From TRAUMA to BLISS: A Bisexual Mystic’s Astonishing Journey of Self-Love and Healing!

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Today's interview with Alessandra Segreto is a great one. Alessandra has gone through some really, really difficult things in her life. And has come up with this incredible framework for helping us to heal this system she calls Sophoria, which is a really integrative way to look at ourselves as both mind, body, and spirit, and come back to our wholeness. So we talk about a lot of things in this episode about different types of trauma, and grief, and how to overcome those. And there's some terms I've never heard before, things like dating yourself, and how we can actually be in love with ourselves and really treat ourselves very well. So stay around to the end. This is a great one. And I hope you like it.

Hi there, welcome to Grief to Growth Podcast. Your host is Brian D Smith, spiritual seeker, bestselling author, grief survivor, and life coach. Brian believes that the worst tragedies of life provide the greatest opportunity for growth. Brian says he was planted, not buried, and he is here to help you grow where you've been planted by the difficulties in life. In each episode, Brian and his guests will share what has helped them to survive and thrive.

It is his sincere hope this episode helps you to Hey everybody, this is Brian D Smith back with another episode of Grief 2 Growth. And I've got with me today Alessandra Segreto. And she's got a very, very interesting life story she wants to tell us about. She's written a book called Sophoria, which we're going to talk about, which is actually a process of living your life. So what I'm going to do, like I always do, is I'll read a short bio, and then I'll bring her in to introduce herself. It's certainly unusual to have an origin story of a book founded on overcoming challenges. And as you listen to Grief 2 Growth, you know, most of my clients have overcome certain challenges. Her story is actually very unique, as all of our stories are. But it's as unique as a solution that she's arrived at for leading a powerful, fulfilling life connected to all aspects, which is what is generally accepted to make the human experience, namely on physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. Throughout her life, she saw the dichotomy of two worlds. One is, one is business, one of business, I should say, as a high-level corporate consultant and successful business owner, and one of a spiritual explorer, a mystic, and a teacher. She's been privileged to touch thousands of lives over the years as a recording artist of guided meditations. She's a public speaker, and she's a course and retreat leader. Along the way, she's created this new system approaching spirituality in a way that some have called a paradigm shift. And that's what she shares with us in her book called Sophoria, which we're going to talk about today. She grew up as an adopted one-quarter Black bisexual female mystic in a household of strict Salvation Army ministers. So that had to be an interesting growing up. She's gone through bankruptcy, she's had brain cancer twice. And these are just a few of the things that have made her who she is today. So today, she's completely healthy, healthy, she's free, and she's living a life of bliss. So with that, I want to welcome Alessandra Segreto to Grief to Growth.

Hello, and thank you, everybody.

Hi, it's great to have you here. I'm really interested to let people get to know you. And hear your story. We all have unique stories. Uh, yours sounds really fascinating in particular. So start wherever you like and tell me about your background.

Okay, so I'll start kind of at the beginning. I was given up for adoption, and I was always told right away that I was adopted, so this was never a surprise for me. But I was given up to adoption to a very— I'm not sure how you'd word it— a kind of like a Wonder Bread family. And I always felt like I never quite fit in. I always felt there was something different about me. And so it was always a little bit of a struggle. And they were also Christian, very heavily Christian. And my mindset since being a very little girl was that they're— I think they're wrong and there might be something out there, but that something will never judge us, is not a creature of hate. It's an existence out there. And so it was a little bit challenging growing up with them. But I mean, that's a story really for another day. I discovered my bisexuality when I was in my teens, which of course caused me to move even farther away from my family nucleus center, just because nothing like that would be accepted. I was raised in a house where you weren't allowed to dance. There was no drinking. There was nothing like that. And I was a child that was constantly in movement. So I would spin and spin and spin around the house just to, I guess, to get the energy flowing. So, and then I got married a little bit too young and ended up getting divorced. And not, I guess, a number of years after that, I was diagnosed with CNS lymphoma, which is brain cancer, and it was inoperable. And that is probably my, one of my first serious, serious experiences of grief for myself. And then a couple of months after that, my brother died. And then about a year after that, I was re-diagnosed again with brain cancer. So I have gone through a total of 15 cycles of chemotherapy in 2 sets.

Wow.

And my last cycle actually just ended this year. Just my last cycle was at the end of January.

Wow, that's, that's quite a bit. So you, you were talking about the grief of the diagnosis, of course, and the grief of your brother. I'm curious about with your family, you know, with them being such strict Salvation Army ministers and Christians, How was your relationship with them? Is that something else you had to go through with grief?

