JANELLE THIESSEN [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the Human Being Project, a podcast hosted by my dad and I that's an exploration of finding meaning and purpose in who we are rather than what we do. I'm Janelle Thiessen, a keen observer of human interactions and behaviors and an advocate for being. For being present, being authentic, and staying open.
RON THIESSEN [00:00:23]:
I'm Ron Thiessen, a psychologist, educator, and facilitator, and I'm on a personal journey to find a balance between a lifelong habit of productivity and the presence or being state that nurtures my spirit and seems to have the greatest impact on the world around me. In each episode, Janelle and I explore ways to make space for more being and less doing, to focus on spiritual energy, intuition, and the relationship between heart and mind so we can positively impact the world through our conscious doing.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:01:02]:
I never know what the session is going to be, and I never know what the tools are going to be until the person's on the table and their body starts to speak to me in terms of what's a priority for them, what does their body mind complex want to work on? How can I use the tools in my tool belt to best support them from shifting from point a to point b?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:01:23]:
What if you could resolve trauma and limiting beliefs without reliving your negative experiences? Our guest today, Angela Chapman, is living proof that you can heal from trauma and even repattern your beliefs about who you are and what you're capable of through energy work. It sounds a little woo woo at first, but stick with us because it is possible to bypass the brain to create shifts and remove blocks on a cellular level using your physical body. Things that have impacted you on a subconscious level and maybe sabotaging your joy, your peace, your health, your financial security, and even your relationships. Angela works with clients one on one and in groups as a certified body talk practitioner. She's also a body intuitive practitioner and a reiki master. She sees herself as a guide leading her clients back to their own inner knowing so they can experience deep healing.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:02:22]:
I'm not making this up.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:02:23]:
I've actually tried it for myself with a couple of practitioners, Angela being one.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:02:26]:
Of them, and this shit is real.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:02:28]:
I can't explain how, but energy work works. So without further ado, let's meet Angela.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:02:38]:
I first started on this journey through my own healing because I was raised off grid by violent, volatile alcoholics. So my childhood was very tumultuous. A lot of things I had to navigate as a kiddo. A lot of things I had to navigate in my teens and then in my 20s, things just weren't working very well. I wasn't functioning physically. Mentally, I was seeking how to reconcile my past. And I had started with doing some counseling for myself, which didn't seem to work for me because it retriggered me going into the story and into the past, trying to figure that out through talk therapy. So I thought, there has to be another way for me personally to navigate what my past is so that I can function as an adult.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:03:34]:
And that's when I found Reiki and became a certified Reiki master, which took three years. And then from that, I found belief or patterning and started shifting my belief systems about myself through forgiveness, through permission, through choice. It really came to a head, though, when I got married and decided to have a child. And things were working very well in that department as my body wasn't functioning physically. I sought body talk and belief or patterning to support me in figuring out why I couldn't conceive a child, because there was nothing physically wrong with me. They couldn't find anything physically wrong with me. And so I knew then that it was psychological, that it was emotional, and it was a four year process for me to go through the journey of unraveling how incredibly impactful my childhood trauma was on my day to day living, how much it had affected everything about how I was showing up for myself and how I was showing up in the world. And I actually wasn't really showing up in the world through that process of my own healing journey.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:04:49]:
I was really, really drawn to the holistic route of helping other people because I know from my own personal experience that there is life on the other side of trauma and that the trauma doesn't have to define you. And it was defining who I was in every aspect. So I haven't actually stopped learning since I was about 28 years old. I feel like I've been in classes of this journey of personal development to not only support myself, but to support others. And it's been amazing for me. Amazing.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:05:27]:
That's cool. So what's the contrast between your life up until you were 28 and your life since you've been on this growth journey and learning all these new skills?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:05:38]:
Well, when I was in my teens, I left home at 16 and worked my way through high school and had to pay rent and all those things. So I've been on my own for a long time, and then I worked my way through college. And when you have that kind of trauma in your life, you don't have a lot of support. You really are in fight, flight, or freeze most of the time. So through the learnings that I have and all the work that I've done with the brain, you really are in what we call the reptilian brain, or some psychologists call it the basement brain or the older part of the survival brain where you live there, and you're not really even engaging in life. You're in autopilot, so you just go through the motions, so completely disconnected that there is no joy. You don't even know how to have joy. You don't even know how to engage with other people or have relationships with other people because you were never taught that, or you're not capable of even accessing that part of yourself because you're in survival mode.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:06:41]:
And so in my came to a head because I could barely leave my apartment. I was not interested in engaging in the world in any way. It was debilitating on so many levels. So when you can't leave your apartment and you can't engage and you can't work, you have to really start looking at, okay, what's the root cause of this? What's going on in my nervous system that even having a conversation is shutting me down and that I spend days ruminating over that conversation of, like, did I say it right? Did I use the right tone? What was my body language? What were the words that I used? Did I sound stupid? You become so hyper vigilant about your environment that you're not functioning, or I wasn't functioning. So that's when I went, I can't do this. How do people get through this? How do you work even when you can't leave your apartment? So that's kind of the big lead into discovering and finding another way to get to the other side of trauma, get to the other side of the abuse.
