Ep 12: In conversation with Dayana Carmona

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Welcome to the All Is Wellness Podcast with me, Emma Naylor. Join us in open and honest conversations with wellness professionals and industry experts. Welcome back to the All Is Wellness Podcast. This week's guest is Diana Carmona. Diana is a holistic coach, and she helps other coaches add spiritual therapies and. And holistic methods through becoming holistic coaches. Having been a holistic coach herself, she now implements her knowledge and models to help other coaches avoid burnout and overwhelm. She does this through her knowledge of psychology, mental health, yoga, reiki, breath work, and meditation, just to name a few. Her methodology is based on the philosophy of the power of the mind, body, soul, and emotional connection. She. She's originally from Venezuela and she now lives in Bali. Diana, thank you so much for being our guest on this week's podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to just be here and just share whatever it is that comes out of this.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, listen, I would love to hear a little bit more about your story so we can sort of share that with the listeners to start.

Yeah, definitely. So where do I begin? I mean, essentially a little bit of, like, really what got me to where I'm at right now in this moment in my life is really I have a background, and I did my bachelor's degree in psychology. And so from very early on, I was just very interested about humans, like the way that we work, why we work, the way that we work. Human behavior is such an interesting and fascinating subject to me. And alongside with that is just the fascination that got from me as well as from that part is just the perspective that the mind can be such a blessing and a curse at the same time. And that really drove me into wanting to continue to pursue basically my. My education within anything that has to do with mental health and psychology. And so I basically started to do my master's in mental health counseling. However, when I was doing my bachelor's degree in psychology, I. Because I had moved away from my parents and from friends and everything, I was basically living by myself. It was the first time that I had experienced this. I became depressed and anxious and had a lot of anxiety surrounded this because it was like a whole new environment and everything. And I kind of like found yoga as a. As a way of life and as a spiritual practice. I had been practicing yoga before because I used to be a dancer back in Venezuela and everything. I was like, oh, yoga keep me flexible and everything. You know, I think that's pretty much how everybody starts their yoga practice, essentially. She's like, oh, let me just gain my flexibility and whatnot. And so I basically did that. And essentially I found that yoga found actual practice to be so, so invigorating and so soothing for the anxiety that I was experiencing, for the depression that I was experiencing, for being by myself. And I found kind of like a community and sense of belonging as to when I was continuing to doing my degree. And because of that, I was like, wow, this is like the best way of, you know, kind of like combining that mental health aspect that I was learning in, in school, like psychology and human behavior and everything, and pretty much none of it that I was like, work that I was learning in school was really truly applicable to how yoga was for me. And I was like able to correlate the, the way that it's like, oh, it really helped soothe the anxiety and the depression that I was facing. And so I was like, wow, this is just a really great way for me to pretty much bring this into the world, this holistic and more well rounded perspective and way of healing rather than, you know, medicating myself or anything like that and just really looking out for that support, you know.

Yeah.

And so after that, it was just, it just that just kind of like started my journey into, okay, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to just learn a way to really bring psychology, counseling, mental health psychology with yoga. I thought that I was like, obviously like basically innovating it, but turns out that it was something that I was like, already people started doing, which I found it even more interesting. I was like, okay, this is a great opportunity and field for me to continue to develop. And so I graduated, I started my master's degree in mental health counseling. And essentially the program that I was in was really oriented in, or that I'm still in actually is very oriented into prevention and holistic medicine and holistic approaches to healing, to therapy, to transforming. And it focuses a lot on prevention rather than treatment. And I love that a lot, so much. And I was like, okay, this is great. At this moment as well. Like, after a whole year in basically my degree, I went through a really hard breakup. And I was like, the breakup, the whole relationship really took a toll on me and found myself kind of lost. But after the breakup, even though it was very hard, I had yoga with myself and form my own practice and that was very helpful. Plus I started going to therapy and everything and this sense of like, okay, I can finally like do things for myself, you know, Like, I, I felt very Empowered as to move through and really finding the sense of identity for myself that I felt like I had lost in the relationship. And so I signed up and did a yoga teacher training and got my Reiki Level 1 and 2 Practitioner certification, which is essentially energy healing. I had no idea what the heck, what that was, but I was like, yoga teacher training, I'm up for it. Reiki, I don't know what that is, but let's do it right. I basically was open to all of it. And within starting the yoga teacher training and essentially healing from that relationship and just really finding that this sense of identity within myself, empowering me, it was like, okay, I want to start doing this like full time. And everything just started to fall into place. I found essentially how to become a coach, and that's not something that had been on my awareness or on my radar at all. I never even learned what coaching was like in school and kind of like to start up my entrepreneurial journey. I became, I basically enrolled into a training to become an accredited life coach. And I did the training for three months. And that just kind of changed my whole life. And it honestly, my Life did a 180 and every single aspect into just kind of like really rerouting my career and just being like, this is what I'm supposed to do. I'm going to become a holistic coach. And then once I'm done with my master's, I can just continue to mesh that in, but I can now start to help people the way that I want to. And also it allowed me to meet the love of my life as well, which is a really crazy story on its own. And I quit my job and I started traveling the world with the love of my life. And that's, I guess, a little bit of like how I got to here and why I'm here.

