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https://calendly.com/tina-152/discovery-call-lets-talk?back=1&month=2022-01

(Note: The discover call is an hour of whatever you want to cover as an introductory free offer, to allow you to see if you could work together).

SAMIA: Hello, Salam, Shalom, Namaste, Sat Sri Akal, Aloha, Hola, Ciao and Bonjour!

It's so good to be with you again. And guess what? We have another really amazing guest with us today Tina Burt, who's a Holistic Life Coach, Energy Healer and Mentor. And I'm so excited you're with me today Tina. Welcome!

TINA: Thank you Samia, I'm really pleased to be meeting with you again. Nice to be here.

SAMIA: Yes! And, you know, I’m going to have us jump right in and ask you to tell me more about you. Tell me who are you, what do you do, like I mean, we heard… I just shared some of these titles that, you know, we used to describe a little bit about you, but tell me more. What does that really mean? And how did you get to be this holistic life coach, energy healer and mentor that you are?

TINA: Great, well, it's been a pretty interesting journey for me. I've been working with energy my whole life it seems, like way back in my childhood. And I didn't really understand it at the time but it seemed rather magical anyway to me. And I did not have anyone around me that could explain it, so I sort of kept it a bit of a secret most of the way through my life. Yet I found that the ability to interpret things energetically followed me all through my life. But it wasn't until probably around 10 years ago that I really started to understand it and sought a few other healers out to help me understand myself a little bit better. But that whole transition came about as a result of, I guess, a traumatic childhood and early adulthood. And I had suppressed all of that, but I think what our bodies do is that over time, as much as we try to suppress things, there's always an opportunity for things to come up for healing. And that's what put me on my journey. And over a period of time I really resonated with energy work more and more, and was able to help quite a number of people.

But I found that my clients wanted me to be… or to be able to prove my worth. And the best way that I saw to be able to do that was to get some certificates. So I went out chasing a few modalities that really had helped me with my own healing, but that I found really resonated with the work that I wanted to do. And I was introduced to reiki and another modality called body code which incorporates emotion work into that as well. So that's where the energy side of my work started and has developed over the years. And I've found that particular work really helped my own healing, and has helped the healing of others… And then moved into a bit of the coaching spaces… I found that it was necessary to also work on the conscious mind versus the subconscious mind, on our healing journey.

SAMIA: That is so cool Tina. And I resonate a lot with your story actually, because I'm also a survivor of trauma. And the trauma that I survived is child sexual abuse. And, you know, over the years I also was just searching for different things that would help me… Honestly, for so many years when I was so caught up in my suffering, I didn't care about other people. I just wanted to figure out how I could help myself, you know. And as part of that journey I discovered all these modalities like coaching and, you know, positive psychology and energy healing work… mostly in the context of reiki in my case. And... so I have a, like, a sense of how these different modalities work and what the benefits of the different modalities are. And it'd be really cool to hear your perspective on... like, what are some of the differences that you see in the different modalities that you use, and what are the strong points, and where are some gaps in terms of what you can do with that modality that you then fill in with the other ones that you use… like, yeah… tell me a little bit more about that.

TINA: Yeah, cool. I use, across all of my work, I use, probably, five different primary techniques. So we have coaching or mentoring. I use NLP a little bit as well -- Neuro Linguistic Programming. And mindfulness. And then with the energy work is the emotion code and body code with the reiki. So they all have their best strong points and they all fit really well together. The emotion code works around being able to release trapped emotions for imbalances that we pick up throughout all of our lives. We all do it, there's nothing wrong with us for doing that. But what happens is, we get trapped emotionally in a moment and then we carry that through our lives if we don't have the opportunity to release that. So emotion code does that really well, it just allows that emotion to come up and be released without reliving that moment over again… it's just the emotional resonance. And then reiki, for me, allows me to create a calmness if you like, within the energy work. And reiki continues to work throughout the whole modality, throughout the whole session if you like, and it works with the client's body itself, as opposed to me directing the traffic, so to speak. And through mindfulness… It's about creating an awareness with the client… that feeling of what they are going through, and allowing themselves to sense a moment themselves so that they could effectively release a trapped emotion or a correct imbalance on their own. And coaching just allows all of that to be put together in a package where we create some conscious programming, ongoing to hopefully eliminate over time the need for someone to continually track those imbalances, because we usually do that through trying to create a sense of safety in ourselves…

SAMIA: Right.