RON THIESSEN [00:07:54]:
So can you sort of captualize for us? What's the process that you use when you're working with people? So do you work primarily with people who have trauma or people who have just maybe they've had a normal childhood? Do you work with all kinds of people, or who's your target population?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:08:15]:
Well, my practice, probably, like other practitioners, have shifted over the years, and it feels like it's different stages of my own healing journey, where at one time I had all kiddos in my practice and then all teens, and then it was a lot like mostly men. And I don't know if other practitioners can relate to this, but it seems to be what's happened in my cycle at work, and right now it's women between the ages of 40 and 70 who are actually navigating really big trauma. But no, I do support others. It could be health issues. It could be athletes that are learning how to visualize it and use positive self talk to do really well in their sport or really well in their career. So it's kind of like helping them transition from, I want to say mediocre, but nothing is mediocre but to really achieve and excel in whatever aspect of life that they're trying to get to. But right now, in my practice, there is a lot of trauma showing up, for sure, and women who are really navigating some big issues that have really kept them suppressed in their life.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:09:29]:
That's interesting that you said it's coming in stages, right? Like as you move through your life and grow and develop your client base changes, they're kind of going through the journey with you a little bit, or it's presenting in a way that helps you grow. So I'm curious, if the people that you're attracting to your practice are women who have dealt with some past trauma, does that mean that you are still currently working through some of your own past trauma? Is that something you're focusing on, or has that already been dealt with and somehow you're just radiating this sort of healing vibe?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:09:57]:
That's a great question. I don't know if as human beings, and maybe Ron, you know, jump in on this, too, if we ever really stop learning about ourselves and shifting the layers of the core, the things that are challenging to us. So I think at each stage of our life, there's always more that we can look at and more that we can release those roles and mass and the wounded ego part of who we are. So am I done with the healing? No, I just think this is just part of being a human being and discovering who you are and allowing yourself to have every experience in this lifetime, really allowing yourself to engage in a way that supports your own growth and also the growth of your family that's around you. So it's a constant process, and it's.
RON THIESSEN [00:10:52]:
Really a part of the whole aspect that keeps life interesting and full of richness and diversity is the very fact that we keep growing and we keep changing and we keep understanding more things about ourselves unless we decide to stop. And then that sort of becomes evident if our lives go stagnant or they begin to seem very boring or very mundane and we're not growing and we're not looking for ways to expand our understanding or our consciousness. I agree with you that life, I think, will always be a journey of growing as long as you want it to be. And you can always, I guess, shut that down if you want to, but you don't have to. And I think as human beings, we are always growing and discovering more.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:11:39]:
I think what I meant by the question is, do you think that it's mirroring something in your own life that you currently need to process or work through? If this is the thing that's coming up right now, these women who have faced trauma, like, I know it's always a process. It's always a process, but I'm just wondering if you're finding that there's some synchronicities between their struggle and your own struggle happening simultaneously.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:12:04]:
Yeah, definitely. Because we're herd animals, we are always mirroring each other and learning from the experiences of each other. So if this is showing up in my environment, then there's definitely something in there for me, too. There's something for me to learn through that process of supporting others. It's like, oh, how does this relate to me, too? Right? And how do I have compassion for myself the way that I have compassion for these amazing human beings that have the courage to walk this journey with me? So it's the leveling up the love and nourishing for myself and the compassion for myself through the experiences that I'm having with others. For sure. Definitely.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:12:45]:
Yeah. Well, I've been a client of yours. I've spent time in your space, so I know what the experience or a version of the experience is like. I guess everybody's experience is different. But what would you call that? What you and I did, the sessions that we've had together, is that body intuitive? Is that body talk? Is it a mix of both?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:13:05]:
It's a blend of everything that I do. It's the educational pieces from the body talk and the body intuitive. It's my own intuition. I use healing energy reiki. I use positive self talk statements as we're working through the body talk or body intuitive formulas. I sometimes throw in a little touch for health and some brain gym to get the brain integrated between the left and right. The body mind complex. Yeah.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:13:36]:
There's so many different techniques that I've learned over the years that come into a person's session, and I never know what the session is going to be, and I never know what the tools are going to be until the person's on the table and their body starts to speak to me in terms of what's a priority for them. What does their body mind complex want to work on? How can I use the tools in my tool belt to best support them from shifting from point a to point b? And every person's session is completely different, even for each individual. And every individual session is different. I really don't know what it's going to be until they're in my office and on my table. And that is really looking at a person without any agenda. It's looking at that person from a pure place of observation. So in body talk, we talk about the potential for the body to express itself in optimal health and wellness. And so, as a practitioner, just being in a place of observation and allowing that person's stuff to come up the way they need it to come up for them, that's in their highest and greatest good.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:14:48]:
That's the key to what I do, to how I support the facilitation of that, because I actually don't do anything. It's their body that does it. All right?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:14:58]:
And what I've gathered from these sessions, because this is what happened to me, is I may go in there with an agenda. I may think I want to solve this problem. I feel like down in the dumpers or depressed about something, or I think it's associated with my weight. And I may go to you to see, can we work through these energetic blocks or these old stories, limiting beliefs, whatever. And then it turns out that there's something totally different on the radar, and you're picking that up from my body, not my mind. So can you talk a little bit about the mind heart, body connection? How do all of those things work together? And how come sometimes I'm not getting the message? My brain has one message, and my body and my energy is giving you a different message.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:15:39]:
Right.
