Ep #216: Getting Anchored with Lisa Candera

This is Feminist Wellness, and I’m your host, Nurse Practitioner, Functional Medicine expert, and life coach, Victoria Albina. I’ll show you how to get unstuck, drop the anxiety, perfectionism, and codependency so you can live from your beautiful heart. Welcome, my love; let’s get started.

Hello, hello, my love. I hope this finds you doing so well. This week, I am beyond delighted to bring you a conversation I recently had with the amazing Lisa Candera. Lisa Candera is The Autism Mom Coach and this month, April, is Autism Awareness Month, so it seemed most fitting to share this conversation with you.

As always, I share these conversations with folks who've been a part of Anchored, my flagship six-month coaching, breathwork, thought work, and somatics program. I share these conversations with you because I find them really inspiring.

I remember not that long ago, yeah, probably 10, 15 years ago, when I was super deep in the throes of my own emotional outsourcing, my codependent, perfectionist, and people-pleasing thought habits, I felt like I was A-number one, the only one who could possibly be this messed up. B-number two, I was, to put it elegantly, permafucked. Oh, and Lisa swears a bunch. So, we're just going to give this whole episode and explicit thingy, explicit marker. There you go. There will be more swearing. That's for you to do with what you will.

And yeah, I thought I was permafucked. I thought I was screwed. I thought I had a defective character, and could never live an interdependent life. A joyful life. A life with good communication. A good sense of self. A sense of self that wasn't predicated on everyone else validating me, thinking I was amazing, and hiding my true self away.

None of that seemed within the realm of possibility because I didn't have models for it. I certainly did not have models at home, in my family of origin or really, in the world around me. I didn't have folks talking about their codependency.

And so, here we are, right? Breaking these taboos. Bringing a feminist lens of real talk to the ways we have learned to survive and thrive in the world by becoming emotional outsourcers. Here we are, talking about how these settings in our nervous system will control us and how we show up until we learn new ways of being.

And that's what we do in Anchor. That's what we do here on Feminist Wellness. And that's what Lisa has done in her own life and does with her clients. So, I'm incredibly excited to bring you this conversation, and to share something very new and very exciting with you.

Folks have asked me for a shorter program. Anchored is six months, it's an investment of time, money, and energy. It's a lot, and it's the whole lot that I truly, deeply believe we need to make real actionable, sustainable strides towards living interdependently and stepping out of emotional outsourcing.

And it may not be the a lot that's right for you in your life. And so, I wanted to create something that could be more accessible, and the Somatic Studio was born. So, if you head over to VictoriaAlbina.com/somaticstudio, you can learn all about my new 12-week program. So, half as long.

We will be exploring somatic or body-based practices. There will be an awful lot of delicious, amazing coaching in community, a Slack channel, lots of nerdatry, lots of polyvagal exercises. Lots of talking about, thinking about, practicing, working with the concepts of safety and connection, relationship communication.

These things, starting from our safety within and rippling that out to feeling safer and safer in the world. It's an amazing program. I'm really excited, and I'm stoked for you to check it out and join us in this inaugural group. It's going to be a really amazing, good time. And this group is going to be the group that gets the most of me because we are doing the whole darn thing live.

So, if you've been wanting to work with me, and you're like, “But six months in Anchored, I'm starting a new job, I'm starting grad school,” or whatever it is, check out the Somatic Studio. I'm going to say one more time, it's going to be a good time. All right, my loves, without further ado, here is Lisa Candera.

Victoria Albina: Oh, hello, my love. I'm so excited to have you here with us today.

Lisa Candera: I'm so excited to be here.

Victoria: Yeay. Would you please start us off by telling the good people your name, your pronoun, where you live, and share land acknowledgement, please.

Lisa: My name is Lisa Candera. My pronouns are she/her. I live in Simsbury, Connecticut. And my land acknowledgement is Pequot.

Victoria: Beautiful. So,  my love, what lights you up? What are you passionate about?

Lisa: I'm really passionate about how we can learn to regulate our own nervous system.

Victoria: Oh, that's a delightful coincidence.

Lisa: I know. How did I find you, right?

Victoria: Magic? Pure magic, yeay. And so, you do incredible work in the world. Will you please tell the good people what you do.

Lisa: I coach moms raising kids with autism, because I am a mom raising a kid with autism. And being a parent of a child with, let's say, big emotions, one of the things that we learn very early on is all of the things that we can do to help our children regulate themselves. But we're never taught that for ourselves, at all. And so, that is a really huge, missed opportunity. And it leads to a lot of suffering for the parents.

