4. Overcoming Body Fear to Fully Embody & Unleash Your Goddess Within with Chelsea Renee

In this episode we dive into how to overcome body fear and build body positivity through the incredible power of somatic practice, meditation, breathwork, and intuitive movement.

Chelsea shares her journey with her own body fear, how she was able to finally embrace her own gorgeous body, and the somatic breath activation techniques that she developed that changed her life!

If you want to unleash the goddess within you - this episode is for you!

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About Chelsea:
Chelsea holds the soul mission to connect humans with their highest self, community and nature. She is a talented medicine woman, energetics & embodiment coach, retreat creator, intuitive ceremonialist and so much more. She is the creator of the powerful breathwork technique, Somatic Breath Activation, that unlocks layers of your own truth and power. She joyfully works with individuals, couples and groups to increase mindfulness, strengthen relationships and integrate their own personal development. Chelsea acts as a catalyst for transformation and change throughout her global community.

• Follow her on Instagram at @thechelsearenee____
• Website for ALL the magic
• Website for Breathwork Magic

About Andi

Hello! I'm Andi and I'm a Voice & Expression Coach, Medium, and Actress, and I love all things spirituality, expansion and being brave. I have been on a really long journey with my body. If my journey has taught me anything it’s that as humans we are incredibly powerful self-healers. When we allow ourselves to be brave and share our stories, we embody our most transformative ally – our beautiful, empowered strength. I am here to help you reclaim your whole creative, connected and confident self so that you can become EVERYTHING that you are here in this life to be. xx

• @andi.matthies on Instagram
• Be a guest on the podcast

Transcript

Andi M: ​ Welcome to Body Diaries, the podcast that shares our real, raw and unfiltered body stories so that we can finally shake off shame, reconnect with our whole selves and ignite everything that our bodies are capable of.

 I'm your host, Andi Matthies and each week we connect with some of the world's most inspiring body-led humans and explore the energetics that changed their lives. If you've ever felt disconnected from your body, or you are craving to finally unlock your whole experience, this podcast is for you.

Andi M:

I'm so excited. This week I chat with the beautiful Chelsea Carter. Chelsea is a retreat creatrix, a coach and a breath magician who helps heart led women really realign their businesses and their lives. In this episode, Chelsea shares her journey with her own body fear and how she was able to finally embrace her gorgeous body and the somatic breath activation techniques that she developed to change her life.

If you want to unleash the goddess within you, honestly, this episode is for you. And please don't forget to leave a review if you love it so we can make sure that it reaches everyone that needs to hear this story. Let's dive in.

Chelsea, it's so great to have you here today. Welcome to Body Diaries.

Chelsea R: Thank you so much. I'm so excited to have this beautiful conversation with you.

Andi M: I know we are diving into the world of overcoming body fear to fully embody and unleash the goddess within. What a delicious topic, I'm really excited to dive into that.

Chelsea R: Yeah, me too. Thank you so much.

Andi M: Now I know it would be fabulous to start by diving into your diary entry. You have one that you have selected for us, would you like to kick us off today by reading that?

Chelsea R: I would love to. Sometimes I sigh because of the existential crisis I feel I am in. A long sigh of angst. Honoring the sigh allows it to move out of my body and remind me that in reality, a plane is not crashing into me. I'm not in an avalanche. I am safe. And then a sigh of relief comes over my body. I am safe. I love this home, this body.

I trust in her movements. I feel what she desires. I give myself permission to have it, to receive it. I love this body. It is my home. This is my temple. I create a pillar of light with each breath. I am safe. I am safe. I am safe.

Andi M: Ah, Chelsea, it is such a beautiful diary entry. Thank you so much for sharing that. I think the thing that struck me when I was listening to that was you shifting And you call that the existential crisis that you were in with your body and how you shifted that into this notion of safety.

I'd love to dive in. What was your relationship with your body like that led you to write this diary entry?

Chelsea R: I have such a long body story. In this moment, in this diary entry, I had been developing a lot more self trust with who I am what my body is communicating to me. And in this entry, I was still moving through a circle, a cycle of mistrust. Oh, what's going on, allowing my external environment to take the reins and not allowing myself to remember that the moment I can give myself some space, the moment that I can sigh and be in my body fully.

