Sense of Soul - Self Care Going Deeper

Episode Date: July 24, 2020

Sense of Soul welcomed Caryn Kirchhoff-Herrera, owner of Sugar Plum Skincare who is a coach, esthetician, an expert in feminine energy! She knows how to transmute busyness into peace, offering a deeper level of spa self care services with her many healing practices! She shares her journey with us and the importance of balancing your feminine and masculine energies. How bringing awareness to your inner child can help rid some of the negative patterns that may still be presently affecting your life!  Learn more about Caryn and her practices at her Instagram here!  Check out our online store at 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 on Sense of Soul, we have Corinne Kirchhoff-Herrera, and she is a spa owner, a Reiki healer, an EFT practitioner, an NLP practitioner, and a clinical hypnotherapist. She is also the owner of Sugar Plum Skin Care. I also researched you a little bit and dug up some dirt on you. Just kidding. Let's do it. Let's do it. I found out you're originally from Maryland, but now you live in San Diego. I'm jealous, San Diego. And I also learned that you were a dancer in college, correct? I was. Yeah. So I went to a community college here in San Diego. It's called Grossmont. I've danced my whole life. So it was kind of just like, fuck it,

let's do dance. And I loved it, but I got hurt really quick. So I was like, well, if I'm getting hurt at 19, this isn't going to be like a long lasting thing. And that's when I got into aesthetics. And it's just kind of snowballed. It's been 13 years of that. And, you know, I love, I love that. But now it's like, I'm in a whole other world that I think has always been a part of me, but I'm now like really like in it and like digging deeper and growing and helping people evolve. So it's pretty cool. The reason I brought that up is because a lot of people around that age, when we're in that solar plexus, trying to figure out our identity. And when you go through like this transition, like, and you leave something behind, it's kind of like a piece of your identity goes away. And then you're kind of just. I'll put on like, you know, like not

Middle Eastern music, but like, you know, kind of that style and I'll dance and I'll really kind of drop into my, my body to feel, you know, like when you dance sensually, it's not about dancing sexy. It's like when you're moving your body and just like really dropping in and feeling that it just, it, I mean, you can't get more feminine than that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Raising that vibe. Oh yeah. Well, and you're seeing right now that a lot of photographers are embracing that side of the feminine energy as well and doing a lot of the, you know, very provocative, but feminine photo sessions. Getting in touch with both feminine and masculine energy is so important. Yeah. So, you know, we both, I mean, we all have different kind of traits when

it comes to our energies. And when, with your feminine energy, you really want to be able to like embody like that flow, that ease, you know, and just kind of surrender to just life and just surrender to the energy. And with our masculine, that's kind of like the go, go, go, I got to keep doing things, I got to get things done, you know, so if you're always in one or the other, you're not able to maintain that balance. So you're like, for me, for a very, I mean, probably most of my adult life, I was in that masculine, I go, go, go, build, build, build, do, do, do. And then I just got to this point where I was like, I can't do this anymore. You know, like, it was just too much. And you kind of, at least for myself, I thought that was who I was. I thought I was just this like, you know, go get her, which I

am. But it was such a big burnout for me. And that's when it was like that big wake up call where I was like, Whoa, I've got to slow down, I have to like really drop into my body and feel the feels, you know, I feel like some people just go, go, go go so they don't have to feel anything you know they can push everything aside and just kind of ignore you know the things that are going on inside or the things from her past or traumas when you drop in and you trust and you you feel the things that you feel that enables you to have the balance to then do those things that you need to do in life, but also sit back and play and relax and, you know, have fun and feel pleasure, you know, so it's all this cycle of working together. I love that. I'm sure you're grateful for the

go go go to one point because you were in your masculine energy when you were building your business as an esthetician and opening you you have multiple spas that you still have correct yeah oh yeah and I mean I I'm still definitely I definitely run that pattern you know still you know during this whole quarantine situation that was an even bigger wake-up call for me to slow the f down, you know, because I was, I've had one, you know, spa for nine years. I opened up another one about two years ago. So you're just constantly doing things, you know, and then you get to the point where you go, what day is it? What time is it? Where am I? I used to teach travel around the country before this. So I've always just been going and you just, you can't maintain that forever. You just can't. Can you tell us about your spas? Do they all include a spiritual practice or what

