How do you feel today? If your answer is that you feel anxious, hurt, depressed, frustrated, and so on, then you probably have some spiritual disconnect. The more joyful, and satisfied we feel, the more aware we usually are of my deep connection to Spirit.

For today’s episode, I sat down with Dawn James. Dawn is a Conscious Living teacher, International Best Selling Author, and the founder of Publish and Promote, an organization mentoring new and aspiring authors to share their stories and find their audience. After experiencing a spiritual awakening, she dedicated her life to providing education, inspiration, and support related to understanding and enhancing vibrational frequency for overall health and well-being while living in alignment: mind, body, heart, soul & spirit. Today we sat down to talk about how to discover and connect to our spiritual self.

Listen to the full episode:

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We recently transitioned our Premium Membership to this new platform: www.withribbon.com/u/erikabelanger. As a member, you can get a ton of exclusive audio and video content. We added a new library of almost 200 recorded full-length yoga classes in a Netflix-Style Membership. Finally, you can sign up for any live-stream class I offer! Everything yoga-class-related is now in the same place! If you’re new to With Ribbon, here’s a walkthrough video I recorded to help you find your way around.

Know that as you become a Premium Member, your contribution ripples to thousands of people every week, allowing me to offer accessible quality free content to a wide community of yogis. This podcast is one of the away I contribute to the community, and this membership is a way you can too. It allows you to share everything yoga offers with the world by supporting me in the creation and production of this podcast while I choose to keep it ad-free. 

RETREAT / GO FUND ME

I’ll be leading an Eco-Luxury Yoga Retreat in Mexico, in November 2021. I heard you, you’ve been craving to immerse yourself in yoga, nature, and community again so you can feel renewed and re-enliven. Many of us are suffering from zoom fatigue. So I’m offering you to hit the beach and the reset button so you can let go of this last year. You’ll find all the info for that retreat at erikabelanger.com/yoga-retreat-mexico.

In parallel, I have launched a Go-Fund-Me campaign. I know yoga retreats are an investment and I know how hard the last year has been. Yoga retreats were in my personal growth, so I wanted to give back. I’m raising money while investing alongside the community to make the experience of a yoga retreat available to students who wouldn’t be able to participate otherwise. If you’re able to donate anything you could transform someone’s life. And if you’re in need you can apply for the scholarship. And either way, I’d love for you to share it with the people you love and on social media. That’s a simple way you can directly impact others’ lives in a positive way. Find the Go-Fund-Me Campaign here.

100TH EPISODE GIVEAWAY

We are at episode 96, so getting close to our 100th episode. For the occasion, we have an incredible bundle of gifts for you! From yoga props to clothes, to classes, and so much more. We have joined forces with brands we love to celebrate the occasion: Athleta, Liforme, Ajna WellBeing, Yoga Tune Up, Spritz’s Wellness London, and some guests from older episodes for some books, including Jason Nemer from our episode on Acro-Yoga. To participate in our giveaway you have to vote for your favorite episode and you can do so here.

About our sponsors:

1. Athleta. They make yoga and fitness clothes, athleisure and so much more. Their mission is to ignite a community of active, healthy, confident women and girls who empower each other to reach their limitless potential. Instead of using fitness models, they have diverse women athletes of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds in their ad campaigns. They are a B Corp focused on fair trade practices, sustainable materials, and production. So Athleta has generously offered to give a $100 gift card for our giveaway.
2. Ajna Wellbeing is a sister-run company committed to creating holistic lifestyle and wellness products that are eco-friendly, sustainable, and beautifully designed. Their mission is to create a holistic health movement based on a mindful and intuitive way of being, healing, and thriving. Which is where the name stands for. They are gifting you an Ajna Wellbeing’s Eco Yoga Bolster which is handstitched from recycled materials into this eco-suede-luxurious bolster. But that’s not all. They are also adding an Eco-Lite Acupressure Mat & Pillow Set. This therapeutic acupressure kit harnesses your body’s natural healing powers. It’s also made from eco-friendly, non-toxic, plant-based materials, making it just as good for the Earth as it is for you so you can create a simple and effective way to find a moment of calm in your hectic day.
3. I personally am giving a free membership to my live online yoga classes and class library for 1 month (worth $100)
4. Our guest Jason Nemer from Episode 22 – Acro Yoga is giving a copy of its new book Move, Connect, Play.
5. Spritz Wellness London is giving you a beautiful eye pillow! Spritz Wellness embodies a balanced lifestyle of wellness, yoga, exercise and living with purpose. All eye pillows, eye masks, atmosphere mists and yoga mat sprays are lovingly crafted in the UK with all natural ingredients. All products are made of glass with very minimal packaging can be reused or recycled. They are committed to keep the oceans clean and a portion of proceeds from products sold are donated to Surfers Against Sewage. They also regularly partake in beach cleans to keep the coastlines of Britain clean and safe.
6. Liforme‘s mission is to support and encourage the practice of Yoga while bringing the values of Yoga to the business and beyond; and to unite a global community of people around their common goal to ‘Live For More’. They believe in giving back to their community and the planet as much as possible by being eco-friendly, ethical, and socially-just is in everything they do. And that includes supporting many charitable causes. They have recently surpassed $500 000 in donations. Today, they are giving you one of their Truly Revolutionary Liforme Yoga Mats. The ultimate grip for your practice, featuring their unique and original alignment system. Truly Planet Friendly – biodegradable, non-toxic and PVC-free. Good for you, good for the planet.
7. Check our next episodes to hear about the other sponsor!