And so, in my case, to get better at this mom thing and finding life coaching, I was so drawn to your work with the nervous system and with self-regulation. When I first heard you, I was like, “This is it. This is the missing piece.”

I went through the Life Coach School certification. And I really liked the model, the causative piece, but at the same time, it was missing something for me, in the sense it wasn't resonating with my self-experience of thoughts create our feeling. And they do, but there was something else happening when…

This energy, with my son and I, especially during COVID, during the pandemic, we were in a two-bedroom apartment, there was a lot of anxiety on his end from the virtual learning. And so, I always felt like my heart was in my chest before anyone said or did anything. I was trying to unpack that and figure that out.

Victoria: Such powerful work.

Lisa: I didn't feel like my heart was in my chest, because that is weird. I felt like it was in my mouth.

Victoria: That's so funny, my brain just sort of made sense of that. Isn’t it incredible how brains will do that? So, you were recently in Anchored, my six-month program for overcoming codependency. And what's really interesting is we had coached one-on-one for like a year, and you decided to join Anchored. What led you to say Anchored is the next step for me? What interested you about the program?

Lisa: I was just really interested in getting more of what you teach. I mean, I had done the somatic work with you a bunch, and I just wanted more of it. I wanted to see how you integrated it into a group. I wanted to see how it worked with people who didn't already know the self-coaching model, like I did. I was studying polyvagal off the side, Deb Dana courses, I was doing all that stuff. So, working with you just really brought that all together. And I really wanted more of it.

But most importantly, I wanted to see how I could integrate that coaching into my coaching experience. I wanted to see how it was done by a master.

Victoria: Thank you. I'm honored by that. One of the things people often ask me is, why do the group, right? Folks want one-on-one for a variety of reasons. And so, we did one-on-one, and yet you decided to join this group experience. So, can you talk a little bit about what it was like to be in the container, in the community, to get all of that support from everyone else? And, I don't know, what do you think? Is one-on-one a thing of the past?

Lisa: No, I don't think so. I mean, I love one-on-one. I love providing one-on-one; I provide one-on-one now, and I eventually will increase that. I think that the benefit of one-on-one is a lot of that foundational stuff, that can be really great if you like that.

The benefit, to me, of the group, is that you aren't always on the hook. So, for instance, I had a client today, she came to the call, and this is very typical in autism parenting, our kids go through sleep cycles. I took one look at her, and I was like, “You need to go to bed. Go to bed.”  And she said, “Okay.” I'm like, “Yes.”

But then I realized I've been that person before, but when I was in a group, I could put my headphones on, I could listen to it. I didn't have to be on. I could sort of absorb it, and that was wonderful. Not always having to be the person who brought the thing and being able to listen to other people.

Because at the end of the day, our problems, at the core, aren't really that different. And it's so interesting because I came to Anchor it and I was like, “Yeah, I just want this nervous system stuff. I'm not codependent. I don't see myself as a codependent person.”

So, different women were talking about their experience with partners, and I was like, “Oh, I'm codependent with my son. My 15-year-old son. My emotions are dependent on how he's doing. I am evaluating whether I'm a good mom based on how I interpret him doing.” That codependence, right? So, there was some discovery there. You're like looking at me like, “Girl I knew that.”

Victoria: I am, and I did. But do go on.

Lisa: But that wasn’t how I would have described it for myself. I called it enmeshment, but still, there was a disconnect for me, right? Because I always thought of those words in terms of romantic relationships. So, I got to unpack that for myself. And I also just got to see people being coached who didn't know the coaching model, per se. I got to see how you approached that. I got to think about how I would approach it.

It also let me come to the experience as the beginner. Because I will say that coaching with you, because I admire you and I consider you a mentor, I don't want to say it was intimidating, but there was part of it where I wanted you to think I was a good coach. So, if I'm coming to you with these problems, how good of a coach could I possibly be? I mean, that's obviously my own mind drama about this situation. But being in the group, where everyone was just raw and themselves, was such a gift.

Victoria: Hmm, yeah, I love that. And of course, I don't need to say this, but I will, humans have human brains and life gets lifey. And the best of the best of coaches have human brains, right?

Lisa: Yeah. And I got the other coaches coach, too, in your container. So, that was helpful too. Like, “Oh, I don't have to be a coach now, I can just drop that,” which was really nice.

