Road to Radical Visibility Show/Podcast
Road to Radical Visibility Show/Podcast
Trusting Yourself After Religious Trauma with guest Rachel Freemon Sowers- BREAK FREE NOW!
What if you could reclaim your power, fully lean into your authentic self, and break free from the chains of religious trauma? That's exactly what our liberating guest, Rachel Freemon Sowers, has done and she's here to guide you on your journey towards self-trust.
Rachel, a champion for the LGBTQ+ and female communities, has not only conquered her own religious trauma, but also channeled her experiences into becoming a liberation and visibility coach to help others like you do the same.
We pull back the layers of fear, guilt and shame that often stem from religious trauma and see how they have been weaponized to control and marginalize various communities.
Rachel's stirring insights challenge the societal constructs projected by white cis heteronormative culture onto LGBTQIA+ communities, people of color, indigenous peoples, and women. We probe deeper into how denial of our true selves can yield profound suffering and stunt our growth. But don't worry, we got you boo. We explore feelings of hope and freedom as we unravel the power of embracing our inner rebels (our truth) and stepping into our personal power.
It takes courage to make the choice to fully show up as ourselves especially when your emotional, physical and financial security is at stake, it can be a daunting task. But Rachel's story is a testament that it is worth every step.
By acknowledging our own power and prioritizing self-compassion, we can indeed soar above the oppressive shackles of fear and shame. We invite you to join us in this empowering conversation where we celebrate individuality, honor authenticity, and advocate for radical visibility. The world is waiting for your unique presence and it's high time to let your light shine.
If you are ready to release your religious trauma and feel the freedom, peace and happiness that comes with living full out reach out to me @ Rachelfreemonsowers@gmail.com and we'll chat and see if it's a good fit to work together.
Did you have an Ah-Ha moment from this episode? I would love to hear about it! No seriously, I want to hear from you! Send me a DM or email at rachel@rachelfreemonsowers.com.
Watch more self-empowering content on my YouTube Channel.
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#LGBTQ+ #LGBTQ+business #visibilitymatters #timetoshine #RoadtoRadicalVisibility #RachelFreemonSowers
Welcome to the Alignment Unleashed podcast, the place to restore self trust through soul and spirit. I'm your host, samara Lane, the self-trust queen. I'm a spiritual mentor and coach for anxious empaths. That means I work with recovering over thinkers and sensitive souls to help them really thrive in their relationships, business and manifestation. If that sounds like you, buckle up and snuggle into this goodness because you are absolutely in the right place, i want to give a huge shout out and a huge, just big old hug and a happy pride month to everyone listening to this. Today's speaker, rachel Freeman Sowers, is going to share with you her journey from religious trauma, totally not knowing how to trust and honor herself and experiencing all kinds of different discrimination in her life, to being 100% herself. No guilt, no shame needed Because screw that shit You're going to learn why you're actually not holding yourself back and how to return home to the trust and compassion of your soul.
Samara Lane:Rachel is a liberation and visibility coach for LGBTQ plus and female individuals. This episode seriously packs a punch. You guys are going to love it. I invite you to listen now to jumpstart or reignite your self trust journey and feel way, way, way less alone while you do it. Before we dive in. Friendly reminder that if you'd love to be coached for free on the Alignment Unleashed podcast, you can apply via the link found in my show notes below. That's also where you'll find more incredible free resources and ways to connect or work with me.
Samara Lane:Now let's dive in. Welcome everyone. Today we have my amazing new colleague and guest, rachel Freeman Sowers, on the pod with us. I'm so excited for you to get to know Rachel. She is a sought after liberation and visibility coach. She's a podcast creator and host LMFT and the founder of the 100% you experience. Her passion is guiding LGBTQ plus and female individuals to be 100% you 100% of the time, no shame or guilt needed. Her mission is to effectively, rapidly and powerfully help LGBTQ plus and female individuals break through the barriers that stop them from their full expression and experiencing their lives and businesses exactly the way they want.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Welcome to the pod, Rachel. Thank you so much. I'm just so happy to be here. I know this is going to be a freaking fantastic conversation Like it's in the bones. It's in the energy already.