That moment is the moment that my body communicates. Hey, it's all good. It's that mind that's always running and Oh, you got to do this. You have to do this. That creates the existential crisis. But when I allow that sigh to become a sigh of, okay, I'm here in this space, then I create.

Yeah, that's safety because my body is telling me like, Hey, the plane's not crashing. You're not in an avalanche. You're fine. This is just a problem of the mind that you're allowing to take over. So in that moment, that was what was moving through my mind and my body. It was coming up on two years ago when I was really starting to fully dive into this work as part of a business as well.

I really didn't have an intention for this work to become a business, but it ended up becoming one. And then I met this part of me that was, confronted with all the things that happens when you're going on an entrepreneur, lifestyle. So that's what was happening in this moment.

Andi M: I definitely can resonate what you're saying there around the entrepreneurship challenging, not only our relationship with ourselves, but our relationship with what's possible, and I find it really interesting that you here in this diary entry have linked this notion of needing to be safe to be able to take this journey as an entrepreneur.

I'd love to dive into that a little bit more. What was feeling unsafe that you needed to reassure yourself around, particularly at this moment in time?

Chelsea R: I think the biggest part of it for me was being seen. Being seen in the journey, being vulnerable. I know you have seen a bit of the work that I do and a lot of the work I do is actually showing your heart fully and letting other people see it. So then they know that they have that permission.

And so there's, This edge that was being created from me and my calling to, I need to walk first. I need to do this. I need to show people that living heart centered is incredibly beautiful and so worth it. At the same time, that fear of being seen, that possibility of judgment, like all those things that kind of come up when you're starting to, move against the status quo and taking off those masks, like really being more comfortable with people not seeing you the way that they've always seen you.

And, yeah, just not really people pleasing everybody's perception of me anymore. And so I think that being seen thing was something that was an evolution in my, Entrepreneurship journey and my personal journey for, still there's layers. As you go deeper into it and you rise more, there's more levels of being seen and more levels of yourself that evolve and be activating for people.

Andi M: Absolutely. Being seen and having to show up in person and to express your full self I find is one of the biggest challenges in my journey as an entrepreneur as well. Where do you feel like, because we don't always start closed down, right? You mentioned the masks. We don't start as little children necessarily with masks on.

Do you know some of those pivotal moments in your journey and in your lifetime where Those layers started to come on. Those masks started to come on, which really was blocking this incredible goddess who's sitting in front of me and shows up online to share her work. Do you know in your story where those layers and masks started to layer on?

Chelsea R: One comes to mind first And especially since we're talking about body and loving the body. This is something that I was coming up and first. I was a loud, crazy, wild child. I was totally, an individual, love to share my opinion, love to express myself, love to sing at the top of the milongs like, I got stitches because I was dancing on a table at five years old.

I was crazy. And so, of course, like, there's that element of being told to be toned down and told to fit more into this box of what's acceptable, what's expected. And Course that leaks into when you continue to grow up, you're like, okay I need to fit into the box of what's accepted.

And you find out what's accepted by looking around you and your perception of what you think. And so I was definitely put in a little bit of a box as a kid. And I think that's a story that a lot of us can relate to as well. For my body, like I was just mentioning, my dad was very big when I was growing up.

He was a really big guy and he, oh, he was like a football player in college, like almost went to the NFL, like he was just like this big oh, I forget what position he did. Linebacker, I think actually, I think he's a linebacker. And he always had this fear when I was growing up of me getting fat.

He always like, and he projected that. He'd be like, Chelsea, you don't need too much. Chelsea, don't do this. And I was never like overweight by any means. And Even like at one point you're in your awkward preteen phases and maybe I was slightly pudgy and my dad was like, let's get you on some human growth hormones.

So you get taller then you'll be skinnier. And of course that ended up not happening because. That was just, too crazy. But that was conversations he had with me because he was projecting his fear and insecurities because he knew how he felt growing up and how hard it was for him to be overweight in his world.

And so come through, everything, high school, college, after college. And I was like, honestly, pretty, like an average sized woman. And I hated myself. I hated my body. I would look at my body and I would tell myself that I was fat because I had this perception that I was always going to be overweight.

