From Ignoring Signals to Freedom from Addiction, with Erin LoPorto
Join host Tessa Lynne Alburn and Erin LoPorto, a somatic wellbeing and intimacy coach, for a sparkly episode of “Say YES to Your Soul” podcast.
Erin shares her personal experiences with trauma and eating disorders, and how she found healing through somatic practices. On her addiction recovery, Erin recounts her stories of life-changing moments where she realized that the body was key to her healing. She listened to her body with all the courage she could muster that it completely transformed her life.
Together with host Tessa, they discuss the importance of embodiment in healing and therapeutic work. They offer insights into how the body can support emotional healing and freedom.
Tessa’s Free Gifts: Get access to Tessa's Roadmap to a Soul-Connected Business and spice up your life with her Reignition Roadmap
Check it out!
About our Guest Erin LoPorto
Erin LoPorto is a somatic well-being and intimacy coach and the creator of the Embodied Freedom Formula for transformation and healing. After her own recovery, she studied with experts in yoga and somatic therapy, energy healing, bodywork, meditation, and trauma. She's been coaching since 2011 with a focus on trauma, eating disorders, and relationships. She brings a playful, intuitive, and compassionate spirit as she speaks on topics of self-love, self-care, and the importance of embodiment.
Erin’s Free Gift
Receive Erin’s Free Gift, “Unlock the Secrets to Lasting Self-Care! Maximize Your Potential and Well-being”
Erin’s Website & FB
https://erinloporto.com/
https://www.facebook.com/erinloporto.yoga
* About the Host *
Tessa Lynne Alburn is a soul connection business coach, author, podcast host and explorer. Tessa believes that every woman has the ability to learn to express their true voice, be heard, and fulfill their dreams.
Her mission is to help women entrepreneurs bring their ideas and authentic feminine voices into the world, so they make a real difference and receive compensation that reflects their brilliance!
Tessa’s Free Gift: Get access to Tessa's Roadmap to a Soul-Connected Business and Say YES to Your Soul! http://www.tessafreegift.com/
Check Us Out on:
Thank You for Listening!
Thank you kindly for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and feel others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons found on this page.
We love hearing from our listeners. If there’s something you want us to cover, we’d love to hear your ideas! Send them to us here: https://www.sayyestoyoursoulpodcast.com/contact
Subscribe to the podcast
If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to any of your favorite podcast apps. Otherwise, visit us on the https://sayyestoyoursoulpodcast.com/ at any time for all episodes.
Leave us an Apple Podcasts Review
Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.
Spotify Listeners
And if you’re a Spotify fan, then Spotify now has a star-rating feature! https://open.spotify.com/show/1aeExmacYRGfKmjCOw6zxD
May You Say YES to Your Soul!
Hello there. I'm so happy to have this wonderful young lady, uh, brilliant sparkly, like I would say, she probably embodies the essence of a sparkly soul. And she is a somatic wellbeing and intimacy coach, and the creator of Embodied Freedom formula for transformation and healing. Her name is Erin Lo Porto. And after Erin's own recovery, she studied with experts in yoga and somatic therapy, energy, healing work, body work, meditation and trauma stuff. So she's been coaching since 2011 with a focus on trauma and eating disorders and relationships. And we had just like this great conversation about a month ago at an event, and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm just so happy she's gonna be here. She brings a playful, intuitive and compassionate spirit as she speaks on topics of self-love, self-care, and the importance of embodiment. And I really wanna welcome her here today. Welcome to Say Yes to your Soul. Erin,
Erin (:Thank you so much, Tessa. And I love being described as a young woman,
Well, to me, you are, and you know, I think it's like your, just, your energy is just shining right and radiant, and you have like a beautiful smile. Um, so hint, hint, everybody out there if you're wanting to
I totally, like, every time somebody says that, I'm like, I am doing the good work,
There you are. And
Erin (:I'm taking ages off my, uh, my impressions here,
Okay. Sounds good. Um, yeah, so a somatic coach is somebody who takes you into actually feeling and experiencing your body. Most of the time we're trying to get out of our bodies or away, or looking for resolution or looking to make the feelings that we're having a certain way that we're comfortable with. So, somatic understanding is like really just being with our whole beingness as it is. And from that work, the intimacy is, you know, I really feel like the most intimate relationship that we'll ever have is the one that we have with our body, and that, that ripples out into our relationship with others, and even into our relationship with the planet. So when we are like, drawing more from our body than we our body has to offer, like that's what we do to each other. That's when we're like, come on, I need you to be here faster. I need you to do more. And then we are from the planet, like, let's take more from you. Let's, you know, like, so when we can come back to like a somatic understanding of natural boundaries and limitations of ourselves, we have that capacity to give that to everything else in our lives. And that's why I think it's so important.
