When the scales of life tipped toward adversity, Leah Mitchell, a soulmate success coach, didn't just recalibrate; she transformed her journey into a beacon of hope. Today, she sits with us to weave a powerful narrative of resilience, self-love, and the quest for authentic connection. Our conversation spans Leah's tumultuous high school years marked by a birth control allergy-induced weight gain and the obsession with fitness that ensued. The aftermath of a severe car accident casts a shadow over her strength and spirit, but Leah's story is one of transcendent self-awareness and a relentless pursuit of well-being.
Relationships — we've all navigated their ebbs and flows, but Leah sheds light on the complexities of romantic connection, where the turbulence of young love often masks deeper issues of attachment and validation. Through tales of love lost and found, we discuss the influence of past traumas on our capacity to love and be loved, diving into the roots of self-doubt and the societal pressures that distort our views on love. Leah's candid recount of her harrowing experience with sexual assault and the ensuing battle for justice opens a dialogue on trust, law enforcement, and the courage to seek healing amidst the chaos of trauma.
Transitioning from turmoil to triumph, Leah's life-affirming transformation is a testament to the healing power of energy work and the vitality of changing toxic belief systems. Together, we tackle her path from the throes of bulimia and destructive relationships to finding solace in the arms of her supportive husband, Jordan. We explore how altering one’s energy and beliefs can lead to renewed purpose and the importance of surrounding oneself with a positive circle of influence. Leah's narrative is not just a journey but a revelation.
Connect with Leah today!
Instagram : @leah_mitchell02
DM her - Mr.Right Magnet - for a little special something
Are you loving this show? I’d be so grateful if you like, rate, review and share with a friend!
Catch the episode on Youtube to see photos and videos related to this story.
Want to spend more time with me? Join me in my 1:1 Coaching Container https://www.coachedbyjess.com/coaching
Explore more wellness conversations with me over on instagram @coached.byjess
Do you have a story that you would like to share on The Pivot Point? Apply now https://forms.gle/hxfmFb5RNJ7VBKQQ9
When the scales of life tipped toward adversity, Leah Mitchell, a soulmate success coach, didn't just recalibrate; she transformed her journey into a beacon of hope. Today, she sits with us to weave a powerful narrative of resilience, self-love, and the quest for authentic connection. Our conversation spans Leah's tumultuous high school years marked by a birth control allergy-induced weight gain and the obsession with fitness that ensued. The aftermath of a severe car accident casts a shadow over her strength and spirit, but Leah's story is one of transcendent self-awareness and a relentless pursuit of well-being.
Relationships — we've all navigated their ebbs and flows, but Leah sheds light on the complexities of romantic connection, where the turbulence of young love often masks deeper issues of attachment and validation. Through tales of love lost and found, we discuss the influence of past traumas on our capacity to love and be loved, diving into the roots of self-doubt and the societal pressures that distort our views on love. Leah's candid recount of her harrowing experience with sexual assault and the ensuing battle for justice opens a dialogue on trust, law enforcement, and the courage to seek healing amidst the chaos of trauma.
Transitioning from turmoil to triumph, Leah's life-affirming transformation is a testament to the healing power of energy work and the vitality of changing toxic belief systems. Together, we tackle her path from the throes of bulimia and destructive relationships to finding solace in the arms of her supportive husband, Jordan. We explore how altering one’s energy and beliefs can lead to renewed purpose and the importance of surrounding oneself with a positive circle of influence. Leah's narrative is not just a journey but a revelation.
Connect with Leah today!
Instagram : @leah_mitchell02
DM her - Mr.Right Magnet - for a little special something
Are you loving this show? I’d be so grateful if you like, rate, review and share with a friend!
Catch the episode on Youtube to see photos and videos related to this story.
Want to spend more time with me? Join me in my 1:1 Coaching Container https://www.coachedbyjess.com/coaching
Explore more wellness conversations with me over on instagram @coached.byjess
Do you have a story that you would like to share on The Pivot Point? Apply now https://forms.gle/hxfmFb5RNJ7VBKQQ9
Welcome back to the Pivot Point podcast, where me, your host, jessica McGahn, and my guests explore the pivotal moments that shape our lives. Today's guest is Leah Mitchell, and my oh my, has this woman lived a life of twists and turns. This episode is going to have you asking yourself what could possibly be next, as Leah vulnerably and bravely and boldly shares her incredible journey to finding healthy love, not only from a romantic partner, but perhaps even more importantly, from herself. Now, trigger warning today's episode does explore topics such as sexual assault, rape and eating disorders, so please be mindful of your own triggers and feelings as you listen and switch off. If perhaps this isn't the best episode for your own mental health, please take care of yourself as you listen.
Speaker 2:Today. Leah Mitchell is a soulmate success coach specializing in empowering high achieving women to manifest the relationship of their dreams. With expertise in dating and relationships, leah seamlessly blends her healing modality with an aligned dating strategy, helping single women manifest from their feminine essence and cultivate their dream relationship. Through her transformative Mr Right Magnet method, leah guides her clients to attract their dream man and lead their love lives with integrity and intention. Leah has an incredible journey to share with you today, so, without further ado. Let's dive in, leah. Let's dive right on into this story, because you've got a lot to share with us today. So, before we get to that pivotal moment, why don't you tell us a little bit about your life, who you were and what life was like for you before everything changed?
Speaker 1:Things really kind of start back in high school, and I know a lot of women, you know, this is when they start birth control. So for me, I started birth control and I started on, you know one that I'm allergic to. I had no idea at the time. In like three weeks, going from about I don't know, maybe like 110 pounds to 140 pounds within three weeks, changing as a 15 year old, 16 year old, like completely, I had like a running career, all these different things, and I lost a lot of those things in the way that my body changed so quickly that I actually like lost a lot of the things that I love to do 30 pounds in three weeks is significant, like that's a significant weight gain.
Speaker 1:I was unrecognizable, Like it wasn't like how my face is right now. It's like if I was swollen, like extremely swollen, and it just started happening. And that's when I kind of got into the gym and I got quite obsessed with working out.
Speaker 2:Wait. Did you go to your doctor though? Did they change your birth control? Were they aware that this was he?
Speaker 1:said, I warned you that birth control makes women gain weight.
Speaker 2:As if 30 pounds in three weeks is somewhat normal. I'm shooketh.
