Live Your Freedom TV, Ep. 12 with Lana Shlafer
Divine timing is no joke, my friends.
My Live Your Freedom TV interview with Lana Shlafer is just in time for the wrap-up of 2015 and it's a beautiful conversation about self-love, worthiness, BEING our brands and a whole lot more.
We talked about the seasons of our lives and the constant shifts that are going on beneath the surface and the incredible opportunities we are being gifted with every moment of our lives.
And most powerfully, we dove right in to the importance of self-love on this entrepreneurial journey and how to begin if you need some help in this are.
(Attention: There is some adult language in this interview)
Audio File
Links mentioned in the interview:
Embrace Your Gremlins & Glitter Masterclass
Link to full transcript:
Amber: Welcome to Live Your Freedom TV. I am so excited for today’s guest, the beautiful, amazing, powerful Lana Shlafer. Lana, welcome to Live Your Freedom TV.
Lana: Thank you for having me. I’m really excited.
Amber: You know, I am so excited. Lana is a lot of things. She’s a lot, a lot of things, and this is going to be a really fun interview for my viewers because there’s going to be a lot of things you’re going to learn. You’re going to be totally … you’re going to push the buttons for them. I know that. That’s how you roll, so I’m really excited, pushing for me too.
Amber: Yeah. Lana is a wife, a twin mama who had her babies over 6 days. Hello? Amazing. That story is on your website, so people can read that full story. It’s beautiful, and powerful, and incredible.
Lana: They were born 33 hours apart, so they have different birthdays.
Amber: Now, that is awesome. They must be pretty happy about that in some ways too because it’s like extra cake spread out, cake …
Lana: Yeah, no. They’re 5, and they’re still having 1 birthday party for now. Eventually, we’ll do different days.
Amber: I love that and it was also a home birth too?
Lana: Yeah, yeah.
Amber: That’s like an even more amazingness, so read the story, my friends, because it’s awesome. I’ll put the link in the interview down somewhere here, so you guys can read it. You’re a yoga instructor. You are a dancer which … that’s actually how I met you for the first time was just from all your dance videos in a group that we were in a coaching program together, and you’re rocking it out.
Lana: I am not a professional dancer, though I did dance professionally when I was younger. I did ballroom, and then in college, I did salsa and mambo, Latin dance, but I’m not … my dance videos are the opposite of professional dancing. It is just like, “Woohoo,” like, “I’m having a good time,” and I just want …
Amber: You’re awesome though.
Lana: People to loosen up, and feel more free, and just lit up, how other people view your whatever and just actually enjoy life.
Amber: Amen to that, and we’re going to talk more about that. You’re a soul sister. You are a love attraction coach. You’re a speaker. You’re a coach. You’re the creator of Get Full of Yourself, which we’ll talk about a little bit more too, and you’re just here learning, right? You’re this, this aborning soul.
Lana: Yeah.
Amber: I love that term, right? “Aborning,” it’s such a cool term. One of my clients shared that to me for the first time, and I was like, “That word is everything because that’s what’s happening.”
Lana: Yeah. I use the term “rebirth” a lot in my copy and just when I describe my programs because I feel like what I help people see and what I’ve had to embrace about myself is that I’m constantly being new in new phases and new versions of myself. I’m constantly in the new, and to really recognize that and be able to enjoy the journey of getting into stagnation, recognizing something isn’t working, starting to feed those new parts of yourself that are coming out, and then allowing that to blossom, you’re going to have those phases many, many, many, many, many times in your life, right?
To really embrace the journey of constantly becoming more yourself, more yourself, more yourself, and all of the emanations, that’s really the art of it. If you can really find the fun in that, you’re going to have a rocking life. If you’re constantly wanting to box yourself in or box other people around you in … I was just talking to a client, and I was saying that I’ve dated like 10 versions of my husband, and he’s dated like 10 versions of me, and thank God, we have the tools eventually after a lot of struggle to recognize that, that he’s not the same person that I met … whatever. It’s been like 8 or 9 years, that he has evolved, and grown, and changed.
His priorities have changed, his personality has changed, and to me, that’s exciting that I get to be with a new person. He gets to discover who I am, and that’s the only way that we’re going to have a joyous, long-lasting relationship. Otherwise, we’re just shrinking each other’s playgrounds, struggling in the process. That’s why most marriages aren’t so happy, but if you can enjoy the journey of growth together, the sky is the limit.
Amber: I love that. That’s so beautiful and such an important way to look at marriage, and partnership, and ourselves too. Here’s a question right off the bat that I know that my tribe struggles with that times. It’s, “Am I self-included?” Like you feel like you got it going, you got it going right, and then all of a sudden, there’s just like a shit sandwich, and you feel just like you can’t get out of your own way, and it’s also really consistent with what it felt like before when you were struggling, and so you’re like, “Am I just back here again, and why does this keep happening?” How do you move through that when you … those sort of cycles like you said? How do you move through the bottom part of the cycles?
Lana: Yeah. I think I’m going to have to create a video series about this because I’ve been talking about this for a while with my private clients in my membership, but I really look at life as seasons. For the sake of simplifying because no analogy is ever perfect, let’s look at our life as 4 seasons, right? Let’s say it’s springtime. You’re recognizing something isn’t working anymore, something isn’t feeling right. The old you, the things that matter to you before don’t seem as exciting, the people in your life that seemed really, really awesome at one time don’t seem as resonate with you anymore. There’s new seeds being planted, but you can’t see them yet. They’re below the ground. You can’t see that the new version of you right now is gestating. It’s a good analogy too for carrying a baby, right?
