Shamangelic Breathwork: A Deep Dive into Emotional Healing with Anahata Ananda

A Personal Note From Orion

Welcome back, stargazers, to another enlightening episode of Stellar Life! Today, we have a magical journey ahead with our guest, Anahata Ananda, the heart and soul behind Shine Sedona.

Anahata Ananda has devoted over two decades to guiding individuals through heart-centered, transformative experiences. Based in the mystical setting of Sedona, known for its powerful energy vortexes, Anahata has supported tens of thousands of people on their journey towards spiritual awakening and empowerment. Her retreats and workshops focus on shadow work, reclaiming personal power, opening the heart, and establishing healthy boundaries. Anahata’s deep wisdom and compassionate approach have made her a sought-after guide for those seeking profound inner transformation.

In today’s episode, Anahata will guide us through the depths of shadow work, sharing her insights on the vital importance of inner child healing and the transformative practice of shamanic breathwork. Inspired by her own life journey and her role as a mother, Anahata speaks passionately about releasing traumas, reclaiming lost aspects of ourselves, and understanding how to say the “sacred no” to live a thriving life.

We’ll also explore Sedona’s serene and powerful energy vortexes, exploring how this unique landscape can amplify our healing journeys. You’ll hear Anahata’s heartfelt personal story of transformation and her advice on holding space, maintaining energetic boundaries, and staying grounded in our everyday lives.

So, step up, tune in, and get ready to rise from the ashes like a phoenix. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the show!

In This Episode

[02:05] – Orion introduces Anahata Ananda to discuss rising, shining, and personal growth.
[05:40] – Anahata describes Sedona’s energy vortexes and their effects on the body and mind.
[09:56] – Anahata delves into shamanic breathwork for tailored support, offering advice on maintaining boundaries during emotional releases and client interactions.
[13:42] – Anahata explores shadow work and how it can help reclaim lost parts of ourselves.
[17:07] – Anahata differentiates between breathwork practices, providing a detailed explanation of shamanic breathwork and her preferred modality for shadow work.
[31:23] – Anahata shares her daily practices for grounding and clearing energy.
[45:56] – Anahata discusses her realizations about conditional love and setting boundaries, addressing her personal journey of inner healing and its impact on marriage and decisions for her children.
[47:16] – Anahata emphasizes the importance of healing inner wounds and inner child work before forgiveness.
[48:56] – Orion asks Anahata for her top tips for living a stellar life.

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hi, Anahata Ananda. Welcome to the Stellar Life podcast. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you

. It’s an honor to come and dive into some juicy topics with you today.

Then you’re in Sedona, a magical place, so you’re already bringing the magic with you.

I love being based here, and our sanctuary healing center is based here. It’s the perfect destination to come and heal, awaken, expand, ignite, accelerate, connect, and rejuvenate. There’s definitely a lot of magic here in the vortexes and the beautiful red rocks.

What do you sanctaury like?

Our center here in Sedona is called Shine the Sanctuary for the Soul. This is where we have world-class facilitators and practitioners offering sessions, readings, workshops, sound healing, breathwork training, and retreats. We just finished a men’s retreat we had right before that, a women’s retreat, and there’s training for hands-on Healing Modalities and Shamangelic Breathwork Facilitator Training. People come from around the world just to come and have their healing, heart awakening, spiritual connection or to accelerate their purpose and path.

That’s amazing. It’s like Aslan in California.

It’s right here in west Sedona, conveniently located to everything else. This is a wonderful getaway if you are going through a breakup, a challenge, or some big life-change loss. If you’re really having like a wound or a core trauma, it’s a great place to come and get support to help move through that. Or if you’re just a seeker and want more tools and you want to accelerate, expand, amplify, or attract, it’s great, too. And then, if you’re a lightworker seeking a place to learn different modalities, to level up, so that as a coach, healer, teacher or trainer, you have more tools in your kit to accelerate healing and transformation for your clients. So there’s a whole range of things that we love to offer.

It’s nice that it’s near all the vortexes of Sedona. It’s magical. I’ve been there once or twice, and it was amazing. Sedona has the best crystal shops ever.

We have a sweet little boutique, and I hand-select everything: crystals, jewelry, medicine bags, sage wands, silk kimonos, and hats. We have a sweet little boutique there as well. Yeah, that’s wonderful about the vortexes. The energy here is an amplifier because of the ancient land, and there are crystals in the soil and the vortexes. It’s really an energy amplifier. So it helps to accelerate things, accelerates healing, awakening, and connecting to the divine inspiration. People come here to write their books, people come here to get over an x, people come here to find a. And reconnect to themselves again. And the vortexes are really accelerators for that process. That’s why I love being here.