I definitely— I went through grief with them, and it was actually more on one of my brothers. Is, uh, my parents— my father's dead now, my mother is still around, and she's kind of opened up her, her mind as she's aged. I feel like she's softened in her, her views. And so we're still not going to talk about my bisexuality or anything like that, but She's just more, a little bit more accepting. But I have a brother who I have nothing to do with because when I was diagnosed, he actually told me if I don't get down on my knees and pray to Jesus to save me, I'm going to hell. And I just don't, I don't have time for that. And when you're in a healing process, we should be surrounding ourselves with people who want to support us and believe in us and actually are giving us that love instead of that judgment. So.

Yeah, there's, you know, and the thing about grief is the grief, we can grieve the loss of anything. It can be, it can be a relationship, it can be a person, it can, it can be our faith. And I can relate to what you're talking about. I grew up in a fundamentalist family myself, and never really felt comfortable with that judgment and this God that hates most of us, all of his creation, unless you do these certain things. And so there, I, there, for me, there was a grief process of letting go of that, that, that faith of my parents.

Yes. Well, and there's also the grief involved in probably losing the community that you were such a part of. Everything changes. And I think that's, that is a part of our evolution really, as beings, is that as we change, sometimes we have to go through a grieving process because our relationships around us will change and our friendships change. As we evolve, we can't expect everyone to keep up with us. Sometimes some things fall off.

Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's definitely true. And the thing is, I hear you talk about it kind of like, I believe people come in with certain personalities, you know, with certain traits and certain, you know, and I, I just, I kind of smile when you talked about your dancing and your spinning because my daughter Shayna was like that. She was just constantly in motion. And I could imagine being in a family that doesn't encourage dance or free expression, then you've got to, you go through this thing where like, can I really express myself the way that I am?

And you start to layer shame onto yourself and, and this just resistance, like I think that if we don't allow our energy to flow out, it will contract within us. And that causes issues. And that can cause health issues, not always, but it can cost it, cause different things and will definitely cause grief because you're suffocating an aspect of yourself. So if you think of a child, for example, that, you know, maybe you have this child side of yourself that loves to color and loves to paint, and you won't allow it because you feel like it shouldn't be allowed out to do that. You're suffocating that aspect of yourself. And that can cause you that side to be constantly experiencing grief, which could cause a lot of underlying anxieties and issues in people.

Yeah. So you, you, you go, go through this process, you know, of, of becoming who you are, and, uh, then you're diagnosed with, with the cancer. Um, you've gone through the treatments. At what point did you discover solphoria, or was that an evolution over time, or how did that come to you?

So solphoria, as the book was actually initially going to be called Soulgasms, except that was trademarked. But I had been— I have been wanting to write about spiritual living and the way to live a more beautiful and fully aligned for you life since I was a little girl. So this has always been something I've been passionate about, even being raised in a religious household. I wanted to talk about all these— the connection to all the different elements around us. And so when I was diagnosed, it almost It's a tough thing to express, but the cancer in a way woke up aspects of myself that had probably been allowed to go dormant because I had become complacent and comfortable. And so these dreams and these old thoughts came to the forefront and became imperative that I start working on them. So I pulled the pieces of the book that I started back out and I started working on it. And now we've— you can kind of see now we've got We've got Sophia. So, yeah.

So, so it's, as you talked about that, and I, again, I have people on that have overcome things. And I don't know how you feel about soul planning or why these things happen to you. But it's very common, I found, with people that have gone through a medical crisis to say that it woke something up in them. And you mentioned that. So what is it? What is it about that crisis that you think awakened that aspect of yourself?

I think it was a reminder that we have a limited time on this planet in this form. Because even as spiritualist people, they're always like, well, there's the next life, and there's the next life. But in reality, this consciousness is only this one lifetime. And when we pass on, that will dissolve, and we'll form ourselves and renew and maybe come back if that's what you believe. That's what I believe. So, you know, it just, it stimulated this this desire and this ache, this crave to share aspects of myself that I've wanted to share with the world ever since I was a little girl. I've wanted to share these different components. And so it woke that up and it just retriggered the drive. And it also gave me something to focus on because when you're dealing with a diagnosis, you're dealing with grief, you're dealing with the loss of your freedom, your sense of security, because it's not like there's a war going on around you. You feel like you're constantly at war to protect your body and to protect, for me, my brain, which is obviously a very important part for me. So it, you know, you're also dealing with that grief. And so one of the things I learned was to change my space when it would come up and go and do something that would make me feel better. And so the writing actually helped with that as well. So woke up the love of writing and the passion for what I wanted to do and just trying to get it out there and realizing there is a limited time on this planet at this point in time.

So yes, and I know that you, um, you, you operate like a lot of us in two different worlds. You're a high-level corporate consultant, um, and a business owner yourself. Uh, so how would— how did that play into, or how did that change during the, the bout with the cancer?

