Sense of Soul - How Not to Abandon Yourself

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

We welcomed Deb Acker on Sense of Soul, she is the author of Living Deeply and is an Intuitive Relationship Healer. Deb helps women heal their relationships, especially their inner relationship. The result: Deeply rooted, loving relationships in all areas of their life and feeling calm, safe and in control, no matter what’s occurring in their personal experience or our world. In fact, Deb’s clients often share that their work together is more powerful than years of therapy. When she's not coaching, speaking or writing, you can find Deb working out, in nature or traveling the world.  Deb shared with us how to honor yourself and your emotions and not abandon yourself, to have your own back!   Check out Deb’s book: Living Deeply: A Transformational Journey Through Deep Pain, Loss and Abandonment to Healing, Self-Love and Miracles: bit.ly/livingdeeplybook Complimentary 30-Minute Relationship Assessment Application: bit.ly/relationship-assessment-application Visit Deb’s Website and her amazing programs and coaching options. www.deborahacker.com   Deb’s New YouTube Channel: The Relationship Healing Channel for Women: bit.ly/DebYouTubeChannel Check out Sense of Soul www.mysenseofsoul.com

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us Deb Acker. She's an intuitive relationship healer, an author and speaker, and she has worked with thousands of women to help create the things their hearts truly desire, finding purpose, having more money, and especially creating healthy and loving relationships. It's so nice to meet you. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you so much. I'm so grateful to be here and to be having this conversation with you today. You kind of came at some divine timing for me. I was in the middle of a major decision in my life and I saw this email pop up

and it was a masterclass. What was the name of your class? Putting an end to painful relationships. Painful relationships. And I was lucky enough to join. I really enjoyed it. Got to see your teaching style. I got to be part of some very informative information on self-love and I got to get some signs from the universe through your class that kind of tapped me on the shoulder and said, you're making the right choice. Awesome. So share where you got all this wisdom. Did you just fall into life and you just had it all figured out or was there some bumps that you had to go through to get there? Oh, you know, I had it all figured out. It was, it was, you know, just perfect though. So my journey, just like the really abbreviated version of my journey, when I was two, my dad left and he was in my life my entire life, but he left before I was two.

And when I was 17, my mother passed away. And those two defining moments for me would set up painful relationships in my life and what that would look like. And really an abandonment pattern that traditionally we get taught abandonment is just like being left on the streets, right? But the abandonment occurs when we have physically and or emotionally unavailable parents. And so, you know, for me with my dad, not always being, you know, available. And then my mother was working a lot. And there was also like the emotional aspects of all of that. And so between all of those, I had deeply seated, deeply wired abandonment patterns. And then when I went out into the dating world and started to try to date from those spaces and those places, I, it didn't

go well. So did I have it all figured out? But what it did do is it set me on my path, right? As I started to finally be ready to do something different. I was in therapy, unsuccessful therapy for many years, but finally, when I was ready to do something different to create a different result, it started to lead me down this path of how do we heal our deepest rooted relationship patterns, right? How do we fully forgive when our parents, they're just doing the best that they can. And how do we create amazing, juicy, awesome, exciting love in our life? And really with that, how do we first and foremost build a deep seated relationship with ourselves, which is what creates that in the world. So that's abbreviated.

Yeah. You know, so I hopped on Amazon and did the look inside your book. Yeah. Yeah. I can't wait to read the rest of it. I will say that I felt your pain when you talked about your dad. I also felt like I wanted to talk to you about what, what it was like also to be an identical twin, because that had a huge impact on you as well. And I don't think people ever stopped to

see the other side of being an identical twin. They think it's just like this unbelievable, amazing connection and butterflies and roses, and you're the closest ever and you know, that you can feel each other's energy. And so can we talk about that for a moment too? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm an identical twin. Well, supposedly, well, we got diagnosed as identical. The long and the short of it is I have this theory. There's this really rare breed of twin. That's like a half identical twin, which means like you get the same egg and that egg breaks and then you get two sperm instead of two sperm, two eggs or one egg, one sperm, and then it breaks. So it's very rare. I don't know for sure if my family's like, oh, but you guys looked alike when you were kids. I'm like,

I just have like my intuitive sense. I'm like, I'm pretty sure that's what it is, right? That we're, it's extremely rare. So being an identical twin, what happens from that is that we, you know, people think, oh, you're alike. And, and we don't really factor in the soul part of the journey for when we look at even siblings, you know, right. Because it's like, if you have an older sister or an older brother, and then you assume that person knows more that that person's more advanced, but the sole aspect of it is that they might be younger than you. They might, and they have their own path that they came here for and maybe chose that birth order for that. And so for me, I came out second. I actually, I came out breach, which I always joke, I kicked my sister out of the womb and I was, I was dominant even in the womb. So even though

I was second, which most people would say you would be less dominant, she would be the leader of the two of us. I had all the dominant traits. So I had, as I told her, I stole all her food and kicked her out of the womb, you know, cause she was three pounds and I was four pounds, five ounces. So, you know, I mean, there was a sizable difference when you think about, I mean, we're both tiny, but there's a sizable difference when you look at that. And I got to go home and she had to stay and be fed. But, you know, that part of it was already in the, we were in the illusion of, okay, she appears like she's might be older.

And yet I'm, I'm the older soul of the two of us. And she would agree with that. And so that was the first little piece of our journey and the beauty of how we set it up. Right. Because in the, even in the womb, in that space, I was in the setting up my masculine traits and she was setting up her feminine traits, the masculine is all the doing and the being, and it's more aggressive and it's like, you know, more take charge, which is totally what was happening even in the womb. And then she was more in the feminine of the passive and like, do the work for me and I'll take whatever sort of left. And, and that's not all feminine. I mean, I've just kind of simplified it, but, and there's awesome juicy polarity in relationships when you can start to work with the feminine and the masculine, but in that dynamic, it was really cool.