Tessa (:That's really beautiful. And it is really important. I'm in agreement with you. And so how, how did you get inspired to get on this, this, um, into this world of somatic wellbeing?
Erin (:Yeah. Well, I experienced some childhood trauma that led me to develop an eating disorder, uh, that I wrestled with for 10 years. And it was like a full on wrestle with my body. We were at war every day, not just what it looked like or what it felt like, but that it even existed. Like I just wanted out of it. Um, so it was really some deep soul searching that I started, like going into it instead. And it started when I showed up at a therapist's office early one day, and I watched her chain smoke cigarettes before our appointment. I know some people just tear at me dead face. And some people get the, like, how could you be doing this
And it, that was the, the pivotal moment that I turned inside and I started doing my own work, um, and understanding through doing the work that, like, the work is, it's not just supposed to be there, but our pain is supposed to be there. The hardness of this life, it's all supposed to be there. And what I've found is on the inside of every piece of pain, every piece of struggle was incredible wisdom that I never would've accessed without going there. And personal strengths, personal gifts, personal, you know, just lightness that doesn't exist in the things that people can give us. Easy in the easy kind of pain management or, you know, the, the things that are just treating the symptoms rather than really getting to that root of the cause. So that was what inspired me. I started a, a little, I put myself in a retreat pretty much for 10 weeks. And I didn't realize, well, wait
Tessa (:A second. So how did you, how did you go about that?
Erin (:Yeah, so I, I literally, like, when I left that the therapist's office, the first place, like I detoured, I was gonna drive home. I like did a u-turn to go to the library. I was like, I need reference materials,
Well, yeah. And, and you know, and to me it almost sounds like you were really being guided that day. Like, no
Get over? I think that I was holding the cost of like, if I do not figure this out, I might as well kill myself now. Like, I should just die. Like there was, it was like, I am either going to accidentally kill myself engaging in these behaviors, or I'm going to get so caught up that, you know, I'm out. Or like, but I know that I got to a place that it really felt like I either do this and figure it out, or life is not worth it. I might as well die. Those were the, those were the two things that I was at at that moment. And I really leaned into life like 100% I think before that, you know, like death floated around. But I didn't really care that the idea of death was floating around. Mm-Hmm.
It is not my job to let that, it was like, I need to figure this out. And just every ounce of energy came with so much clarity and I just pulled all the energy back towards myself. And I wanna name that I'm one of those people that are fairly empathic, definitely heart-centered, definitely care about other people in my life. And I think people like me, we constantly have to check our boundaries and be like, how much am I giving away? And how much am I actually holding to take care of myself? And there was a big shift in like, you know, I, for the first time really gave myself permission to say no. And I was like, Nope. Taking care of myself right now. Nope. Life or death matter. I need to like focus here. You know? And that allowed me to actually receive some of the love that I was so used to giving, but I was always feeling empty inside.
Tessa (:Mm. So it sounds like you were really courageous. Like you, you just didn't even, it didn't matter at that point. You were, you just knew the stakes were really high. You were like, I've gotta figure this out because the alternative is death either quickly or slowly. Mm-Hmm.
I remember one time I lived with, or I hung out with a lot of people who would be like, so, you know, I don't know what your, your rating is, but you know, the B word that sometimes girls call each other. And all of a sudden that was like, not okay with me. And I remember being like, I'm not going to be spoken like too, like that anymore.
Really? Deeply feeling cared for. 'cause one of my friends was just like, wait. And I just like, I just hung up the phone and went for my walk for the day. And then she drove up in the car and she was like, I am really sorry. I love you. I think she had called like, you know, just the, it wasn't just that word, but it was like all the C word and the S word, but as like, just the means of speaking to each other, not as an insult. So she, she drove up and she was like, I'm so sorry. I love you so much. I didn't mean anything. And it was just really interesting because I realized how much I was tolerating from the world around and I didn't really know what it was like to have a boundary and have people actually take care of that boundary willing. I did not know that people were willing to drive to me to make sure that I was okay because I was usually the one taking care of and like putting on the face that everything was good and I was okay.