Well, I'm very lucky because I own my own business. I own a marketing consulting firm with my husband. And so when I had to go in for chemo. I was in the hospital every 2 weeks with chemo. They had an in-hospital treatment. So I'd have to go in and he would start, he stepped up and he took care of the business. He took care of the clients. And I have now, I still can't let it go 'cause I do love the business side. So I can't just push it away 'cause it's a part of me, it is. And so I've learned to, or I am learning to balance the two and to try to dedicate, like, one of the things I'm trying to do moving forward is dedicate maybe one day a week to creating content for Sylphoria, maybe another day a week just to writing. Cause I wanna, I wanna keep writing and keep putting more books out there. And then I will give myself the freedom of the other days to be able to work on, on Exhale, which is our marketing company. So, yeah.

Well, I think the thing is, as we're, we're complex beings, right? We're not, we're not one thing or the other. And a lot of times we, we, pigeonhole ourselves into one thing. And we think, I can't, I can't do this other thing in it. And maybe we even have a passion that we say, well, because I'm doing this corporate work, or my 9 to 5, as we might call it, that I can't pursue my passion.

Or I think sometimes we get caught in the thing that we think we're so good at this, this must be what we're meant to do. Just because you're great at something doesn't mean that's your whole life purpose to do that one thing.

So Yeah, I think that's really important too. It's like, what, what really lights us up? And there's, there's, you're right, there can be something that we're good at. But it may not be the thing that lights us up.

It's true. It's true. That's a good question. What lights you up?

Yeah. So tell me about what it, what is Soulphoria?

Okay, so Soulphoria is, it's a guidebook that will take you from right from the very beginning of your journey all the way through different 6, I take them through 6 different initiation points. Into the point of reaching a sophoric state. A sophoric state for me is where your physical body and your heart center and your mental self and your spiritual self are all in alignment on your dreams and your goals, and you're achieving them. And that sophoric state, that's what I was going to— I was going to call it soulgasmic because it would be like a soul orgasm through the soul, this euphoria through the soul, experiencing euphoria through the soul. So I'll just walk you through the different parts. Yeah. We start off with the flirtation of the cosmos. So the flirtation of the cosmos is where I introduce people to the fact that you've never really been alone, even though you think you're alone. You have your ancestors, your loved ones that have passed on. They're still around you. And there's different ways that we can work with them. There's also all the different elements that we can work with. So I talk about fire, water, air, and earth, and how we can connect them with those elements and learn to flirt with them. And how all along there have been these helpful energies that have been surrounding you that maybe you haven't been hearing because you haven't been open to the flirtation of them. So we learned to flirt back with them and exchange with them. So that's the flirtation of the cosmos. And each part of the book has a teaching and exercises because I really wanted it to be a practical approach. That's why it's called A Provocative and Practical Approach.

Mm-hmm.

The next part of the book is called Embodying the Soul. And this is where we actually learn to live through the body, allow the soul to experience the world through the body, because too often we think, you know, there's the body and the soul, but the soul is here to experience. It comes for this tactile experience, to be able to feel and touch and taste different things. And so in embodying the soul, we learn to build a better relationship with our physical form, to make it healthier, more balanced, and to also be able to move with it and allow it to free itself. From embodying the soul, we move to the spiritual striptease. And the spiritual striptease is where we start to recognize the different layers that we have put on ourselves. So such as religious upbringings, quite often there's old toxic beliefs that are hidden back there. Or there might be masks that we're wearing because we think it's safer to present ourselves this way versus this way. So the spiritual striptease allows you or enables the reader to be able to identify those different aspects of themselves and learn to remove them, to strip them off. And then from there, we go into the sublimely naked soul. And the sublimely naked soul. This is one of my favorite chapters, simply because it's so often forgotten that once we've done all this previous work, we learn to remove the things, we learn to, to re-evolve ourselves. But no one's really talking about how do we actually learn to be in that new self. So this is where I'm helping people to actually understand, once you reach the sublimely naked soul state, this is how you can become confident in putting yourselves out there in that. Doesn't mean actually running down the street naked, it just means going out there in your authentic true self and being proud of it and realizing that friendships may come and go, as we were saying, simply because this is the new you and people might not recognize you anymore, or it might actually threaten them that they have not been able to keep up with their own changes, but they'll get there. So, and then from there, we move to the Mistress of Mysticism. This is where I talk about the three aspects of the feminine. So I talk about being a child, a teen, and a woman, and it can also relate to men. Because you can also look at it being a child, a teen, and a man. Um, the idea in this part of the book is that different traumas that we have experienced in our lives might be still locked into those aspects of ourselves. So there might be a child side that has issues, and you don't always know which side. So I give them exercises where they can actually pull on— they can ask a question, which one of you is still holding on to this issue? And that person, that side, will step forward, and then we can work them through that. Or for example, let's say you're going into, um, you want to actually make use of one of your other sides. So you're going into, let's say, a business meeting and you need to do a negotiation and you need to be really kind of cocky and a little bit arrogant. Well, you might pull on your teen side. So you might actually say, have your teen side come forward and allow that to work through you to bring that little bit of energy that you might not have anymore. So that's the becoming the Mistress of Mysticism. We also talk about ritual and intuition in that, in that area. And the last chapter is Sephoria.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper, thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it: the community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing— listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there. Wow. Wow. That's a lot. And that's really— I love everything you said in there. There's so much to kind of unpack. You know, the first thing is about like being alone. And I think that's a very common feeling, especially in our culture and our society today, where people feel like, you know, it's just me, it's me against the world. And we don't realize we have all this help. So I think that's really, really important. And the part you talked about, like embodying ourselves ourselves also, because I, you know, we tend to go from one extreme to the other. So a lot of times our Western culture says we are our bodies, we are our brains, and that's all we are. But then we get into the spiritual aspect of ourselves and we say, well, now, now I'm just a spirit and this body's just, you know, it doesn't matter. Um, yeah, so go ahead. Yeah, speak to that.

