Ep. 3- Breaking Boundaries and Becoming a Soul Warrior with Angela DeSalvo
EPISODE 3- Breaking Boundaries and Becoming a Soul Warrior with Angela DeSalvo
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This enlightening chat with Angela DeSalvo, a certified intuitive life and grief coach, medium, and author of Soul Warrior: How to Liberate Yourself from Survival Mode and Thrive Through Any Challenge, will take you on a journey into Transformational Soul Work and the Enneagram, showing you how to break free from limiting beliefs and live your most authentic life.
Angela and I dive into the power of the enneagram, a psychospiritual tool used to understand yourself and your relationships, and how your greatest challenges can be a catalyst for change and growth. In this episode, we share how facing fears and embracing vulnerability can lead to profound shifts- offering practical insights and wisdom for anyone seeking to better understand themselves and the world around them.
Don't miss this heartwarming and inspiring conversation with the incredible Angela DeSalvo!
See what Enneagram you are!
https://tests.enneagraminstitute.com
Angela DeSalvo
Full Transcript:
Speaker 1: 0:01
Hi, i'm Allesanda Tolome-Hard, aka Mrs. Hard, and this is Hard Times No More, a podcast for people who are tired of struggling with boundaries, people-pleasing and relationship problems. I have overcome some hard times. Within three years, i stopped drinking, my mom died of cancer and my house burnt down in a California wildfire, and those are just the highlights. I have a lot of reasons to be miserable, but I'm not. The truth is, life was more challenging before these events happened. If you are tired of waiting for your circumstances to change to find happiness and peace of mind, you are in the right place. Join me as I share the tools I use and love to transform challenges into assets and interview others about their relationship journeys. Together, let's learn how to have a happy life full of healthy, meaningful relationships and say goodbye to hard times for good. Hey everyone, welcome to the Hard Times No More Relationship Podcast. I'm Alessandra Tolome-Hard, aka Mrs. Hard, your host. Today. I have a very special guest. She has had a huge impact on my life. Her name is Angela DeSalvo. Angela is a certified intuitive life and grief coach. She's a medium, a mother of two and creator of transformational soul work and the author of a deeply impactful book called Soul Warrior how to liberate yourself from survival mode and thrive through any challenge. Soul Warrior weaves together Angela's incredible life story and her experience awakening to her own needs, releasing people, pleasing, and discovering what really lights her up. Through her transformational soul work, she maps out a path for others to heal and thrive through life's challenges, while awakening to who they truly are. Introducing, angela, i am so excited to have you on the show today. Welcome.
Speaker 2: 2:05
Thank you, it's an honor to be here.
Speaker 1: 2:08
Let's talk about how we first met and when I first saw you. So we don't really know exactly how I found you And for me that time of life was such a blur And we know it was through one person you know, but apparently she knew someone I knew and I got your number and I just called and I remember I called because I needed grief counseling and you were available to do that. But what you gave me was far greater. The support you gave me was far more than grief counseling. Can you speak to what we talked about earlier, when you remembered what I called?
Speaker 2: 2:52
Yeah, like I said, i remember the chair that I was sitting in when I heard you call and you were. You know just the desperation in your voice and you told me you were going through your saddened return and it was a hell of a time And I believe your mom had just been diagnosed, right, so that on top of your lifelong relationship with your dad and his illness, and you were just looking for some direction. And I remember the first session. I remember the first session Well, i don't know how much, and I know you spoke to it on your first podcast. Yes, but when you told me, when you, when you walked out of that door I can still see you walking out of the office And I think the next time that we had met, you said you had started the. You walked out of that office and made the phone call or did whatever you had to do to connect yourself to this 12 step program And I was like, oh my God, you like, you know you, you took control of your destiny. You took control immediately And it was like, yes, i mean to right, that's doing the work. So it I always get, i mean, and anybody, it's a process and a journey, but when it clicks, when it starts to click for people, it's like yes, you started to remember, you want. You were curious enough to know who the heck you were.
