Can Trauma Trigger a Spiritual Awakening? Mental Health, Intuition & Emotional Safety

Note: This episode includes discussion of trauma, PTSD, psychiatric treatment, and sexual assault recovery.

In this deeply personal conversation, Dr. Sandra Marie speaks with Elle Ivey, who shares her journey navigating trauma, including surviving sexual assault, alongside complex PTSD, spiritual awakening, intuition, and mental health recovery.

Elle discusses a spontaneous spiritual awakening that occurred while receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment during the pandemic, after unresolved trauma and PTSD resurfaced through intense body memories and emotional overwhelm.

The conversation explores:

•  body memory and trauma responses 
•  intuition vs. mental health overwhelm 
•  emotional safety during awakening experiences 
•  mediumship and spirit communication 
•  toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing 
•  agape love, compassion, and self-parenting 
•  psychic sensitivity and energetic boundaries 
•  light language and spiritual remembrance 
•  learning to trust intuitive experiences without losing grounding 

Elle also discusses her emerging platform, Beyond the Leaves. Together, the conversation offers a thoughtful exploration of what can happen when trauma, spirituality, healing, and intuition intersect in ways society does not always understand.

Links

Beyond the Leaves with Elle Ivey

E-mail: Beyondtheleavesconnections@gmail.com

Legal Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed by guests on Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious Podcast are solely those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Dr. Sandra Marie or the Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious Podcast. All content is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.

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Transcript

speaker-0 (00:03.118)
Enjoy this Wild Soul gathering production. I'm Dr. Sander Marie. Pour yourself a really tall glass of spiritual curiosity and join me for the happy hour for the spiritually curious podcast. In the spirit of happy hour, cheers to some new insights, peace, revitalization, and perhaps an aha moment that may change your life. Hi, Dr. Sander Marie here. Today's conversation sits in a space that isn't talked about enough.

What happens when a spiritual awakening isn't something you seek out, but something that happens to you unexpectedly? And at the same time, you're navigating trauma or maybe mental health challenges. My guest, Elle Ivy, describes herself as a spontaneously awakened intuitive. Her work focuses less on prediction and more on helping people make sense of their experiences, especially in that space where intuition, emotion,

and mental health intersect. Welcome to Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious Podcast.

speaker-1 (01:04.92)
Thank you, it's nice to be here. I'm so happy to be here and share my story.

speaker-0 (01:10.296)
To start the show, when you say your awakening was spontaneous, what was happening in your life at that time? And how did you first realize something had shifted?

speaker-1 (01:24.654)
think what was going on in 2020, a lot of us were in the middle, in the midst of a pandemic that hadn't happened since maybe our grandparents or great-grandparents were alive. The pandemic, I'm a survivor of sexual assault multiple times. And so the pandemic brought forth some

just ongoing sleep paralysis, panic attacks, just emotional memories, body memories of my assault, which had happened, I mean, at least two decades prior. It had been something that I had been working on for quite a while, but the heaviness of the pandemic and the unknown just brought up a lot of those body memories for me.

so I made the decision, to admit myself to inpatient psychiatric care. it, I was no stranger to it. I had had to be admitted before, but for whatever reason, as I said, the pandemic brought forth its own set of, of panic, which, you know, your body has a physiological response to trauma and it.

sometimes doesn't always recognize this is different trauma.

speaker-0 (02:55.97)
That makes sense. think a lot of times people are unaware of the body holds memories and there's a lot of unconscious memories. So when you get into chakra work, especially that second chakra where you're dealing with those types of issues with sexual assaults, that a lot of times when things come up, you may think that it is the pandemic when in fact it's as you call it, bringing back body memories. So I don't know if you want to expand a little bit.

On the body memory, some folks that may be a new term to them.

speaker-1 (03:30.136)
Sure. So body memories for me, when I am in a stressful situation or a situation, especially where I feel that I have no control, my body will automatically take me to that 15 year old me who had this horrific experience. Even though I have tools in my toolbox to ground myself and to...

be intentional and to be present. When something big like the pandemic came around, my body just could not differentiate between I'm in a safe space. My body almost kept telling me I'm not safe. I need to leave. I need to just get out. That fight, flight or freeze response.

speaker-0 (04:21.034)
Okay, that's helpful. I appreciate that. So when we talk about awakening, there's often a narrative that awakening is peaceful or expansive, but you're speaking about awakening alongside of trauma and mental health. What did that actually look like for you?

speaker-1 (04:41.684)
It was, as you said, was spontaneous. It wasn't something that I was necessarily seeking, but while I was in the psychiatric, it was a specific trauma unit for people who have been through extensive trauma. It was a very specialized program, a three week program.