Amber: Right.
Lana: You’ve You’re gestating. For a while, you don’t even know you’re pregnant, and when you do discover it, you’re not telling a lot of people. It’s not visible. That’s the hardest place for most people because our society is so used to external confirmation. That’s why the first trimester for women is usually the hardest. They’re feeling the changes, their bodies are often reacting, but they’re not sharing it. They’re not getting the compassion. They’re not getting the compliments. They’re not getting any of the external.
Amber: They just feel fat.
Lana: They just feel fat, or nauseous, or tired, or whatever, right?
Amber: Yeah.
Lana: What I’m talking about here is to honor the stage that you’re in which is like would be to honor the fact that you’re pregnant to give your body the extra time to rest, to recognize this isn’t forever. You’re not going to be pregnant, especially in your first trimester, forever, but this is an important stage. To be able to meet your needs and make it enjoyable in that stage, then you have the stage where it’s starting to blossom. The sun is out. You’re so excited. It’s summertime in this analogy, so you’re starting to be very active. The seeds that you planted are now growing, and you have new projects, and you’re super excited, and da, da, da, da, da.
This is a stage that most people love. It’s the idea stage, and the more idealistic, maybe zestful stage, and then you’ll hit the fall. It’s getting a little colder. Challenges come up. You have to sort through things. A lot of times, you have to let go of the old to welcome the new. Not always easy to give yourself permission to do that, and so there is this kind of integration that happens that by the time you get to wintertime, things are calmer. You’re more settled. You’re more … like it’s less exciting. There’s not the novelty, but you feel like, “Okay. I’m getting more comfortable.” You’re maybe hibernating more, and then guess what? You’re not going to stay there forever. The spring is going to come again, and to learn to honor this whole seasonality, know where you are and the season of your life, and to really honor. Do not show up in winter clothes in the summer or vice versa. It’s not going to be a comfortable experience.
Amber: No, especially in New England.
Lana: Right? That’s why “Know thyself,” is the most important maxim you could have, right, is when you know yourself, when you know what space you’re in, when you can honor it, when you can meet your needs. Dress yourself appropriately. Give yourself the appropriate things for that stage. That’s when you’re really smoothing out this ride which is always … as long as you’re human, you’re going to have it and maybe even beyond human. I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe nonphysical [inaudible 00:08:21] experiences, but to accept. I think this is the hardest part for people is accept change as inevitable, and to expect some sort of constancy or consistency in your brand, in your relationships, in anything in life is absolute insanity.
I remember Michael Beckwith, who … Reverend Michael Beckwith who has an amazing center here in LA, Agape Spiritual Center. He talked about … it was a political campaign time, and he said, “It’s insane to me that people chastise a candidate for saying something 10 years ago and now changing their mind.” He’s like, “I hope I say something different 10 years from now. I hope I have evolved. I hope my opinions have elevated. I hope I know more.” But we expect this weird like … what I call “shrinking your playground.” You’re supposed to be a square. Your whole life, it is going to be this square, and people label themselves.
They say, “Oh, I’m shy,” or, “Oh, I’m not good at math,” or, “Oh, I’m not great with people,” or whatever it is, and they shrink their own playground. Who knows what you’ll be in 5 years, 10 years, whatever, so you want to start to enjoy this journey of constant rebirth, and that’s going to be necessary. If you want to enjoy a healthy relationship with your partner, if you want to enjoy a healthy relationship with your kids, you better recognize them as always changing, and be able to recognize yourself as always changing, and then constantly meeting at new points where you get to discover who you are at that time.
Amber: That’s so beautiful and so freeing because, man, how boring is that to stay the same and to stay constant? It’s not possible like there are no leaves out there right now, and there are going to be new leaves in the spring, right? Completely new leaves.
Lana: What you’re talking about is so many people sit there, and cry, and think no leaves are going to come ever.
Amber: Right, right.
Lana: They’re like, “Oh my god, it’s winter. I hate winter. I want summer.” It’s like, “Okay. You might have favorite seasons, but find something to enjoy about the season you’re in. Get cozy, make hot chocolate, get …”
Amber: Yeah. Learn how to ice skate or ski, or something. Yeah. The leaves are eventually going to come. Though, I will say that it feels really long living here in New England that these winters are pretty intense.
Lana: See, so this is where you got to get creative and get those like …
Amber: Yeah, a lot of vacation in the winter.
Lana: Yeah, a lot of vacation. You can get those lights. What do you call like the seasonal effect of the sunlight? Whatever it is like you have a lot of room to maneuver how much you enjoy. You can find an indoor pool, and put on a bikini, and go swimming or whatever, right?
Amber: Yeah.
Lana: There’s a lot of room for how you enjoy that season.
Amber: Totally.
Lana: You can’t ignore it is what I’m saying, and this is what happens to a lot of people. They keep ignoring it, and they’re always surprised when the new season comes. It’s like they’re just not used to the seasonality. They think that it’d always be summer.
Amber: Right, right. I love that. Beautiful analogy. Well done. I like that. You talked about “Knowing thyself,” which is really the foundation of the work that I do with soul-based branding, and my whole shtick is really around branding being our sacred opportunity to show up in our truth and to show up as our real selves in the world no matter how uncomfortable that feels. For a lot of the people watching this, that does feel really uncomfortable, around the “showing up as yourself,” so could you talk about that? About in your brand and in your life, and about just branding as a concept to you around how do we do that? How do we show up as ourselves in our businesses and in our brands?