Speaker 1:And I was like a I ate a lot growing up. I was a kid with a super fast metabolism, very, very thin, like very thin child. So I was all eating so much. And you know that is the case. Everyone tells you one day it'll catch up with you. One day it'll catch up with you. Everyone thought, oh, it caught up. And people are caught up in their own lives. If I look back, did nobody know like realize something's wrong with me? Now, my mom didn't make me go and get like my thyroid checked and stuff. My mom has always been very worried about all these things, but she also didn't like I didn't want to hear about it. I didn't want to. Like I wasn't looking for a solution, I was just upset. I felt like, okay, I'm just going to have to fall in love with being super strong and fit and not care about the number. And so I became like a pretty insane fitness person. Like before high school. Every day from grade 11 and 12, I went at 5 am and did Stairmaster for 45 minutes and then I went and power lifted every evening and this was me in high school.
Speaker 1:Midway through high school I had my license and a brand new car for a month and I crashed it and I broke 5 vertebrae, 4 ribs. My shoulder blade punctured along, collapsed along. I was in the hospital for 9 days. I was driving. I'm a January baby, so I was the first one with my license and my grandparents are lovely and they bought me a car, so I had only been driving for a month maybe. So I'm like nobody else is driving in grade 11 other than January babies. Like, realistically, they get it right in the beginning. So I was really happy.
Speaker 1:I wanted to like take everyone around and do all these things and I was still nervous. So I had actually told one of my friends, three of us wanted to go, or three of them wanted to come with me, and I said to one of them I'm uncomfortable having that many people in the car. I feel like I'll get distracted. So I'm picking up two people and I remember this friend was so mad at the time and then we were driving and I was. There was a cab behind me who was like, come forward and said like she wasn't speeding, it just seemed like she lost control of the vehicle. So I hit the shoulder and, by the way, this is November and we had the sunroof open. We had the music going like we were having a lot of fun. Sunroof open. My friend is in the middle of the backseat with her lap belt loose so that she could lean forward. Okay.
Speaker 2:Oh no.
Speaker 1:And so and then I have a passenger in the passenger seat. I hit the shoulder. It was in an 80 zone but I wasn't speeding. I wasn't comfortable speeding at the time, like that wasn't where I was at yet. Actually, my more reckless driving happened far later than accident, because I became an absolute rebel after this. Like, oh, this can't kill me, nothing can.
Speaker 1:Now I'm a great driver, but everybody goes through their phase. I hit the shoulder and it's gravel, so it kind of takes your tire and I went to correct to bring myself back on and, being so novice of a driver, I over corrected. So I came very quickly back on the road over to the other side. So then I over corrected again and that's when I spun out and my friend we are spinning so fast that my friend in the middle in the back, with her seat belt on Okay, it was loose, but it was on because it was on after the car crash she got sucked out of the sunroof and she landed in a field and she was okay. She was okay, thank God. That's probably the only way she would have survived is being ejected from the vehicle.
Speaker 2:It's like an angel just reached in and plucked her out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Wow, that's a good way to put it. Yeah, so then we spin. She flies out, lands in a field. I hit the ditch. Now these are like 14 feet ditches with big culverts, cement culverts. So my side of the car hit the culvert, so my whole left side I like broke so much. It was all the left side of the vertebrae, left side of the like my left ribs, my left scapula, like this side was just destroyed and the culvert was inside my car and then my car kind of like fell off and then it was just like the door was all crunched into me and we were upside down in like a slight. There wasn't water, but there could have been. So we were very lucky that there wasn't water during that time of year and the girl in the passenger seat was completely fine.
Speaker 2:She had a scratch on her ear.
Speaker 1:She crawled out the back. I had a taxi driver get underneath the car to talk me through like this and I'm unconscious, like I'm throwing out, doing crazy things and it's crazy. There was a group of boys and I don't remember any of this part of the story, but there were a group of boys, one of them being someone who I grew up with from like a very young age very close family friends, like we had camping with them and stuff when I was young. He was with his like hockey friends or whatever, and they actually like prayed and they're not necessarily religious people, but they like prayed in that moment. And they obviously found my friend who was ejected from the vehicle. She broke her collarbone but she was okay and the ambulance was there and, unfortunately, my parents were on their way home from dinner with other parents.
Speaker 1:Thank God they were with who they were with because they were very close people to them. The long story short, I was okay. It was quite a recovery. I actually lost all the weight that I gained because I stopped taking my birth control during the accident and recovery and then I started taking my birth control again and gained it all again and we still didn't figure out that it was the birth control.
Speaker 2:No way yeah, yeah. Were you just under the assumption that, like, like, were you not eating a lot while you were healing from this Were you?
Speaker 1:thinking it was more so and I wasn't working out, so I lost a bunch of weight.
Speaker 2:Like I lost weight, see for most people, us not working out whatever resulted in the opposite, but for you it because of the birth control and your fast naturally fast metabolism. It all just started to melt off and I wasn't hungry because I wasn't moving.
Speaker 1:I was stuck in a bed that had a remote control to bring me up and down Like I was not moving.
Speaker 2:And what was your like mental state during this time? What did?
Speaker 1:you say, well, between being on a lot of morphine and being out of grade 11 and all these different things, if anything, it was very good, like I had a lot, of, a lot of things that I wanted to change about the trajectory of my life. But the traumatic part about that experience and I didn't realize that until actually kind of this past year when I tried to get over some other trauma and this came up is that seeing what that did to my parents and my siblings like my sister was away at university and this was on Twitter like within five minutes of it happening In terms of my parents, you really see them go through like nightmares for the first time, like waking up and getting sick in the middle of the night they're reliving it and all this PTSD, and you kind of start to feel like you're difficult to love.