Like I remember this one photo of myself at a festival with my friend and I was dancing and I remember when I was younger, I used to look at that photo and go, God, you're so fat. And now I look at, I'm like, God, you're so beautiful. Oh my God. I can't believe I ever thought that of myself. And it wasn't until I really started doing this inner work journey.

that I started to really love my body. And that was crazy because I began to gain weight. And so I was like actually starting to fall more in love with who I was and in my body when I did have more weight on myself. And so it was almost this shadow work. job that I was doing with because also, rewind a little bit more, before I went all into the inner work, I was deep in avoidance, and that avoidance manifested in doing things that weren't good for me, and that was skiing an insane amount.

Like all the time, hiking and backpacking an insane amount. I know you're in kilometers over there, but like almost 500 miles I did in four months. And that's like a lot. And in Colorado where it's like really tough stuff. And I was like, Oh, I'm at least doing things that are good for myself, but I was really so deep in avoiding a lot of the shadows that were.

Being revealed to me, because I had one foot in, the door was opening, but then I was like, I'm just gonna run away! Literally, I'm gonna backpack my those troubles away, or I'm gonna ski down the hill, and they're behind me! And when I finally slowed down and wasn't like, over, Exercising over, whatever, all those things.

I was actually able to start tending to myself. I started gaining a little bit of weight and I also fell way more in love with myself. And now I'm pregnant.and it is freaking crazy to see my body changing. My belly growing massively, even my face I definitely gain more weight just looking at my face.

I'm like, where's this pregnancy glow everybody's telling me about? I feel like I don't have it. Just different things about my physical appearance are altered, but I'm so in love with my body because I'm like, oh my god, this is like magical. I'm literally creating life. 

The first thing I want to say for anyone who's listening and can't see Chelsea, she is glowing. She's absolutely beautiful. Even if she mentions that she can't see it herself, I see you, Chelsea, and you're absolutely beautiful. Second thing, so many things that you just said there that I resonated with, and I have so many questions for you.

Andi M: Avoidance. So powerful that you mentioned that because particularly when it comes to relationship with our body and body fear, we don't identify our behavior as avoidant. We think that we're actually moving towards loving our bodies. But we're doing it by having to change our bodies. And so this is a beautiful segue for us to cross into body fear, because I know you have a lot of experience working with clients in this area.

So I would love to dive in building on what you said about avoidant behavior and trying to change ourselves and all of the childhood conditioning that comes with us to be able to have that relationship with ourselves. What is body fear? How do you see it showing up and what is your experience of having to really face it? 

Chelsea R: Yeah I feel like body fear really is... At the root, fear of being in your body and being with your body. of course, there's levels of appreciating your body and loving your body, but it's more rooted. And I don't know what this information is. I don't know what this intuition is. I don't know what this gut feeling is.

I'm going to stay up here in my head because that is factual. It's logistical. I can write it down on a piece of paper. It's in the known instead of the unknown. And I feel like the body has a lot of those unknown energies that can sometimes be hard for people to figure out at first, but once you start exercising that All right let's connect with the body.

Let's do some intuitive movement. Let's do somatic practices and allow your body to speak to you. Because the other thing is that the body speaks in whispers. It's very quiet. It's very subtle. And. When you start to interpret those little bits of information, then you come to realize that the body's information is factual.

That's what I recently was supporting at a retreat and there was a lot of medical professionals there and they were like, I hate it when a nurse talks about her intuition said something was wrong with a patient and I offered them, I said, maybe you start to see that intuition can be factual. It can be some bit of information that could support in actually diagnosing a patient.

And so I think there is a shift that's happening just in this, divine feminine rising that we're seeing happening all over the world where we are trusting those unknown hints, if you will, from our body, from the universe, and giving them more space. And that Second part of your question is like how I see this body fear show up a lot in clients is complete resistance to being in the body.

They're like, Oh my gosh I don't want to be in this. I don't want to feel this because it's been suppressed for so long and our body holds a lot of information. So like That conditioning that I was sharing before, just a little bit of it, or your shadows or those patterns, your body has that information of this is not aligned.

This actually doesn't work for you. But we love to stay comfortable. Our mind creates these neural pathways that is do the same thing over and over again. It's comfortable. It's easy. It's safe. And so when we realize Through working with our body oh, God, that thing I do all the time is actually not beneficial to me.

