1: The Elevated Life Academy: Stories of Hope and Healing

Cherie Lindberg: Hi, everyone. This is Cherie Lindberg from Elevated Life Academy, and today is the beginning of a journey. It's an introduction to Elevated Life Academy podcast. And I wanted to share with you, prior to hearing all of our guests, the whole reason for this podcast was to put out some positive, inspiring stories of hope and healing from around the world.

I will be interviewing healers. I travel a lot. I teach a lot. For 20 years, I've worked with trauma, and now I'm moving more into post traumatic growth and teaching people how to actually live joyful lives. And this is part of leaving a legacy to the next generation of folks that are doing consciousness work.

How do we stay conscious in this everlasting, perpetually busy world that we all live in? How do we live consciously when we are bombarded by social media and negativity and a faster pace of living? And that's what the purpose of this podcasti s all about is to put out something positive, inspirational, and hopeful.

My journey began many, many years ago of realizing how trauma had impacted my life. And that journey of healing took me many places. It took my husband many places because as I started to heal, then that impacted our relationship and then he started to heal.

We wanted to share this journey in the hopes that other people might find some of these resources helpful to them in choosing to do their own personal work so that they can transcend trauma. They can be a trailblazer and let any of the legacy of trauma stop with them so that the next generation has more tools on how to live a more authentic, conscious, joyful life.

And so that's how this journey began and that's where the podcast idea came so that we could reach as many people as possible. And so you'll, you'll hear me interviewing healers from all over the world. Most recently, I interviewed a Peruvian shaman in Peru, and some of the healers that have dedicated their lives to supporting his ability to reach and teach some of the Peruvian ancient traditions of healing.

You'll also hear we'll be going to Scotland and you will be hearing about some of the Scotland traditions of healing along with folks in the United States. And how they're offering alternatives to everyday psychotherapy. That these ideas are moving into energy healing, biofield science, and that research is trying to catch up with some of these Ideas of healing that we know work. Vibration, sound therapy, rolphing, myofascial release.

These are just some of the different ways of working with the body in a way that can help people that have long standing trauma or suffering in their body release it so that their body can shift into being more present. We are learning so much right now with neuroscience and the implications of our own systems our own how to manage our own central nervous system in a way that is healthy.

How do we discharge residue from trauma out of our body so that homeostasis where we can balance again and be open to new ways of living again. A lot of times the trauma experiences that people have happened in their childhood and they live on in their body for years and years and years.

And so some of these healings that you're going to hear about are how do we discharge this old fragmented trauma that's been held in our body and in our brain so that new perspectives and that folks have the ability to be more present in today's reality instead of the old programming running the show.

So, my hope is that we're going to have like very rich discussions along the way. You'll hear bits and pieces of my journey. Maybe my family's journey, my husband's journey. As the two of us have been married 35 years and we have come a very long way and we've used a lot of these methods that I will be interviewing people about.

And in fact Elevated Life Podcast is also going to be turned into an Elevated Life Academy where we're going to offer classes and some of the healers that we're working with are going to be offering classes. This is all a beginning project and in journey, my hope is to have access for professionals who are interested in some of these tools, and they'll be able to get continuing education credits, as well as having a wing just for everyday folks that want to grow, and they want to have personal development.

We want to serve as well, so we're very aware of our privilege. And we want to be able to offer some of these services for free, because we know not everybody has access to mental health services, or to have the ability to pay for a coach. And so we want them to be able to have some of these services for free, so that if they want to heal and they want to grow that these ideas and some of these things, you can do on your own.

And so we're going to be putting out a variety of levels of education, and we hope that we will meet a need that may be otherwise not met. And just to throw out some of my personal hopes and dreams as this podcast gets produced, and that the Elevated Life Academy takes on a life of its own, in the future, my hope is to be able to make funding to create maybe whether it's a nonprofit or to be able to do more philanthropy so that I can offer some scholarships for folks that otherwise might not be able to get education on how to open up your own business, how to thrive in your own business, especially in diversified populations that otherwise would not have the ability to open up their business. So, these are just some of the ideas that are floating around in my mind, and you're going to be hearing an everyday perspective, as it's ongoing, as the dream is getting built as we are all learning. You know, this dream of having this podcast, it's been a long time coming. I've had this for like 10 years, and I knew I could not do this on my own. And so I found a way to pay a team to be able to help me put this out.

And this podcast is going to be free, again in the hopes of reaching as many people as possible and talking about values, talking about alignment, talking about leadership, healing. All these things that make our lives richer. My last newsletter talked a lot about mattering, and there's a lot of research coming out about that now and belonging and mattering and getting back to the humanity pieces of what it is to be human, what it means to heal, what it means to live a conscious life. And my hope for everyone is to take these tools and skills that will be offered, so that you can live an elevated life. And what do I mean by an elevated life? Where you can look out the window, and you can be awestruck by the beauty of this world and this earth.

Because what trauma does, and what suffering does, and I talked with Dr. David Grand, the founder of BrainSpotting recently about this, and I concur with what he said, is it takes away your understanding that you have choice. And it takes away your understanding that you do have control over your world. Some control, not full control. And it also takes the ability away for you to trust.

Oftentimes, we have relational trauma that starts really young in our childhood, and then that becomes a legacy of not being able to connect with people that are safe. You know, we, we find that we end up connecting with people that retraumatize us because we don't know any better. We don't have the skills, we don't have the tools, we don't know the signs. And to fully heal trauma is to regain your understanding of your own empowerment, your own choice, that you have the ability to control some of those choices and to learn to open your heart up again to trusting. And so that is my hope for this podcast, that it will be stories about that. How other people have gotten there. How did they manage their struggles?

So, it's a real life look at humanity. And that my hope is that it will strike the hearts and minds of folks all around the world, and inspire them to get support if they need it, to reach out, inspire them to try something differently, inspire them to believe in themselves, knowing that they belong and they matter no matter what is going on in your life. If you're neurodivergent, if there's lots of trauma in your life, you've had struggles, like, it's possible for everyone to heal.

And it doesn't have to be always with a drug or something more sophisticated than that. It can be through relationship. It can be through feeling supported and cared about and somebody holding sacred space for you to share your story. I know Dan Siegel has said what becomes shareable becomes bearable. I really believe in that, that if someone can share their story and feel dignity and feel cared for, that that's the beginning of possibility for their healing.

So I hope you will join me on this grand journey, wherever it is going to take us in moving towards learning different ways of living an Elevated Life.

So, until we meet again, and I hope you enjoy the podcasts that are coming your way.

Thank you.