Speaker 1: 4:30
Yeah, and I talk about that moment as a higher power moment because I had never been honest with a counselor or coach or anyone in the past about my drinking and what was really going on in my life. And when I sat down with you, i just trusted you instantly And I just emotionally vomited it all out And all I remember is you validating that I needed help And you said some very powerful words that I will never forget. You said what if one of your parents goes into the hospital for the last time and you are in a blackout and you never get to say goodbye? because I was honest with you guys telling you that, or I told you that I blacked out every time I drank. At that point And things were just so dark for me And I heard you and I, logically, had known for a while that I needed to stop drinking, but I just couldn't seem to make it happen. And when you said those words to me, it was an inspirational whim that came into my life where, like I had two choices I could either go back to the way I was living and continue to be miserable, not sure where I was going to end up, and it kind of felt like if I started drinking again, one of my parents was going to die and I was not going to be able to say goodbye, or I could take the scarier path and try something different, and I had no idea where that path would take me, but it felt like that was what needed to happen, because I had already been living the other way for so long and it wasn't working.
Speaker 2: 6:08
You trusted the unknown.
Speaker 1: 6:09
Yeah, yeah, it was scary, yeah, and you helped me through that. You really supported me through that journey.
Speaker 2: 6:16
Can I ask you what made you feel safe? You said I felt safe.
Speaker 1: 6:20
You just felt real, like you didn't have an agenda, you were just there, you were very present, and that's something I've always enjoyed about the sessions I had with you, where it didn't feel like you were looking at a clock, like your time has passed, it's time for you to go. You really let people or my experience, my assumption, is that you really let people just share whatever needs to be shared until it's complete And then, when it's time, they continue on. And just the space that you held and it was something that at the time I know I couldn't put words to. It was just a trust that I felt.
Speaker 2: 7:04
Well, thank you for that. I think you said that, yeah, i didn't have an agenda. I think that's while I have tools and I have listening skills and I can hear what's being said underneath the word sometimes, right, and then I can speak to that and just you know sometimes whether it's just the deep listening or the intuition or perhaps channeling of what it is your soul is requiring you to hear Yeah, i'm, i'm, i'm. thank you for saying that, because that is what I I'd like to believe I'm offering people is the space to feel safe, right, and I think the meditation that I do prior to seeing people, anytime I've read that whosoever, that is for the person to feel seen, right. I don't even know if you remember what was, if that was the moment, but I think that's what offers a level of safety too, because here's a total stranger right, just reading to you what I've, you know, basically coming down from the Akashic records, right, and so it's a reflection of you, which I think helps to create that sense of safety. It's almost that icebreaker like, wow, okay, right. So it opens that platform up to to yeah, be truthful and honest with yourself. And I think that is without the agenda, without saying okay, well, this is what I think you need for this. you know doing that. I just have to hear you and you have to hear yourself, right, yeah? And then I help you fill in the missing pieces by, you know, again, offering you a reflection.
Speaker 1: 8:47
Yeah, and that's exactly what I felt And that's what I've experienced in the healing arts is like being more of a container for somebody to have their experience and then just reflecting here and there what they need to see, but really just holding space for them to see themselves.
Speaker 2: 9:08
Yeah, Which is not always easy, but yeah, but because we don't get that, but when, yeah, when we, when we find it right. That's what Emily was. For me It was like oh my gosh, Wow, you know, i can't say things and not and not be just disregarded in what it is I say, or you know somebody who's not thinking that way at all, just don't know how to answer me. Right, i was, I was getting reflected And that's what started me on this whole, like wow, where can I? I just it was an insatiable, i just couldn't get enough learning.
Speaker 1: 9:45
Yeah, so tell us about your journey, tell us where it all started, wow.
Speaker 2: 9:54
Big question. Um, well, i'd have to say what and a lot of what I speak about will probably be reflected in my book as well. But I think what really well, i know what really got me going on a journey of self exploration was being seen in a way that I had never been seen before in my life. Really, about someone who entered into our family, um, and just kind of, uh, kind of spoke the same language as me, um, in terms of I don't want to say esoteric, but just on a, on a level that The way we communicated made me feel seen, i guess, because she was a real mirror for me, a real reflection of myself. I saw a lot of myself in her and therefore I started to begin to make contact with myself. I began to get really interested in learning about all things around the human condition and just you know, i've been doing it for a long time. I've always been curious about people. I've always been, i guess, an intuitive sense in that I've always felt a connection to myself throughout my life. But well, this is where it becomes a really big question because, as I've learned on my journey, because of my condition, behavior which I came to learn by being on my journey, the things that I would think or see when I was younger. I didn't really speak to them or share them because I didn't feel safe doing that. I don't know how much how I mean. I could keep going on this because it's a really big question, so I don't know how far you want me to take this.
