- Speaker #0
Hello, my sweet, creative cutie coming to you live fresh off of my baby moon. If you don't know what that is, it's basically what it sounds like. It's a little trip you take with your partner, husband, spouse, lover, boyfriend, before you deliver the baby. So we went to Santa Barbara. It was beautiful. I got to see seals and other creatures, pelicans. We had great food. I had a non-alcoholic beer, which was very fun. It was just, it was a wonderful reset. And I know many of you are on vacation this week and enjoying time with your family, hopefully in nature, getting recharged and ready to unleash your creativity. Because rest, as we talk about often, is part of the creative process. And if you never rest, you never have anything to get you inspired to create from. So. Long story short, I am sharing or resharing an episode with you this week, and it's one with someone who's been very influential in my creative career. Her name is Victoria Song. Victoria is a coach and a business advisor, but she doesn't do it from the perspective of like, take this tactic and you will be successful. She, like me, has a very holistic approach and incorporates a lot of healing into you her self-development work and her work in helping people create these huge companies. You'll hear me give her a full intro, but she's been a business advisor and coach to celebrities, huge entrepreneurs, and helped them increase their business by unbelievable numbers. And she really says that the center of her work, what she does to help people to do this, is she helps them heal. The more I go on this entrepreneurial journey, the more I see that it's really a self-development journey, that any sort of pursuing creativity out in the world, yes, you have to have the tactics, but if you don't first address the creative wounds, the healing that you need to do, and then like really coming at it from a holistic perspective and a why that feels deeply passionate to you, all the tactics in the world either won't work or if they do work, they have an expiration date. So this episode is one that's really important and that I'm revisiting in my journey right now. And I know will be helpful to you with whatever you're pursuing to remember that tactics, plans, they're great, but it's an inside job. So check out this incredible episode with Victoria Song. I know you'll love it. And I will talk with you next week. Can't wait. Do you feel stuck? Does it seem just nearly impossible to get unblocked and move toward your goal? I get it. When you've tried every tactic and tip out there, the truth is, it's usually inner work that you have to do in order to move forward. Today's guest has coached some of the most successful creatives out there to achieve their dreams, not with tips and strategies, but rather by going inside and finding deep healing. Today, she'll help you do the same. Welcome to Unleash Your Inner Creative with Lauren LaGrasso. I'm Lauren LaGrasso. I'm an award-winning podcast host and producer, singer-songwriter, and multi-passionate creative. And this show is meant to give you tools to love, trust, and know yourself enough to claim your right to creativity and pursue whatever it is that's on your heart. Today's guest is Victoria Song. She's a leadership advisor and coach to CEOs, scientists, artists, and entrepreneurs. She's worked with people like Cindy Crawford, and Ryan Hudson, who is the co-founder of Honey, which was acquired by PayPal for $4 billion. And I believe that happened while Victoria was working with them. So you know she knows what she's talking about. She's also the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller, Bending Reality, and has been featured in Forbes, ABC, NBC, Glamour, Boston Globe, and more. I wanted to have Victoria on the show because not only is she very personally accomplished, I mean, this is a person who... Started out in venture capital, was on Forbes 30 under 30, has helped tons of people with her coaching, you know, reach unbelievable success. But the most important thing about her to me is that she's such an inspiring person and somebody who has helped so many lives with her holistic approach to success via mind, body, soul healing. She gets that it all starts on the inside. She has so many important insights. and they all have to do with the fact that unleashing creatively and achieving our dreams starts with our own inner work. From today's chat, you'll learn how to notice contraction versus expansion in your life and how you can start experiencing more expansion, how to bend your reality, why it's important to celebrate every win, tips to calm your nervous system. and rewrite stories that you're telling yourself that no longer serve you. And also so much more. This is a great conversation. Okay, now here she is, Victoria Song. I'm so excited to talk to you today, Victoria, because you are just, first of all, a very calming human. I've been taking in your content all day, and it's really soothed my nervous system. So thank you for being... one of the few calming presences on the internet. And also just because this show, the approach that I take to creativity is what I call a holistic one. I believe it's really hard to go after your dreams unless you love, trust, and know yourself. And that's your exact approach amongst other things to how you coach people. So I'm very grateful to have you here. Thank you for who you are and just being with me today.
- Speaker #1
Thank you, Lauren. I'm so excited for our conversation.
- Speaker #0
Same here. So I'd love to start with you. and your creative journey, because I know you have quite an interesting one. You started out as a venture capitalist and got to where you are today really by taking a journey inward. And I wonder if you might share some of that with us.
- Speaker #1
Absolutely. Yeah. So I started my journey investing and I started when I was 23 years old and I felt very grateful to have access to, you know, boardrooms and tech founders and being an important decision-making. That was great. However, I did feel that very quickly I felt the void of, oh, is this it? Like, where's the impact? Where is the level of mission? And how do I know I'm making a difference? And is this really the best use of my skills and talents? And it did also feel like the tip of the iceberg as far as kind of to your point, like I'm more holistic. So can I bring more than just my intellect and my analytical abilities to this? And with those kinds of questions, I started to... have a bit of an existential awakening where I realized that what really mattered to me was supporting founders in dreaming big, but also making sure that they didn't burn themselves out on the way to making those big dreams come true. And I found time and time again, so many founders had it all on paper, but at the cost of their marriages, their family life, their health, really at the cost of everything.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. You said something that really sparked me. You said. your intellect. I was just using my intellect. And I know now you talk a lot about somatic healing and being in your body. How did you bring all that energy down from your head into the rest of your body? And how has that impacted your life?