We were outside, the group was outside just on a break. And at that time I was wheelchair bound. This was before I had both of my hips replaced at a young age. So I was also in a lot of body pain in addition to the memories, which was also a trigger for me. But to answer your question, I was outside in my wheelchair and I had reached out to, there was a big lily plant.

right next to my wheelchair and I had extended my hands to touch the leaves and to just to meditate even just on the feel of the leaves to just to kind of redirect my thoughts and to ground myself because that particular day we had processed some really hard things and this presence came forward beyond the

the leaves of this lily plant and the presence spoke to me and said, you have a story to tell, but even if you choose not to tell the story, your love beyond measure, our love for you is unconditional. And at first I thought I'm being delusional.

I had even started after that experience, I had gone in and we had art therapy right after our outdoor time. I I drew a, it was an aura and I wrote on top of it, alter S as if it was like an alter personality where,

speaker-1 (06:56.874)
I believe that those were my spirit guides coming through to me. I think Alter S almost as if it was spirit speaking to me. It was unexpected and the feelings and emotions, I'm still unpacking everything that

that experience had for me. It was a profound love, one that I don't think I had ever experienced before. something so profound that it doesn't necessarily fit in society's box of a spiritual experience. So I didn't know who to talk to about it. As I said, I thought I was delusional.

speaker-0 (07:49.838)
So let's just unpack this a little bit more for you. So what's interesting to me was you heard the messages, you heard a voice or somehow there was a telepathic communication. However, that worked for you in the moment. I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how that comes sometimes. I'm like, well, it's like hearing a voice, but it wasn't, but it was. So for you, how do you differentiate?

sometimes between an intuitive or spiritual experience and something that might be overwhelming your nervous system or mental health. Now, I guess I have a couple questions here, so be patient with me. Was that the first time? Have you had other experiences with it? And the other thing that strikes me that

is profound and you use the word numerous times as you were describing this is that overwhelming emotion and that wash of love that came with it. So it wasn't just the message that you received.

speaker-1 (08:57.838)
So I have had other spiritually transformative experiences dating back to when I was around maybe 11 or 12. I was at a religious summer camp and I had this wave of love come over me and I was inconsolable crying. It wasn't a...

at crying as in I had done something wrong. was, it was an overwhelming love. And so I was able to kind of connect the dots with between that experience and the experience I had had and the psychiatric ward. wasn't, it was a knowing that that is the only way I know to describe it. And almost a remembrance of

speaker-0 (09:56.233)
I love that.

speaker-1 (09:57.41)
this love that is on the other side that is available to anyone and everyone. And so I guess that's how I was able to transform this experience into where I am today.

speaker-0 (10:16.667)
I like that. One of the nice things about being on a show like Happy Hour is there's actually a lot of people in the audience that that's not going to be foreign to at all. So it's like there's people out there who understand it. And I've been there myself with that really overwhelming emotion. you know, just one time it was public and it was like, I just couldn't stop crying. And people are looking at me and I was like,

No, it's all a good thing. It's all a good thing. Like I'm really happy. I know it doesn't look like I'm happy, but I'm really happy. And you just get that wave of really intense love that is just so hard to language sometime to other people.

speaker-1 (10:58.86)
I guess.

You know, the only ancient word that I could possibly have would be this agape love, this unconditional love that washed over all the things I had said, all the things I had done that weren't my best moments. And it was almost as if they were saying, you did the best you could do.

speaker-0 (11:30.99)
Hmm.

speaker-1 (11:31.222)
with what you had at the time was.

speaker-0 (11:35.48)
What a great message. And you also use the word remembrance, and I think that that's an important word. And I personally think that we're in a time now where more and more people are actually remembering. And in a lot of ways, I like to use the word remembering sometimes more than awakening. feel like remembering is like the next iteration of where we're at now.