Speaker 1:And I have two wonderful sisters on the middle and they hadn't had those kind of experiences or put my parents through an experience like that. And so, even though I felt like you know, I was a novice driver this wasn't necessarily my fault, it was an accident and people make accidents, it was like but this happening to me made me difficult to be around, made it hard to love me, because there was all these traumas attached with me being in the lives and I didn't realize that. That was a feeling, energetically, that came out of that experience and a belief that I had then. I truly believe I'm more difficult to love than my siblings. That's what it came to and it was very like it took me a long time and I think that that belief is what triggered the rest of this story. So that's when I started to really look for validation in other people and I had a, my first boyfriend, who had lost a parent a few months before we started dating and we were just really good gym friends before that and I really felt bad, like I kind of made up for everything that he did. That maybe wasn't the best. He didn't abuse me in any way physically or even emotionally. I think that he was going through a trauma himself and I didn't realize that that's not a good reason to not be in a healthy relationship, so I stayed in it. It was very on and off. It was the kind of thing where you're like suspicious all the time of what he's doing and he had so many other girls on Instagram commenting on his pictures all the time and I was like something's going on. Something's going on. It was this very like I needed him to choose me still, and now, looking back, obviously he had just as many of his own things he was going through.
Speaker 1:But I remember this one story I had to beg him to come up and visit me at school. I was in university. I was in a single dorm room and I was like, please come up and visit me. And there were several different times where he said no, because the drive was too long, he didn't wanna pay the gas money, or there was a party, a house party that he had to go to, so it was a bad weekend. There was always a reason.
Speaker 1:So one time he finally says yeah, I'm gonna come up and see you and I was so excited. And then he messaged me two hours into his drive. It was like a three and a half hour drive. He messaged me halfway up and he goes the traffic's too bad. I'm turning around and I just bawled my eyes out Like I'm in his spirit, cause I called my mom. I couldn't even get the words out and she's like why would he do this to you? Why would he do this to you? And then he messages me LOL, I'm kidding, you're crazy. And I was like, oh my God, like how did he think that that was a joke to me? Like how did he think that I would think that that was funny? And he did come up and we like hung out or whatever. It was fine, but that was like one of the. There were so many of those kind of emotional, weird experiences in that relationship. It was so on and off.
Speaker 2:It sounds like a very anxious relationship, a very anxiety inducing, drama-filled relationship.
Speaker 1:It was very dramatic, very dramatic yeah.
Speaker 2:I feel like that's so and I don't know you haven't specified whether or not this is your first love but I feel like those early relationships really are reflective of what you experienced At least I remember feeling that way a lot of like turmoil and pain and wanting and denying, and I wonder how much of that is based on, like the movies we watch and how the love stories that we all see are always like this, like dramatic tale of push and pull, and I know that our attachment styles definitely come into play. But for these early ones, where we're just trying to figure out how the fuck these relationships work and how we find ourselves in these dynamics, I feel like that may come into play for a lot of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think at a young age we're all selfish in a big way because we're trying to find out who we are and it's a good time to be selfish. The stakes are low.
Speaker 1:Typically we don't have kids yet. Typically people aren't relying on us, we don't have big bills, so we can be as selfish as we want, and the thing about a beautiful relationship a healthy one is being there. The most important thing in a relationship is being there. When someone is ready to celebrate, when someone's ready to cry, you have to be there. You have to show up. And his biggest problem was showing up. He didn't come to my family things. He broke up with me during my first round of midterms so that he wouldn't have to visit my family during Thanksgiving break, Just like all red flags.
Speaker 2:And how long did you stay in this relationship for?
Speaker 1:On and off from 17 to 20. So after we kind of stopped, I had been seeing other people and I was quite precarious at this point about my relationships and like, right down to like, my Instagram. I was looking for validation. I was very precarious on Instagram. Likes were everything Comments, the amount of men that would reply to a story because of this hard to love thing. He made me also feel like I was challenging to love because he didn't show up for me ever and he showed up for other women during our relationship and there was these things that he valued more than me and being with me. It really reinforced that feeling of being hard to love that I got from my car accident. Yeah, I'm really hearing that. You made that relationship.
Speaker 2:That relationship was evidence to the story that you were telling yourself 100% that you were difficult to love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so that's when you really bring your standards pretty low to find someone that will not necessarily love you. Because after that I did what a lot of women do and I became very masculine in my relationship. I became like on the outside I am a very, very confident person. At that time I was still going to the gym six, seven days a week. I was, you know, running the show. I was doing pretty good in school, Like I was still showing up for everything. I was working a job. During university I was going out a lot, buying everyone. This is a really good one for me, Going out a lot, buying everyone. This is a really good one for hard to love, buying people's love. I was the person that I thought here's $100 to the bartender. Give me as many Yeager bombs as you can.
Speaker 1:So I had friends with a tray full of Yeager bombs and be like just so you know, clearly I'm making your night fun when I didn't need to do any of those things in order for it to not be fun. But it was just this validating experience and because I was a huge part of it with the way I looked at the time, I was really into working out. I did have a little bit more to my body, so I had, like these really gorgeous big boobs and a huge butt Okay, like the biggest butt probably anyone has ever seen and so I was very like. I got a lot of attention, ridiculous amounts of male attention online and in person. I was like the girl that could get anyone Doesn't matter like what year of university they are I'm in first year and I could get anyone into any bar without a line and that was something that I took so much pride in.
Speaker 1:It was weird. It was something I took so much because I knew all the bouncers, because I worked out with all the bouncers, because all those boys like, don't attention to me. So it was this really validating cycle. I felt really good. I felt really good with that popularity. I felt really good with buying people things with being the most fun, with getting the drunkest, like. There was this very strange cycle and it's really interesting that, even looking back at that point, I was using substances for not my, not as an addiction within myself, but more. Of this is how you get people to like you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm hearing like this. This drive for that attention and validation whether it be from likes or people knowing your name, just any, any ounce of oh, they like me, was a high for you. And I'm just curious listening to all of this, because I understand that it felt good for you in that moment and maybe you felt like you were doing all the right things. What did it feel like for you when you would be alone?
Speaker 1:I was never alone. I was never alone. I was very good at never being alone. I was very popular at the time. So and this is where the precarious dating starts oh, everybody left for the weekend to go back to their families, and I'm in university and I didn't want to go home. I did not want to go home because then it's quiet and both my sisters were in relationships and I wasn't, so I didn't want to be around like people that love when you're not. And there was just this constant comparison in my brain. So this is really the precarious dating, because I was looking for that validation. I didn't ever want to be alone I was spending my time with and I didn't want to be a girlfriend. I did not. I didn't want to. This was the masculine part. I don't need a man, meant and affect me. I don't need anybody. Just walk around. I don't need anybody. I don't need anybody. I don't need anybody.
