Healing Anxiety, CFS, Mold Toxicity & Other Auto-immune Symptoms with Sonya Mujeeb

00:00:00 Sonya: And so I feel like I did a lot of work in that, but it was a self-directed aspect where it was like, I got to do this myself. I remember I called the naturopath that I worked with and I was like, hang up. No, you got this. You have it within you to do it.

00:00:24 Chazmith: Hi, welcome to Our Power Is Within Podcast. I'm your host Chazmith, and my mission for this podcast is to inspire you to take your power back and to realize that you are the healer that you've been looking for all along. I believe that we are all capable of healing in mind, in body, and in soul. If you're new to the podcast, I just wanted to say welcome, and if you've been tuned in for a while now and you find value in this podcast, please consider supporting future episodes. A few ways that you can do this are by leaving a five-star review on Apple so that new potential listeners will be able to find this podcast. You could also leave a small monetary donation by clicking the link Support This Podcast in the show notes and or you could share your favorite episode on social media and tag me @ourpoweriswithin. Thanks so much for your continued support. I love you all. 

00:01:20 Chazmith: Our guest today is Sonya Mujeeb, and Sonya is here to share her story of how she went from a life of suffering to symptom-free. She shares what worked for her, all the many insights that she gained along the way, and we talk all things healing, nervous system regulation, brain retraining, and more. I absolutely adored chatting with Sonya, and I have no doubts that you will enjoy this conversation too. Please enjoy. Sonya, thank you so much for being here with me today to share your story.

00:01:57 Sonya: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.

00:02:00 Chazmith: Yay! Have you been on a podcast before?

00:02:02 Sonya: I have, and I also am a host of a podcast, so yeah.

00:02:07 Chazmith: Ooh, okay.

00:02:08 Sonya: What's your podcast? Speak Your Truth with Sonya Mujeeb, and I have about 35 episodes or so, but after my perfect storm and change of my identity, I let that go for a little while.

00:02:22 Chazmith: Okay, have you resumed it or still kind of paused?

00:02:25 Sonya: Not yet. It's still on pause. And because everything shifted so drastically, I wanted to see like, where do I want to shift my focus to because it's always about speaking your truth, health, spirituality, and then everything turned into neuroscience and neuroplasticity and all this stuff. So I think it's gonna take on a different form.

00:02:47 Chazmith: Well, but it's funny though, is because all of that stuff, neuroplasticity, neuroscience, doing programs with brain retraining, polyvagal therapy, any kind of all healing, doesn't that all lead back to our truth? 

00:03:00 Sonya: Absolutely. 100%. 

00:03:02 Chazmith: Yeah. For most of us, if we didn't know what that was or weren't aware of it, and then we rediscover it and create it, so.

00:03:09 Sonya: Oh, absolutely. So many paths to self-discovery.

00:03:13 Chazmith: Yeah, I think that's ultimately what this is all about, in my opinion. Speaking of self-discovery, I would like to just start out with you simply and briefly explaining or sharing with us what you've actually been recovering from or recovered from on your journey.

00:03:32 Sonya: Thank you. So again, I want to preface this by saying we're all individual, we're all unique, and this is just my story and journey and hopefully you guys can benefit from it and take what you will. Going back, I grew up in a very dysfunctional limbic childhood home. Fear-based, I would say. And I'm also a twin, so that didn't help. If you look at psychology of child development, my mom was absolutely afraid. So I had a lot of those stress hormones and stress chemicals from the get-go. So far on my journey of 10 years of chronic illness, being diagnosed with an autoimmune and having a dysregulated nervous system, but it was a functioning dysregulation. So I was able to do everything, really do a lot, but there were still a lot of things holding me back. 

00:04:23 Sonya: I would say that I have recovered after my perfect storm, 2020. I have totally recovered from chronic anxiety, chronic fatigue, MCS, mold illness, mold toxicity, and gosh, there's so many others that I just, it's not on the forefront of my mind, it's like gone, but just, it's changed my life. I think the waking up happy, you know, being in joy is now the new norm, so I don't really talk a lot about what I've recovered from, but it's all in my bio. If you guys go to my website, it's all there. I think the biggest one is just chronic anxiety and any kind of autoimmune symptoms. I have no symptoms.

00:05:06 Chazmith: That is exciting. How long have you been feeling this relief?

00:05:12 Sonya: Pretty early on in my rewiring journey. You know, when I was going for a decade, I was going whack-a-mole with symptoms, going to every functional doctor, homeopaths, naturopaths. At one point, I was spending about $800 a month or more. Foot zoning, shamanic work. I had a spiritual awakening after a neck injury. And so I was like constantly, constantly looking and every seven years was like a big cycle where it was just deepening me into my search into my soul going like how do I, what is this? How do I do this? As a child I was very psychically aware. I was very connected and a lot of that was maybe hypervigilance now that I look back was obviously very sensitive and yeah, just on my journey. I think the relief came after I was like, oh, I can do this, I can do this. 