It's, it's It's just, it's, I just have to say, it's, I'm just going to say blatantly, it's untrue. Because the reality is, your soul, your spirit, whatever you want to call it, your essential being, your I of I, has chosen a physical form, and it's chosen your form, just like my choice, my form, for its specific attributes, for its life experience it was going to have, for all of the different components, whether I'm driving and wearing a Ferrari, or whether I'm, you know, got an old Toyota, it doesn't matter. It's still my vehicle in this life. And we have to love it. And we have to care for it. And we have to respect the fact that this is our chosen vehicle, which means I think if you believe that your soul self knows more than your mind, then it's better to accept the choices it's made for you and embrace them and see how you can make the most from those choices, how you can actually turn it into something beautiful.

Yeah, I think that's so important. It's a concept that keeps coming up for me personally. And I think this is kind of the way the universe speaks to us. I was just interviewing someone yesterday and said pretty much the exact same thing. We tend to almost fight our bodies. And we look at our body, we say, this is— we, a lot of us, like, this is, this is not the body I would have chosen. Instead of saying, mind, yeah, yeah. Instead of saying, this is the perfect vehicle for me. I think that's such an empowering thing to embrace and say, this was custom made just for my soul.

Yeah. And I tell people, you are magic manifest. You are where your soul, the energy of your soul and the energy of creation combined with the earth, and it made you. And you are the magic manifest. You're the masterpiece of your soul.

Yeah, I think that's, that's such a beautiful sentiment that I hope a lot of people can embrace. Because, again, I think so many of us, we fight our bodies, you know, we're like, this is, this is not the body that I want. And we have these images of something very different. So I think that's really important and much needed. Chapter or aspect of this, this process that you're leading people through. And I love the fact that, you know, you— it's, it's practical, because you're giving people exercises, right? So, yes, again, we tend to get up all in our heads, and we'll read something. And what I've discovered is just reading something doesn't change us, you know, just, just understanding something intellectually doesn't, doesn't work to make lasting changes.

And that's why I— it was really important for me to make sure there were exercises built into each part of the book. And what I'm actually doing now is I'm starting to build up a library of online exercises that people who've purchased the book will be able to come to the website to be able to access some, some audio or video versions of some of the exercises, or at least to walk you through them, because some of them are a little bit more, let's say, trance meditative state. So I'll be reading them out, or some of them might— you might actually want someone kind of going, okay, now do this here and do that there, and kind of guiding you through it or watching someone do it.

So yeah, so that's something you're working on, uh, creating now?

Yes, yes.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, and I'm also hoping to create for each part of the book— I feel like each part of the book is blossoming, like there's so many more layers I can put in there. So I actually want to create courses for each part of the book that will actually take— if you've read the book and you've enjoyed it and you wanted to go further, let's say into the flirtation of the cosmos. There'll be a course for that.

Yeah, well, you could go— you could probably write a book on each one of these 6 different aspects of the book. There's, there's so much there to unpack. And again, I think it's so, it's so needed, you know, for people to really understand, you know, who we are. One of the things for people that have listened to my program, I say it, I say it over and over again, I think the biggest issue that we have in this world is we've forgotten who we are. That we think we are just our bodies. And again, sometimes people, they'll get very spiritual and say, well, now I'm just my soul. And I love what you said, we're kind of this beautiful union of the two, and we need to respect both while we're, while we're incarnated.

And we're in harmony. That's the thing, we need to be in harmony with ourselves and with the world around us and with the people we're exchanging time with and energy with. That's really the harmony is what allows things to move smoothly and allows us to enjoy life differently.

Yeah, absolutely. So, um, one of the things I asked, you know, your publicist sent me some, some talking points, and, um, one of the talking points is pretty, um, provocative. It's masturbation as a meditative practice. I've never heard that before. So explain what to me what that means.