does your services look like? So I have two spas that are essentially like spa suites. So I have different women there that run their businesses, they rent rooms, and they run their own businesses. So my own, you know, space, I do definitely incorporate Reiki, I just started utilizing like crystal singing bowls, which like, I'm obsessed with if you've never played with them, they're just like, it's like addicting. But the, um, the other one I have is a CBD spots. They incorporate CBD into the massage and the skincare and everything. So people really like that. We opened that like right before the boom. So it was just one of those things where I woke up and I was like, I have to do this. I don't know why, but I know I have to do this. I don't know why, but I know I

have to do this. And so I kind of just figured it out and I did it. I'm a massage therapist. The thing is, is that I don't want to just rub somebody's stress anymore. I a hundred percent understand. And so that's where I'm at. I want to connect more deeper with add more meaning into my service. Yeah, I totally get that. I mean, that's like, so I, when I was getting my certification for coaching and NLP and all these things, you know, when the thought of actually going back to do skincare, I was like, that's weird, you know, because you see such a profound change and like healing and transition

with people when you do NLP and all of these things. So not that I don't love doing facials and waxing and all of that, because I definitely do. I love my people. Like my clients are my heart, but you kind of go, well, I want to do more, you know, like I want to go deeper with people to really help them evolve outside of the spa. You know, like I'm here for you always. And, you know, I want to make you relax and make you glow and everything like that, but it goes so much deeper. And I think like this year is a time for us, like for humanity to connect

in that way. And this is like a huge wake up call, you know, so people like you and I, we should really be like, kind of like diving in and just like getting in the nitty gritty and being there for people, which I'm sure you are like, I am just, I'm'm here like whatever you need I'm here to help you grow or heal or whatever most of our guests and Shanna and I ourselves had to go through some pretty traumatic experiences and relationship issues and deaths and things to kind of switch from that surface level asleep state we were in to wanting to go deeper with people and help them and we turned our pain into purpose. Was there something that happened in your life? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. I mean, honestly, there's been so many things that have happened in my life.

You know, I was, I was molested at a very young age, you know, multiple times in my life. No, I know my dad obviously he's in my life, but I grew up with a single mom, you know, so life was just different. You know, you're always kind of having to do more to get by, you know, hustle a little harder or just wear the pants essentially, you know, like you're, you're kind of just standing up to take control of situations. So I've been with my husband now for 11 years. And previous to meeting him, I had, you know, kind of lost faith that there were like healthy,

good men out there who could understand a woman and like what that is and what we stand for and what I stand for, you know? So you kind of just get to that point where you go, okay, like, if I can help myself through these things, I want to help other people. I have this vision of helping like young adults face their traumas and heal at 20 years old versus dealing with that when they're 50. You know, when it's like, messed up their whole life, and they don't even know why. This is like a such a bold thing to say, but I want to heal the world. Like I want to connect with people so deeply, like everywhere and just like give them the tools, man.

Emotional just even talking about it, you know? Yeah, it is bold, but I love that you're putting that out into the universe. I do find it's interesting that someone who had gone through that kind of sexual abuse wants to teach and embrace their own feminine energy. I would think that someone that's gone through that would want to suppress the feminine energy because that would attract other men that would do things like that to them. And I think that's part of why I ran such a strong masculine for such a long time, because it was easier to not trust. It was easier to not really be connected with one person. I was not a committed person for a very long time. That was definitely part of that trauma. You know, you just kind of put these walls up and these different behaviors.

So you're not really feeling what you should be feeling. You know, you just block it all and you just kind of work through your body, but not in a healthy way. Did you yourself find healing within Reiki and some of the modalities that you do now? Yeah. My mom is a Reiki master and she's been doing that for a long time. I think she's just a natural healer, to be honest. She's always just kind of been like my rock in every way. And then, you know, utilizing NLP, it's like mind blowing. You go so deep and you're like, whoa, like that's where that came from if you didn't already know.

