Self-love, Inner Child Healing & Embodied Purpose with Ella Tsang
Welcome back to this week's episode everyone.
I am very excited to dive into this episode with someone that I have admired from afar for years now, Ella Tsang (@psimella). She's amazing. She is a truth embodiment guide, master NLP practitioner and kundalini yoga teacher.
Her purpose in this lifetime is to activate truth in people, helping souls remember the truth of who they are, what they came here to do, what they're capable of and the life that they're meant to live.
In this week’s episode we’re going to get into all things around self-love, Inner child healing, becoming grounded in your purpose and embodied multidimensional branding.
Ella: Thank you for having me, Rachael. It is so nice to be here with you, to chat with you, face to face, and I'm so excited for a conversation. Yay.
Rachael: Well, I would love for you to let us know what led you to this amazing place that you are now, in your life and business? Tell us all the things.
Ella: Oh yeah, it's a great question. The way that I got started on my journey was anxiety. Anxiety was something that I struggled with all my life, not really knowing who I was, constantly stressed out, leading me to burnout and in the hospital from a panic attack. I got to a place of just knowing that I had to change my life. That's where I found self-development & spirituality which led me to the path that I'm on today.
Rachael: I really relate to what you said. It's just so beautiful how you've turned all of these things that you've experienced into such potent medicine that you're now helping others with.
Something that I think is really powerful that we can dive into here is the conversation around anchoring into a relationship of love with yourself. I would love for you to share more about what that looks and feels like to you.
Anchoring into Self-Love
Ella: When I was in the depths of my anxiety, having panic attacks, not trusting myself, stressed & depressed, I would scoff at self-love. For the longest time, I thought that self-love was about pushing yourself. I thought it was about striving, ambition, and all the #Girlboss things. That was how I approached it.
But over the last year, I had a really rude awakening after a psychedelic experience that hit me right at the heart center. That one night I realized that all of my struggles, the anxiety, the depression, the negative mindset, the negative self-talk, everything comes from the root, which is that I have conditionally loved myself my entire life.
It got me thinking, “what does it actually look like to unconditionally love myself? To have this relationship of irrevocable love for myself?” The way that I see it now, is that you have to have your own back, no matter what.
I always come back to how can you have your own back, no matter what? Because that was actually what started to heal my anxiety, & my fears. It was the realization that when I was experiencing all of these things, I never had my own back. I was the first person to abandon myself. I thought I was loving myself because I was pushing myself, but really, I was abandoning myself the entire time.
When we think about self-love and having this relationship of irrevocable love for ourselves. It's about being aware of who you are to you, from moment to moment. So the bubble baths, “the treat yourself”. Yeah, that's nice. It's like the cherry on top, but it's about really being aware and conscious of “Who am I to myself in this moment?”
Rachael: Oh my gosh, it almost feels like it’s a default to abandon ourselves. I feel like I am always the hardest on myself. It seems like most of us are that way too. And I think that that really leads into the conversation around the realization that when we start our business journey, inner child healing becomes a tremendous aspect of actually allowing in what we desire. When your inner child is running the show, you can feel it. You can feel how challenging that is.
I’d love for you to speak into why inner child healing is such a huge part of running a business.
Inner Child Healing
Ella: This is like my favorite conversation. We all have conditional love coding. This is the way in which our inner child learned that if I do this, then I'm going to get love, if I do that, then I'm going to get love taken away. Sit with the fact that you have a younger version of you inside. Sit with the fact that all of your fears are resistance, the things that you make wrong are truly just an aspect of yourself that's like, “Hey, love me, make sure I'm safe, see me.”
It's important for us to build that relationship, especially when we feel the fear and resistance. Instead of making them wrong. How can we actually sit with ourselves and understand our inner child’s needs?
I think inner child healing is that rite of passage that we can give ourselves to actually become an embodied woman. Have that conversation with the younger version of yourself and ask, “What are you actually afraid of?” Looking to understand where it comes from? Not nitpicking, we don’t need to figure out every single wound, but whenever you feel a trigger, understand, get curious, where is it coming from? How was this interpreted in the past? What was the meaning that we attributed to it in the past that made us feel a certain way, that made us get angry, that made us believe that we have to prove in a certain way? And then it's deciding in this moment, “what am I choosing?”
Instead of allowing your inner child to be in the driver's seat of your life, you put them in the backseat, you give them some cushions, strap them in, make sure they're nice and comfy, give them a lollipop and you say you can come for the ride, but you're sitting there. You're not driving anymore.