I mean, it's, it's so amazing to hear you talk so like passionately and it sounds, it sounds like there was that risk. You know, often we kind of go to this kind of crossroad where, you know, we can either take the such as easy route, which is kind of staying in our jobs and staying kind of unfulfilled, or we can kind of take that leap. And you know, it's, it's often you hear people saying, I took the leap and it was the best thing I did. And unfortunately, I think there's so many people that are scared and have many, so, so much fear around making that change that we kind of just sit comfortably. So obviously you spoke about kind of getting into coaching, how did you end up, you know, deciding that rather than being a coach, because you mentioned that you'd been a coach, why did you decide to kind of train other coaches rather than staying as a coach?

Yeah, well, so I, by being a coach, I was like. My whole ideology was, you know, I. I'm able to implement everything that I have learned within my school years, within education, with other certifications and trainings. And essentially I started to seeing the coaching industry being very out of balance. And it's kind of like it really heavily focuses on the mindset work on just really the way that we think and processing and talk therapy, which is amazing work. I'm not trying to, you know, deny any of the impact that it has because I've been there myself, I've done it myself, you know, but. But it's just. It's really not kind of like seeing a human kind of like, as a whole, if that makes sense, in the sense that it's just. Exactly. It's just kind of like they just target the mind. And for me, I think that it's a complementary of, you know, environment, of the person's environment, the person's situation past, how they were brought up, their culture, their religion, their way of being, their belief system, which has a lot to do with the mind, but also the way that they take care of their own body, what they value in. In respects to themselves, and also that connection that they have within themselves, which is to the soul level. So really bringing in that mind, body, soul and emotional connection. And I find, I found that really a lot of the. A lot of the coaching industry just focuses on the mindset and talk therapy. And a lot of the things that people go through don't necessarily need to be spoken or talked about. Sometimes all there needs to be or one needs to do is to just express it through movement, through crying, through screaming therapy, through just energy work at the same time as well. You don't necessarily need to get to talk it out, to process it in order for it to be released or for it to be, you know, something to be processed, if that makes sense.

No, I think. Absolutely. And I think that you're right. I think the coaching industry, I mean, my Instagram is filled with coaching and, you know, talk therapy, though. That's because those are the kind of people I follow and those are the kind of people that I surround myself with, which is great. But I've often seen a lot of coaches, especially now, as you said, kind of working more towards like the yoga, breath Work, meditation and actually almost embodying it not just in the mind. And you know, something we've always been told is it's really good for mental health to work out. And I think that, you know, we need to have it complementary exactly as you said. You need to be able to. Yes. Do the physical working out as well as the kind of mind working out. And I think that those two marry up so nicely. But I think that, you know, there's such a big focus on therapy, talk therapy, mindset, and I think we've kind of moved away from that. Yeah, I mean with regards to kind of the work you do, you do such a variety of work obviously from as you said, kind of the mindset stuff all the way to kind of meditation. What do you think are the most beneficial kind of combinations and where do you kind of see the best results coming from? World.