Sedona is a great place to heal core wounds, which is one of my favorite ways to hold space for somebody’s vulnerability and trauma.

Me, too. I love Sedona. How do people know that the vortexes are there? How do they measure energy? How do they know this is a sacred ground?

They have a meter that detects the electrical current coming out. Just like in our body, we have different vortexes known as chakras. And so we have more energy coming out around our heart as an organ, or our adrenals, or our sexual organs, as well as our pineal, pituitary, and thyroid. More energy and electrical current is coming out of those places than our elbows. And it can be measured. Some people think, “Oh, there’s probably like 10 or 15.” There are hundreds and thousands of vortexes here. They’re just all over the place. There are these spiraling electrical currents, and then there are also minerals in the soil because the land is so old. Crystals in the soil amplify the electricity because they are both conductors. It’s like nowhere else in the world is there this much electrical current.

What is the electrical? Because I know that when you do grounding, you put your feet on the ground. Because we are electrical, it’s called grounding, and we’re actually grounding our own electricity into the ground. When we put our feet on the earth, we are barefoot on the earth, not with shoes, and then we connect to all living beings on the planet. We can, if we want, everybody that steps on this earth. Now, what does being around the vortex do to your body?

It amplifies. Wherever something is blocked, it will want to help it move. If you’re exhausted and tired, it will make you sleepy so that you actually rest. If it’s time to bring in inspiration, like a book, poetry or song, you might not be able to sleep because you’ll be really amplifying the creative flow. If there’s sadness that you’ve been avoiding or emotions that you’ve been oppressing, it’s going to invite that to flow.

This is a great place to heal core wounds, which is one of my favorite ways to hold space for somebody’s vulnerability and trauma so they can get out of the cycle that keeps repeating in unconscious relationships, codependency, or limiting beliefs and get at the core issue. Sedona is going to help that energy move because it’s more accessible and will be a little bit more amplified. It’s like working with another facilitator and a practitioner here in Sedona.

Doing inner child work before extending forgiveness is essential—-knowing yourself and owning your truth are keys to a thriving life. Share on X

Einstein said—and this is not a direct quote—that when an object goes in one direction, it will keep going in the same direction unless an outside interference will help it shift, and even a little shift will change the course of that object. Now, that is true for anything that happens in our lives. Sometimes, we need external help. We need to get out of the frame because we are in the picture of our lives. We’re in the movie. Sometimes, we need to physically leave and go somewhere else and be with someone who can be that captain force worse for good for us to break through. I know that with my own personal journey.

I definitely can raise my hand and say I’m a seeker because I’ve been through hundreds, if not thousands, of workshops and seminars, big and small, throughout my life. A few major ones helped me heal in very difficult times. And actually, I just came back from a women’s retreat with Sheila Kelley. It was Indian Wales, near Palm Springs.

I came back with a complete shift of energy. There is something about the desert. We were doing deep work inside the convention center from 9 AM until 7 PM. Still, there is something energetic about the desert, even when it’s not Sedona, that is healing.

The process of reclaiming is so valuable and inspiring; it creates so much space, light, and freedom to heal the core wounds.

This catalyst you’re talking about sometimes takes trauma, drama, breakup, or diagnosis. Sometimes it’s overwhelmed or a career being chaotic or the loss of someone or something that kind of creates that catalyst, not only to look at what issues are coming up in that experience, but also the other issues that God stuff ignored from earlier in life, because we didn’t have the tools, we weren’t ready, we didn’t know how there wasn’t the support system, or there wasn’t a reason to upgrade or shift.

That’s where I love meeting people, in that place of, “Wow, I’ve got to make a shift, or I didn’t even know that was there. I didn’t realize that I was part of this pattern that kept repeating. And so, having been doing this for 24 years now, it’s such an honor and privilege to help walk people through that shadow work and help them to find their light again, their truth again, their voice again, their identity again. And the shift, the awakening, and the transformation that happens, especially with a multiple-day retreat.

We just had our women’s retreat a few weeks ago, and the depth we went around sexual trauma and core healing women finding their voice again, and overcoming being the accommodator, learning how to have clear boundaries so that they’re not enabling others or being dependent upon in a way that isn’t healthy for either person. Whether that’s a child, a partner, a colleague or a parent, it has those clear energy lines to return to yourself with safety, integrity and self-respect. I need to protect this, and I need to love this. I must respect honor and own my authenticity, value, and worth. It’s not going to come from anybody else. It’s my responsibility to know that, protect it, and take care of it.