So the NLP for sure, the Reiki breathwork has been a huge game changer for me. Let's dive into that a little bit deeper because people don't know what NLP is. Sure. So NLP essentially is the way that we speak to ourselves, to our brains, our subconscious. A lot of the time we build limiting beliefs, right? That little voice in your head that's like, you're not good enough, or you can't't do that or whatever it is that it's saying to you, we're able to go in and create and like kind of destroy that belief and replace it with one that is going to enable you to live your best life and be your best self. So we use techniques like time techniques, which enables us to drop into like your timeline within your subconscious and go back and release emotions or release these limiting beliefs and

understand that some of these were with you past generations, you know, it's not even from like right now. So it's, it's a really great modality to go deeper with your own self care because self care is not just massage. Self care is not just facials like self care, true self care goes so much deeper within you and your soul and just healing in those manners. You know, the style of living we have, you know, it's always about, you know, we don't sit still most people because we've got kids, we've got businesses, we've got marriages or whatever. So by the time we get home from our day, like the thought of like doing something for yourself, you're like, well, I'm tired, or I don't really think it's going to be worth it or whatever

we say to ourselves, you know, so just with you and your worthiness is huge. And that, that goes back to, you know, working with your inner child, like your inner child is game changer when you start that work with yourself. When you have something that you recognize in yourself, that has been some sort of pattern in your life, like sit with it, identify where it came from. And usually you're going to have to go really far back to really make that connection. Yep. It's so true. My idea of trauma was so distorted because I thought trauma was like a car accident or airplane crash. Looking at patterns, I grew up in a bar and I saw my beautiful mother and

my grandmother using their feminine sexuality to entertain people and make money. And I didn't realize that's where I had gotten that. I used my sexuality and my looks because that's all people ever saw me as. They didn't see me as a soul like in high school kind of looked at as just this tall blonde. And I used my sexuality and all my relationships to manipulate people to get what I wanted. And it took me doing some serious inner child work to figure out where I had saw that pattern, where I had gotten it and why I used it. And holy shit was a awakening to me. Oh yeah.

Once I was able to connect the dots and see why it was that I was that way and how I could use that energy in a positive way. It was, it was a life changer, but I never knew that I needed to go back and look at that, that childhood, you know, that little Mandy. Yeah. Well, I see for myself, I actually went as far back into my ancestry. Yeah. So you're right on with that. I wanted to ask you though, I think it's amazing that you offer hypno Reiki, two of my most favorite things ever put together. I think I do like Nancy and I were talking about it. I said, I probably similar to what I do, but I use meditation. I don't call it hypnotherapy.

So can you one, tell us the difference between hypnotherapy. So can you one tell us the difference between hypnotherapy and meditation, and then tell us what hypno Reiki looks like? In my mind, clinical hypnotherapy, the way that I try to explain it is like an induced state of relaxation. You know, you're relaxing the subconscious mind. So then, you know, whatever it is that you're wanting to work on, we can then speak directly to your subconscious mind. So it's very similar in, in the relaxation portion of meditation. So with hypno Reiki, you know, you're starting with an induction, like, so you're getting them very relaxed, calming their mind. So then when you do the Reiki, they receive it so much better, you know, because their, their mind is just calm,

you know, they're not fighting it. I do a Reiki facial where while they're masking, you know, they're super calm already. And I just do the Reiki and it's, it's been pretty awesome. You know, they receive it really well. Cause if you don't do something, at least I find to relax them first. It's like, you can feel them pushing back at you, you know, and you're like, just take the energy, you know, just take it. So it's, it's, it works really well. I've experienced that so many times where I'm just like, why do you came to me for this. You don't want this? It's interesting what we resist.