Yeah. Oh, love that question. It's actually really good. So the way that I see it is for me it does start with the mind. So that is really the initial crucial part of really starting to create this, the change, the transformation that a person needs to improve to gain a. What are a better understanding of themselves and increase their well being. And so it starts with the mind and that it goes through, you know, nlp, which is neuro linguistic programming or just coaching and talk therapy and just really processing things that are happening in the moment and as well creating and building goals for them to work through. Right. And then after that I think a big component as well is just like, okay, so what are the emotions that come with it? And I think that focusing a lot on the emotions is very crucial because the emotions really that we feel are so important no matter how. And I put this in quotation marks, no matter how negative, and I put that in quotation marks and I highlight that because there's no negative emotions. And the positive emotions, right. And everything that we feel really, if it's not processed well enough, then it gets stored in different parts of the body. And that's why we see, you know, chronic pain or disease is because if you really think about it, it's just, if you've heard about it, it's just energy in motion. And that's, and that's, that's emotion. That's what it is. It's just energy that is trying to work its way through the body to be released, to be expressed. And when we are not able to express that emotion and we repress it or suppress it for whatever reason, then it gets built up in the body. And that's when the beauty comes into play of, you know, creating movement, somatic healing, which is like creating certain movements in order to release whatever stuck energy that is happening within your body, touching parts of your body and just kind of like tapping them in order to allow that energy to move through, to flow. And even through yoga. Because it's yoga, for example, it's movement, but it's apart from the movement itself. It's a combination with breath work. And breathing is such a beautiful and healing tool that it's completely for free. You know, we're constantly breathing all the time, every second of the day, every minute, 24, seven, we're breathing. And it's such a wonderful, wonderful tool to really allow yourself to process anything that is going on within you, to process any emotions and to release whatever is going on and release whatever emotion that was stuck in the body from before that you may have suppressed or not allowed it to be because of whatever reason. Right. And so I think that is a lot of the work that I do and what I teach is really encompassing of kind of like going first through the mind, then through the emotions, then through the soul. Because I think the connection with yourself, allowing yourself to really get connected, to basically come from a place of observing of everything that is going on in your perception, in your mind and your emotions, allowing yourself to be gentle with yourself without judgment. And that allows for more gentleness, more connection with yourself, more connection with a higher power, if you believe in that as well, and more connection with everyone else. And then the body, the body is the one that at the end, it's the vessel that really encompasses everything. And so that allows me to have that framework to utilize the different modalities such as meditation, that is for the mind, yoga, that it's for the body that cacao, for example, for cacao ceremonies, which it allows you to connect more with yourself with spirit and eft tapping, for example, for the emotions. So all of these modalities target different areas of the mind, body, soul, body. And it allows for that inner transformation, inner connection and really create this container where you are able to be whole and, and just really. Yeah. Have that kind of like overall 100 well being because you have it in every single area of your being which is then translate to every single area of your life.

Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. And I think they often say that when you kind of pick up one area of your life, often, often that others kind of suffer. So I think it's very interesting to kind of see you looking at all of the. All of the different factors across the whole body and mind. I guess for a lot of people, you know, you work in this industry. I've been around this for a very, very long time. For anyone who's kind of new to this, it can seem very overwhelming. And especially if people aren't very spiritual or they believe in a higher power or they believe in energy, I think it's a very difficult kind of thing to get into. But once you're into it, everything you look at is to do with this. How would you kind of advise anyone who's very, very early on, you know, looking at this kind of work to kind of start dipping their toe in and becoming more comfortable with it?

I think the importance. The important thing is to acknowledge your level of awareness and within that, become aware of your own biases, your own beliefs that you have, and then, yeah, essentially reflecting upon those, evaluating your own beliefs, evaluating the own. Your own biases that you may have around these areas, because that will allow you to be more open to different things and different experiences and different information that you have in the world. But at the same time, alongside being open and receptive and, you know, being aware of your own. Yeah, of what I said. Of the beliefs and your biases and stereotypes that you have within yourself, because that's really the catalyst of allowing all of these things in is then essentially you don't have to take everything that the world has to offer. It's just being open and just being like, okay, cool. But that's not for me. So a lot of the things that I. This one phrase that I say a lot, it's kind of like, take what you need and leave what you don't. You don't have to necessarily.

I love.