That process of reclaiming is so valuable and inspiring, and it creates so much space, light, and freedom from that place to heal the core wounds. At the same time, putting new beliefs, new tools and new awareness in, that’s where the real acceleration happens, is when you’re working on both sides of the equation, the release, the surrender and letting go of what isn’t yours, what isn’t true, or is way outdated, and then upgrade to what is mine, what is true, and what is part of my soul’s calling, because that creates a massive shift.

There are many modalities of breathwork, and anything that is breathing is actually breathwork.

When you have those kinds of transformational shifts, everything in life starts to change, and that’s where it gets really exciting. So, I love doing that deeper multiple-day work. But a lot of times, people will come here just for, you know, a private retreat where they’re ready to work right now, and they can’t wait until the retreat that’s happening, two months, and they need to get at it right now because their life is on hold until they get it sorted.

People will come to make a private, tailored retreat with many different modalities and practitioners, tailoring an experience based on somebody’s needs. There’s something magical about the desert here and the land because it works in a subtle and not-so-subtle way to amplify and accelerate the timeline of healing, awakening, and spiritual connection.

So you talked about shadow work. What’s your definition of shadow work, and in which modalities do you use to heal people?

That’s so many. What I call shadow work, and this is the reason why I named Shine Shines, is that this is about shining a light on what is obstructing your light, and it’s finding your inner radiance, and you’ve got to go back and do the work to see where is there a part of me that got lost in that trauma? Where did I shut down my voice? Where did I hide my light? It wasn’t safe to be me because somebody judged me, or it wasn’t like they rejected me, left me, or ridiculed me.

I started to learn how to dim my light from this trauma, whether it was physical or sexual or an abandonment issue. Some of us have big traumas, whether one big one or a couple of big ones. Some of us have these little things that erode our light, confidence, and sense of self over time. So, the formula to uncover that and reclaim it is a little bit different for everybody. One of my favorite modalities is shamanic breathwork. That way, we get into the energy and emotional bodies, which don’t lie. It holds memories of trauma or pain, sadness, resentment or anger.

We give permission for the throat to express, for the body to shake, for the emotions, whether it’s watery emotions like grief or sadness from a loss or a hurt, or if it’s fiery emotions like resentment, anger, and when it’s oppressed for a long time, rage. So, we create a safe space to release those and move through them so that the cellular memory, energy, and emotional body can return to neutral. Instead of from this contracted space where we’re not in alignment, making life decisions from that place, when we’re not in alignment and not feeling whole, we’re not feeling safe, and then we’re not going to make decisions that align with our highest and best self.

When we can release those traumas and emotions, we start to inform ourselves, “What do we do now? What tools can I learn to maintain my sense of self? Where can I identify what relationships I tend to self-abandon to please or to avoid conflict?” Then we start to look at where those places within one’s life are where we tend to lose ourselves, become aware of those patterns, and give tools for different ways of handling it next time.

You mentioned shamanic breathwork. There are so many ways of doing breathwork, and it’s becoming extremely popular. It’s like the new popularity. What’s the difference between other breathwork practices? When it comes to breathwork, it’s all sacred. Also, when you do the breathwork, do they just lie down and then make a sound? Or do they also eventually walk around, move their bodies, and express their emotions?

There are many modalities of breathwork, and anything breathing, such as a breathing exercise, is actually breathing work. So, in the yogic traditions, there are a lot of breathing exercises that are to calm the mind, open for greater meditation, connect to the spirit, and balance the left and right hemispheres of the brain. There’s all of these pranayamas. These are breathing techniques that are for balancing, calming, and detoxification.

This is specifically called shamangelic breathwork. It involves deep inhales and exhales of hyperoxygenation to bring up subconscious memories from the back of the brain because hyperoxygenation does that. It’s really important that not all breathwork facilitators are the same. Not all offer the same type of support or the same kind of journey. I personally feel like connecting with each person, so they’re really getting their own private healing journey that is tailored based on what they need.

I just did this breathwork for 28 different people. There were a couple of other facilitators, and I was one of 28 different people. Now I can have a soundtrack and do the drum and the rattle, but they have 28 different issues. The shaman relic breathwork will then be woven in with each person individually to help them. Maybe this person needs to release the rage and support them, releasing primal anger that has been oppressed for probably decades, and then to turn around to somebody else that might be really just having the loss of a loved one recently or a breakup needs to grieve and to be able to hold space, not standing at the front of the room, but actually in their space with healing energy, different modalities to help hands-on healing, emotional release, guided visualizations, touch and support that really helps that person through their individual journey.

And I think that what’s different about shell angelic breathwork is that everybody gets tailored to what they need. A lot of breathwork practitioners and even a lot of people are doing this online, and they’re not going to be in your field at all. They’ll be at the front of the room with a great soundtrack or a musical instrument or virtual, and there can still be a lot of releases and breakthroughs.