Speaker 1: 12:15
Yeah, maybe take it to a moment where you decided to do something different than making yourself small, as you talk about in the book, or just bending to other people's needs. Can you think of a moment in which that really changed for you?
Speaker 2: 12:33
Well, that came about because of the work I started doing, because of after seeing, having this reflection. And then it was actually the same person, emily, who, about a year after knowing her, asked me if I would be interested in joining a group. This group is called Giving Spirit Form and basically at that time it was meeting once a month with a year long commitment And it the theme of it was mainly around understanding yourself through the enneagram. But the work of it was to sit in circle with people, having the facilitator guide us through inquiry. We would break out into breakout you know two or three people into inquiry. So while there was a facilitator holding the space, the work became ours internally, just by being asked a specific question, and then we get the chance to answer it over 15 minutes. And when you do that, you start to not just speak about what you know, which is what you know is so easy for us to jump to things that we know. So in that timeframe things just start to bubble up that we inform ourselves about that we may not have known before. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1: 14:15
Yeah, like it was a container for you to shift the perspective on what you thought you already knew.
Speaker 2: 14:22
Exactly And it took. you know, i'm still in that group and that's I started attending in 2014. And I have only taken two years off.
Speaker 1: 14:31
Wow.
Speaker 2: 14:32
I went. I went for four years and then I took a year off. I went back, took a year off and I'm back in again, which has been for the last two years, because it's the only thing that I have found for me that helps me stay accountable to me, because it is a nonjudgmental group that we're, that you're witnessed in for showing up exactly as you are right, because everybody's there kind of doing their own work right, but it's being held And there is a structure as far as what that particular focus might be on for that particular session And then using the Enneagram. So the Enneagram has been huge in understanding myself too.
Speaker 1: 15:18
Can you speak about the Enneagram as if someone's never heard about it? How would you describe it to them?
Speaker 2: 15:24
So the Enneagram is a psychospiritual tool right that has been around since that and they don't know the exact origin but bring it back to well times of Egyptians. But it's also tied in with the Sufi tradition. It was married with psychology in the 50s. So there's many different teachers along the way that have taken the idea of the Enneagram and the spiritual side and then brought it up into the marrying with psychology And it's well researched. It's determined that we come in with a temperament, so there's nine types in the Enneagram, right from zero to age. Three are somewhere in there are structure which they call the Enneagram typing. That is, that our structure is developed. So by the time we're three years old that we have this specific structure in which we operate from. And you know there's so much to say about the Enneagram. But if you took, you know the, there's a quiz Enneagram Institute that you could take with an 80% accuracy, that the reti test, which will place you in the type that you know, if you answer it from the perspective of when you were younger, it has an 80% accuracy rate of the structure type that you've created in order to survive and it really has a lot to do with the thinking mechanisms that we have, that the way that we approach life. I would suggest, if somebody wants to know about it, to start reading about it. There's so many things to learn about it, but it's again, it's a good. It's not just a personality typing tool, it's a which it is, but it's because it's psycho, spiritual, it's. It's a very rich tool to use to understand people and people's behavior and why people might do things that they do. And it's not, and we're very fluid, complex people, right. So it's an aspect of how to see ourselves. It can't just be a one and done, you know only way to see ourselves. And even within that, how an Enneagram is defined doesn't mean a person is going to be. All those things that might define that type of structure Right Make sense.
Speaker 1: 18:10
Yeah, i felt it very helpful when you introduced the Enneagram to me during our coaching sessions, and it's also helpful to understand other people in our lives when you know what number they are and what how you interact with them.
Speaker 2: 18:25
Exactly.
