What if the chaos around you was not the problem, and the real work was learning to be the stillness inside it? This one is for anyone pulled by everything at once who forgets to look within.

Healer Safra Turner explores the difference between reacting and responding, why we outsource our worth, and how two quiet minutes a day can return you to yourself. Her personal views, not medical advice.

About the Guest:

Safra Turner is the founder of the Institute for Holistic Health and Advanced Energetica (iHolistica), with nearly three decades in integrative healing across the US and Israel.

Key Takeaways:

• Much overwhelm comes not from misunderstanding balance, but from forgetting to look for it within at all.
• Reacting hands your power to the moment; responding lets you observe and choose how to meet it.
• When worth is sourced outside yourself, balance spirals; steadiness begins with knowing you are already enough.
• Culture shapes the chaos; achievement-driven environments can quietly manufacture anxiety in adults and children.
• Change is built small: two unhurried minutes of checking in with yourself can slowly reshape a whole day.

Connect With the Guest:

• iHolistica.com (free membership with articles, books, and courses): https://iHolistica.com
• SafraTheHealer.substack.com: https://SafraTheHealer.substack.com

Episode Chapters:

[00:00] The Stillness Inside the Storm (approx.) Reframing chaos as something to inhabit differently

[06:00] Why We Forget to Look Within (approx.) The cultural and personal roots of overwhelm

[14:00] Reaction Versus Response (approx.) The quiet shift that returns your power

[22:00] The Root of Imbalance (approx.) How outsourcing worth pulls us off center

[30:00] Sovereignty on a Tuesday (approx.) What balance looks like in ordinary moments

[37:00] Small Steps, Real Change (approx.) Two minutes a day and the slow work of return

[43:00] Where to Learn More (approx.) Safra's institute and writing

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00:00:17 Shreya: Welcome to Soul Sparks. I'm your host, Shreya, and today I am sitting with Saffron Turner, the founder of Holistic Institute for Holistic Health and Advanced Energetic. So welcome, saffron. I'm honored to have you on my show.

00:00:32 Safra Turner: Thank you so much for having me here, Shreya. I appreciate it as well.

00:00:36 Shreya: Thank you so much. And with that, saffron, first of all, I'm really honored to have you. And, uh, to begin with, like the phrase I am the storm. I find it so alive because it's not about escaping chaos. It's about inhabiting it differently. So what do most people misunderstand about what balance actually is.

00:00:59 Safra Turner: Well, I think it would be less the misunderstanding of balance and rather the reaction to their surrounding environment, and not even giving themselves the opportunity to consider the balance within us. More often than not, in our everyday lives, uh, life leads us rather than us experiencing life in a conscious and present manner. And what that does is it creates a scenario where constantly responding, we are responding to this chaos. We're responding to that experience. We're responding to that person or that message or that stress or whatever it is. And what that response does is, is it takes us out of a place of balance, of centeredness, and it throws us into the turmoil of Constantly trying to put out fires, constantly trying to make sense of things, constantly chasing after something. And so rather than people misunderstanding balance, we forget to even look for it in the first place.

00:02:15 Shreya: And where does that misunderstanding tend to come from? Is it cultural or something deeper?

00:02:22 Safra Turner: Well, I would think that a part of it is certainly cultural, and another part of it is something deeper, uh, depending on where we are, um, our backgrounds, depending on our, the spirit, um, or traditions that we are raised in, depending on the entire cultural, um, environment that we are a part of would certainly impact the way that we would react to different situations. So for example, I've been, I've been reading recently a number of articles, um, from Japan, from people experiencing life in Japan? And oftentimes what that article the articles are describing are not chaos or turmoil, but rather leaving empty space in conversation, not needing to react to every moment, not having to chase after a crazy lifestyle. Um, and so there's a lot more calm. There's a lot more balance. If you're looking back into, you know, the, the origins of, of Japanese, um, uh, culture, you're looking at, you know, a Shinto tradition, a very nature based tradition. And then that, of course, you know, over thousands of years led to where Japan is now in its own, its own cultural experience. And then you could look at, let's say, the United States, where the culture in the United States is always about achieving. It's all about achieving constantly and consistently. Children have to achieve good grades in school in order to achieve a higher education they need to achieve, um, uh, in sports, they need to achieve in the classroom, they need to achieve at home. The parents need their children to achieve. In order for them to be looking good, they need to achieve a lifestyle that they can, uh, pay for a. A life that that is more expensive generally than can be afford. They need to achieve high jobs and high. And all of that does is creates a very serious chaos in the everyday life. Now I'm in the United States and I came from overseas. Um, and where I came from could be fairly chaotic too, but there was a, a precedent of family first and of, uh, caring for self and caring for the collective. And then, you know, the achievements here in the United States, it's all about achievements, which creates chaos. So the majority of the clients that I work with on the emotional scale here in the United States are simply trying to work past anxiety, sleeplessness, um, chaos in their lives. So yes, that aspect is certainly a cultural thing. Um, but the other aspect is that we are living in a world that demands that we are constantly focusing outside of ourselves on this, this diversion, this conversation, this chaos, this problem, this issue are focusing on what's going on in another part of the world and becoming concerned, scared, worried, nervous. And that takes a very serious toll both on our, um, our brain itself and the function of our neurotransmitters as it responds, um, throughout our entire body, which turns our body into a, um, machine for anxiety, you could say. Um, and that demand for us to look outside takes us out of a state of natural balance, which we would be in a, you know, inner focused world and throws us into the requirements of reacting to that which is going on around. So it certainly comes from both aspects. Um, but I would say certainly that depending on where you live, would depend on how chaotic things around you and your life would feel.