But in order for things to really flow, you have to allow yourself to feel safe in receiving. I used to have to lie to go get a massage. That's how very codependent I was to my family. I didn't believe that I was worth or deserved a massage, even though I was massaging people on a freaking daily basis. What are the suggestions to tap into feminine and masculine energy, one or the other? With the feminine, you just have to like, find time to play, find time to laugh, you know, find time for pleasure. Like I feel like as

females, we, a lot of us feel ashamed by that or that it's not safe. You know, when you've been molested, it does not feel safe until you heal that. So just taking time to feel good, like whatever that is, like have fun, go outside, go outside. That's like a huge thing. Spend time I wrote it down because it stuck out to me. It's, you said, find time to play. The word play takes on a whole new meaning when I heard it so simply. It's like I pictured myself going to the park and getting on a swing, rolling around or flying a kite. As adults, we forget to do these little things that bring us joy because it feels childish. And we need to do things like that.

Okay. So I guess that's why I have feminine energy because I'm always like that. So how do you add in the masculine energy? The masculine, I mean, something that you can maybe start to do is for me, when I'm like in my masculine, I'm very organized. When I'm in my feminine flow and I'm not worried about work, shit's disheveled. Nothing's like together, you know? So with your masculine, just get organized, you know, keep a schedule, organize your time, figure out the tasks that need to be done to do the things you're trying to do. You have to force yourself to do it, especially if you are super feminine energy, you've got to just like tap into that, put on like a coat of confidence.

I know that sounds kind of weird. When you look at like that high up businessman, he's got this swagger essentially about him and he gets shit done. you know? So like when you're getting into that, just put that on, put that coat on and do the damn thing. My masculine is like, go, go, go, go, go. And I'm in it and I don't fricking stop. And it's like, I'm going a million miles an hour because I'm motivated. And then I dropped really low into like this. Now that you've brought awareness, my feminine energy,

where I'm like, dude, I don't know, whatever. I don't care. I'm chilling. Yeah. And it looks like someone who's bipolar, who went from like a very high panic stage to a very low chill out stage. Right. It's true though. And that's why I'm just like balancing them for like this, just like beautiful wave makes you feel better for one thing. But then you don't have people looking at you like you're bipolar. You know, not that anything is wrong with the behavior that you have, because that's just where you were and how you were running those patterns. It's just trying to, you know, doing the best with what you have to balance both energies.

Also affects relationships. So my husband and I both can get into that masculine energy. You know, he's that guy you were just describing. He gets shit done. He's the, you know, vice president of company. He's learning to tap into that feminine energy. But when I'm in my masculine energy and he's in his masculine energy, it's like two alpha dogs wanting to fucking eat each other up.

Yeah. Now that you brought this up, I can bring awareness to that and maybe take a step back and be like, whoa, we're both right now in this high masculine energy. Yeah, it's true. Every relationship and every person will run both patterns, some more than the others, but it is important for a man to have feminine too. Like that's so important. And I think that's something that we also need to increase our education on. And in the home, you know, teaching boys that it's not bad to be emotional. It's not

weak because you show emotion like that. I'm sorry, but when you show emotion, that is strong. You are brave. That's something that we all need to work on as a whole to hold space for, for men to evolve. Just like, you know, women, we've held space for each other to evolve. So I feel like we need to do that for men as well. Not just women. Like I work with everybody. I'm not female exclusive. Like I will love working with men. I love working female exclusive. Like I will love working with men. I love working with women, but we all as a whole need to practice holding space for every individual to grow. Something that I think we all just as humans kind of like, I'm a woman, so I need to be like this, or I'm a man, I need to be like this. And that's so not what it is.

We're only sexist in this physical body. Yep, exactly. I saw that you also do some tapping. Yeah. It's so powerful. That is one of the things that really did help me a lot. Like right before I got married, my mom was going through a lot. You know, we were going, we were going through a lot. Like my little brother was in like the really deep depths of his addiction, you know? So it was just a brutal fucking time, you know, it was too much. So I was working with a healer at that time and we did a lot of tapping and tapping was a huge, like working with her was like the first time things like really clicked for me that I had like power to do this with myself to release these things on my end. Like I didn't have to go to anybody to heal me. I could heal me.