Speaker 2:I don't need anybody. So all these people show me attention and all act better than and too cool for. So it's like that switch of like. Oh, I feel hard to love.
Speaker 1:So I don't even need your love. I don't need it at all. I am a tough chick, walls up, yep, and I did it even with my parents, like everyone. So this started the precarious dating of like. I got a lot of like pride in watching men get attached to me and then me being like well, that's weak of you, so I'm rotating new man and I'll leave you heartbroken. I don't care, and that's not always what happened. There were many men that were like totally fine with spending time with me, like working out and then being intimate and just keeping it friends, and I had a lot of male friends that I would never sleep with and I'm making it sound like I'm. I was sleeping around a lot and it wasn't the case, but it was enough rotation that it brought me to a precarious situation. I wasn't being choosy with my partners. It was very superficial, based on looks and if they work out. You know, big muscles, tough looking man. I was just running into these really like people I would never, ever bring home to my parents.
Speaker 2:But where are you meeting them? Like at the gym, mostly, yeah, mostly at the gym.
Speaker 1:Bars, tinder, my Instagram like also considered like. I'm getting like 50 DMs a day.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like I had a massive following for the time that that was. I've lost half my following since being with my husband for sure, so it was very easy. Like men seemed so easy I could get whatever I want. It was a massive sense of control in men.
Speaker 2:So what was the breaking point?
Speaker 1:So it was getting into that group of men that were very toxic, to the point where I found myself with someone that I actually somewhat, like, had a bit of a crush on. I had been talking to him for a few weeks and there were issues with him and I could see them, but I didn't care because to me it was surface level. I knew this person is never going to be someone that I'll show to my parents. I actually kept him a secret, even from my roommate, because I was like I know what people think of him, and it's not that I didn't think those things either, I just didn't care. And so I was 20 at the time.
Speaker 1:I really it's a cloud, to be honest, that that time in my life I can remember the actual day very, very well and I just went to spend time with him over at his house and I actually verbally stated very clear boundaries that I had because I was in my masculine, I was very comfortable being like no, I don't do that and I'm not willing to do it. And I had some pretty good health reasons as to why I wasn't willing to do certain things, and those were completely disrespected. And I remember like I just ran to his bathroom and I just shut the door and I'm like sitting there like one, I'm trying to like clean up, because there was like some blood, for sure that was going on. And so I'm trying to like clean up and fix myself Fix myself for this situation, because I felt so vulnerable, I felt hurt, I felt like, oh my God, did that just happen? Like, is that what they call? It Is this?
Speaker 2:what they call it. It can be such a blur in the moment, like your brain, as I've had a similar experience. It's like you're in a cloud, perhaps a bit dissociative, and just trying to figure out what happened, because you never, ever think that that's going to happen to you, especially from someone that you know, or even like someone that you think you have a little bit of a crush on. Like that can add such another layer of confusion to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was. I actually went and like laid back down after and we were going to watch a movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because you don't want to believe that you're not safe and I'm laying there thinking I'm about to sit here for two and a half hours Like no way. And so I just got up and I grabbed my stuff and I just walked out of the house and I walked into my car and drove myself home and I sat there and, you know, bawling my eyes out, thinking. Once I got home it really hit what happened and I was really. I had a roommate home and I told her what happened and like I don't really know what I'm supposed to do. And then I told I called one of my friends the friend that actually was ejected from the car, because she was a very good friend and she still is a very good friend and so I called her and she had all the deepest sympathies for me, which was really wonderful. Her reaction was probably the best part of out of all the reactions.
Speaker 1:And then I told my mom and I said I don't want you to tell dad or wake him up. This was like in the middle of the night too, because we were obviously going there late and so this wasn't like a good time of day to be calling people in a big way. But so I told her and she wanted details. And you know it was just you can't really put it into words right after and you do dumb you down the situation when you're talking to your parent always, because it is really hard to say to your parents and you don't want them to know, realistically, wish that they could spend their whole life not knowing. But you need your mom sometimes and that was the case.
Speaker 1:And then I called the cops and they came and I asked for a female cop. I was studying criminology at the time and I really made a point in that class of being like, if this happens to you, you need to call the police, like it's very, very important that you ask for a female police officer. Have people come. It's totally different nowadays than what they're describing in these essays that were written in the 90s. And I made a point of that because I didn't want another girl in this class to be like oh so if it happens to me, don't do anything, because you need to be able to have the option. I think that's so important. And they broke down the options. It's female cop took down everything and the male cop was far more concerned. Even she was really great about it. But again, oh, female cop, she's in her masculine, her ability to show sympathies. She's around other male cops and stuff that might actually put her in a feeling of being like weaker, and so I found that the male cop was actually far more receptive and cared a lot more about the details of my story.
Speaker 1:So I talked to him and he said okay, so here's what you can do. You can not do anything. That's totally an option. We can report this and we don't have to do anything with it. You get the choice. We can throw this out Like it doesn't matter. What you want to do is what matters. We can go over there and we can charge him, and we can charge him with rape, and then there will be court proceedings.
Speaker 1:Now I want you to understand court proceedings take at least a year in Canada. This will be something that you will deal with for three, four years and then to prove and I and he's like you have an advantage because you were completely sober I will take you down to the hospital and you will get a rape kit done. Then we can prove that it happened to you. But you said it was pretty quick. So if he didn't like, basically finish like if he didn't, you know, have that chance. It is a lot harder with the rape kit to tell what's happened. And so he was very honest and I have nothing. There was nothing wrong with anything he said, because he was like an advantage to your case right now is that you were. You were completely sober, so your testimony is they can take it for real testimony.
Speaker 1:And he basically went over everything with what would happen if I wanted to press charges, the step by step within the next 48 hours and then the next like two, three years. And it was great because I got a really big look and he said and then there's something else I can do. I can go over there and I can scare the shit out of him. Please tell me. You said, yes, do it, do it, and I'll leave it at that and I'll call you and I'll tell you what happens. And I I did not want to charge him. I didn't want to At the time. It wasn't even about court. It was that I don't want to be wrong about this and if I have to go to court and then not have it go through, then I'm wrong about this and I don't want someone else to decide if I'm wrong about this.