Releases and breakthroughs are really accelerated when you get that tailored support to be able to read somebody’s energy field.

And I think where it’s really accelerated is when you get that tailored support which has a different level of skill, to be able to read somebody’s energy field and to move in with mastery, to seamlessly support and accelerate their transformation and leave them more whole after and support with integration, because you can move a lot of energies in these more intense modalities that can release decades and decades of pain, grief and anger and energetic density.

You can relieve stuff you’ve been holding from relatives, your bloodline, other people, and past lovers. That is quite efficient. It’s one of my favorite modalities. That’s why I’ve been facilitating it for 23 years and have been doing the facilitation for the training for it. I take a very small group of individuals. I do a two-week intensive for those who want to learn breathwork techniques, hands-on emotional release, chakra balancing, and trauma-informed transformational techniques.

How do you pull back somebody’s energy from a past situation, help them reclaim it and teach them how to maintain it? It’s only going to last if the individuals know how to continue holding their energy clear. Otherwise, it just keeps repeating.

How do you, as a facilitator, keep the boundaries between you and somebody who is not releasing childhood sexual trauma or something like that? Some people’s traumas are massive. Just living in this world watching the news is secondary trauma, so if you deal with someone who’s going through a lot of pain and a lot of anger, what do you call on to facilitate this energy, and how do you keep your boundaries?

It’s the first course in my training. It’s the first course to clear boundaries; it’s important to understand whether it’s with a client, a family member, or a lover. “This is mine, and this is not mine. From that place, I’m not here to fix it, solve it, or own it. I’m just here to hold space as this person processes their emotions. I don’t have an opinion about anger or rage. It doesn’t scare me if somebody’s emotional because I see it as a valuable healing and transformation process.”

Boundaries get crossed when you have a judgment that something is bad, wrong, scary, evil, or intense.

Boundaries get crossed when you have a judgment that something is bad, wrong, scary, evil, or intense, and I’m like, “It just is. It’s part of human beings expressing their fear, anger, and pain, which are part of their humanness.” Understanding that and seeing it through a compassionate space, the heart can come forward and say, “How can I support you, sweetheart? Is it to provide a safe space for your head to land here and just weep and weep and weep?”

I’ve had thousands of people’s tears on my shoulder and face. It’s such a beautiful privilege to be like, “Oh, dear, just let yourself cry. It’s okay.” And to help somebody really deeply, primally expressed, because I’ve been through that. I know how liberating it is, and it doesn’t scare me. It doesn’t come into my body because it’s not mine. I have very clear boundaries. This is their anger and rage from another experience that has nothing to do with me.

I can move even closer to it, hold space for it, be clear about turning, and support somebody else’s sadness. I’ve also developed this skill over decades. It’s not a beginner-level skill, so the training isn’t two days or one day. It takes a lot of practice.

I’m a coach and a hypnotherapist, and I take people through very deep processes that last two to three hours—just intense. When I did StrengthsFinder, I found out that my first strength was empathy, and my third one sounded like empathy. I have a lot of empathy, and it’s been at least a decade and a half of me trying to still work on my boundaries.

And mostly, I am successful. Sometimes, I will have a session with so much energy moving that I’ll just have to go to sleep after the session, and the whole day, I’ll be like, “Oh, so tired.” It doesn’t happen all the time, but when it’s something extreme, sometimes it happens. You have to put the bubble on, and as a coach or a therapist, you just kind of dip your finger in their energy, but you don’t take all of it in. Maybe you can share some tools for the audience and me to put those boundaries on.

Shamangelic breathwork uses deep inhales and exhales of a lot of hyperoxygenation to start bringing up subconscious memories from the back of the brain because hyperoxygenation does that.

Well, I do an online workshop on this. Check the Shine Sedona calendar because I am doing a two-hour workshop on boundaries. For those listening, maybe it’s not a client, but a loved one who is dancing with addiction, “How do I have clear boundaries with my partner because they’re going through this challenge or they’re having stress at work? How do I keep that separate?”

It’s the same process: “How do I hold space for a client and not take on what isn’t mine? Is this really clear? This isn’t mine. This is theirs.” When we started moving into their energy field, saying, “Well, this is a problem I’m now feeling,” I knew I didn’t have a clear boundary. I’m feeling their pain, fear, or trauma. “Uh-oh, I took on what isn’t mine.”