00:06:07 Sonya: So the perfect storm happened 2020, and that's when I was, there was no other option. There was no other way, because I'd already done 10 years of really deep inquiry with spiritual psychotherapists, doing a lot of inner healing work. Ancestral healing, I became a practitioner, I became an integrative health coach, and it wasn't until there has to be another way, and that's when I took my power back, where I was like, watching all the videos, the testimonials, and serendipitously, I was asking the universe, you know, even a few months before that, like, what is nervous system regulation? How do I do this? How do I, you know, because it was all like, a lot of people were talking about it. 

00:06:48 Sonya: But with all the spiritual work that I had done, the energy clearing, the ancestral work, the forgiveness work, I had done years of releasing other layers of the onion. You know, there's many layers. There's spiritual, there's physical, there's emotional, there's psychic layers. And so I feel like I did a lot of work in that, but it was a self-directed aspect where it was like, I got to do this myself. There was no other practitioner. I remember I called a naturopath that I worked with and I was like, hang up. No, you got this. You don't need anyone else. You can do this. You've watched the videos. You've seen the testimonials. You have it within you to do it.

00:07:28 Chazmith: Could you, for everyone who's listening, tell us what videos and testimonials you're talking about?

00:07:33 Sonya: Yes. So I was led to DNRS because the histamine intolerance was so severe. I wasn't able to eat anything. And for me, it was like a 911. It was like a crisis. After I saw the mold reports and I was like, I don't know what to do with that shock to my system, just broke everything and I was stuck in a rut. I was stuck in a limbic rut and it was the hardest journey I've had because I felt completely helpless. I felt helpless other times just through life. There's always this like grit. There was always something, this will to just, all right, you got, okay, well, who else can I go see? What else can I do? There's always people outside of me, but this one with the maturity, with everything that I've learned, the knowledge that I had, I was like, I'm just gonna take the plunge. So I did DNRS, the program. And pretty early on, I would say, something just clicked. And I was like, I can do this. So initially, yes, it was the testimonials and the videos that I watched.

00:08:40 Chazmith: Okay. Yes. Okay. Thank you for clarifying. So, DNRS was really the catalyst for you into that true healing where you really started to experience true consistent healing for good. Yes. It's interesting because a lot of people, you did a lot of layers of clearing and emotional release and all that prior to DNRS. That's really interesting because a lot of people who come on here and share their story, they usually start with the rewiring and then they go into the deeper layers of the emotional healing and the inner child work and heart systems and potentially trauma release and stuff like that. But you did it in the opposite direction. 

00:09:19 Sonya: Yeah, I did it in reverse. 

00:09:21 Chazmith: Yeah, and I always wonder how different one tool or modality will be depending on where in your journey you dive into it and really use it. They're going to have different impacts for different people.

00:09:36 Sonya: I feel like the foundational knowledge was already there. Like I said, I had a, I don't remember if I said I worked with a spiritual psychotherapist. So I was doing a lot of, not parts work, but timeline therapy. I was doing past life regressions. I was doing a lot of forgiveness work, self forgiveness work, making sense of like, okay, well, that's done, that's forgiven, that's forgiven, that's done, that's done. So it was like, well, what else is there? And I remember going to one of my functional doctors back then, and he's like, you know what, honey? I think this is all psychosomatic. Because he's like, you look great, everything's good. It didn't click to me, like psychosomatic? Like, what are you saying? How do I fix this? So it was like very fix it. 

00:10:20 Sonya: And I think a lot of people that come from limbic backgrounds, emotionally dysregulated backgrounds, we go into this fix it mentality, like, oh, my God, something is wrong. I'm not okay. And then the symptoms will obviously show up because you're constantly looking at how do I fix this? There's another symptom that pops up another one, but there's no foundational layer of like, safety, because you're just off your rocker in a way. And so I think that DNRS gave me that foundation and very early on, After I really understood the science, which went pretty quickly for me, as much fear as I was in, as much suffering that I was experiencing, there was a light there that just clicked. And as soon as I started to do the pattern interrupt, as soon as I started to take inventory of my thoughts, there was this energy that opened up for me. And I talk about this a lot in the community, and I've talked about it, but there was this survival energy that left, and this bliss and joy energy that enveloped me, I would say within the first couple weeks of doing DNRS, and it was like the brightest light, the happiest, the most joy, it encompassed me, and that energy of bliss stayed with me for the next nine months.

00:11:48 Sonya: So regardless of my symptoms or that I wasn't able to eat stuff or that I was in fear, that was still this overwhelmingly powerful joy energy that changed my life. And so I saw the contrast between fear and love, between joy and luck. And I was able to see both ends of the spectrum so clearly, and I made the choice to go this way, to totally change my identity, to keep moving forward. And so I was very, extremely lucky that I was able to be in this energy where I think what really got me through, for people listening, is that I gave up on timelines. I gave up on how long is this gonna take? How much time am I gonna have to spend? So I was like, if I need to do rounds for the rest of my life, I'm just gonna do it. That's fine. I'm just gonna commit myself because I knew that this isn't about my body, this is about my life. This is about how I wanna live my life, how I wanna change my identity, how I wanna show up in the world.