Victoria: That is one of the important things in Anchored. One of our community guidelines is that we will not coach each other. We won't step in as the fixer, the martyr, the savior, the saint. We will be in the role we're in, which is a family member. Right? We're in this Anchored family to support each other, love each other, and practice not fixing or coaching others. And I think that's really powerful. Right?

Lisa: Yeah, definitely. And that's the last thing I wanted, right? Because I've been in different containers where there's free-for-all coaching, and I personally don't love that. When I posted something within our Slack channel, folks were just like, “Oh my god, I still feel that for you. I’m here for you.” That was just so nice to have, without more. That was what I needed. That's what I got.

Victoria: Right? Well, we need to be witnessed, we need to be seen. And it's such an important part of healing from our codependent, perfectionist, and people-pleasing habits to recognize. We don't need to perform being lovable. We don't need to prove our worth. We just get to show up, like we said, messy and raw, and let that be enough to make us lovable and worthy of care and attention. And that's my favorite part of the Anchored community.

Lisa: I agree. And as at that happened for me, and I know I'm not alone in this, in our cohort I was like, “Yeah, I'm in Anchored,” and five minutes later, my life blew up. Right? So, I moved for three months to Rhode Island, [crosstalk], with my son so he could be in an intensive program, which is fantastic. But it was so nice. I literally just brought Anchored with me, and I had that as my anchor, which was really nice.

My dad passed away; there was a lot of stuff going on. And so, I just knew every week, I had that. Twice a week, I could just come in, and I could listen, or I could come in and I’d get coached on some really heavy issues for me. A couple of times, I got so much love and support from the community.

And then, there were things that I shared that other people private messaged me. They were like, “Oh my goodness,” particularly about like OCD and things like that. We're having these side conversations that were just really helpful. I would watch coaching sometimes and I would see somebody having a situation with a child or a parent that so resonated with me, that I would connect to that person, “I just watched the coaching. And I just want you to know you're not alone.” And it was just so nice.

Victoria: I think few things are as healing for our nervous systems, right? What we really want is significance and belonging. And hearing, “You're not alone,” from someone who truly gets it, is yeah, just that is profoundly healing.

Lisa: Yeah, it was interesting, because there was such diversity within that group in all ways, but particularly age and generationally. And so, listening to a mother talk about her grown daughter in a way that I understood from my family, I was just like, wow, like, it wasn't just us.

Victoria: Yeah, I love that. Our youngest member was 20 when she joined, and the oldest was Ethel, who was 76 when she joined.

Lisa: Oh, wow.

Victoria: Isn't that amazing?

Lisa: Yeah, that is.

Victoria: And we've had several people in their 70s and in their 20s. It's mostly folks in their 40s, 30s, 40s I’ve found. But there is just something so beautiful about being around people who are so dedicated to lifelong healing, that they're doing this work in their 70s.

Lisa: Yeah, or people who were like, “Oh, my daughter said this word one day, and I need to learn more about it and so now I’m here.” There was just that openness of like, “Okay, maybe I am. Let me see.”

Victoria: Yeah, it really is the most beautiful group of open hearted, tender raviolis I’ve ever met.

Lisa: Oh, we have a very good director. The way that you create the container is so purposeful, and so that feels really good to begin with. It's not the Wild West. Anything goes, which I really did like. But also, I really liked whenever we did this sort of Brady Bunch Zoom call, and the way that you would talk to us, just gently bringing people into the process. It was just so effective.

And then there were bonuses. The bonuses, I loved the bonuses. Your friend, Dr. Ellen, was it?

Victoria: Yeah. Dr. Eleanor [crosstalk].

Lisa: There were so many good bonuses. That alone, just the education from that, I felt like I read a book, right? It was so good.

Victoria: Oh, I love that. So, I know one of your biggest drivers to come into Anchored was to learn more about somatics, for your own life and for your clients. I'm curious, how has this deepened engagement with your own body somatically, with somatics as a practice? How has it changed your life, your relationships, your coaching? Tell me about it.

Lisa: Somatics, now, is what I go to first. Before I would always be looking for, what am I thinking? Trying to do a model on it, as we're taught. But now, I just always go into my body first. If I feel like my shoulders are up against my ears, it's like, oh, something's happening here. What can I do to relax?