Okay, so So let me take a moment here and think of how the best way to explain this. Sure. First of all, let's take a step back. I think that too often in the spiritual realm, people are looking at sexuality as a certain amount of points we have in an energy system. A lot of sexual practices will teach you that if you spend too much of your sexual energy elsewhere, you will not have it for creativity. Hmm. So this was one of the first spiritual cows I tried to tip in the book, was the fact that that's not true. If you believe that energy is everywhere, and it's eternal, and it's infinite, then why are we not able to always constantly pull in more energy? So the thought with the meditation is masturbation is the fact that you can really tap into the love of your physical form and the love of your body. And just that whole experience of your soul, you can feel your soul as you're masturbating, you can actually Again, sexuality is a part of our human experience, right? And if that's a part of a human experience, then why not give yourself that pleasure and allow you to experience your soul self fully in that moment? Because that's one of the things that you can do as well. On the flip side of that, you can also use it for, for manifestation. So if you have a goal, that the energy that someone gives off when they are having an orgasm is so powerful, it's so intense. And if you can direct that into a thought or into a specific vision, you can actually add more energy into that manifestation. So there's, there's two really great things for it: the connection to yourself, the fact that the masturbation can allow you to love yourself differently and allow your soul self to love you and you to love your soul self through the body and then just connect differently in it. And that can actually open you up to— once you've gone through that orgasm point and you're lying there, your whole system is open on a different level to receive different types of information. So there's a lot of joy in there and it feels good.

Yeah, that's something I've never heard before. And I guess that's one of the spiritual cows that you're tipping, because again, a lot of our traditions tell us that, that self-pleasure is wrong.

Um, but why is it wrong?

Yeah, that's a good question. Why is it— why do you think people tell us it's wrong?

I think because often it's based on old religions, religions were trying to control the masses. Religions don't want us to go out and experience and find freedom and have a good time. They want us to live in very strict environments, in, in very strict worlds, and anything they can do to control, including our sexuality, which is a huge aspect of it, they will. So I think that's why a lot of people think that it may be wrong. We're taught that.

So yeah, well, you're right, and it's, it's pretty much on every level, right? They try to control what we eat, what we drink, what we think. And, you know, as you said, the way you were raised, you know, no dancing. I was raised in a Pentecostal. My parents were a little bit, um, freer than the people that I went to church with, but they were— there was no dancing, no drinking, no smoking. Yeah, women couldn't wear pants. I mean, it was just like on just down the line, all the things that we weren't allowed to do.

Wow.

So, and a lot of us are still living with that. And even what you said earlier about like, even once we think we're out of it, that programming is still, still there on some level.

Oh, yes. Yeah. I even— I've done so much work on myself. Something I want to put together is called Religious Rehab, because I feel like people almost need a program to to rehab themselves out of it and to realize it's okay. I mean, sometimes it's the feeling of shame or regret can creep up on you. But, you know, we learn to deal through it.

Yeah, I think that's very much needed. And, you know, I deal with a lot of people that have gone through that religious abuse, and then again, that kind of the pendulum swing, they'll go to the other way and say, well, since that's not true, then we must just be biological robots in a meaningless universe.

Yeah, please. Or they swing completely into the spiritual realm and suddenly everything is retranslated from religion to spirituality. So we can look at karma, for example. Now I'm not going to get into a debate around karma. It's not my area of specialty. But however, if we look at the correlation between karma and sin, it's pretty similar. You do something wrong, you're going to hell. If you do something wrong, you're going to end up in a hell in your next life, or hellish things are going to happen to you. It's this good and bad, reward and punishment, reward and punishment. And there's so many similarities. And that's one of the things I'm trying to do with Sulfuria is to make people realize we don't have to adopt one or the other. We can find a middle, a middle ground that actually feeds us, allows us to tap in and be spiritual and realize that there are all different kinds of realms around us. And there's all different kinds of beauty and magic in the world. But that does not mean there's a God. It does not have to mean that there's a hell. Like there's different ways of living.

So yeah, well, I think you made a very astute observation about karma and sin, because when I started hearing about karma— and karma is misunderstood by a lot of people, and there's a lot of— whenever I discuss karma with someone, I'll ask them to define it, because it's one of those things we all have different, different beliefs in. But I think the most common understanding of karma, and the one I think is a misunderstanding, is that idea: I do something wrong, I get punished. The only difference between that and Christianity is at least the punishment is proportionate. Because in Christianity, it's insane. I steal a piece of candy and I get tortured forever. That makes no sense at all. It makes a little bit more sense. But yeah, people, you know, and as we have these discussions, like, people always want to bring up Hitler. It's like, okay, well, what about Hitler? Certainly Hitler has to suffer, you know, we— so there is that we're still holding on to that.

How do we know? And I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw something that might be a little bit controversial out there. But how do we know that some people don't come to this existence to be the bad person.