It's uncomfortable. and it asks you to do more work. It asks you to carve new neural pathways, which is creating a new life. It's creating new reality. That's why, people talk about the inner work journey. They're not like, Oh, it's super easy. It's a lot of work. And so I think that's where a lot of that body fear comes from is that information that comes from the body because the body is really, especially the heart.

I'd love talking about the heart, the womb. I love to talk about too, but the heart is always trying to help lead us into our highest timeline, the highest alignment. So many of us are not listening to our hearts and listening to our minds because, again, our mind likes to stay comfortable. Some of the things I see when I'm hosting different retreats or gatherings or supporting at other people's spaces.

When I bring these kinds of workshops and ceremonies that are asking people to go into their body,their body really shows a new way for them. And I could go into a lot of different things, but. I find the common thread is that after tapping into the information of the body and being revealed what's there and seeing the information that comes from your heart, I'm saying bodily heart, it's all the same kind of thing, intuition, it's all inner wisdom, it's all fluid.

When we tap into that space, It's really difficult to live life the same way you've been living because the curtain has been drawn, you've seen behind the curtain. That's what I'm saying. Seen behind the curtain, you're like, Oh, this actually isn't how it's supposed to be. Oh, this isn't actually how I feel.

And so as much as you may slip back into some of the like same patterns you come with a new awareness of. Oh, this pattern isn't serving me. Oh God, I bought this again. Oh, I'm doing this again. I'm letting this person, go ahead of me. Whatever that pattern is, you're able to really illuminate. What the new life that you wanna live is going to look like. Even if you don't know what it's gonna look like, you know it's not gonna look like what you have evidence of already, what your life is. 

Andi M: I love that. It was perfect. And I love that you've brought up this connection to the heart and starting to have that awareness around the patterns. And I wanted to ask you, that is tricky, right? I remember when I started getting some illumination and some awareness of my patterns. And. When you're new to it, you almost wanna see the pattern and then punish yourself for it.

Oh my goodness, I've got this pattern. Or Oh my goodness, this thing is over me again. And so having the awareness at the very beginning is difficult because we don't necessarily know what to do with it. And we also wanna make ourselves wrong or remind ourselves of. The person that we were when we first developed that.

So I'd love to, for our listeners, for anyone that is starting to connect in with that heart energy. And I do want to ask you about that later. Like how do we start opening up and connecting to our heart? But if anyone who's new on this journey and is starting to listen to the body, to the heart, but as having that mind play catch up and making themselves wrong for what they see as the pattern, what advice or support do you have there?

Chelsea R: that is such a beautiful question give yourself so much grace. That's what I'd say because. Awareness is the first step. Just because you're aware of something, that does not mean it's going to change instantly. If anything, especially in an embodied evolution, which is what I love to talk about in the different things I offer, if you're going to be embodied in it, it's, there's multiple cycles you are going to move through of awareness.

And it's going to be like, Oh, did that again? Oops. Okay. I got to adjust this for next time. And then you just allow it to keep moving and evolving. It's that awareness is key and it's definitely not something that's Oh, you're aware you got to change it immediately. We are humans too. And so even like recognizing.

When you are starting to listen to your heart and you're opening up this door into this journey, the whole point of this journey is not to beat yourself up and tell yourself that you're wrong. It's to reconnect with yourself. It's to love yourself. It's to find that divine love in the universe around you and not feel like, Oh, I'm alone or I'm isolated, or it's to feel and see the connections.

And talk about this a lot in different contexts, but I feel it really, it lands here too. The moment in any type of space where you are creating rigidity, Then you need to start softening and look at it again. And I think if you're like, Oh, I said, I'm aware of this. I did it wrong. That's being rigid.

That's creating rules where there doesn't need to be rules. You can say it's okay. I'm learning. It's okay. I'm human. It's okay. I have feelings and know that this is like part of life and enjoy life. Go buy an ice cream and, be like, Oh, look at the moon, I think sometimes people can get really caught up on I have to do this.

And when I say people, I mean me. I know when I started my journey, I was like, okay, let's look for the next shadow to work with. Let's find the next shadow to uncover because I got to work and check these things off so I can be the best version of myself I can be. Until I finally realized, oh, I don't need to go looking for the shadows.