Rachael: I love that so much. When you do this work you're no longer at odds with this huge aspect of who you are and it's so beautiful. Thank you so much for speaking into that.
I wanted to talk a little bit with you about how important it is for us to lead grounded in our state of purpose. Leadership is such a gift and such a privilege, and to me, my business is a vehicle for my purpose.
From your perspective, why is it so important that we lead from a place of purpose, and what does that look and feel like to you?
Leading From a Place of Purpose
Ella: In NLP we have this beautiful pyramid called the logical levels of the mind, which basically shows us how our behaviors are influenced and how we ultimately create the environment that we're in. When we want to change our behavior, we often think, “Just do it, just do the thing, just take the action.” But, that’s simplifying it too much.
What influences behavior is our skills and capabilities. What influences what skills and capabilities we develop are our values and beliefs. What influences our values and beliefs is our sense of identity. Who are we? How do we see ourselves? And what is at the top of the pyramid is spirituality and purpose.
So basically, if you don't have a sense of purpose, you'll never really be sure of who you are, what you actually believe in, & where you’re actually going. I see purpose as an anchor that goes deep into the ocean grounding you. There are going to be storms that hit you in life. They're going to be waves of life that are tumultuous. Challenges that happen. People that don't like you. You don't know what's going on. You have a failed launch. These things are going to shake you if you don't have that anchor.
When I first started teaching purpose and understanding purpose, I thought your purpose was your work. It's what you do. It's your business. It's your brand. But now I see it's just an expression of our purpose. I believe that we're here on a double mission. We have a personal purpose and a collective purpose.
My number one purpose is actually just to be. It's to be here, to have an experience. It's to feel things. It's to grow. It's to exist. But we also have that big collective mission that really serves as the anchor that grounds us. No matter what happens. We understand I'm going through this for me and for the world.
So how do you integrate that along with doing the work for your business and your brand? Just live your life, express your truth. You guide people into their power. And that is like the greatest expression of your purpose.
Rachael: This is a beautiful transition into something that I know that you're so passionate about, embodied branding. You're just like a creative goddess and I would love for you to speak into that a little bit, because you really take a very unique approach.
Ella: I've always been obsessed with visuals, and for a very long time, my understanding of branding was like, What's your logo? What are your fonts? What are your colors? Like the pretty stuff.
Over the past couple of years, I was teaching branding from a more intellectual, thinking place. What I really found is that our branding, the expression of our multidimensional brand, the true brand, as I call it, is literally running simultaneous to your spiritual awakening and your healing journey. You become embodied in how you live your life.
Embodied multidimensional branding is about really looking at who you are, & what you stand for, then asking “how do I live that daily, how do I become an effortless expression of that?”
True embodied branding is just living it. You live it and you teach and you share from your experiences.
Rachael: Yes, that's so powerful. Your brand is just an extension of you and your magick. Following what excites you and sharing what's on your heart is inevitably going to come through in the way you create content and the way you speak. Such a big piece in this is sharing vulnerable content.
Vulnerable stuff is oftentimes the hardest to share, but it creates deeper connections.
Ella: Yeah, absolutely. And I think what I've also been working a lot on around that is trusting our audience enough that people will come into our world. For a very long time, I was afraid of sharing, thinking, “what if people don't see me as this person who has it all figured out?” There was so much pressure around that all my life. I’ve got to be perfect, I’ve got to have it all figured it out. The moment that I broke the pedestal and I literally just owned it and I claimed, I'm not better than you, I'm just here to guide you back into your power. I'm not here to tell you to follow my strategies. I'm not here to get you into anything other than yourself. I'm imperfect, and I'm going to show you how you can accept those aspects of yourself, too. It's like once the pedestals are broken all the pressure is off as well.
Rachael: Yes, literally. Breaking that pedestal within yourself on top of the pedestals that we put others on is huge. We're all on an even playing field here. We're all taking radical responsibility over our own individual results, healing, liberation & pleasure. And when you operate from that place it relieves the pressure.
Well, before we finish up, I’d love to ask what does being an embodied leader mean to you?
Ella: Oh, I love this question. I think being an embodied leader for me is about going first. Being willing to fall flat on your face, pick yourself back up and tell the story of what happened. Truly leading yourself first and going first, not just in taking the action, but in the inner healing. Facing your shadows, doing the work inside that's uncomfortable. Just leading the way. Not just by preaching, but by being this example, being a collaboration portal that when people come into your energy, they're like, I feel it, I get it.
If you loved the topic of this post, be sure to listen to the full, unedited podcast episode of The Embodied Leadership Podcast at the links above.
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