Just so our listeners know EFT, emotional freedom technique, correct? Correct. You're tapping on essentially like the energy meridians, you know, so similar points to like acupressure, acupuncture, and you're just tapping on each point seven to 10 times. And it's essentially in a pattern and you're utilizing essentially the first thing is like what you don't like. So you could say like you had a headache, you would just be tapping and be saying like headache, headache, or like paint, like whatever it is that you're not wanting. And then you go through with the positive affirmation. So you would just say, you know, no more pain or my head is calm or whatever it is that

you want to say. And it's literally just like rewiring that energy out from those areas. And it's, it's implanting that positive affirmation. So you're, you're essentially freeing your emotions, which is exactly what it is. I love it. You know, a lot of people have never even heard of it. They don't know what it is. And it's such a simple, beautiful technique that people do anywhere and everywhere. I know, seriously. And it's up to us to bring awareness to these modalities for people to have so they don't feel alone and confused and stuck when they have the trauma because we all have trauma, period. It doesn't matter how big or small, it's there. And most of the time it

affects your whole life or until you recognize it. So even a tool as simple as tapping can help you. Having the knowledge and educating others of just little things that they can do just at home or working with you, it's a big thing that I think we all need to improve on. You offer these different sessions. Yeah, so I do it at my space, but I also do it distantly, like I do it on Zoom. Also I'm working on putting together, you know, some in-person workshops when that's allowed and I'll be doing like virtual workshops also to just kind of essentially give people the tools to do these things and understand that they do have options to do the healing at home. And then if they want to go deeper with me, they can.

You said something that reached me. You said, I've seen a trend with women lately that we struggle to trust ourselves enough to show up in an authentic way. It took a shit storm for me to learn to trust myself. It was one of the hardest lessons of my entire life. I trust my intuition, my gut, and my soul. Can you talk to us about what that means to you and how you're seeing that trend and what do we do? What's that first step in learning to trust yourself? Yeah. We're in a time where we're constantly seeing other people

look a certain way or do this job or they're an influencer or whatever the hell we're seeing like on social media. So as a female, just with the standards that have been kind of pushed upon us, we will do things or wear things or take this job or accept behaviors from others because we feel like we have to. And like it, it sickens me because we've all done it, you know, and then you don't really realize how fucked up it was until you look back at it. To feel your own intuition is something that we need to teach kids right away, period. You need to understand what that gut feeling is. When you're molested, you have no idea how to say no. You don't know you can say no. You don't know that that feeling in your stomach is telling you to leave, telling you to say no. This really hit me hard recently when I was digging deeper within the

Epstein situation. And all the women said, I didn't know how to say no. And I should have trusted my intuition. They didn't have the tools to say no. They didn't have the tools to know what that intuition was. You know, trusting your intuition and understanding what that even is or feels like is dropping into your body, sitting with emotions that you feel and know, and then like understanding what emotion that is and how it feels in your body. And even experiences. A lot of times we experience things as children and people just say, oh, that's in your imagination or you just saw nothing or you're making up things. And you just from the very beginning stop trusting your experiences and your emotions. Yes. I know it's easier to tell a kid they were not seeing something, but most likely they were.

Epstein probably triggered a lot for you. It did. Yeah, it was wild. And so when you're going through something or you're seeing something that triggers you, what does one do? You've got to breathe. You've got to breathe and you have to literally just kind of sit with what you're feeling. You know, like I literally did this, like I was sitting there and I was getting more and more pissed off. I was getting so upset that this was happening, which I mean, I've been very aware of these things for a long time, but I was sad and upset that these women didn't have these tools. So I literally had to sit and I cried for, I don't even know how long,

but you should always allow yourself to feel those feelings. You know, don't just graze over them and be like, Oh, I'll be fine because you're not going to be fine for one thing. And you need to put those feelings in your body and understand why you're feeling those feelings. And then you can release the feelings. So you can then understand and then heal and then move past it. You're not putting it aside. You're not throwing it away.

It's still part of you, but you've healed it. You've understood it and you can move past it. When you look at people who are in a place of power, like an adult, a teacher, a doctor with the gymnastics, Larry Mesner, that did happen to me with the doctor. But that was kind of one of the things that triggered my memory of it. Because prior to that, I didn't even realize it. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, We block so much out. I mean, we literally disassociate from our bodies. I don't remember a lot of my childhood and that's because I literally left my body.