RON THIESSEN [00:15:39]:
And I'm also curious, talking about that. I think that's great. But can you also bring in the aspect of your intuition in understanding what's going on, like in this body mind connection, et cetera, talk about, because you said you use your intuition. I'm really curious about that, how you intuit what you need to know and where you get that information. And then if you can remember to sort of, at the end of that discussion, tell me, what kinds of things do you do to hone your intuition?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:16:10]:
Okay, so, yeah, intuition is like, everybody has it. Everybody has their own innate intuition that their gut instinct or that you ever walked into a room and you felt really uncomfortable and you thought, oof, there's something, I don't know what that is, but there's something here that's not safe for me. Parts of the brain that are triggering threat or this isn't right. So we all have it because we need it for survival. Some people might call it gut instinct, intuition, innate wisdom, however, that works for you. And as a practitioner, we practice this all the time so that we're really listening to our innate wisdom, to our intuition or gut instinct. And how do we get better at something we practice? Right. How do you get better at the piano you play every day.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:17:01]:
So for people who actually are interested in this and hone that intuition and really connect and listen to their body, it just becomes an everyday part of who they are, it's automatic. Right? So, Janelle, you were talking about, I have this thing that's going on in my head and what I want to work on, and then I come in and there's something else happening in terms of my session isn't anything that I thought it was going to be, because there's a disconnect between the thinking brain and the physical body, and the physical body holds everything. If you think about a cell structure, there's trillions of cells. They hold our emotions, our belief systems, our thought processes. If you're thinking negatively about yourself all the time, and a lot of people know, Ron, I'm sure you can talk to how many thoughts we have in our head in a day and how on the downside of the line or not so great they are. And so if we're feeding that information to the cells of our body constantly, our cells in our body, they're not going to be very happy. They're not going to be very healthy. And so it's reconnecting the thinking mind to the cellular structure of the body.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:18:16]:
So the cells and the mind can express themselves in the most positive, healthiest, optimal way. So your body knows what it needs. Your mind disconnected, doesn't, but the body does. The body knows if it's holding anger or a belief system that I'm not good enough or that I'm not worthy enough. And then it plays that out over and over and over again in the subconscious mind. There's so much written about this, there's so many books on this for anybody that's interested in delving into that a little deeper. And so because I'm not attached to what's going on in your mind or in your body as an observer, the body's talking to me and telling me what is the priority, what needs to be observed to be released so that the system, the body mind complex, can run smoother, function better, have better thought processes, and allow the release of some of the stuff that's being held in the nervous system or in the fascia or in the tissue or in the cells. It's such an amazing process between the body and the mind, and then how trauma and how abuse can really disconnect or disassociate from the thinking mind to the physical body, to the point where I remember in my was constantly hurting myself.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:19:34]:
I would go around a corner and take my shoulder out with the wall. I would tubby my toes, I'd be working in the garden and cut my arm and not even realize that I had any physical pain. And the blood would be running down my arm, and I'd be thinking, what just happened? How did I cut myself? I didn't even feel that. So my disconnect or my disassociation was so huge that I wasn't even feeling pain in my body. And I used to brag that I had this high tolerance for physical pain, not realizing that that wasn't something to be proud of, that that was a huge indicator that I wasn't embodying and recognizing my own physical needs. And so part of this observation process is really supporting people in recognizing their physical needs and their mental needs and their emotional needs, and how they can reconnect to themselves in a way that they are functioning fully and have the potential to express optimal health mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually. I don't know. Did I answer? There was a lot of question there, so I'm hoping that I answered them.