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For a lifetime, if we believe that thing, if I don't know if you believe in destiny, I'm still kind of going back and forth between it. I like it and I don't, and you know, I'll get there one day. But if you believe in that, if you believe that people come here with a plan, maybe some people are are meant to be— I'm not saying Hitler, but to— meant to bring darkness into the world, to bring us to, to challenge us, or to give us the challenges that our souls require, because our souls don't come down here just to have a great time. They come here to grow and evolve and actually to be challenged. So we need someone to challenge us.

I think it's certainly a valid thought. I, I, I'm— hold everything loosely. And so, and we want to go to extremes, right? So we want it, we always want to go to the Hitler,. And we say, well, certainly that can't be planned. But we do know that there is some amount of pain that's built into this experience. We do know that we do come here, not just to have a good time, we do come here to have something to push back against. And I use analogies for people, because it's the only way we can really understand it, because it's too big for our little brains. You can't have a movie, you can't have a good story without an antagonist, you have to have a bad guy. And when we watch the movie, The worse the bad guy is, the better the hero performs, right? You need to have that tension. So when people say, well, you know, did Hitler— was that planned? I don't know. Maybe on some level it was. It doesn't mean the pain here isn't very real.

It's true.

Yeah.

So it doesn't mean that knowing or not knowing is going to make a difference as well to the pain, really. That's the thing.

And it's, and it's the same thing with, with destiny. I, you know, do we have free will? Or is everything predetermined? And I always, my tried answer is yes. I think it's actually both.

I do too. I think that we have destined points along our path. And we have free will about how we're going to get to certain destined points along the path.

So yeah, and I, so I think, you know, what you brought up is really important here, because we This is why I tell people, just keep exploring. Don't, don't lock into any one answer. You know, I'll bring up reincarnation. I post near-death videos all the time. And somebody just yesterday, well, I'm a Christian, and I believe in the Bible. And the Bible says that there is no reincarnation, therefore there can be no reincarnation. And I'm like, well, I question whether the Bible really says that. So I gave him a couple verses and said, go take a look at these verses. And even if it does, you know, where did the Bible come from? We should always keep exploring. We should always, you know, question everything. Question everything. Absolutely.

Yeah.

I love the fact that you're giving, again, people permission and a way to break these, these paradigms, these bonds that, that our society's put in, our families put on us. And you talked about, you know, I think this, like, you, you being adopted into the family you were adopted into, that gave you something to push back against.

It definitely did. Yes, it definitely did. Yeah, it was, uh, I had a good— I mean, my parents were always very loving, very kind, but I always just, I always just felt like I was the odd one out, like I was out of place. And I mean, my— none of my— I had 3 older brothers and none of them were adopted. So there were, there were 3 older brothers that were natural children, and then there was me.

So Yeah, but it's made you into the person that you are today and, and such an inspiration for other people.

All my challenges have. That's why I always say I try not to have regrets, because if I'm happy with where I am right now in this moment— and I am happy with where I am right now in this moment— then what's the point of wasting any time on regrets?

Well, and it's also, I think it's a, it's an important lesson that we have to learn You talked about, you know, sometimes we have to let people go. And, and there are— and there— what people are well-meaning, but when we try to change people around us, no matter whether it's a good change or a bad change, just say that you, you, your buddies that you drank with all the time, you say, I'm going to give up alcohol, you know, that becomes an issue. Or when people start to lose weight, that everybody wants to keep you the way that you were.

It's safe. People don't like change. It changed is scary for most people. It threatens them. Yeah. And I think it's often because it's a reflection back that maybe they want to make change and maybe they're not feeling courageous enough to make the change.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, I think that's a really great point. People want to, they want to, uh, it makes them feel uncomfortable. It's like, okay, so Alessandra, she's doing this now. This is not the person that we knew.

Yes. And I have had, I've had that happen with, with different friends. Um, Actually, when I initially swapped, I used to own a wellness center in downtown Vancouver. And so I was very much into— it was all internal wellness and it was all like intuition and energy healing and meditation and yoga. And, um, so when I met a lot of my friends, I was very much into that realm. When I switched into more into the business realm, because there was a point in time where it just was better for me to go much more into the business, which is where I started my company with my husband. We lost friends. They were disappointed. They thought, oh, you've given up on your path. And, you know, all of this is just this— it's— and yet I was happier and doing better. And that's the crazy thing is that just because you're happier and you're doing better, it doesn't mean that everyone's going to be able to embrace that. And it's important to be able to let that go, grieve it and let it go.

Yeah. And I think for me anyway, it's important not to judge those people because they're doing— because they just don't— they don't know any better.

Yes. Pointless to judge anyone really, because we don't know what people are going through behind the scenes. We don't know what's going on in their head. They might look happy and healthy, and they could have a lot of pain or a lot of different situations they're dealing with.