00:12:54 Chazmith: I love that. So how long did you end up doing DNRS pretty consistently for?

00:13:00 Sonya: 18 months every day, 18 months. At the 18 month mark, I would say I was pretty fully recovered. But there was still the shock, there was still the fear, a little bit of that, like, I'm still gonna have to do this. And I knew that because this is now the foundational baseline, like, I never wanna go back to who I was. I never wanna go back to that old persona, that old personality. And I was able to see parts of that old persona when I talked to family, when I talked to different people. The lack of emotional intelligence, wonderful loving souls, but just not aware. And so this is now my life. This is now the way that I want to live my life. And so when I see remnants or when I see my nervous system going back to an old pattern, I'm able to catch it. I'm able to be aware and therefore live a really mindful life. It's a life that I would say I've always wanted. If you look at human design, look at your signature, it's a life of peace, it's a life of calm. And that's really my signature, is to live this just, it's all good, there's no rush. It's okay, you got this, you're supported. And so a lot of these insights and wisdom were really hardwired during the awakening process and the journey of rewiring. So I would say that's my second awakening.

00:14:31 Chazmith: Nice. So do you still do rounds or utilize the brain retraining and pattern interrupts on the daily?

00:14:38 Sonya: I don’t. I live more of a mindful life. There are days where I want to pattern interrupt. I just really got suckered into watching things about what's going on in the world. And so that was kind of hard because you feel helpless. You don't know what to do. So yes, I absolutely had to do pattern interrupt. I also want to say that early on in my journey, I got involved with HeartMath. If I'm not, If I'm feeling like, all right, I need some support, I will go ahead and do HeartMath and the power of heart-brain coherence, the science behind it. I also offer HeartMath in a private WhatsApp group. There's, I think, 100 people or more in there. So I think I utilized HeartMath and DNRS tools to really just create this really beautiful journey for myself. I did both, because I knew the things that I've studied, the metaphysics, that the heart is the conductor of healing. The heart is where you can heal. And I knew, based on my love for poetry and Rumi's poetry and poetry on love, that there was something about the heart. And so I combined the heart and the brain to create this new identity and live a symptom-free life.

00:15:56 Chazmith: I love that. So a lot of people, when they are starting to feel better and they get to that point where there's some discernment that they might not need to do an hour a day of brain ray training. But sometimes some fear shows up. What if I stop and symptoms come back? Or what if I stop and I, you know, get worse again? Like all these things. And so sometimes there can be a little confusion in how to transition from I'm full-time brain retrainer to I'm going to start living my life. What was your transitional period like and what insights or advice could you give to people who are listening and who are getting close to that point or are uncertain if they're there yet?

00:16:37 Sonya: Yeah, I would really say listen to your intuition without being hard on yourself. And know that you have other tools in your pocket. You know, brain training, it takes, it's a full-time job, I would say. So as long as you have that, the support, you can support yourself if you need something. Maybe it's a mini-round. Maybe it's doing heart-focused breathing. Maybe it's self-talk, you know. And just know that one step at a time. You'll know when you're ready. You will know as you transition out. There's wonderful coaches. There's mentors. I'm coaching now. And so I would say, once you remove that element of what if, or once you remove that element of fear, everything just kind of will work itself out. And if you feel like, all right, well, maybe I just need to do one round. Maybe it doesn't have to be 20 or 15 minutes. Maybe it could just be five minutes. Maybe it can be five minutes of havening or five minutes of humming and just create that safety within you. I think once that safety kind of, that mechanism locks in, you know that you don't ever have to be so far and there's nothing wrong with supporting yourself with doing rounds or self-love or positive self-affirmations or self-talk. I did a lot of diaphragmatic breathing, so that helps. You can do it anywhere. EFT tapping, you can do anywhere. I would say just really be easy on yourself that once you give up the timeline, it will all work itself out.

00:18:08 Chazmith: So did you just like go from four rounds a day to none, or did you kind of transition from four to three to two to one to none?

00:18:15 Sonya: I transitioned. I absolutely transitioned. So far, it's been three years of me doing self-directed neuroplasticity. I knew that, like I said before, this is not just a part-time thing. I read enough and I saw enough that once people are like, oh, I feel better. I'm just going to stop. And for me, it was like, no, this is part of my life as part of me being true to myself. And I'm going to take care of myself and love the sugar out of myself because I didn't ever have that before. And so it transitioned from four 15 minutes to three 20 minutes to like two morning and night to one to now. Okay, if I ever need it, yeah, I have the tools. And you know what? I feel so good. I feel so good after. 

00:19:05 Sonya: And so I remember one of my buddies and I, we were doing a round after a few months and I was like, this feels so good. I miss this, you know? And it's just even like thinking about doing a round, I'll start yawning. So I know my body loves it. And for me being as you guys know human design being a manifesting generator I got to manifest during my rounds it was not just about healing my body it was about like what do I wanna do? Okay, well I'm gonna go to Paris and I wanna do this. I wanna buy this. I wanna finish this course. I wanna start teaching, I wanna write a book. So visualizations change as you change, and it's a wonderful tool. There's so much science and power behind visualizations that it's not just about healing your body, it's about mental fitness.

