Hayley Ebersole joins host Tessa Lynne Alburn on "Say YES to Your Soul,” where Hayley shares her transformative journey of overcoming control issues and eating disorders through yoga and feminine spiritual practices. Hayley emphasizes the significance of dropping into sensation, especially in the womb space, to access ancestral wisdom and feminine power. In the show, Hayley guides listeners through a brief drop-in practice and encourages women to honor themselves by caring for their bodies. 

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Episode Highlights! 

• Hayley shares her attempts to control the uncontrollable through the body
• Getting beyond the medicalization of women’s bodies and back to the feminine ways
• The importance of dropping into sensation to access ancestral wisdom and feminine power, and especially paying attention to the womb sensations
• Women can and are creating a new world by awakening the feminine within

About Hayley 

Hayley Ebersole supports soulful, high-achieving women leaders to reconnect to their bodies by reclaiming their feminine sensuality, spirituality, and power so they can magnetize the life they desire. Her transformational course, Body Temple Alchemy, is a women’s pathway to reawaken pleasure and purpose through remembrance of ancient women’s rites of initiation. 

Hayley’s Free Gift 

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Hayley’s Links

Website: ExploringBodyMindFreedom.com

Social Media: @BodyMindFreedom

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Hello. Hello. We have a delightful, energetic, vivacious guest today. I've really been enjoying getting to know her. I, I think we met about a year ago, a little more than a year ago now, and her name is Hayley Ebersole. Hayley supports soulful high achieving women leaders to reconnect to their body by reclaiming their feminine sensuality, their spirituality, and their powers so they can magnetize the life they desire. Her transformational course. Body Temple Alchemy is a women's pathway to reawaken pleasure and purpose through the remembrance of ancient women's rights of initiation. In addition to one-on-one embodiment coaching for women. Hayley guides primate and group yoga and plant medicine retrieve, and you can learn more at exploring body mind freedom.com. We'll, we'll put that at the end, but right now, I want to welcome her. Hayley, welcome to Say Yes to your soul.

Thank you so much, Tessa. It is such a blessing and an honor to be here.

Aw, thank you. I feel the same, and I love watching your journey. You know, I've been on, I, we connected, I got on your list, of course, and occasionally join in with some things with you and I, I have to say this, so one of the first things that I did with you is like this group ritual, and I was like, this is nice since, you know, we're doing some body and we're doing a little this, a little that, and then we were like, into the collie, you know, godde, it's Collie, and we're sticking our tongues out. And I'm like, yeah, then I like this woman, and we're really expressing ourselves like really honoring the body and the, not just the sweet little stuff on the surface, right? But a full spectrum of the women's journey.

I love that. I love that calling out Collie right in the beginning of our interview. That's so perfect to bring in the amazing dark goddess.

Exactly. So, you know, she's important and I know you're gonna, you're gonna be sharing some things like that, that my listeners are gonna just, I, I think they're gonna just love it, you know, from perfectionism to overachieving to chronic this and that, and eating disorders. Like where do you wanna begin, Hayley? Hmm.

Yeah, let's dive into, since you laid it out, let's dive into that intensity that you're speaking of the really the dark night of the, of the soul. That was, you know, the invitation from Kali for me and for all of us, we ha we all carry our, our trauma in the ways that that manifests. And for me, that was this desire, this, this knee jerk reaction to attempt to control the uncontrollable, which for me was a tumultuous family and upbringing, my attempt to control the uncontrollable by controlling my body. And that began really early, as early as seven years old. I can remember using food in unhealthy ways and beginning my process of really just taking note of the way that our patriarchal culture really rewarded me for looking a certain way, for acting a certain way, for being the good girl, for getting the good grades, for being president of my school every year.