Speaker 1:So I knew that I like my story was right. I didn't care what his side of the story is, because I knew it was going to be a bunch of bullshit. So I was like, scare the shit out of him, let's do it. And he called me back at like 3am the officer like 4am, and he told me everything and he said oh yeah, he's a total idiot. He opened the door without his shirt on and I can totally see like how you're so angry at this man. He, he didn't take us seriously at all. He thought it was a noise complaint. When we showed up like all this different stuff, and he gave me the real and then he said like I told him that this is what he did and that it's going to be on record for the rest of his life and that she's not pressing charges. But we know so if any woman ever comes forward, she will be contacted to bring her case forward as well. So then you'll be at two cases against you.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:So they're not do it again. And he said and that's true, like this is on his record that a woman didn't press charges in a rape case and that is something that they can do. As far as I know Now things might have changed something. I don't know how valid all information is, but that's the information I got. So if anyone's wondering like what's that process? Like, that is what the process was like for me. So after that, like hard to love, now when I do get love, it ends up hurting me.
Speaker 1:The sense of control that I needed, like birth control. Changing my body was the first bit of like oh, I feel like I don't have any control. Car accident feel like I don't have any control. Rape feel like I don't have any control. There was the realization that I was not going to be the same woman ever again. Like I'm going to see the world through a different lens, through a lens where you have been sexually assaulted because you're a woman, you know, not from anything else, but because of your gender, because of something that, like, I don't want to change my sex, my biological sex.
Speaker 1:The reason why was because of that, in a lot of ways, I was more likely for it to happen to me and there were statistics and I was studying feminist epistemology at the time. I knew all the. I had read cases on cases on cases of this happening to women and I never thought it would happen to me. And then it does, and that's really kind of where it brought me to okay, something has to give here, and that I struggled with a lot and the resistance that I built around having to change, because actually a few weeks later I started dating someone. I see the result yeah, cuz it. Cuz. I didn't want it to affect me, I wanted it to be like You're like I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm just gonna be who I've been.
Speaker 2:I'm just gonna go back to what I've been doing. There's nothing wrong with me, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nothing wrong with me. It wasn't my fault, so there's nothing wrong with me. That's where I went and that's how I proved to myself it wasn't my fault at that time was like it didn't even affect me.
Speaker 2:Wow, like I, I hey. I just want to point out that that experience of feeling so changed after a trauma is so normal. It's actually something very similar to what I experienced of like you are one person before your trauma and you're someone completely different afterwards. It it, it changes us on like a chemical level.
Speaker 2:It's really normal now I know that your pivotal moment was deciding that you were going to change this path, that you're walking on this path of Needing to prove that you are worthy of love, promiscuity, needing this attention. Do you remember that moment, like that actual moment where you were like I Can't do this anymore?
Speaker 1:I Was like waking up in the middle of the night calling my parents. I couldn't not waking up calling them at like 3am because I still hadn't slept in like three days I I was having extreme Pain in my uterus. I had undergone and like post sexual assault. It's very difficult to go through the medical industry after that Because it was specifically my uterus that was like hurt, hurt, hurt. And If you are like me and you love energy and understanding energy in the body and chakras, specifically like this Synchronization of your chakras. So the sacral the sacral is where your uterus is and the sacral is specifically the feeling of guilt when it's unaligned. So I felt very guilty that I somehow provoked all this into my life that I was hard to love. There was so much guilt growing up with post like car accident so that I was like Experiencing extreme pain. I'd be in the middle of class and I just start sweating and shaking and my uterus was hurting and it didn't have any Correlation with my cycles as far as I could tell at all. I went to a gynecologist. I had like internal external Ultra sound back to back for months. I went to the ER several times. I got told you know, it's probably your period. It's probably period pain. So I'm still searching For some control. This isn't even the pivotal moment yet, because I'm searching for control over my body again. I feel like I've lost control over my life because I was raped and then lost control over my body, because I have no idea how I'm feeling and I Was bulimic at this time and it wasn't based on my body image. I was, you know, I was a lot of the in, for the most part, proud of my body, for one, everyone loved it and two, I could lift really, really heavy weights and I felt very, very empowered by that. So, but because I met this boy at the gym, I really got nervous going to the gym, so I pulled back from going to the gym. As often I only went to the gym if I had a male friend to go with.
Speaker 1:There were these weird things that I had started, like picking up and my bulimia. Actually, I Wanted to describe this only because, if other people have experienced this, understand it's a trauma response and it's not a eating disorder. So Food comes with control, right, you control how much you consume and so I would binge To get some serotonin, to get some Indorphins in my brain. I would binge, eat different things that were like really sugary and really delicious, so I'd feel good. And then this overwhelming sense of nausea would come over me like Insane, and I was like I'm gonna throw up. I'm gonna throw up, but it wouldn't come, it wouldn't.
Speaker 1:So I would be like pacing around, so uncomfortable that I feel like I need to get sick and I couldn't, and I couldn't and I couldn't, and then I would be like you know what? I'm just gonna pull trig like I would if I was super drunk, and it worked Immediate. I think it's oxytocin or cortisol. No, it's cortisol. When you throw up, you get immediate cortisol. That's why everyone, immediately after they throw up, they feel better, they feel like oh, I needed that.
Speaker 1:It's actually a hormone that gets, or it's a hormone or an endorphin that gets released in your brain and it makes you feel better immediately. I became addicted to that feeling because I couldn't get it any other spot in my life, so I was doing it regularly and I'm also like having severe uterus pain and I'm terrified that it's because I keep throwing up. But I didn't focus this as bulimia at all because I didn't feel like I had an eating disorder. It was a forced Getting sick. I could not carry on through my day and feel half okay If I didn't get sick. It was impossible. So I had to do it in order to then keep going, were you?
Speaker 2:convincing yourself that that was healthy at the time, or were you cognitively aware that this was not Healthy?
Speaker 1:I was like it's the only way, because I can't get rid of the nausea, and I actually had some roommates catch me and be like what are you doing? And they were like Leah, something's wrong, like you need to, like this is bad. I Actually very clearly remember one of them being like you know that if you keep throwing up every day, all your teeth will fall out because of the acid from your stomach. And that was like oh, this is gonna affect how I look. And then it became like relevant and important to me. Hmm, right, because it's like if I don't have how I look, I have nothing. That's how.