- Speaker #1
That's a really good question. So what I found was that I was working on myself for 10 years almost before I was really actually making sustainable changes because it was just mental understanding. It was like I was reading books and studying and hiring coaches and intellectually understood everything. But I love this expression of knowledge is only rumor until it lives in your body. And so that was when I started to realize like, oh, there's this whole other piece. So the mind was like the tip of the iceberg. And there's a whole somatic part methodology where it's feeling your emotions and understanding and processing the energetics in your system. So I started to really understand things like the nervous system and how. All of these things are connected, like how contractive thoughts create contraction in the body. And then that creates limits on our reality to even like how a lot of us are avoiding feeling certain uncomfortable emotions that then creates a stack of unprocessed, frozen emotion in our system. That's just energy that's not moving through us. And so I started to learn how to move energy through breath, movement, and sound so that I could bring all of the awareness and intellect and knowledge down from my mind into my body. And so now I think you experienced me as calm because I've actually learned how to bring that into my body. So now my nervous system is calm, relaxed, unraveled. And that's a huge part of my book, Bending Reality, is helping my readers take that knowledge. A lot of them have read all of the books, understand everything, but are still wondering, like, why do I feel stuck? Like, why can't I make lasting change in my life? And so the book is really about embodiment.
- Speaker #0
Wow, that is so beautiful. And you were so ahead of your time because you wrote this a few years ago, right?
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
And now everyone's talking about it. So obviously bending reality works because you got into the zeitgeist. But yeah, like if someone had said like, I don't know, in 2019 even, you just like need to get in your body and get embodied. I would have been like, okay, whatever. But now it's just a common part of the lexicon. So for someone listening, what's the first step to coming out of your head and into your body?
- Speaker #1
I would say the first step is starting to feel the raw energy patterns called emotion. So energy, you can kind of think of it as emotion, energy in motion. So being able to feel, oh, okay, interesting. I feel some tightness in my chest and you don't even have to understand why you feel that, but being able to drop into the sensation of what the emotions feel like in your body is the first step. So, so much of my work with my clients, when they try to tell me like this happened at work and so-and-so did this and this happened, I'm like, okay, what do you notice as you're telling me the story? What does that feel like in your body? And they start to connect the dots and realize there's so much wisdom in their body. And it's my belief that until we actually feel at the sensation level, what this is bringing up the activation in our system, it's so easy for our mind to override it and make up stories and even tell us we're fine. It's not a big deal. And all of that keeps us stuck in our situations. And it's not until we can actually connect with the wisdom of the energy patterns in our body that we even get to the energy of, okay, enough already, right? So many of us are like numb or just suppressing it enough so they can get through their day. And until they really let themselves feel that energy in their body, I think it's trapped and frozen in this, what we call a contractive nervous system. And I love this other quote that the ego is an imaginary identity of an inflamed nervous system. So when the nervous system is inflamed, that's what we experience as like, oh my God, this person, you know, this character. And so when we calm the nervous system, that's when the truth of who we are can be felt by others.
- Speaker #0
So from what you've seen in your clients and in the world and in your past self, what are some of the symptoms of an inflamed nervous system?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, so an inflamed nervous system looks like a body that doesn't feel physically safe. And that person would not understand it comes from a lack of safety, but what it will look like. like is a need to control and predict their reality. So they have black and white thinking. There's a sense of like, it has to go this way or else. Everyone around them feels that control energy. So it's just a super wound up tight nervous system that is quite fragile and quite insecure. Cause it's like, if it doesn't go exactly the way I need it to go, I might blow up. I might feel a loss of control. I might feel really stressed and anxious. I might go down this worst case scenario plotting in my head. So it's essentially a nervous system that doesn't seem to be able to handle any. ambiguity, any unknown, any uncertainty. It's like jumping to conclusions, trying to very quickly simplify information and get a false sense of certainty. That's what it looks like when someone has an inflamed nervous system.
- Speaker #0
And I heard you on your Instagram page talking about expressing anger and how important it is not to express it necessarily at the person you're angry with, but to at least allow yourself to physically feel it. Is this one way we can get those emotions? out of our body and start calming our nervous system? And if so, could you take us through how to do that? Because I thought it was great.
- Speaker #1
Exactly. Yeah. So I found time and time again, that clients would say like, Oh, I don't want to get angry. I'm trying to calm myself down. But that's actually suppressing the raw energy pattern in them, which is why I often say, grab a pillow, scream into your pillow, grab a towel, like hit the floor, like whatever it is, actually let that energy. take up space in your body and then complete the energy pattern by releasing it out of your system. But like you said, not on anyone. Don't type, text, or talk to anyone when you're angry. You're really just allowing yourself to be with your anger, process it, and release it from your system. So if you wanted to, we could grab a pillow and scream into it together.
- Speaker #0
That would be great.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. So the thing about if you want to have a pillow right here, I'll just grab one.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I have a blanket.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Essentially, you want to scream from your belly, not from your Okay. So it's not like... Right. It's not like I'm helplessly screaming. It's more like, yeah, it's like that primal energy.
- Speaker #0
That felt so good.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So imagine if you're actually angry, how good that would feel to just discharge that anger into the pillow. And then it's not in your body anymore. And when people release the anger out of their body, all of a sudden they're like, oh, I feel great. Like calm is a natural state that comes as a result from feeling the anger. But a lot of people are like, oh, I'm angry. Let me go try to just like talk myself out of it, calm myself down. Let me meditate. And it's like, I get it. I get that a lot of people think that you just need to calm yourself down, but you actually naturally get to calm if you just process and scream into a pillow.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And I would think that through some of the therapy I've done, which includes like what you're talking about, basically you make sound and move your body at the same time. And then you get even more release. like if you do the punching down while like kind of making a noise, I would think that would make even more expression. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
exactly. So we move energy through breath, movement and sound. So if you want to compound them and do all of them, then amazing. So even being in a boxing class and like screaming as you're punching the bag, like all of that is great. You know, even going for a run, like all of this is just ways of moving the energy out of your system.
- Speaker #0
So beautiful. So for any skeptics listening, because I've heard you talk time and time again about how people think you need like top. top 10 tips to become a business maven instead of this healing thing.
- Speaker #1
Yeah.