They will find me. And then it will be even more aligned and divine because. It's the time to work with it. And since that, I've been able to enjoy life more, let go of that rigidity of, Oh, this has to be this way. And and also move through those patterns, shadows, conditioning, whatever it is with more grace and ease because they're integrated in a more sustainable way.

Andi M: I'm so glad that you just mentioned having a list of all the shadows to work through. I used to have this journal. I was never a big journaler, but when I started to feel into wanting to connect more with myself, I started journaling and on the last page I'd flip to the back of the book, I'd have a list.

I actually had a list that said, Shadows to heal. And every time something came up, I would write down the shadow and I had this list that was growing by many pages. And then I would sit down on a day, on my day where I was like, I'm going to do my inner work today. And I'd sit down and I'd be like, okay, flick through the list.

I'm going to check this one off today. And so then I'd sit there and I'd be like, okay, now bring up all the feelings and the emotions of the shadow, because I'm going to clear this today and it's going to get ticked off and it's never going to be seen again. I

Chelsea R: Oh

Andi M: right?

Chelsea R: I totally can relate to that.

Andi M: Yeah. And because I was stepping newly, this was a few years ago, stepping newly into this awareness of when things would come up and being able, having the strength to be able to hold them and look at them and know that this is a shadow that I'd work on.

So very diligently with my, very strategic logical mind, I'd write it down on a tick list to be able to get checked off. It took me a little while to realize that's being able to. ease into allowing myself to feel them and work with them as they came up in whatever depth, in whatever layer that they came up at the time was so much more beneficial for my body and my soul.

But that took a little bit of practice. So I'm really interested in your work, particularly around body fear. Because most of my stuff that when it came up then was around the body, the shame of the body, the experiences that I went through as a child, as a teenager in my body and how I stored all of that.

How does someone who is having this awareness and wants to start releasing some of this body fear, where is a beautiful place to start? What can that journey look like from a place of not ticking off a list, but really just embracing it and moving through it and allowing the space to release it as it comes up.

Chelsea R: Diving into somatic practices is the best way to connect with the body and also start to redefine your relationship with your body. And when I talk about somatic practices, it's about getting into the body, getting out of the head.

And so my favorite one is breath work. I love using breath work. It's such an incredible space. To allow your mind to calm down and to really start to feel your body takeover and that wisdom get louder. And of course there are hundreds of different breath work techniques. I happen to really resonate with.

One in particular, the somatic breath activation, and I'll talk about that later too. But that's, one of the things I really love. I also love meditation. And I know a lot of people can be like, Oh, meditation's a mind thing, but really a meditation is about finding that gap in between thoughts where there's that field of infinite possibilities, where there's that space. It's not thinking about different things. And so I really love meditation in that way. And meditation isn't always sitting down and lotus pose. It can be walking. It can be watching smoke in my goddess space. It can just be anything where I'm actually allowing my thoughts to float away.

And I'm able to just be. And so sometimes it's just laying in silence. It doesn't have to look any certain way. I used to love mantra meditation when I was starting off because having just one mantra to focus on allowed me like the breath, because like you're focusing on the breath. It's just you're breathing, breathing, focusing on that.

And then all of a sudden you get lost and then you're like, oh, wow. Information's coming from my heart. And this is this is tapping into my body. Same thing with mantra meditation. You're, focusing on this, and then all of a sudden you're like, Oh wait, like I'm almost in a psychedelic experience because I'm left my body and I'm somewhere else.

Speaking of that, I love collaborating with plant medicine and inviting that way to connect with your body and also rewrite so many stories of where, of. I don't even know how to say it correctly, but like past wrongdoings, maybe that you created stories in your head, that you can look at it with a new perspective, literally a whole new mindset and go, Oh, you know what, this actually was this. Or I brought more understanding to a situation and I love collaborating with psychedelics with that.

And also all the different somatic practices. The last one I want to talk about is intuitive movement. And people are like, what the heck is that? It's like literally put on a couple songs. I like to have ones that don't have a lot of words and are just really vibey songs and just slow down, close your eyes and just have space to move.