But I do want to shift a little bit and you mentioned this, you've started a new platform, Beyond the Leaves. Yes. And you touched on this in your story a little while ago. Can you share a little bit about the title and why you chose that title?

speaker-1 (12:08.418)
have.

speaker-1 (12:19.342)
So I came up with the title about a year ago. I was in meditation. I was trying to find a term or some type of language to encapsulate my experience and what I want other people to help remember. So I named my

platform beyond the leaves with L. Ivy in an homage to my spirit guide who came through the leaves of the lily plant right there in a psychiatric ward of all places.

speaker-0 (13:07.15)
I love the connection with that. Let's talk a little bit about integration. So, you you've had some awareness, obviously, with all of these things. And, you know, you've been working on clarity. How does the integration fit into that whole process?

speaker-1 (13:25.614)
At first, I would say this happened, my main spontaneous awakening happened in 2020. And it took me probably three or four years, probably three years to even have the brevity to start researching. I started looking at

near-death experiences because that was the only way I could explain even though I didn't die. That's the only verbiage that I had to explain and so I came across a few people who happened to have Zoom meetings and so I started attending the Zoom meetings and

hearing other people's experiences, even with Spiritual Awakenings International and the International Association of Near-Death Studies, they have great resources for people like me who don't have the NDE, but who have these spiritually transformative experiences. And they actually have monthly and sometimes weekly

meetings for other people who have gone through these experiences.

speaker-0 (14:52.258)
think that there's a lot of people who are unaware that that's available to them.

speaker-1 (14:59.81)
that was, it was very helpful. and so once I started getting the verbiage of what happened to me, it was, I, had another remembrance or awakening where I, I was able to

feel past loved ones in the room. and they would have a message for the group or to participants in the group. and I was fortunate enough to find a group that helped me foster that. And the trust level was there for me to, for, for me personally.

to feel safe enough to share this because, you know, for a long time I thought this, I'm delusional. There is no scientific proof behind this. And then I began to digress through the integration and realized that this is a remembrance and this is a knowing and it doesn't have anything to do with

my state of mind. It is a love that I felt this enormous compelling.

to tell.

speaker-0 (16:30.478)
Well, it's sort of interesting to me because I think that these episodes awakening when people have spiritual gifts that start to turn on, it can feel really isolating. And many times people hold back because they don't know what's happening to them or they're afraid of other people's thoughts or judgments. And then you're interacting with a behavioral health environment that medicates people for these things.

They don't see both sides of the coin. sort of, and you know, they're in one area. So I'm a nurse who has worked a long time and I have worked on behavioral health units. And sometimes it can be really interesting. Like I remember during the morning rounds, was a lady who, she started saying her grandmother had died and her grandmother was coming back to visit her and give her messages. And this was something new and she ended up

in an inpatient unit and the response was to increase her meds. And I'm sitting there thinking, you know, I think the lady's grandmother really is coming back and talking to her, but there's really no space in that space for that. So it was an, it's been an interesting career when that's what you do, but you're

not totally on board with exactly what you're doing sometimes. So for you, how did you, cause you're managing both of those, how have you, and they both have benefit to you and listening to you would be what I would say, correct me if I'm wrong. How did you bring the two together to be able to get to where you're at right now?

speaker-1 (18:19.278)
I think there have been a few different things that I have had to do. I have had to reach in to myself and face those shadows and I have had to tell those shadows no more. I have had to tell those shadows I am safe.

I am surrounded by light and love. And again, that theme of I did the best with what I knew how to do at the time. And the constant mantra of almost parenting yourself through these rememberings of things that happened in the past.

speaker-0 (18:56.846)
right now.

speaker-1 (19:09.312)
And then I think one, there's different types of love and some of them have different names, but there's a type of love called, it looks like it should be pronounced Felucia, but the accurate pronunciation is Feluzhu. It is a basically a relational stance towards your inner world. Feluzhu love is

compassion before correction. And it's almost the type of love that you get to before the agape because you're able to almost observe the pain and the trauma and you learn to not have such an emotional reaction to it. It's almost as if looking at it through the lens of a camera. I think a lot of trauma victims

have learned how to do that, especially when you have had to have treatment for it. It's self preservation. You have to learn to look at it through a lens rather than continuously putting yourself in that space. And I've had to learn to have the willingness to just witness the thoughts and witness the emotions without trying to fix it without, without,

I think too that sometimes toxic positivity comes into play where you just think everything's okay and that has its place. There are times and moments where yes, you need to have those positive thoughts, but there's also moments that deserve that honor of that child that was abused and say, I'm here with you and I'm sitting with you.

and being that for yourself. It doesn't grasp or judge. It just creates space.

speaker-0 (21:16.91)
For me, toxic positivity isn't addressed or spoken of enough. You don't hear a lot of conversation about that. And what you said is very valuable and important because it can almost seem like it's a bypassing. So on the other side of that, where do you see people maybe unintentionally bypassing their emotional or mental health needs in the name of spirituality or toxic positivity?

speaker-1 (21:47.106)
I see it a lot and I think society hasn't caught up with how it could be because I think a lot of times people that have had severe trauma are labeled as having bad behavior or being too sensitive. And it's comments like that that make people

in our communities because nobody wants to look at that shadow part of themselves. think there's a lot to be said when someone can sit with oneself and hug that part of themselves that was hurt.

