317. Embrace Sensitivity & Explore the Chakra System - Lauren Leduc

 [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Meditation Conversation, the podcast to support your spiritual revolution. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin, and today I'm joined by Lauren LeDuc. Lauren is a visionary teacher, intuitive mentor, and mama. With the special gifts of cultivating community and creating accessible experiences, Lauren has taught. Thousands of students with her approachable and intelligent methodology. She's compassionate, thoughtful, and deeply invested in creating opportunities for others to grow and shine. And she has a new book out called Embody Your Inner God.

Kara Goodwin: goddess, a guided path to radical wholeness, which is a seven week chakra [00:01:00] journey.

I really enjoyed speaking with Lauren who has recently released her book, embody your inner goddess. We get into a variety of subjects, including Lauren's journey onto her spiritual path. Experiencing and managing emotions, the importance of spirituality and meditation, the concept of the inner goddess and sacred, feminine, and the shocker system. We talk a lot about how a balanced approach includes both the masculine and feminine qualities and how this can lead to harmony and self-growth so you're going to get a lot out of this episode I want to see you at the Sedona essential retreat as Suzanne Ross is hosting march 8th through the 10th. I went to her retreat for the fall Equinox. 

And I had such a beautiful time that I want to make sure you guys know that there's another opportunity coming right up. She's going to have amazing speakers like Bashar. Anita more Johnny. Wendy Kennedy, Michael Jayco, [00:02:00] Ruben, LinkedIn, Maureen St. Germain, Rob Gothier and many, many more. I highly recommend joining this great event. Use code meditation for 10% off your ticket. Go to SedonaAscensionretreats.com to get all the info. And now enjoy this episode 

Kara Goodwin: So welcome Lauren. So happy to have you here today.

Lauren Leduc: I'm so happy to be here. Thanks so much, Kara.

Kara Goodwin: So let's start by talking about what led you onto the path that you're on here in terms of yoga and spiritual teaching.

Lauren Leduc: Yes. So I grew up in the Midwest of the us so in the Bible Belt in a very evangelical Christian community. 

I didn't have a lot of, 

Kara Goodwin: you in Missouri,

Lauren Leduc: yeah, I'm in Kansas, City, Missouri. 

Kara Goodwin: City? Okay. I'm in the

Indianapolis area. 

Lauren Leduc: Okay. so you're familiar with the culture 

and, yeah, so I didn't really have much exposure [00:03:00] during my childhood to yoga or really anything outside the realm of my religion and upbringing, 

besides maybe books 

Kara Goodwin: Okay. 

Lauren Leduc: did.

So when I was a teenager, I really started questioning things like many do. And I had a lot of stuff compound all at once where the pressure of fitting in and being the good girl and achieving, and then this questioning and not truly like knowing or loving myself turned into a really nasty eating disorder.

And at age 17, my parents put me in like an inpatient program. Thankfully to treat it. And that's where I was exposed to yoga for the first time. One of the nurse practitioners was also a yoga teacher. We weren't allowed to do a lot of movement. We could do [00:04:00] really slow walks and that was about it.

So I joined in really just because I'm like, oh, great. I get to move and stretch my body. I was a dancer. So I was surprised to feel the connection that I was able to feel in this dark room with a couple candles lit and listening to the breath, and really going inward and feeling quiet at a time where just things felt really chaotic.

And I was confronted with really my own psyche, like through all of the . The therapy and other things that were happening at the time. So that was my first exposure and the questioning really led to releasing my religion and being more or less agnostic for a while, but still feeling like the pole, spiritually to keep exploring and figure out what feels right to me.

So over many years. I still struggled with the eating disorder as well as depression and anxiety and some [00:05:00] addiction. that while also still exploring and expanding somehow at the same time. And then yoga really played an integral part of my healing about 10 years after that first class. I had tried everything.