Tessa (:Yeah. It sounds like that was really stirring up some stuff for other people because their support link, you wasn't available to them.
Erin (:True too.
Yeah.
Tessa (:Oh, that sounds amazing. So did you, was that relationship, did that heal and everything like repaired and went
Erin (:Forward? Yeah, I think there were some relationships that kind of fell out and um, and you know, I also ended up leaving that area after college. So there was like a distance between them, but there was never any animosity towards anybody in my life. And I would be happy to hear from anybody from back in the day anytime. But yeah, so that was, that was a big piece of it. And there was also the, the awareness that I wasn't aware
And I started to realize that something would happen and I would find myself in a behavior real fast. And when I slowed down, I realized that what was actually happening was something would happen. I would have a thought about that, that would lead to another thought that would lead to another thought, and then I would get to the behavior. But when I slowed down, I found that each one of those thoughts was a place to get off of that train was like a choice. Yes. And I didn't actually have access to that because I was in such a kind of traumatized, you know, PTSD reactive state for so much of my life that I couldn't tolerate. You know, it's so funny. I'm a yoga teacher, I teach meditation, but when I started back then I could not lay down and do Shavasana, the relaxation at the end. Oh my
Tessa (:Goodness.
Not sit and do a meditation. Walking was my meditation. Like I needed to be moving. And that was a time that I would regularly just have panic attacks like randomly. Mm mm Um, and usually my panic attacks would not call a bunch of attention. They would just be something internal and I would usually get quiet or something because I didn't ever want to draw more attention to myself in that space. So you'd
Tessa (:Like just wait them out or something?
Erin (:Yeah, sometimes I would say, can you do something? You know, and I would just like put somebody else on task for a second so that I could like disappear. But it was just a regular kind of thing that my nervous system was so, so, so, so hijacked. And I say all of this because like I know how to calm my nervous system down. Now I know how to sit
Isn't that amazing? Yes. Thankfully. So. But we do, I think you're right. You know, we do have to have the intention otherwise we just spin around in the same little orbit.
Erin (:Absolutely. And I talk about all that all the time. Like a lot of times, you know, in therapy we're taught to like go in and go into, you know, what's your memory? What's your story, what's your pain? And sometimes there's not always the intentional aspect of that when we do therapeutic work. And I always like to bring intention in is like, where do we wanna go? Because when we have intention and we're clear about where we wanna go, we'll find plenty of darkness. That's in the way of us getting to that intention. Mm-Hmm.
Hmm. I love that. So when, okay. I wanna, um, know from you, I would like to know from you, Erin, when you were in that 10 week
So it was really funny. I will, I will tell you, um, two parts of this. I think the first part was just realizing how I would get stuck in these moods that I did not know how to get out of. But I knew the places that would get me out of them. And it's so funny, there were two places that I would regularly go to. One, I was living in Savannah, Georgia at the time, so I would drive down to tithe island and get to the ocean, which makes a lot of sense. Mm-Hmm.
That's surprising.
Erin (:Something about like, I could for the most part afford something in Walmart at any given time. And there was just something about being able to provide something. I don't even know what it was, but it was like, I would, I was regularly, Walmart was closest also, so I would regularly take myself to Walmart or the beach to kind of just shift my energy and that was an awareness. But then what started happening was I would be doing something random, like walking across the street and all of a sudden this happiness would like bubble up within me and I would
Tessa (:Be like, oh my goodness,
Erin (:Yes, I'm so happy. I don't even know what this is coming from. And it was something so different than, um, any other happiness that I had had before, which was like based on the entertainment that was around me or based on the accomplishment that I had done. But this was just like the happiness of being rather than doing. And it blew every other happiness that I had experienced out of the water.
Tessa (:I love that. That sounds really beautiful. A natural organic happiness. And it was just coming from within you.
Erin (:I just want everybody to have that. That's like my biggest wish is just like, to just have that happiness that comes from deeply loving, respecting and caring for yourself. Because when we land there, we have everything that we could possibly need.
Tessa (:Yes. May that be so, so Erin, you, I know, you know, like when you were, when we were talking, you were talking about the body in some really specific ways. And so a big component of this and why you are in doing somatic work is the body in that relationship. Can you help, um, our listeners understand a little bit about how the body could support them?
Erin (:Sure. Um, well one of the things that kind of like started with me when I first started thinking about building a relationship with my body, which I don't think we really think about. I have a relationship with my body
No worries. You can just pick that up. Okay.