00:19:55 Chazmith: So you loved how you felt, but did you ever butt up against resistance sometimes? Okay.

00:19:57 Sonya: Oh, absolutely. Oh, who didn't? Absolutely. And that's when I got to parent myself. And that's when the self-talk was there. And because I was in the beginning, again, so connected to my heart, I was just able to self-soothe pretty quickly. Now, there were times my grandma passed during rewiring. There was a lot, COVID, I mean, COVID was happening during my whole rewiring journey. And I was just like fully, fully focused, like blinders on, I totally got off social media. I was no longer on Facebook. I was no longer in the spiritual groups. I was really connected to ascension groups that were all symptom-based. Everyone's just super, super dysregulated, very limbic, and symptom-chasing. 

00:20:49 Sonya: And so, but every symptom was then based on energy based on what's going on in the world. Is there a full moon right now, there's a solar storm, there's a flare here and so? I completely got off everything and I was like nope I'm gonna, I believe this is gonna help me and it did. And so the power of belief was very very strong early on. I think there was something about self-grit, this self-led, this motivation that was like, I'm gonna continue regardless of the outcome and regardless of relief initially. Just keep going, just keep going, keep going, keep going. And the relief comes for those people that are like, when am I gonna see it? It's all about persistence and persevering.

0:21:34 Chazmith: Yeah, absolutely. Those are the funny things, like, wait, why am I in so much resistance? I know how good it feels. I'm like you, like every time it's over, oh, my God, I feel so good. And then I tell myself, see, why would you not want to do this? It feels so good. And then the next time, resistance, like what is going on?

00:21:55 Sonya: Yeah. But you know, I feel like you can really start to see how your brain works during that resistance. It's such a contrast from when you're calm and relaxed, and then you butt up against resistance, and you're like okay, again going back to that three to four-year-old child, all right, what do you need right now? What do you need? You're compromising. You're like, okay, well, after that, I'm gonna have a piece of chocolate, or after that, I'm gonna go do something fun for myself. I'm gonna go get a manicure. And remember, I had a pretty intense MCS, so I would always do something super All right, well, we're going to go get a manicure. We're going to do this. We're going to do that. And of course, I was incorporated in my rounds. 

00:22:38 Sonya: And because I loved self-care and taking care of myself so much that it just manifested where I was like, all right, even if you're going to have discomfort after it, you're still going to feel good. So keep going. I didn't let that fear hold me back. I read a lot where it's like you believe it, but then fear holds you back or you want to do it, but then you don't do it. So a lot of that, like brain chatter, I was aware of it very, very quickly. I was able to see it from a zoomed out lens. And then I was able to see it from a very intimate lens to see, like this is my brain. It's amazing how the brain works. Amazing.

00:23:16 Chazmith: Yeah, absolutely. Now, as far as you said, you had strong histamine intolerance that really impacted your food intake, what you couldn't eat. Did you do incremental training around each sensitivity that you had or really just the act of trusting, believing, and knowing that it wasn't the food or the mold or chemicals or X, Y, and Z? Was that in and of itself with the brain retraining enough for you? Or yeah, again, did you do like tons of incremental training?

00:23:46 Sonya: For the first year I did, it wasn't tons. Again, the energy of love was so powerful, this bliss state, like I'm telling you, the energy of joy. So I started to do it on the foods that I really missed. So again, I was only eating 12 foods at the time. Literally, I had to count. I always say, I did it for the love of ketchup. I did it to, I wanted to eat again. I wanted to eat the condiments. I wanted to eat food again. But my relationship with food changed, and that was beautiful. There were so many things where I was like, you know, again, if you're on autoimmune protocol, or you can't eat this, you're villainizing dairy, eggs, wheat, you know, there's a lot of people that are like, you can't, you know, and again, I was a part of that, where it was like, paleo, couldn't eat this, couldn't eat that, everything I would say is, no, can't do that, can't eat this, can't eat that. And so that changed very quickly, because I knew it wasn't the food, I remember going to get chocolate ice cream and I remember just being so happy. 

00:24:50 Sonya: And I was like, I have zero symptoms. Well, what else can I eat? So then I was like, well, I want to go have, you know, I love Napoleon's, I love French pastry. So I was like, I want to go have a Napoleon next. I want to do this. So my son and I would make a day out of it where we would go have, like yummy things. And then I'd do a round and I was like, okay, I'm good. And then I would eat something else. And so gradually, I think it took me about, I would say 9 to 10 months to where I was able to eat everything again. I was able to, but the difference was that food tasted good. My taste buds for the first time in my life were like online. I could taste everything so much more deliciously. Every, it was like I wasn't gonna take food for granted again. And so I think again the contrast of like everything taken from you, you're literally on your knees to where you're like appreciative and grateful for everything. I started to experiment with recipes making delicious food at home. The creativity came online so it's easier able to do that.