I ended up moving back home here to Kansas City after living in different places and really exploring and trying and failing at a lot of things. And I really started taking my spiritual life and my healing very seriously, and things changed really fast. A couple years later, I became a yoga teacher.

and once that clicked into place over the last 10 years, my, Self-love has grown so much. My career has grown and thrived, and my interests have really expanded, or I'd say like my dharma has really expanded into, yes, I'm teaching yoga, but also this work with the sacred feminine, which is so different than what I grew up with because in.[00:06:00] there's, it's monotheistic. 

It's patriarchal. Exactly. So by opening my mind up to all of these different cultures and experiences and personal spiritual experiences, I was able to see myself in the divine and the divine in me, in a much different way than . What I had learned growing up and I always, I felt that spark and I felt the love and the joy from the divine as a kid, but I didn't know how to define it outside of the parameters I was given.

So it's very different now and I don't wanna bash how I grew up. And I know that, different religions and faiths can serve people in different ways, but for me, I needed to figure out what really felt true.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. I love that. And I think that's such an important point, that our religions or faith or whatever it [00:07:00] is, that it can really serve a purpose. I just released an episode recently as we're recording this on, on cults and had somebody in who had escaped the Jehovah's Witness cult that they were born into, and, and it just there have been a lot of discussions that I've had with other people and listeners and so forth based on that and it's like we can really be served by an organization or by a religion. when it's the right time and it's the right step on our path. And it may be that we're born into it, but there might be somebody who finds an evangelical church right now and they are addicted and they're lost and they have no footing for anything spiritual.

And that might be the right guidance and structure and discipline that they need at that time. Yeah, but it is this whole listening and is this still resonating or [00:08:00] am I stagnant? Am I just going on this hamster wheel because I'm afraid to get off of it because I am afraid that I am gonna be punished if I don't, or do I think that this is the only path or whatever?

And it's interesting because we can also experience that when we take a leap into a new Lineage, a new kind of thing that serves us for a little while, and it may be that we continue our evolution and then that's no longer as powerful for us going forward after a certain point. And so we always wanna be on the lookout for, is this still serving me?

Is this still lighting my fire? Or am I starting to get to where I'm afraid to look at other things? Because my teacher is really into this one lineage. Andmean, I remember somebody telling me once when I was in, in a, , following a A specific line of teaching. And I was interested in the Enneagram, and I asked [00:09:00] somebody in the community if they'd ever looked into the Enneagram and they're like, if the guru didn't, wasn't interested in the Enneagram, and, and he's given us all of the gifts that we will need for a self-realization, then why would I be interested in the Enneagram?

And it was like, oh, I didn't think of it like that. You know? And like looking back on that, it's like, wow, There's a lot of Closed, like protection and, and like, only follow what this one person is saying. And so it's interesting, we wanna keep checking in even when we have evolved out of something that maybe was serving us. So I just

really appreciate your approach and that whole the whole perspective of, it's not that I'm saying that what I came from was wrong or anything, it's just all if we're all evolving, 

Lauren Leduc: Yeah, I really, I appreciate everything you're saying. which brings up a couple points for me. One is, I think as spiritual seekers, that [00:10:00] discernment is just so important and I feel lucky, that I had that early experience where. I, they're not really asking for discernment. They're asking for cooperation 

with the religion 

or with the, teacher,

whatever it might be.

And I feel a lot of people come out of growing up with religion and then they fall right into another. I don't wanna say cult necessarily, although that could be the case, but another situation with some sort of authoritarian rule that takes away your autonomy. So for me, being in a. A space where you're free to explore what feels right to you and your intuition that is free from someone telling you that this is the way things are and you can't think, you can't question that.

You can't like move outside of that. Like to me, being in that is being in the feminine, it's being in the mystery rather than someone telling you they know exactly the [00:11:00] way things are because. No one really knows. I think we have glimpses of the divine through our experiences, but no one can tell us how to connect with the divine.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. I agree. I appreciate that. I think that, and we can get caught up in that, right? Where it's like, oh,

ISI had a glimpse because I did this, I fasted for this long, or I, you know, and we want that, right? a lot of people are like, oh, you got a glimpse of it. I want a glimpse of it, so let me do what you did. And there, and that is valid to a point. You know, it's just, it's always such a balance where, it's, again, not to say that our teachers don't offer us anything, but just like you're saying that discernment and that, like we all have our own path as well, and we're forging that path as we go.

