Ep #296: All About Anchored with Ali Zamora

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 absolutely delighted to bring you a conversation that I had with Ali Zamora, who is an amazing woman who was in Anchored way back in 2021. 

I asked Ali to come back on the show because I find her story so inspiring, and that's the purpose of sharing these examples from folks who've been in Anchored and have used the skills, the tools, the community support, the nervous system regulation that they gained in the program to not just feel better in the short term, but to wildly and radically change their lives in the long term. 

And sometimes that radically and wildly is like, I stopped hating myself, or I started to love myself, or I started to trust myself. I'm not saying wildly and radically always means like, and then I quit my job and burned it all down. Though Ali did a little bit of that. 

But you know, when we've been trained in the patriarchy, white settler colonialism, late-stage capitalism to hate ourselves and our bodies and our emotions, etc., self-love is a radical act, right? Audre Lorde told us all about it. So I love sharing these stories. I love how powerful they are as a model for what's possible. And I really hope that they inspire you to picture a life on the other side of emotional outsourcing, where you're living your life really, truly, truly, really for you, on your terms, in your way.

That's what I most want for you So I hope you enjoy this conversation with Ali. If after listening, you're like, you know what, I would really like to be a part of Anchored. I'll have what she's having. I want to invite you to head over to victoriaalbina.com/anchored to apply now. Everyone who applies in the next week will be getting some very special treats. Don't delay, join us now. It would be a delight to have you in the program. All right, without any further ado, take it away, Ali.

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Victoria: Will you introduce yourself to the good people? Whatever that means to you, you, however you want to introduce yourself.

Ali: Yeah. So my name is Ali. I am a first-gen Latina, currently reside in Tongva territory in Long Beach, California. I was born and raised here in Southern California. My family is of Mexican descent, been doing a lot of studying on my lineage and background and ancestral lineages, and I could trace back that my family is from the Huichol tribe. And so, yeah, it's been really beautiful. Yeah, to learn all of that. I'm a Libra sun.

Victoria: Hey.

Ali: Cancer moon, I feel all the feelings. There's an ocean of emotions here. And Sag rising, that's my free spirit that's been traveling the world, learning about so many beautiful spiritual practices, beautiful people, different cultures. Yeah, I think that's just a little bit about me. Oh, and I just turned 36.

Victoria: Felicitaciones!

Ali: Thank you, yeah. So, that is me.

Victoria: You are also a nurse practitioner, a family nurse practitioner.

Ali: Yes, I am. Yeah. And newly certified health and integrative nutrition coach.

Victoria: Oh, cool. Yeah.

Ali: Just did that earlier this year, certified as a yoga teacher last year. Yeah, and I've been studying curanderismo as well, so...

Victoria: Mira, powerful. I mean, it's so wild to think of where you were when you came into Anchored, right? Oh, esa risa. Yeah, tell us about that. Tell us where you were at, what things were like, what led you to Anchored?

Ali: When I found Anchored, I was in such a different place, and it's been really beautiful to sit with, you know, the fact that I was going to have this conversation with you. I went back and listened to that episode and to think about where I was, I barely recognized that woman. She was really just coming out of something so profound. 

It was like a can of worms got popped open and I was just experiencing that first layer of who I actually was. You know, like all those layers of all of that trauma, all of those stories that I was just so trapped in, I had just uncovered this layer and I thought like, oh, this is it, this is all beautiful. And I'm like, okay, cool. I'm just coming out of this. I'm gonna live in this beauty. And then it was like, yeah, right, this is just the beginning of you unfurling other layers.

Victoria: Yeah.

Ali: And it got deeper and deeper.

Victoria: Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Ali: But finding Anchored was, man, I still am like spirit calculated that one. That was all divine timing. And I love sharing the story. I had been suffering from depression, anxiety for a long time. I noticed that I was having a lot of failed relationships. I'd been in therapy for several years and had finally heard from my therapist that she thought I was depressed and thought I needed to go see a psychiatrist.

So being a family nurse practitioner, like what the, you know, I don't fit the mold for someone who's depressed. You need to meet all this criteria. And so I remember walking into that therapist's office and him just handing me a sheet of paper. Didn't talk to me, didn't ask any questions, nothing. It was like, fill out this paper. Let's see what you score.