And when you don't do that, when the toxic positivity comes into play or the spiritual bypassing, you're missing out on a deeper level of love by embracing that part of yourself and not necessarily giving an excuse for bad behavior. Because I think a lot of times in the trauma world,

people that have complex PTSD or PTSD, I had both. And learning to embrace those parts of yourself and talking yourself off of a ledge. There's a nuance between that and toxic positivity that I think goes unnoticed because if...

Toxic positivity can be a judgment of, don't want to deal with this. I've already dealt with this. Whereas the Fallujah love comes in and says, I see that you're hurting and maybe you're a little cranky or maybe you're not handling things the way that you normally would. And it's okay. It's okay to have an off day.

speaker-1 (24:05.326)
It's okay to not always be your best. And I think that.

there's something to be said. It lays the groundwork for agape love.

speaker-0 (24:17.806)
So you've mentioned agape a couple of times in the conversation. Can you talk a little bit about what that is?

speaker-1 (24:25.432)
So agape love is kind of what we're even taught as God's love or the ultimate unconditional love. I think for deeper, unconditional forms of love to emerge like agape love,

you have to acknowledge that Fallujah love of, yes, we are loved unconditionally. And part of that unconditionality comes with being with our most vulnerable selves. And it's okay to talk about it. It's okay to let someone know, hey, you know, this happened to me, of course, with safe people, because unfortunately there are still many schools of thought that

don't foster this type of growth. And I think there's a sadness that comes up in me, even in the therapy world and in...

psychiatric wards, you know, they're there to do to give you medication and to get you stabilized. But I think the difference between, I feel like I'm sorry.

speaker-0 (25:55.822)
What you're saying is super important. You're doing really well. You're doing really well.

speaker-1 (26:00.248)
Thank you.

think that there, and even though, even there are written types of love, I mean, you can do a simple Google search and find all these amazing different types of love. But I think in the, especially in the trauma world, I feel that Fallujah love, is, it has given me wings.

honestly to stop. There's a saying in recovery called shoulding all over yourself. I should have done or I should or you should or they should and I feel that Fallujah love comes in and says you don't have to do anything. You are loved and to learn to

learning to love those parts of myself, it has broken generational chains.

speaker-0 (27:08.718)
Wow. So for someone who's highly sensitive or intuitive but doesn't fully understand what they're experiencing, your suggestion on the first thing or something they could focus on?

speaker-1 (27:28.054)
I think one of the things I was so hard on myself was this doesn't make sense. I had resorted myself to science only because of my trauma. And then my spirit guide, one of the first things my spirit guide told me was to look up the word Tamaia, T-A-M-A-Y-A.

And I love words. I write poetry, I write short stories. And so words have always come into play in my mind, but I had never heard this word before. And so I looked this word up and it is literally a shrine built to ancestors. And I started getting the chills. And the only reason why I bring that up is because I started entertaining

the things that my spirit guides were telling me. I think that's an important part of integration too, is entertaining those thoughts that come to you, those signs that come to you of maybe you're driving in a car and a thought of your childhood home comes into play. And then a car drives by with the address of the home that you lived in. Those are signs and those were things that happened to me.

And I feel like part of that integration is beginning to honor those interactions with your guides. We all have them. We all have access to hear them. And I think I just started asking and almost, I mean, praying to my spirit guide for a deeper connection. I think that and then researching spaces where I could...