Cause that's what, that's what started us when we were kids, all of a sudden, you know, I'm in my masculine leading us all the time talking on our behalf. So that got really ingrained in me. And then on from her side of things, she wasn't right. And she was always waiting for me to speak for her. And, you know, so there was definitely a very interesting, flaring and interesting dynamic growing up, having been born and come out second, but with all of sort of the stuff working in the background, which is, I think is fascinating. So a lot of times too, for your listeners that are like,

I wonder what my birth order is. We can have a sense of, Hmm, I feel like an old soul, right. And maybe you might feel you can, a sense of, Hmm, I feel like an old soul, right? And maybe you might feel you can, a lot of times you can tap in and feel that someone kind of feels a little bit younger, even if they're like older, right? They could be in their fifties, sixties, seven months and it's old at all, but it could be fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, whatever. And you can kind of feel, they feel young. In my house, we all say that my nine-year-old is way older than all of us. She's just more mature. She doesn't tolerate stuff. She just is motherly and wise and the way she delivers

herself. And that's exactly, that's what, so it's so illusionary, right? Because you have nine-year-olds, you're a nine-year-old and you're thinking, I'm the adult here. And I mean, I know I took that role on with my mom because I'm the old soul. And I was like, my mother was older than my sister, but younger than me. So I was always the one in the caretaker role with her and taking responsibility for her and making sure she was okay. And I took on a lot of her pain and her emotions of being a single mom and having to navigate through that in her life. And so I know like if any of your listeners, I'm sure they are, there's a, you know, if you're an empath, right. And you take on other people's stuff and you're trying to help them and, and everything that a lot of that stuff starts when we're just even, you know, we're kids and

that's our environment, right. It's like, we just learn how to take care and caretake for our parents. How old were you when your mom passed? 17. So she died, she got diagnosed with cancer when I was 14. And then she, she knew she was terminal, but she kind of was protecting us. So we didn't know. And then about two and a half years later, she passed away. Oh, I'm so sorry. I have a question though, because I think this is absolutely amazing, but I never thought of this before. And I'm like freaked out and I'm going to have to do a lot of work now, but I've never actually thought about that abandonment can actually be, you know, being, having a parent that's, you know, emotionally unavailable. I mean, I'm screwed now.

Yeah. So there's hope for you. But that's the thing in our society. We don't define if a parent's working a lot, for instance, we're like, they're doing such a great parent, you know, and they are, I mean, there's the aspect of that, but then there's like the impact that that has on us as kids that, and that's where the healing work comes into play and how we start to interact in our relationships and what we model and say is love and isn't love. Right. So for me, one of my

dynamics that was playing out constantly was unavailability or subconscious, but unavailability equals love. Right. And so then you go and you just, you're magnetizing it, even if you're not trying to, right. And then you just go and you start to attract those types of people. And no matter what you do to get out of it, it doesn't unlock it. Well, in part for me, I had some soul contracts that I had unlocked before I would have the kind of love that I wanted in my life. And so one of those soul contracts was you're going to have to learn how to heal these patterns. Like you can't, you're not going to just find yourself in some relationship. It's going to be amazing. Like I set up a contract knowing that it was easy to get

into relationships. If I hadn't like being an old enough soul that was like, otherwise it'll just be easy. Some hot guy will come along and I'll just be like, yeah, like, you know, I'm, I'm all for that. Right. I'm in. And so instead I set it up where like I, it would fall apart. Like it was not ever going to work until I did the work on myself. I know a lot of people like that. And I say that often. Well, you know, Deb, you just double screwed Shannon. I over today. Let me tell you where my mind went. And of course I just know that it's a spot that I need to do some work and need healing, which is funny because we always think our, our list of things we got to work on ourselves. It's going to shorten it.

It always just gets longer. Good thing. I enjoy doing it, but I was reading your book, those beginning chapters. And I was so broken for my youngest one, Sloan. I'm thinking, oh my God, what if she feels how Deb felt? She comes to my house too. We do a schedule two on three, you know, three off two on that schedule. But I was like, how do I make sure that she doesn't have those feelings because she's so young, she can't understand why mommy left. So is it open communication?

Is it therapy? I mean, what, what should that look like for me to make sure she understands mommy's intention was coming from a really good place? Yeah. I mean, I definitely having a conversation with her, right. And it's hard because you can have a conversation, but depending on where they are in their consciousness, you know, a lot of times too, it's like our, as kids, we get taught to like people, please. And we get taught to kind of, yeah, no, I'm fine. Like, so it depends in that conversation, like how connected she is to that real truth. Cause I mean, even when I was a kid, I don't know how connected, even if my parent had sat me down, either of them and said, this has had a really big impact on you. And how are you feeling? It's like that, even that modeling has to like, it has to start so young. And even so I don't, you know, not having had that, right.

I don't know what it would look like in terms of if you started modeling, how do you connect to yourself? Right. And how, what's the impact of this? And then you don't actually, you don't have to just say the answers that you think mommy wants to hear. Right. You know, because so much of the time our kids, they, they, I mean, subconsciously what's underneath that is there is a fear of abandonment, fear of not being loved, right. Fear of maybe not even existing. Right. So we learned a lot of times to model our parents, but definitely having those conversations with her and letting her know that you are there for her. Right. And that this isn't, you can even say like about this decision, not being about her, but even that it's like, there's always, when we make a decision on

something, there's the, what we're saying, and then there's the not of what we're saying. Yeah. So it's like, like you know like I'm going to be here for you and this is not about you she could hear it as I'm going to be there for you and this is not about you and she could underneath that a lot of times what kids do is this is about me this is my fault that my parents brought me forth well I possibly they didn't even think about it until you brought it to their attention, which is what I have two comments to make about this. One that I have learned to do that I didn't do, you know, with all of my children, but I do, I have with my youngest is that when I'm affected by something,

and I know that just being human, most people are affected by what's happening. Like say someone starts slamming something in the house because they're angry or something, right? I will actually now say something to her because she'll act unaffected. And I'll actually sit down and be like, you know what? That really scares me and bothers me. So I could totally understand if you feel that way. Validate that that is normal to feel afraid. At least sharing my reactions to things openly, letting her know it's okay.