Samara Lane:So excited to have you here And today. I mean, we're going to kind of jump right into it here in a moment. We're going to talk about how to trust yourself after religious trauma. This is such a pervasive human experience across so many populations And I know that you've had a personal experience around this. I've also had some interesting personal experience around this that we may or may not talk about today, but I can't wait for everyone to just learn from you and hear your story and go from there. First, let us know where are you from, Where do you live.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:So I live in a Redding California which is what we call the real Northern California. You know some people call the Bay Northern California, but I'm from Redding California close to the Oregon border.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Yeah, Beautiful Born and raised, so born and raised in California, been moving, have moved all over California out of state a couple of times, and then you know Redding is a really beautiful place to live. We have Whiskeytown Lake, we have Shasta Lake, we have the ocean two and a half hours. We have mountains everywhere Mount Shasta, mount Lassen. Mount Shasta is super powerful, beautiful place to be. If you haven't ever been there, you should definitely visit, and so this is where I always end up and come back to. So there's a lot of beautiful things, especially if you're an outdoors person like we are.
Samara Lane:Gorgeous. Yep, yep, same over here. Yeah, let's just dive right in. I'm over in the Seattle Washington area, so we're kind of talking about, you know, west Coast life, and all that a moment ago. Before we hit record, tell us about your experience with religious trauma.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Like, let's go there. Well, from the very beginning, right? I mean, I remember going to Sunday school when I was living, growing up in the first part of my life in the Bay Area, and always Southern Baptist, conservative Baptist, you know some of the major things tent revival, things like that. So church was a part of my life from the very beginning. And so there's been so many times during that exploration of religion when it really wasn't an exploration, right, You were just told, this is what we do. We go to church four times a week. We go on Wednesday nights, We go on Thursday nights. You sing in the choir, You do all the things right. And then later on, towards my sophomore year, my dad became a youth pastor. So then I was a preacher's daughter at the same time. And so there's layers and layers upon the experience of religious trauma and really not having a choice. you know from the beginning.
Samara Lane:Yeah, yeah. And how did this actually unfold for you, right?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well I wonder if your listeners can relate is you don't really realize what's happening, You don't realize it's religious trauma, right? And you're told that this is how you do things, This is how you show up, This is how you dress. If you don't do any of those things, then you're automatically just not a good person. Like your soul is dark and you're going to always the thread of hell. You know those kinds of things.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:And we don't realize that it actually is trauma until we allow ourselves to see something different. Or we see ourselves as something different, yes, but I feel at some point in time I've always been a rebel. I don't know about you.
Samara Lane:I have not always been a rebel, i've not always identified. I do now.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, I mean, I remember I went to Christian school, you know, and we had to wear skirts below the knees and nylons and like all the things, And I wore an acid wash gene to skirt to school and they told me that it was too wild and I was too rebellious. And this was me rebelling against the system And I was like it's an acid wash gene skirt. But now I think about it and like, oh yeah, I'm trying to tweak every little thing to rebel, because what you're doing does not make sense to me.
Samara Lane:You know, yes, yeah, yeah, the amount of conformity that people experience and, just, i think the common denominator that I've heard from so many of my clients is number one, kind of that picture you painted of you don't realize it's trauma when it's happening. Right, this is the only societal construct you've ever been presented with. Right, and it's so, and it and it literally creates we're talking before we hit record Like it literally creates for so many people, black and white, distorted thinking like that they wouldn't have necessarily had if there wasn't this like very black and white, all or nothing, heaven or hell. You're either good or bad, right, and God either loves you or he's punishing you or however this, however, we have been receiving it And it can, but in the moment, day to day, it's so insidious. Right, it's these unspoken things. I'm getting chills just even saying this. Right, because it's like, oh, you, just, you go to church and these are the days and you wear these clothes and you do these things And for some people that's that's aligned for them.