Speaker 1: 18:26
Yeah, and then circling back to when you first found the group that really helped you, do you remember what emotions or feelings you wanted to change? because now you have all this wisdom and you're able to see the bigger picture, the hindsight but do you remember the first group meeting that you went to, or maybe that first month? Do you remember what you wanted to change, why you took that action?
Speaker 2: 18:55
So well, when I was, when Emily asked me, she said would it be interesting for you to sit in a group and be able to talk about what you're thinking? And that's how she asked me And I was like, oh yeah, right, because this had been something that, again, i had never been anywhere near a group or to do something like that. Because, right, what I had learned was talking wasn't safe and just kind of I think the I don't know my conditioning or just the way that my life, the trajectory that it went, i never was really in an environment to have a lot of really deep conversations with another. It's not that I didn't think about things, but I didn't have engagement, i didn't seek that out, i didn't know how to do that or feel safe to do that. So basically, again, that was would this be of interest to you? And I was like, yeah, okay. So then I had to be interviewed by the facilitator to because she wanted to know who she was going to be working with. So I just went into there kind of open you know, an open book. I didn't go in with any specific I need to work on this and find this and do that. It was an evolution. For sure I didn't have any preconceived ideas And it probably took me because actually my husband and I did that first year together, then I went on for two more years and then he did the fourth year. We did it together And then, like I said, i took a year off and then Can you speak to some of the experiences that you needed to work through?
Speaker 1: 20:44
I know because I've read your book and I know you some of the challenges. What were those relationships like that you ultimately found that needed transformation?
Speaker 2: 20:58
Well, it ultimately was a relationship with myself, right? So it wasn't me going in and saying I'm to another. It's always the relationship with ourself which, when we have contact then with ourselves in a new way, relationships change around us, right? It's not necessarily that somebody else is going to do something different, but now our perspective of whatever that relationship is shifts. In my experience I realized that people pleasing had become my survival technique And I realized in that moment again, this might be reiterating, but it wasn't my responsibility to take care of others' needs. So I then started seeing how my behavior towards others came from this unconscious, automatic way of oh, what can I do for you? or I need to do something for you, or if I felt out of ease or if I was maybe having some anxiety. But realizing it's not So. This is why it's a journey Not realizing those are my feelings, right, but then projecting that out into whatever relationship I mean I'll take my marriage, right, and then, seeing right where I'm almost creating an issue, really it becomes a projection of something that's going on with my husband Oh, and now I'm in fix it mode, which really turns into I now have now crossed over into someone else's lane, i'm no longer in my lane. So now it becomes sticky territory, right. And this is all happening unconsciously within the two, right. So that's where arguments can start, that's where misunderstandings can start. And I think when I really realized what I was doing, especially with my husband, was and I can't remember the specifics, but I do remember he was out in the garage doing his thing, you know, in his man cave doing something, and I, like, watched myself do this. I went out, i was involved in something of my own in the house, but for whatever reason, i decided to go out into the garage and start asking questions and doing this and doing that, and then the whole thing blew up. And I realized after I was grasping at the relationship because there was something that I apparently felt that I needed. Right, there was something that I needed to feel safe with. I don't even know what it was, but I was grasping at him to produce whatever. This feeling was that I couldn't contact him myself, right, it's really a backwards way of going about things, but I think that's what we as humans do when we can't contact our own feelings and make sense of our own feelings, we're going to go out and start projecting all over anybody and everybody about what's happening Right. So that's what I've learned in this whole process that, wow, it's real important. That's what this, you know, transformational soul work, that method it begins with connection. That's what I see in a lot of people that I most everybody that I work with is really we're looking for an answer. And even you asking me, you know, what was it that you wanted to work on? I don't know what I wanted to work on, partly because I didn't have a connection to myself, enough connection to myself to know, because then that would, that would speak to me having needs right. And my whole life I've lived under this implicit belief that I didn't have needs right. So how could I know what it was that I needed if I unconsciously believing I don't have needs? How do I even make contact with that right? So when I started this circle, it took a good three, four, five months to kind of understand what the heck was going on right Through this inquiry and then being able to witness other people and see yourself and other people right.
Speaker 1: 25:27
Them putting words to what you were feeling.