Lana: Yeah. There’s so much I could say about that.
Amber: I know.
Lana: I feel like I … personally, I have what some people will now think is an advantage, but what they don’t see is for the most of my life has been a very painful wound for me to go. I have very little ability to carry a façade. Like if I’m thinking something, if I’m mad at you, my whole face and body will show it. I had such a hard time in corporate environments. I remember when I was at City Group, I was in investment banking after college, and one of my professional reviews from this like bigwig boss that I had said all these great things about my technical abilities, but go on and said, “The one comment I have for you is to learn to control your emotions. When you’re happy, our whole office …” she literally said this tome. “When you’re happy, our whole office feels like sunshine, and when you’re upset, we can feel it.”
She is managing like 80 employees. I don’t know why she can feel what I feel in my little cubicle, and it was set as a negative like, “You better check yourself,” and so I felt like I was this round peg trying to become a square … get into a square whole. I could not hide from myself. I had a binge eating disorder from my late teens all the way through my mid to late 20’s. I hated really my emotions, and my sensitivity, and the fact that I had this impact on others that I never intended to have, but somehow couldn’t hide. It cost me a lot of relationships.
I grew up in Russia. I came to the US when I was 12, and a part of it might be the Russian way. We’re very intense, and very open, and like almost what people think is rude like our authenticity is so like, “Here I am. Take it or leave it.” I show up in California and start to make friends in high school, and it’s like the epitome of not being yourself, and I couldn’t keep friends because I … if they would ask me, “How does this dress look?” I’d be honest. I had a hard time like with this superficial relationship. It really took me till college to develop the deeper relationships. I struggled with this for a long time, but eventually where I am now is I realized that … there’s a quote, “It’s better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you’re not or what you’re not.”
Amber: Yeah, I love that.
Lana: That quote … and especially when I went to grad school and I studied transpersonal psychology, I understood. You that movie Avatar? They said, “I see you,” instead of, “I love you.”
Amber: Mm-hmm
Lana: I so understood. It was like it nailed into me, the biological need that we have as children. The children that are most messed up are not the ones that didn’t get fed or whatever, it’s the ones that weren’t seen. Meaning, somebody didn’t say, “You matter. You, specifically you, you and your behavior, and you and your tendencies, you and your likes and dislikes, you specifically.” Like, “I see you,” is such an essential need, and to recognize that we cannot be seen, which is why so many people are walking around so deprived in their soul. No wonder anxiety and depression medications are so rampant. People don’t feel seen because they don’t feel like they’re good enough to be seen. If they didn’t receive that from their parents because they’re parents didn’t receive it from their parents, and on, and on, and on, how the hell are they going to allow themselves to receive being seen? Being seen is about being where you are, who you are. It is so vulnerable. It is so intimate. It is like being naked in front of someone, right?
Amber: Mm-hmm
Lana: But the thing is you crave it, you need it. It would be like you needing food, but refusing to eat. You’re going to end up malnourished, and starving, and unhappy, and cranky, and so to learn how to gently allow yourself little by little … I’m not a proponent of big quantum leaps. They frankly have too many uncomfortable consequences, is to allow yourself little by little to the circle that’s close to you and with yourself, and then bigger, and bigger, and bigger to show some vulnerabilities, and that really means … it simply means being transparent. Let’s cut all the crap. What is authentic? It’s being transparent. “I’m happy. I’m sad. You’re annoying,” or whatever it is, and most people aren’t willing to go there because they are so used to fitting into being polite, fitting into being liked, fitting into not hurting people, fitting into something that isn’t really what they’re feeling right now, but they think that this is the only acceptability parameter, and so here they are boxing themselves in, putting themselves in a castle, and then wondering why they feel so alone.
Amber: Yeah, yeah. Translating that into the creation of your brand or your business as entrepreneurs who most of the people watching this are, either our current entrepreneurs with newer businesses or aspiring, how can they …? Yeah.
Lana: Talk about you and why your work matters.
Amber: Yes.
Lana: This is the typical entrepreneur journey, and I did the same thing. I named my brand something other than my name because I wasn’t confident in who the hell I am and what I’m offering.
Amber: Guilty. Yeah.
Lana: You know, right? Then, I had all of this great talk about what my brand is and what I do, and did very little about me personally. It was like the greatest realization ever that when I would post Facebook posts about something totally like personal that had no message like me doing a dance video like, “Who the hell cares?” and it would get the greatest response. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out like, “Really, people? All you want to know is about me? Like that’s what you want? Well, I can give you that. I can show you what I had for breakfast. I can tell you about my ups and downs today. I can show you the happiest moments with my family. I can show you the struggles. That’s all you want is for me to like literally be transparent about what’s happening?”
It really took me a long time to recognize that’s what people connect with is not my pretty box with a bow on it. They connect with that heart beating inside and the human journey that I’m on. At first, it seemed like if you want to be an expert, you got to be more impenetrable and … but in fact, that’s old-school. I really feel like authenticity is the new black like, “Be yourself. Be open about what you know. Be open about your growth, and what you still don’t know, and want to develop into.” I feel like people resonate so much with that that they are excited to connect with you, and want to know more, and want to work with you. I don’t know. I feel like it is recognizing that you’ve got to share you or you have no business.