Samara Lane:Great, but for so, so many people who are waking up, this is so not a part of really who they are. It's been suppressing who they are And the common theme that I hear from people is like it's not, like they didn't feel safe to even explore. Who am I? What do I believe, right, how do I relate to the world? How do I want to show up? So how did things like the church, social constructs, discrimination, like being put in? this little box of this is the one, like you can only even wear this kind of skirt right, like that's pretty rigid? How did that impact your self esteem, your self worth, your self, trust, any of that?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, i mean it impacted it immensely. I mean it degraded everything that I knew in myself that I was Right And I like it's. Every time I thought, like that doesn't make sense to me. I was told that that if it didn't make sense to me and I wrote, i brought it up, then it was rebellious And then we had shame. Right, i mean, religious construct is huge in the establishment of a normalization of self-shaming in this country. Yeah No, i mean like, where do you think shame comes from? Like you're not born shamed? Yeah, right, and of course I'm not talking to extremes, right? You and I both know that there are circumstances where people are born into shaming things, but you're not born saying I want to live this kind of life, i want to feel bad about myself, and especially being in the LGBTQ plus community.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I remember in the fourth grade I kissed a girl, a neighbor girl, and I thought, oh, i'm going to be a good girl. And I thought, oh, my God, i'm either going to wake up tomorrow in hell. But how can I, if love is, if God is love and if all these things like, how can this be so bad? And obviously I didn't wake up in hell the next day And, in essence, maybe the hell was continuing to have to participate in the church, to have to be told I mean I used to pick it gay stuff with my parents, like that's what I was taught And there comes a tension within you that destroys, almost destroys your soul instead of nurturing it, and there's this constant like but I want this, but I want that. I've heard so many stories and I don't know if you have to where people pray themselves to not be gay. Yeah, like, please, please make this?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:not true about me, please, please. And it's like the thing that's confusing to me and that degrades people being themselves, is you have someone standing up in front of you saying, do this thing be this way? And behind the scenes, you know they're not, you know that they're beating their wife, that they're beating their children, that they are sleeping with them the youth pastor sleeping with one of the youth people in the group, like and and that kind of constant, like trying to figure out where we're at. Yeah, how are we supposed to know? and until we can exit out of the programming and the conditioning that that work, that that we're taught, is us, when it's not really us at all, exactly, Yeah, I cried.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I mean like like there it was, it was bad Yeah bad, yeah, what was?
Samara Lane:if you're open to sharing what was one of your darkest moments? I'm sure there were many.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:You know, when you put this question in the list, i was like, hmm, because there have been some very dark moments, but the darkest moment is the culmination of every dark moment I denied myself, yeah, of every time I was told you can't do that, you shouldn't say that, that is not your truth, that is not who you are. And those little micro, almost aggressions and selfie trails that were taught add up to the one moment that says either I'm going to end my life or I'm going to fucking change it. Oh, can I say that I've worked on your podcast Totally. I mean like you, really, you reach the moment where you either decide it's you, you know, in one way or another, or you decide that, well, you don't decide, you just get shamed back in, you get pulled back into that old pattern because the force is strong. People don't want us to break free, exactly.
Samara Lane:Yeah, i love that you shared that word decide because I know for me there's been a lot of unlearning of the word decide when it comes to the LGBTQ plus community. Right, i have sense that I was bisexual since I was like three years old And so I identify as that. There was a point in my life where I very much suppressed it and said you know openly homophobic things and just you know lots of things that I had to get right within myself and with others And but that word decide right. So so many people are still right, being taught and learning and kind of maybe even unintentionally continuing to perpetuate this idea that we decide who we are. Right, we decide that we're gay or straight, we decide that we are a boy or a girl, like, these are not decisions. Did you decide to be a soul Right? Did you decide your soul desire? No, totally.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Totally Right. I mean like, that's the thing. And if we I mean like let's take it a level deeper for someone to tell us that we can decide that, but then strip us of all our power, yeah, so it's like here, eat this ice cream cone, but you can't ever reach it. It's, it's like they can decide to have it anytime you want, but not for you.
Samara Lane:You're not good enough.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Right. It's like this constant give, push and pull it and people end up feeling like they're the ones that are the problem. Yeah, but, but within that construct, it's all about control. It's the sphere of having an open mind. It's the fear of actually realizing that your LGBTQIA plus member neighbor is not going to make you gay, is not going to hurt your life, but it's that fear that is so ingrained in us from the beginning.