Right there at that moment, I knew this wasn’t mine, and I needed to give the issue or the pain back to them because I don’t run their energy through my body ever at all. I bring in light through to me, and I send it out, but nothing goes past this barrier to come into me. If I know my space, “This is my truth. This is my light. This is my pain. These are my challenges. I also don’t want to let any of that seep into a lover, a friend, or a child.”

A lot of times, we care so much about other people that we leak our judgment or our pity or our discomfort with their process, their pain, their addiction, and that’s us crossing the boundary into their space, bringing our judgment or our pain, “I wish this would stop. This is horrible. This is terrible.” I maintain a new neutrality, that it’s not bad or wrong, because in the third eye, the ability to see any pain or any suffering or any trauma or any addiction as part of the soul’s journey, then I know it’s necessary.

A lot of times, we care so much about other people that we leak our judgment, pity, or discomfort with their process, pain, and addiction, and that’s us crossing the boundary into their space.

Even if my human eyes and brain cannot make sense of it, why would a child attract this trauma? What is going on? My human brain will never be able to make sense of some of the things that I have witnessed in client sessions. And believe me, I’ve been doing this full-time for 24 years.

You handled a lot.

I’ve really held space for a lot beyond what you could imagine. When the third eye looks at it, it seems, “Okay, this is the classroom this soul is learning. This is the classroom where if other people are involved, like somebody creating the pain and suffering, they, too, have pain and suffering.” I have had to get out of my human judgment because it’s all over the place, like, “Hey, you shouldn’t do that.

That’s not right. That doesn’t belong in those spaces. It does not get to exist there.” So I get to stay in the third eye that says, “Let me see this from the bigger lens.” “Oh, this divorce happened in this way because there is a transformation, an awakening, a different path, a tool of process and experience, the experience that their soul has chosen.” So, there’s no place for me to judge it as wrong or bad.

As soon as I go wrong or bad, I’ve crossed the boundary. So maintaining neutrality, which is hard to do, let’s say, as a mom, when your son is going through an addiction, and that’s one of the things that I’ll be working with families that are working with somebody that has bipolar, or that has an addiction, whether it’s a partner, a child, or a family member that says, this is your space, this is your energy and the judgment and the fear and the worry is a boundary you’re crossing, making their energy more challenging because they have to deal with your guilt and your judgment and your shame.

It’s like I realized that in the past, my worry was in the form of love. My judgment was in the form of, “You shouldn’t be doing this.” My discomfort with somebody else’s choices made their burden heavier, and I realized I was crossing the boundaries here. I want to be able to love without imposing my judgment or my discomfort. You need to learn that when you have those feelings of being uncomfortable with somebody else’s choices, then that’s what you need to process. If I’m uncomfortable with a client’s choices, I’ve got to be like, “Hey, I’m not in neutrality right now. I need to shift immediately because I’m bringing my stuff through my filter into the session, and it does not belong here.” It inhibits me from being a clear conduit for the ability to bring in partial energy, not absolutely caring, but clear and clean. Does that make sense?

Yes, it makes sense. Do you do any morning rituals or prayers to keep your energy clear before the session? Before we started this, we had this little conversation, and you intended that whoever listens to this information would land well and get what they need, which was beautiful. I love that. What do you do in the morning to clear your energy, to put on your boundaries? And maybe you can share a technique on how you do that.

When you feel uncomfortable with somebody else’s choices, that’s what you need to process.

It starts as a daily practice, and then it just becomes how I am. I always, anytime I am going into a breathwork ceremony, anytime I’m going into a retreat, anytime I’m going into a client session, anytime I’m going into teaching or training, I always ground, let me clear out any frenetic busyness. This issue that has my mind running it doesn’t belong here. So I ground, and I’m like, “Let me pull back my energy from any places that it shouldn’t be so that I can be fully present here.”

That’s breathing. Just like aware that, “Okay, I am still kind of spinning about this issue, but if I’m about to facilitate, I’ve got to pull it in so that I can be fully present and focused on this experience.” There’s nowhere else more important for me to be in this moment than fully present with this client who is going through grief or is trying to figure out their next step after a divorce.

When I’m teaching students who are lightworkers, who are expanding their toolkit and their transformational ability, I don’t get the opportunity to be out of balance, out of integrity or somewhere else. I’ve got to show up professionally, so I’m really good at pulling my energy in and present so I can be fully here. Then I take that hat off, and it’s like, “Okay, here comes my personal life.”

Where no one sees me.

Exactly, and I spend a lot of time alone. My energy is out with a lot of my clients, students, and staff. There are a lot of demands on my time and energy, so I spend a lot of downtime. I’m very particular about who I spend my free time with because I want it to be something that is replenishing, nourishing, supportive, safe, not drama, not chaos, and not drunkenness. I’m not interested in having anything that really depletes my energy field.