00:06:20 Shreya: Yeah. I think, uh, that balance as stillness in motion rather than absence or of turbulence, that's a reframe that I think most people need. And I think that lands quietly. And you have worked with people nearly thirty years in holistic healing. So what is the most common root pattern you see underneath the surface of someone who feels chronically overwhelmed?

00:06:46 Safra Turner: Yes. So in general, when we are not able to find our balance in our own personal lives, and I'm going to remove all of the chaos of the world and just speak on the personal level. What is happening is that that individual is externalizing their experience. What that means is they're looking outside for validation, for worthiness, for love, and for proof of of self. In other words, instead of turning within and knowing that you are enough and it's very, it takes it's a very simple act, but it's also very difficult for the mind to comprehend. When we turn within, when we know ourselves, when we put ourselves and listening to ourselves as the forefront for our own sense of self worth and being in, in our experience, you become the storm. When we know who we are, when you know who you are, then you know how to respond to a situation that is happening around you. However, when we are placing our validation, our sense of worthiness, our our willingness to be loved on external sources. Then the balance loses its loses the balance completely, and the control spirals out of control. Because we're dependent upon another for our happiness, our love, our joy, our worthiness, etc.. So within when you can stop, even if it is just taking a few moments in the morning to turn into yourself and say, how am I feeling today? How can I love myself better today? And today is a good day to have a good day that is already enough to get you started onto that path of reclaiming the balance in your own life and becoming the storm, the chaos in the world. It will always be that. It's simply the the experience that we are having on the human collective scale at this point. However, the balance of becoming the storm within it is each of our birthrights. It is within yourself.

00:09:00 Shreya: Yeah. And, does that, does that pattern look different in women versus the other people you work with?

00:09:10 Safra Turner: Well, yes. Absolutely. Um, the underlying reasons are the same. Worthiness. If you do not feel worthy, then the imbalance will, will absolutely play itself out. However, the mannerisms that the experience has had certainly depends, just as if as it depends on culture. Of course it depends on on the masculine or feminine and of course the child as well versus the adult. Um, for example, um I see in women, um it always plays out as this extreme anxiety, right? Or this lack of sleep. I work with a lot of women, a lot of mothers. Um, they're always chasing after making sure everybody else is cared for and not caring for themselves. For them, their control is when they can care for others. However, because it's almost impossible to always care for everybody else all the time, they're never able to find their balance within that. They never feel like they are enough. And so they don't sleep. They're anxious. They're stressed out. Now for men, on the other hand, it's it's a a security men in general, in the natural state, if we're looking back, you know, at the the original man, let's say hunters and gatherers, uh, more often than not, you know, the men were out hunting and the women were, were, uh, cooking or, or keeping, you know, the hearth, let's say. And this wasn't across the board, but this is just a generalization of the, of that, of that which we are innately the divine masculine and divine feminine and the divine masculine. They, they caretake they, they insure security. That's what they do. They, they in themselves are attempting to create stability. So the man would would respond in a very different way. When they're feeling out of control that respond can often when the when they're not feeling like they are able to to be there, it will come out in, in anger, in rage. Um, this can come out, um, in, in excess from feminine. Of course, this can come out in um addiction, but very much so in, in men. Um, these are all signs not of that everything is awful, but rather that they do not have that balance within their own lives. This can also come out in other ways. Men turn within men can become very broody, um where women, you know, um can respond through, through frustration or, or, you know, um, expressing what they're not feeling. A man will turn inside themselves oftentimes and not share. Rather they will shut themselves down because that's creating a shield again, back to that protector thing. But in this, in this um aspect, it's protecting self from the world. Um, and then in children, um it comes out very differently because children as parents, we, we don't realize, but we put a lot of pressure on our children because we want them to grow up in the best ways possible. However, what that does for a child is it, it, it oftentimes forces a child to shut down aspects of who they are. So this can play out in the United States. Um, there's, there's such an, uh, pressure on high achieving that American children have a tendency to deal with a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress in, in the wrong manners, not because of life, but because of expectations, um, always trying to do well in school. They're not sleeping at night. They're trying to pass tests. They're trying to, to prove themselves constantly and consistently. So you have the child anxiety, which is, is skyrocketed in the United States. Um, but more so if we look across the world at of children. What happens is that natural state of the child, their natural areas of genius will become suppressed. They will begin to hide who they are or lose aspects of self in order to fit into a mold that is expected of them. And what happens over time is that this will lend to a state of of unhappiness. They will not feel satisfied in life because they are not able to express who they are within them, their true selves.