Allow your body literally to start, okay, this feels good. Okay. I'm going to now I'm going to start doing this with my elbows. Okay. That's weird. It's like I'm dancing like nobody's watching, but it's not about Oh, I'm dancing in this way. It's. Literally allowing your body to start moving in whatever way feels good.

Sometimes I go into stretches, sometimes I'm like jumping and screaming. It's just whatever needs to be processed at that time. And just on that note, I know it could tie into what we were talking about earlier about the intelligence of the body and the unknown part of it. They're Is this desire that a lot of our collective feels to define everything and make things that are unknown known, we want to explore the secrets of the universe and literally be like, this is what this is.

And Oftentimes when I'm guiding people through sessions afterwards, they're like what did this mean? Okay. This is what happened to me. What do you think this meant? I'm like, it doesn't have to mean anything. It can just be energy moving through your body. And they're like, Oh I felt a lot of sadness, but I'm not sad.

Like, why is that? Maybe you're an open channel and you are. able to feel sadness for the collective. Because there's many people out there that literally can't express their sadness to survive. they're not allowed to cry. They have to survive. They're not allowed to be angry. So you're able to feel their anger.

And so Allowing that unknown of even what's happening to just be embraced. And it's I don't need to know. It's okay. I'm expressing myself. It's beautiful. And at the same time, have a knowing that whatever you're doing is actually really helping the energy of the world. It's raising the vibration of the planet and it's helping the collective move that energy.

Andi M: Oh, so many things that you just touched on there. So good. Movement is one of my favorite things to do to process emotion. And I think it's innate in a lot of us to want to move our bodies, but our minds get in the way to say, Oh, that's silly.

Are you going to look stupid or? I don't have time, our minds to process it, but our bodies are really wanting to process the emotion through the movement. I want to come back to what is a goddess space in a moment, because you said that and my brain was like, Ooh, I need to know what she has as a goddess space.

But before we do that, you talked there a little bit about somatic breath activation. And I'd love to learn a little bit more about How you use this to process emotion and move that through the body. And I do know somatic does link to movement. So I'm really interested to know, is there a movement element of the somatic breath activation that you do?

How does it work? What is it? And what are some of the experiences that you've had off the back of it?

Chelsea R: Yeah okay, so part of this entire, inner work journey is that I entered into it with no expectation of where I was going to be, what I was going to be doing. I had no idea I'd be hosting international retreats all over the world where 20 women are trusting me to, travel.

And they're like, I don't even know these people, but they're trusting me somehow. Had no intention with that. And I also accidentally, inadvertently created a breathwork technique and that's, I had no intention of that either. And so the somatic breath activation is that breathwork technique and. It started because I had done three different certifications for different breathwork spaces and each one of them I was like, this is good, but it doesn't fully land with me. This is good. I like this. Doesn't fully land. And so there were elements I, Grabbed from different techniques and also a lot of my own intuition that I infuse in together.

And I just started holding my space for myself with that. I would record sessions and I would listen to them myself. And at one point, cause I work with a lot of different one on one clients. I had a one on one client. She was like, in the same boat as me. She's I'm trying all these breath work techniques.

None of them are really landing. And she asked me like, okay which one is the one that you do? I'm curious, what do you do? And I'm, I was like, Oh God. So I just made up something and I do it myself. That's what my answer was like. I do something that I made up for myself. And she's can you like, maybe for our next session, can you facilitate that for me?

And so I was like, yeah, of course. And so I ended up doing. And she had the most like profound breath experience that she's ever had. And then I had another one on one client. It was similar thing like, Hey, can you do this for me? I hear this is cause they were connected. I hear this is something that you do.

I was like, yeah, of course. I'm happy to do that. And Then at that time, I was already hosting women's circles. I got enough confidence to be like, okay let me do this at one of the women's circles instead, got incredible feedback. And the feedback I was getting was really the most profound one is because in this breathwork technique, I've integrated this invitation to receive messages from your ancestors and your spirit guides.

And so a lot of people would actually have These experiences with past loved ones with spirit guides or archangels that were coming in and giving them advice. And they were like, Oh my gosh, this felt like a psychedelic experience. And maybe that's because I have a lot of experience guiding psychedelic experiences over my lifetime.