So, I’m very mindful because this is my greatest resource. And for everybody listening, watching your attention, awareness, and energy is your greatest resource. I protect it. I honor it. I’m very discerning about who has access to it. When I feel depleted, which happens when I’m in service, I carve out my time and replenish it with nature, relaxation, and stillness.

Remember: Holding space and maintaining neutrality is essential in emotional release and healing. Protect your energy and set clear boundaries. Share on X

I get breathwork with 30 people, emoting and releasing, and feel very clear afterward just because I moved a lot of energy getting up and down and supporting 30 people and being fully 100% mentally focused and nowhere else like that takes a lot of. I burn a lot of calories because I’m fully present. So, afterward, I’m hungry for sure. But I’ve learned over the years to have clear boundaries.

Relatives and friends have been great teachers about all of that for me because when I haven’t had clear boundaries, or I’ve taken on their stuff, they’ve been great teachers about whether I’m staying in my lane. They were the ones who were the energy vampires, not realizing, “Oh, I’m making their problem my problem.” I’m volunteering myself as their coach without consent—not that any of us have ever done that.

Never. I’d never do that. I know other people do that.

We think we’re entitled to do that. Yet, it doesn’t respect them being on their journey and learning their lessons in the time and in the way that their soul is already prepared for them. If they’re not getting it, then they’re not ready to get it, and it’s okay. I get to process my pain and my discomfort about that. That is on my side.

That’s so good. It’s very present in my life. In the last two years, I’ve been working on my boundaries, and I didn’t even know I didn’t have boundaries. I thought that it was just me being loving. Actually, maybe not.

Guided visualization is a powerful tool to nurture your inner child.

This is the thing out of love that motivates a lot of this. “Hey, I don’t want my relative to be in this addiction pattern.” Boundaries don’t mean a cold, armored heart. I want to be clear. When you have clear boundaries, that actually allows your heart to open even further and open even more because you’re clear about where your energy is, whether it’s medicine or poison, and what is yours and what is not yours.

And that’s healthier for both people.

They’re going to be okay. Even if it’s not how I would want them to be okay, that’s for me to process, as they’re not okay the way I want them to be. Like, “Okay, well, that’s my sadness, grief, and disappointment. That’s for me to process. That has nothing to do with them.” We’re loving without judgment and without expectation, “Come on. Wake up. Sober up. Clean up. Get this lesson.”

That doesn’t help anybody grow. I realized I was making it worse, which was not my intention. My love was wrapped in judgment, impatience or discomfort. And I say, “Okay, I need to peel back all those things and refine my love.” So it’s like, “Look, I love you whether you’re sober or not. However, if you’re not sober, we’re not dating.”

Watching your attention, awareness, and energy is your greatest resource.

I can still love you, but I also have the choice of what proximity is healthy. If we’re sharing a bank account and you’re at the racetrack every weekend and gambling the money, “Hey, I love you. And we’re not sharing a bank account anymore. You can do that with your money.” There’s the boundary. Whether you get your finances sorted out is up to you. Have compassion for the pain that is underneath that.

Gambling addiction or alcohol or sex addiction or whatever it is, d I can still say, “But this is my spouse, and I choose my proximity and my openness or closeness to that heart that is not in alignment with me.” That’s self-love.

I usually do it at the beginning of the interview, where I go into your core story, and I’m still very curious about who you are. You’ve been doing this incredible work for 23 years. How did you get into that? And what are some core moments in that story?

I think that my extended family was very loving. I had a lot of fond memories as a kid, and my father had a lot of unresolved trauma. His anger and abuse overflowed into my space often. At the same time, there were many beautiful memories and wonderful experiences. That behavior was enabled. It was put under the carpet of like, “Oh, well, just physical or emotional abuse was normalized.” Nobody was saying, “Hey, this is wrong.” Growing up, it was very confusing for me.

Lots of love and love.

Although I loved him, this is why we have guided visualization to help heal the inner child. To go to that inner child, that little girl self, that little boy self that maybe felt hurt or misunderstood or got lost in the shuffle of having lots of siblings or felt compared with other siblings or not enough were whatever, rejected or betrayed or hurt in some way that we get to go and visit with that inner child and bring them home again and give them a safe space, love them in ways in which maybe our parents or whoever raised us didn’t have the abilities at that time.

It takes trauma, drama, a breakup, or a diagnosis to catalyze change—not just to address the immediate issues but also to uncover and heal those long-ignored wounds from earlier in life when we lacked the tools, readiness, or support. Share on X

For me, there was this contradiction where I was like, “God, I love you, but I don’t feel safe with you. I actually don’t like you.” There’s a contradiction that I had with my father for many years because there was so much love and support, but there was also trauma and not safety and fear. I stuffed that in because there wasn’t a tool, a way, a process to cope with that. It began to affect my drinking and sexual expression and confidence and just an underlying anger that was just kind of there.