Yeah. Like, you don't have to take everything that the world is sharing with you, all the information, all the education. What fits you better for your own. For your own lifestyle, what fits you better for your own beliefs in order for you to maybe start integrating different areas? Because once you welcome one thing, then everything is just kind of like, starts to fall into place and you start to be a lot more open. But with. With like everything, I really enflow and emphasize and take what you need and leave what you don't. Because what you need at this moment may be very different from what you need 20 years down the line or what you may need tomorrow. And having that, I guess, frame of mind allows you to be open and to be connected to that, to you, essentially, to what you need to what you truly find. That this is going to be beneficial or not. And I think that that's where the work really starts. Because once you start tuning into yourself and you start connecting to your own needs and, and what you feel like it's more aligned or better for you, then you are able to be more open to things. And that connection with some of the. Allows for just connection with everything else, you know?

Yeah, no, exactly. And I think that it's often exactly as you said, we kind of want to take everything or nothing, and sometimes we just need to slowly dip our toe in and kind of start exploring that a little bit more.

Definitely. Yeah. It's just, it's. Yeah, it's that whole concept of like, okay, there's so much information out there nowadays. Something that I've been kind of like dipping my toes in a little bit that my friend is basically teaching now is like the component of digital wellness. Like, you know, in this digital world that we are in, there's so much information and it's normal to feel overwhelmed by it, but the best thing to do is kind of like, take a breather, take a step back, and it's like, is this what I need? And that's where that thought comes to mind in my mind is like, take what you need and leave what you don't. And that allows you to take what you need, what you like to. What would you like to inform yourself more, consume of more of that content and not get overwhelmed by everything else.

Yeah, And I think that's kind of where it comes back to the power of social media. You know, it's such a good tool, but it can also be a really bad tool because is. We often follow people more to compare ourselves. And it's. It's something I've definitely, definitely seen myself doing. And I've kind of been calling, calling myself out on a little bit more. But we often sit there scrolling on Instagram with. Without a purpose. You know, there isn't a purpose to say, I'm gonna scroll until I reach X. We just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling and we kind of take in all this information and content and don't really realize how much we're taking in and how much it's actually sitting in our mind and kind of affecting our decisions that we make. We start saying, well, this person looks like they're doing this, and this person said this, but actually this other person said this, which is right. And it's. It's very hard to kind of put the block.

Yeah, yeah, it really is. And that kind of like takes me back to, you know, that whole component of, you know, staying connected with yourself, with the mind, body and soul, emotional connection. Because once you're able to be connected with yourself, you are able to kind of like put a stop into that and bring that gentleness for yourself and not to judge yourself and also have other things to look forward to that will allow you to, you know, not dive deeper into that and kind of teach you how to be more conscious and be intentional about your time and the way that you are with, with people, with the things that you do with just by being. Because intentionality is key. So when you have this sense of connection and when you are, you know, in this place of, of awareness, you're able to be more conscious, more mindful of the things that you're doing rather than being this autumn, automatic robotic kind of being of just like scrolling and everything. So it's definitely a practice. I mean, it's not like I'm perfect at it. Sometimes I still like, I find myself and I catch myself. But that's the thing, when you catch yourself, it's, it's a matter of not being judged judgmental to yourself. It's just giving you that gentleness. Again, this is. Technology is very new for all of us. Social media is very, very, very new. And so we're still learning how to cope with it, how to deal with it. And so being gentle, but at the same time being intentional with the way that you invest your time into social media, into the things that you do in general. And that is what allows you to be a conscious human being rather than an automatic human being.

Yeah, no, and you actually just touched there briefly on judgment and I kind of want to just touch on this. So you mentioned that you had obviously quit your job and kind of taken this massive leap. Of course, whenever we make changes, I guess there's kind of two sides of judgment. There's the judgment of ourselves, you know, the self doubt, am I going to be good enough? The imposter syndrome, you know, the belief system around what we think we're able to achieve. But then I also guess there is the judgment of others and about what we think others are going to think of us. How did you making that change? How did you kind of quiet down the voices in your own head, but also from others around judgment and fear? And how did you kind of empower yourself to make these changes?