- Speaker #0
But what you found time and time again is that actually, if you just focus on the healing and going inward, that's when the true success comes around. Can you speak a little bit more to any skeptics listening about why this is true?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. So as you could hear, if the ego is an inflamed nervous system response, then what you're actually saying in people's leadership is not necessarily a business strategy. It's really their personality and their inability to handle conflict, their inability to sit with uncertainty that is showing up in their leadership, right? So in a startup world and entrepreneurial journey, for instance, there's so many ups and downs. There's so much uncertainty that if you don't know how to do it, you're not going to be able to do it. how to keep a calm nervous system through all of that, then you're going to be taking it out on yourself and your employees, and everyone's going to suffer around you. And so in my opinion, it doesn't matter even how good your playbook is. If you don't have the confidence, the courage, the peace, the calm to navigate uncertainty, you're not going to make it. So a lot of the clients I work with are high performers. There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of high stakes. And if you don't know how to process the stress and anxiety that comes, in that turf, then you're not going to be able to play big when it matters. You're going to let the pressure crack you. You're going to maybe succeed, but at the cost of everything else. And so that's why I think it's so important to prioritize the body healing, getting your nervous system to a calm state. In my book, I call it an expansive state. So can you stay in a state of expansion, even in the eye of the storm, even when there's unknown, even when there's uncertainty, even when plans don't go the way you want them to, how calm can you be? And that to me is the personal power that I help my clients cultivate. So ultimately, it's like the self-trust, the courage, the confidence, and that personal power that makes or breaks a leader, not like their playbook.
- Speaker #0
Something I love that you talk about is basically we need to build a tolerance for these negative emotions, for fear, for uncertainty, for even disappointment. Like something I've really realized, I have a huge fear of being disappointed. More than I think even failure, I'm afraid to be disappointed. And so I've been really trying to cultivate that, not necessarily super successfully, but could you share some tips on how can we start letting ourselves feel these things so that they don't get further repressed and actually expand?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, exactly. So in this case, this is very common. I find that for those of us who saw disappointment growing up or were disappointed as children or saw our parents be disappointed by one another, there is this feeling of like, that's like the worst feeling in the world. Right. So I totally understand what you're going through. And I have felt that way as well. And so where the healing can come in is to actually go and revisit these events that we hold a lot of charge around. So one of the exercises I have my clients do is to write out all the highs and lows and seven year increments. So from zero to seven, seven to 14, 14 to 21, et cetera. And the clients find as they do this exercise, that their life then becomes all about trying to recreate all these highs from their childhood. And then they're trying to avoid Thank you. people in situations that feel like the lows from their childhood. So if we did this work together, I'd probably discover where your disappointment comes from. And then we would look at healing and resolving those early imprints of disappointment so that everything in your current life that might rhyme with it, isn't dredging up all of that memory. It's my belief that when we feel emotions in the present time, it's not just, oh, disappointment. Now you're actually getting like time traveled back to the disappointment you felt back then. And that's why the emotion is so intense. It's like, wait, why does this feel disproportional to, you know, like my car wasn't clean the way I wanted it to be. Like, why does it feel like not a big deal? But my reaction is so huge is because you're being time traveled, transported back to the first time you felt that emotion. And that's the emotion that's coming out. This is another reason why we heal instead of just be like, oh, it's okay. Like, we'll just give you a couple if then statements and a one pager on communication. It's like, no, we need to. Heal this so that you don't get all this activation and charge where it takes all of you to try to override your natural response. Because when you heal, your natural response is actually a different kind of response. It's no longer like, I want to scream, but I'm trying to calm myself down. It's actually like, oh, things that used to bother me don't bother me anymore. And that's what we want our clients to get to.
- Speaker #0
Brilliant. I mean, you gave me chills. Also, you're a poet. That rhymes with something from our childhood. Put it on a t-shirt. I love that. It's so true though. It's like, it's the weight of everything that's happened. One thing I've realized from looking back at some of the things that I was most disappointed by were that I had rebranded disappointment as failure. And that's why it became so scary to me, but I was really just disappointed and I abandoned ship. And so I really want to do that exercise. It's brilliant. Can we talk about unworthiness? This is something that I think prevents so many of us from really going after or even trying to go after the things that we want. How does this come up for people and the people you work with and people you see? And how do you address it?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I believe that the seed of our unworthiness actually comes from this conditioning early on where we're taught to be more like this, less like that. We get applauded for these things and punished for those things. And then over time, we start to disconnect to our true nature. And it's all with like the best intentions to prepare us for the world. Right. So our parents think that this is good training, but then it continues in school where we're like bullied for these things. And then we get friends and we get liked and acceptance for these other things. And then before you know it, we have this feeling of like, oh, we need to perform and be somebody else and do it like not how we would naturally do it in order to win, in order to succeed, in order to be liked. And then we spend our whole life really with this conditioning of who I naturally am is somehow not enough. I need to show up like this and be more like that. And don't do this thing that I naturally want to do. Like, let me filter myself in order to be acceptable to others. And so I think that that's where that early kind of disconnection to oneself comes. And then we get. reinforced everywhere, like in media and culture telling us like, now we have to look like this and have this car and live in this house and travel like that. So we're constantly getting messages about how we're supposed to be. And so I find that this is probably one of the real reasons people start companies, honestly, like anything we do, our first jobs, our first companies, it's all from this desire to prove that we're good enough. And this lack of worthiness is often the chip on our shoulder, the thing that is actually driving us to succeed. But as you probably have seen, it's what leads to burnout. It's what leads to people feeling like no matter what they succeed, it never feels like enough. It's kind of like having a bathtub without a plug. It's like no matter what rewards or money you get, the bathtub never gets full because you're missing the plug called like, I feel worthy. Until you plug that bathtub, nothing the world could possibly give you is ever going to feel like enough to fill that void.
- Speaker #0
So how do you plug the bathtub? I mean, I know it's not a silver bullet answer. Worthiness is a big thing. But where do you start?