TINA: …And then what that tends to do is that it creates a… just a little bit of a negative vibration in ourselves which then attracts more and more things, and eventually it just gets bigger.

SAMIA: Yeah... yeah. It's really cool that you have all these different modalities that you're able to bring together. Because I know many coaches… amazing coaches or amazing healers or amazing trainers, but they're only using, like, let's say… There are so many amazing energy healers but they only do energy healing work. And then there's amazing coaches but they're only doing coaching. They don't have any training or expertise in healing, energy healing work. And so it's like, I know for me, in my experience, if I started out with, you know, just the more traditional counseling and therapy kind of services. That was the first time I reached out for help actually… And definitely, you know, starting with that counseling/therapy process, it helped. For sure, for sure it helped. But on its own it wasn't enough, not even nearly enough. Because even after I was done with the counseling and the therapy that I could access, I'd made some improvement, but in so many other ways I was continuing to struggle. And I certainly didn't feel in control of my mental/emotional wellness at the end of, you know, the therapy that I was able to access. And so I was like, okay, so what do I do now? And so I had to keep searching for the next thing and the next thing that could help me. And yeah… so I really see the value of people being able to connect with you, or someone like you, who's able to bring together different modalities, and so then you can actually have that more holistic approach to helping someone. That's really awesome.

TINA: Yeah, no… I found, probably in a very similar way to you, that one particular path was not enough for me. And whereas I started off with the energy work first, that actually allowed me to see that therapy would help me. But the energy work, as miraculous as it was, was not quite enough. I realized that I was healing this part of me that seemed to be almost in the past, but I'd struck a bit of a wall as far as being able to move forward with my life. So then took on the services of a therapist to help in that regard. And really everything was in a springboard… each session was putting me way forward of where I would have been if I was using just one path or another. And then I actually incorporated coaching… I got a life coach myself because I found that… it just seemed to be… something missing. And that was when I realized that I could actually combine coaching myself with the energy work to help people move forward with their lives.

SAMIA: How do you distinguish between the traditional therapy approach and the coaching approach?

TINA: For me, therapy is about... almost you could define it as, present and past… So it's healing you in the present based on what happened in the past.

SAMIA: Yeah.

TINA: Coaching to me, is about the present and the future. So it's dealing with you in the present but looks ahead to where you want to be in the future. And I do feel that both therapy and coaching look at things from a very similar perspective, because to get into the future you do actually have to heal the past. And that's where the energy work comes in because I can help facilitate that without taking you back to that memory, without you having to go through all of that emotional upheaval again, we just energetically heal that. And...

SAMIA: Yeah.

TINA: ..it's still there, it's still a memory, but we should be able to take away that emotional vibration that is causing you to get triggered.

SAMIA: Yes. That's one of my favorite parts of energy healing because, you know, I'm all about making change fun and easy. And I find that energy healing just allows the whole change process to happen so much more easily, and so much more gently, than if you're not able to tap into the energy healing modalities. You know, I remember one of my clients I was working with, she was a domestic violence survivor. It had been actually many years, thankfully, since she had managed to leave that relationship. So she wasn't currently in the relationship. But she was continuing to experience the impact of the trauma that she went through when she was in that abusive relationship. And I remember we did a session, and I was just giving her energy healing that day, I think it was either... I can't remember if I was using reiki or reconnective healing, but it doesn't matter… The point is, it was an energy healing focused session. And at one point in the session she just burst into tears, you know, but it only lasted for, like, maybe two minutes, three minutes, five minutes max... For sure it wasn't more than that. And then after that she was, like, calm and peaceful. And after… and... I didn't stop during the session when she burst into tears. Like, I just kept going. I just let her do what she needed to do in the moment, I didn't try to comfort her, or I didn't give her any tissues, or this or that. But you know, after the session was over, I checked in with her, and I was like, “how are you feeling? What was that experience like?” And she said, yeah, when she was going through the healing, healing process, there was a time when some strong emotion really came up and she had some memories that got triggered, but they passed away, like you know… and now she was.... she said that, you know, she was feeling like she had released something and she was feeling lighter… and you know. And in all the time that we continued to be in touch after, like, after we even... after we finished our work officially together, and I, you know, continue to stay in touch with her as friends… even to this day, you know, whatever... what she released then, it's still released... it's like, you know, it's like... it so… and it just happened, like, so much more quickly and easily and gently than if we had to go through therapy, and like really go back into those memories and talk about them, and stuff…

TINA: You know, that seems to be quite... you know when you can release some memory or release the energy that's attached to that memory like that, it almost feels like a level of acceptance. Or you've managed to move through the resistance to that particular memory. And it's actually amazing at how quickly it can pass when we don't try and stop it from coming up.