Amber: Yes. I love it. Yes, 100%. That little piece though, so how do we get there? How do we push the vulnerability button when we’re so afraid, right? Those that are listening that are too scared to post the vulnerable Facebook post to …
Lana: Yeah. I would not recommend posting it while you’re afraid. I don’t usually post stuff … It depends, as it’s happening if it feels vulnerable. I wait until after I work through it and I have an attitude of, “Oh, I don’t give a fuck what you think,” like …
Amber: Right, and the lesson is now there for you?
Lana: Yeah. This is my experience like how can somebody argue with my experience. They can say that’s not valid for me, but they can’t say, “No, you didn’t feel this way.”
Amber: Right, right. That’s such a good way to disarm it too though a lot to say, “Well, right, so how could someone even?” because people are afraid of the haters, right? They’re afraid of, “Well, people are going to say X, Y, and Z about me,” but that, is that your reality? Right?
Lana: Yeah. I feel like you got to do the deep emotional work. In short, you want to be an entrepreneur. Understand that it’s a really arduous spiritual journey. Until you accept that, it’s going to be uncomfortable like that’s … all of the people that I know that are successful embrace that part that it is constantly being at that edge of yourself with lots of unknowns, lots of questions, lots of opportunities, but the fact that you’re out there on the rugged edge all by yourself, you have to find a way to get comfortable there, and that’s what I mean by doing the inner work or doing the spiritual work.
People will join my program, which is a little more advanced for like true, true basics, but my foundation course and my membership, for example, breaks it down literally week by week, day by day. How to develop a daily practice of attuning to yourself? Like that’s what I really teach in the first ones because without that, we have nothing else to build upon. That’s the foundation that needs to happen, and so I teach the basics of meditation. I teach the base of … and I include a very broad spectrum of that like basics of visioning.
I include the basis of connecting with others in a way that feels authentic and right, and I give them a lot of practice, but to recognize that this is the work. People want to hire marketing consultant, and the sales consultant, and a … somebody to do the graphicness, but who is there tending to their emotional journeys, so that they can become stronger in who they are and share that with all of the passion, all of the clarity, all of the inspiration that they have because that is what really needs? That is like the heart of the business. Everything else is packaging which is important, but you can’t have the packaging without something to contain.
Amber: It is. Right, because how are you going to write the email, or the blog, or do the video that connects if you’re not feeling it here first? We are creators first, I believe, as entrepreneurs, so that’s a huge component of our job description is to be creators, to inspire, to be leaders in ways that lead on our journey right from our seat to inspire other people to feel inspired on their journeys to take action.
Lana: Read books. Go to workshops. Hire coaches. Work with people that are going to help you get more comfortable in your own skin. When you could look in the mirror and say, “You’re pretty awesome,” you’re 90% there. Most people can’t say that authentically, and they try to do all of the trappings of a successful business, and some of them do succeed, but frankly, those are stories that they come around to me later where they say, “I’ve achieved all this success, but I felt suicidal.” Not a happy outcome.
Amber: No, no.
Lana: That’s not the way you want to go. You want to build that success from the inside. It starts with that self-knowledge, self-love, whatever you want to call it, and then building from that. Accepting that as a part of your journey and recognizing that being an entrepreneur is not for the lighthearted. It’s just not just like being a parent. All of you
Amber: And sorry.
Lana: Being a parent is a spiritual journey too. You constantly have to transcend that you just did not think you want to constantly being triggered in ways you didn’t expect to be, but it is so rewarding.
Amber: Yes, yes, yes. Nothing better. Truly, it’s so incredibly beautiful and powerful, and doing them simultaneously is a whole another adventure [inaudible 00:23:30].
Lana: Masochistic.
Amber: Mine is trying to break into my office right now, so I might pop this on just in case we get tears because we can’t access mommy right now. Okay. So many things. I love talking to you. This is so really … this is just amazing. Let’s talk about being on the path, doing the work, right? Like feeling like we’re doing … like we talked about this season kind of thing, but feeling like you’re not quite getting it. I watched your video, and I encourage everyone here to watch the video about the hard work thing and how really truly this shouldn’t have to be hard work, right, in the sense of like you’re slogging, and you’re striving, and it’s just exhausting, and you’re going from one session to the next, and you’re just feeling tired and not … the opposite of floating, and light, and excited like everything that I hear you talking about, and there is such a distinct difference between the two. What do you do when it feels like that, when you feel tired?
Lana: Yeah, so this is a distinction that I make, and English needs to have more words. I have this great dream, I’ll do it someday, of doing like a true dictionary. I have the advantage of Russian, which as like seriously 5,000 million more synonyms and words than English does, so you have more descriptive ways to talk, but I feel like there needs to be a differentiation between hard work that is like slave labor which is a lot of people feel when they go to a 9-to-5 job that they really dislike with coworkers that they don’t like. They’re not passionate about it. It literally is like so draining. That’s hard. That is life draining like that is the exhausting part that we’re talking about versus hard work that is simply focus, attention, and energy.
What I say in this video is that when you find something you love, it will have ups and downs. It will have its shit sandwiches as Elizabeth Gilbert calls them, but that it will be life-giving to you consistently enough that you will enjoy the journey and not just enjoy the destination like, “Well, I got to do this for the paycheck,” or, “I got to do this for whatever it is that the cherry that you’re waiting to get to,” versus really being passionate about what you do. When you’re loving photography, yes, you’re spending hours dedicating yourself to it, but the hours feel like they are nourishing your spirit. That is a different work, so then the people typically will say to me, “Well, how do I get there, Lana? How do I get to point where, A, I know my passion, and B, I can actually build a business around?”