RON THIESSEN [00:20:51]:
Yeah, that was great. Can you take us into the treatment room and just tell us what you do? Because you've mentioned now a table. So is it your client or your patient? Or anyway, you had them on the table, and you talked about their body talking to you and telling you things that their mind is not telling you. So what is the process there? Like I'm so familiar with, I bring my client into my office and we begin talking. Is that what happens? Or then how does it play out? If I was coming to you for the first time, what would you be doing with me?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:21:26]:
So the first time, you would be filling out a waiver, of course, and a form that explains what I do and what they want to work on in terms of where their health is at, where their emotions are at, what parts of their life are they stuck in. We have a conversation around that. If they're in person, they get comfortable laying down on my table. And if they're not in person, if they're on Zoom and on the phone, we get comfortable through where they're sitting and having some nice, deep breaths and getting grounded. And then I literally tune into the body. And if you're not familiar with body talk, it's a very, very in depth, complex modality that takes you down. A series of formulas that supports me, my intellectual left brain, in connecting with my intuitive right brain and being able to connect the dots of the information that's coming in for me through my intuitive senses or through the gut or the sacral chakra. And through that process, I'll ask questions of what's coming up for you.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:22:31]:
You're holding anger in your right shoulder. And if it's at age four, do you have an active memory that would explain what you're holding there? And they often will be like, yeah, there was an incident that happened that, man, I totally forgot about that, and it's right there. And so I might use tuning forks. I might use body talk techniques. I might use body intuitive techniques to support the release of that. Sometimes we do inner child work. Sometimes we talk about the belief systems that are attached to that. How big that impact was at four years old.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:23:10]:
And if that belief system was so ingrained in those early years, that's been playing out in the subconscious, and then often the client can go, wow. Then there was this other incident that's related to that, that I can feel that was attached to that, and then there's this other incident, and so on and so on. And so oftentimes we can kind of pull that thread of that active memory and shift four big pieces in their life that were the same, different people, but the theme of what was going on for them was the same. So maybe they were yelled at and terrified, and then that happened again when they were 14, and that happened again when they were 18. And so how they have been shut down from that piece of fear or that piece of anger that was sitting there and their coping strategies that they developed to be able to survive that incident, then we can release all of that and go through that process because they have awareness of it. So once you have awareness of it, then you can shift it. Once you take responsibility for it and go, wow, I didn't realize there was all of this sitting in my right shoulder or left shoulder, whatever fascia, I can let this go. I didn't realize the impact of that one specific incident that maybe happened in 30 seconds really affected my day to day living or my day to day life, like right now.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:24:36]:
So I don't know. Does that answer your question, Ron? Because it's such a complicated process yeah.
RON THIESSEN [00:24:42]:
So when they're on the table and you say you're picking up things from their body, are you touching them? Are you feeling for tension, or how are you picking that up other than your intuitive understanding?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:24:56]:
Sometimes I use what's called muscle testing or applied caseology, where I'm using the person's hand or arm and I'm getting a yes or no physically from their body. Sometimes it just comes in. I've been doing this work for so long now that I actually don't need to use physical touch to get a clear yes or clear no. I used to in the beginning, years ago. It bubbles in. It's really hard to explain the information and how it comes in for me because it comes in in so many different ways. And then I've learned to trust it. So when you're doing this in the beginning, you might not trust that.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:25:36]:
You might be like, I don't understand what I'm getting, or I don't understand what's happening. But through years and years and years and years of practice, it just comes in. And there's so many common themes, and I don't know if people realize this between. Each thing that goes on in the physical body has a corresponding belief system or emotion that is very similar from person to person. So if someone was raised in an alcoholic family, they may have the emotion of neglect or abandonment as their main theme. And I've seen that. I've observed that in clients over and over and over and over again. So then they'll choose people in their life that don't stick around, and they play out that subconscious theme of abandonment or neglect throughout their entire life, and they can't figure out why.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:26:32]:
Why do I keep choosing the same situation or relationship that I had with my parents? I don't get it. So once we release or disconnect that belief system, that emotion of abandonment, and start reconnecting to connection and inclusion and shifting from that inner critic piece to the inner coach piece of, like, I'm allowed to be included, I'm allowed to be connected, then that previous trauma can dissipate and things shift in the person's relationships with everybody around them. The intuition piece is. I know it sounds vague, but it's like having so much information come in at once that you know is true, that you just have such a knowing that this is the truth for this person. And then when you express it, they go, yeah, that's it. That's exactly it. So I don't know how else to explain that.