00:25:57 Chazmith: Do you still have the ability to sustain that love and gratitude for the food in the same way as when you first were able to start eating it again?

00:26:06 Sonya: Ah, good question. Really good question. You know, I think once you incorporate mindfulness, the way that I can do that now is when I'm present, really, really present, really just take a moment and go, okay, I'm not going to multitask. I'm doing like four things while I'm going to eat. No, I'm not going to do that again. So again, it's hardwired in where it's like, you don't ever want to go back there. Why would you want to be on your laptop and on you know, and writing and eating at the same time. 

00:26:36 Sonya: So again, it's about incorporating some level of mindfulness every single day. And because it was about over two and a half years of catching old patterns, now it's a lot easier to catch those old patterns. It's a lot easier to go, oh, I'm going on adrenaline. Nope, you don't wanna go there. That's not how you wanna live. And so it's really pausing, it's being mindful, it's self-inquiry, because our nervous systems are always gonna change. Our life is always gonna change. Sometimes there's more stressors involved. Sometimes there's things going on. So I think it's now, for me, living a mindful life, if that answers your question.

00:27:22 Chazmith: It does, yeah. And speaking of always going to be stressors going on, how would you handle, let's just say like a really intense stressful situation today, different than you would have pre-perfect storm, pre-learning about brain retraining and taking your power back?

00:27:40 Sonya: Yeah, absolutely. I think the first thing is not to make stories of it. The stories is really where you get stuck in rumination. I would go into self-soothing. I would go into a little bit of self-care. I would look at it in a zoomed out lens, like what is this teaching me? What is the opportunity here? How can I still stay in my seat and still stay calm and activate my logical thinking, my prefrontal? Again, the stories are really where things get you. Your future casting, your projecting out. But if you can just stay calm in the moment and go, all right, this is what I'm dealing with. These are the things I need to do in order to handle the situation. If it's out of my control, it's out of my control. And I think the wisdom is deeply embedded now, right? And I don't wanna learn those old lessons again. It's just, I don't wanna go there again. 

00:28:42 Sonya: And so again, connecting with people that you trust. I would talk to my husband about it. What do you think? I don't have all the answers. I absolutely don't think that I have all the answers. So maybe going to someone else and saying, well, how do I handle this? Someone that you really love and trust that you know has your best interest. And I think my husband has been a catalyst for me in this healing journey.

00:29:04 Chazmith: That's awesome that you've had that support. Yeah. Now, you mentioned also that something you went through a big thing during your early retraining period was a loss of a grandma, I think you said. How did you, how did brain retraining help you navigate the grief and loss?

00:29:25 Sonya: That's a good question. It was really, really hard because it's right in the beginning. And I was really in avoidance. I was really just, I couldn't handle all the things and grieving for her. So I gave myself pockets of time. I wasn't able to fly to California at that time. It happened very, very quickly. Again, it was right during COVID. It was so much fear in the collective. There was literally, it's just chaos energy. Everyone was just embedded in fear. And so I was able to take pockets of time to cry, to grieve, to soothe myself, and then go into something that felt more self-nurturing. Yeah, and knowing that I have a foundation of spirituality, I know I can always talk to her. She's not that far. I can always connect with her. If I have dreams of her, I can send her love. Again, I was really connected to even the shamanic world, receiving messages and insights from animals, from birds, from butterflies. And so if I see a big, beautiful butterfly, I'm like, hey, grandma. So it would be where I know that we're just changing forms. You're never that far away.

00:30:43 Chazmith: Yeah. That's beautiful. The theme I'm noticing in this conversation is really about living a life of mindfulness. What are some of the daily practices that you commit to for your own self-care to keep that mindfulness in the forefront?

00:31:00 Sonya: Where are my thoughts at? What am I entertaining right now? Being grateful. I think gratitude has taken me really, really far. And again, it was about if you're grateful for what you have, you're going to receive more. So that's really embedded. Really, really grateful. Like right now, I'm looking at all the leaves on my deck, the colors of fall, all the nature outside, just savoring, savoring the moments, not rushing to the next thing. That adrenaline, that rush where it's like, I need to do this, I have to do this. that's not there. It barely surfaces up because you're grounded, you're centered. I think everyone has to go through this maturation process. And I think it's a part of your own soul's journey where it's going to happen for you, not rushing it. There's so much that you have to learn to get to this point to where you're like, I've learned enough lessons. I never want to go back there again. So I would say gratitude, savoring, presencing, self-soothing, just self-care. Asking, what do I need right now? Where are my thoughts? And knowing that your thoughts can really impact your biology, your physiology.

00:32:16 Chazmith: So just really committing to checking in with yourself throughout the day and checking in with those things. But do you have any kind of morning routine or night routine or anything?