And also I have a funny story that my son, Ethan was three when we got divorced and he's autistic, right? Probably about maybe seven years later, he happened to see a picture of his dad and I like married. And he was like, Oh oh my god you were married to my dad he said you were with my dad I can't believe you were actually with my dad remember he didn't even comprehend that the two of you were together to have him no right yeah what a coincidence so yeah does definitely depend on their level of comprehension, which is what made me think of that. It's so funny. Well, and I would add to that. So that's awesome because what you're doing is you're teaching her how to start to connect to herself,

right. And connect to her emotions. And then years ago, I was teaching workshops out in the Colorado area. This yoga studio owner invited me to dinner one night at her house. And we, she knew about a lot of my practices and feeling your feelings and some of the things that I had been doing, you know, that I had learned to do as an adult. And she wanted to have a conversation because she was doing this with her children, like at a super young age, right. Sitting them down and going, you must be mad about that. And then like a lot, one of the ways I feel my feelings is like, I'm going to so freaking mad. Right. And you just give your kids or yourself the space to really have that and really do that. And sitting down with her family, it was literally like I was sitting down with little adults. So the temper tantrums and all

the acting out that kids do, which is, is completely normal is based on them having to keep stuffing down their truth and stuffing down their emotions. And so when we give them that space and we let them know it's okay to be fully themselves and you give that, you say, here, go in the room and take five minutes, take 20 minutes, take an hour and just freaking have it out. Then what's happening is that those are not getting stored in the body to then come up in adult years and track things you don't want to attract. It brings them into present moment because they're not living in the past going, that girl said that to me, or my mom didn't let me have X, Y, Z thing, you know?

And so they're no longer living in the past or well, their version of the past. Right. And it brings them more and more and more into present moment. And the more they're in present moment, they're just present. And they don't have these needs to act out in ways because the acting out is based on, and this is not at all a criticism of parents because parenting is the most challenging job, but they're not, you know, they're not acting out in those ways. They don't have a need to do that.

Well, the reason why I did that that morning with my daughter, Kenzie, and I really want to share this because this was the shift that I saw was that first I asked her, are you okay? And she was like, yeah, you know, and just went about her business. And I'm thinking, wait a minute, I am not okay with it. You know, it bothers me and it scares me. And so it has me shaky, right? So how can it be okay for her, you know? And so I just, I opened that up and I can tell you the minute I did, you could almost feel this energy just lift off of her. She totally had like this little skip in her walk again, where before you could tell she was heavy. So, I mean, and all it was, was just kind of validating to her that, yeah, you know, slamming and acting like that makes me feel

very uncomfortable and I don't like it. And it makes me feel scared and shaky. And she was like, yeah. And she just, it just kind of left her. Had I not done that, would she have carried that all day? Right. And so those I think are so important moments in our kids' lives. Like you said, bringing them to the present moment and just squashing that shit for them. So they don't have to carry that not only throughout their day, but for the rest of their lives. Yeah. And what you're doing is you're teaching them a practice that they can bring into their

adult world. Right. And you're teaching them it practice that they can bring into their adult world. Right. And you're teaching them it's okay not to be okay. And so it's so, it's so much, it's so important that you're, it's like, you're, you know, you're giving them these practices, right. You're walking them through like, Hey, you don't have to always say you got it together. Like, cause that's all of our modeling. It's really defended, right. It's so like, we have to get straight A's. We have to, you know, I mean, all the over-performing, you know, that, that happens. And so instead of that over-performing, instead

of that, I have to pretend I have it all together, or maybe, you know, with my mom being a single mom, I had, I felt I had to pretend to have it all together because she already had it bad enough. It was already too much for her. Right. And so it was like, okay, stuff as much as you can down and just allowing her to release that. Not only is she not carrying it into her day, but this is the stuff. So as an intuitive, what I do with my clients is I'll say, and they don't have to know anything about anything that happened. I can go back and say, age five with your mom or with your dad, this is the energy or the emotion that was taken on during that moment that is now creating your boss,

treating you in a disrespectful way. So totally just screwed me again. You totally just screwed me again. I I'm serious. Lindsay, my oldest daughter and I just had this conversation yesterday. I'm like, when's I'm like, cause she struggles with anxiety. And I was like, is there anything that you know, that you feel like you and I could work on, you know, that happened? And she's like, no, I mean, mommy, you were always great. And you're always there for me, but she had to be the one that was good to hold her shit together always and make all the right decisions. So that way I wasn't a stressed out single mom because I already had her older brother that was driving me nuts. I had a younger brother that was talking about

order, her younger brother who had autism. And then I had a baby shortly after. I mean, like seriously, she's the only, she was, I used to call her out loud. My guarantee. I used to really brag on that about her. So then she really truly had to play that role. Wow. So here's the deal. I'm, I'm super psychic. I like, I'm not even trying, but like, obviously, okay. That's what the intuitive relationship healing means. Holy crap. I pick up what people need to hear in each conversation that I have. Same thing that happens in my masterclass. Like you join me on my masterclass and you'll be like, this woman's reading my mind and you're not saying even anything because I'm talking the whole time, but I'm picking up

the exact things that people need to hear. And what happens is because of so much of the level of work I've done, you will have memories pop in that you haven't maybe thought of in ages. And so just know, I just plant that seed that if someone's listening and they're like, Huge. What have you done in like 10 minutes already to me? I'm like, wow. Holy cow.