So we also don't want to just emulate step by step what somebody else is doing and. I'm really curious if [00:12:00] you can talk to us more about this sacred feminine and why this is so important. 

Lauren Leduc: Yeah, absolutely. So my first exposure, I think to goddesses and to sacred feminine was through yoga and through the different goddesses of Hinduism. And really studying them and awakening them and embodying them within me was really crucial, I think in my journey. They're also vastly different.

yes, some are nurturing, but some are wild and some are, warriors, and there's like Collie, she's the destroyer. She destroys ignorance. and there's, there are muses and there's a goddess of abundance, which is the first one that I was exposed to. there are many goddesses in many different cultures, and I've had a lot of fun and deep experiences studying them through the years.

But when I'm talking about sacred feminine and the inner goddess, I'm talking about something a little bit more [00:13:00] personal. So it's not this it's not this goddess from a tradition, it's our own connection to our own inner divinity, particularly the feminine aspect of that. So to go a little bit furtherum, I know you have spiritual listeners, so this might not be new information, but in the yogic body and in many traditions, we hold these polarities within us of masculine and feminine, and they're not distinct to any gender.

They just exist within us as humans. Really similar to the yin and the yang. and the masculine is penetrating and solar and linear and structured. And the feminine is more wild and cyclical, receptive. Cool, lunar. So we hold these qualities. We all have qualities within us that don't always make sense, right?

They, we have these opposing qualities that we can[00:14:00] uh, maybe feel out of balance. Sometimes we're feeling more one than the other. For me, when I look at our culture as a whole over most of the world and over, several thousand years, it leans very heavily toward the masculine in a way that's become very unhealthy.

Where there are these hierarchies where there is, more power and control and domination through men, and less power and control through women. . I'm not saying that I'm promoting like a matriarchy necessarily. What I'm asking for is for us to each look within and love on these more feminine qualities, men and women, although I work particularly with women, to create more balance, more wholeness, and eventually a world that feels more balanced and whole where there is

Collaboration over competition where we're taking care of the earth rather than conquering it. where people have the freedom to be [00:15:00] themselves.

Kara Goodwin: I love that. I think too of, when I think of masculine and feminine, I think of the masculine as being like the doer always doing. And then the feminine is like the background space or like the holding of the space for The doing, and it's like we have such a, also within going back to your point of how we have, all of us have this within us.

It's not like the men have the masculine and the women have the feminine. It's this beautiful if we allow it, this beautiful balance that we could have within us. But we have attributes of both within us. But we, particularly in the west, tend to be so focused on the doing go, go, go, go, go. And in that way, also our feminine nature can be squandered because we're not

allowing, just allowing and being and letting, just holding that space for what wants to be done to rise, 

Track 1: [00:16:00] mm-Hmm.

Lauren Leduc: Yeah. It squashes. Creativity. it squashes our connection to like the moon cycles and to nature. I think it makes people feel like they need to fit in little boxes

Kara Goodwin: Oh, I

Lauren Leduc: that we need to show up exactly the same every 

day. We're just not meant to. I will also say while we all have masculine and feminine inside of us, there are also, hormonal factors that might make it a little bit easier for people with menstrual cycles, for instance, to embrace this.

 This feminine, if given the tools. And same with the masculine on the other side. Like they have a 24 hour hormonal cycle and women have a 28, 29, 30 day hormonal cycle. So for us to have to try to show up in such a way that men are expected to, it's just, it doesn't fit. we can try and we can medicate, we can, deny parts of ourselves.

But is that leaving room [00:17:00] for like the magic I guess, 

of the feminine, which is like more creativity, more flow,

 more deep connection both to nature and to intuition.

there's gotta be space for both,

I think. 

Kara Goodwin: That's beautiful. what have you noticed in your own expression as you've developed this connection, this strengthening of your divine feminine?

Lauren Leduc: I've noticed, really being able to harness qualities that I saw before as weaknesses

Kara Goodwin: Oh.