RON THIESSEN [00:27:33]:
So what do you do if there is, because some people, well, I'm sure lots of people who have bottled things up have built up cognitive defenses. So how do you get past the cognitive defense when if you ask them, okay, what's the problem here? What are you dealing with? What they're going to let you know, or even what they think is the problem and it's not the problem, and you intuitively know that's not the problem, and you're dealing with something else and you get cognitive resistance. What do you do to overcome that?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:28:07]:
So that's the beauty of body shock, is that you're bypassing the brain. So even if they say, yeah, no, that's not it, then I can just work quietly with the body and allow whatever needs to come up to come up and start reconnecting the system through observation and using different tools. And maybe the third time they come into me or the fourth time they come into me, they'll start mentally connecting the dots. So, yeah, sometimes people don't trust, and sometimes they're in resistance, and sometimes they really don't want to look at the big yucky stuff that's down there. And that's why they're coming to see me in the first place, is because they've done everything, why they're in trouble. Yeah. And so I allow that person to just be wherever they're at, meet them where they're at, and work with them gently and slowly without conversation. Because for me, going back into and verbally talking about what happened as a child does not support me moving forward.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:29:13]:
It actually retriggers my nervous system personally, and I go right back into the reptilian brain or the basement brain. I get that. I understand that piece of it, and I just allow people to have whatever process works for them and trust that their process is the best process for them. So sometimes I don't say anything on the table. It's just a quiet treatment. Sometimes if you have a person that really needs to verbally process, they'll talk lots. So again, it's an individual, and I honor that. I honor where they're at and how that works for them and know that they'll get to where they need to get to, however that is.
RON THIESSEN [00:30:00]:
This is a logistical question, but can people get insurance coverage? If they have insurance, does it cover your kinds of sessions?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:30:07]:
Depends on the insurance policy. So I'm registered through the Body Talk association and through the Body Intuitive association and through the Reiki Association. I am covered through the health practitioners of Canada. Sorry, natural health practitioners of Canada. And if someone has a wellness package at work where you're allowed to spend whatever you want on whatever you want. Yes, my treatments or sessions are covered, but it's not recognized through blue cross or manual life, unfortunately.
RON THIESSEN [00:30:42]:
Okay.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:30:43]:
And I know that all the associations that I'm associated with are trying to have this recognized and to be taken more seriously in terms of having coverage through Health Canada, because it works.
RON THIESSEN [00:30:55]:
That's it. I think we are making progress in this area because medicine is obviously not the answer all the time and not for everybody. And I think there's gaining acceptance of people who are doing alternative kinds of therapies that are actually producing far better results than medication. So I think we're making progress in that area. I think it's moving in that.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:31:18]:
And I just, I would like to say that where you need to be when you go for a session with Angela or somebody who is a practitioner like her that practices in these areas is you need to have an openness to alternative solutions to whatever problem you're facing. So I think probably often you get people who are sort of at the end of the road. They've tried so many things. They are really trying to function in their life, and they just can't seem to get past some of these unseen hurdles. They don't even know what it is. It's just like, why am I struggling so hard? And I know for me, going through a session, you'll bring up some things that I'm like, those aren't even in my awareness. I have no idea. But somehow something still shifted enough behind the scenes.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:32:05]:
Like, not in my frontal lobe, not in my actual awareness, but just later, like if we touch base in a few weeks and you say, well, how's it going with that? And it's like, well, that's actually old news. I haven't thought or dealt with that since. I guess I just didn't realize it till now.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:32:20]:
Right.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:32:21]:
So it's not like it's some big go in here, get some big magic cure, and also, it's not ineffective. It's extremely effective. But underneath the layers of your consciousness, which I guess makes it for those who might be skeptical about energy work. It makes them.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:32:36]:
Mm hmm.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:32:37]:
Yeah, sure. Ok. Well, I can't see it, so I don't believe it, but you just have to be in the place where you're willing to explore it. And then I feel like that's when the shifts happen. Would you agree, Angela?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:32:48]:
Absolutely. And yes, sometimes I do get people at the end of the rope who have really big illnesses in their body. And they have been through the western medicine rotation of every test, at every doctor, and they're like, nothing seems to be working, nothing is helping, and I can't function. And it's the mind, it's the belief system, it's the thoughts in their head that need support and shifting so that the body at the cellular level can function in a way that is supportive and healthy and clear and clean. And if you don't feel good, and I'm sure everybody has felt this in their lifetime, if you don't feel good and it's really hard to get out of bed, it's really hard to engage in life. It's hard to even brush your teeth or comb your hair. So if you don't have your health, you don't really have anything. That becomes a huge challenge to get back to health so that you can be out in the world and function.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:33:49]:
And so they've run the gamut. So it's like, well, why not try healing medicine of some sort or some holistic. I've tried everything else, so why not try that? And I often have huge results. With individuals getting their life back on track, their physical symptoms start to clear up, their attitude shifts much more positive, much more engaging, and allowing themselves to really look at their health in a different way. Instead of somebody else fixing it for them, they're really taking responsibility for what they're bringing to the table and how they're treating their own body and their own mind and learning tools to support having joy, contentment, peacefulness, love for themselves in their life. And that's just everything.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:34:41]:
So what do you recommend for someone to do once they've had a session with you to continue the work that you began together, either in just one session or if they do a few sessions or whatever, what kind of things are they doing to support that work in their life once they leave you?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:34:59]:
So sometimes they're given homework, so it could be to clean up their nutrition. You can't have a healthy mind when you eat a lot of sugar or a lot of junk food. So number one is cleaning up nutrition, going for a walk, sitting, and actually listening to the information that's coming up from their body. So if they're feeling really sad, look at the sadness. Where is it sitting in the body? How big is the sadness? Acknowledge the sadness. Allow yourself to have the emotion. In that observation of their own emotion, their own sadness, they can often shift to the deeper levels of what's under the sadness and start being able to move from sadness into joy. Or not even joy.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:35:43]:
How about sadness into contentment? Right? And then all of the big stuff that everybody talks about all the time. So meditation, yoga, breath work, there's so many different types of breath work and so many different ways to breathe. A lot of people breathe really shallow, so you're not even engaging in life through their breath. So if you breathe in, you're fully engaging in life, and then when you breathe out, you're releasing all that doesn't support you. So you get to do this all day long. If we're actually breathing in a way that supports the body, a lot of people are really shallow breathers, so they're barely taking life in. So we start to look at all those types of things within the body that they can do at home. I'll recommend books.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:36:31]:
I'll recommend really getting solid with who they are as a person, of what they want. And a lot of people don't even know what they want. They don't know that they're allowed to have desires. They're always putting everybody else first, so they don't even know that they're allowed to look after themselves. That's really the bottom line. So we talk about those things. We talk about how can you show up for yourself today? How can you little bit by little bit, really bring some things into your life that feed your heart and feed your soul and allow you to love yourself just a little bit more?
RON THIESSEN [00:37:06]:
Do you find any difference in whether you're doing it in person or online or on the phone? Is there a difference in the connection that you can make with your client or whatever they experience from the session?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:37:19]:
It depends on the person. I've had great success with people on the phone and on virtual platform. There are people that only want sessions on the phone or only want sessions on Zoom, and there's other people that are like, no, I have to see you in person. I need the face to face connection. I need to feel fully engaged, energetically or physically in terms of they're in my space or in my office to be fully supported. So I meet people where they're at. It's a personal choice. And I've had clients that have seen me in person and then go back to Zoom and then see me in person.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:37:57]:
They know the process. For them, it's good to see you in person, but I get just as much benefit when we do distance.
RON THIESSEN [00:38:05]:
And for you as a practitioner, does it matter? Do you prefer one or the other?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:38:09]:
No, it all works, because really, it's them supporting them. I'm just giving them some tools to do that and empowering them to do that for themselves instead of trying to get the answers from someone else or trying to get medicine from somebody else. Everything you need is already inside you. And so it's empowering people to really look at what they can do to support their own health and wellness.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:38:32]:
Okay, so as I'm listening to you, Angela, I'm hearing some similarities between the work that dad does and the work that you. I mean, in one way, it's vastly different, and in another way, there are some similarities. So, dad, I'm wondering, are you drawing any kind of connections here between what you do in private practice and what she does minus, I guess, the energy work? I think for you, you might use intuition just as much.
RON THIESSEN [00:38:57]:
Yeah, it's something that I've wrestled with, actually, in the psychological field for maybe the last ten years or so, because I know that the mind or the brain is probably our biggest obstacle. It's a wonderful machine and an incredible tool, but when we don't know how to handle it and what to do with it or how to manage it, then it becomes our biggest obstacle. And in many ways, talk therapy and psychological interventions strengthen the capacity of the brain and the mind. So if you're building strength in that part of who you are, and it's all going in the wrong direction, then that doesn't help you any. Like cognitive behavioral therapy, for instance, look at the cognitions and recognize them and switch them for something else, but that's not getting to the heart of the problem. And sometimes cognitive behavioral therapy, which I don't do that much of that, I will, sometimes in different settings. I also try to work with my clients with what they need. But if you have a defense mechanism that you have practiced and you've built it up, and it's one of the ways that you respond to whatever's going awry inside, and then you strengthen that cognitive assertion by just changing its focus and saying, think a different thought.