00:32:27 Sonya: I do. The morning I wake up, I do affirmations. My affirmations have changed, so sometimes it's YouTube affirmations, sometimes it's yoga nidra, first thing in the morning. I think morning routine is super, super important, saying some, you know, gratitudes. Walking in nature is something that I really strive to do every single day, just really connects me back to earth, gets me out of the home. I do work at a French bakery right now, so that's really, really fun. Yeah, that's really, really fun to just break up the monotonous routine of studying, coaching and just being at home. So that's really fun. Now working at a very fast paced very busy bakery. I do come home and do yoga nidra. You know, I will have to come home and sometimes nap and knowing that that's okay. You just had like there's a lot going on and so just supporting myself in whatever way I need whether that's a nap around a yoga nidra, but always not letting yourself go too far. You know, not going, again, if people understand, polyvagal, we have a brain for life until we're on earth.

00:33:37 Sonya: So understanding like, all right, now I'm getting into the red zone and I am gonna give myself some love. You know, it's really about befriending your nervous system to go, I know what this feels like and I know that this is going into overwhelm and I'm gonna step back. It's really understanding like your comfort zone and when you're going into overwhelm and what, and ask yourself, what do you need right now? Do you need a nap? Do you need a hug? Do you want to haven? And again, HeartMath. There's always HeartMath. I can always do heart-focused breathing to shift my energy pretty quickly, whether it's two minutes or five minutes.

00:34:17 Chazmith: Do you ever need to take a pause and leverage any of those tools while you're in your busy job?

00:34:25 Sonya: I have, but because it's so busy at times when I don't, I pay for it after. Yeah.

00:34:33 Chazmith: But it's nice because this is a really good point to bring up is you can choose to, I think a lot of us, and I used to be pretty afraid, like I used to think, oh, because you know when you're doing brain retraining, you're kind of taught during that commitment to like really not engage in things that induce adrenaline. And I think that to some degree, from people I've talked to, and I know I went through this, I almost started developing a fear around doing anything that would produce any adrenaline, as if I needed to always keep myself at this baseline. And it was this belief that anything adrenaline-inducing would be not safe. And it was really a practice to trust that as I was regulated, it is very normal to go up and down and that it was okay in the right doses to still do things that are adrenaline-inducing, especially if it's fun and enjoyable and exciting. And like you said, just find the balance. Don't go do that every day, every day, every day, every day, keeping yourself in that state and not balance it. So like you said, sometimes you come home and you take a nap or you do something self-soothing and that is that counterbalance. 

00:35:49 Sonya: Absolutely, absolutely. Again don't let yourself go into the old pattern because if you're going to the old pattern what's, what are you going to get? It's about really understanding like I never want to go back there again. I love myself enough. to know that this isn't worth it. So I go, is it worth it for me to be here every day? Absolutely not. Is it worth it for me? Is it enjoyable for me to be here one or two days a week having fun? Yes, absolutely. So checking in with yourself, you know, and it's about like, where's the joy in this? If there's no joy in it, it's meaningless. It's really meaningless. And that again, you don't want to go back to the old, old self.

00:36:30 Chazmith: Yeah. I mean, I've spent my whole life working in fast pace. I'm getting up to almost three decades in the food and beverage industry. And so I am doing that now. And I actually did have a job almost through my entire retraining. I didn't take a break. For me, I've just really learned, like you just said, how many days is my threshold? I know if I do, like two days in a row, that's okay, but three days in a row, it's just too much, and that's okay. There doesn't have to be judgment around that. I see the parts creeping in sometimes, the stories like, oh, well, so-and-so works five days in a row. I don't care. I'm not so-and-so, and that's his life that he's choosing to live. I'm not sure his life is even that appealing to me, you know? And I know my limits. And that's not to say that I might never, ever do those three days in a row if my boss or my coworkers are in a bind and I'm going to say yes and help out. I'm very aware of my week. And if I'm going to say yes, those days, I'm more likely to do counterbalance activities before I go into work. And then that fourth day, I usually really don't make any plans and set that day for me to go to the beach and sleep in if I want to, just do whatever feels good.

00:37:52 Sonya: Absolutely. It's about what feels good, what brings you joy. Because ultimately, all of my brain retraining, a bulk of it was starting in 2020. So people weren't working. So I was very, very lucky. I left my coaching. My husband was working from home. There was this safety. There was this peace that was just like, I don't have to do anything. All I'm going to do is take care of myself. So it was an absolute gift. And I know that that isn't given to everyone. Some people have to work. Babies, kids around. So one day at a time, do what nurtures you and do what brings you joy. What brought me joy during those times where there was absolute chaos, it was just coloring. I became a professional left-hand coloring artist.

00:38:40 Chazmith: Yes, me, too. It was so fun. Yes, yes, yes.

00:38:45 Sonya: It was so fun. And so it was nurturing your inner child. The brain needs novelty. So I literally did everything that was suggested. Brush your teeth with the left hand. Wake up from the other side of your bed. Also during the COVID period and after, even now, my husband and I are like, okay, well, what do we want to do this weekend? Let's go to an apple orchard. Let's drive to Florida. Let's go here. Let's, Let's look at something we've never done. Let's go to a play. Like I've gone to so many plays. We've done so many things like random, like let's go to a museum. Let's do this, you know? So I feel like we've brought this like spark where it's like, let's do something fun and create memories. And so all we've done in the last three years is just create memories. And even if that's not like overtly exciting things, but it's still like a new restaurant, a new cafe. That really takes you very far because it's constantly taking you into not only the present, let's live in joy. I think that's really the message here.