Speaker 1:I get attention. That's how I get validation, that's my control. I control how I look so Fast-forward. After going through medical stuff, my mom got me a natural path and this woman was like let's get the yeast out of your body now. If you've ever tried to yeast diet, you get basically like other people have different experiences. I got infections everywhere. I had a bladder infection, I had a toothache, I had an ear infection.
Speaker 1:The yeast was like coming out, the toxins were coming out, and think about all that trauma. There was a lot of toxicity in my body at the time and so I started getting these big Facial acne sores and I this is from cutting yeast out. You can look it up. It's called the if the yeast die out, and it's a diet that you can do. And so she wanted. When she tested my body, she was like oh, we got to get rid of some of this, and so she didn't know I don't think that that could happen, and so she didn't prepare me for that, and so now I look like my face is like blemishing on blemishes. This is April.
Speaker 1:I've moved home from school for the summer and it was it was like really taxing on my mental health that now I don't even look like, I can't even Put makeup on and look nice like I was. I was at my end and so then I I Went to her and I was like, after what happened, I can't do this, like I cannot deal with this, this is too much. And she said, okay, I Know this woman and she does energetic healing. And my pivotal moment I Don't think was in my pursuit of feeling better, because you get to a point where you don't really have a choice, mm-hmm, to start feeling better. So I was looking, I was communicating with my mom and what I was going through. I hadn't told anyone that I was like a lean make or anything, but I I was trying to feel better because I just couldn't do anything else.
Speaker 1:And this woman and she taught me how to get to an alpha brain level, which is basically we're in beta brain like 90% of the time. It's the logical side of your brain and and it doesn't work with trauma, because if you try to figure out trauma, you will probably just be more traumatized by the result, like we can't. There's no reason that this happened to me, there's no reason that I got in a car accident, but logic, the beta side of your brain looks for reason. So I got into the alpha and it's an Position of neutrality where you can get access to your subconscious really easily. And this is where all of everything was all the guilt, all the shame, all the grieving that I was a different person now, all the unworthiness of love like fear, of criticism, all these different emotions were harvested in the Subconscious and it was rendering everything that was in my life as an absolute threat to my life.
Speaker 1:Like you're gonna die if anything goes wrong.
Speaker 2:So I met this woman living in a constant state of survival.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I had one session with her and I never experienced bulimia after that and I never experienced my uterus problems after that. And to think like no medical practitioner Asked me about my mental health and was this all from like a talk session or is a?
Speaker 2:does she operate kind of like a Reiki practitioner In terms of energetics?
Speaker 1:he has a healing system called kinetic divination. She's created this based on different modalities and she and how she understands the brain Inspired by like the silver method, inspired by muscle testing and kinesiology, inspired by the way our imagination can access our subconscious and this alpha brain level, and this is what I practice now With my clients. I'm certified in this now. So I met her completely changed my life.
Speaker 2:So she was this pivotal moment for you. Her healing modality changed your life significantly, is what I'm hearing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and maybe not even her specifically. She's a wonderful, wonderful woman and I I worked with her for a long, long time and then I learned her healing modality because it's so incredibly powerful and effective. But I Think the pivotal point was that feelings aren't facts. How you feel about something is not the facts of the situation and Actually, the facts that they don't count if your attitude is right. So nothing actually disadvantages you or advantages you.
Speaker 1:You get to this side and when I hit that you know don't trust your feelings, because they're the first reaction to everything and they don't actually tell you what's happening in a situation, especially if you've gone through trauma, and then, hey, guess what? You get to decide how this affects you. That was life-changing, because now I have to. I can take Control. Even though I can't control who comes into my life and how people choose to treat me, I can control what I do about it and that power that I now have that I get to share with other people about things are gonna happen to you good, bad.
Speaker 1:You get to decide how, what you do about it, what the next step is, where you, where you take it. Does it make you a victim? Does it make you a warrior? Does it empower you? And it's crazy because I met her in May of 2018 and I Started doing the alpha brain method and doing the healing with her her kinetic divination and I had maybe two or three sessions because I was doing them bi-weekly and I was in a ton of debt and she was very expensive for me at the time, being a university student.
Speaker 2:You studied social work in school, didn't you?
Speaker 1:I studied criminal justice and philosophy.
Speaker 2:Oh, criminal justice and philosophy I. But when you, when you talk about this because that the power of choice is so important to Recognizing and I and I bring that into my work too of we are not our thoughts, we are the observers of our thoughts and we get to choose which ones we give power to. And I just want to reflect on this work is not about ignoring trauma. Like, obviously there was trauma that needed to be processed, it needed to be acknowledged, it needed to be felt through, it wasn't going necessarily in that moment. Oh, I can just choose to ignore this, I can just choose to pretend like this didn't happen. I can just choose to not give this power. That's not what you're saying. You're saying is you have to heal through these things and then you get to choose how you want to tell this story. Is it that something bad happened to me and it's my fault and I am a horrible person? Or is it this happened to me and it's not my fault? Like, you get to choose what that narrative is for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it also needs to be understood that you don't get to choose at every point. Yes, I didn't choose what had happened to me, which is super important, and I didn't choose that. I got bulimia after that. I let it like rampantly. This had to happen.
Speaker 1:Now, at this point, I believe truly that everything is perfect, and it's a crazy belief to hold and it really challenges me at times because sometimes I sit back and I'm like I still am dealing with this. How the how the fuck is that perfect? But this woman working with me in May of 2018 is when I met her and I wanted this man and I and, as I said, I had some really good male role models in my life. June of 2018, I met my husband a month later, after years and years and years of spending time with toxic men, years and years and years of surrounding myself with people that it was just for validation, that were not nice to me, that were not kind people, and, yeah, and very quickly, I attracted a high value, good man and was able to put a lot of that behind me.
Speaker 2:In what ways has Jordan shown up for you, differently than those toxic relationships? How did you know that this was different?
Speaker 1:It's.
Speaker 1:The one thing that I want to make a point of, just before I caught up with Jordan, is that now those experiences are probably some of the ones I'm most grateful of in my life, and I feel like that goes back to that power of choice, of like I was in victim mentality for a while and I was experiencing PTSD and the real symptoms of trauma, and then I was like, okay, so what can I do with this, with this knowledge now, because I was ignorant before of what this is like and now I'm not in a big way, now I can understand what it's like.