Leaves the room, comes back, and then says, oh yeah, you're depressed. And then reaches in the cabinet, pulls out two bottles of antidepressants, hands them to me and says, come back in three weeks. And I'm like, what the fuck? No.

So I remember walking out of that office saying, well, I have a full background in studying medicine, so I'm gonna study the shit out of depression and I'm gonna learn it, you know, in its fullness and figure out how the heck to heal this because I'm not taking a pill. And I did. I started studying it so much that it really started taking me through this whole different world of healing that I had no idea about. And I started researching into codependency. A friend had shared with me that she potentially thought I was codependent and told me you should go to a CODA meeting.

And I don't know if a lot of people know about Codependents Anonymous, but I didn't. And I went to a meeting and as soon as I heard people say, I am codependent, I walked out. I didn't even stay for the meeting. It just didn't sit right with me. And then one day I was just like researching and I found this blog and they were interviewing Maria Victoria Albina.

It was the first time that I had heard from someone that codependency is not who you are. It's just thought patterns and behaviors. And I was like, I gotta find this woman. So then I find your YouTube channel and this breathwork that you shared. It's like 15 minute breathwork. And I remember it was New Year's Day, January, 2021. And I did that breathwork. And I was like, I immediately felt something shift inside me and I was like, I got to find her.

So went to your website and saw that you had Anchored this program to help women like me. And so without a question, and I know that on there, you even say like, oh, I'll do a call, like just to make sure I was like, no, no, no. I already know, filled out everything. And then like immediately, everything just started just flowing, you know? And I jumped right in like full force into Anchored and I never looked back.

Victoria: And how beautiful to put yourself on this trajectory. Right? Because from emotional outsourcing and from codependency, we, si, senora, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, I'll do what you want me to. And I feel like in your story, there's this moment where like, you cracked the pattern by saying no to the psychiatrist who handed you a form and wanted to give you, that's a malpractice by the way, but that's a different conversation, right? Yeah, it just is this story of you cracking open. And so you've made so many wild changes in your life in these last four years.

Ali: To say the least.

Victoria: To say the least. What's life like now after Anchored? Like what's available that wasn't before.

Ali: Anchored really taught me these foundational tools that are so necessary in the path to healing. You know, I've now been on quite the healing journey and you know, it's something that to some might look like just this odd path, you know, opening up to spirituality. You know, it could for some be a spiritual awakening. But I realized that this was my path. This is what I was meant to walk through. And so Anchored really supported that because had I not gone through Anchored, I don't think I would have been equipped to go through the next part of the journey like I did.

And after Anchored, I really started seeking out more modalities and healing because I was just amazed at the shifts that I made in six months. I'm like, how is this possible? Suffering from depression for 30 plus years? How am I able to live in so much joy in just six months? How was I able to reprogram my thoughts in just six months? It was wild to me because I was treating patients in clinic who had been on antidepressants for 20 plus years.

And I would ask them, are you feeling any better? Are you doing any better? Has anything changed? No. I just feel like every single one of them said, I just feel like this. You know, and my recognition for that is like, have you seen the rhythm of our heart? We're not supposed to be a flat line. You know, there's highs, there's lows, there's, you know, bumps in between. That means we're living.

So for someone to just tell me, oh, I feel like this all the time. Wow. And that really opened my eyes to see I'm a case study and my path is a path of sharing. I need to share this with others. And that's what I have been working on and working through is studying different modalities to heal.

So in this journey, I have traveled into the jungles of Peru. I've sat in Temascales. I have journeyed with sacred plant medicines, I have been utilizing herbs, I have been making protocols for my clients and patients. I started my own business, Sol Buena Salud, where I'm offering that traditional medicine to clients, to patients, and seeking a new way, because I feel like that's where we're at. That's that shift in the journey of life where we all are and I feel that this new wave of awakening is really calling us forward to start making changes and really start opening up this conversation.

Victoria: Can you speak to how this process has impacted how you relate and what your relationships look like? And for me, what's always most important is how are you showing up in relationship in new ways.

Ali: I think awakening to who you truly are, once you unpack all the layers, this journey, this path, it's not easy. You actually start to see aspects of yourself and everything that you do that were attached to your traumas, to your stories, to the things that happened to you. And so then you start seeing that even in your friendships and your relationships, oh, you might've chosen that because it was more trauma bonding. 