- Speaker #1
Yeah. So one of the things that I have a practice of doing now is that we, and I say we, it's like me and my clients, we go to where we feel like these seeds were planted. And so it's so interesting because to me, when we look at trauma, it's not necessarily the trauma that we are holding in our body as much as it is the thoughts, feelings, and the way we interpreted that event that we are still holding in our body. So if, for instance, a kid felt abandoned or. criticized by a parent, it's the beliefs then that they're internalized of like, I'm not safe. I'm going to get abandoned. Somehow I'm not good enough. Somehow I'm not smart enough. Like whatever that parent said becomes the narrative that they have. So in my work, we actually go to some of those moments where that was created, that story, that narrative. And I help them feel and process through the emotions at the somatic level. So the sadness, the grief, like it's Very common for my clients to be crying in sessions with me. So that's a warning. So after they feel through all the emotions around that narrative, I create a new imprinting. So I create like a custom healing guide that sounds a little bit like hypnotherapy, but essentially I take the patterns that would make them feel whole, accepted, self-trusting. And I create a narrative, a new patterning for them so that we can rewire how they feel about themselves. And they listen to that every day for 30 days. So it's like we go to the core and we extract it like it's a cavity. And then we put in new imprinting that is in the direction of how they want to feel. And then that's the healing process in the next 30 days.
- Speaker #0
Wow. That is so incredible. Are any of these practices that you're discussing things that you teach? I know you've got a ton of courses that you teach in your courses as well.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it is actually. So my newest course is called Bending Reality Body Edition. And I have found that. Women particularly, but there's actually men in the course to have unhealthy ways that they relate to their body, their self image, food, emotional eating, stress eating. And so I have found that a lot of the imprinting what we're talking about around trauma also happens like psychological, emotional, physical, sexual trauma can result in not feeling safe in our body, which then leads to different ways that we relate to our body and food. So. In that course specifically, everything I just talked about is a huge part of it. So it's probably one of the deepest healing journeys that you can go on with me because we understand somatically where is your body actually holding extra weight because it doesn't feel safe. And where is your body carrying weight because of the way it's relating to food right now? And where do you maybe have a distortion of how you even see your body because of certain things that may have happened to you when you're younger? So that's all part of that course, for instance. And to different levels, different degrees, all of my courses have different focus areas.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Well, I love the way you described it because you, I mean, kind of miraculously, but you have a method to it. Lost 20 pounds in two months. And you describe it as releasing weight, which I think is so interesting. Why do you use that terminology?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, because to me, I felt that I was carrying extra weight from everything I just described. So whether it was physical and safety or actual physical trauma and pain and that I was emotions that were unprocessed, it was like, as soon as I shed the shame, even like the self-criticism, the self-disgust, like sometimes we really do think a lot more harshly about ourselves than we even want to admit publicly. But when I was able to heal all of that, I just started dropping weight. It was just releasing and shutting off my body. It was almost like all of that self-identity that was negative, I was holding on in the form of extra weight. And so to me, it's like becoming right size. I don't teach the course to help people lose weight, but it's more like, how can we get you to your right size? The version of you that naturally arises when you love yourself and you love the way you look in the mirror. So to me, it's like you do the inner work. And then we trust that it manifests externally. And that was really what I did. It was like instead of focusing on my diet and exercise and trying to change the external, thinking that maybe then I'll accept myself, I learned how to heal and accept and love myself. And then the weight dropped.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. And I mean, I think we've all seen something like this happen, whether it was as literal as like what you did and you really went inside and healed and then saw the weight come off or like. If we leave a toxic situation and suddenly we lose weight or we're in a toxic situation and we're gaining weight and we don't know why because we haven't changed anything about our diet or exercise routine. Yeah,
- Speaker #1
it's like inflammation.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, it truly is. Yeah, it's just amazing. The thing I keep saying this year is like everything is the same everywhere. It doesn't matter whether it's your physical health, how you're successful, you know, your emotional, like it's all the same.
- Speaker #1
Yes, I do feel like when you heal. the ripple effect is infinite, right? Like if I help someone fix their business model, it's like, great, your business model is fixed. But if we actually heal so that you feel confident, courageous, self-trusting, like you love yourself, you accept yourself, you feel worthy, well, guess what? Your dreams are gonna be bigger. Your relationship's gonna be better. You're gonna have better friendships. Everything about how you feel and interact with the world is going to be infinitely better. So to me, healing is where you get the quantum leaps, not like the incremental strategy changes.
- Speaker #0
I have a... a question for you. Once you've healed a lot of these major things, how do you keep that healing going? Because for me, anytime I've transcended like one platform into the next, like I still have to do things to maintain it or else it can go away almost as fast as it came. How do you make sure you maintain your healing?
- Speaker #1
Yeah, it's a really good question. So I feel that when it's at the somatic level, you are creating new behaviors, new imprinting, kind of like almost like a frequency up. upgrade. So energetically you feel differently in your body. And so when you can change at that kind of substrate level, I do feel like it's more lasting, but if your change is coming more from like, I'm trying to change my behavior and remind myself to do these things and show up differently, then that's going to feel like you need to be constantly reminding yourself. So I do think that sometimes personal development books are positioned like here are if then statements, like here are good behaviors, here are a couple of one pagers. give yourself these daily reminders to do these things. And to me, that's like a lot of rules to memorize and a lot of need to override your natural instincts to get there. So I feel that when you actually unravel the nervous system and create peace and calm so that that's like a natural baseline, then it becomes a lot easier to speak more calmly, to be more kind, to be more empathetic, to be more considerate. So in my experience, if it's really at the somatic level of your being actually shifting, I feel like everything we want is really a byproduct of that, right? So when we feel worthy, we are braver. When we feel like we're enough for our dreams, then our dreams are bigger. Like everything comes about from how we feel about ourselves, you know? So it's not even that we have to change. It's that we have to actually love who we are. And from that place of finally accepting and loving who we are, like your point, like trust and love yourself and create from there. From that place, I do feel that...
- Speaker #0
everything else we think we want is like a natural extension of coming from there.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. Yeah. When you said that, it really made sense. It felt like what you need to do is peel back the conditioning enough to love the beautiful, brilliant person you've always been, but you kind of got hidden underneath other people's opinions of you.
- Speaker #0
Yeah. It's like an onion. That's exactly the metaphor I use in the book that like all the conditioning, all the programming, it's like layers of an onion, all the contraction that we have, it's because we're not. ourselves. And I think actually our most expansive highest self is our true essence, but we feel like we're striving for our higher self when actually who we naturally are is that, but then we've layered all this like insecurity and unworthiness and contraction and beliefs and interpretations and meaning that we make that create all these layers of an onion that make us feel like, oh my gosh, I don't even know who I am or what I want. But when we peel back those layers, we get to the truth of who we are.