Samara Lane:Yeah, yeah, 100% fear is so powerful, right. So, LGBTQIA plus communities, people of color, indigenous peoples, women so many more, And so many marginalized communities have an R Like. what happens is a very powerful white cis heteroman at some point right. During colonization or whenever these patterns started, is like I'm scared of that. I see the power in other humans, right, who are so true to their soul. That makes me scared. They project that fear. So who are we taught to be terrified of since the time we're little?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, ourselves, yeah, and I so can't. I mean like I love that you brought that up. It's like they see your powerfulness. I mean I don't know if that's word, but they see your power, they feel it. And that's when we're told we're too sensitive. That's when we're told we're too and I've been told so many times and too intimidating. I mean, in grown as adult circles, been told I was the one that was the result or the cause of everyone's distress And I was like, wait, when did I have to take on full responsibility? So then, as an LGBTQ plus person, you walk around, and when I say it like that, i'm not leaving anyone out. So I don't mean to leave people out, it's just a shorter way to say, to say all the letters, yeah.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:It's just a lot. But then you're taught to be like you're the problem. I'm the problem. You're uncomfortable with your own freaking sex life.
Samara Lane:No.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:That's you, that's religious trauma, that's social constructs, that's all those things. That's not me. Yes.
Samara Lane:Yeah, a million percent. Yes, and I love how you spoke to. It's not just one moment, right, there were. It's a culmination. That feeling of waking up in the morning and feeling the drudgery and the heaviness and the weight of all the like, the culmination of all those micro moments that happened over a lifetime. Right, i mean, that's the trauma. How did you first start to take your power back?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Oh well, um, I, i well. I first started to take my power back by just refusing to conform. And it's not made an easy life by any means, you know, necessarily. Because, um, then we're labeled difficult, we're labeled aggressive, we're labeled too much, we're labeled selfish.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I just have to say one thing to your listeners and my listeners you know, doing something for yourself is not selfish. This is your freaking life. You only live it theoretically once, so you better be living it the exact way that you want to experiencing it the exact way that you can. And if that means no, then you find people who will help empower you to continue to say no, those people that help reflect your own worthiness, your own soul, and feeding that right. And then I just started going my own way. I just started saying I'm not going to be doing that anymore. And that doesn't mean I could just separate and go right. No, i was coming in and out of it, constantly reminding myself wait, whose life is this? Wait, what do we want? What do I want? What does my true self say? Yeah, and this owning, that, owning that, it's my life.
Samara Lane:Exactly, yeah, as far as I mean, i believe in reincarnation, but I'm not going to remember any of this shit. We live one, i'm sure you all.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:There's reincarnation or something, because I'm looking for it to come back. I mean like I don't know necessarily that there is those things, but I'm open to whatever. There is One thing I do know And one thing I do want to tell people that are like I don't know what to tell people that are listening is that just because you don't believe like everyone else or have that like you were taught to, and religious, it doesn't mean you're going to hell. And if I'm going to hell, then there's going to be a whole lot of fucking cool people there with me and let's just all go there, because I am not. I would rather be there than in heaven with all your judgment and all your things. Right?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Yeah, exactly, i love where on you when you're told those things your whole entire life.
Samara Lane:Yeah, yeah. If God, you know, really would send someone to hell, even people that have just never happened to hear about Jesus, they're just automatically going to hell. If that's the God that you're inviting me to subscribe to, yeah, let's go party in hell.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Let's go play that Well, and again it's like, oh, i'm sure there's less judgment. This is like it's just all accepting. It's just an amazing, amazing thing to even for us to say if you don't believe in this kind of God, yeah Well, what makes your like I don't even get that, like that doesn't make sense to me either. You have one thing, and if you don't do this one thing, if you don't drink out of this one water bottle, you're not going to be nourished. There are millions of water bottles. Yes, You and I, i, you know, we have an energetic knowing, we have an energetic connection.
Samara Lane:Yeah, exactly, and we're not taught that way of thinking with so many other things, right, but it then it becomes again so pervasive, so again it kind of it's. It starts to be this inner conflict, right? Well, there's not just one right choice in other areas of my life, but there is in, literally the thing that, like my spirituality and my religion, the thing where I'm like defining how all of this works and who I am, and all of this, like that is such an inner tug of war And it just, i mean, again, people are, people are waking up, and I love how you spoke to, like, what it's like to be that rebel like you were. Again, this is part of your soul, right, like your soul is a badass rebel and she just came to this world like doing her own thing, right, no, i'm going to wear oh, my gosh, i'm wearing a different skirt, you guys. Ah, big deal, right, yeah, but that is the big deal for a lot of kids that maybe didn't identify as a rebel, right, and there's like two.