SAMIA: Yes, yes. Talking about, you know, how quickly it can come to pass when we don't try to stop it, I mean, don't try to resist it… that I would love to dig deeper into with you. Because when it... especially when it comes to energy healing work… I mean, I think this is true no matter what modality you're using, but I see this especially clearly in the context of energy healing work… that when, I mean… the… we actually have that capacity to heal so quickly and even instantaneously. But for most of us it doesn't happen like that. And what I've been learning is that/there... if it's not happening instantaneously and easily, is because you're probably holding on to something. There's something that you're resisting in the healing process and not allowing the healing to actually occur. And you know, that is just such a interesting thing to reflect on. What's your experience with that? How do you understand that?

TINA: Well, it is really interesting. It's quite an epic topic I think, because we actually resist quite a lot in our lives without realizing the impact of that. And you know that saying, “what you resist... will persist”. And it's really true. But that whole ability to… I think this is something else that we have spoken about… when we can surrender to that resistance, that's when things will come up and just float away almost.

And I think the resistance is there because it's painful. And we can… all we remember is the pain that's associated with whatever it is that's coming up. And the ability to move through that is not necessarily the ability just to put up with the pain and delve deeper into it. It's around getting as close as you possibly can to that feeling without feeling like you're falling over the edge of the cliff. You're just standing on the edge, not right on the edge, but you're standing there, and you've got close to that moment. And then you come back for a moment, and then you can go… You'll find you're able to get closer and closer and closer to that memory or to that feeling that you're trying to avoid. And if you can tap into the feelings within yourself, you'll... you will feel a level of tension somewhere that is telling you, “no, don't move forward, that's horrible there, don't pass this point”. But by just getting a little bit closer to that tension, trying to feel the tension, feel what's in it, feel what's underneath it, that's when that release usually happens.

SAMIA: Yeah... yeah, that… Oh, thank you for sharing that. That's so... I mean, there's so much in what you just said that, you know, I could pick up on and comment… But one thing that I really want to highlight in what you just said is that this process of... I love that vision that you painted, or that analogy that you made, of it… experiencing this healing process like you're... like, the pain, or the bad memory or the trauma… it’s sort of like standing by the edge. And if you're feeling really scared, you move back from that edge. But it's okay, it's okay to move back and to know that you can go closer again later...

TINA: You don't need to...

SAMIA: Yeah.

TINA: …Yeah, you don't need to dive into the whole episode or the whole moment. You can take yourself as close as you like to that moment or that emotion and then come back. But that in itself can be quite difficult because if you're in a triggered moment, or you are feeling particularly hurt or vulnerable, then even the thought of getting close to that moment can be difficult, and that resistance is very strong. The patterns that we have set up, and they're all based on what we've experienced throughout our lives, they're so strong at that subconscious level, that part of the process of the healing is being able to make it a conscious thing… actually being interested and curious enough at what's happening inside of you to then bring it to the conscious mind, recognize it… And it's from that you can then realize that you have a choice, you can choose something different.

SAMIA: Yes, and oftentimes if you're just doing energy healing work, that's where one of the limitations of energy healing work can be, that you don't... you're not necessarily able to have conscious recognition of what it is that you're holding, and what it is that you need to release. And that's where a modality like coaching or therapy, depending on where you are in your healing journey, may be really helpful to bring... to help you bring to conscious awareness, what it is that you're holding. And then you don't… and then to be able to make a conscious choice to release it or not, yeah….

TINA: Yeah, absolutely. You know it is... it's a really useful tool to be able to allow people to walk through their everyday life without being triggered or upset at every moment. And it's as simple as, you know, the people we come across every day have… we're all projecting on to each other, whatever is going on for us… but that ability to just take a step back in our own minds and our own bodies, and recognize what's happening, can allow a completely different end to our interaction.