- Speaker #1
So we've talked about your amazing book a few times. It's called Bending Reality. Can you talk about what Bending Reality is?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, so I named it Bending Reality because I believe we're always bending our reality. It's just many of us may be bending it out of our favor without realizing it. And so the first framework I give in the book is contraction versus expansion. And essentially like contraction is what we feel when we're talking about, which is like unworthiness, fear, doubt, second guessing ourself. It often happens in the entrepreneurial journey because there's so many ups and downs and uncertainty. So you can kind of think of contraction as the state that most of us unconsciously are operating from because there's just so many unknowns, right? So the thing I often ask people is like, okay, think about an event that happened this week that didn't go the way you wanted it to. And immediately when you feel into that, you're like, oh yeah, I don't like that. My hands are sweating. My chest is tightening. Like my breathing is changing. I don't want to think about this anymore, right? That's a contractive state. And then the opposite state I call expansion. And in this state, this is where we feel grateful and open and excited and hopeful. And so if you think about an event that did go the way you wanted to this week, chances are when you tune into it, you'd feel like a smile across your face. You'd feel good. You'd feel your chest open up somatically. You feel like your breathing slows down and it's deeper. You're sitting up straighter. Your chest is open. All of these things make you feel really good in your body. And through my work and through the book. I am helping my clients and the readers make expansion their default state. So it's my belief that most of us unknowingly are operating from contraction and we're betting the odds out of our favorite from that place. Because if you have limiting beliefs and you have emotions that you're avoiding and not feeling, you're going to play smaller and you're going to be afraid to go after your dreams, right? So that all creates this very small life. But if on the other hand, you have really supportive self-thoughts and you feel really good and hopeful and optimistic and brave and powerful. then all of a sudden the actions you're taking from that place look so different. And so it's really my belief that if we get you into the right state of being, which is the expanse of being, then everything you want is so easy from that place.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. And I heard you talk about how a lot of times you'll bring these ideas to clients and they're like, okay, so how do I just always be expanding? Like, I just want to always expand forever and always for the rest of my life, every minute of every day. And you're like, well, you know, that's actually not the way either. What is... the balance? Is it just like, if the contraction comes, you're just like, okay, this is happening. And now I'm going to move through it and get back to expansion. What's the good balance there?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, it's a good question. So I think that as you can tell, like most people don't want to feel uncomfortable, like the world sells comfort. So anything uncomfortable is like, I don't want to go there. Let's not feel unpleasant emotions. But to me, expansion is not the absence of contraction. Expansion is being able to feel and be with whatever arises. So you can be like the ocean where it's like everything's just a wave, but you're just the ocean. You can hold all the waves. Then all of a sudden you're always an expansion. And it's the difference between someone who's like, oh, I don't want to feel this way. So I'm going to avoid this person in this situation. Cause I don't like that. It triggers me to feel this thing. I don't want to feel. And then before, you know, it's like, oh, they're living a very small life because now they're only living in one little room of this giant castle. So the castle represents all of life and all infinite possibilities. Now that person is like, I'm going to stay here where I'm comfortable and safe. I've never triggered. So what I really teach my clients is like, how do you build a strong emotional core? How do you build that fast emotional metabolism? So you start to feel open with all the unpleasant emotions. So you can be with all of life. So when something doesn't go the way you want it to, what's your bounce back time, your turnaround time, how quickly can you come back? And so like similarly with disappointment, like if something doesn't go the way you want to, you're disappointed. Are you disappointed for days, weeks, and months? Or are you disappointed after a couple hours? You're like, okay, we got this. And you come back. you So much of this expansion practice is like, how can I actually learn to be with all that arises? Because have you ever had like a good cry where after you feel the emotion, you feel amazing after?
- Speaker #1
Every time, baby.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. So that's it. Like I teach my clients, I give them the muscle memory of knowing that once I go there, I feel great after. So then you get to the expansion always because now you're not trying to avoid anything from happening because you can feel everything. So once you know there's no emotion you're avoiding, you feel like really invincible. You're kind of like, wow, life, bring it. I'm no longer trying to avoid any person or situation from happening to me. Like I know no matter what, I'm going to be okay. I can handle it. And that level of. courage and personal power becomes very unstoppable.
- Speaker #1
Yeah. And it seems like what you're talking about too is self-trust, which I think is such a huge part of unleashing creatively. How have you worked toward building self-trust?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. So I feel like self-trust is the greatest high, you know, like nothing beats feeling like you trust yourself. And it really wasn't easy. When I first started this work like 15 years ago, I was someone who was so indecisive. I couldn't of an order on a food menu. let alone like do anything big and trust myself. It was like, I needed to consult everyone. I had psychics, I had coaches, I had mentors. I had to like have a poll and ask everybody else what they thought before I made a decision. And then as I've done this healing work and I connected to my truth and I now know how to listen to myself, I do have like an inner intuition and like an inner trusting voice that I have found that today I probably trust myself more than anyone I've ever witnessed trust themselves, which might be good or bad, but I really do have that level of trust today. One of the things that I think has allowed me to do that is to become the kind of person that really feels like, wow, when I say I'm going to do something, I do it. Like I've been building evidence and building a case for, wow, I can trust myself. Like I'm trustable. And so something as simple as whenever you write down your goals, small, medium, or large, write them down so you can recognize, wow, I'm crossing this off because I said I was going to do it and I did it. And I know that sometimes like we love to-do lists because we have that sense of accomplishment. But I actually think you're also sending a really strong message to yourself, which is, oh, I put this down on paper and then I get to cross it out because I followed my word. Like my word is law. I do what I say I'm going to do. So that's one of the easiest low-hanging fruit that everyone can start doing is like get in the habit of writing down everything that you are wanting to make happen so that you can show yourself evidence of like, oh, I do what I say I'm going to do. So that's one thing that I've done. And then I would say another thing that I created over the last 10 years was like what I call a hero folder. So I was like. building up a case for myself.
- Speaker #1
Oh, I love that, Victoria. That's so beautiful.