Samara Lane:I feel like there's two different experiences of this same suffering that we have.
Samara Lane:Right, i looked up to the rebel kids, but I wasn't at the time and maybe I shamed myself for not being brave enough to be a rebel, but then, because I stayed in my safe little people, pleaser, oh, i'm the good, quiet kid, la la la in the corner, never disrupting anything, that was totally me and my childhood until puberty, and then it went very much the opposite.
Samara Lane:So I've kind of had both experiences. But, right, i remember looking at that kind of idolizing the rebel, the rebel girl, and what I didn't really understand at the time was there is a whole onslaught of BS that the rebels who are just kicking and screaming they're neurodivergent or they are doing they're wearing a different skirt than you're supposed to or whatever, right, they're queer, whatever, that they're just following themselves, all the shit they have to deal with, right, that I am kind of pushing aside. Do you have any thoughts on kind of those two different experiences or things that you would say, depending on where someone has tended to fall, whether they identify as the rebel and all of the hardship that has caused, versus kind of being the quiet people, please, or tight?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, i think the one thing that you hit on the head is that it's the same foundational suffering. It's the same foundational suffering of the denying of getting to know yourself, of really being able to trust and listen to yourself, and being told that your inner knowing wasn't right. I also was a people pleaser from, i mean, like at a young age too, because if I said something or did something wrong I would be punished for it, right, and so I learned not to say anything. But then later on I was like I can't not say anything, like it doesn't make sense. And so in both of those as being a people pleaser because I believe the majority of people are people pleasers until we move out of that, because that's what we're taught, we're taught to operate in a society, and it's almost like that is a level of suffering that is so deep.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:And I had a woman say to me, a client say to me she's like I haven't been able to love myself the way I want to. And then I had another client yesterday in tears say to me I'm me, i was me in that situation. I mean it makes me emotional. I mean because it's like are you serious? And so when we have a people pleaser, but then the rebel, the rebel is in constant. They get used to the anxiety, i mean. So I think people pleasers do, but the rebel gets used to the defiance. They get used to being the outsider. They get used to being called the names. They get used to being shown out, called out, you know, because it's louder, more, more. You know neuro diverse. I'm also neuro diverse, right, and, and so you have to constantly be like switching around, but you get used to to being treated like that And that can be um, and that can inhibit your further growth, because then you believe that about yourself, exactly, right.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:So, so in both places? what are we taught to believe about ourselves? That was never ours in the first place. Yeah, and what do you? what do you want to break free from?
Samara Lane:Exactly, and I feel like I just extracted this from your message. So I want to put clear words to this for everyone. There is the people pleaser and the rebel in every single one of us. You're not one or the other And you're not better or worse, and anything that sounds like self judgment again is just, we've fallen into that old construct that we were taught, that was beaten into us, sometimes quite literally, and if you felt like stuck and quiet and oh, i can't, you're invited today right To start stepping into that rebel that you have, because she is so safe, they are so safe, that part of you is so, so safe. There are safe spaces for you. There is your soul, family out there, like you are so not alone.
Samara Lane:Um, again, what keeps coming today is like people are waking up in so many different ways, spiritually and socially and in all the ways. Right, there's a huge awakening and just like the resonance, literally, that the earth has been vibrating at for centuries literally changed, like in the sixties. Have you heard of that? The Schumann resonance? So fascinating, people should look that up. Um, like the world is changing. Guy is shifting, we're all shifting And uh, and so I just I can't help but just drool when I hear you like in the best way of life, when you talk about being 100%. You, 100% of the time, because all of us have that innate desire and that innate ability And it's you just following the truth of your soul and there is no right or wrong Right. You cannot mess it up. And whenever we're falling into those beliefs like you shared or those thought patterns, it's like that's just a, that's just the mind's invitation to go back into misery and go back into the constructs, right, and to have a really bad time, cause that's where other people feel more comfortable, right.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:And and really, if we can realize and look from a perspective, is that the thing that we're doing is only a pattern, because it's the only thing you've ever been taught to do. And maybe you you say to yourself cause I've had clients and I'm sure you've heard this before too Well, i chose it, i did that thing to me. No, you were taught to do a certain thing, to behave in a certain way, to keep yourself safe, to keep yourself alive in this world, and it's only a pattern and you can shift the pattern. Now, i'm not saying it's always easy. I mean let's just put that out there to come out as an LGBTQ plus person, to come out and be more vocal in this world.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I never, um, i had a private practice for a while. I didn't even come out in my private practice because the discrimination in my city is so huge And my, when I did my business, suffered because of it, but it also flourished because people found me. I've been able to work with the most beautiful transgender individuals, the most beautiful people in my community, and it's like when I realized I have the ability to shift that if I do it from my soul, if I do it from this place And and that's like knowing, knowing that you have the power to do that Yes, you have the ability. And it may not feel like it, i get it. It may not, and yet I want to tell you it's there And I don't lie or pull stuff out of my ass.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I like, it's real Like and it's in there And you've seen it. I know many of your listeners right now have seen it. The little glimpse, that little, that's it. Yeah, right, and knowing that, the mind pulling you back into the pattern, the construct, the system, once you return back into the system always the family system, your relationship system, whatever the system will put you back in because it doesn't like, not, it doesn't like the up rest. You're going counterclockwise and that is not helping other people.