MY 5 BIGGEST TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS EPISODE

1- We showed as an empty bowl and as we grew up, we started filling the bowl with rules, expectations, and beliefs. Before you know it, this bowl is so full, we can’t see who we are anymore. The process of getting back to the core of who you are is to start emptying the bowl. Some people need a trauma, others have a restlessness and go on a quest for answers, others receive invitations from mentors and teachers.

2- All you need is within you. You are not lacking anything. We have all the answers. We have an immense capacity to learn, we have innate intelligence and wisdom. That’s why journaling can be so powerful. It’s a tool to tap into the answers you have within. When you invite yourself to look at yourself, you have an opportunity to shift, adjust, and transform. There’s no way to improve yourself if you’re not paying attention to where you are. When journaling, create a space where you will be uninterrupted, you are not distracted, start with open-ended questions. Invite yourself to reflect on your day. start paying attention to how you navigated your day and what kind of impressions you left on others today, pay attention to your daily you.

3- When we hold on to pain and trauma we are actually creating inner turmoil in our being. When you carry pain you behave differently than when you release pain. That’s why we need to pay attention to our behaviors and choices. They are the symptoms of the pain we are holding. Acknowledge an event that happened, understand it to reframe your relationship to it, find the lesson and see if you learned it, then open yourself to let it go. Letting it go will create more space in your being for love and joy.

4-The higher you raise your vibration, the higher you can get to a place of observing yourself and your experiences without getting into shame, blame, or anger. So you are not triggered by emotions. It’s easier for emotions to move through you if you are holding a positive energy field to deal with it. You have to be ready energetically before you can deal with it emotionally. To elevate your vibration, check in with your heart and your gut, pause, breathe deeply, open yourself and release stress and tension. When you feel light, your vibration is higher, you might smile more.

5- Joy is your soul talking to you. Make room in your day for things that you enjoy and that make you smile. Get into the habit of finding ways to be joyful. It’s a huge part of truly being who we are.

QUESTIONS SHE ANSWERED DURING THIS EPISODE:

• Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your spiritual awakening journey?
• How did it change you?
• How do we enter our journey of self-discovery including the recognition of our spiritual self?
• How do we create a journaling container to be able to go deep in our reflections?
• Do we need to let go of judgment to truly start emotional healing?
• How does it look/feel to raise your vibration? How can we know if we are in a lower vs higher vibrational state?
• What is the concept of all you need is within you?
• If we do have limiting beliefs that get into our way, how do we start to get rid of them, or at least challenge them?

ABOUT OUR GUEST

Dawn James became a Conscious Living teacher, after experiencing a spiritual phenomenon called Samadhi. She has since dedicated her life to providing education, inspiration, and support related to understanding and enhancing vibrational frequency for overall health and well-being, personally and globally. Her tell-all autobiography UNVEILED is an international bestseller. She teaches others how to live in alignment mind, body, heart, soul. spirit with her powerful online course at http://spiritual-journaling.ca
To learn more about Dawn, visit her website: DAWN JAMES

In 2010 she founded Publish and Promote to teach new and aspiring authors to do what she did; share their story and connect to their best audience!  Learn more at PUBLISH & PROMOTE