- Speaker #0
Thank you. So like everything went in there. Like it used to be even be like college admissions, like teacher recommendations, like everything possible that anyone has ever said that was positive. Or as I rest of my career, it was like accolades and, you know, articles for in that, but I put all of that in that folder. And so I was often revisiting this. I even framed in my little corner of my bedroom that's not really visited. You know, when friends come over, I put this little corner, just like things that I'm really proud of. So I was constantly reminding myself and anchoring myself into these things that I'm proud of, like showing myself what I'm made of, reminding myself that I have way more courage than I maybe realize in the moment. That's been like the two practices that have built up my trust.
- Speaker #1
Those are both so beautiful. And I love that. A hero folder. What a beautiful thing for all of us to think about because. Something interesting I've noticed, I produce shows outside of my own too. And on one of the shows, the host always reads the guest's bios every time they come on. Almost every single time after they read their bios, they're like, I did that? Oh my gosh. Totally. It's so easy for us, for all of the wonderful, amazing things we've done personally and professionally to just evaporate out of our minds and our consciousness. And it's good to have a reminder like on those days when you are feeling disappointed, hey, I've done some things.
- Speaker #0
Yes. Exactly. No, I totally understand that. I relate. Every time someone reads my bio, I'm like, you made that sound really good.
- Speaker #1
Well, you made that sound really good. They just read it. Okay. I love this thing you talk about with the thermostat, the thermostat for the good things in our lives. How sometimes when people, when things get too good, they feel bad and they turn the thermostat down or they just like have a limit and they kind of create a worse reality than where they're going. What is the thermostat? How can we increase our thermostat for goodness?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. So I believe that we all have this thermostat that we set out. That's like normal. It's like our comfort zone of how much goodness we are used to and anything more than that. We're kind of like, that's too good to be true. More money than that. No, that's impossible. More love than that. I don't know about that. Like more connection. That's uncomfortable. Right? So we all have this baseline of like, this is normal. This is my comfort zone. And I find that so many clients want more money, more connection, more love. But then when we get down to it, we realize that they have these unintentional caps on how much goodness they're letting into their life. So a couple of questions I would leave your listeners with is like, think about how much time off can you even take from work before you start to feel restless? You know, for some people, they're like a day, you know, it's like, well, all right, your cap is pretty low then for how much goodness, relaxation, you know, fun you can let in. Another question is, how are you with compliments? How many compliments can you receive before you change the subject? That's another indicator of like, oh, I don't. let that much goodness into my system. It feels weird. Or like how much time, money, energy do you currently spend on things that bring you joy? And you're like, oh, I don't really have time for that. Well, it's like, chances are you've designed a life where you actually are more used to chaos and stress and anxiety, and you're not calibrating your nervous system to joy and calm and peace and things that light you up. So one of the number one practices I give my clients is like, what if you started every day with pleasure? Whatever that looks like, taking a walk or taking a hot bath or singing in the shower or doing some yoga, but doing something that feels good. whether that's joyful, pleasurable, or fun. But if you start to start your day that way, you're starting to train and calibrate your nervous system to pleasure. And over time, you're raising the upper limits for how much expansion you can feel and let into your life. And so, so much of my work is helping my clients, again, like normalize expansion so that leading and operating from expansive states is easy and like a default state for them. Another thing you can do to raise your upper limits is to celebrate. So I say ABC, always be celebrating because if you create this energy where your body is so used to feeling this really big, happy, expansive vibe, you are like busting the upper limits and the ceilings for how much expansion you can feel. And that's really interesting. Like for me, I'm like jumping up and down and I squeal and I'm like really over the top excited. Whereas I can tell some people it's like, you couldn't even tell they have like a poker face. So it's something amazing happened and they're like really cool about it, you know? And so I often tell my clients like. You spend all this time and energy on stress and anxiety, talking about problems, putting out fires. But then when you celebrate or when you win, you don't even take the time to like lock that energy in. So you're kind of teaching your body that, oh, we don't really care about the wins. We just care about the problems. And so I actually think you can train your body to win more if you make celebration a more familiar energy in your body.
- Speaker #1
So brilliant. I wanted to ask you about that. So thank you for bringing it up. I think that this is such a chronic thing in our culture. I don't know where it comes from. Like, I mean, I do think that we have a thing where like we don't want to be too big or take up too much space or God forbid, feel good about ourselves. But I love this piece because I'm thinking about so many amazing things that happened in my life and how I just like experienced them and moved on. Or sometimes I experienced them and felt miserable the next day. And I even think about like this time. So I write music too.
- Speaker #0
So cool.
- Speaker #1
It's so much fun. But it got featured in People magazine. And it was like the biggest thing that ever happened to me. You know, like totally unexpected. I'm not even close to like being celeb status. So like it was huge for an indie artist to get that feature. And I felt really good about it. And then like three days later, somebody I worked with like reprimanded me for the article. I spent the entire day crying. It totally knocked the joy out of me. And I think I have like. this complex now from that and other things about like, if I have success, I will be punished.
- Speaker #0
People aren't happy for me.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, I'm not allowed to celebrate because there's going to be punishment inevitably on the other end if I'm seen. I think a lot of people have things like this out in the world, like where they've been punished when they've taken up space or had some form of success. What would you recommend for someone like me on how to, first of all, retroactively celebrate. But second of all, reframe that. limiting belief.