Samara Lane:Exactly. There are people out there who are fighting desperately, viciously, tooth and nail, for the, for the system, for the traditional model, which is a very nice way of saying it And it's really for oppression.
Samara Lane:And even some of them, even though they are also being affected by the oppression right Negatively, but it's just been the status quo for so long.
Samara Lane:I want to just acknowledge your bravery and your courage. I know so many of our listeners are like feeling it and identifying with it And if their own version of that story of like being closeted, not like literally, literally not feeling safe to just express themselves and be openly gay, trans, whatever that looks like for them And to do it and own it in your business is like a whole other experience in that courage and that bravery right, because now there's like any financial security fears that we have right Now those are getting triggered as well, like there's so many pieces and and so that's a beautiful yes And I said, wow, as I was hearing you, i just want to call lovingly, call myself out that like that's a. It's like a really hard thing to hear that you went through that, but also it's not surprising. We don't. I don't even need to gasp and surprise, because this is actually people's reality every single freaking day.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:And, yeah, i think so many people in the, in the heterosexual world, but I think, like outside of marginalized communities I guess I'll say it like that People, they don't see what the marginalized communities go through. They like there's people that say like, oh, that's still stuff still happens. Yes, it still happens. Yes, i mean every day it is. It is a choice I'm making to show up more as myself, to say it doesn't matter, and I've gotten the messages. I've been called, all the names I've.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I mean like I have and you know, part of the rebel has trained me to not not have to engage in it right, like, oh, this is normal. People are going to do this. They're going to have a problem with it, and that's okay, that's their problem. I'm not owning that, i'm not taking the responsibility, i'm not believing what the church tells me, that I'm responsible for everyone else's feelings, that as a woman, i'm that, that, as whatever, right, yeah, and so it's like every day I choose to show up like this at as a risk, but it's because I have that safety internally, yeah, yeah, because my safety isn't reliant on an external stimulant or circumstance. It is internal. Yes, and it's not always an easy choice. Just to be completely honest, i'm human, just like everyone else, but I'm going to make the choice Exactly.
Samara Lane:You don't choose who you are, you don't choose your soul or your soul desires or your path in this lifetime, but you do get to choose whether you keep perpetuating and believing those stories, buying into the stories that you had ingrained in you. Right, that's where your power comes in and you're so, so powerful. And I just also want to say there's no amount of, like ancestral trauma, intergenerational trauma, because there's a lot of it, right, but there's no amount of that that can prevent you from living your friess life Absolutely.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:That's how powerful you are right, that's 100% yes, for sure.
Samara Lane:What's one way I'm sure there's been many layers to this The work you do is so powerful. What's one way that you have cultivated that self-trust?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:The number one thing I've done, and the number one thing I help other people do, is to know themselves, is to exit out of that paradigm that my self worth, my enoughness, my right, my whatever is reliant on something outside of myself. Now, having external support is great in all those things. But I'm going to tell you right now and I'm sure your listeners know this, you don't always have it, and those moments, if I can say, i know how to do that from within. I know how to create a feeling of safety. I know how to know that, no matter what anyone else thinks or says, that I am trusting myself. It's like this ultimate self-trust you start to develop And then, pretty soon, the decisions come more easily and you're like well, of course this is happening in my life, good things, of course this is happening to me because I am choosing to honor myself Before anyone else, and I've been criticized a lot for this.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I've been making these statements online for a really long time. I'm 51 years old now. I've been online for a while And I don't even and this might rub the wrong people, but I think it needs to be said I don't put my children before me. I don't put anyone. I don't put my wife nobody, and that hasn't. I mean it's become more common, but in a deeper way. How can you put yourself? how can you know yourself so well that, in any circumstance, all you have to do is take that millisecond to go within and be like, what are we doing here? And you get that voice and they tell you and you're like, okay, let's do this. And you move forward.