And. So there was just this huge component of receiving deeper wisdom, whether it was from within or from a supportive source. There is the invitation for primal expression. So when you're asking about, movement, I have this invitation for primal expression, and I encourage movement, I encourage screaming, grunting, growling, laughing literally whatever comes out.

Even silence, like that is okay too. Sometimes a couple people have fallen asleep. That's okay. That's what your body needed at that moment. And I really trust in that, that whatever comes through in these sessions, I have a Breathwork membership. So I'm doing sessions a lot. And even over the last two days, I received two different feedback of people like, wow, that session like really came at the most.

Perfect time for me. And so I really do trust in that, like that there's this ability for us to be a channel of, the divine of support for other people. And that's what I really love about the somatic breath activation is it gives me a space to support the collective in a bigger way.

Andi M: Over breathwork, some people can be really triggered by it when they very first try it because of the pace and the depth and the fast movement of the breath through the body. I know when I very first started breathwork the very first time, it almost induced this feeling of panic, which I know is exactly what I needed in that time.

So I'm really interested in your thoughts around If we do have that feeling of, Oh, breathwork, I'm not sure I want to go there. What is a beautiful way to be able to allow this incredibly life changing modality into our lives without being blocked by some of those fears?

Chelsea R: Yeah. That's a beautiful question. And I 100 percent want to highlight that there are so many different breathwork techniques and not all of them are really activating or fast paced. Mine has an element that invites you to go to that place, but I also invite people over and over during the journey.

Like you are your own guide. You are the person that knows what you need best. Remember, these are all invitations. And so are can go as deep as you want to go in any of these spaces. And it's not necessarily deeper if you're going faster for some people. I know some people maintain like the same, slower cadence and have way profound experiences.

So If you are feeling uncomfortable, or if you're in a panic, or if you are, not feeling safe, then it's not going to be supportive for you. You need to have those elements of okay, I feel this, I feel good. And also like having a conversation with yourself is this resistance that's just happening or am I like truly feeling uncomfortable?

Because I know for me, in some of my somatic experiences, I'm like, Oh no, I don't want to go there. This doesn't feel good. And then I'm like, wait, Chelsea, actually. It's okay. You're just starting to meet a point of yourself where, there's something on the other side because that's what our brain loves to be.

It's a predictive brain. It knows okay, if you start doing these movements, if you start doing this breath, like whatever somatic practice it is there's going to be something unlocked on the other side. So it actually will be like, stop, don't do that. And so I love to check in and is this resistance?

Is this uncomfortable? And if it's truly uncomfortable, it's not going to serve you. It's going to put you into a state where you're going to not trust somatic practices. 

That's why I love like naming the style of breathwork that I really resonate with. Because there are so many different techniques out there that are worth trying at least once. Because like you said, this is a powerful technique.

Andi M: Wow. That's amazing. And so linking it back then to body fear and what we were talking about coming home to the body, what are some of the outcomes that you see through the somatic breath activation and releasing that body fear, starting to step and come home to the body, and then really feeling into that goddess energy or that, that powerful energy that we all are?

Chelsea R: the biggest thing is a deep sense of connection to yourself. And when you're connected to yourself, that fear that you have with your body, Whether it's the outside appearance or the inside knowledge, it seems to go away. It seems to float out when you do feel that sense of connection and you feel that trust and you feel that confidence in trusting yourself.

And so of course, in the somatic breath activation, but also all of these different embodiment practices that are out there that I say embodiment and somatic practices interchangeably, because really it's about. Something that's inviting you to be embodied and get in your body. And so any of those techniques really, what it's supporting is a deepening with yourself.

And like I mentioned earlier, We're so conditioned to be out of our body and be in our head. The more we can exercise that it's okay to be in my body. I'm going to listen to my body. I'm going to let my body move how he or she wants to move. I'm going to, allow myself to be guided by my breath, by my heart, by my womb.

The more we can exercise that, the more we bring that confidence. And then the fear goes away. Because usually fear... Again, is stemming from that unknown. So the more that we can exercise that the unknown is safe and the unknown is cool and nothing is gonna there's nothing crazy. No avalanche is gonna come on me when I'm in the unknown.

Then, yeah, then that fear seems to float away and it just becomes... Neutral. Neutralized.