They look at me like I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I fucking struggled, man. I had to go through the struggle, but you know what? That’s where I learned so much about myself. I go from 5 job offers out of college, top of my game in investment banking to by the time I’m 28, run through all my savings, I started teaching yoga and all this, so I spent all my money on all this stuff. A relationship with my husband who I started dating ended at the time. I moved back in with my parents completely broke. Basically, suicidal, and hating myself and my life, and feeling like I have so much to give the world, and the world doesn’t want it. The most frustrating, painful, awful, sacred, beautiful, amazing place that I could have because it was the foundation for me to grow from there.
I ended up going to a graduate program, and I ended up taking out tons of debt to do that. It took me on this journey, and I’m still been till this day discovering what it means, what inspires me, what fuels me, and that keeps shifting and evolving, but what I’m saying is you can’t skip the hard part. What you can do is recognize that the hard part is like the pressure that makes the diamond. You like diamonds? Well, that’s how they’re made. Otherwise, you’re anti-bored until you die like Michael Beckwith says.
It’s a great saying that my friend told me, and I don’t know who quoted it, but that most people spend their life avoiding pain and that there are only a few people who dare to pursue pleasure. The people who dare to pursue pleasure experience just as much pain if not more because they are constantly going for it, but they get to have the pleasure. They get to have the hope. They get to have the zest. They get to have the visions. They get to have the life-giving energy of growth, and expansion, and feeling on purpose, and so yeah, there’s still pain. I have shit days all the time. It’s just that I stopped attaching so much to those shit days.
Amber: To the day. Yeah.
Lana: It’s like, “Okay. Well, everything is falling apart, and I want to quit my business, and not have children, and to like escape to India or whatever.”
Amber: You know, runaway.
Lana: Yeah, but just to recognize, “Okay, that’s a part of life.” It’s another level of embracing that life is not meant to be easy in a sense where it’s completely stagnant just like … you’re just like always happy. That’s what anti-depressants are, I guess. You can get into like a fake zone of neutrality, but that’s not where life happens. Life is here, and here, and here, and you got to learn to ride this and do it masterfully. That’s when you’re having fun.
Amber: Yeah, because how can you feel the total joy of love, right?
Lana: Yeah.
Amber: Like pure love whether it’s with yourself or others. With yourself is it though, right?
Lana: Yeah.
Amber: That’s like the … and that’s where a lot of people don’t even get to in their entire lives, but to understand and feel that fully, it’s the contrast. It’s having contrast.
Lana: Yeah, more … your capacity for joy expands only proportionally with your capacity for pain.
Amber: Yes, right.
Lana: That’s why the contrast is sacred. That’s why life is … as Zorba the Greek calls “The full catastrophe.” Beautiful, amazing.
Amber: I love that.
Lana: Full Catastrophe.
Amber: Right, right.
Lana: It’s not some one note. It’s a whole orchestra.
Amber: Right. I love that so much. I’m going to take my headset off now because the child has left the building. You hear me?
Lana: Yeah.
Amber: Okay. This is just like amazing. I love your work. I love where you are with it. I love the zest. I love that word with what you’re sharing it because I think just by talking to you and watching you get excited, it makes me feel like, “Oh, well, I can do that too.” Right? “If Lana can do it, then I can actually maybe start to love myself a little bit more too,” but how do we start that part? How do we start to do the look in the mirror and go, “You’re pretty awesome?”
Lana: Yeah. That for most people is not a great start. That’s like an advanced level practice.
Amber: Right. Yeah, it’s way too much.
Lana: You want to start with baby steps. Baby steps tend to be steps that allow for more listening in your life. That’s why meditation is such a great beginning. With that said, and I’ve said this before in interviews, there’s so many types of meditation, and for people with severe trauma, the meditation where you observe your breath and stuff like that is contraindicated because it puts them in an activated state of fight-or-flight of … so it’s creating some ways that you become in that space of between thoughts that life isn’t so in your face that you can gain some perspective.
Besides meditation, listening to music, doing some sort of movement. Some people love yoga. Some people love dance. So many people don’t give themselves permission to do what their bodies naturally want to do like whatever it is. Some people love running like it just gives them that feeling of peacefulness or lack of stress I should say. In the beginning, it’s mostly … so giving yourself permission is by far the biggest first step.
Amber: That’s right.
Lana: Like literally, if you walk away from this video and the only thing you take away is, “I know I can feel better,” and you just look for every opportunity. When you go to eat lunch, you pick the thing that you most want to eat, and you really enjoy it. When you have a decision to make about which friend to see, you’d tune in and say, “Which one feels better to me?” You just base your decision on acknowledging that you can feel better. You can feel better.
It doesn’t mean you have to drastically quit your job, and leave your partner, and do all those things, but within what’s available to you, look for what … Abraham Hicks, Law of Attraction teachers. They call us the path of least resistance or the path of most excitement, and they’re really the same thing, but for most people, least resistance seems a little easier like, “What’s a little bit easier for me? What gives me a little bit more relief? I don’t have to struggle so …” I got to the point where I was like, “Well, kill me if you want, but I’m done struggling.”