I could connect and I could relate to the other people that were sharing because you're not alone and you're not crazy for having these wonderful, beautiful, amazing spiritual experiences. think a society tells us, you know, to keep the top on certain experiences because it can't be scientifically proven or it can't, you know, and you should. Yes, or like you said, uncomfortable.

speaker-0 (29:49.23)
It's uncomfortable.

speaker-0 (29:54.318)
So that's what you said I think is really important for people to hear. What role does the emotional safety and personal agency play when someone's going through an awakening?

speaker-1 (30:13.038)
think that is a very important question because as a trauma victim, your agency was taken away and it can be triggering. It can cause a type of spiritual emergency when this, it feels like almost like an intrusive thought coming in. My spirit guide was saying, even though they were saying,

you have a story to tell and I love you. and even if you don't choose to tell your story, you are love beyond measure. And it was so beautiful. But I think that's one thing that trauma trauma survivors deal with is any kind of big feeling can be triggering. And so I think the way that I grounded myself and my journey

was I just kept there and there were times where there would be a meeting once a week and I would tell myself this is too much, I don't wanna do this. And I would just have the self-talk of I am safe, I would name the year, I am surrounded by light and love. And I would always say I can take what I like and leave the rest because there are a million different stories of spiritual awakenings and spontaneous awakenings.

that you don't really resonate with. And that's fine. You don't have to resonate with everyone. This is your journey. And this is my journey. And so I just started telling myself, you know, I don't have to believe everything. I just want to listen. And the more I listened and the more I did my safety self-talk, I just ended up feeling so much better after the meeting.

And I've learned so much about safety by having those little mini talks with myself of the grounding and started getting into meditation. started having creating broken, I wrote a poem called Broken Gratitude, where sometimes I feel a gratitude, but again, society teaches us.

speaker-1 (32:40.056)
Well, you can't be grateful unless you're happy or joyful. And I just, just very strongly disagree with that because you can be grateful and sad. You can be grateful and mad. so through the broken gratitude and through just the brokenness. And that's not to say that I don't struggle because there are, there are days that I do struggle and I have to really put forth an effort to

parent those parts of me that may feel activated or that may feel sad. The world is in such a state right now. But I think going back to finding the small things that you're grateful for and indulging those signs that you may get on the side of the road or you hear your past grandmother's favorite song in a grocery store or, you know,

and just indulging myself that, I mean, of telling yourself, my grandmother's here, you know, and then that thank you of being with me even for these just small moments has been paramount in my trauma recovery.

speaker-0 (33:59.32)
A lot of times people will call them coincidences, but we know that there's so much more with that. Would you consider yourself a medium?

speaker-1 (34:07.276)
I do, yes.

speaker-0 (34:10.24)
And so someone once told me that you can be a psychic medium, but not all mediums are psychic. Did I say that right?

speaker-1 (34:19.79)
I have heard that before. get my spirit guides and past loved ones speak to me. I grew up learning American Sign Language. I taught myself. It's not something I'm fluent in, but I do remember certain phrases in ASL. So they speak to me in ASL. They speak to me in charades sometimes, which is really funny. And I started seeing

colors and numbers around people, which now I know are auras and chakra colors. And within this group that I attend, the facilitator is a psychic medium. And so we just started kind of conversing and she would have these psychic Saturdays or psychic Sundays and I would attend and the information that I would get, I would write down before the meeting ever ever happened and they were validated. And I just

I just kept thinking, like you said, it's a coincidence, it's a coincidence. But then when it just keeps coming and coming, then there's just this profound love that comes across. I try to be very respectful and I only give readings to those who want them. That's always light and love. It's never, there's never any pending doom or anything.

That way, it's such a beautiful experience that I believe when you begin to integrate and truly listen and honor those messages, I believe we all have psychic abilities.

speaker-0 (36:01.026)
Yes, I would agree with that. there's so much, it's such a gift. There's so much to be grateful for within those gifts. And they really help you develop even more awareness and clarity with things. It'll be interesting to see, you know, where you're at now and then in a year and then in five years, because I think that it just keeps building and building. You had mentioned early in the conversation about doing some, the artwork.

and some messages that came through that. And you talked about your poetry writing. you use oracle cards or anything like that? How do you use these as a tool to help with your spiritual communication and growth?

speaker-1 (36:43.382)
do use Oracle cards and as of right now in my journey, I prefer Oracle cards over tarot cards. me, they give a little bit more for interpretation. I have probably seven or eight different Oracle card decks that I use sometimes together or if I'm feeling led by guidance, I'll pick, you know, there's one.

speaker-0 (36:52.717)
for

speaker-1 (37:11.52)
a new one that I have called Archangels. And I have been feeling angels around me so strongly the past week. In fact, I went outside and I took a picture of the sunset and it looked like two angels in the clouds. It was uncanny. It was just beautiful. But I also do kind of channeled aura drawings. I have one behind me that is a goddess who came through.

with one of the, members of my group, almost every week when I have the group, I've been doing, or, or drawings with pastels. And so rendition, it's not as refined as I would like for it to be, but I haven't drawn or done any kind of art since I was in school. And so.