Speaker 1:And so that knowledge of your own experience drives you in directions, and the direction it drove me is where I am today, with the man that I have today, with the life that I have, with the career that I have. And so going back, thinking about those, that I think is really, really important is that, even though it's really bad at points and I have clients that have been through 10 years of abusive relationship now looking back they're like I'm so grateful for those 10 years or I'm so grateful for those traumas because they actually put me in the position to be the woman that I am today and you couldn't have gotten there without those experiences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's post-traumatic growth being able to look back on horrible experiences and be able to see the gifts or the strengths or the lessons they brought you in your life. That's a really powerful part of healing if you can get to those points.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, but, as you were asking, with Jordan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, how did you know he was different? How did he show up for you differently? And this is my understanding that this is the first like healthy partner you've had since all these painful ones. So what kind of narratives did you need to battle when you were welcoming Jordan into your life?
Speaker 1:So I was still very much in my masculine when I met Jordan and the thing was that, instead of One, he was like the first man that didn't care if we slept together or not, which was like amazing. That was the first big, like oh.
Speaker 2:He didn't pressure you to move at a pace you weren't ready with.
Speaker 1:Oh at all, and it wasn't important to him. Of course he found me sexy and wanted to, you know, see it all, but he was willing to. That was up to me, it was 100% up to me. He made that completely up to me Without not still admiring me and those kinds of things, and I was like, okay, I can get this feeling of beauty without having to perform anyway, and so that was a really good feeling. And then that was the first difference I noticed in him in comparison to all other men Was like I very much knew everything else was transactional and he did not feel transactional.
Speaker 1:It felt like he needed something from me and I needed something from him in a way of like being there, let's just be there, let's hang out, let's be friends. Let's see how this goes. Do we enjoy spending time together? Can we chill together? Was so, so important. And it's very strange that I saw a picture of him and I knew that he was the one from a picture. I hadn't met him yet and I hunted him down. Being in my masculine I made it happen for me, right, and the thing about being in my masculine I noticed that it was a turn off for a lot of men and it did attract the wrong men, but with him he didn't see it as it was like he was masculine, with a different level of emotional intelligence than I had ever experienced before, because he saw that as, oh, she's just like being defensive and protecting herself. There's something going on and he he's a social worker, isn't he? He's a therapist, yeah, so he is like a, or a addictions counselor.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But at the time he hadn't really gone through school for those things yet. But he was working with like homeless people and doing all the kind things. And I think a lot of it has to do with even his own inner dialogue on his own trauma, like how I was showing up and presenting myself. He didn't like judge me for it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the first thing we do right. It's like, oh, how someone is is how we judge them. But he, it seemed like he knew there was more to the story and it seemed like and even now like looking back he would not date me for a full year because he's like one, I'm not ready for commitment. And two, there's something like he wouldn't tell me because he didn't want to ever hurt my feelings, but there was something about my harshness, about my masculiness, that wasn't compatible for us. He couldn't show up and be an empowered man if I was trying to also be the empowered man, and so it took me learning. You know the way that I'm even going about this relationship with this man. Something isn't right, I'm doing something that isn't getting me what I want, and it was that I was not willing to be vulnerable in front of him, in front of anyone. There was no vulnerability, even going through the healing and working on my energy and working with a healer who I was able to be vulnerable in front of for sure.
Speaker 2:It takes time, like it's not, like you can do one session, then suddenly you're like healed for everybody, forever and always. It is a practice. It is a practice of choosing to trust. It is a practice to believing those new thoughts. So it totally makes sense that you weren't able to immediately just be the most vulnerable human being.
Speaker 1:Well, exactly, and if I was in a good mood or a bad mood or whatever, he would just be there and that consistency, even without the commitment, like it wasn't because he was my boyfriend, it's just because he was taking me how I was If I wanted to go out to a restaurant, if I wanted to stay in, if I wanted to talk, if I didn't want to talk, it didn't matter. He was just like a presence of like, safety and security and acceptance, which was the biggest thing. I could be myself and it took me a long time to fully be myself. I still put on a show for a lot of our relationship, but he got these moments where I didn't, and I think that that's probably what kept him around. But it was like and we were both very much in that same situation he wasn't really comfortable being vulnerable and there was a lot that he would eventually become vulnerable with me about.
Speaker 1:But it was like a very weird like.
Speaker 1:We found each other in this in a time in both our lives where things weren't necessarily going their best, but we were on the outside very like attractive people in the sense of both going to the gym, both working all the time, both running our lives, both doing all the things that people think makes you like a productive person.
Speaker 1:But it was that inside stuff, because we weren't productive when we were around each other, we were just like having fun, and so it was that like we were that escaped from everything else. From the very beginning, and even now, like in my relationship completely, I work really hard all day in my business and I absolutely love my business, I love my family, I love all these wonderful things in my life. But my favorite thing is decompressing and just being around him, where it's like we're not focusing on our future, we're not making plans, we're just together. Because that's when you're like able to be vulnerable, that's when you're able to admit that things aren't going your way, or like none of it, and just laugh about the dumbest stuff ever you know. And that was something that he was in a time where everything was serious, everything was healing, everything was a step forward.
Speaker 1:Everything was getting better at school, having a better job, impressing my parents, things that I really cared about with him. It was hey, like can we smoke a joint and watch something funny? And that accepting me when I'm not performing. The biggest difference in the relationship and that a lot of women that are in their masculine they don't see that that's coming for them but 100% that's gonna be their pivotal point as well in relationships is meeting someone that they don't have to perform in front of and that they feel completely safe when they don't perform in front of them.
Speaker 2:I feel like you've spoken so eloquently throughout this interview, so I have a good guess as to the answer. But why don't you just tell us in what ways has this energy work changed your life for the better?
Speaker 1:So, yeah, the using energy I mean I did it before I got on this call because I wanted to make sure that I could show up super authentic and genuine. And it's crazy because it's something that I do every single day. You can do it anywhere you want. You can make it your own. The reason why? So I got out of school, didn't decide into not going to psychotherapies which was my plan because of psychotherapy and it's.