RON THIESSEN [00:40:19]:
Well, you're really not solving the problem. And I think what you're talking about is you're going much deeper into where the problem originates and how to touch the root of the problem in spite of the fact that the person's mind might be getting in the way. That's why I was asking that question, because I do find that with clients a lot, that their thinking gets in the way. And this is about belief systems, and it's about the way that I was raised and trauma that I've dealt with and things that I don't even recognize that come out of my past, and they have such a profound influence on what I do today. So it's very interesting to hear the intuitive bypass of some of those kinds of things and where, like you said, you made the statement that the body holds everything, and that's absolutely true. All of the answers are there, aren't they?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:41:09]:
There? They absolutely are. If we can get out of our own way, because we can be our own worst enemy, and I speak from my own personal experience, and we can keep shooting ourselves in the foot. I know that's a really OD old expression, but, yeah, when we can get out of our own way.
RON THIESSEN [00:41:29]:
You made the point that for you, the talk therapy was just retriggering the trauma. Right. And that didn't help you at all. I mean, you're just reliving, reliving, reliving. You've got to have answers and solutions. It sounds like you have really found a way of doing. I mean, it sounds like, from what Janelle tells me, there's. There's great results with your clients.
RON THIESSEN [00:41:52]:
I've never experienced anything like what you do. So it's a very interesting topic for me because my whole goal with people is to get them to a place of mental health. Well, sometimes you just can't do that by only dealing with the mental part of the health.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:42:12]:
Right, right. I'm also a practitioner that likes to work with other practitioners because I don't believe one person is the end all to be all for any individual. So I will often refer my clients out to a cranial synchro practitioner or a massage therapist or a counselor or an osteopath, where they have more hands on work on the physical body, or they're doing talk therapy in conjunction with the holistic, because that has a huge benefit for people who gravitate to talk therapy, because then they're looking at it from two angles, both the mental, the active memory piece, and then how to reconnect the physical to the aspects of the mind that they're struggling with. So I have many clients that seem more than just me, which is awesome. And I really encourage people to do that. The road to health, it has many different avenues. Many different avenues. And if you can have a team of people working with you to kind of observe for you different aspects that are happening, then it's magic.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:43:24]:
It really is magic. When I have clients that have more than one practitioner, for sure, and with the help of a doctor as well, definitely people have big health issues. They also have to link in their doctors, too. And we work all aspects of what's going on for them, depending on how sick they are or know the body is not able to express wellness.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:43:45]:
Okay. So, Angela, there is a buzz around town here in Kelowna, anyway, about this new thing that you're doing, which is a book study, right? You've started this thing called a book study. Everybody's raving about it. Can you tell us more what that is like? What do you do, and why is everybody talking about it?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:44:05]:
I read a book a year ago from Wendy de Rosa called the Becoming an empowered empath, and it is so in alignment to the work that I do. And I love this book so much because she took 20 years of my training and condensed it into 17 chapters, and I went, how could this woman put all of this rich, fantastic information into one book that I've been studying really, literally for 20 years? So I thought, wouldn't it be fun to take this amazing book and do a book study with a group of women who are on their healing journey and want more tools to really connect to themselves and start asking big questions about what do I want in a life and how do I want to engage and what works for me, and why am I being held back, and how does what happened when I was a child or in my teens or in my 20s impacting how I'm living my life today? So this book is kind of like a step by step instruction with meditations and journaling and really rich chapters and information to support women, or not just women, anyone, in doing that. And so we've had huge results with the participants in the book study that had the courage to do this with me and connect with each other. And they're very like minded people, and they're getting the richness of everybody's experience and what their journey has been and sharing that with each other and sharing tools that have helped them. It's really been an amazing experience for me and hopefully for the participants that are in the book study as well.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:45:46]:
Oh, yeah, I think so. That would explain the buz. So are there other options for book study in the future? Like, are you going to do other books? Are you going to have other groups come together on different topics?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:45:59]:
Yes. I'm thinking in the spring that I would like to do a book study on Suze Casey's belief for patterning book that's a step by step of how to shift from your inner critic to your inner coach. The book is written beautifully, very well, and Sue's Casey also teaches this modality. You can become certified in it. She's out of Calgary. I think she started the belief for patterning about 20 years ago and was published through Hay House, I believe in the early two thousand and ten s. The book is fantastic and I think it would be a really interesting to take a group of people through that journey. And then perhaps in September I'll do another becoming an empowered empath book study to support people where they're at.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:46:48]:
My goal is that people recognize that with some tools and some practice and some guidance that they can really shift into engaging in life in a way that brings joy and enthusiasm and fun. Because I think most people, especially adults that have been through trauma, take themselves too seriously. They take life too seriously. It gets heavy, it becomes a burden and they forget that they're actually here to have joy, to have fun experiences and that life isn't supposed to be that heavy and that burdened and challenging. Right?