Lauren Leduc: and making them into my strengths. That's been like one of the biggest things 

I.

for instance, I've, yeah. 

Kara Goodwin: about that?

Lauren Leduc: I've always had the capacity to feel in a 

big way. feel all the emotions. And when I was really little, and I have a almost three-year-old daughter now, so I see this within her, the emotions would come and they would storm up and then pass through.

 but it gave me a. [00:18:00] Really I think deep connection to life and an artistic outlook. Also, being able to feel it in these ways. And as I got older, I had to shove that down. it's not appropriate to feel your emotions like that in every situation, or at least that's what I was taught. I love my dad, but he's a super, he's always been this very like authoritarian figure.

And my mom taught me as I got older to like . Not cry as he yelled at me and to quote unquote take it like a man. so I kinda learned that my emotions weren't appropriate over time and I also felt like there was something wrong with me because I would just feel things so deeply still, like I would feel so affected by the energy around me and by the people around me.

So even if a situation wasn't directly affecting me, it still could. Really make it difficult for me to function, and show up the same every day. So what I learned, in my twenties, [00:19:00] deprogramming all of this, is that I'm a highly sensitive person and that there's nothing wrong with that.

Our culture isn't necessarily set up for highly sensitive people to thrive, but through. My own practice and really through entrepreneurship too, because I can create my own schedule and create my own boundaries. I've been able to take this sensitivity and make it into a superpower. It went through teaching yoga through mothering, through being an intuitive now through art and writing like the being able to be in touch with our emotions in that way.

It's beautiful. It's a medium for creation.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. Yeah. That's beautiful. Thank you.

Lauren Leduc: So this podcast is the meditation conversation, and I'd love to know the role of meditation in your practice.

 Meditation has been a total game changer for my life. I still pray, but that was my only [00:20:00] method, for connecting to the divine. And as I was learning to meditate. Just receiving and listening was so mind expanding for me. I didn't know how to meditate at first. I would go to a Korea yoga center on Sundays when I lived in Chicago in my early twenties and learn a method through there, and it felt okay.

I would also sit and just visualize or let visualizations come to me. I actually visualized the chakras before I knew what they were or really anything about them. I would visualize myself as a prism, like white light coming through me and different colors coming out like the rainbow spectrum.

 so I would do my own thing. The, this was, I'm 39, so you know, 20 years ago there just wasn't the same. Information out there, you had to go to a library rather than just pull up the internet and, find all these different courses [00:21:00] and teachers and all these different ways to meditate.

and then I learned more structured meditation through my yogic practices and. There are so many that I love. I, there isn't like one that I've stuck with through all the years just because to me, like there's this huge toolbox. So I use what I need in the 

time. and I love exploring different methods of meditation, but for me, like really understanding the way.

The mind works through a yogic lens, meaning that there is , which is like the whirling of thoughts and just all the mind stuff they call it that's going on all the time. So to be able to pull back into the seat of the observer and just see that. Even see it settle is so incredibly empowering and it brings us in touch with our own soul, with our inner voice, with our intuition.

That's certainly what it's done for me. So being able to cut the noise, go inward and connect [00:22:00] to the divine, is just such a beautiful reality check that, we can find every single day. So it's been incredibly important to me. And it's constantly evolving too. Like I have a little kid right now sitting for even 30 minutes in meditation like that is a lot to ask.

So finding small potent moments are really important to me. And also for me, moving my body and doing some breath work beforehand is very effective as well, because I need to like move. 

My energy that's very much in the feminine. the movement and connecting through movement, so that there's more spaciousness to go 

in, to meditation is really important.

Kara Goodwin: Beautiful. I love what you talk about, where you're bring, like, where you were picturing yourself as a prism and that light was coming in and then coming out in the rainbows. I know that your book is, the shockers play an integral role in your [00:23:00] book. Can you talk about how. How the chakras are, how you use them in your book.