It would come out sometimes, then become destructive; I get angry or lash out at loved ones. That created chaos in my relationships. There was alcohol involved, which just added fuel to the fire. It wasn’t until I was married that it was highly functioning, still highly functioning, and had a great job, career, and a lot of drive. But then I got to the point where I lost myself in the identity that I created with my marriage and two kids.

I had twins; I love my twins. That opened new parts of me that had been dormant to revive for them. My love and devotion for them made me not want to pass on that anger, that violence. I started to look at, “Hey, I don’t want this pattern to repeat.” I was starting to do this inner work. At the same time, my husband was bent, and I had many marriage troubles.

We always have the choice of what proximity is healthy.

Not surprisingly, neither of us had great communication skills or role models for healthy relationships. We also didn’t have the tools to handle challenges, and the overwhelms of parenting without extended family help. There was a lot of pressure that we didn’t know how to navigate, which wasn’t very healthy. Different situations occurred. Let’s just say that where I’m like this, I will not have this. I will not have this.

I got to the point where I said, “This is not okay with me. I’m out.” And it would take maybe just a handful of circumstances where I would say, “No way, I’m out.” And that’s one of those things that happened. And that took a lot of internal fortitude and courage to own my value and worth and say I will not be in a relationship where I’m treated this way. And it took me a long time to get to that place. But with my love for my kids and myself, I found the courage to say, “I will not be treated this way.”

And I left the marriage. And there was so much pain and so much anger and grief because I was losing the family unit that I so deeply cherished. I grieved the loss of the family unit for myself and my children deeply. And there was a lot of rage and anger, not only towards my husband but also then unresolved from my father. I have all of this to deal with. I’m a single mom with twins that are three years old.

Wow, that’s difficult.

I’m like, “I better get my sh*t together, and I better get together fast.” Because I needed efficiency, I wasn’t able to do it, and I needed something that I could afford. That wouldn’t be ten years of talk therapy because I did not have that time. I’m like, “What is efficient? Where can I get at this quickly and learn the tools to ensure I’m not passing this on to my kids?” That was my dark night of the soul, where I dove into shadow work.

It was shamanism: shamanic emotional release techniques from a healer that someone recommended for me who lived about an hour and a half away. There’s so much rage, so much grief from private emotional release sessions, and a lot of breathwork. At the same time, I was learning neurolinguistic programming and mindset. I was learning meditations, and I was doing physical detoxing. I quit alcohol and dairy. I quit all of these things that were toxic for my body.

Sedona’s energy vortexes amplify healing experiences.

I was learning yoga and meditation. So, I was literally doing a massively accelerated chakra balancing in all of my energy centers—physically, emotionally, energetically, mentally and spiritually. I dove in headfirst, and radical accelerated transformation was happening. My body was changing, and my nervous system was calm. I was a lot more patient, positive and confident that I could figure this out and that I was happy to be free of all of this toxic energy.

It set me on this path of acquiring and learning tools for other people going through life transformations because I wish I had had more support at that time and tools that would have kept me from getting into this process in the first place.

I love it. We usually teach what we have resolved within ourselves or what we’re still practicing. I relate to your story because there are some parallels between my life story and my childhood, some failed marriages, and all that. Thank you for sharing. It’s really beautiful because when we have those dark nights of the souls, it’s almost like we have a choice. We can fall into it and lose ourselves or hold on to our light and do whatever we can to rise up like the phoenix. So, thank you for being the phoenix in this story. Thank you for sharing your wisdom.

Nothing comes through what other people think of you or how other people see you, but know yourself.

It’s literally at Shine, where 14-foot golden wings hang on the wall of our sanctuary space. We often use this metaphor of rising and shining—rising out of the ashes, rising from the previous version of you, rising out of pain and oppression, rising out of addiction, rising out of playing small, giving your power away, stifling your voice, like, “Yes, I’ve been and continue to rise and rise and rise into a new set of wings.”

I think my kids were a big motivation for me to be like, “Look, I don’t want just to be a bitter ex who is gossiping. No, that’s going to come back, and it’s going to hurt them.” So I think their presence held me accountable to really work on the lower energy centers so that my voice was positive and inspiring and that there’s a difference between the addiction that runs in the family and divorce and different diseases, and that becomes life, school.