Speaker 2: 25:29
That didn't know how to put words to yeah, right, right, and it wasn't. It was like year two and three of that circle where I had major, major transformation. Major transformation. It came about a lot, right, because and this is what I work with people now right, our bodies always trying to inform us. Right, we can try, especially for people like me who love to go to my mind. You know, that's where I figure things out, but it's really not a good use of the mind to try and make sense of things We can discern. Our mind is there to discern, but it's the body that's really going to inform us. And and so the shakes, the crying, the deep pain that I never realized I had in my body was allowed to be revealed to me within that circle.
Speaker 1: 26:24
Yeah, I remember you talking about that in the book, where you had a moment where you just couldn't stop crying and shaking and it came out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: 26:34
Oh yeah, I mean it was, you know, and at one point in that circle I was just lying down and everybody was sitting down and surrounding me, like giving me the safe space, right to feel this trauma that I had never felt or allowed myself to feel, just kind of come out of me and and, at the same time, right, create a safe, protective space that I'm okay. Right, tell my nervous system I'm okay.
Speaker 1: 26:58
Yeah, yeah. I remember having those experiences with you when I did one-on-one coaching with you within the first couple of sessions and you leading me through guided meditations or questions in which you brought up pieces of myself that I had not looked at and didn't know how to identify. And then I would just start sobbing and I really appreciated the space that you held for me to have those emotions without judgment and just letting them go. It was so healing.
Speaker 2: 27:31
Yeah, that's what we need, right, and um, yeah, we don't often get that, but that is. That's what I've learned through all of this. This is just the. The safety, the non-judgmental and the witnessing are huge components to healing.
Speaker 1: 27:51
And at what point did you decide to do one-on-one coaching?
Speaker 2: 27:56
So well, let's back it up again. It's, it's in my book. So, um, right in 1999, a friend of mine died and um right, this is the first chapter. And before she passed, i said you know, if you know what I'm supposed to do when you get to the other side, let me know, because you know, i spent my life dabbling in different things of what I thought I might want to do. Um, but and at this, at that point in time, i would add two young kids that I was raising and, anyhow, she wanted me to read at her funeral and I, a few nights before, was sitting at my kitchen table and just said what do you want me to say out loud? And I started to hear her and I even started to see her face, you know. And I just started writing everything I heard and I thought, wow, that was really weird. I wonder if I could do that again. So I called out to another friend who had recently died, a few months before, and heard him and wrote it down and then called out because I thought you know what? what's happening here? I didn't really get it, even though throughout my life I've had, prior to that, had, uh, premonitions or senses of people who had passed around me, right, and and I guess I didn't look at it that way I had written things that, um, i had sensed from them. But then I did it with my husband's father, who my husband was two and a half and his father died. I called out his name And I heard him and his New York accent and I heard and I wrote down everything and handed these to my husband and he says, wow, these aren't your words. They were all distinctly different and what was being said And from his father um spoke to occurrences that happened in my husband's life, right Now my again. My husband was only two and a half when his father died, but what was referenced in that, what I wrote down, were things that had happened at various times in my husband's life. That gives me goosebumps, wow Yeah. So I took that. I read it at um Melissa's funeral and I literally put it in a drawer and to this day I'm so frustrated because I can't find those original pieces that I wrote. And then I went back to just raising my kids. I thought, well, that was cool, i did what she wanted me to read. I did. Her father wanted a copy. I gave it to him. And then 2012, i was just scrolling through the internet found something that I couldn't pay attention to then So I bookmarked it. In that time period I don't know what it was A few days I went and had a reading with a medium that I was gifted And my brother who had passed also in at the end of 1999, came through this reading from this woman And he said and it's right under your nose, that was a message from her. And I'm like, ok, i have no idea what that means, but OK, went home, didn't think about it, got on my computer, opened the tab up and watched this video from a woman, sue