molesting or molestar is actually means to like put down and so people use molesting in English term and when I heard that in Spanish I was like they use molesting in terms of sexual abuse and it's not an accurate term. If you look at the conjugation of the words and whatever and the definitions of it in terms of sexual abuse. Yes, in some ways you could have been molested, but it's actually assault, rape, abuse. Like call it like it is and not make it lighter than it is. And most people are, which is why I made a book called my first book, Radically Alive Beyond Abuse, because I wanted to say there was a way to move beyond abuse

radically. And it has to be radical because it's such insane violation, anesthetization, and infestation of your world, psychologically, physiologically, spiritually, energetically, emotionally. Not one part of you is unscathed and not one relationship is unscathed from abuse. Childhood or adult, case in point, you having in your partner the sexual situation you talked about, it comes up. And so you always actually have a possibility of the body to divulge what's really going on if you listen. But most of us are too afraid to remember

if anything went on, because then they think everything's that we're gonna have to relive it. And the truth is, you don't relive it, you just deal with it. You're reliving it every day by not dealing with it. No one's ever really broke it down and explained to me exactly the way you have, thank you for that. No, it made me think of another thing, like when you were,

when you experienced that in your body, had you gone home and told your mom, maybe if she would have said, did you feel that in your body, had you gone home and told your mom, maybe if she would have said, did you feel that in your body? What you, you know, if you explained it all to her, she could have validated that for you, for you to always listen to that, to that feeling within your body to trust that. My little girl, my youngest, she's, she's always been more of an introvert, which I hate to call her that, but, but I was like, maybe seven years ago, I think maybe she was like five or so, a friend had come over, but he brought his brother

and he was so friendly and everything. And when he saw my little girl, he picked her up and he starts swearing her around and holding her. And she's like, stiff as a board, okay? She was like, and she looked terrified. And I was like, can you please put her down? She doesn't like that. And he did respectfully.

He was just being nice and I understand that, but I knew I needed to say something and get her out of that fast. But when he left, I had a long conversation with her. We even acted it out because I said, you need to say no, no thank you however you feel, but you need to say it loud. And we practiced this because she allowed it and I could see and it pained me how she was so uncomfortable and didn't say anything. I mean, it terrified me. And so we practiced it and she was saying it, but she still is on the quiet side. And I don't think I even back then was like, listen to your body. Did you notice that it was stiff? You know, and maybe she wouldn't have understood

that anyways, or maybe she would have, but I didn't connect it to that until you were just mentioning yourself in your story. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Yeah. Independent play is really important, and self-regulation is one. So yeah, she's introverted. But I was also very introverted, and I don't mean but I was, like it's making a comparison.

I actually think that I grew myself out of the some scale of the autism level. And I don't mean that it's possible for everybody or it's not possible. I don't mean it like that. But I've been through a lot and I think what wasn't available in 1969, 70, 71, 34 when I was very young is available now. Right? And I'm so grateful for that. before when I was very young is available now, right? And I'm so grateful for that.

I don't think I was on the higher end, but I think I definitely, and the reason why I'm bringing that up is because of what you're talking about here is that self-regulation is so key, being able to play with yourself, let you make good decisions for yourself, feel more confident about staying after with activities, or not being with people and not being the

whole FOMO thing, fear of missing out. And then the problem could be that you become a little bit more antisocial, but that's on the extreme end. Your daughter's young, she has time to grow into all that social stuff. And maybe it's safer for her energy and herself to be in her own energy. And sometimes, I have to tell you, I work with people every day for the last almost 30 years. You know, five, six, seven, eight, sometimes 10 hours a day. And when I'm done talking to people,

and dealing with problems all day, I don't wanna talk to anybody. But I have a family, I have kids, and I have dogs. And so good luck with that, Lisa. Doesn't work. So I've had to like retrain myself in a lot of ways, but I have never forgotten the power of being with myself and in my energy. And as a kid, I used to do it with music.

I used to be able to pick out songs in New York on Z100 in the first like five to ten seconds of just the beats. I like, that's what I would do for hours. Little OCD. And I would just learn it and it really tested my ear strength and brain, you know, just all these things that you don't really do in school, but like it really helped me become aware of what I was aware of. Little things like that. But also being in my own energy. It's like, oh I like the energy. I get a lot of information that I use in my clients. I have a lot of guides that come through.

I get a lot of things. I don't know where they come from, but it happens mostly when I'm in kind of calm space in my own energy by myself. Not that it can't happen in the world. I'm not saying that it can't happen in the world, I'm not saying that, it does. But you're teaching her something and she's teaching herself something that'll be very valuable and fruitful for her. Then you think she's probably going to have to be like, okay, I'm purposely going to go out now.

But you got some years for that to develop. Those younger generations, man, I mean, I have kids from two different generations and these younger ones, I'm like,, I have kids from two different generations and these younger ones. I'm like, whew. Yeah. Wow. We have no idea what's going to become, but something different's coming. Yeah. They're a lot more aware, a lot less conditioned. They're more open to understanding, you know, this multi-dimensional self that we are. Multi-dimensional self. They really are. And like the multiidimensions of people too, what people choose to be

and what they're choosing for themselves. Yeah. I don't really care anymore. And it used to be such a big care. It really isn't. But it is for some of those older structures of our reality and society that are trying their damnedest to hold on.