It's really just about feeling the energy that I do write as well. write short stories and I write poetry that are channeled. I just wrote a poem last week about broken gratitude. And I get these images of, and I've had this since I was a child, where it plays like a movie in my mind.

And it is unrelenting until I let it go and finally start to write about the movie in my mind. I believe that is what maybe some people call your third eye.

speaker-0 (38:49.706)
Yeah, so it's a really nice tool for you to express what you're getting from Spirit and actually take it a couple other steps to get more clarity with that. Have you ever seen people become like over dependent on it? So I also have a few Oracle decks. Most people who do Oracle decks.

speaker-1 (39:02.017)
It is.

speaker-0 (39:15.734)
seem to have more than a few of them. But even with tarot or the pendulum or things like that, do you think that people can become over-dependent on that sometimes?

speaker-1 (39:25.646)
think so. I think there is.

There's such a open opportunity for your guides to speak with you. I think sometimes people doubt those abilities of themselves and they place a lot of the onus on mediumship. I think, and not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but I think that maybe you could be missing on so much.

more person, way more personal information when you just start to open yourself up. And I think one of the first things that you can do to develop that relationship with your spirit guides is show me, show me a sign and be super specific about it. You know, my, my grandmother loved this song. I, you know, if you're here or if, if you're with me, I want to hear this song this week.

And I guarantee you, you know, you'll start saying things and it's okay to ask. There's never too much you can ask your spirit guides. And it's one of those things where it's okay to ask. It may not always happen in the way that we like for it to, but they do honor those and they want to speak with other people.

speaker-0 (40:54.09)
Well, I think there's an enormous amount of value in what you said and it's really interesting because many times people are hesitant to ask and they're very eager to give and then you have to be open. So it's really embracing that curiosity and openness, but also being direct with it. I think the value in what you said with that is just so important. It feels to me, it feels like your work is less about defining or predicting.

for you and more about helping people make sense of the experience.

speaker-1 (41:26.718)
It's not to say that those experiences with our loved ones aren't valuable. I think they are. But I think for me and my journey and what I bring to other people is making sense of the right now and making sense of showing them love for where they're at just as they are. Joyous.

You know, I think this world, there's so many expectations on what to be or what to say. I want to be a voice for the people who don't know what to say or don't know what to do or don't know what to do with this big feeling and just letting source or guidance or love or the Holy Spirit or whatever.

name that you have for it coming in and saying, I love you right now and the muck and the mire. I think that is the gist and the encompassing value that my spirit guides bring to me for others.

speaker-0 (42:44.834)
That is such heartfelt work that you're bringing for people. I do want to touch, before we started recording, you had mentioned about light language. So I was unaware that that was one of your things that you're into, and I am just really obsessed about light language. And there's not a lot out there. So can you just talk about light language and what it is for you and what your experience with it has been?

speaker-1 (43:12.43)
Sure. Light language is something I have been speaking probably since I was 18 or 19 years old. There are different names for it. Some people call it speaking in tongues. Some people call it, you know, angel language. Some people call it light language. It is something that I am getting more comfortable with as far as letting other people know.

that I speak it. It is almost a way to where words fail us. It is a way to connect with the other side, with our guides, with our angels, with our protectors, with guidance itself. It is a way to

Put language in the background and allow your soul to be unencumbered and unburdened with words and just expressing yourself in a way that is, different people speak it differently, but it can be guttural. It can be harmonious. It can sound like another language.

This unencumbered part of me that comes up when I speak it and I use my hands because it comes up from my heart, out of my mouth and it is like a radiant aura mist that

speaker-0 (44:53.944)
you

speaker-1 (44:55.096)
that just kind of comes out and speaks for me through me. It's able to ask things that I may not have the words for. It's able to advocate on my behalf. It's just another form of connecting with my spirit guides.

speaker-0 (45:17.346)
Yeah, I love it. mean, I've you know, people can sing it. It could be different frequencies, vibration, some really beautiful stuff. Some it's like a like you said, it can sound like another language or the hand motions with it. In my experience, you don't understand the words or whatever. It's not a language that you listen to like you listen to language that we're used to on the planet. It's a language that you feel.