And all of these ways that I attempted to fit into a box, in order to feel worthy, in order to feel like I was enough, and in order to actually keep my demons in the closet, to keep kind of pushing down my emotions and my, the little child in me, even as a child, you know, the little child in me that was crying out for love and nurturing and support, that unfortunately the resources that I had as I was growing up really were this just attempt to, to control and achieve that led to eating disorders of all sorts. That led to body image dysmorphia to chronic exercise. And with went hand in hand really with this, this overachieving getting into a great school, getting the highest test scores, you know, being the valedictorian, and it, it came to a head. It, I mean, it was, it continued to come, continued to build.

And at the end of college things really got out of control to the point where I knew that I needed help and I knew that I needed to take back control of my life. And yeah, I was at a moment where I was filling in my PhD applications. I was interning with a professor at the school that I wanted to pursue my PhD, and I was so manipulative with food and my body and I, I was so blessed to receive the healing work of Janine Roth, who's an amazing kind of embodiment. So after college I was applying for PhD programs, interning with a professor at the university I wanted to go to, and I also jumped in at that time to a yoga teacher training. And that was really the beginning of the awakening. And well, what inspired you to do that? So I had been practicing yoga actually since I was in high school, but it was, I can tell you that I was PI was entering into the yoga class and I was in competition with every single person in that class.

I was gazing it in the mirror the entire time, criticizing my body, and I was actually using the yoga as a tool of masochism. And I actually, as, as I became a yoga teacher, through the years, I have seen this pattern again and again with women that simultaneously we can even be receiving deep healing from these ancient liberating practices. I mean, to this day, I practice yoga every day, and I'm in deep reverence to the beautiful culture that produced those practices. And wherever we go, there we are. So I kind of undertook this yoga teacher training as, you know, I did not know what I was getting into because the can of worms opened and the emotional get kind of an numbing or a defrosting of my emotional body began through this deep transformational alchemy that was so far beyond the physical practice. And the only, you know, I'd been really working with the physical, and as I started to dive into the spiritual body, the emotional body, wow, I really had no idea the reservoir of pain and trauma that was just waiting and that I was keeping at bay through these practices of control.

So that must have been really like, scary on some level, frightening, you know, to lose control when suddenly the emotions are starting to come out in various ways.

Absolutely, absolutely.

What was happening for you at that time? Like what, where was it starting to leak out and what was going through your mind?

Yeah, well, I, so simultaneously , so all of this is occurring at once, is that I began this protocol, Jean Jeanine Roth's protocol of gene of investigating, deeply investigating my relationship to food. So I had always been in a relationship of control with food, and I completely was in this investigation of eating, tuning into my body, eating whatever my body wanted, which was the most terrifying of

All.

Oh yes. I mean, to this day, that's probably terrifying for most women to, to think of that concept, which has now just become such, you know, a blessing of the way that I live and, and support women. But yes, there was much terror at this moment of my life, and I'm so grateful that the lineage that I was studying in as a yoga teacher was deeply informed by the feminine. And so the goddesses of yoga were a huge part of this practice, so,

Well that's pretty unusual. How do, yeah, that, like I, I know very few people who've gone through a yoga certification where it wasn't predominantly masculine.

Absolutely, absolutely. What a blessing to have landed in this just totally by chance to have landed in this space that was deeply informed by Shiva ray's work and was really carrying this feminine healing thread, which became such a part of, you know, and continued to unfold through the years. So this was layer one of the beginning. This was like chapter one, the, you know, chapter two, the Awakening, you know, like coming out of the depths. And I, so I pulled my PhD app right after the yoga teacher trainee, and I said, one year I will put my apps on hold for one year, and I will teach yoga for one year. And now I'm here like 16 years later and , and have absolutely never looked back. And I can say that this was a deep, you know, it was deep healing to dive into the breath work, to dive into the asana, the movement work to dive into the meditation.