“Okay, okay. Maybe I’m broken. I’m not meant to be a freaking robot. Okay. Kill me. I can’t live like this.” At some point, you just have to say, “When is enough enough? When am I going to let myself have a little pleasure in life? When am I going to enjoy what I have in front of me a little more?” It does begin with enjoying what you already have. Let’s say you have 30 things in your life that you hate and you have 3 things that you love. My suggestion would not be to get rid of the 30 things you hate. I would say, “Focus on the 3 things you love so much that they elevate everything else in your life.”
It’s the tide that lifts all boats, and finding something to appreciate anything to appreciate is what’s going to lift that tide, and you’re going to start to see things from a new perspective. Even the things that looked like a problem before are going to start to look more hopeful, and that’s when that journey begins, right? Obviously, I have a ton of resources on my website. I have a 4-minute ease meditation which I feel like I should come up with a new something for my gift for my list of people rave about it so much that I’ve had it over the last, I think, a year and a half.
The reason I created something so short is it gives you that little rest. It gives you that little break whether it’s in the morning or beginning of the day, and my words are very soothing, and I’m basically saying, “You’re all right,” like, “You’re good. You’re a good person. You deserve to feel good.” Like that’s all I basically say, but you’ll listen to it enough, and you start to believe it. Giving yourself permission to feel a little better in whatever way that you can. Before you know it, that’s going to start to gain momentum, and you’re going to start to see new opportunities to feel better.
Yeah. Eventually, it will get easier to say no to things that don’t resonate and to say yes to the things you do, and you’ll get to that kind of more advanced level, but start where you are, and know that we all start there, and know that I go back to beginner level all the time where I feel like, “Oh my god, do I not know anything?” and it’s like, “Well, there’s another stage, and another stage, and another.”
Amber: There are seasons. There you go. My biggest awakening this year I think was, and it was when I went to the Unleash the Power Within event with Tony Robbins, and it was like really … it’s very experiential and very physical, and you move through stuff [inaudible 00:34:57]. You walk on fire and all these things, but the words “I don’t have to suffer anymore” were profound, and anybody watching this video right now, if Lana and I can say anything to you, I think it’s that you don’t have to suffer in your life. You don’t have to suffer.
Lana: Yeah, and that brings up a lot of consequences like in my generations, literally, every ancestor I knew accepted suffering as a part of life so much that they began to exalt it, and so it was a part of my family myth to be like, “If you’ve suffered the most, then you must be the most important,” and it … long time to be like, “What kind of bullshit is that?” like, “I don’t want to suffer. I don’t mind the hard work in terms of just pouring my energy into something, but suffering is optional, and I’d rather not take that option,” right?
It’s recognizing that there’s going to be limits that you hit, and the right things are going to show up at the right time for you. Those words were resonant for you at that time for a reason, and we’re having this conversation for a reason. You can start to recognize that your so loved and taken care of by whatever you want to call God, or soul, or spirit, or universe, but the right things are always going to show up to you at the right time. If you’re listening to this, that means that this is the right time for you to hear this, and then when you’re ready for something else, something else will appear, so to really … start to embrace all of the ways that you can feel better and like you said, to let go of the suffering as a necessary part of how you look at life.
Amber: It’s so good. All right, so I want to talk about your work specifically and how our listeners and viewers can start to work with you. I love the whole idea that you were completely full of yourself, and I didn’t say that in your intro, but I wanted you to like use that as the springboard into the stuff that you’ve created for people because I think that whole notion of being full of yourself has a negative connotation, right?
Lana: Yeah, yeah.
Amber: But it has this totally expansive and freaking amazing identity around it, so share that with us.
Lana: Yeah. Definitely, full of yourself is something that I wanted … that I experienced as something very negative. I remember as a child being told like, “Who do you think you are?” type of thing and in my corporate life being told that and all of that, so it was like, “Okay, you’ve got to tone down who you are because who you are is not appropriate.” The way that I started to embrace this … I shared with you earlier before the interview, and I’ll share it again. The reason that I really grabbed on to this term is I was … I don’t know, fourth or fifth time in the hot seat with Abraham Hicks. Again, these teachers of Law of Attraction.
We had an amazing conversation, I’m getting off stage, I’m dancing off, really excited, and then Abraham turns to the audience and says, “She’s so full of herself. You can all be like that.” I sat down, and I was like in this high, and da, da, da, da. Actually, a few people came up to me during the rest of the cruise and said, “You know, those words really triggered me.” I didn’t really think about it at the time, but then I got home and I crashed really hard because I was thinking, “Wow, am I just like full of myself in a bad way?” I was thinking, “Who do I think I am?” and all of these doubts crept in. I was going through that stage of being in the doubt and the new me being born.
Eventually, I recognized, “Well, who else should I be full of? Should I be full of my parents? Should I be full of somebody else’s idea? Should I be full of society’s idea about what is beautiful, what is good? Who the else should I be full of if not myself? Like that is just absurd. I’ve come here as me from my perspective and my body. Who the else am I supposed to be?” So then, I really started embracing this idea. At first, I was going to name my membership like something like “Mastering Alignment,” then I was like, “No, no, no. That doesn’t make me chuckle.” I want to smile every time I say it. I was like, “Yeah, get full of yourself. Fill yourself up with who you authentically are and let everything else fall to the side.” Right?