For me, the breathing is just a really big one. It is the thing. Because I can feel that I'm always kind of holding my breath when I'm in a lot of anxiety. So, I'm always just going back to the deep breathing, and to the anchoring into my body, into the chair. Those little things that you taught us that are really effective if you do them.

Victoria: What about in your coaching?

Lisa: Yeah, so in my coaching, it's great because I have the visual of my clients. So sometimes, they'll come to the call, and you can you just tell. And so, I will just be like, “Hey, why don't we just sit here for a second? Do some deep breathing. Shake it out a little bit.” Just to see the change in them is really, really incredible.

One of the things that I do in my program with my clients is we talk about what triggers them in terms of what their kid gets agitated or amped up. And so, I like to do mental rehearsal, from DBT therapy. No practicing ahead of time. And so, doing that with the somatic, you can just, again, see the coupling of deciding how they want to show up and practicing it in their bodies, and then practice how they're going to support themselves at the same time.

I did it a couple of times. I'm like, “Oh, my God, like this is wild.” I've gotten the feedback from my clients, “That was really, really helpful.” I asked them, “What does your body need right now?” “I need to stretch. I need to move.” And I was like, “Yeah, this is great.”

Victoria: I love that. I love that you came in for yourself and are applying this to your parenting, to your coaching, to every aspect of your life. That's so beautiful. So, how is somatic coaching with me different from other coaching you've received?

Lisa: Other coaching is much more cognitive, I would say. Probably? And so, you'll be asked how you feel and what the emotion is and what that's creating. But the somatic, is let’s really go into your body. What's happening? And the somatic also, adding in the part about the inner children, or our hearts, about like, what is this part trying to do? What is it trying to protect, right?

Being able to acknowledge that with more compassion, and just also understanding that what's happening for you is a biological response. I think that, in and of itself, takes down the shame a ton. And think, “Oh, this is my animal body. It's doing this for a reason. This is a learned response. It's an effective one, or it was at one point. Maybe I can unwind this now.” So, it just gives you another avenue into how much power you have over your experience, versus that happening to you.

Victoria: I love that it's such a return to agency; agency and empowerment. And I love that you mentioned somatics and understanding the science as a way to drop the shame.

Lisa: I love that part of it. It was kind of like you find that your thoughts create your feelings, and it's like, oh, my nervous system is interpreting,  through neuroception, information around me. And it's responding to it below the consciousness of my brain. Okay, so it's not because I'm an anxious person. And it's not because I’m high-strung, there is something biologically happening. And understanding that more and dropping into it more is a game changer.

Victoria: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I am curious. I'm thinking about you and all the things  going on in your life, right? You're parenting a kid who's amazing and has complex needs. You are an attorney; you are a fancy pants. You have a full-time gig, you're running the coaching business, you're parenting, you're moving. What would you say to someone who has limited time, like you did, to spend in Anchored? Is it doable?

Lisa: Oh, god. Yeah. I mean, it's completely doable. And it's really whatever you want to make of it. So, you can spend as much time or as little time. It's so easy to spend a lot of time, and it’s just the way that you've structured the program. And also, the actual way it's delivered. So, you do it through a lot of audios, and that is so accessible. I don't need to be in front of my computer looking at you. Most of the time I wasn't, I was walking. That was like a really good way for me to take in the information.

So, it's not a time issue at all. And I don't know where the quote comes from, but it's like, if you don't think that you have 10 minutes for yourself, that means you need an hour, type of a thing. And that's how I think about time. I actually just did a podcast on this for my audience. But I could easily say, “No, I don't have time for this because I'm a single mom, because my kid has a complex needs.”

But that's never the reason, right? Because I could find myself just as easily scrolling on my phone or doing some mindless shit, right. And so, it's really, again, that thinking on purpose, that purposeful attention to yourself. It's thinking of all of the attention that you put outside of yourself onto other people, into their needs. Just turning a bit of that into yourself and making that your project.

If that's all you did within Anchor, to say, “I'm going to do this because I'm committing to myself,” you would get so much out of that experience. And then all of the wisdom from Anchored, as well.

Victoria: I love that. And I love the reframing of time. What do we privilege? What do we prioritize? And what do we put off because of some story in our head?

Lisa: Yeah, I love going to a Bikram yoga studio near me. It's like my favorite thing, just that heat. And there is this sign on the door when you come in, it's a quote by somebody, I’m not sure who it is. But it says something like, ‘if you don't pay attention to your wellness, you're going to have to spend time on your illness.’ And it's like, yeah, I'm trading time now for time later.