SAMIA: Yes, that's so true. Any other tips that you can give us on how we can, like, help ourselves to surrender more, surrender better, or just make it easier? Like, especially in those moments when you're feeling really triggered? Yeah… Any other suggestions around that?

TINA: Probably for me, the best suggestion I can make is to practice. And that in itself takes an awareness that, you know, someone would like to do some work on themselves. But the awareness starts with mindfulness I feel, and that you practice and learn how to sit quietly with yourself. It starts with a few minutes each day. And just seek a quiet place, work with your breath, and just try and zone in on the different parts of your body and what they're feeling and what they're doing.

Start there… you just do a few minutes each day. But then when you take that out into your day as you go to work, or on the weekends, try and incorporate that into whatever it is you're doing. So at a more conscious level you are feeling your breath, you're feeling what's going on inside. And through that awareness you will then become better at being aware of how things are triggering you, or how you're reacting through the day. And it… that itself will allow you to step back and almost move into that feeling a little bit more, and then you can come back…

And you know, sometimes I feel, you know, even myself now, that some moments are more triggering than others, and I need to actually step away into a private space to allow myself to work out what's going on. But in some cases also, it's a little bit fun to see how I can work through something by myself… how close can I get to that feeling or to that emotion without falling off the edge… And it almost becomes… and to me... it's almost a competition. It's like, how close can I get there before I do something or before I actually either feel it completely or have to back away? And that does take a lot of practice, it's not something, you know, that you can probably do from day one. But that's how I make being curious and interested in myself a little bit more fun. Because otherwise it can come across as being, “oh, no, I don't really want to go there at all”.

SAMIA: Yeah... Thank you for talking about how to make it more fun, and the fact that it's actually really important to introduce some element of fun. So let's not take ourselves so seriously. Because when we do, we actually make things harder for ourselves, and we don't want to do that… so to find a way to make things more fun… And I love the idea of just sort of taking it, sort of like a fun challenge… like a game that you're playing, almost. And it is, in some ways… life is a game.

TINA: It is, definitely. And I think that, you know, without taking away the pain that some do feel, and even the thought of making all of this sound like fun could be, “oh no, we can't go there”. And you know, just having some… It is a... it can be a hard journey… that… to get to that point where you can actually see that there is some fun in this part of life, this game that we play. But yeah, it is the game of life really, isn't it?

SAMIA: Yeah, you know, it makes me think about… I was watching a documentary that was... they were in a refugee camp. I don't remember where exactly… it was somewhere in Africa. And they… basically in the documentary they were trying to show what life is like for refugees in these refugee camps, and how they cope and deal and heal from the trauma of what they've been through. And I remember one of the segments… they were… part of the documentary, they were focusing on the kids. And they said… of course the kids also are extremely traumatized. They have seen horrendous things, experienced horrendous things. Many of them have seen their parents, their loved ones, being killed in front of their eyes, and they're just little kids. And they have had to endure starvation, and walk for miles and miles for days and days in hot desert conditions. And you know, just experienced terrible things in their life.

And yet, in some ways, one of the things that, you know, you see in terms of what's different between children, many of the children, and many of the adults, is that you... once the children come into camp, it takes them a while to sort of feel safe and realize and recognize that they're in a, relatively speaking, safe place and a stable condition. But as they sort of begin to realize and recognize that, they are given access to toys. I mean they're given the toys right from the beginning. But like, you see… over time more and more the kids begin to actually engage with the toys, and they begin to play more and more. And then you see them coming together to play with each other, and then they're laughing. And they are, you know, like, actually having fun. And it's not constantly like that, they're still, you know, dealing with a lot of trauma. And that… it's going to take a lot of time to heal from… But they're able to nonetheless experience these moments of joy, of happiness, of just having fun, you know, playing with their toys, playing with each other. And you don't see as much of that happening with the adults.

TINA: No, it's almost like with... as adults we lose that childlike ability to come out of ourselves despite what is going on. And that layer upon layer of… you might start off with a childhood experience, and then it never goes away. And if you can't deal with that, and so you get more added to that…

SAMIA: Yeah.

TINA: And adults… it's harder for us to, I guess, create that child-like approach to life. As well as, you know, we've got responsibilities now and life has become a lot more serious. But that childlike approach to our lives is pretty much where, I think, a lot of us get our feeling from if we can tap into that inner child within us, and allows us to experience what that little person would have experienced… And you can actually have a conversation and realize where you as an adult are not quite meeting the needs of your inner child.