- Speaker #0
Speaking of upper limits, I find that if we have a cap that's low, we will actually sabotage or create chaos or co-create it. Cause maybe, I don't know, like you were a match for even letting someone into your orbit that would ever talk to you like that. So there's something about our energy that is, Oh, I, something really great happened. Two steps forward, one step back or one step forward, two steps back. You know, I had one like this, where it was like, if I stand up for myself, it always back. backfires. Like if I blow a whistle, then I get in trouble. So like, I almost like protect the bad guys in my world because I get in trouble. It's always worse for me than it is for them. So I like learned to not speak up. So one of the things I would say is hopefully you're doing this in your work too, which is like to going back to those earliest memories that rhyme with this, right? Where was this imprinting originate where you felt, wow, I was being punished for shining, or maybe I had a sibling that didn't like me being happy and like bullied me when I was in a good mood, right? So going back to those earliest memories and really letting yourself feel through and release. Cause I actually believe that until we feel through and release these energy patterns, we unconsciously walk around with like a puzzle piece. And then other people who are like the perfect puzzle piece match to bully us, feel that in us. They're like, Ooh, you don't know you're worth it. There is a part of you that plays small. There's a part of you that feels like I can put you back in your place. And then that person unconsciously feels that from you. and then does exactly the very thing that. kind of rhymes with something that happened to you from your past. So that's why I really do think that the healing is the only real way to make it sustainable to your question earlier of like, how do you maintain it? You go to the core wound of where that happened. And if you can release that trauma and I have different techniques for even like releasing the charge in that situation, you're no longer carrying a nervous system that is like almost a homing beacon where you're sending out this. Unfortunately, I hate that I did it too, but it's like, you're sending out the signal for all the bullies to know. that they might be able to do something and you might not stand up to them. You might just shrivel and go small, you know, and then once you clean this up, you don't become a match for them anymore. So I have found that ever since I started standing up for myself, I was no longer that person where people on the street would just like grab me. Like I used to be this person where I was like, what is happening? Do I have a sign that says you can mess with me? Cause it felt like I was getting it everywhere. But then once I was able to heal and recover this, and also through some of that healing work that I talked about with like the hypnotherapy, I now notice that when I walk out, I'm carrying myself different. And energetically people feel like, Ooh, don't mess with her. Like she's like the wrong person to mess with. And that has become my new identity, you know, where I really feel like I'm un-mess with the bowl essentially. Like, I don't want to say anything like keep your eye open at night, but it's kind of like, I'm like 180 now I'm not vengeful by any means, but it's like, I have the opposite energy from you can pick on me and I'm just going to cry and like hide and cry on my pillow and like never report it. It's like, Nope. Like you're going to regret that you messed with me.
- Speaker #1
Yes. I love that. I want to get on your level. I want to ask you too, because you've really been sharing a lot of your life on socials and really in such a beautiful way, taking up space and showing the world who you are. Did you have any barriers? Because I know it's hard when you're in a supportive role for other people to step up to the plate and say, Hey, I'm here too. How have you claimed your own dreams and your own. desire to like step forward. Yeah. How have you done that? Because I know that's difficult when you're in a supportive position.
- Speaker #0
Yeah, it's a really good question. And I would say that if you've been watching my social media in the last couple months, it feels true. But before that, it wasn't how I taught and it wasn't how I operated. I had different stories. I had a similar story to you, which is that people aren't naturally happy for me. Like if I'm too happy, I'm going to lose friends or maybe like people will be mad or jealous or envious or just. be triggered by me. So I had this feeling of like, well, I don't want anyone to not like me. So I'd rather just like not making one uncomfortable or feel less than around me. So let me just like act more, whatever, smaller. And then I also had this story that people only want my teachings and they don't actually care about me. So I was like not making anything personal. It was just like, let me just give you the theories. Let me make it all about you. But then I did find two things were happening. One was that people were able actually to learn way better for me when I was able to teach more from personal story. So I started to have clients say things like, wow, thanks so much for sharing your personal story. Like it totally helped the lesson land. Like the teaching by itself wouldn't have landed as deeply without the story. And I do think that that's kind of the point of stories, right? So whether it's writing music, but it's like a good storyteller, it's like that helps the lesson land deeper. So that was one thing. But then also I believe as part of my 20 pounds weight release, The same part to me that we're. holding onto the weight out of shame or not wanting to trigger people or not wanting to shine or be visible were the same parts that were also keeping me from showing up fully myself on social media. So I found this really powerful thing happened is that the safer I felt to release the weight and I didn't need it anymore as protection, the safer I also felt being visible, the safer I felt being like, okay, this is who I am and I'm allowed to have it all. And people are still happy for me. That's been like the biggest rewiring where we often wait for the other shoe to drop, where I still can feel it at times as I'm like, was that too much? Like, am I too happy? Is someone going to be mad at me because I'm so happy kind of like to your story? So I can feel that there's still a part of me that's a little bit like, can I come out? Like, is anyone mad? But I now have the evidence because I'm so lucky that I have a lot of amazing clients and I feel very appreciated and I feel very loved. And so that reinforcement has continued to make me feel safer to show up. So I think it's essentially doing the inner work, but also making sure you're looking for evidence of the new story. I think when we're in fear, we're looking for evidence that I knew it. I'm not safe. I knew it. People are mad at me. I knew it. I always get punished when good things happen. But when we're in the process of writing a new story, we have to be like vigilant about finding good evidence. Like we have to make it our job to find proof that we're writing a new story. And that's what I've been doing. It's like, whether it's in friendships or my client life or my personal life. Every time something happens that I know is a new story I'm trying to write, I register and I remind myself so that my mind, body and heart really processes my new reality.
- Speaker #1
Yeah, so beautiful. I mean, I love it. So please don't stop. I love your relationship. Also, I love your love. It is so beautiful. I'm curious for you for that one, because I know how much a partnership, the right partnership or the wrong partnership can affect our trajectory and our success. How is finding that kind of life affirming love? influenced you, your business, and what you think is possible for your life?