Frederick, who was basically doing what I had done now, 13 years prior of hearing people doing these meditations. She called it Hearing People and was a medium and gave people who asked that information And she had a certification program. So I went and I thought because right now, i had been now dabbling. Well, this was the year of this whole transformation, of meeting Emily, seeing myself in a new way, learning things, just eating things up about things that interest me, things that kept calling my attention And now I watch this video and I thought, ok, that's what I do Again, took her certification and now had a platform to work with people, to do what this natural thing that came through me being able to hear, being a medium, and that was in 2013. I took her certification. Then I took her another certification in 2014 of hers, so the first one was around grief. The second one, she called it a career or life intuitive. And then in 2015, i was asked to do a talk through an organization called G3. And that is where everything kind of started falling into place after that talk, where I was terrified right, because here I am speaking, and at that point I hadn't done enough of my own work to understand that speaking and being seen like that was something that was my core wound, right To speak. And so this is kind of an accumulation of this. Is the healing that has been done right That I did do that talk. I was terrified. There was a series of speakers. It was my turn to come up An hour or so prior to that. I'm out in the hallway just trying to do everything I can to calm myself down, just to tell myself that it was all OK. I did get up there, i did speak to what I had learned through the certification, through numerology, through my whole life story, basically, which is in the book all the grief and different diagnoses of my family members that I had experienced And, again, yet had not done the work to realize that it was speaking. It was using my voice. That freaked me out, because that is what I grew up to believe was not a safe thing to do. Because when I was four years old and used my voice in a particular situation that from the outside could look like a cranky child and a tired mom, i was screaming because my brother's friends were in the doorway of my bedroom while my mom was trying to help me get dressed And I was screaming and wanted them out. I wanted them to leave the doorway And they would just sit there and point it and giggle at me And my mom just quietly knelt in front of me holding my pants, and she didn't do anything but sit there and hold my pants. She stayed calm. I was hysterical. The boys didn't leave. Ultimately, obviously, i got dressed, but in that moment was a moment that changed the trajectory of how I believed I was supposed to operate in the world. It was a point in time that I have a memory of put it that way, because it's made me who I am And I've been able to come full circle now, to be able to speak, to be able to have the courage to work with other people to help them to come out of and live into their full potential. So that is my purpose, that we have this birthright to be fully expressed. And that's what I've learned through my journey. And it is a continual journey Because, yes, i do still get tripped up, not to the degree that I once did, but I'm sitting here speaking to you And this is going to go out to whoever's going to hear I wrote a book. Yeah, i wrote a book of my story to put out into the world, to say, hey, here I am, which has been a lifelong dream to write a book. I mean, from six years old, i always wanted to write a book, but for someone who spent their life being reserved and quiet and didn't share, to write a book and say here's my story, go ahead and read it and basically become an open book.
Speaker 1: 36:15
Yeah, What led you to write the book, Like was there a single moment where you just felt called like this needs to happen now, Because it sounds like you've been thinking about it for a long time. But was there a certain situation that came up that really helped you take that action?
Speaker 2: 36:36
My age Because I knew I'm not getting any younger. So this book came out last September of what are we in 2021, right, uh-huh? Yeah, because this, at the end of this year I'll turn 60. So it was like I was 50 when I just figured out what I was going to be when I grew up. Right, i joke about. But yeah, it was because I'm not getting any younger, and if I had not, if I died before I wrote this book, i'd be really pissed at myself.
Speaker 1: 37:15
So in your book you talk about a diving accident that happened to your daughter. She dove into a swimming pool when she was 15. And suffered a severe spinal cord injury that still affects her today. I know you are careful when you talk about this because you want to respect her privacy, But can you talk about how you got through this without losing yourself? How did you create boundaries? How do you keep your relationship healthy with her?