Victoria: Yeah. And I think in this case, making time for Anchored, really investing the time in it, helps prevent us from wasting so much time. And I did just say ‘wasting’; y'all know I'm careful with my words. But wasting time on taking things personally, and getting offended, making things about you that aren't, not setting boundaries, and then doing stuff you don't want to be doing. And then oh my god, resentment takes up so much time.

Lisa: Absolutely. And it's not just time, it's the mental and the emotional energy. So, it's the difference between being tired because you've worked hard or being drained. And you get so much back. I completely agree. You get so much back in your life when you're not spending your time and your energy in that kind of shit.

Victoria: Yeah, I love that. No, that's super, super powerful. Yeah. So, we have time, and we decide where to spend it. The other thing is financial resources. What would you say to someone who has never invested in coaching or a program or self-growth? Or who has spent a lot of money on cognitive based coaching and is nervous, like “Is this the next right thing for me?” What would you say to that person?

Lisa: I would say yes. I think that's my short answer to it, and for a couple of reasons. If you've never invested in yourself, that decision to invest in yourself is the first investment that you make in yourself. I mean, that is the game changer, right then and there. You're deciding to do this, and now you decide what you want to get out of it, and you have agency over that.

That, in of itself, is empowering. The making of the decision itself is transformational. That's one. And then two, the cognitive piece. Look, I've done cognitive therapy before, and there is a place for it. But I've never went into cognitive therapy with a goal in mind, right? Like, with real goals and a real roadmap.

And that's what you get in Anchored. It's like, what are you here for? What's your intention? And what are the steps there? And they're provided to you. And then you've got this amazing catalogue of information and resources, for six months. I mean, do you remember any of that from therapy?

I remember maybe that sentence I heard one time, and it was from marriage counselor actually. Right? Not that I remember from therapy, not much. So, it's not really anything I've ever integrated into my life. It didn't have a lasting impact. And I think that's the difference.

This isn't so you can talk about your problems. This is so you can change your life, how you change the way you think about things, the way you show up and the way you want to be.

Victoria: That's so powerful. So powerful. And yeah, I'm sitting here thinking, “No, I don't really remember or anything from…” A lot of things just went right through my ears, from therapy. In a program like this, you get to revisit it and then do the worksheets and then talk about it in Slack and then get coached on it. And then really integrate the material.

Lisa: Yeah, and one of the things I really love about coaching, your coaching, the way that you do it, is that you don't just get to say whatever you want in that. Yeah, you can say it, but someone's going to be like, “But let's take a look at this a little bit further.” You're always being gently challenged to not play small. And that's what I really like about it.

And you'll get to the point in the coaching, and I found this with so many of my familia, it sounds like, “I know I just said that. And I know this…” so they’ll catch themselves. But then, once you get to that part, then you're working on the difference between knowing something intellectually and integrating it.

That's the magic of doing a six-month program, you get so much opportunity. At first, you're like, “Oh, my God, there's so much information.” And then, over time, you're integrating it and integrating it. And you see such a difference between the first call and the last call.

Victoria: Yeah, that really is my favorite part. So, what would you say the transformation was like for you, from when you started Anchored and how you are now?

Lisa: When I started Anchored, I was just really like, “Oh, this is like a master’s course that I'm going to take with Vic, about somatics. And I'm not codependent. I don't really have any of these issues. So, it'll be interesting.” Really humbling myself to like, “Yeah, you are. You do have these tendencies.” And to see myself in all of these stories that I thought were so unlike me.

And so, it made me more coachable. Which, for me, is really important because I want to be coachable. But I'm going to admit, I'm an attorney. I've been through a lot of schooling. I went to the coach training. So, there's, somewhere in the back of my mind that, “I already know this. I should know this.” And so, being in that container was just being able to drop that pretense and just be.

Victoria: I love that, a return to presence. Now, for me, that's a thread-through of Anchored. It’s that return to embodied presence. Beautiful.

Lisa: Yeah, and there’s lots of dancing.

Victoria: Tell us about that. Because people are often surprised, right? Because this is big, serious work, with big, serious issues.

Lisa: Yeah. And we rock out to Gloria Estefan, so if that's not serious, I don't know what is. Yeah, so at the end of all of our calls, there was just movement of some sort. Sometimes I had the camera on. Most of the time I didn’t, but I always stayed on. I enjoyed the experience. I enjoyed that other people felt as free they did, or as comfortable as they did.