everything comes across in feelings and it's, you can't misinterpret the feelings. So it was, was, when you said light language, I'm like, I have to bring this up for sure.

speaker-1 (46:02.57)
I love that explanation too. And one of the things that I've done in one of the groups that I'm in is I will write down before I speak light language over the group and I'll write down what my intent is or what I'm trying to put into some kind of word, what I'm feeling. I won't share it with the group. I'll speak light language and they'll give feedback as to what they felt, where they felt it.

any kind of color or scent that comes up and what I had written down beforehand, somebody always ends up mentioning what I had written down. It transcends. It's just transcendental.

speaker-0 (46:50.71)
Yeah, I would agree. It's sort of interesting as I'm thinking about it, because one of the things that we talked about really early in the show was the what I'll call heart filled tears, that emotion and the tears that are just flowing, but they're joyful and it's just an overwhelming love that is hard to define. There's been a number of times when I've listened to people or been in groups where

light language was being exchanged that I literally was brought to tears with that. And that like tears of joy, it's very heartfelt. was just like love washing over you. So that's sort of interesting how that's come full circle in this conversation.

speaker-1 (47:35.264)
I think that I think I didn't come upon your podcast by accident.

speaker-0 (47:44.706)
Yeah, it's funny how that works out. So I know for you, you're really in your early stages of building your platform beyond leaves. Where can people follow your work as you're beginning to share more?

speaker-1 (47:57.336)
So I am currently on Facebook, Beyond the Leaves with L. Ivy.

speaker-0 (48:05.249)
And that's E.

speaker-1 (48:07.114)
E L L E I V E Y. Yep. And, you can reach me on email at beyond the leaves connections at gmail.com. I am just now starting to gain the confidence of building my platform. I have some writing that I would like to get published. so yeah, everything is just, just now starting.

speaker-0 (48:10.35)
That's important.

speaker-0 (48:37.432)
That's great. So, Al, before we finish, I do have a couple more questions. If someone is in the middle of an experience they don't fully understand, you know, you and I have been there, what's a grounded step that maybe they can take for the moment?

speaker-1 (48:56.806)
I would honestly, I'm a very visual person and guided visual meditation has been paramount for me. When I feel those emotional walls caving in or I feel just off, what I do is I will close my eyes. I will picture a golden thread going north, south, east, west. And I will picture the thread as

as possible. There is no give in the thread. And then I push my hands out to widen my energy field and I surround myself with light and love. I surround myself with protection. And then I have this mantra of I am capable of doing hard things. I can do hard things. I have done hard things. I will do hard things. Just the like the

past present tense of I can I will that has been a game changer for me.

speaker-0 (49:59.47)
Okay, I can see where that would really support in the moment, in any moment. I have one last question. What is the most important thing we didn't talk about today?

speaker-1 (50:16.846)
think one of the things that I would like to talk about in the future is going into more depth on the trauma. And even after this experience, was a survivor of a different

speaker-1 (50:49.742)
traumatic experience that happened about six months ago. And I think for me it was you get this like I was doing good. I was doing good and this horrible experience happened to me. And then there's the stages of grief. You have the bargaining of why, why did this happen? But I think just to sum it all up is I don't have the answer.

But all I know is that it compelled me even more strongly to tell my story and to stop it from festering at the root. It took a lot of hard work. Still tell my story after what happened.

So, yeah.

speaker-0 (51:45.378)
Well, Al, thank you for being here and for your incredible honesty and transparency in this conversation. There's a difference between understanding something many times and actually living it. I really appreciate the conversation. And hey, best of luck with Beyond Leaves. I'm really excited to see where that goes and what you do with it. You've already got a lot of wheels in motion, and to watch them grow is going to be really exciting.

For all our listeners out there, thank you for taking time out of your day to join Elle and myself. Remember, stay curious. Until next time, thanks again, Elle.

speaker-1 (52:24.738)
Thank you Sandra.

speaker-0 (52:27.598)
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Wild Soul Gathering's Happy Hour for the Spiritually Curious. To learn more about our guests, please go to our website, WildSoulsGathering.com. We're very eager to hear from our listeners what you thought of the episode, topics you might like us to cover in the future, your thoughts on spirituality, questions you may have. Please feel free to send us an email at WildSoulsGathering.gmail.com.

This is your host, Dr. Sandra Marie, sending each of you peace and love. Until we meet again, embrace your wild soul.