So yeah, absolutely. I think, I think, uh, well, we all, we all do. We all have our, our wounds and our injuries and stuff. And that's one of the really important things I like to do on, on this program is to make people not feel so alone in, in, in their— in our wounds, you know.

And it.

And I applaud people that are brave enough like yourself to come out and say, you know, this is what I've gone through, because other people can say, wow, I thought I was the only one that's gone through stuff like that. Because we all— I think we do get back to kind of your first point that we all feel alone, we all feel abandoned in this world at some point.

It's true. It's true. But we're not. We don't have to be. We can take it. There's a difference between feeling lonely and alone. So, so you can be alone without having to be lonely. It's that loneliness, that ache. And when you're having that ache, it's, you know, part of my book, there's a whole section about self, having a self-love affair, because I feel like that's a really important thing that people are missing as well. How do you have a self-love affair? And so I will actually walk, walk them through a whole part of the book that talks about loving yourself, learning to date yourself. Spending the time. How do you actually build that relationship? What kind of questions, what kind of conversations can you have with yourself? Because when you actually spend time with you, you lose that sense of loneliness. It doesn't mean you never wanna be around other people. It means that you don't have to be around other people all the time, that you lose that fear of missing out.

Yeah. Let's talk about dating yourself more. What is, what does that mean to you?

So dating yourself more, it means to me actually setting yourself time in the day to go and do something for yourself. So I used to take, when I was single, I would take myself for movies. I would take myself for dinner and I would get dressed up and I would go and I would sit at the— in the dining room and have a dinner. And people might look at me weird and I wouldn't care. Then I'd take myself to a movie. It's spending time with yourself doing things that you want to do with you. And then I would journal. I would actually have a conversation with myself because it's really important. I don't think we spend enough time hearing ourselves. Like, hey Alessandra, what's going on with you this morning? How are you feeling today? Sometimes I'll stop in the day and I'll hug myself and I'll just say, okay, how are you doing? Because we need to be able to check in like that. That's part of the self-love. That's part of the dating yourself. You can leave yourself love notes. There's all different kinds, anything you would do for a partner. Like when you wake up in the morning, wake up and roll over and say to yourself, hey, good morning, beautiful. Why not? That's the thing.

I, I think that's fantastic. And it's actually something that I've just started doing recently. Um, and I call it dating myself, but saying I love you to myself. You know, because we— again, I think our religious programming says we're evil, we're bad. You know, our society always wants to tell us all the things that we're not good at. And we really focus on all that stuff. And we don't focus enough on how magnificent we are, how magnificent we all are.

Yes, exactly. How radiant everyone can be.

Right. And giving ourselves permission and giving ourselves credit for where we are, I think, is also really important. We so often look at where we need to be and where we need to go and how far, instead of looking at like how far we've come. And again, I look at someone like yourself and I just like, I'm in admiration of everybody that comes on my program. So I look at you and I'm like, look at, you know, look at what she's become. Look at who she is. And a lot of us don't see that in ourselves.

It's a good point though, because even I sometimes have a hard time. I can be so driven that I'll drive past the celeb— the point where I should be celebrating the last thing I was trying to manifest and actually enjoying it. And I think it's a good point that we all need to stop and just say, if I did, I do my best today. Yes, then that's enough. That's really enough. And I think sometimes ending your day with that, did I do my best today? Yes. Okay, well, that's enough. And when you actually achieve something, stop and take a moment to celebrate, whatever that means. If you want to have a cupcake, if you want to go for a run, if you want to have a glass of wine— I'm not sure what people would want to do, but whatever you want to do, take that and, and just celebrate it, because that allows you to absorb that good feeling, and that will drive you out further and farther ahead the next time because you're more motivated.

Yeah, well, we can be motivated, uh, we can motivate ourselves in two ways. One is we can drive ourselves and, and say bad things to ourselves and always look for the thing, or we're gonna be motivated by admiring what we've already got, you know, and being grateful we got and what we've accomplished. And sometimes it takes that. And I love making that a practice. You know, if I do something during the day that I've been putting off— I'm an avoider. There's certain things I just don't like to do. But if I do that thing that I've been avoiding, I reward myself. So it might be having a bourbon, or it might be having a piece of chocolate, or it might be knocking off early for the day. It's like, I did that thing today, so I'm going to take an hour off. Whatever it is, just something to, to reinforce, you know, that positivity in yourself.

And I think we all need that. I mean, this is why things like social media is so popular, is the likes. You know, we have to be able to give that to ourselves instead of waiting for other people to give it to us.

I love that. I love that what you just said, because, uh, we do. We, you know, it's funny, kind of like, why do I like the likes so much? You know, And now on Facebook, it's like, well, did I get a like or did I get a heart? I know, you know, because they just, they just liked it. They didn't give me a heart. Yeah, because we do, we all crave that. And, and we forget that we can do that for ourselves. We don't have to get that from somebody else.