- Speaker #0
Oh, just you asking that makes me want to cry. I would say that before meeting my current partner, I don't think I've ever felt... anywhere that I could be imperfect, you know, like whether it was in my career, how I show up as a coach, how I show up as an investor, I really felt that it wasn't safe to be messy. It wasn't safe to be imperfect. Like I couldn't even admit being wrong because if I admit being wrong, then I'd be admitting that I'm imperfect and I would feel unlovable and unworthy if I ever was wrong. And that was like my conditioning that led me to be an overachiever. So it was like, you know, there was a little bit of a gift in the wound. However, I would say that meeting my partner, James. He's not my husband as of June. Thank you. Yeah. We just got married this summer. He's the first place in my life that I feel safe being in perfect. You know, like even when I mess up and I say something I didn't mean or raise my voice and I'm like, I'm sorry I did that. He'll even tell me like, that's okay. That's not who you are. Like, I know that that's like from what you saw growing up and don't worry. And I can feel how he doesn't make it mean anything about me. And it's like truly the greatest gift ever is that for the first time, I feel like it's safe to be this raw, messy and perfect trying to grow and evolve version of me. That's not perfect yet, not fully baked yet. And honestly, it's also made me able to grow faster. I think that if I were in a relationship where I felt shame or blame or criticize whenever I messed up, it would make my growth and evolution so slow because I would just be like hyper vigilant and hyper defensive whenever I messed up. But because he's so loving and accepting, it's like, oh, I. can be messy and oh like he still loves me okay well it's not that bad I can change these things and before I knew it it's like I've become such a better version of me because I had that like safe space to grow so beautiful may we all have
- Speaker #1
something like that that you know allows us to change our own inner voice because what it sounds like is in him loving you it thought it made you think well maybe I could be less critical of myself too yes yeah absolutely that's so beautiful Speaking of the inner critic, outside of having an amazing partner, how do you address that voice within you, especially a voice that has been repurposed as your own? I've heard you speak about how, you know, a lot of times that inner critic voice isn't even our own voice. It's just kind of taken on our voice. How do we change that voice in our head into something much more supportive?
- Speaker #0
Yeah. So I would say for myself, one of the greatest evolutions that's turned my inner critic into like an inner cheerleader. So I'm really happy to say that I very rarely catch any negative voices toward myself. But the journey to that was a couple of things. So one is I asked my clients to catch all of these negative voices, especially the recurring one. So you can kind of understand the pattern of how you're talking to yourself. And then once you have that list of all these limiting beliefs or negative self-talk, I have them go through this exercise of what I call like finding an incrementally more expansive thought. So it's not a 180 because I often say like you can't go 180 because you're going to feel like you're lying to yourself. So if I feel like nobody likes me and I'm like trying to convince myself that everybody loves me, that's like too far of a jump. So I say, okay, can you go incremental? Like what's one degree better than nobody likes me? Well, I do have some friends. Okay. That's true. Right. So you kind of start with baby steps until you find the relief. So at least it's neutral. It's no longer a charge of negativity. And then you slowly expand upon that. So you're like, okay, I have some friends. That's true. Okay. What else is true? Well, I do feel that. the people who really know and like me actually get who I am and the people who don't like me, I kind of feel like they don't really even understand me. Okay. That's true. That feels a little bit better. And then could it even be true that the right people for me accepting for who I am and maybe anyone else doesn't really matter. Yeah. Okay. I can believe that. So you can see, I'm not trying to go, Oh, my new mantra is everybody loves me. It's like my new mantra is just like something that's incrementally better that I can believe. So that's like one way to combat the inner critic is just to subtly. find incrementally better feeling thoughts, almost like you're climbing steps, stairs, right? So not going from like stair one to stair 20, but like, what's stair two sound like? What does stair three sound like? And over time, you'll find that you have this muscle memory where your inner critic doesn't have the last word anymore. So if your inner critic say something like, this is probably not going to work. And then you might have another voice that's like, but what if it does work? Like maybe it could, right? And you start to like more naturally talk back to that inner critic because you're in this habit now of finding the more expansive thought.
- Speaker #1
Hmm. So beautiful. Victoria, you are just a delight. You're just a beautiful light in the world. I know you also just like help companies make millions and billions of dollars through this incredible healing. I mean, it's just you're a wonderful human. It's been an honor to spend this hour with you. I had a million more questions. We're not going to get to all of them. I guess if you could leave the listener with one final word of wisdom, you know, like the whole point of the show is to help people. claim their right to creativity and take up space, what would be something, you know, whatever your intuition says that you'd like to share with them?
- Speaker #0
Yeah, I would say that the thing that came to mind as you're asking that question was I want everyone to feel how if you're here listening today, then you have your needs covered. Like you are safe, you have food, you have shelter. And I think that oftentimes you create this unnecessary panic and urgency about our goals and our wants because we think like it needs to happen or else. And so we've taken this really beautiful, expansive vision and we've turned it into this contractive, like we're walking a tightrope now. It's like, we have to make this thing happen. And so I would invite everybody to really just tune into their life and just. Feel how the fact that we're alive, the fact that we are safe, like we have our needs met. That's already everything, everything we need, we have. So then everything else is truly more. And I would really invite all your listeners to feel like, what if I really related to all of my goals and visions from a place of this gets to feel like more, it gets to feel like extra, it gets to feel like abundance. It gets to feel like sprinkles on top of my dessert versus like this has to happen or else I'm not okay. Or I feel like a failure, right? So. Sometimes this exercise moves me to tears, but it's really just connecting to my life and feeling like, how can I feel so full and so grateful for what I do have so that when I connect to my next vision and next goal, it really gets to come from this place of like, I'm excited, I'm grateful and like one foot in gratitude, one foot in desire, but like always feeling the sense of nothing's missing from my life. I already feel full. So everything else feels like more.
- Speaker #1
So, so beautiful. Thank you so much for everything you shared. And most importantly, for who you are. You're an amazing person. I'm grateful.
- Speaker #0
Thank you, Lauren. Such a pleasure to be here.
- Speaker #1
Thank you for listening. And thanks to my guest, Victoria Song. For more info on Victoria, follow her at Victoria Song. Visit her website, victoriasong.me, to learn more about her courses. And get a copy of her book, Bending Reality, wherever good books are found. Thanks to Rachel Fulton for helping edit and associate produce this episode. Follow her at Rachel M. Fulton. Thanks to Liz Full for the show's theme music. Follow her at Liz Full. And again, thank you. If you like what you heard today, remember to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Share the show with a friend and post about it on social media. Tag me at Lauren LaGrasso and at Unleash Your Inner Creative, and I will repost to share my gratitude. Also tag the guests at Victoria Song so they can share as well. My wish for you this week is that you celebrate every win, big and small, and that you take some of Victoria's healing tips. Let's calm our nervous system, rewrite limiting beliefs, and bend our reality. The world and our dreams are possible, and it starts in our own minds and bodies. I love you, and I believe in you. Talk with you next week.