And this path has not been easy. I have had a lot of relationships end, a lot of friendships end, jobs, yeah, that come to an end. But it's because you come to a place where you are deeply rooted in yourself. You are honoring yourself full well that you know that the relationships that you're seeking contain reciprocity, connection, commitment.

And I think as we move forward in our relationships, we're really looking for someone that's going to help us expand. And that's not even in our friendships, you know. So for me, it's been a path and a journey to find those connections and seek tribe. Seek relationships with people who are also healing, also wanting to learn more, also wanting to be in community, support one another, help each other grow. 

Integration is the most important piece. You can take all this knowledge, all this wisdom, you know, all these tools, and if you never integrate them into your life and embody them, what are they gonna do for you?

Victoria: Not much. Yeah. Yeah. So how have you been integrating this work in Anchored? And what else has been changing since you've been like really making this who you are now.

Ali: The embodiment has been one of the funnest aspects of this entire journey.

Victoria: Will you tell me more about that? We don't hear that enough, how fun embodiment is.

Ali: It is. You know, again, I go back to how, you know you start peeling off the layers of who you thought you were. I'll share more openly, more candidly, that I started seeing so many parts of myself that were part of my conditioning. And I have to give ode to our great mother, Planta, who really opened my heart, my mind, to see that all of that was just a part of colonization, gentrification.

And then I had to go through this part of this journey where I was like, why am I wearing what I'm wearing? Why does my hair look like this? Why am I coloring it this color? I mean, it got deep. It got deep where I was like, who said I ever wanted to get married? Who told me that?

Who said I wanted to be a nurse? Who told me I wanted to be a nurse? those questions really started to weigh on me that I had to allow time. I mean, there was a time where I didn't wear anything but yoga pants because I was like, I don't even know what I like to wear. Like, what does this new version of me want to wear? What does her hair want to look like, you know? And I think that's a lot of fun because it's like a blank canvas of this part of you that's no longer holding on to those traumas.

Victoria: I'm hearing you in this healing work, in this recalibration, rewiring, choosing you over the noise.

Ali: Yeah, absolutely. It’s actually become like sacred solitude, if I could really put a name to it. It's been sacred solitude.

Victoria: Beautiful.

Ali: Yeah, it doesn't feel isolating.

Victoria: Right, isn't it so amazing how what we do with intention, It's the same action, but it feels so different. I mean, it's thought work 101, right? With a different thought and a different feeling, the same action has such a different impact on our whole human, right? With the whole being. Yeah. And creates such a different result for us in our lives.

Ali: That's a big part of Anchored, you know, where you actually learn to feel your feelings. What are these emotions? I remember not knowing. Think I only knew mad, sad, glad. You know, but getting to experience the array of different emotions that we go through and then realizing that it's not bad to experience all of these.

So that's been a big part of my journey is, well, if I'm angry today, I'm going to be fucking angry today. How are you, anger? Thanks for joining me. How can I serve you? What do you need from me? Slowing down enough to be able to sit with those emotions and then also knowing when they don't want to be there. When they don't want to be felt, it's like, leave me alone, all right, cool.

But embodiment practice is, it's a big part of integration and I'm really enjoying it and every single day I think it's a part of the path. It's a part of the journey.

Victoria: Yeah. I had no idea that I wasn't embodied. So for folks who are like, what on earth are you talking about? Like actually being present in your human body, like actually like being in your body. It's an interesting one to sort of define because it's hard to tell, do you know what I mean? The negative inverse is conversely true, you know what I mean? But once you feel it, it changes everything, right?

Ali: Yeah. There's a big mind-body disconnection in this world.

Victoria: And so it is like a really radical act to reclaim our bodies.

Ali: Yeah.

Victoria: I mean, Audre Lorde, right? It's a radical act. She talks all about it. And I'm thinking also of like the small gifts, right? Let's take this back to our work as nurse practitioners. How many times have we had folks in clinic, either in a hyper awareness of the physical body without emotional and energetic connection to it, or in that kind of wild disconnect where someone comes in and they have like florid symptoms and have for years, but aren't seeking care because of multiple layers of disenfranchisement and socioeconomic, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, but all that not withstanding, this lack of capacity that's trained into us to not be able to hear our body's whispers until they're a scream.