Speaker 1:There's nothing wrong with therapy, but I'm a very forward productive person and talking basically like rabbit hole into my past is not productive for me. It actually leaves me feeling a lot worse and heavier. Whereas coaching and releasing through energetics, I was able to feel like, oh my God, a huge weight is lifted. And now what can I do to help better my life? Because I've always been concerned with bettering my life. That's what made me meet this woman and this really roundabout, weird way, and it was always like this can't be what it is. Even though I'm living it right now, this can't be what it is. So the energy work it's easy, anyone can do it. It's about getting out of your head and into a space where you can communicate with your subconscious and release things that you didn't even know were there for a very, very long time. Like I'm, I healed that hard to love thing this past year and that happened to me before 2018, like that started getting bad in like 2015.
Speaker 2:It takes time to heal.
Speaker 1:Right and your subconscious isn't going to show you everything because it still needs some things Hold on to. It feels very unsafe and you also might not be ready, and the feeling hard to love was a big slap in the face. I was like, oh my God, but I was. But I'm also a confident person, so it was a hard thing to like, understand, like, oh, but I love myself, I'm very proud of who I am, what like, why is that coming up? And what I've realized.
Speaker 1:The biggest thing with this energy work is outside energy, and I'm I'm not necessarily teaching techniques or anything, but like today. But the thing is about outside energy is that points of views, opinions and perspectives of other people create how we feel about everything. So, yes, something hurts you and it feels shitty when a friend betrays you, but it's not your betrayal, it's theirs, it's not yours. You know, bar, who you are. This happened to you, not necessary. And and then? What can? What can you learn about it? Ok, I'm never going to betray someone, because I know how crappy that feels, but often people hold on to outside energy as well. I deserve that betrayal. Well, no, it's not even yours. You know a fleeting parent for a young, young toddler. Ok, I don't deserve unconditional love because this person didn't give it to me. No, it's not yours, it has nothing to do with you, it only has something to do with them. You know you couldn't have done anything about it.
Speaker 2:It sounds like this work has drastically changed your outlook on life and how you interact with your life. Like you consciously, you're not running on autopilot. You are consciously daily making choices that serve you for the better, and and how you perceive energies is really like your compass. In this way, it's your your guide in navigating these situations. Am I hearing that correctly?
Speaker 1:Completely. It's releasing everything that doesn't belong to me and getting back to who I am.
Speaker 2:Leo, what do you hope the listeners take away from your story today?
Speaker 1:No matter what evidence you have to back up your beliefs, Remember they're just beliefs. They're not truths about the world.
Speaker 1:They're beliefs that you have based on your path so far. If you don't want to keep living this path so far, you need to change those beliefs. You have to change the way that you feel about things like men, about dating apps, about sexual assault and violence. You have to change the way that you feel about those things if you want to start living in a different way and changing the way you think about them. The evidence that you have is only created on the person you were yesterday. That's not who you are right now. So it's really that piece and then the one that I have learned recently that I would say I'm going to do one more, and then one about relationships. Okay, inner circle and this isn't just your friends and your family, this is social media. This is you're on social media probably more than you are saying, texting your friends.
Speaker 1:Truth for a lot of people, if your social media is negative, is popping up and showing you different things. You're following people you don't really need to follow, like you know, models and things that don't make you feel necessarily good about yourself. You have a poor inner circle. Your inner circle is making you feel like crap and it's outside energy that's constantly impacting you and how you feel about yourself. So you really need to refine your inner circle. What is coming in your life every single day Text messages and calls from people, notifications that is negatively impacting you, because outside energy is so impactful. The other one would be it's really in a relationship. If you want to know if you've met the right man, the important thing to pay attention to is is he there for you at all times and it's okay that he's at work sometimes and he can't talk to you when you call because you're crying because he's at work. Those are responsibilities that he has. You have them too. Don't judge him on those things. But is he there for you when you do need that back rub, when you need to cry it out, when you want to celebrate, or does he turn the other way because he's insecure that you're celebrating, like he needs to be just as happy about your achievements as he is of his own? And it's being there that is the most important thing in a relationship, because this is someone that's going to be with you for the rest of your life, hopefully.
Speaker 1:If they can't be there for you, there's something wrong, and it's like if people around you don't like the way he's treating you. You really need to consider that, because a lot of us turn a blind eye and just say people are jealous and all these different things. You really need to go up to a random stranger and tell them your story of this relationship and that might be paying for a session with a therapist or someone and being like this is it? I need an unbiased opinion. I need someone to tell me am I not seeing this or is it everybody else? And give yourself that ability to get that information. Because of that outside energy is really hard to tell what's yours and what's other people's. So sometimes you have to break that cycle of how you develop information and just get it from somebody else who isn't attached to anything. And yeah, it's really like, if you want to know if he's the one, is he there for you? Is he there for you? Because I think that is something you're going to need for the rest of your life.
Speaker 2:Leah. If there is someone listening to this who is like I need what Leah's got. That's exactly what I need right now in my life and they're curious about working with you. What is the best way for them to reach out to you?
Speaker 1:So I mainly work through my Facebook. Right now. This is changing. I'm getting back on Instagram and I'm going to be launching a podcast this year. Yes, so very exciting stuff. But to get in touch with me the best way is Facebook. Dm me. I also like. I mean, I'm putting content out constantly. If you just want a warming up into you know you're single and you want to know why you're attracting these men you don't like, or it's just hasn't worked out for you yet, or you've got this X, or you're in this relationship. Even just reading through some of the stuff that I'm posting is going to start making you think in a new way. It's breaking down those beliefs. But pop into my DMs. Dming me, mr Right magnet, is the best way to get a freebie from me, because I then know where you've come from and I will have something set up for you.
Speaker 2:You do not have to guess or search the internet to find Leah. You just have to go to the episode description and you can connect with her right now. Leah, thank you so much for taking us on this journey. You shared so much vulnerability, so much hurt, so much of your pain with us today and your healing, and I'm sure that there is someone listening who really needed to hear this today and I'm really grateful that you showed up to share today. So thank you very much, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, this was wonderful.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed today's episode, please consider liking, subscribing and letting me know what you think in the comments below. It truly means the world to me to hear from you. New episodes will be available every Saturday, both on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts, and if you would like to learn more about my work as a coach today's guest or have a story that you would like to share on the pivot point, check out the episode description for more information. Now time for the legal stuff. This podcast is presented to you solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I may be a professionally certified coach myself, but hosting a podcast is not coaching. This podcast should not be used in substitution of working with a licensed therapist, doctor, coach or other qualified professionals. Copy that Amazing. See you on the next episode. Nothing but love, yes.