Andi M: It's such a powerful thing that you've just said there about being safe in the unknown, linking it back to what you were saying earlier around our brains, trying to make sense of things and trying to label things and trying to justify it, creating that safety in the unknown. How incredibly powerful. And I love hearing about some of these modalities, particularly the breath activation work to help us unlock.

That mindset and that feeling of that safety in the unknown. So that is incredibly powerful. This has been such a beautiful conversation. I guess I just want to close out. Are there any other tips or advice that you would give us to really start stepping into this energy, to start releasing some of this body fear and any guidance around this breath activation?

And then how do we connect with you? Because you're incredible. And this work that you're talking about is so powerful that I'd love to hear more about how we can work with you and find out more.

Chelsea R: Thank you. First I'll answer your first question by also answering your earlier question. A goddess space is a space where you can like fully sink into your sensual, beautiful goddess. And so in my goddess space, I have an altar. I have all of my plants. I have literally so many crystals.

You could not even believe bones, antlers teeth, different objects from the land, sticks from different areas, like rocks from different areas. All my Oracle cards, all of my different journals from past. So like when I went and found this journal entry, I literally sat in my goddess space and I looked through it and found it.

 And things that just make me happy. And so my advice would be to create a space for yourself that you can continue to go. And maybe it's a much smaller goddess space than mine. And it's a small table with a couple of crystals and a photo that you love. And antler, whatever it is. And.

Just have a place where you can come and reconnect. And it's then you're exercising, like your body's traveling to this space over and over again, every day. And then this is where I do something. Maybe it's lighting an incense, like I love to do, and just watching the smoke and just being there, present with yourself presence.

That's also how we start as just being present with ourselves and even what's coming through the body. That's what I would do. I wanted to start on this and how to find me. I love to hang out on Instagram. That is really the place where you can see behind the scenes, see what I'm up to most currently.

And that is at the Chelsea Renee with four underscores. I know I'm going to send it to Andi. I'm sure she'll put it in the show notes. My business is called Heart Centered Humans. And so heartcenteredhumans. com, you can also find out what the latest offering, what the latest retreat is. I also have a certification program for the somatic breath activation that also has a huge emphasis on holding space and creating safe spaces.

I also add in a lot of different somatic practices. So if you're feeling called, to host retreats, to host sacred spaces, and you've already been doing your inner work, like this is an incredible program for you. And I run that periodically. And so you can also check that out on heartcenterandhumans. com or go to somaticbreathactivation.

com. And that's where you can sign up for a breathwork membership. Certification and you can also find facilitators near you because I have facilitators in Australia where you're at, some in Europe. And so there's people all over that are feeling called to this breath that want to support their community. And so you can find different resources on those three ways.

Andi M: Oh, Chelsea, that is amazing. I have loved this conversation today. Thank you so so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your story. And for all of these incredible tips, I have a pseudo goddess space set up, but I think I'm going to set some real intention around that to go and get that set up and have that space.

Because as soon as you said the words to go there every day, like to travel, your body travels there every day, It got me thinking around setting up some deliberate practices of moving into that space rather than just having it there. So thank you so much for everything that you've shared. Thank you for all of your tips and your advice.

 And I know the listeners will have resonated with a lot of things that you've said today. So thank you so much.

 .

Andi M: This was such a beautiful conversation with Chelsea. She really is incredible. And so if you feel drawn to work with her, please connect with her on Instagram at thechelsearenae with four underscores on the end.

And if you're feeling the pull to explore what working together with me looks like, please drop me a message on Instagram at andi.matthies, especially if you're keen to start deepening that connection with your body, as well as your higher abilities,

I'm always up for a chat. That's no pressure. If you want to learn more.

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. If you loved listening, please subscribe to the podcast and leave a review because I'd love to give you a shout out. You can find us on Instagram at @bodydiariespodcast.

You can also find me, your host, at @andi.matthies. And if you're feeling ready to share your story on Body Diaries or you have some powerful insights from your own work that you know would help others on their own journeys, fill in the guest application that's in the show notes.

This podcast was recorded in Naam, the traditional lands of the Kulin Nation, to whom I pay my respects to Elders past and present, as well as any other Aboriginal Elders of other communities who may be listening.