Amber: Mm-hmm
Lana: That’s been really the core message, and I do feel like that name triggers people in some way, but that’s also a part of who I am. I feel like I’m a little fire-starter. I’m a little shit-starter. I’m a little rebel like I like to poke a little bit. I do that in my old life, I do that with my friends, and I do that in general. I’m just not afraid to make people think. I think that that’s where that title is. In the membership, that’s really what I seek to do, and it’s a pretty lofty goal, which is why I needed a membership when I release a new course every month because I can’t just …
Amber: Yeah. I know, I know. You and I have the same kind of problem. We were so excited. We want to do new things.
Lana: Right. There’s so much, and it’s such an evolution. I love being there for the journey because that’s what I experience with my private clients and masterminds, and I wanted to have because before that, I had an 8-week course, and it was really weird like when it ended, it just felt like, “What? Like that’s it? Like see you later, guys?” That was such a weird feeling, so I ended up transforming that into the membership. Every month, we have a new topic, and so we covered self-love. We covered abundance. We’re covering ease this month. December is all about it and what ease means. What does it mean to let go of the struggle, especially at this time when people tend to get very, “Grr,” anxious and overwhelmed?
I present a new topic every month, and I give these opportunities for practice, which is what I love about Tony Robbins’ events and which is what I actually do most of the time. Anything I do is going to be practical. I’m going to give you … like my videos are like a 3-minute video and I say, “Go practice,” and then I have these daily practices that they would do on. We have a Facebook group and all that, but basically, it is about showing up and doing the work. It’s not about listening to somebody else’s story. Words don’t teach. Only experience teaches, so you got to live it.
Amber: Yes, you got to do it. You got to roll your sleeves up, and get in there, and face the fear, and do the work, and …
Lana: Yeah, and I feel like I’ve created what I would’ve wanted and what I still want because they are a source of support, and inspiration, and encouragement for me too is to do it in a way where … at this point, there’s, I don’t know, 70 or 80 people or something, so it’s big enough, and it will continue to grow where it feels like public, but it’s so like self-selected and everyone is so supportive.
Amber: Like intimate though.
Lana: As you’re doing this kind of uncomfortable and new things, and growing your wings, not only are you seeing other people do the same thing, which makes it be like, “Huh, okay. I’m not the only one like this is normal,” but also just gives you that support on your journey, which I feel like it’s so important because it is hard. It is hard to do all these things.
Amber: It’s hard.
Lana: To find a community of people who really embrace you, and your growth, and your journey, and I give enough practices where everyone is doing them together, and it feels like it’s a team, that’s what I really wanted to create. It’s been awesome. I’m loving it. Who knows where the future is going to take me, but for now, I’m just loving this super awesome way to give a piece of myself with people, and to see their growth, and to celebrate with them, and support them in every way I can, and see a bunch of people who become full of themselves like it just makes me so happy.
Amber: Since it’s your life’s work, it’s your soul’s work, right? Right now, you’re doing it, and you’re helping other people step into theirs, and so I don’t know what’s better than that. I don’t know what’s better than that. It’s like the best thing ever. Like you said, it’s like, “I get to do this every day for my job like this is like what I get to do and get like my paycheck for doing this?” It’s amazing, right?
Lana: It is amazing. I feel like it was important for me to feel this way before I was making any money.
Amber: Yeah. Right. I love that. I love that.
Lana: Like I remember, I put on a series of 3 workshops, and the first one, 1 person came, and I was … I went to the bathroom. I’m pretty sure I cried, and then I came out, and I literally did the 2-1/2-hour workshop with that person.
Amber: You rocked it out.
Lana: It was like, “I’m going to show up. This person came. They matter.”
Amber: That’s right. Yes.
Lana: I remember the first time I get paid for a session, whatever it was, $50, whatever I used to take, and I was just thinking, “You know what? This $50 is just as important as some day later when I will receive $5,000 for the hour like this is where the tire has to roll. This is my work. This is what matters and to stop counting all my ducks and looking for that external affirmation of success which people think as money. It’s so not money.” It’s being able to feel good in your life. It’s loving who you are. It’s loving where you’re at, and that frequently takes a lot less money and a lot less resources than people think. I’m not against being millionaire, bazillion, or whatever. That’s sounds powerful.
Amber: Of course not. Right, right.
Lana: To recognize that that’s not the source of happiness, that’s an amplifier of everything, but it’s not the source of it.
Amber: It’s like what Abram says about get worthy, and then you get the manifestation. It’s not the other way around, and we think it’s the other way around. I so resonate with you living in your dream house. We just moved into ours. We live on the lake, and it was like so much earlier than I ever thought in our plan it was going to happen. It was like so fast, and so crazy, and so like stressful, and overwhelming that I was like, “Oh my god, it’s all clicking,” and I was like, just in a manifestation like making so many things happen, and so I was like, “Well, I must be like doing something right here,” because I really was feeling aligned and spiritual, and also completely detached at the same time which has …
Lana: Yeah. That’s what starts to happen. When you have your inner source of well-being, the stuff doesn’t hold the power that it has. I had a conversation with Abraham. It’s probably where you heard where I was like telling them that we had this housewarming party, and I was annoyed actually that people kept complimenting us on the house and basically saying like, “Oh, you guys made it,” and I was like, “What the fuck?”
Amber: Yeah. Yes, I have.