Samara Lane:Yeah, even just starting to listen to that voice, right To start listening. So, yeah, what might someone's first step be? What's a step someone could take if they're like completely new on their self-trust journey journey or they're feeling new to it today. What's a way they could start to practice that?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I would start by discovering the difference between your fear and your intuition. A lot of times we're making decisions rapidly out of fear because, of course, that's what we've been taught right. And so when you can know what is fear and what is really I call the true self, the wise one within you, and you can know what they are saying, then you can start differentiating and start leaving the fear behind. Now we don't want to get rid of fear, because fear helps us in the most risky or dangerous situations that we may be in, but what we want to do is we want to say, oh, this is a fear, i'm going to acknowledge that and I'm going to know that and I'm going to go in a different. I'm going to move back over here to the wise one, and the wise one will nurture the fear right. It will help it decrease, reduce nervous system response, all the things that happen to us in the body.
Samara Lane:Yes, so powerful And so many of our. I love that, and I also just have to say, before I forget this, that you sharing your story and just the experiences you've had, what you have had to overcome, and you're still facing it every day. It's not like the problems and the challenges go away, right, you're just choosing your soul and your path anyway right And you do you like it does, then you do get stronger, you do get happier, you do get more confident.
Samara Lane:It does, in some ways, start to feel easier, but it's never the easy path, right? Because there is this society that we lived in, that we're always going against the grain on. And what would you say is like and I just also I'm jumping over, but like, i just want to say this, whoever needs to say this if Rachel can do all of this, think about what you can do Like. That's one of my big takeaways from today is like, rachel, if you can choose this for yourself, think about the ways that people are holding themselves back right With even small, little everyday things. How we can make a huge shift.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:And the realization is is that you say you're holding yourself back and we're taught in the online personal development world that you're the one that's choosing this, you're the one that's not abundant enough, you're the one that's not manifesting what you want. That is all. Do I want to say that A majority of that, almost 100% of that, is bullshit. You are only doing what you were taught to do, and I just want to say what if you didn't need that? What if that wasn't your reality? Just drop in the seed of doubt and the thing that actually needs the doubt, that is powerful.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Your circumstances may not be the same as mine. You may live in more poverty, you may be in a different marginalized community. We need to honor each other in that And you are powerful, complete, whole and perfect, just as you are right now. Like that is where, oh, it's like that is where it's at. Like that is within you And it's covered up by all kinds of shit, and we just are going to start moving that away gently, compassionately towards yourself. Like, just start sloughing that off and just be like huh, feel what that feels like to be in this new way. Don't rush past it, don't push through it so much.
Samara Lane:Yeah, Yeah. Such healing words. Thank you for calling attention to that verbiage too.
Samara Lane:I don't even hear myself talk by the way, but like sit right, and most of us don't Like. There is a whole other experience of shame that we often have I know I have been through it when we're starting to do personal work or inner work or reflection or self reflection and really knowing ourselves, and then we're like, oh look, i didn't do as good as I know I could have done. Now Right, and it's like this whole other version of shame and even the pattern of shaming ourselves is learned Right. And so really giving like cutting yourself a break. Stop being so hard on ourselves, invite ourselves to return to that self compassion, because that's what heals everything Compassion heals ourselves. It allows us to be present and also hold space for the pain of others, instead of dismissing it Right Or feeling like their pain is interfering with my pain. So like, no, me Right.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Yeah.
Samara Lane:Love those healing words, rachel. Thank you, thank you. So yeah, i was going to ask you what's the hardest part. I don't know if I've asked you this yet. What's the hardest part of being 100% you, 100% of the time?