But we'll see. Yeah. And it's uncomfortable, isn't it? Yeah, I always think about that one, the story of like when a little boy finds a cocoon and he cuts it open, because he's so excited that it's struggling though. And so he cuts it open a little bit. And then it comes out and it's shriveled and

it's weak and it can't fly. Like that struggle gives you strength and it's sometimes what we need to go through. That's true. Breaking free. I think that this year is about breaking free. And also that's what the body of change is about. The body of change, my book,

and using your body to love, heal, and empower yourself. And I purposely included at the end, like, a workbook of questions just from each chapter to practice some of the principles and the exercises in the book so that people can actually see what the heck I'm talking about in this book. It's a story of how I progressed getting into my body, but also not just about me, it's about bodies, our bodies, and what we experience every day. And imagine never being in tune with your body every day. I mean, my gosh, I can't even imagine that

because every day my body is loud. It gets louder if you don't pay attention. Exactly. And I listened to it. But there was a time, and I'll never forget it, I was about 80 pounds heavier than I am now and I was sick, but I didn't know I was exactly sick of what. But I knew something was wrong. And I'd never had these symptoms or feelings before.

And I just felt wrong and off and not wrong, but just didn't feel right, let's put it that way. It's not a right or wrong thing. It's more like, you know when you're feeling good and you know when you're not. And then when it consists for a while and goes consistent for a while and you're still not feeling good, then you know something's going on.

So one day I was like, I can't deal with this anymore. I don't know what's going on. So I went to my computer, I closed my eyes, I sat there. My fingers like right now are on the keyboard. And I just started typing. And I was like, if my body could speak, what would it say? And that's what I started. And I started typing.

I really don't know, and I still don't know how much time went by, but I kind of woke up to it and opened my eyes when I felt these tears come down my cheeks just spontaneously. And I opened and all I saw on the page was like the first line, you're killing me. That's what my body would said to me, you're killing me. That time I realized it wasn't necessarily what I was eating,

it was what was eating me. That's where this book comes from. What's eating me? What's eating you in your body that you don't know? But you do know, but you don't want to know. And you think not facing it, it's just going to go away, but you actually know because you're more educated that it's not going to go away. It's just going to fester. Eventually it's going to explode. So how about you pop the Coke bottle now and let the gas come out and face what you know is there like a dragon breathing fire onto it

Burning it so it charcoal's out of you How about that and that's how I decided from that moment to live my life And that's how I work with my clients and I let them know hey listen you already know Mostly what happened there's not not gonna be any more skeletons coming out of your closet. You might find details and surprising details, and you may even put a face to the name and a name to the face or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

but at least you confronted it, and at least you faced it, and 50% of the problem is gone when you know what you're dealing with. It feels lighter. And it feels lighter. And then it's not so scary. You do that 21 times throughout your lifetime

and you've created a new habit. I'm not scared of what I'm aware of. And that is what your body is the best for. I'm not scared of what I'm aware of. And that's how I'd like us to use our body. And that's how I kept those 80 pounds off our body. And that's how I kept those 80 pounds off. It's been work, but now it's just part of my life. And I don't mean just talk about weight, but it's like, because I live in alignment with my body. And when

I don't, my body lets me know. That doesn't mean I don't binge on sugar sometimes more than I should or have an extra piece of cake. I mean, I let myself have what I wanna have, but I no longer go past that comfort in my stomach where I'm gonna feel like I'm gonna throw up or get sick with food or just because it tastes so good. Believe it or not, I realized that after like the first four or five bites, I'm usually full.

And like, that's okay. Because my stomach is only this big. And everything is supersized and I can never get through anything. So we have very cheap dates. Let's go for 10 of us. Just kidding. Yeah.

And we're all so different. So, you know, it's knowing your body. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so right now, if anybody wants to pick up the Body of Change, you could get it on Amazon in 14 different languages,

but it's also on, what's that, ebook, Audible? I say that because really, my books are all personal experiences written from the psychological and spiritual perspective with questions for journaling and not like detailing out the grueling abuse details, but making it clear enough that every person that reads the book will get something from it and lift them up energetically from what they were unaware of to be more aware. And that connects them more with their bodies. Even Radically Alive Beyond Abuse, even Creating After Abuse is my other book. Lies of Money

is another book. And this one, The Body of Change, using your body to heal, love, and empower yourself. There's a theme. Empower me. Goodness, I could have you on four times, talk about like 12 hours, wow. There's a fifth book in this, I don't know what it's called with five, when, trilogy? But yes, and that's all about recovery

and managing addictions and what works. Literally, it's called doing what works. Well, I would like to have you back for that. So I've been calling on for more than half of my life. So. Mm-hmm. Oh, great. It was my little girl.