And it was just nice. It was something that was just like, this is serious, but it's not so serious. We can have fun. Heavy heavy topics were talked about during this call, it was sort of like shaking that out a little bit, which was nice.

Victoria: Yeah, just resetting the nervous system to ventral vagal. And I say this so often, I'm going to keep saying it, what on earth is the point of doing all this healing work and the meditation and the mindfulness and the coaching and the breathwork, if it's not towards the end of loving our lives more? Like, what are we doing? Right? The dark night of the soul is super important, but also there has to be light at the end of that tunnel. And Gloria Estefan is my light.

Lisa: And Whitney Houston.

Victoria: Oh girl, so much Whitney Houston. Vintage Madonna. I'm going to call it vintage, which means you and I are vintage, and I am cool with that. Seriously, because we deserve to have fun. And I think, nope, I know, we forget that from our emotional outsourcing. We forget that we can have fun, enjoyable lives.

Lisa: It's so interesting. I had so much fun in Anchored, and I really do think one of the reasons, and this was just the universe, but how is it that I signed up for Anchored and the next week I was living in Providence? It was so funny, everywhere I went I was like, I want to take a picture of this for Vic. Oh, I'm going to show this… And I thought of you so much. And so, I feel like that actually integrated the experience even deeper. I'm like, “I’m in Vic’s hometown.”

Victoria: I love that. Okay, so everyone should sign up for Anchored and then moved to Rhode Island the next day.

Lisa: Yeah, just be careful because my muffler was stolen the last day; my catalytic converter. I got the scoop. It's a thing.

Victoria: Okay, cool. So, sorry about that. I apologize on behalf of all of Rhode Island.

Lisa: Thank you.

Victoria: Yeah, you're welcome. I do have that capacity in my role as ambassador of Rhode Island.

Lisa: Clearly.

Victoria: Obviously, I have been endowed with that. So, you're welcome, Rhode Island, and my sincerest apologies, Lisa Candera.

Lisa: I loved it. We had a great time in Rhode Island.

Victoria: I'm so glad, it's a pretty cool little place. Yeah. Lisa, as we wrap up, I want to know what you would tell the person listening at home, who's like, “I want all this somatic embodiment. I want to stop living from the neck up like Lisa did. I want to change all of my relationships. But I'm nervous. Should I join Anchored? Is it the next step for me?” What would you tell that person?

Lisa: I would say, absolutely join Anchored. Because what you just described to me is the profile of the person Anchored is made for. “I don't know. I'm not sure. Is it the next thing?” All of that uncertainty, all of that insecurity, all of that indecision, Anchored will get you through so much of that. It will give you the tools that you need to make decisions for yourself on purpose. Plus, you get the somatic piece, and you get to take that for the rest of your life.

So, you're not investing in six months, you're investing in the rest of your life. That's with the thought work, that's with the somatic work, that's with the family, that's with Vic. It's not six months, it's however much longer you're here.

Victoria: Yeah. And it truly is the holistic aspect of Anchored that, for me, is what makes it really sustainable. I appreciate you speaking to that.

Lisa: That's so true. Because sometimes people… I remember, sometimes I would come to a call with more of a cognitive issue, right? And I remember, I came to you, and I'm like, “I am so angry. I am so frustrated.” Why Lisa? Just think differently.” No, we didn't do any of that. We just did the body stuff. And I was like, that's what I needed. I wanted to be mad, and I wanted to tell somebody I was mad.

Victoria: Before we wrap up, you just said we did the body stuff. For people who are like, “Wait. What is the body stuff?” What is the body stuff, Lisa Candera?

Lisa: I think you've done another podcast before, where you will invite people to take a few deep breaths, get into their body, and describe what's happening in your body. And I would say, “I feel like my heart is in my throat. I feel like I can't breathe. I feel a tightening.” And you would guide us somatically through that experience to sort of befriend it, but also release it at the same time.

Victoria: Exactly. It's making the subconscious conscious, right? And bringing those energies that live within us; because science, because the nervous system; something that we can engage in, in a safer way.

Lisa: Yeah. And then you were real nerdy about it too, sometimes. Which was awesome, right? You would give us all the science, which was fun. You would say, “We're going to do this,” and you would do the thing. And then you'd like, “And if you want to know the science,” and everyone's like, “Yes,” then you would tell us of that. I'm sure at a very, very high level, but you would still give us that little piece, which people enjoyed.