Erin (:So yeah. So that's, that would be like the case of, for example, um, a trauma that's trapped in the body or unprocessed feelings, um, that have turned into physiological states like anxiety.
Erin (:Definitely. Definitely. And what I like too about when I started working with the body, it's so interesting because in, in therapy, in psychology we're all pretty familiar with the term trigger, you know? Mm-Hmm
That's how we interpret emotions. So to get clarity and gain, um, more capacity for emotions, it's actually capacity for feeling what is in our bodies. Um, but being able to hold and comfort and be with those triggers so that we don't have to react to them. But understanding the worst thing that can happen to us is a sensation
Because it's not like it, um, it actually is experiencing as though it's actually happening,
Erin (:Right? Yeah. And it's just like, whoa, this sounds dangerous, let's get outta here
That's very powerful. Okay. I want you to just repeat that.
Beautifully said. I love that. I'm just like resonating with all kinds of tingles right now. I'm so excited that you brought this to share today. Uh, the, so the power of the body is really the power of freedom.
Erin (:It really is. And I always am like, it's not real until it's in your body, which is why, you know, my work is called embodied freedom because it's like how do we really get to that place where we are actually living from a free place where we are fully in choice, where we are fully conscious, um, and we have to, the only place to do that is landing in our bodies.
Tessa (:Hmm. Beautiful. Erin, I would love to keep talking today, but this is, this is our time for our episode. Thank
Erin (:You so much for having me.
Tessa (:Oh yeah. I'm just super excited about what you've brought here and, and getting to know you even more. I'm, I'm glad we had that other meeting,
Yeah. My, um, website is my name erin la porto.com. And there is a free gift at aaron la porto.com/self-care/jour, no self dash care dash journal. So it's a self-care journal. It's about 70 something pages. There's a bunch that's all content for you and what are the best self-care things to put in. And it's really a self-awareness journal of what works for you, what doesn't. So it's a place to experiment to try on to self-discover. And then there's, um, the, the second part of it is all the places to write and take notes and to do the different practices and kind of study yourself and what really gives you the most back. So yeah, that's what I offer you all.
Tessa (:I I think that's a wonderful gift. I know a lot of my listeners love to journal. You know, they're not new to self-growth, but the, I think this journal could really give a kind of a new interesting structure to things and, um, support a lot of people on their journey. So I encourage you all to go there, Erin, ERIN lo Porto, L-O-P-O-R-T o.com/self care journal, and we will of course have that in the show notes. Erin, before we go, I'd love for you to, if you have one other, one other thing. Well, I know you do, when we were talking earlier, we were talking about this body as your friend piece. And I'd love to know if you wanted to share a little bit more around that, or maybe a way people could get started with making the body, helping the body to be their friend.
Erin (:Yeah. Um, to just think of it as a friend and to think about your body as like, how, what is the, what is the health of my relationship with my body? Not as what is my body's health, but what is the health of the relationship I have with my body? Because if you were to treat probably anybody in your life, the way you treat your body, most of us, that person would not hang around. That person would not open up to us. That person would not trust us and reveal all of themselves to you. So I invite you to really treat your body, talk to your body like it's a friend. Sometimes our body's very young or has a very young part presence, so sometimes we have to talk to it like it's a child. But if we hold ourselves with the kindness that we would tend to hold any friend, then that is when the body reveals its love and its wisdom and it's light to you. So to just be a good friend in that direction and, and do your part to listen, to understand, and to make adjustments for this different kind of consciousness than our mind is, speaks a different language.
Tessa (:Yeah, it certainly does. And thank goodness for that. Thank you so much for that. So the holding with kindness Yeah. And creating trust. I, I think that's a wonderful, wonderful, um, comparison that you just made that will help people remember that Right. Treating their body, the health of the relationship you have with your body. Yeah. Um, as at least as good as the best relationships you have with people. Yeah.
And it'll make all your relationships better too, I promise.
Mm. Nice. Yes. Well, thank you so much for being here and say yes to your soul today. Erin,
Erin (:Thank you for having me. And thank you for this incredible work that you bring into this world and thanks for people to reflect on that up level us all. I do believe one person's effort affects us all. So, um, thank you for this work.
Tessa (:You're very welcome. Alright, it's time to go for today. I look forward to being with you again next week as we dive into something else, juicy, meaningful, and deep stuff. All right. Lots of love and light. Bye-Bye for now.