00:13:26 Shreya: I think, I think that distinction from one's own sovereignty. Uh, I think that's an interesting way to name it. Like the chaos isn't external. It's the gap between who we are and how we are living. And tell me about what sovereignty actually feels like in a regular day, not in a spiritual retreat, but on a Tuesday morning when everything is asking for you at once.

00:13:50 Safra Turner: Yes, absolutely. So. So when you're using the word sovereignty here, um, I would say that in those moments, those are also the aspects on the emotional balance of becoming that storm. Um, you are still human and you still have human experiences. However, the change and the difference is that you are not reacting. Um, and, and I, I was not clear in the beginning, I used the term react and respond interchangeably. And rather what I should have stated in the beginning was you are reacting to life, which is basically, um, something happens and you, you react in some manner that's out of control. It's out of your control. And therefore you, you lash out or express yourself in these different manners when you are in a state of, of balance and when you have become aware of your own sovereignty in your experience, there is no longer that need to react or to lash out or to to search for meaning in every experience that happens. Rather, you respond to a scenario, you observe what is going on around you, and you choose how to interact with that moment. So for example. A simple example in everyday life. Everyday example for every everyone that drives a car would be the road rage experience. A reactor or a person out of control would easily fly into road rage, endangering not only themselves, but all of those around them in order to to feel good about themselves. But it's not really feeling good. Rather, they feel chaos in their lives, and that is a way that they can say, I have power over everybody else. I can behave in this manner and feel a sense of control. What it really shows is a lack of control in the individual's life experience. On the other hand, when a person flies into road rage, the other cars around them can choose to to react and fly into road rage themselves. Everybody yells at everyone or gets mad. Or in the sovereign state of of being that storm. You can respond to the moment you see what's happening. You're aware of, of, of the, of the, the lack of control that the others are experiencing. You do not need to become a part of that. You can continue driving as normal. You can pull over and allow the experience to pass. You can choose to engage in a different manner without, without the anger or the rage that comes along with it. You can simply let that moment pass without it affecting you. That's the difference between reaction and response. That's the difference between falling into the chaos or becoming the storm. That's the difference between dependency on an external validation or external things going on around you, and the difference between, um, your sovereignty being within yourself as a sovereign individual.

00:16:55 Shreya: I think that's the piece most teaching skip the ordinary moment because the extraordinary ones are easy to be present in. Um, and it's, it's a Tuesday morning that requires the real work. And you work with universal law and integrative natural therapeutics. So for someone who is curious but skeptical, what is the invitation into this world that doesn't require them to abandon their rational mind?