Lauren Leduc: Yeah, for sure. So for me, they're similar to something like Maslow's, hierarchy of needs, right? So we look at like the root chakra, and it's all about survival and our bodies and our roots and our foundation money. Like all of the things that we need simply to like . Survive in this world and to create strong roots to grow from.

As we move up the chakra system, we get into, yes, some of this still like very human things, but we go up and up and we connect to the divine, right? So to me, there're this beautiful like organization system of what makes us human and what makes us spirit. As well. So as we go through the book, we start from the bottom.

We start from the root, and we look at some really heavy things, to be honest, especially for women like [00:24:00] relationship with our own bodies, our inner child's children. Pardon? With money, with our relationship to the earth. We look at these different factors and really like. Consider what our relationship is to all these things and start to really love on all of these different aspects of self too.

And then we move up through the week. So we spend one week in each chakra. there's daily readings and then reflections. So an opportunity to journalum, on the topic and then some sort of embodiment practice to really drive the information home. And then each week we can look at these different aspects of self.

So week one is in the root. Again, it's about like your foundation as a human. We move up to the sacral chakra, which is, in the womb space, and it's all about creation and sensuality and flow. and then we move up and up. So we get to look at these different [00:25:00] aspects of self till we finally get to the crown, which is our connection to source, to goddess.

And to me by looking at ourselves in this way, it's really systematic. Because like we journey upward and we don't really leave anything unturned because the chakra system is so comprehensive in that way, and we get to go from like the densest to the lightest chakras, , which is nice. So we we don't b bypass anything.

We go into like our humanity before going up to this connection with the divine. I think when we bypass the lower chakras, we are doing ourselves a disservice. we're not really fully able to connect because we're denying specific parts of ourself or maybe shoving things down that need to be loved on and looked at.

Kara Goodwin: I love that. And I, one of the lineages that I've been in over, over time, I remember very clearly one of the [00:26:00] teachers talking about because I wanted to know more about the chakras, and they were like, just focus on the third eye because, and then everything else will come into balance. And I was like, okay. And then, and then I kept going on the spiritual path and I was like, Oh, that was not good advice. that's not gonna create balance. we have this whole human part of us that needs to be seen and we need to work through it. We need to embrace it and accept it and work with, What's, what is there within those chakras that is, can be blocking energy flow and just be things that need to be released. And it doesn't just happen automatically by overemphasizing one chakra 

Lauren Leduc: No. Yeah, and I think you see a lot of spiritual people who are, well-meaning who are focused more on the upper C chakras who just don't have a sense of 

groundedness. and I would just question like, why say we choose to be here on earth? That's my opinion or my belief, right? Why would we choose to be in a body and having [00:27:00] a human experience if we weren't meant to embrace that part of ourselves?

Kara Goodwin: Absolutely. Yeah. I love that. So tell us, Lauren, how people can find out more about you and get your book.

Lauren Leduc: Yes, you can, connect with me at my website, which is lauren leduc.com, L-A-U-R-E-N-L-E-D-U-C. I'm also hanging out on Insta, I am Lauren LeDuc is my name there. I have a, podcast called Your Spiritual Besties with my best friend Rashida. And we just riff on all kinds of spiritual topics. We do live readings too, which are really fun.

so you can connect with me in those places. My book is available where books are sold. so you can go through a local bookseller or you can go to the big guys, 

whatever you prefer. And yeah, I do one-on-one, chakra and inner goddess reading. So I connect with the, client's, inner goddess and she helps take me through [00:28:00] the different chakras and see what can maybe be balanced or loved on.

 so yeah, a lot of different ways to connect with me and just. I love when people actually reach out directly. So I think for you, Cara, and probably me, a lot of the work we do, we put out in the world and we put out and just hope that it touches lives or makes change. but it means like everything to actually hear directly from somebody.

So if something touches you or makes a difference or you have questions or wanna connect more, just reach out directly. I'm always happy to hear from people. I'm sure you feel the same way.

Kara Goodwin: Absolutely. That's so well said. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much Lauren, and congratulations on your book. It's so lovely to meet you and connect with you today. Thank you.

Lauren Leduc: thank you so much, Kara.

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