It’s not sad, bad, or wrong because it sent me on my path, which is looking at it here. And I found myself again. I’m in alignment 100% with my soul mission, passion, and soul purpose. So, if that’s how I needed to get here, then thank you. I wouldn’t understand compassion and forgiveness if it wasn’t for my father. It’s not from great master teachers who embody the wonderful, unconditional love I learned under conditional love.

It’s from the person who stepped on my heart and hurt my little child self to come to that place of forgiveness for him. Now I understand the power of the heart and how much it has to grow and heal itself and our own inner wounds before you can ever get to forgive somebody else. If you have not done the inner child work, it’ll just be lip service at the service. “Oh, he did his best. Oh, they didn’t mean it.” And in that, you are denying that wounded part of yourself from healing, and you’re actually not in the heart chakra yet.

The forgiveness is just lip service. It’s not actually embodied. That’s the journey to do the inner work. That’s why I love to help people: because of the beauty that comes from that, the phoenix rising, the flower blossoming, and the star shining. It’s so beautiful, and it’s such a privilege to hold space through that transformation. That’s why I love teaching it, too. It is not only for individuals to have their process but also for lightworkers, healers, coaches, and teachers to have more tools to help others through that process. That also really lights me up.

You need to respect, honor, and own your authenticity, value, and worth. It won't come from anybody else. It's your responsibility to know, protect, and take care of it. Share on X

What are your three top tips for living a stellar life?

Know yourself. Nothing comes through what others think of you or how others see you, but know yourself. We’re taught at a young age to please other people and achieve from outside validation. Internal knowing is important because then, from that place, you can make decisions about what is in alignment and what is not. So I would say know yourself and also own your truth.

Because it might be that this relationship is ending well, own it. This might be your career path, and it’s taking you away from what your mom and dad want you to do. If something doesn’t feel right, it’s because it’s not right. And I would also say to own your sacred no. If you know your truth, then you’ve got to be good at saying no because there are going to be a lot of opportunities, a lot of distractions, and a lot of expectations and demands that will be in complete conflict with what align with yourself, with what aligns and honors your truth.

So, being really good at your sacred no, you can say it with kindness. “Oh, no, thank you.” And your “Hell, yes.” Because that means you’ve got to take ownership of moving your life in the direction you want. And not everybody’s going to like it, understand it or respect it. But if you want a leveled, thriving life, you have to know yourself, know your truth, and be able to say yes or no, even when other people are throwing a tantrum or throwing shade or judgment or hating on you, because it’s not their life to live, it’s yours. And you get to stop giving the keys to the driver’s seat to anybody else but yourself.

Own your truth. If something doesn’t quite feel right, it’s because it’s not quite right.

And where can people find you?

Well, shinesedona.com is the sanctuary here in Sedona. Come and play. There are wellness retreats, private retreats, goddess retreats, men’s retreats, and private healing sessions. I offer a 14-day immersion two times a year. I’m on socials at Anahata Ananda. You can also find us on socials for Shine Sedona.

Download that guided visualization because it’s a sweet little journey to heal and nurture your inner child. Maybe you haven’t played in a while, and that’s the connection with your inner child. Maybe they have wisdom or courage or a confidence that you used to have, or playfulness or innocence, a creativity that has gone missing for a while. That’s where people can find me.

Thank you so much, Anahata and thank you, listeners. Remember to know yourself, own your truth, own your sacred no with kindness and health, and have a stellar life.

Thank you, Orion, for everything you’re doing for the mission, for the work you do privately with your clients, and for being a voice for tools like this so that other people can find them. Thank you for trusting your intuition and providing such great service.

Thank you very much. Awesome.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓}Recognize the need for inner child work. Before offering forgiveness, focus on healing inner wounds. Understand and nurture your inner child to achieve genuine peace.

{✓}Learn to say “no” confidently and clearly. This essential boundary will help you protect your energy and thrive in life.

{✓}Invest time in self-discovery. Understanding your truths and values will guide your decisions and foster personal growth.

{✓}Utilize shamanic breathwork for deep emotional release. This process helps heal traumas and align you with your true self.

{✓}Ground and clear your energy daily. Protecting your energy ensures you can serve others without depleting your own reserves.

{✓}Hold space without judgment. This allows those around you to heal authentically without your biases interfering.

{✓}Practice emotional release techniques regularly. Letting go of stored emotions promotes mental and physical well-being.

{✓}Consider attending a boundaries workshop. Learning to maintain clear boundaries is crucial for personal and professional relationships.

{✓}Take time for stillness and replenishing activities. Your greatest resource is your well-being, so keep it in top shape.

{✓}Download Anahata Ananda’s guided visualization for nurturing your inner child at shinesedona.com and learn more about her wellness retreats, private sessions, and facilitator training.