Ali: Right. I hold space so much for that because I feel from so much that I've studied, you know, the Western system, yes, there are some great benefits to it. I mean, treated people that have been in major traumas.

Victoria: Oh, sure. It's amazing for trauma.

Ali: However, it's so focused on just the physical body. There is no connection or conversation about your emotions. Oh, if you're emotional, and I'll bring that here. Because you can't even go see your therapist for that. You know, that's only for mental issues.

Victoria: Right, right, yeah.

Ali: And don't talk about spirituality because that just doesn't exist.

Victoria: Yeah, it's such a shame like what's happened because I feel like folks like us, and you know, of course most of my closest friends are healthcare providers it's like we're the same kind of nerd, right? We all went into Western medicine from this deep desire to apply science to bring more love, more care, more light, more health, more wellness, more betterment to the world.

Mi amor, we've talked so much about this beautiful journey and how, you know, this stuckness you were in before Anchored that you've done such incredible work to shift mind, body and spirit. I share these conversations because when I was in the wild depths of emotional outsourcing, I had no model for what the other side looked like. 

I didn't grow up really knowing people with healthy communication and healthy relationships who like, I don't know, I didn't really get what was possible because I really had never seen it. And so I share these conversations so that people can have a model, right? Like, this is how Ali saved her own life in so many ways, right? This is how Ali changed her life for the better.

So, with that in mind, what is it that you most want people to know about what's possible about your own journey, about Anchored, about this work to overcome emotional outsourcing?

Ali: I think we have an intuitive nature that lives within each and every single one of us, and much of my experience was me not trusting that part of myself. But something that kept calling me back was just the recognition that I knew I wanted to heal. And I think that when you're in a place of that stuckness, for much of what I had experienced, I mean, I definitely didn't have models of what it looked like to be emotionally grounded, emotionally aware. I just was open. I think there is an openness that is required of us, an openness to another way.

I think we need to start questioning everything, questioning why we're doing the things that we're doing, actually taking a pause and looking around. What does my life actually look like? What do I want it to look like? I think that was the biggest question for me was I sat with that and I was looking at my life and I said, this is not what I want it to look like.

I don't want to be in unhealthy relationships. I don't want to feel alone. Those questions were the ones that I sat with so much that I think that those questions were what was creating that manifestation of the path that came forth. It was opening doors because I started asking questions.

And I think that's what I want most people to know is that in what they're feeling, they're not alone. You can go through all of this work for so long and then you're still going to have moments where you're gonna need to go back to your tools. And that’s what these are. These are tools, these are modalities to support us in our journey.

To say, oh, I'm completely free of depression. Amazing. But you're still going to have days where you're sad, but it's okay, it's okay to feel sad. We need that. And I think that’s been such an amazing part of the journey and everything that I learned from Anchored was that it was okay to feel however I was feeling that day because there was always so much shame around feeling sad, feeling anxious, feeling depressed, but those were signals that I didn't know that were there. Oh, these are signals from my own body telling me that there's something else that I needed.

And so that's something that I really truly appreciate. And I still continue to carry with me everything that I've learned through Anchored. Those have been foundational tools to help support me in every single aspect of my life.

Victoria: Yeah. And I love that you made it so simple. Because from first blush, this can sound so complicated. I have to do all these steps and go to Peru and do the thing and talk to the eagles. But also, put some warm water on your wrist. Run your hands under cold water. Go for a brisk walk, come back to the animal.

Ali: And I think that was a big part of this path was the reconnection to nature. Slowing down enough to be able to reconnect to nature.

Victoria: Ooh, the slowing down part, huh? Which let me, for everyone who's listening, who's like, I can't slow down. I have these kids, I have this business. You were like working full-time as a nurse practitioner, doing Anchored, doing these trainings. Building your business.

Ali: Let me tell you what I was going through when I was in Anchored.

Victoria: Tell us, tell us.

Ali: I was working seven days a week and then going to the hospital to go take care of my mom while she was going through hospice for liver cancer. And going through Anchored and also just trying to take care of myself. I mean, like you make time, you know? When I have clients and patients that tell me they don't have time, I'm like, mira, come here, give me your schedule. I'll freaking find it. I'll help you find that time, you know? And that was what was so beautiful. There was the lesson that we had in Anchored, Reclaiming your time.