Yeah. So just, it's a good thing because if you can see it, you can shift it, right? It's buried in the subconscious. And what we're doing even in this conversation is bringing those memories forward. And the more we bring those forward, the more those start to shift and change. So it's a good thing because that's the only way to change it is to be able to see it. Speaking of shift and change, I feel like the universe as a whole and as a collective consciousness is shifting and changing. And one of the ways is getting into more of that feminine energy.

And a lot of men are trying to embrace that energy within themselves. Shift that we're going to be seeing in the future where these kids are brought up more in a home where the mom might be able to embrace her masculine energy more. And the dad might be able to embrace this feminine energy and more. I mean, what is that life going to look like in generations to come? Here's the thing from the soul perspective, there is no good, right, bad or wrong. Okay. So I know as humans, we're like, well, that happened and that's bad. And this happened and that's good. So just in general, to plant the seed, even just as a parent, right? You cannot do it wrong. And in fact, your, your children, I believe we pick our parents, your children picked

you. I hate to say it this way, but it's just, it's the way it's the most direct way to say it. Your children picked you to wound you in certain ways to wound them in certain ways. So no, like to learn certain things. Right. So like I knew that was highly likely in my mind, I did not know is that predetermined my mother's going to die, but I knew was highly likely in my environment. I was going to have abandonment, right? Both of my parents were physically and or emotionally unavailable. So I knew what, even if he stayed, he would, my dad would have

been emotionally unavailable. My mother was kind of one of the ways she learned to cope in her environment was living in a fantasy world. So those were the dynamics. So when you talk about, there's so many different ways I can go in this direction of feminine and masculine. It's good. We're learning what it is and we're learning what it isn't. At moments when my mother was present, she was like so present. Like it was, it was intoxicating. Cause I'm like, Oh my God. And actually developed my attachment style because she was present a little bit. And it was like, I'd want these crumbs from her, you know? And that's how I kind of started to relate in other relationships. So here's the thing. I personally think I get men have gone more feminine and women have gone more masculine.

And I personally think that journey is for us to start to shift more into back into the woman being more in the feminine and having balance, right? Cause like, you know, for me, it's like, I'm, I guess I'm 60, 40, I would say feminine, masculine, right? Masculine 40, 60. Now, five, 10 years ago, I was 80, 20 masculine. So I was all in my masculine because that's how I learned. It's really a defense mechanism because that's how I learned to be in the world. That's how I learned to get things done. That's what was valued in my

household and valued at work. I was in corporate America for 20 plus years. It was one of those things where all of that was valued. Now my journey and the type of relationship I wanted to create in the world, I wanted to be and learn how to be in my feminine, right. And for a man, it's so freaking hot when a man takes charge, like they're like leading you and you're not having to be like, I got it. I got everything. And let me tell you, Oh, you did that wrong. You know, and you can actually surrender, which is a huge feminine practice and let them lead. So again, that's a, that can be a whole conversation. I used to always think that, you know, as a child, you're just learning from your parents. But then now, as I have,

you know, been a parent of four children, I see that they actually were the ones teaching me. We have to look at relationships as just all opportunities to grow deeper within ourselves. And that that's kind of the most important thing about our relationship as a growth perspective, looking at it inward, how you're going to grow from it. Exactly. So here's the thing. Like, there's always the every single moment we are experiencing, there's always an opportunity to see something more that lives within you. You know, we're talking about relationships today in part, right?

And so every single, even not the deep relationships, you know, you're talking about parents, children, those are all of our more important and more major relationships. That person I pass on the street, right? The person I interact with at the grocery store, all of there's always, there can always be an opportunity to see something clearer in you that you can't always see. Right. And so, right. But really deeply with the relationships that you have, I mean, so deeply, they're going to challenge you. They're going to either, you know, pull you down to a place where you feel like you have to climb up this, you know, horrible mountain. But then again, all you do is gain strength and wisdom

from that. It's amazing. Not always. No, no, no. I, that mountain beat me down to a point where I had no self-trust and no self-confidence and I, it did not make me stronger. It made me weaker to the point where I completely was shattered and hated myself. So, um, no. And that's why in those relationships, um, that's where you get to that hard point where you're like, do I, I need to walk away. But when you're so weak, it's hard to walk away. Well, and I would say, how do you learn how to trust yourself? How do you learn how to own your worth?

But I mean, unfortunately we just live in the world of you don't have it. And then that's how you learn it right within the world of contrast. That's so much of how we learn things. So, so much of the time when someone's teaching you how not to own your worth or how not to trust yourself, they are teaching you self-trust. It's just from the opposite end of that spectrum and it's painful and it's, it hurts. It's not, I'm not talking about, I'm not trying to glorify it. Yeah. That's what I was just saying. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. So you're still

gaining strength and being taught it just from that really hard, horrific place. You know what, that's the topic that we were sent to talk about, like that I really loved. And that was how to communicate from your truest self and like how to honor your emotions and how doing that can create this connection in these relationships. I mean, why is that important to honor your own emotions and how is it honoring your own emotions creates connection with someone? Okay. This is, I love this. So here's the thing. What we are being taught over and over and over when we don't. So first of all, look at all the messaging that's out there around our emotions, right? Some people, you know, I mean, I got told this, some people get told they're too emotional. Emotions are wrong. Emotions are bad. One of the things that I had the awareness about recently was what is the first thing we say when we see someone crying? We say what's wrong? mental conditioning that is telling that person, you know, especially if you're a child subconsciously,