Lana: Like, “I made it way before.” Like, “Nothing about me changed just because my house is 3 times bigger, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,” and to recognize that my self-worth was already there, and then the house could happen or not happen. It was the cherry on top, and the thing is, what Abraham said to me was like, “Well, I’m sorry. When you feel worthy, you’re going to have to accept [the compensation to that 00:45:40].”
Amber: Like it or not, you’re going to get your stuff.
Lana: I was, “Okay. I’ll take all.”
Amber: Yeah. “Okay, I’ll suffer.” Yeah. I really love that because that’s … especially for newer entrepreneurs who are just trying to figure it out, right, and it’s like they’re doing all the things, they’re doing all the exercises, they’re doing all of the reading, the blogs, and they’re doing all the work, but it’s not happening. They’re not getting the clients. They’re not getting paid the way they want to get said and all that stuff, and so it really …
Lana: My first question is, “Do you wake up excited about what you’re doing?”
Amber: Exactly.
Lana: My next question is, “Are you getting the clients?” Both are important, so I do believe that the manifestations are going to represent to you where you have gaps in your own mindset.
Amber: Agreed.
Lana: If something isn’t working, I know that I need to adjust something, but before I adjust anything, I got to first acknowledge, “Is this still where … what’s life-giving for me?” If it is, then maybe it’s just not matured. It’s like I can’t ask a mango to ripen any sooner than it’s going to ripen.
Amber: Right.
Lana: Right? Same thing with business. Sometimes, things just need to develop, but if I’m enjoying the … I always say … I used to say this in my yoga classes, “Stretch your definition of enjoyment,” so that as you’re sitting in that hip-opener, and it’s bordering that line of pleasure, and pain, and discomfort, that’s a great [success 00:47:04], right? If it’s not pushing you to your edge, it’s boring, so stretch your definition of what enjoyment is, and then you can enjoy the whole journey even before the great pleasures and success that …
Amber: Right, right. I love that. That’s so powerful. Oh my god, we could just talk all day. There’s so much to talk about, so let’s … I want to talk about what you have coming up in the next rest of this month specifically because we are in December, and I know you got some really exciting things coming up, so share that with us.
Lana: Yeah. I decided to do a 2-hour master class. My internal name for it is “Ease Master Class,” but it’s really … the title is “Embrace Your Gremlins and Your Glitter,” and what I’m talking about there is really embracing all the parts of you that you may be haven’t been ready to accept or love, and really understanding that this is the foundation for everything good in your life, whether that’s in your relationships, and your business, and parenting, or whatever you want to think about that you … you’ve got to deepen that self-understanding and self-love like we talked about because on that platform, everything that you layer on top is success. It’s like the house, right?
Amber: Mm
Lana: If you don’t have a strong foundation, where are you going to build an awesome second story, third …? It’s just going to crumble, right? I’m doing a 2-hour master class because I’m like, “I need 2 hours like I’m going to take you guys and take you through a whole journey.” It’s going to be very, very practical journey, and we’ll do some exercises, some visualization. I’ll talk about my personal story. I think that that helps give people an understanding. We learn through stories. That’s coming up, and that’s going to be available through the end of December, so you can … I’m sure that
Amber: Yeah. We’ll share the link with that here.
Lana: Yeah. We’ll share the link below or on my website, and I’m doing a New Year’s Eve Release and intend Ceremony at the end of the year. I’ve done it for 3 years. I get hundreds of people. It might be thousands this year, and that’s another … I think it’s 90 minutes, so it might end up being 2 hours. I literally take you through a whole process of how to think about the year that’s closing, gain all of the lessons from it, and be able to set intentions which is what I believe instead of resolutions and really step into 2016 feeling really clear on what you want and how you’re going to get there.
That’s going to be towards end of December. I don’t have anything up on that, about that on my website yet. It will probably be in mid-December, at some point, or later, so if you sign up on my list at lanashlafer.com, you’ll get notified about that, but I love to do things like that. See, my business strategy is so simple. I be me. Some people find that annoying, they go away. Some people love it, they stay close. I share what I know, I give it all I got, and people that want more buy my products and services. It’s so easy. I don’t …
Amber: It is so easy, and you just … and it’s because you just letting it be easy because you’ve figured it out that that all it has to be.
Lana: It’s not so complicated. I don’t need to like twist someone’s arm.
Amber: You don’t need to trick people or throw all these strategies to like …
Lana: Manipulate them. Yeah.
Amber: “Send this number of emails at this particular time to this percentage of conversion to …” While some of those things are … yes, they do work. If the message beneath it is not authentic and it’s not aligned with the right goals, you’re never going to be successful the way you want to be, and at least the people watching this because my tribe is all about heart-centered, soul-based, doing things from that healing, doing the work, and so this is how to do it. Keep it simple.
Lana: Keep it simple, and I feel like don’t be afraid to try things, and if they don’t feel good, don’t do them again.
Amber: I love it.
Lana: It’s simple.
Amber: Yeah. There you go. You don’t need anything else, my friends. You got it straight here from Lana.
Lana: Awesome. I’m excited to connect to more of your tribe and … yeah, on these webinars and whatever else life holds.
Amber: So many things. So much coming up. Lana Shlafer, I adore you, my dear. Thank you so much.
Lana: Thank you. Such a pleasure.
Amber: Heart-shaped rock to you.
Lana: The heart rock.
Amber: Always, thank you for being a part of Live Your Freedom TV. You were certainly a beautiful example of someone who’s living her freedom truly every day.
Lana: Thank you.
Amber: Thank you so much.