It's true, it's true. Yeah, it's so important that that's just such an important part of self-care.

Yeah. And we talked about, I think before we started recording, you and I were talking a little bit, and One of the things that I really try to drive home with people is self-care. I think that that is so, so important and so needed in our society. And that's why when your book came across my desk, I was like, I really want to get her on because most of my listeners are women. And, you know, it's interesting, men, we don't do self-care very well, because we just, we just power through everything. But women tend to look at self-care as like, well, that's me being selfish. And I don't really deserve that. And especially if you're a mother or a wife, you know, it's like, well, I've got to take care of them first before I take care of myself, where it's actually the opposite.

It's true. If you don't take care of yourself, then you won't have the energy to be able to take care of anyone else. And plus, something else I'm just going to give everyone a tip about: try to look at yourself like a child. How would you treat a child if you're looking at your body or anything? How would you treat a child? Would you tell your child, no, you got to keep going, you got to keep doing this, no, you better do that. You would probably tell the child at some point, stop, have a nap, have a cookie, just take a rest, do something. And when we start to look at the fact that we have these aspects within ourselves, like that child side, we'll start to treat ourselves a little bit differently because we're no longer seeing ourselves as just the mother or the wife or the, the father that has to get everything done. Instead, we actually start to realize there are different aspects of ourselves that require nurturing and we're the best ones to give it to ourselves.

Yeah, that goes back to what you said earlier about the child and the teenager and the woman or the child, teenager and the man. And we tend to think, okay, well, now I'm just the man. Or not. But we're not, we still have that child with us, you know, and we need to, we need to honor that child. And we all want to, we all have that inner child. And we like to play, we like to, you know, have fun. And we've suppressed that.

It's true. It's very true. And it's so important to be able to connect in with that. And just even, um, I'm looking around to see if I have it. I have a coloring book that when my inner child wants to come out, I'll grab a coloring book and I'll grab my crayons and we'll just color. And it's sometimes it's just something as simple as that. It's just asking, spend a little bit of time. It doesn't have to be every day to begin, but start to spend a little bit of time where you ask your child side, what would you like to do today? What would you like to— how would you like to spend the morning? Or how would you like to spend the next hour? And, and just do it. Be silly, be goofy, have fun, do face painting, get dressed up. It doesn't matter. Just allow it because you will laugh, and you will laugh in a way that you probably haven't laughed in a very long time. And that is so incredibly healing and empowering.

Yeah, I can't remember who it was. I always like to have credit when I reference something, but I remember there was a guy that wrote a book that talked about that. It's like you know, dance or make silly faces or just do something really silly, you know, and when, when you do it, it really frees something up inside of you, you, it really triggers something that I think people don't really understand. It's still there, being able to just do that. And I, what I, and I love because I have, I have dogs. And when I, when I was reading this guy's book, I was thinking about this. It's like some of the best times when I'm just messing around with my dog. When I'm just playing with my dog, talking to my dog like a baby, you know, running around the dog, chasing it, whatever. When we just let ourselves go and we're not really self-conscious, it's pure.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah.

So Alessandra, um, where can people find out more about you? Tell me more. Where can I get the book? Uh, stuff like that.

So if they go to Soulphoria— so soul and phoria, S-O-U-L phoria.ca. They'll find information about myself and they'll find information about how to purchase the book. Otherwise, you can just Google it and you'll end up— you'll see it's on Chapters, it's on Barnes Noble, it's on Amazon. It's pretty easy to find out there. Otherwise, stop by the site, sign up for any updates, because I would love to stay in touch with everyone. And I'm also going to be putting out some courses, and I hope that, you know, some of you might be interested.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to seeing how it evolves. It sounds like you've got some great ideas for, for courses. So I'd encourage people to go to the website and sign up for, for your newsletter so that they can be kept informed as more comes out. And certainly get the book and start taking care of yourself.

Yes, exactly. Let's all just start a self-love affair.

Yeah, I love that. So any, any final messages?

No, I think that was it. Let's all have a self-love affair.

Alessandra, it was great meeting you today. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Great. Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.

Thanks for listening to Grief to Growth. Brian hopes that you find this episode helpful and will come back for future episodes. Brian's bestselling book, Grief to Growth: Planted, Not Buried, is a great resource for anyone who is coping with grief. Or know someone who is. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support it, there are 3 things you can do to help. The first is to share the podcast with someone that you think it will help. The second is to go to iTunes, rate and review the episode. The third way you can support the podcast is by becoming a patron. Head over to www.patreon.com/grieftogrowth that's patreon.com/grief, the number 2, growth, and sign up to make a small monthly donation. Patrons get access to exclusive bonus content and knowledge that you are helping to spread the message of grief to growth. For more about Brian and grief to growth, visit www.grieftogrowth.com.

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