Like I was not present. Is the energy still there? Oh yeah. Even though you're not conscious to, if you decide to detach from it, put it somewhere way out of your thoughts if the energy is still with them oh yeah yes most definitely yeah and that's why like a lot of the time if they're triggered by something and they're kind of like why am I feeling like this it's because whatever situation that happened that caused the trigger, they were disassociating during that time, which most of us have done.

And a lot of people still do today because they run their survival pattern. You know, there's multiple types of those, but, you know, they're just running that pattern. And most people have lost or never had the ability to actually be present in day-to-day moments. Yeah. Have a catch up with them. Well, which is why I think that in the shaman practices, they'll do like soul retrieval and retrieve those, those bits of your soul that have detached going back and doing a regression yeah and doing some inner child so when you do hypnosis of reiki what does that look like for you during your reiki sessions when i do both together i have like an inner child script essentially that i've utilized so you

know i'll do the induction and then we talk about why are you wanting to connect with your little person today? You know, so then I have an idea of kind of like, you know, you know, that's what it is. Just our little people. And sometimes I'll have them look at a picture, like bring a picture of themselves as a child at the age they're wanting to go back to. So it triggers a lot, you know, when you, you do that, when you look at the picture and then you go deep and you, you really do learn a lot about yourself. And, you know, with inner child work, I tell people like, it's not just this one session, like you have to show up

for them every day, show up in some way for them every day, because when you're healing that, you have to give yourself now what you didn't get then. That's why it's so powerful. You know, we think we're these adults running around running the show, but at the end of the day, it's our inner little people that truly are making us behave the way that we're behaving. So you've got to, it's a long lasting practice. It's not just something that's one and done. I was just thinking about the importance of sitting with emotions and connecting with them because we obviously always want to run from them. Talking about going back as a child, I was going to ask your opinion.

Do you think it's also important to go back and connect with happy times as well, not just trauma? Is it important to go back and think about, you know, the time at the playground? And I mean, do you think that has benefits as well to connect with those? Most definitely. You know, when you're doing inner child work, it doesn't always even have to be like specifically going back to that time. You know, it can be as simple as going back and just talking to yourself. That's what I do. Yeah. Just like asking, what do you need? Like it doesn't need to be a big traumatic focused obsession. You just are connecting with literally yourself in a different manner. You look at everything as a whole. You're not just looking at one problem. I love that holistic

approach. In today's society, we seem to spend a lot more money and time on our physical bodies and self-care, but we forget about the inside. That's not saying that it isn't important to take care of the outside because when you feel good in your temple, then you feel good on your insides too. I absolutely love how you've combined the two. And I think it's just unique. And I wish that more spas were like that. Thank you so much. I think it'll become more normal.

Self-care on a deeper level. You know, we're in a time where it's not viewed as like this woo-woo thing anymore. People want to learn, you know, about meditation. People want to learn about all the modalities. We're in a very beautiful time. As ugly as things can be right now, we're also in this whole other space where people are wanting to take care of themselves. I call it a collective purge, what's happening right now. We all are going through a lot individually and collectively. So I think we are in a beautiful

time where we can all really grow to help each other grow. A lot of things are shifting right now. And so thank you for helping with that ship. Yeah, of course. I love that you do $10 Zoom strategy calls. That is rad. Tell them where they could find you and shout out your website. Sure. So my Instagram is under Corinne K coaching. So that's C-A-R-Y-N-K coaching. And you'll find all of my websites right there in my bio. Click on it, you'll get to my link tree and you'll kind of see everything that I have to offer right there for you. Awesome. You have a very strong, beautiful message, but I love that you're taking that pain and turning it into purpose. Aw, thank you guys so much.

It was awesome. Kicking it with you guys. I love it. Yeah, anytime. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate, like, and subscribe. Thank you.

We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening. You want to know what I always think of when we first start our podcast? What? What the fuck is up? Any place to be? Coming on the mic is Shannon. Mandy motherfucking E.

I'm E to E. I got bitches galore. You might have a lot of bitches, but I got much more. That was our jam back in the day. So our jam. Yeah. Still is.