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I think the hardest part is living in a world that tells you to do it and then takes it away from you. Yeah, i think that constant stress, i mean I feel like it's just an atmospheric stress that just covers all of us And it's like, yeah, i don't necessarily want to say the hardest part is choosing myself, because it's become easier to me as I go along. But it's living in a world where you're constantly bombarded, yeah, and people ask me all the time like how do you keep doing what you do? Like what, in regards to political environments, all the things? how do you keep doing all the things? is because I only focus on what I'm doing. If I get caught up in those things and start to worry and the fear, you know. So it really is the honoring of the self. That can be one of the most difficult parts. Anyway, you honor yourself anyway. Yeah, yes.
Samara Lane:And that's not selfish.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Nope, i mean, like how can that be? I mean we could go down a whole shaming thing about selfish right. Like if you don't clean your plate, the people in Africa aren't eating. Like that never made sense to me, even as a small child. like what are you going to do? Send this food to Africa? Like you're just trying to guilt me and shame me into this thing. And my parents were only doing what they were taught you know.
Samara Lane:Yeah, yes, yes, okay. So I want to know any last like I feel, like you have said, there's so many powerful things that you've shared. I have learned so much. I feel like a little bit in the best way, like a little cracked open and raw right now Just like yes, thank you, rachel.
Samara Lane:Thank you for sharing your life getting a little emotional, any last words that you want to share And of course, we want to hear about your podcast as well, but any last words you'd share to anyone who's, like, really been through some religious trauma and is on that path of trusting themselves.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:I think let's see If you start shaming yourself, if you start noticing yourself being pulled back into that pattern. You don't have to do anything to deserve something different. You don't have to work harder, you don't have to be a better person, you don't have to not say something, you don't have to not eat a certain food. You don't have to do any of that. The number one thing that is absolutely needed in this world is diversity, and by you showing up as you, every fucking minute of every day will increase the beauty of this world. We each need to do that over and over. So please, my friend, choose you, choose you.
Samara Lane:That's it, thank you, thank you, rachel, thank you, thank you. Thank you With every fiber of my being. Thank you for being you authentically, 100%. you Thank you for guiding others in returning to themselves. I mean, there is no higher calling or purpose than that. Is there.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, and I'm refusing to do anything else. So if it doesn't fit somebody else's agenda, adios asavista, So for anyone I'm going to have in show notes below you're going to see links You can follow Rachel.
Samara Lane:You can check out more of what Rachel does. Tell us a little bit about your podcast and what you do in the world.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:So my podcast is called Road to Radical Visibility, and I created it to do just that Help people explore their road to radical visibility. Radical visibility is a very personalized thing to each person. It doesn't mean the same thing to one person as it does to someone else. And this is all the journey of getting to know yourself and how you want to show up, how you want to interact in the world so that you can walk around feeling more joyful, feeling more happy, feeling calm And if there's chaos, you know exactly what you want to do. You're creating that ultimate trust right. So the road to radical visibility tells stories of other people.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:So I have some fantastic guests on there this month and on our Pride month and beyond, but some really just beautiful stories of people in the LGBTQ plus community. I do some things on there on my own and just sharing my own experiences, but check it out if you ever want to be inspired and empowered, to just be like I'm doing this and this is me and this is how I want to be. So check that out. I work with people one on one. That's what I love doing, that's my heart, that's where the results come in for me and how I work with people, so if you're interested in doing that, you can feel free to reach out to me at Rachel Freeman Sowers at gmailcom. Just send me an email or send you know. You can send the message to this podcast and you'll get a hold of me.
Samara Lane:Beautiful. Thank you, i know so many people will. And just again, rachel, from the bottom of my heart, thank you, thank you, thank you for all that you're doing and for being on here today. It's been magical.
Rachel Freemon Sowers:Well, thank you so much. I knew when I responded to be on your podcast. I mean, let's just tell your listeners how this happened. You know I knew like I go intuitively into each of those posts. I'm like, nope, this is going to be good, nope, this is going to be powerful. So, thank you for the invitation. It is absolutely my pleasure to be here with you.
Samara Lane:Thank you so much for tuning into Alignment Unleashed. Make sure to check out the links in the show notes below for more resources and ways to work with me. That's also where you can get on my list to be coached for free on the podcast. Till next time, this is Samara, sending you love and light.