Speaker 2: 37:53
How did I do that? I did that because, well, that in itself is a partnership. I'm getting support from my family And I'm getting support from Alana because she is also doing her own thing and her own passion and what she's, and I guess overall it comes down to having the support of my family and them also wanting what they can see I'm passionate about. And I guess this is where I'm not taking no for an answer. I'm not forgetting myself, i'm not going to. I guess it's that deeply ingrained and purposeful to me to be able to do this inner work, not just on myself but to also help those who seek me out for this help, that that is such a strong calling that there's no way that I can deny that, and my family sees that. So they offer me the space to do that. And then, as a care provider, alana and I work closely in designing our schedules around each other so that we can both be independent and do our thing and know when it is that we need to come together to for her to have her needs met by me caregiver. So that's how it works. I guess maybe that's why I don't speak. It's funny because I hear other people say, well, wow, what you've overcome with the relationship with Alana and this and that, and how you've done this and how you've done that. I think I tend not to bring it up because there is so much of it that is her journey to And I've got to be really careful to speak to only my side of it, because it's not my place to speak to what it's like for her, because that's her thing And she's a very private person. So I think that's why I don't touch it. And yet I've heard from people wow, people are going to want to know how you did this. How do you do that? So I mean, specifically, one woman said it's remarkable how you have come to do all this and write a book while being a care provider to your daughter, that you've been able to learn all this and go through all this and become in spite of being a care provider, so that I mean I'm just even kind of that's what people want to hear. Right, how did I do that? I found my purpose, which is to sit with people to help them discover how they can be the full reflection of themselves and fully expressed. So what the you know? I don't know if it's the gift of the injury. But what happened within? by being a caregiver for Alana, when I had the flexibility and the freedom to actually, because I was discovering so much about myself And so, yeah, like you said, the circle became important to me to have my time, to have my own life outside of being solely a caregiver, which I did for the first four years of her injury. That was what I you know, i'm mom mode, full caregiver mode. That was it right. And so then, when Emily did come into our life, i began to see me. I guess that's when I started realizing my own needs And that was where the boundary came in is that this is a need of mine and this is like a non-negotiable And this is what I'm going to do, which led to more ways of having more autonomy in doing the work that I do And Alana finding her own work you know that she does so that we have our own separate lives in respect to where our focus goes. And then we come back to doing when I'm needed as a caregiver, right To help in helping her with her needs right And designing the life that we can both have when she's dependent upon me. So I have to make myself available to her right As a caregiver right. So we design our life in a way that works for both of us.
Speaker 1: 42:47
Yeah, and it sounds like that's what keeps your relationship healthy.
Speaker 2: 42:50
Yeah, it has to be that, because otherwise there's right. Then we're lost in who's who right. So it's the normal, i think, the evolution of just each person becoming who they are right And still being able to maintain this relationship of not just a mother but a care provider. Yeah, that's a fine line, right, That's a fine line. That does get blurry at times.
Speaker 1: 43:17
Yeah, It's a balance, And it sounds like you've been able to find that balance through your internal work in creating transformational soul work. Now tell me what do you think makes a person a soul warrior?
Speaker 2: 43:39
What makes a person a soul warrior, i believe, is when you're not afraid to go into the depths of who you are, to learn who you are right, so you can contact your soul right. So that's why this is soul work. I call it because we're going down beneath the personality. So if you can kind of put aside the idea of who you think you are and open up to learning about the truth of who you are And to me that is a soul warrior because you're tapping into the truth of who you are, which is who you are that can't be touched by anything in a negative way. It's just, it's not possible.
Speaker 1: 44:26
Yeah, that's beautiful And that just gives me a sense of security just thinking about that and hearing that. We get so caught up in the external world. but when you talk about it like that, i can really sink in and I can feel safer, knowing that my soul is always resting, waiting there for me to learn whatever lessons I'm meant to learn and connect with myself because, as a fellow recovering people pleaser, like I, used to seek all of my validation from the external, from how other people were doing or how they were thinking of me, instead of really coming back to self and viewing those other people as just a reflection of whatever I'm working on internally.
Speaker 2: 45:10
Well, and from the beginning, as a child, we get the external validation Oh, look at, she's walking, she's taking a few steps, oh, and you're such a good eater, look at, you've eaten all your food. Or oh, everything is externalized. Is our praise is externalized for what we're doing, so that we're already so, even between the ages of zero and seven, is like we're. Anything that comes at us good, bad, ugly, indifferent. That, to our young sponge minds, is the truth. That's what we take out into the world. And then we start operating, or we continue to operate from that early programming And we never think to update our hardware.
Speaker 1: 46:01
Yeah, or decide what we don't want, what's not serving us in this season of our life, because sometimes those things, that those old programs were survival mechanisms. We needed them for a period of time to function within our family or whatever situation we were in life. But to look internally and ask yourself is that still serving me? That takes a deep level of awareness and that's something that I see you presenting to other people is like question whether this is serving you anymore or is it now hindering you from moving on to the next step, that next level of growth?