emotions are wrong. Instead of going what's right in the world, because you are feeling and feeling is we are human beings, and we have come here to feel, right? Instead of that, we are saying what's wrong. And so and then looking at like, I have a family member who is one of her sons is a very emotionally wired child. And because she's uncomfortable with those emotions, she does everything in her power to sort of get him to stop, which I get. And we're taught that that's the way it should be, right? Like we don't want our kids crying instead of getting, first of all, looking at, okay, how are your children wired? I'm all water signs. All of my signs, my water, I got all three. And so it's

like, I am wired towards emotions. So if you try to shut me down, what ends up happening, the message to me is my emotions are wrong. My emotions are bad. My emotions aren't safe. And what happens as a result of that is an abandonment of self. Because when we are not feeling our feelings or acknowledging them, like how many times, and everyone does this, right? But how many times do we say, you know, oh, that's okay. Oh, it's no big deal that, and fill in the blank. And we're, first of all, we're telling a lie because it is, it isn't okay. And it is a big deal. And so we have to be willing to really be willing to honor our experience. And that first starts with us. Right. So it's like, okay, when I have a bad day, can I sit down with myself? And this is, I dive into this even deeper in my master class. And then I have a painful relationships healing course. I dive even deeper. You know, like you can sit down with yourself at the end of your day and go, what was that like for you when your coworker cut you off in the meeting? Right.

And you can do this through inner child, which we all have a little girl or little boy that lives inside of us. Right. That has things that they, you know, they have, they're having an inner experience. You can start to build that relationship with them. But even if you just do it with yourself, right. And you just go, Hey dad, what was that like? You know, when Joey cut you off in the meeting.

And if you just were to be, I didn't like that, that's not okay. Right. Those are all the things that when we don't acknowledge them, they are getting stored in our body to be brought forth at a later date to be exacerbated. And the key here is, is that, uh, we have to make sure when you don't honor your feelings or acknowledge your feelings, we end up abandoning ourselves. And then what happens is, is that gets reflected in all of our relationships. We want other people to honor our feelings. It's so funny how word choices sometimes really just slap you in the face. Abandon yourself. Yeah. I mean, that's the journey to healing abandonment starts with healing your relationship and your abandonment of self, right?

Because how many times have you allowed things to happen in your relationships that didn't feel good? How many times did you not honor your feelings? How many times did you not own your worth? How many times did you say it was okay when it wasn't? How many times were you a people pleaser? The list goes on and on. There's so many of those ways that they're so subtle. I have a blog post coming out this weekend about honoring our sensitivity because I have a theory that all of us are sensitive beings and we're just so covered up, right? It's like, we're all sensitive, but we don't, we don't have the awareness. And you may or may not see that way exactly in this lifetime, but that at our true state, we are sensitive. We are wired to experience and like

relish in this amazing, juicy life that we are living. But the thing is, is we're so covered up by all of our patterns and all of our wounding and all of our hurt, all of our past, right? That our sensitivity is blocked. And I have a post coming out about, okay, how do you honor your sensitivity and start to bring that forth in the world? Because how many of us are, have some version of sensitivity and we've, that was made wrong when we were a kid. Like for me, I had my, there's, I'm living in an apartment.

I have to move at the end of May and they're selling this place. And I had to have a bunch of energy in my house. Well, I am the most sensitive person maybe on the planet. And so I am very particular about that and it bothers me. Right. And so I had to set up ways that I'm like, I'm not going to leave myself just because I have, I had a contract with them, but it's like, I'm not going to leave myself in this process just because you're pretending to be a good person because I'm, I'm already a good

person. I don't need to get that affirmation from you in this experience. Right. So it's like, I'm not going to leave myself just because you're asking me to do something. And I want you to perceive me in one way or another. You know, I keep going back to how healing it was for me to have a therapist, have me look at the word anger, because I told people I felt like I was born angry. And so we went back through my childhood and I realized that it was because I wasn't honoring my emotions. Not only was I not honoring them, but I didn't know how to express them. You know, I was very sick with asthma and I was being told that I was making it up in my mind by doctors. And so the way I was feeling, cause even now as an adult during springtime, when I get asthma and allergies, it's really hard to explain to people how much it affects your moods,

your sleep pattern, your bones, you ache, your fatigue, your eating pattern, like allergies has been chalked off as like some, Oh, your eyes water and you have a little cough in your throat. It's so much deeper than that. So if I have a hard time now as an adult expressing my emotions around it, how in the hell did I do it when I was young? I did it by being angry. I was angry. I was being angry that I was not able to express it.

And then I was being told that it was wrong. So it was so healing for her to tell me anger is a beautiful emotion. God gave you, you were using it to try to express yourself. You didn't know. And then being able to figure out where it was coming from. There's so much to be said about obviously doing that inner child work and looking back, but then also, you know, implementing that into learning how to use it today. Yeah. And what I would say to that too, just to plant a seed, and this may or may not be true. So there's two ways that I believe that we can come into

sort of the birth in this world, right? We can drop in when, when like conception happens and have the experience of being in our mother, you know, and inside of our mother, or we can drop in right before we're ready to come out. If you were, you feel like you were born into this world with anger, you likely, and I don't know anything obviously about your parents or your, the environment, but a lot of times what happens is, is when we are in the womb, if the environment, the outer environment was any kind of challenging, hostile, difficult in the uterus, right? It's like, we're just saturating in that. We're just soaking in that. And we do that so that we can get the lesson, right? It's like, it's just another layer of, Ooh, I'm going to teach myself that I don't always have to be angry.