00:17:24 Safra Turner: Oh, absolutely. So let me before I even respond to that, let me state that I do not believe something unless I experience it myself. The reason I became a healer, the reason I stepped into the consciousness arena, the reason that I do the work that I do. Uh, one very large aspect of it is because I did not believe a word that anybody told me. I didn't believe what people would say that they could do or what they promised. I needed to see it for myself. So that's the first part of that. Now, the second part of that is to each individual, you have your ability to choose the way and the manners that you are going to interact with the world around you. I always say start simple. We don't need to take huge steps in our lives and in our experience in order to prove ourselves. I am not a person that believes in extremes to experience, so you do not need to. Let's say we can take the Doctor Strange movie. Um, you do not need to go from from being in a place of feeling completely out of control to all of a sudden making magic happen and walking into different dimensions. Small steps make a huge difference. So if we're talking about moving from that state of reaction into a state of responding or moving from that state of validating through externalities, Um, and we're turning within yourself, what you would simply be talking about is taking a small step that for you will prove it. Look for signs and symbols around you in your life experience. For example, ask for signs or symbols to come up for you to be able to make sense of experiences in your life. When you are looking at your life experience and saying, I'm not sure what to do. Then say to yourself, okay, well, now I am going to look at the symbolism of things that are happening around me to make sense for myself, of how to respond, or even more so on the simplest of manners. Take that two minutes in the morning or in the evening to sit with yourself before you're getting out of bed, or before you have fallen asleep. To sit with yourself for two full minutes. No internet, no interaction with others. Turn within yourself and say, how am I feeling? How am I doing? Feel into your self that two minutes slowly expands into touching every aspect of every part of your life experience. It just takes time. And it's a slow but steady progression. But over time, that two minutes becomes your life experience.

00:20:13 Shreya: Yeah, I think that's the important thing. Like that's grounding answer. But like, whatever the framework, the body knows and the work is learning to trust what it's already telling us and yeah. Yeah. And what does the long road of this work look like? Because people come to healing in a crisis and then life stabilizes and the practice slips. So how do you hold the thread?

00:20:44 Safra Turner: Well, I would actually share, um, the story of the woman that, that has helped me to develop a holistic. I will not share her entire story, but what I will share is that ten years ago she came to me and she's been public about this, which is why it's okay that I'm sharing this. Um, she came to me, um, in order to heal her marriage. Um, what ended up happening from there is she realized that that marriage was not for her, um, and went through a ten year process of going from, uh, a religious, uh, environment that she lived in, um, within her marriage opening up into beginning to consider that there might be more out there in the conscious and spiritual world without trying to, she wasn't going out and saying, I want to make magic today or I want to. Rather, as life played its role on her, as she went through the turmoils of of the the end of that relationship and finding who became the love of her life, um, raising her children, learning what it was to not have a financial stability like she had in her marriage, and then finding herself through all of these different experiences in her life. Her life went from a state of, I don't know who I am, I don't believe in the worthiness of myself, um, to a state of I am worthy of love. I am worthy of being loved. I am worthy of being an amazing mother to my children. And therefore I am. And she has since manifested a lifestyle and a life where she has left, uh, an old town. She's moving into a dream environment of, uh, buying a lot of acres of land, building a number of homes on that acreage for her and her family to be able to live and creating that experience, which was something which ten years ago may not have even been a blip on her screen. And now she's living in a lined life. So that is a process of coming. She came for a couple of sessions on fixing a marriage that was broken. She realized her truth in the experience, and then she went on over those next ten years to find her own truth and to create her ideal lifestyle in the way that was best for her and her family. That is in action. What happens? And she did not try. She didn't go out of her way to say, I'm going to live this kind of a life over time and over the ability to begin to turn within. And that ability to choose for her sovereignty or her worthiness, it naturally came to play that that idea that aligned life developed around her.

00:23:34 Shreya: That's a wonderful thing you have shared, and thank you so much for joining and sharing all the information with us. And if after this, my listeners want to connect with you and want to learn more about you or about your work, then what's the best place to find you?

00:23:49 Safra Turner: Oh, absolutely. There are two very great places. The first is the website I dot com. Within the membership arena, it's absolutely free membership. The only reason we actually have membership is to protect the knowledge and the information from suppression and censorship. Um, you have an incredible amount of academic and research based articles on all things from, um, therapeutics all the way to consciousness studies, um, as well as a free course to learn about the literally what we talked about today. Um, and a library of, uh, forgotten and suppressed books over thousands of years amongst other things. I also write on Substack at Safra the Healer, and you have loads of great articles on Substack.

00:24:41 Shreya: Yes. And I'll definitely make sure to attach all these details and links below so that the listeners can find them easily and get in touch with you. And thank you so much again, Safra. Uh, this is such a wonderful conversation. And to all my listeners, you already have what you need inside you. This was just a reminder. We will see you on the next time on Soul Spark. Until then, do not forget to hit the follow button. Subscribe and feel free to share your thoughts because your ears deserve premium content. Thank you.