Speaker 2: 46:40
Right. And again, why I call it soul work? right, because we get stuck in, right. I think that manifests is that we're just angry and then it actually becomes. One of the ways it can manifest is blame. If the other person would just I'd be okay, right, or my job is going terrible, blah, blah, blah, right. So we start externalizing to everything wrong outside of us because, again, it's that disconnection from ourselves. So that's what I do try to help people with is okay, let's ease back into who. Where is all this angst coming from? It's inside of ourselves. And okay, well, why, what's causing that angst inside of ourselves? Right, so it is a process, it is a journey, and when we feel safe to contact that right, then the messages start to come to us and then things kind of, we get the ah-has and then we go, oh yeah, well, you know. And then you know, like you asked, i don't know in the beginning of what relationships changed. It was the relationship with myself that changed. That then, you know, quote, changed. It's the perception. It's. You know, we're always looking through our own lens of how we view the world, and that lens, again, we don't take time to shine the our lenses up, as I'm thinking of a Ram Dass saying you know, polish the mirror. How often do we polish the mirror? We just start to think that life is shitty and things are terrible and you know, bad luck here. And this isn't working for me there, because we're also not taught in our culture to you know honor within, honor this vessel, honor that we have all the answers to us. There's segments of you know populations that do that, but as a whole in our society, that's not what we're taught to do. We're supposed to listen to the almighty, outside external voice whatever that is right telling us what to do. And then I'm going. No, i'm going on a tangent, but That's okay. I was going to say one last thing, but it is important to. Yeah, when we understand self, even just saying that, we breathe easier. I don't even understand who we are. Yeah, And that is. I've again came to learn the truth of who I am, And so I can help others do that if they're so interested. Yeah, Oh, self-medicating, that's right. So then we self-medicate because it's so. We can't make sense of it, right? And if the thought comes up, or if we're sat in silence for too long, or whatever? So we have all our distractions, all our vices, whatever that is to keep keeping us away from ourself. And that's why and I understand meditation isn't the answer for everybody but if we can sit safely with someone to slow down just enough, to feel safe enough, in that, you know, if it's just you and one other person to be able to make contact, begin to make contact. And that's what I find working with people right.
Speaker 1: 49:57
Yeah.
Speaker 2: 49:59
Is that pretty, pretty quickly people? I've noticed that I sit with, start to slow down and can feel safe to begin to. I mean, my goodness, you did it in our first session, right? Mm-hmm. So yeah, that's, that's what I'm passionate about. That's why I know, that's why I know why I'm here.
Speaker 1: 50:26
Yeah, that's beautiful. If someone wants to work with you, how can they get a hold of you? How can they find you?
Speaker 2: 50:35
My website, angeladesalvonet. I mean they can fill out the contact form there. I'm on, i'm not. I'm not, i post. I'm not big on social media as far as posting stuff, but you know Instagram, angelaCDesalvo and Facebook Transformational Soulwork. And pick up my book, Soul Warrior It's. You can get it on Amazon. You can get it at Copper Fields if you're local in Novato. There's a couple other local stores in Novato, CA that carry it, but definitely Amazon. Yeah, read my story if it resonates. If you want to work together, yeah, i love doing. I love working with people and seeing there, like you, transformation. You know we met eight years ago and it's beautiful to see you how you've come into yourself. Thank you, I'm remembering the truth of who you are. So, and here we are. Yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1: 51:39
It's amazing and amazing. We can spend time together and work with each other in this way. I'm so excited for people to hear your story. Well, thank you. Yeah, thank you for this opportunity. Thank you. One last thing Your relationships don't have to be challenging, trust me, I thought life and connecting with others would always be a struggle. What changed? I found tools to help me resolve conflicts and people-pleasing and create healthy boundaries. Join me inside the Healthy Relationships Toolkit. In this five-day coaching series, you will receive essential tools to heal, rebuild and cultivate harmonious connections So you can have peace of mind and experience joy in your relationships again. The link to the toolkit is in the show notes and you can also find it on my website, mrs-hardcom. And the best part is the toolkit's free. Check it out.