SAMIA: Yeah, yeah... because connecting with that inner child, of course, is so healing in itself, but it's also a key component of what makes us more resilient.

TINA: Absolutely. Yeah... it's, there's just so many different parts of us as an adult and as a human being and it's, you know… life itself has become quite tough. And with the various stages of lockdowns around the world, it's… we're becoming less resilient if you like, to what is going on around us. But what is becoming more and more important is the ability to develop that resilience. And we do that through, you know, many different things throughout our lives, but it's also around, you know, we talked about surrender a little bit… It's not about surrendering to the moment or surrendering to the rules that are being put down in front of you, it's being able to release the resistance that you have to that moment, realizing that although you might not have a choice, you can't go outside… but what can you choose to do in this moment…

SAMIA: Yeah.

TINA: And that is what will, I think, will help people get through in these moments that don't feel very comfortable, and create a little bit more happiness around that.

SAMIA: Right. And what you're saying about focusing yourself again in the present moment, and what you can do in the present moment, that's actually also what mindfulness is all about… it’s about staying in the present moment. And it... when I think about mindfulness… and I've come to understand that there are two very important components to mindfulness. One is of course, being in the present moment, having that present moment awareness… but there's also a second extremely important component to it… Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? How do you, how… like... what's your understanding of mindfulness? Like, what's the core and essence of practicing mindfulness? Is it just about being in the present moment? Is there anything more to it?

TINA: For me, mindfulness is definitely about being in that present moment, but it's also about compassion, and more, probably more self-compassion. Because mindfulness or meditation, whichever word you want to put around that, can be incredibly hard, especially if you are in a busy life. And we’ll very easily go to that… “oh, I can't focus. I can't do this right now. I've just got too much going on”, rather than the self-compassion part kicking in and saying, “come back to self… you know… it's okay. I realize… we'll just put that to the side… come back to self”... And you might need to do that a hundred times and, you know, trying to become present. But that self compassion allows you to do that without creating a sense of judgment, and removing all kindness from that particular moment.

SAMIA: Yes. Oh, thank you for sharing that Tina, because that's so important! Because you could actually be present in the moment, but be focusing on everything that's wrong, or what's making you miserable in the moment. And then that's not very helpful. So mindfulness... I oh, thank you for sharing that, yes, it's not just about being present in the moment, but being present in the moment with self-compassion.

TINA: Yeah, no. It's so important, I think, not to judge yourself. And if you do, don't judge that either.

SAMIA: Yeah.

TINA: We're not perfect, and we do have busy lives. The ability to become present helps us move through that busy life, but that in itself can become a hurdle for some people which is, I think… it's just important just to, well, remain present… I guess that's what it's all about.

SAMIA: Oh my gosh, I can't tell you Tina... my gosh… I had… When I first started learning about the value of practicing non-judgment, especially with regards to myself, one of the... On the one hand I really benefited from that, cultivating that attitude of non-judgment… But then the struggle that I sort of fell into was that I became judgmental about being judgmental…

TINA: It’s a bit of a vicious circle.

SAMIA: Yeah, so my gosh, thank you. And you know, I want to keep talking with you, and you know, you're just going to have to come back so we can keep talking. Because unfortunately we're out of time for today. But for sure, for sure, I would love for you to come back and share more of your wisdom.

TINA: Yeah. I'd love to be talking to you again about this, it's a really interesting topic.

SAMIA: Yay! awesome. All right, any last words from you for today, right now?

TINA: No, I don't think so. I've just really enjoyed catching up with you and talking about this. And I hope that whoever is listening, it helps them as well. So enjoy the rest of your day.

SAMIA: Yeah, thank you. And to all of our wonderful dear listeners, if you're listening, if you're watching, please know that in the show notes of this episode we are going to add... we are adding Tina's link so you can get in touch with her, learn more about her work. So please connect with her. You can also connect with me. I'll also add my links in the show notes. So the main thing is, don't continue to struggle by yourself, reach out for help and support… and it'll help make your process of change and healing and transformation so much more fun and easy. So with that, I wish you lots of peace and joy until the next time we meet. Take care! :)

TINA: Take care everybody.:)