But it really was not until several years later when I began studying with my yoga teacher, Abby Tucker, on her own transformational journey of transitioning into a priestess that I was offered the, the thread of the feminine initiation rights, feminine moon circles, the reconnection to our womb space, our, the healing power of the, the pelvic bowl, the feminine chakra system, the goddesses not only of yoga, but the global goddesses of our ancestral traditions. And that deep thread of our ancestors to have carried the sacred rights of women's wisdom through the generations. Although it has been hidden for our safety for many generations as we have been, you know, not, not safe to gather and ate persecuted. Yeah, absolutely. Let's call it what it is. As we have been burned at the stake, we have been ridiculed, we have been shamed for knowing our own sacred power, our own sacred rights.

And I'm so grateful to be right now here with you on your podcast, that is, you know, to say yes to your soul or women is to say yes to your feminine. It is to say yes to your body. It is to say yes to this ancient and sacred thread of knowing that exists deep within, and what a transition it was for me to be in deep honoring of the yogic practice, but also to really recognize and acknowledge that, that the strain that we receive of the meditation of the Buddhism, of the Eastern spiritual practices that are so transformational and that I to this day teach and honor and practice. But the reality is the way that history has gone for the past few thousand years, these are men's practices that have been passed down through men by men for men for thousands of years now. And fascinatingly have flourished and blossomed among women in, you know, in, in the US context, which I can speak to, you know, 90% of the practitioners of yoga are women. And yet it's really just a piece of, it's a small, it's like a piece of the pie of what is available inside of this powerhouse that we are. So that's the next level. That was the next level.

That's is really cool. I, I love, I love this. Yeah. And you and I were chatting just a little bit earlier about like, just sort of the whole concept that so many of the practices that, that a lot of us use today have been coming from the masculine, right? Because the women were allowed to pass along their wisdom. You know, there may have been like some shamans who, you know, managed to survive or were powerful enough that they were safe enough, but overall there was, you know, just this blanket, like, you're all just hysterical. You know, I'm, I mean, those are my words, but Right, right. It's the same thing. Like, you know, my mother going to the doctor, there's this little something wrong. Oh, we should take out your whole, you know, room. Like, yes, those, that's that energy of, we just can't deal with it.

Like, you're too much as the women, right? Like, so we don't need to figure it out. We can just do away with it. And you can still, you know, be spiritual or you could still be healthy, supposedly healthy without all your parts. But, and, and I certainly saw that kind of transformation in my, in our household when my mom went through hysterectomy and all the fallout, the emotional fallout. It was really tragic what she went through. And then later in life it, it came back and bit her in a really big way with cancer as a result of remaining cells. Okay, that's a different story for another time, but

It's so relevant. I'm so grateful you brought that up, because that is a very tangible way that women's bodies have been medicalized and taken under the control of a highly patriarchal system that now it's become normalized to suppress our natural to, to literally suppress the source of our power, our womb, our cycle. This is the potency of the feminine, this is the potency of nature, that it has been feared. That it, that this is the power that creates life that has been feared by this culture that is, you know, by, really by the powers that be. And so these very tangible ways that women's bodies get fed into the medical system and that we, you know, in terms of my own story, the ways and, and many women's stories, the way that we end up actually policing own bodies and our own hormonal power through the use of food and exercise, the use of, you know, the manipulation of our, our own hormones, when really the invitation, even in the case, I, I'm not sure about the, the specifics of your mother's case, but I do work with wi with many older women going through perimenopause, going through menopause.

And the way that, you know, that is the deep invitation into this, the, the epitome of feminine wisdom. That is the invitation.

Absolutely. We are naturally wired to receive spirit, to connect to the cosmos, but we have been trained and programmed and pushed and prodded to not listen to that wisdom. I know you gifted us,

And oh, you're so beautiful. You summarized it so beautifully,

. Oh, thank you. Like, there may be, you know, solicitors here today who are a little bit like what that sounds like, you know, a conspiracy thing or whatever. But I'm just gonna ask you if you're, if something's coming up for you or you're like it's triggering something, or you're like, well, what does that mean? Or should I hate all doctors? Like, no, just start to be curious and start listening more and more to your body. And Hayley, you know, Hayley's a, she's a guide in that way to help women start tuning in and listening and using your own bible to understand what's going on, and then to figure out what you actually need.