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:47:27]:
Right.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:47:28]:
Yeah.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:47:29]:
So if people wanted to work with you, how do they go about finding you?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:47:33]:
They can connect on my website through alignings serenity.com. They can connect on my Facebook page or my Instagram page. The company name is aligning Serenity.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:47:44]:
We'll include links to those in the show notes, of course. And so you're taking new clients?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:47:48]:
Yeah, I'm taking new clients. As people shift through their stuff, they go on their merry way and enjoy life. They don't need support anymore. So, yeah, I mean, like any practitioner, people come and get what they need and then away they go. So yes, I'm always open to supporting new clients.
RON THIESSEN [00:48:06]:
So that's an interesting question. I'm sure for every client it's different, but how much time does it take? Like how many sessions would you have and how often would the sessions be if you're seeing somebody initially?
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:48:18]:
Again, it depends on how much work they've already done. So I get quite a few clients that have already seen body talkers in other cities and they've moved to Kelowna and they really like the body talk modality and they really like the support that they get from it. So that might be a maintenance that could be once a month or for a little while for other people. They want to buy a package and they want to work on what's coming up for them weekly. So it really depends on the individual, where they're at in their healing journey, what their needs are. And we customize through conversation of what it is that they want, what their goals are, the end result of what they want to see. We'll talk about that. So again, it's very customized, it's very individualized, and there's lots of options in terms of they can have one session or ten sessions, or they can come see me weekly and buy packages for a series of a couple of months and then maybe take a break, or they're going to see another practitioner and then come back.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:49:16]:
So some of my clients have come in and out of my practice for six or seven years, just not all the time. They come in for like a tune up. I call it a tune up, a reboot. A reboot. And then other clients, they want to hit it hard. And some clients I've been working with every week for a year, it just depends on what it is for them that they need.
RON THIESSEN [00:49:40]:
Well, you've been very articulated and given us a lot of great information, but frankly, a lot of your information has just led to more questions for me. Yes, I think that'll probably be the case for our listeners, too. But thank you for being here and being willing to do this with us and to give us this kind of rich information. And as Janelle said, we're going to make sure that people know how to get in touch with you and how to reach you. We really appreciate you giving us the time and talking about something that you obviously know a lot about and is obviously close to your heart.
ANGELA CHAPMAN [00:50:15]:
Well, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to talk about this, because, yeah, I'm very passionate about supporting people to the other side of trauma because there is a beautiful, big life out there and I want people to really enjoy it. So thank you so much for having me.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:50:31]:
I'm currently participating in Angela's belief repatterning book study, and it's pretty incredible so far. I want to repattern some old beliefs around body image and money, and I would argue a book study like this is probably the best way to dive into the material and learn about yourself through the shared experiences and insights of a group. The other book study she talked about, the empowered empath book study, is for people who find themselves deeply affected by the emotions of others. They may be highly sensitive and intuitive. I mean, we all have empathic qualities to some extent, but some of us are so deeply connected to and concerned about the emotions of others that we start to lose sight of our own identity. If you think you're an empath, but you need to establish healthy boundaries and prioritize your well being, this book study is probably a great fit for you. It's backed by popular demand this fall. So if you're interested, head over to Angela's website, alignings Serenity.com, and sign up for her emails.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:51:35]:
If you'd like to book a session with Angela, you can do it right to our website at alignings serenity.com.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:51:43]:
Join us two Thursdays from now on March 21, when dad and I share.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:51:47]:
The first short episode of a four part series on how and why we.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:51:51]:
Started the change evolutionist.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:51:53]:
Throughout the series, we talk about what we were hoping to achieve at the beginning and how that definitely changed over time. We reminisce about what we've learned along the way about ourselves and each other, and we share where we're going next. Are we breaking up the band? Find out in two weeks.
JANELLE THIESSEN [00:52:13]:
Do you have a story about being versus doing in your own life? We want to hear it! Or maybe you have a different perspective on the things we discuss in the podcast. We'd love to have you as a guest! To get started, visit thechangeevolutionist.com/podcastguest.
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