00:39:53 Chazmith: I love that. We've already, I think, talked about some of them organically, but what, if you have anything to add, would be some of the biggest insights you feel that you've taken away from this experience of getting sick and now getting well?

00:40:06 Sonya: Wow. Oh, my gosh. So many insights. I think the, the first one that I'd like to talk about is I was doing a shamanic journey and I was, you know, it was like a 15 minute, like, or 20 minute guided. And I remember I was in the, you know, right before this perfect storm happened, I remember I was like connecting with the trees and I was kind of just connecting with the nature and everything around me. I had heard you're here to build your foundations. You're really here to build your foundations. And I didn't understand what that meant. I didn't have a solid foundation. I never had a routine. I didn't have that safety mechanism. Like I didn't understand what that meant. So I think having solid foundations, I was able to understand that through my own inquiry and insights and connecting with my wisdom that mold was, it's not something that's out to get you. It's everything in the universe is here to bring you back in alignment with who you are, to bring you alignment with your heart, bring you in alignment with joy. 

00:41:12 Sonya: Or what's the point? Understanding that suffering is a part of life and you're not a victim. You're here to grow. These are all opportunities so you can grow bigger and deeper. Again, I want to say that before my spiritual awakening in 2013, I had asked for all of this. I asked for this. I looked up at the ceiling and I was like, God, I just want to help people. And that's exactly what I got. That's exactly what I got. How was I really able to help people if I hadn't gone through the trenches, if I didn't understand what the deepest, darkest amount of fear looks like, and to come out to see how bright the light is, and how much joy and bliss I have within me, and how aligned, and how alignment looks like, and what that brings to me, what that brought to my home, what that energy that had changed in my home brought so much abundance in my life, what peace really looks like, and I would never wanna go back. 

00:42:20 Sonya: These foundations have created a blueprint for me to where I can take this, be anywhere and have a home within myself. That you don't need anyone outside of yourself, your power is within us, is your podcast, the name of your podcast. Our power is truly, truly within us. And again, every human has a maturation, a soul journey that you will ultimately figure this out for yourself. 

00:42:48 Chazmith: How old's your son, by the way? 

00:42:50 Sonya: 21.

00:42:50 Chazmith: Oh, you look so too young to have a 21-year-old. My God. Okay, so you don't have a son that lives with you that you're currently taking care of?

00:43:01 Sonya: He lives with me. I take care of him. I do his laundry.

00:43:04 Chazmith: Mom, stop doing that. Oh, my goodness. But he's your only child?

00:43:12 Sonya: He's my only child.

00:43:13 Chazmith: Okay. Well, this is good. So what are some of the things that your son and your husband have noticed shift in you since you started embarking on this deeper layer of healing through brain retraining?

00:43:28 Sonya: Calm. Calm. Literally calm. I remember I was angry. I was angry. There was a lot of things in my limbic where you're like, go from zero to, you know, ten in a minute and that's barely ever there. Of course you get triggered of course there's like things where I'm like, oh, my God, you need to pick this up. Like how many times did I tell, you know. But it's, it's, it's calm. It's this level of like, let's just say they don't have to feel uncertain around me anymore.

00:44:01 Chazmith: Does your son say, mom, why didn't you do brain retraining before, like, you know, 15 years ago so that you were calm growing up like jokingly, you know?

00:44:10 Sonya: Yeah. You know, I tell him all the time how invaluable it would be for him because we are passing on our stuff just like my, family, my ancestors, and my grandmother to my mother to me, everything is passed on your beliefs, your habits, all of these things, your fear, this is all passed on. And so I'm like, I'm sorry, honey, I'm sorry for anything I passed on. But guess what, you have the tools. There's many, many ways that you can change now. I had him when I was 22 and I was divorced at 23. So imagine what I was going through and I really did the best that I could. So I always tell him like, I really did the best that I could. And he knows that he's such a wonderful child. But when I look at the contrast with the way that I parent him and the way that I was parented or the way that my parents still want to parent him as their only, you know, well now we have another grandchild. It's the world of a difference. So not being hard on myself and saying I really did the best that I could and again having compassion for my family for doing the best that they could because they did not have the tools.

00:45:19 Chazmith: No, no, exactly. Now they say that, like sometimes so your son wasn't like little, but they say that sometimes when the way we change the world is by changing ourselves because when we change the people around us change because everything's energy, right? And they can feel that. Did you notice any shifts in your son or your husband through living with you as you shifted?

00:45:42 Sonya: Absolutely. Oh, my goodness. You know, in the morning, I would just, you know, again, wake up. Most of my day was living in dose. So that's a big shift. I would come downstairs, play the piano. There would be, like beautiful healing frequency music playing. And again, I did a lot of that, but the energy wasn't there behind it. And I remember my husband went through a couple of really huge bonuses in his work. Right when this was happening, I was able to like, redecorate my home. I was able to change the colors of my home to like beautiful soothing soft like creams and blues. I was able to like have a brand new full-on brand new kitchen again.