Beautiful. I so appreciate that. Like, you nailed it. You nailed it. This is the invitation. There's nothing, you know, there's nothing threatening about this work except to, to a violent paradigm, , you know, there's nothing threatening about this for women to re a reunion to reunite with the truth of our deepest power, which is this really the body holds the key. And it is that simple. And it is that simple to come into a relationship of curiosity and inquiry. It's, I can't say it's always easy when we've lived in a culture that's trained us to check out, to numb out, to trust other people instead of the, the, the oracle within. Yet the rewards are so incredible, this sense of reconnecting to the truth of our emotional landscape, of our unique feminine spiritual landscape, and really that our human is really the most spiritual thing about us.

And that's a big part of what the women's re reclamation movement is really offering, is a remembrance that this sacred, simple, mundane body, this being a mother, this being a, a lover, this being a wise woman, a crone, these simple ways that we, our wisdom lives here. It has never gone, it's just that it hasn't been idealized in the ways it has been. It has been, you know, pushed down. And it's, it's here, it's inside of us right now in this moment. And the ways that we play into this perfectionism or this good girl archetype, the ways that we repress our own body, our own heart, our own soul, our own passion, really suffering ends where meaning begins and the invitation into women's practice. And really to just connect with the simple energy of nature, who is the goddess, as well as of course, all these amazing, you know, it's not just one God out there.

We have thousands of gods and thousands of goddesses. You have this whole phila of, you know, spiritual inspiration that invites different parts of us to awaken. So this is a journey of, of joy. And yes, there's pleasure there, and yes, there's challenge there, but that reclamation and that reunification of body, mind and spirit for women, for the feminine, this is the movement. Here we are, this is this podcast, this is what is, it is the era of the goddess. There's no turning back. So we're all in this together. And this is, I'm, I'm grateful to be, to be part of this wave of history that is awakening right now in our bodies in this moment.

I love that. And I'm grateful as well. And you know, maybe like five years ago I probably was thinking, oh, there's not much more to explore there, you know, in my body. Like, oh, there's just the aging thing or this or that. But something more has happened. And I think it's because of the embracing of spirit within the body that it is hap that it is occurring now in my own life, and I'm tuning into tapping into much more. I know I'm tuning into more spiritual energy. I can really discern a lot of different things more than ever before. And also the power of the sexual energy and, and some kundalini, you know, but I don't think, I don't know if I've experienced, I mean, who knows if we have all experienced kundalini like somebody else, but, or like it's supposed to be experienced. But I know I've experienced something that's like off the chart. Wonderful. And it's so liberating. And I, you know, I get to experience a wholeness, I know a real wholeness and like a union with my spirit and my body that I didn't even know was possible.

Oh, Tessa, please do an episode on that, an episode on that. Oh my gosh. We crave that, especially from our wise women, you know, we wanna hear that. Please share more.

Thank you. I will, I will consider that, yes. We'll see where it goes. At my age, which is now at the time of this recording 65, I have entered some sort of like new liberation, which is really delicious. And I'm starting to experience greater abundance as a result of that as well. Not to say that there was an abundance in my life before, but I think there's also something new opening up because of the power that you're talking about in the feminine body. And I'd love if you could share a little bit more around that and just, you know, maybe some basic concepts here around the power of the feminine body.

Yes. Oh, I just love to hear you speak it because you are speaking the, the, it's like the treasure trove that's available when we dive in. And it doesn't have to be complicated. I'd really love to simplify this for all of us because so often the, you know, spiritual practices have been presented as like, well, it has to be like you, you breathe like this, and then you say this like Sanskrit word, and then you go, and then if you sit for 30 minutes, you're really good. And, and it can get really structured. And that is the definition of the masculine, which is beautiful. And you need, and, and it's so, it can be so healing to be in that space of discipline. And a lot of us are actually really good at discipline in certain areas, like in disciplining ourselves and disciplining our bodies.