Ooh, I'm going to just sit in this environment. That's going to create that for me to start so that I can actually find my way out of it. Oh, dang. Yeah. You just hit me again. Okay. And I just want to add in some humor really fast that I really enjoyed in your book. So people always say this layer, cause you just said layer. People always talk about peeling back the layers of the onion I loved how you said it was the sumo wrestling outfit I yeah I can explain that so um it's I love this I love this freaking analogy I think it's like I get all my analogies through channel but these are not that have come from other teachers so the um the analogy that uh my guides gave me when we were talking about patterns was we tend to think we are wearing this sheer body suit when it comes

to our patterns, but really what it really is, is like, we're wearing this like sumo wrestling costume and what we're doing through the course of healing and shifting and growing and expanding in this life is we're peeling off layer upon layer upon layer so that we return to the true self that we are right that's not so patterned in and um doesn't have all the wounding and the pain and the hurt so yes it's more wrestling much better than an onion girl i was digging it yeah no i'm constantly if you were just in my environment regularly i'm just constantly like laughing out loud because there's so many funny analogies for life. Even the deep stuff, and this is one of my zones of genius, but any, even the deep stuff can be light. When we can start to see it from that soul perspective and we can start to see it from, it's just like life is meant to have a humor about it.

It's meant to be light, right? Even when, I mean, I have gone through, you know, super deep stuff in my life and have really, you know, rode that ride and felt all of that. And it gives me more lightness and more joy and, you know, more in this life than, first of all, if I hadn't gone through it. And it gives me more just in general. So a lot of times we try to avoid our pain or avoid our emotions or avoid our, you know, our past, or even try to go right to positive thinking. But if you're not allowing yourself to feel, first of all, you're missing the opportunity for depth. Depth makes life so

much more freaking juicy. And when we do that as well, we give us ourselves the opportunity to feel more alive and to feel more joy because you can only have as much joy as you can allow yourself light as you allow yourself to have the darkness. Yes. You said at the beginning, you knew that your parents, even though they might've not been there emotionally for you, that they did the best they could. I say that to people often who hang on to these ideas of what the perfect parent should look like. Maybe they all look like the beaver cleavers or, you know, the people on Facebook. And it's a condition that so many people end up carrying, especially if you are an empath too, because you're like, something's going on with my parents. I know there is, I'm close with my parents. I'm born from them. I can sense this, but yet they keep saying nothing's wrong with

them. Right. And yet now they're emotionally unavailable. And now I'm seeking attention. And now I grow up thinking we didn't have a good relationship because my parent was checked out and this, this and that. You made that comment and I love it. They did the best they could. Can you talk about that? We've got all be hurt by our parents and to hold on to that anger, to hold on to how they showed up, but letting go of us sets us free. And so again, that's an abandonment of self put like at a really bare bones level. It's

oversimplified, but there's an abandonment of self aspect to it. Like the way we want to keep holding onto it and making them wrong and make, you know, do making everything they've done wrong instead of going, you know what, I'm going to work through this for me because I get to have really juicy, amazing, happy, delicious life and holding on to that pain. Um, this is a huge part of what I work on in my work, right? But holding onto that pain, that's just hurting me. It is not hurting my dad. So I wrote a lot about this in my book. And I'm thinking when I wrote my book that he knows that he hurt me. Like he knows that it had a major impact on me. I mean, how could you not? And so I didn't actually

even have a conversation with him about it because I'm thinking he knows, and then he's reading my book and this is like all news to him. So like, I was like, Whoa, like I felt, I felt so bad because I was like, Oh, that was not my intention to like, like out you or blindside you in any way. I'm like, I'm thinking, and I see it that my dad won't see it this way yet because he's younger. He's younger than I am as a soul. I see it that we co-created together for this experience to help, you know, so many other people heal from this. And the thing is, is years ago, one of my teachers said to me, she's like, we're naturally light.

So for your parent to show up for you in the way that they did, how much must they have had to love you to show up for you in that way? Because they wanted to help you to learn that lesson, right? Because the truth of who they are is they're light. So again, I believe we sort of set the stage and set our characters up before we come into this physical world. And that means I'm not a victim. That means I didn't come and just get the short end of the stick, which is what I used to think. Right.

And instead, no, no, I didn't get a short end of the stick. I set up the perfect players to create the perfect environment to ignite really my I've had this abandonment pattern for many lifetimes to ignite the healing of it finally. Right. And so, and then my dad and I co-created together because he was willing to do that, even though his truth is that he's light, his truth is, is goodness on the inside. Right. I think we forget that our parents are on their own journey too. Like they have their own journey too. You know, he becomes a focused on just ours. And then we look at our relationships as, you know, all of these negative things, but they have their own journey that they're on as well and their own battles and struggles that have nothing to do with how much they love their children, which, you know, is always, you know, like you

said, they, you know, most parents really do the best they can with what they have. A lot of them haven't been taught how to love or how to, you know, communicate. And so if you see that, then that is what you decide to break in that. And like, he was just modeling I mean in his world his my grandpa he worked a lot right like he worked he brought home the bills that was the role of the father right so in his perception he's like if I'm giving money it wasn't necessarily physical availability right as much I mean I did see him every almost every weekend if not every weekend, but it's like, it wasn't physical availability. It was, you bring home the bacon, so to speak. And that's how you are a parent.

And that's how you show love. That's how they, you know, almost like the five love languages. I mean, we all receive and give love differently. It's not all the same. Yeah, exactly. You know, I was absolutely blown away. Um, when I went to your website and under relationship healing, the amount of fricking work that you have put in and what you offer to people, I think I counted 85 topics that you cover. Yeah, girl, how to get what you want, how to heal through grief, why being abandoned is a lie, what jealousy is really all about, how to heal from being ghosted.

Do we need pain for growth and healing? I mean, this beautiful list goes on and on and on. Like, first of all, thank you for putting that out into the world. And for our listeners, there is probably not a topic on there that Deb cannot help you with because it is the most extensive, amazing list I've ever seen. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I have it up on my, I have a YouTube channel. It's the relationship healing channel for women. And like I was putting up videos like super regularly there. I'm going to actually be doing some more videos, maybe even today, but there'll be more going up. And I just always just tap into what's the message that people need to hear. And that channel is from a really deep space of truth. It's not about, it's not gimmicky. It's not meant to be gimmicky in any way. Right.