00:46:23 Sonya: The abundance that everything changed in my home as a result of me changing my energy. I was holding the fort. You know, I don't know what the thing behind it but the matriarch of the home carries a lot of the energy and so when I shifted from young Sonya young girl energy to this powerful, okay, I'm in my power. I got this energy. I was attracting things to me very quickly. And again, huge, he had some of his biggest years, the first two years of my brain retraining. And so all the abundance that was coming in, I was able to do so much with it. Travel, again, changed my home, changed my inner environment, changed my external, matched that.

00:47:07 Chazmith: Yeah. That's awesome. So what are you up to nowadays? Because you mentioned coaching and I know you work in the French bakery and all that, but what else are you up to? Where has this path led you today?

00:47:19 Sonya: Oh, my gosh. Thank you for asking that. Focusing on my goals. You know, I had a couple of classes left for my bachelor's degree. I've already finished a couple of classes. I think nine classes left to finish my degree doing that. I'm just finishing up a MBSR eight-week class. Really cool all-day retreat, mindfulness retreat on Saturday. MBSR, mindfulness-based stress relief. So really just very into mindfulness, maybe even looking at becoming a certified teacher of mindfulness. Finishing my bachelor's, mindfulness, embarking on physical fitness now. That's been kind of on the wayside for me for a while. 

00:48:00 Sonya: Besides walking in nature, I really want to get into Pilates, really want to get into like some pure barre classes, something for myself, because it's like, when I go through my daily checklist, my weekly checklist, there's everything checked off except like that exercise, you know, where it's like, all right, you know, I've been in menopause for two years now. And so of course, the body is changing. But that's another point I wanted to mention to you is that everything that we're hearing about menopause, what we're hearing about all the symptoms, I want to say that brain retraining has been one of the biggest gifts for me during this process. It has been invaluable for me because I don't have those symptoms that we're hearing about and I get to just not be inundated. If there is a symptom, it's like, well, this is life, you know? This is okay. This is a part of every woman's journey on earth.

00:48:59 Chazmith: So you don't have the fear story around it.

00:49:02 Sonya: Not at all. Not at all. And supplement chasing, which is another big thing.

00:49:07 Chazmith: Ah, you're not supplement chasing. 

49:09 Sonya: No, no, not at all. 

00:49:11 Chazmith: Yeah. Okay. And you're coaching like just on a part-time basis as well for people in the health journey.

00:49:17 Sonya: Yes. Integrative health coaching with a big lens and mindfulness and neuroplasticity. So I do have a couple people that I'm working with now that's building. The whole thing about me shifting into the bakery was to really build resilience and get out of the, I have to do this, I have to do all these rounds, I have to do this. It was like, nope, you're done, you're done. Now you can do whatever you want. I am still there right now, one or two days a week, but eventually as I get busier with coaching and have more to take on in terms of classes, when my classes start back in January, then that's probably gonna be, and what I've learned also is when you learn a new skill, when you're putting yourself in a new environment, not only are you learning new languages, learning how to speak to people, working in a fast-paced, adrenaline-based environment, and seeing the calm and the chaos, and seeing like, wow, I've come so far. So I think that's another really big gift that I'm able to say, wow, what a contrast, what a contrast, and not getting sucked in.

00:50:28 Chazmith: Yeah, definitely. And how can people connect with you?

00:50:29 Sonya: My website, depthfuljourney.com. Yeah, send me a message. I am on Instagram. Sometimes I just deactivate, especially when there's a lot going on in the world. And, you know, but you can definitely reach me on my website. I'm happy to answer any questions. I'll also link my Facebook page. I haven't been very active on my Facebook either because I'm living life and I don't really want to live through the lens of just being online and plugged in online all the time. And so another thing is that I don't really have the need to constantly post what I'm doing. So just that desire isn't there anymore. It's like, I know that I'm living in joy, and that's enough.

00:51:11 Chazmith: Yeah, absolutely. So, if you've listened to any episodes, you know the last question, which is going to be, if you were told you could only share one message with the world for the rest of your life, what would you spend your life sharing?

00:51:22 Sonya: Oh, I love that. I'm going to drop into my heart. I would say, chase your bliss. Do what makes you happy. Do what really makes you happy without question.

00:51:33 Chazmith: I love it. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here with me today. It was so fun getting to chat with you. I can literally feel your passion and energy through this conversation and it's contagious. I really appreciate it so much and I'm excited to share.

00:51:49 Sonya: Thank you. I loved it. Thank you for your poignant questions and allowing me to share my story and I wish everyone just peace and beauty and love.

00:52:01 Chazmith: As always, every episode that you tune into, I have a hope that you will feel inspired in some way or that you will have learned something insightful or a practical tool or just some type of practice that you can begin to immediately implement into your healing journey. Please tune in to Instagram for weekly challenges. November's theme has been gratitude in honor of thanksgiving. And until next time, make this week great!