Yeah. And so the invitation in, in feminine spiritual practice, whereas in masculine spiritual practice, there is this kind of idea that if we do the practice, then we get the reward. It's kind of like if we, if we do, if we fill the, if we check the boxes, we're headed to samati and maybe one day we'll go to awakening, or maybe one day we'll have the Kundalini awakening. So the concept of the, the feminine is that this moment in this body, this is the only place that awakening happens. This is the only, the awakening only happens in the body and it only happens in this moment. And there are just like the female orgasm, we could say like, you know, it's not one and done, right? Like you can roll in a female orgasm. So it's very similar when we enter into the body is that there are, there are gateways, there are doorways of awareness, and it comes, it starts with just dropping into sensation because really the body is the unconscious.

The body is carrying ancestral memory. It is carrying all of the memories of our lives. And when we can create spaciousness for ourselves to actually feel the sensations of certainly literally something as simple as touching your skin. So right now, I'm, I'm taking my fingertips, I'm touching my arms, I invite any listeners to do the same. You could touch your face. So sweetly and gently, even something as simple as that is this invitation into the here and the now. And when we arrive into the body, mysterious alchemy begins to occur, which is a deeper awareness of that which gets repressed and suppressed. And certainly challenging emotions can be part of that, but there's our truth lives there. That is in not only does our truth live there, but also our golden shadow lives there. Our deepest power lives in this place. So if we never go in the sensation, even if we're exercising right, we could be on the treadmill and instead of looking at the calorie counter actually feeling the way, yeah, the bones shift in the sockets of the shoulders or feeling the way the breath massages, the womb space, the heart space, the rib cage feeling, the way the throat opens and the chakras of our expression are actually being activated through the awakening of the breath.

All of these little, it's kind of just, it's, it's like turning the frame of the camera slightly to the left. So it's just shifting awareness into sensation and all of a sudden we begin to peel the top all of Pandora's box. And within Pandora's box really lives the truth of a feminine power that is so strong that it is absolutely, absolutely capable of remaking our world in the design of the feminine, which we all know if we had mothers guiding our governments, we wouldn't be dealing with the war, we're dealing with the wars we're dealing with right now. And that is the power, the feminine who reshape the world. And it starts with something as simple as dropping in really dropping in, taking time, taking space to feel, particularly to, since we've mentioned, you know, the womb space here. I mean the reality is women's hormonal cycles literally rule every system in our body.

It rules the end, you know, it rules the cardiovascular system, the lymphatic system, muscular, all of everything in the, in any human body is ruled by the hormonal system. Men's hormonal system is on a 24 hour clock. Women's hormonal system is on a 28 day-ish clock. And so we get to experience the fall, the winter, or the summer and the spring every month. And that can be really hard for, for couple of us who struggle in the fall or winter of our cycle, of our moon cycle. And this is true even of women in perimenopause and post menopause, that we are still cycling. Our cycle might shift to longer, shorter, but even when there is no blood in continuing through our womb, women's hormonal cycle is still fluctuating with the flow of the moon, with the flow of the tides, with the ancient flow of the seasons. And so the power and the wisdom and the truth of nature is right here, right now. If we can just drop in, open some space.

Hayley, that was beautiful and I'd love everything that you were talking about and I think it would be we beautiful right now, just as we're coming soon to a close with our interview today, to take a few moments, would you be willing to just guide

A two minute the drop in? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for that invitation. For us all. This is a moment, even if you are driving your car, we're taking walk wherever we find ourselves. I invite you if you can, to take one hand onto your low belly, onto this sacred space of your womb center. And if you happen to have two hands free, I invite you to take a hand to your heart. And even if you have no hands free, you can energetically drop your awareness into these sacred cauldrons within your feminine body. Invite the breath to expand downward into the bottom hand. And as you feel the life force of the air element draw deep down, let's just get curious about our womb space. This cave of feminine transformation and power and wisdom, this space that creates life.