Victoria: It's a good one.

Ali: Ooh, that was so good. Oh, man. I was like, yeah, take back that time. That was so vital.

Victoria: Yeah.

Ali: But I think that we make it more complicated than it needs to be. Let's be real.

Victoria: It's the double-edged sword of being very intelligent. Like, right? We overcomplicate, we overthink, we ruminate. We forget to come back to the prefrontal and then default mode all over the place.

Ali: But I recognize that is a trauma response. It's a trauma response to constantly be doing. You're going for the next thing that you need to do when you're right here sitting in this chair. And I think that was a big lesson that I would teach every single patient that I would see in clinic, was you're here in this clinic room with me. You're talking to me right now.

This is where we are. Stay here, stay focused and present. And just to see the shift that they would make, wow. And that's what Anchored taught me, yo. Okay, let's be real. All credit, you know? I gotta give where it's due because I didn't have that before. And it's so vital, it brings in that awareness, it brings you back into you.

Victoria: Yeah.

Ali: You get to explore what it is that you need first and then you can give.

Victoria: Give from your overflow. Not the empty cup that we all ran on for so long. You can do so much with slow energy in your spirit and not overtax your mind, body, any part of you.

Ali: Yeah, when I really had that shift of where I could be present in my work, I was present in my work and I didn't feel so drained.

Victoria: Isn't it incredible? And charting, side note, charting is so much easier when you're present.

Ali: Yeah.

Victoria: It's not a slog, it's not a chore. It's just like, beep, boop, bing.

Ali: Yeah. I went from being like 200 notes behind to had my notes done. By the end of shift because I was here, I was present, I was focused on where I needed to be, and I enjoyed my days more.

Ali: I get a lot of people say, it's so hard to slow down though, but slowing down really truly is just being present.

Victoria: That's the switch, which leads to intentionality, which opens the door for authenticity, which lets you remember who you are, like you were saying. Who was that little Ali? Who did she want to be? What did she want to do? How did she want to wear her hair? What little ropita did she want to wear? And from there, we reclaim all the rest of ourselves.

Ali: Right.

Victoria: Oh, Ali, I am astonished at my good fortune that I get to know you, that I've gotten to coach you, that we are in this world together and that you're out there doing such beautiful work. I'm so grateful. And thank you for coming back on Feminist Wellness and giving us this update, this life update.

Ali: Thank you for asking me to be here. It's truly an honor, honestly. It's an honor. I can sing your praises all day, honestly.

Victoria: Gracias.

Ali: Been a monumental part of my journey and these tools that you've supplied me with, you know, I'm eternally grateful for them because they're foundational, you know, and I feel like those were those parenting skills that I never got. Yeah, and now I get to use those for my future children whenever they come.

Victoria: Oh, I love that. You're gonna be such a great mama bear. Mira, are you taking new patients?

Ali: I am, yes.

Victoria: Will you share how people can follow you? Where do you want them to go?

Ali: So you can find me at @ali.j.zamora and if you want to just shoot me an e-mail, you can contact at solbuenasalud.com

Victoria: Fantastico.

Ali: Thank you so much.

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Oh my goodness, what a beautiful conversation. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you for your interest in these really important conversations about what life can look like on the other side of our emotional outsourcing, our codependent perfectionist and people-pleasing habits. 

And to hear Ali talk about how different her life is now just blows my mind, just, it like makes my whole body feel this glowing lightness. It's so beautiful to watch how she's transformed herself and how she's then echoing that off into her community, right? How she's bringing those waves of transformation back to her gente. It's an absolute gift.

My love, if you want what Ali's having, come join us in Anchored. It is my six-month thought work, somatics, nervous system regulating, breath work program to help humans just like you to overcome all the old habitual patterns that are holding us back from living, like Ali said, lives that we are absolutely thrilled to be living. And if you're like, I don't even know what that is, know that you are in very good company, come find out with us. Learn more at at victoriaalbina.com/anchored.

All right, my beauty, let's do what we do. 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. Ciao.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Feminist Wellness. If you want to learn more all about somatics, what the heck that word means, and why it matters for your life, head on over to VictoriaAlbina.com/somaticswebinar for a free webinar all about it. Have a beautiful day, my darling, and I'll see you next week. Ciao.