It's like, literally, I will tell you the true reason of why you're being ghosted, which, you know, we want to say, oh, that guy's a jerk or whatever, right? And that might be part of it, but there's, there are other, are deeper rooted wounding that is, you know, why, what creates, for instance, ghosting for instance. So, okay. So you tap into your clients, like you have with Mandy and I this whole time, but what do you do to prepare, you know, for a session with like, do you do one-on-one sessions? Yes. I'm working on all of these things. Yeah. Yeah. Do you, so obviously they know that you're going to do this. Can you

kind of like, just kind of show us how that looks? Yeah. So typically it's so funny because somebody was saying to me, Oh, she has like, we were talking about my workload with what was going on with my apartment and having people here. And my real estate agent didn't know that I don't really do anything to prepare for my sessions, minus setting some intentions, right? You know, so I just had some intentions, may this session be the highest good of all involved, to be provided with any guidance that I need. And so I said just a few intentions and here's the thing, the more present, like the more present I can be, the more just you're going to keep returning to your true state. Right. So in a session, a client will a lot of times, and like, so when someone signs up to work with me, they typically, they sign up and then all the stuff that we need to work on starts to come to the surface in a really beautiful way, right?

It's not an overwhelming way, but in a really beautiful way. And so what will happen is somebody will come and they'll say in the last week or two weeks, this is what's occurred. There's so much juice. There's so many lessons in that. Right. And so it's so funny because I'm like trying to pull an example right now and I clear all the things we've written off. So I'm like, you've been too good of cleaning. But, you know, so someone say, for instance, they had, you know, a challenging interaction with someone. They'll bring it to me and then we'll talk about it. And then I can see, okay, well, again, at age seven,

with your dad, this is what is really creating this. And then I have processes in place that help us to release that energy and also to own our voice. Right? Because so much of the time, things that we are creating in our present day is to have the voice that we didn't get to have when we were kids. So when we can really honor and own that voice, all of a sudden things start to shift, things start to change as a result of that. And so we just keep, we just keep clearing and clearing. And then again, a week or two will go by and some more will come up. And I, some of my clients will bring nothing and I'm like, perfect. And I have like a process that we go through and then literally, oh, look, this is what

we're supposed to work on today. Or I'll get like a really big download of like, you know, worth. You need to work on worth or whatever that is, right? And so then we'll work through that in our session and we just keep peeling layer upon layer to return someone to their truth. Because truth be told, I am the guide in the process, right? Just like any person who's, um, who's anyone's working with, they should be your guide. They're not your power. They're not your higher power. They're not, you know, they're, they don't have all the answers, right? They're guiding you to return you back to you. That is, and always is the journey.

So I was reading something. I think it was on, it was on your website. You have capital letters and it totally caught me how to be supported and care for yourself when you're in relationships where you don't leave. Can you talk about that? That's absolutely. So the key to that is first of all, being very clear on, okay, I'm deciding not to leave. Right. But then it's like, clear on, OK, I'm deciding not to leave. Right. But then it's like, how do again, I'll go back to the word abandonment. I mean, obviously, abandonment is is really at the heart of the work that I do.

But it's like the key is, how do I not abandon myself even if I stay in that relationship? So if someone's treating you disrespectfully and you choose to stay, how do you set boundaries, for instance? Right. And say, that's not okay. Right. How do you really have your own back? So having your own back might mean this person treats you in a way that's not kind. And that evening you have a conversation with yourself and you go, that really freaking hurt. And you honor your feelings and you honor your emotions. Right. And so if you choose to say what ends up happening a lot of times, I mean, I hesitate to even say this, but I have had a fair amount of clients that have come to me in the space that I hold is just one of such deep

truth. Like I had a client, we never talked about it. And every time we get on the call, she'd be like, every time I get on a call with you, I keep thinking about divorce. You know, I never said anything about it. Like I was like, she's like, all I think every time that I get on this conversation with you, all I think is divorce. And I'm like, I'm like, this is up to you. Like, I don't have any agenda. I'm like, it's up to you, whatever feels right. And by the end of our work together, she actually did end up getting a divorce, but we never really talked about it. She just kept having the awareness because of the space I was holding of what was really true for her. You know, that's funny at the beginning, when Shannon and I started interviewing a lot of people, we were like, what is our energy about?

Like everyone that we have on all of a sudden, like wants to quit their job and changed and do something completely different. We're like, what are we doing to people? Yeah. I mean, it's a space and like, I just help you remember, right. The thing is, is like the question you asked me, yes, you can choose to stay. And I get that there are reasons sometimes that we stay. And the truth of the matter is that when we believe we are worthy of more, we get to have more. Right. Right. Yeah. And I think that a lot of the times people are even staying in the problem is, is that there's this loop, but the loop is only there because there's no strong boundary. Is that how you look at it? I mean, that's so one aspect of it is that yes,

we can be in a vicious cycle and being able to recognize I'm in a vicious cycle right now. What does that vicious cycle look like? Okay. Well, this person does this, and then I respond in this way and then it creates a blow up. Right. And so starting to recognize that and being able to pull yours to have the consciousness around it, then to be able to pull yourself out of it and obviously create, okay, when this happens, how do I choose to respond differently? Most of the time we're responding that way because underneath we have energy or emotions we need to clear so it's coming up for that deeper than that though is like if you start to change and you start to really do the work and you clear and that person keeps showing up for you in that way it is really about believing that you are worthy of more right and it's like you hold

that space so now whether that means you stay and you believe you're worthy of more, right? And it's like, you hold that space. So now whether that means you stay and you believe you're worthy of more. And then that person, I believe as people, we are tuned in subconsciously, our higher self knows how we need to show up for someone and vice versa. So a lot of times, I mean, even my dad, like I, well, one example, I'll give you one simple example. When I was in the corporate world,

I was in medical sales for quite some time. You know, I remember one day just kind of being done. I'm like, I'm so done with this, you know? And my dad, who was Mr. Logic, who was, you know, valued money, like over anything said to me, like, here I come in, like, I don't know if I can do this any longer. And he was like, that's okay. You'll figure it out. Whatever you want to do. And this was somebody for me that literally, you know, would have said, no, you got to stay and you just got to be miserable. And, you know, I don't know if he would have said, you got to do. And this was somebody for me that literally, you know, would have said, no, you got to stay and you just got to be miserable. And, you know, I don't know if he would have said, you got to be miserable, but you got to stay. And, you know, this is the right thing to do.