Just breathing with curiosity into this portal of ancestral wisdom that is awake and alive within your body. Whether you still have a physical wo or not, whether you still bleed or not, take a moment just to offer some gratitude into this center and where attention goes, energy flows as we drop in with our womb space, let's simply invite an intention of curiosity asking that our womb might speak to us through our week, through our month, through our lives, piece by piece as this great mystery keeper, shamans that you carry here in your body. Just asking that the wisdom of the goddess and the feminine gently unfold, sweetly unfold within our lives with grace, with beauty through synchronicities, offering that gratitude with one more breath into the womb heart. And if you have your hands free, I invite you to take them into heart center and Anjali mudra, just a little prayer pose and just bow down to your body. Thank you, body. Thank you, thank you, thank you to this vehicle, this vessel that is our, our vehicle for awakening our vehicle for pleasure and purpose in this life. Bowing to that light within

Laura, thank you Hayley. That sacred is right here within you. In every moment you have this, whether you're fully mobile or not, this is here with you. That was beautiful for me. I, you know, as you were talking Neely, I realize even, you know, as much as I'm tuning in and doing certain practices to stay in touch with all the various aspects of my being, there's still a tendency sometimes to externalize. And I, I became conscious of just even like, I think my perspective has been like I can relate to the moon cycle pretty easily, but I sometimes relate to it as out there and I'm affected by it, but I don't, you know, I think on a more inclusive way, that's not the word I'm searching for, but I'll just say this, the cosmos is in us.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. You are the moon cycle as within, so without, there is no separation.

No separation. We are one.

We are one.

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you

So, oh, so rich and beautiful. And is there, let me just ask you, I wanna make sure that everybody knows how they can find you, how they can be in touch. So go ahead and share your website, et cetera.

Yeah, I would love to connect with your people at, you can find me at exploring body mind freedom.com, and that's all one word, exploring body mind freedom. And you can also find me on Instagram at Body Mind Freedom. And if you head to either of those spaces, sign up to receive five earth body rituals. And these are very simple women's practices to drop in with the elementals, the air, the fire, the earth, and the water through our body. And really simple, quick, practical, and tangible ways to just, just begin that process of reconnecting to the feminine and deepening relationship to the body.

Fantastic. Alright, and before we go, is there anything you would like to leave the listeners with today?

Just a deep honoring of you for deep honoring of, of all of you, for showing up for your life and for your soul by listening to a podcast called Say Yes to Your Soul. And by really, it's like whether or not you, we know it, you know, we're all on this path of awakening the feminine within and it's really the only hope for the future of this planet. And we are all part of this movement. And so I wanna cheer on all of, all of the warrior asses out there, and all of the lovers and all of the maidens and the mothers and Theron's and all of us with all of those hearts within us that we are here creating a new world. So please honor and celebrate yourself by taking excellent care of your body.

Yes, thank you so much. I look forward to having you back on the show and to spending some more delicious time with you off the show and in whatever ways we can do that. And I just, we're just really, really grateful that you were here and, and I'm, I'm very appreciative of the journey you've been on because I know you have really deepened into, you know, the ancestral wisdom in a very beautiful way. And so I just wanna encourage you to keep going, doing what you're doing. Thanks. and thank you for all the yumminess here today, Hayley.

Thank you so much Tessa

Alright, ready, learning, rest, its to you and your spirit, your emotions, your mind will include the mind, also, especially the body, body. Thank you for all the gifts you bring us for getting us through this density called earth, for giving us experiences, for allowing us to express and to receive kindness, love. And Lord, thank you so much for listening and I will see you again soon.