I didn't even know why I was crying. And then I learned in that meeting that everything I was reading was what my little girl never got to acknowledge about what she, you boys, girls live through. And it's a lot. I've been saying the serenity prayer quite a bit over the past two months. Yeah, it's been on my, I keep it right here because I need it. I need to read it a lot. It's so great that little prayer actually, because I mean, even though it seems so like after a while, you're like, oh, yeah, it always fits. Grabbing a serenity to accept this, change that and actually to know the difference, what you can change and what you can't change.

And that taught me a lot, I have to say say because if you obviously codependency is a big thing in the world and if you live in a family system you know where ever doing for others repair fixing control is the the way to go you don't even know how to be yourself. You absolutely don't and you know what's interesting is that recently I've been really connected to the extended version of that. Well, not the whole thing, but the next sentence says living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a path to peace. And that's the part that I've been, I'm like, man, we need to add that one in. The rest of it, I'm like, I don't know.

But this part, I feel it was important for me right now to have awareness of. Actually, you know what? The hardship to peace. Part of me takes issue with that. And part of me understands it from the recovery perspective as somebody who's in recovery, because it was freaking hard. Even Ellen and I was hard. because it was freaking hard.

Even Elinor was hard. And, you know, I still go to meetings pretty regularly online mostly now. You know, we talk every day and I'm just thinking about the whole serenity prayer, but mostly about everybody's story that they tell every day and when they're sharing and whatever. And they're beautiful, but they're not without hardships. And I really think in the recovery world, you really learn how to accept what you can

change and know the difference. And you see how some people I know went to jail, you know, for 10 years, came back out, and made something very good of themselves and family and life and did very well on contribution to society, and that kind of stuff. But they always talk about the hardship. And even for myself, my own hardships, I'm like, yeah, that was part of my story, but that's why I'm committed to what I'm committed to. Because I ain't taking this to the next generation. It ends with me. Whatever I can

end, I'm going to end. Period. That's it. Because the body feels good. Right. Right. And if I leave stuff in my body, I'm going to take it even though the soul leaves the body. That's still in my soul. And I'm not going, I'm not coming back and doing this again. I'm not taking one for the team. If I come back, it's going to be completely different. Yes, God laughs when we make plans. That's awesome. Dr. Lisa, you're amazing. I was going to talk to you and ask you about the soul print,

which I wanted to ask you about the soul print, which, you know, I wanted to ask you about that first, but I didn't. We moved into, I think, more of an authentic and vulnerable conversation. But yeah, I'm very- Just quickly regarding the soul print, think about your fingerprint. Everybody's fingerprint is unique and different. And the goal of spiritual living is to impress your soul print on the lips of this reality. So it doesn't mean you have to be a doctor or a lawyer or SpaceX scientist or something. Just kidding.

And you could be those. Whatever has the most meaning to you, whatever you touch, whatever you do, our kids, our animals, how we are in the world, we leave an imprint. That imprint speaks volumes to people, places, events, circumstances, and environment. What imprint do you want to leave? What imprint do you want to be? Know all your relations. But what imprint are you? Everybody has a unique soul print. It is the contour and content of your own character, unique to you, unique to me. And impressing that soul print on the lips of this reality is the highest goal of spiritual living. And that's kind of what we're talking about here.

You feel this authentic connection. I feel it with you because we're coming from our soul print about what is true about us. And that's really all soul print is. What is true about you? Some people like being a doctor. Some people like being teachers. Some people like being a mother. These are just jobs.

Some people like being a homemaker. Some people like being a cook. Some people like being in politics. Some people like being president. Some people, you know, whatever. That's a homemaker. Some people like being a cook. Some people like being in politics. Some people like being president. Some people, you know, whatever. That's a soul print. And then you can have your impact on the world

from your soul print in whatever role you take is your impact. But the highest goal of spiritual living is to impress your soul print on the lips of this reality from the highest and freest expression of whoever you are. I don't know what that is for each of us, but it's unique for each of us. But that's what I'm aspiring to. And that's what I aspire to help my clients to. I kind of feel like it's like living without drama, living with peace, waking up and wondering,

all right, how can I be the best me today? And that always doesn't mean that I have to achieve something huge. That could be like, wow, I really let my nervous system rest as I move from client to client. Oh, I ate well today as I gave to everybody or, you know, I did the whatever, but you get the point. And it's in the book, the explanation is there as well. And it's that vulnerability too that frees you. The willingness to heal and also that willingness to share that you've been there too.

Then you feel just a little bit less alone in this world. There's so much sovereignty in everything that you teach. And it also reminds me of the man searched for meaning, Victor Frankl. That freedom happens within you, no matter what environment and how toxic the world is right now. Exactly. Well, thank you so much. Pleasure to meet you. Do you have a website? I do. It's drlisacoonie.com. And those are the same handles on all social media,

Dr. Lisa Cooney. That makes it easy. A lot out there, yes. And I hope it was a contribution to all that you were listening. Shannon, thank you so much for your sense of soul and sharing that with me. I really appreciate it. And I wish you the best to everyone. to our special guest. If you want more of Sense of Soul, check out my website at SenseofSoulPodcast.com.