Yeah, that's a, that's a great question. So at the beginning, here's the thing, at the beginning, I didn't judge Myself so much because it was like the decision of a lifetime came to me. What was. I was. What was I scared of was in fear. The judgment of. Was of pretty much my loved ones, especially my parents, because I kind of like, literally just. I was supposed to be in Barcelona for five days, and then I just never returned back home. I returned back home like, three months later. And so the judgment was about more of like, okay, I have to quit my job. I have to put a stop into my degree as well. Because the classes I was taking were physical rather than online. And I was like, okay, I have to do that and I have to do this. What are they going to think? Are they going to think that I'm just going to throw away my education? That was my base, my mentality with that. It was like, oh, they're just gonna think that I'm dropping out. And I'm not dropping out. I'm just really taking life by the horns. And I'm just like, okay, this is the moment for me. And that's really the beginning, what I faced with. But the reality is that I had a lot of support from my friends, from my parents, friends even. And that allowed me to empower myself to just be like, okay, this is the right call. But I'm not gonna lie. Like, there were moments I was like, am I gonna be able to create this? Am I able to make this work? Like, I just quit my job. I don't know what I'm going to do. It's like, I'm just starting my coaching business. I'm still halfway through my training. Am I going to make this work? But it's having that support from my significant other, from the people, from my friends. It was what allowed me to get to continue, essentially. And I had this feeling in my. In my soul, in my gut, the intuition that I was like, you have to do this. You have to do this. You have to move through this. And, you know, by allowing myself to listen to that and pay attention to it was kind of like what kept me moving forward. And I have been doing this for, like, a little bit over a year, and. And it's just been. It's a roller coaster overall, in general. Sometimes I still have to deal with it, and sometimes those thoughts still come in. I'm only human, you know? And what I do when thoughts like that come in is I love to journal, I love to write. It is my processing field, and it allows me to evaluate and reflect and just dump everything out from my mind. And then after that, meditation has Been such a beautiful way for me to find that tranquility within myself, within my mind, and just learn how to be mindful of my own mind. Chatter of like the monkey mind of what we call. And it's just, it's just everywhere. And sometimes it's hard to do, sometimes it's hard and challenging to be able to sit through that and to the meditation, but is continuing to practice it despite.

Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. And I think, I think that's the thing is often, you know, we have those fears and as you said. Exactly, it wasn't your fears, it was fears of what you thought other people were going to have. And that's always a really, really interesting, interesting aspect and an interesting way to look at it. What would be your one really big piece of advice for our listeners? Either something that you've learned along the way or something, something that you wish you did differently?

That's a good, very good question. I feel like I'm being put on the spot right now. The biggest piece of advice, which is something that I have been thinking about a lot this year, is to keep things simple. Simplicity is honestly key for in life we tend to over complicate things quite a lot. Our fears, our beliefs, the way that we perceive the world, the way that, that we think other perceives us when it's only literally a perception of their perception of us, which is a really, a really like, wow, what is going on. But it's keeping things simple because really life is so, so simple. When it really gets down to it, it's all about, in my belief, of course, is how much you loved and how much you were loved. Right. And how much you were able to experience love. And that to me is like the most simplest thing to experience. Obviously some people have limitations with it, but when you keep things simple, life just kind of like happens for you in a very beautiful and effortless way. So that is my biggest piece of advice is just coming back to simplicity because typically when we over complicate things or we complicate things, it's just like they ended up being like, like the answer to our questions, to our problem. End up being like the most simplest thing that was right in front of our nose.

Yeah, no, exactly. Well, listen, thank you so much for being this week's guest on our podcast. I've absolutely loved talking to you. I've loved hearing about your theories, your methods and the way you work. If you want to find out how you.

Sorry, no, I'm like, thank you, thank you. That means a lot. Thank you for having. Having me.

Of course. Well, listen, if you want to find out how you can work with Diana, you can head over to her Instagram, which is Diana Carmona coach, to find out a little bit more about what she's up to. Again, Diana, thank you so much for being our guest on this week's. Thank you. We hope you enjoyed this week's podcast. Please leave us a review. If you did, head over to our Instagram page, alliswellnesspodcast, and let us know what you think. We look forward to welcoming you next week for more open and honest conversations.