Victoria: Yeah, it's really fun. I love knowing the science. But, you know, you and I are nerds. But now we're bragging. Yeah, we're always bragging about being nerds.

Lisa: I’m like, “I did not know.” But I like it on a level like that. The other part of it too because I was taking Deb Dana's intensive for polyvagal. And Deb Dana, as amazing as she is at really distilling information… It's still a lot, and then I saw what you did with that information. And it was so much more accessible. I feel like it benefited me so much because of that. From her I had an idea, but from you, I got to integrate it, which was nice.

Victoria: Oh, my goodness, Deb Dana is one of my sheroes. She and Susan McConnell. I am humbled by that, and I am grateful I feel very seen and yeah, just honored. Thank you for that. I'm so glad, I'm so glad that it was accessible and ‘integratable’… Which I'm deciding is now a word. Totally a word.  We’re so postmodern.

Lisa: It's like you could take like all of these very advanced courses in polyvagal theory and nervous system and IFS and all those kinds of things, or you could do Anchor and have fun and dance with Vic. I mean, come on.

Victoria: It's a good time. Studies do show that there is less Paula Abdul at an IFS, Internal Family Systems, training. I have been doing months and years worth of somatic experiencing training; big ups to Peter Levine, love it. But we have not busted out C+C Music Factory not even once.

Lisa: I don't get that from him.

Victoria: No, you shan’t. You shan’t. Aww, Lisa Candera, you are such a delight. I want to thank you so much for doing this work to change your life, to change your son's life, your clients’ lives. The lives of everyone you touch in this beautiful world and through your work. I know everyone listening is just like where can I find her? So, where can they find you?

Lisa: I am The Autism Mom Coach. You can find me at TheAutismMomCoach.com, on Instagram @TheAutismMomCoach, and Facebook at The Autism Mom Coach. I'm very consistent.

Victoria: I appreciate that about you. You, solid object, you.

Lisa: I’m the solid object.

Victoria: Yeah, you are. What's your podcast called?

Lisa: Hold on. The Autism Mom Coach.

Victoria: Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me?

Lisa: It's crazy. Yeah, so I have a free course that available, it’s called Keeping Your Cool During an Autism Meltdown. Where I go through my three-part framework for how you can be the solid object. So, it's a lot of what Vic and I have been talking about, being that steady in the storm, being grounded, and being regulated. This is for special needs moms, moms with kids raising autism, who all know what I'm talking about. When my child goes high, how do I go low? And so, that's what this book is about.

Victoria: I love that, the flip of the Michelle Obama quote.

Lisa: Don't meet the highest energy in the room, because then you're in a death roll.

Victoria: Yeah, that makes so much sense. Right? And so, if you can ground yourself and come back to ventral vagal, you can co-regulate their nervous system instead of meeting them in sympathetic or collapsing into dorsal.

Lisa: Huh, I wonder why I did Anchored? Yeah, all of that. Exactly.

Victoria: Oh, Lisa, you are a delight. Thank you so much.

Lisa: You are a delight. And now, I didn't just do Anchored, I'm doing the entire Vic Albina experience. Because now, I am in the alumni.

Victoria: Yes, you are. Which is such a delight because we get to keep coaching every single week, we get to do breath work every single month, we get to have the Slack community. And every time Anchored gets updated, you get those updates.

Lisa: I know. I’m very excited.

Victoria: Yeay. Thanks, Lisa.

Lisa: Thank you so much.

Victoria: Thank you so much for joining me. Wasn't that an amazing conversation? I really, really enjoyed it. And I hope you did, too. Thank you, as always, for listening to Feminist Wellness, for your dedication to doing this work to heal your life on all planes. Thank you for being you and being here. I'm looking forward to having you join me in the Somatic Studio, VictoriaAlbina.com/somaticstudio is where you can get all the details and enroll today.

Alright, my beauties, let’s do what we do. A gentle hand on your heart, should you feel so moved. And remember, you are safe. You are held. You are loved. And, when one of us heals, we help heal the world. Be well, my beauty. I’ll talk to you soon.

If you've been enjoying the show and learning a ton, it's time to apply it with my expert guidance, so you can live life with intention. Without the anxiety, overwhelm, and resentment, so you can get unstuck. You're not going to want to miss the opportunity to join my exclusive, intimate, group-coaching program. So, head on over to VictoriaAlbina.com/masterclass to grab your seat now. See you there; it's going to be a good one!