And it's logical and sort of all the old, you know, paradigms. So when we shift, people respond differently to us. And that's, that's how you really start to take control and become in control of your whole world. Right. Because when you're willing to go, okay, I'm going to make an inner shift. I mean, I use a simple example. I've been, um, I use this example a lot, but there's many of them I have in my life, but this abandonment pattern, I started to clear my abandonment pattern. And then everything from, you know, I was on a plane and someone was bullying me and I didn't even say anything. And this woman starts that I don't know, starts defending me because this guy wanted to put his

feet, whatever, where I'm sure, you know, and so this person just like had my back, right. Or I left my groceries downstairs one day. And when I was in Chicago, had to park my car, left my groceries downstairs and this woman standing there. And when I get back 15, 20 minutes later, she's standing there waiting to take my, help me take my groceries out. Good juju starts to happen. And you know what I used to call it? I used to say that I literally felt unfuckable.

Well, and the practices, can I have my own back at all times? Can I have my back in every interaction? And that builds that interaction with everyone else. You know, I think I'm going to take advantage of your beautiful brain for a moment, really struggling with my intention behind my words being received. So it's like, how do you continue a relationship with someone if you're not being received? I've tried everything. So what comes up for me is that, and this would require like deeper

work, but you have to look at where you feel invisible, where you're not in your power, right? Where your voice doesn't matter. It's all roots in. It starts at age two. There's age three that pops in. There is age seven. It got rooted or got cemented in. If you do want to do some deeper work on it, I'm happy to support you. Absolutely. Okay. That was amazing because now I got to really feel like what you do. I mean, age two and age seven, like you right there already pinpoint in two areas of my life that specifically my, I felt like my voice didn't matter. So, wow. Wow. That intuitiveness that you have about something that's present and bigger now in my life so and here's the thing when we release the energy you know then the ages you know it's like it clears

right so then it's not in your field so if it's still there which is like that part of how I was able to read it because there's more there right so well you have been such a joy I feel like we touched like on the tip of the iceberg with you I I mean, thank you for coming on. I again, can't read to read the rest of your book. I felt like that was a total teaser. Shanna, you have any other questions you want to ask her? No, just other than where can we find you? You have a great website, you have a book, can you tell everybody where they can find you what they can get from you? Absolutely. So so I've got a couple more masterclasses coming up to put it simply. I tell you the truth about really what causes painful relationships and how to change them. Right. And just like the truth that I've obviously shared in this interview, like I'm just direct straight to

the point. This is the truth about what it is. It's not what people tell you it is. So there's that you've mentioned my book several times. My book d what people tell you it is. So there's that. You've mentioned my book several times. My book dives deep into my healing journey. How did I heal my abandonment pattern? How did I fully forgive my father? Right. And it incorporates just like you kind of touched on, right? There's a light to it. So there's all this like magic and fun and how I really started to get on this path of my intuition and on this path of magic and miracles and all these really cool synchronistic stories. We talked about thinking we're coming to the circle. I mentioned my relationship healing channel for women, which

has a ton of amazing content that where I just, I'm a straight shooter. And I will really tell you the real reason why things that are not working in your life aren't working. So that's what attracted me when I first opened the book and got a peek into it. You use the word raw, you use the word truth. And then another one that caught my eye was you use the word uncomfortable. You said straight up, my book is going to make you uncomfortable. I loved that because the questions that you ask are hard questions that really give people like time to reflect and to really look at what you put in the chapter to implement and look at in themselves and in their life. So I loved the uncomfortable piece to it.

And then you give them a tool. Again, really great book. Listeners, check out her YouTube channel. You're unique. You're so unique in what you do. I love it. You've got this twist on your intuitiveness with therapy and the guidance is what you call it. Your guide. I just, I love what you're doing. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I so have enjoyed today's conversations. Yeah. It's been awesome. I'm so fun. So your book, your book is called,

it's called living deeply and then they can get my book on Amazon. And then my website is just Deborah Acker.com. So D E B O R A H A C K E R. Awesome. So on census hall, we do this thing called BTSD. And now it's time for break that shit down. What comes up to share is just for all of your listeners to understand that this is a healing journey, right? It's not something, it's not a one and done thing. It's not meant to be where it's like super quick. And the more that we can stay with ourselves, the more we can keep getting in this practice. And it's not just about trying to just get through and we can really recognize this is a journey and this is a practice. And that practice is in a huge part learning, how do we stay with ourselves no matter what, what, how do we stay with ourselves on the journey? So the more that we can do that, the more your life keeps changing and growing and expanding and just becoming the most amazing thing ever, which is what I really want for every single freaking person on this planet.

Thank you so much. You've been such a pleasure. Oh my gosh. So wise. Thank you. Okay. Now me and Shannon got to go do a bunch of self-help work after talking. Seriously, we got to see how long my list is. We got to go now. No, it's all good. Thank you again so much for having me. If you do want to take me up on that offer, Mandy, I can send you the details and then you'll have it. Yeah, you could email. That'd be great. I felt a connection immediately. I know the timing was divine. So thank you. Yeah. Thank you. Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy.

Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken.