Harnessing the Power of Choice and Body Awareness | Lisa DeAngelis

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left and I went out to walk to my car and I remember getting to my car thinking all these things and stop you know mumbling to myself there and I lurched forward to open my car door and I thought to myself at that exact moment wasn't there something about stopping and I found myself literally hunched over lurched gripping out to my car door going oh well that certainly isn't great for my system so I took my hand off the car door and I just thought

00:29
Can I do that differently? Today's guest is Lisa DeAngelis. She's navigated a fascinating journey of self-discovery, growth, transformation. And today we're gonna discuss her significant life shift that she encountered at the age of 18. This shift was a seemingly daunting medical diagnosis, and it really set the stage for a series of choices that eventually shaped the course of her life.

00:55
Through discovering the potential of the Alexander Technique, which is a body use technique that really emphasizes awareness and choice, we'll discover how this technique initially approached with skepticism from Lisa became a cornerstone in her life, leading her to profound realizations about control, choice, and the power of self-determination. In this conversation, we hope to remind you of the importance of listening to your inner voice, especially in a world that often pushes us to conform to societal expectations.

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It's a testament to the courage it takes to align your choices with your truth, to let go of what doesn't serve us and to embrace change, however uncomfortable or scary it may be. Before we jump into the episode today, I want to thank two Patreon supporters, Brian and Dream Vacations. Brian has been a friend for a long time and he is a local Orlando realtor. And so if you are looking for any help in the realty space.

01:50
Check out my friend Brian, I will connect you with him if you are interested. Dream Vacations run by my friends Shane and Trapper. They specialize in cruises, but they can help you with all sorts of travel needs. So if you want their information, check out the show notes. And if you want to help support the Life Shift Podcast and the production costs and those kinds of things, please check out patreon.com forward slash the Life Shift Podcast.

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and you can see all the information on how you can directly support the show. Thank you for any support you might have. And without further ado, here is my conversation with Lisa D'Angeles.

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I'm Maciel Huli, and this is the Life Shift, candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever.

02:48
Hello, my friends. Welcome to the Lifeshift Podcast. I am here with Lisa from New York City. Hey, Lisa. Hello, Matt. I don't know why I said that, but welcome. We were just talking about where we were located, and you're currently in New York City and I'm slightly jealous. Well, it's funny, I moved to New York City during the pandemic, actually. So sometimes I hear that and I think.

03:10
Oh my gosh, I do live in New York City. And then I have a moment of thinking, yeah, I love this version of my life. So thanks for giving me a little reaffirmation. Where did you move from? I was in Chicago. I lived downtown Chicago and that's where I was holed up during the pandemic. After many of us were tested in a lot of ways, I like to say for me, that time really revealed some cracks in my foundation, so to speak. I just...

03:38
had some time to ask myself some really interesting questions. And one of them was, what's keeping me here? Especially when I had some ideas and dreams about other things I wanted to do and other places I wanted to go. And I sort of landed eventually on, this might actually be the perfect opportunity to make a change. So I went for it. But yes, it's still semi-recent. I'm going on three years now and I absolutely love it here.

04:03
I love that. And the way you describe the pandemic, I think for so many people, even though it was a very, very hard time for millions of people, we were all going through the same trauma at the same time. It was a big collective trauma of the pandemic. But I think so many of us had the opportunity to just sit and think and reflect and determine what are we doing? Like, what is our life? And is this what we want to do?

04:31
I saw many people stop being friends with people, stop relationships, you know, and then just finding like, this is how I move forward because we were all kind of faced with our own mortality. Well, and it uprooted the way so many things, quote, had to be, right? So many things that just had no other options, all of a sudden, new things and new possibilities popped up. And yes, I never wanna devalue what a stressful challenging.

04:58
anxiety-ridden, just grief-stricken time the pandemic was. And I was really able to find my own version of a silver lining. I'm really happy to see so many people on the other side and reforming connections in totally expanded ways. I think it is so amazing what technology has done and allowed us to do and the way we've been able to connect with each other. It's really shifted and changed, I think, for the better in some ways.

05:29
I agree. I, you know, it's hard to say that, right? With as many people that went through so many things. But I think it's just really given us the opportunity to understand what matters to us and make the connections that matter. I mean, this podcast really probably wouldn't exist if the pandemic did not happen because, you know, all the little pieces, all the dominoes fell in a row. And now here I am two years nearly after releasing the first episode.

05:58
where I've talked to 120 plus people about their very personal stories and we're gonna go into yours. But I mean, like what an opportunity that I could never have imagined for myself. And so, you know, there are some silver linings if we look close enough. So I'm glad you found yours. And I guess upgraded from Chicago to New York City. I like the concept. I always think of Chicago as like a more like palatable version. Like it's like a like preschool.

06:28
And then... Graduating, yeah, exactly. Exactly. I love that. Well, maybe before we get into your story, you can just introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about who you are right now and maybe not give away too much if any of that indicates part of your story, but just give us a sense of who you are right now. Sure, thank you. And I love the way you asked that because who I am right now is definitely very different than who I was last week even. And so that's sometimes a really fun thing to reflect on.

06:56
So yes, my name is Lisa. I live here in New York City. I am a lot of things. I have worked in a lot of different industries. I've done a lot of things. I was a classically trained singer. I did my undergraduate in voice and that's an area of my life. I will now lovingly say I am a former reformed singer because it's not something that shows up in my day-to-day life very often unless I'm cooking in the kitchen, in which case sometimes that will definitely pop out.

07:23
But I live a really full life with really deep, meaningful connections, being one of the most rewarding pieces of my life and something I'm the most proud of. We'll get into this a little bit more, I'm sure, but I published my first book this past year in 2023. So that's been another shifting layer of identity for me is what it feels like to sort of adopt this layer of being an author onto the full spectrum of who I am and all of the ways that I have shown up in the world. So.

07:53
Maybe we'll start there with that and we can dig into some more things as you feel like that would be useful. Congratulations on publishing your book. I know that's a big feat for anyone. So congratulations. I can't imagine what that feels like when when it's all said and done on pub day and you're like, all right, it's going to do what it does. Yeah, sort of surreal. It's it's sitting behind me on my on my credenza. And sometimes I wake up in in the morning and I go.

08:19
That's real. I did it. It wasn't all a dream. So yeah, it's been a really amazing journey. And just the start, right? It's all of these things that we do to create in the world are often a lot more like marathons than sprints. So I'm trying to view it that way and not get caught up in some of the metrics and some of the things about what happens right out of the gate to really just look at this as saying, okay, now it's here and now we're going to decide what we want to do and be in the world together book.

08:49
I love it and I can relate with the podcast. And you just put it out there and you hope that, and I don't know if this is the same for someone that's published a book the way you have, but you hope that one person out there hears or reads or catches it at the right moment in their life in which it helps them in some way, whether that's in the podcast sense, I kind of think of this eight-year-old version of me who had just lost his mom and felt like, am I the only person, like am I the only eight-year-old that's...

09:18
has a dead mom, you know, and I felt so alone. And I hope with the podcast that there are people out there that may be going through something and they hear someone's story and they're like, oh, wait, this is possible. I can move through this because I'm not the only one going through this. So I wonder if there's a similar feel to that as a as an author. Absolutely. Without a doubt. I have said that for a very long time. The goal is really that even one person is is sort of.

09:44
brought to a new insight, has a sort of aha moment of their own, then it really makes all of the effort worth it. And I just, you know, also am one of those people who feels like we never know when we're going to be those people without writing a book, without starting a podcast, by just saying hello to a stranger, engaging with somebody who really needed to get that moment of connection, to have that point of affirmation, whatever it is. I really tried to up my complimenting other people.

10:12
because I think it's a really big practice. I'll think a lot of things in my head, but I often don't say them. And I've noticed that there's a really big difference when I go the extra step to actually just say it to the person, even if it's somebody I don't know, and just say, I really love your coat. You look really great. You might've made their day. Exactly. So whether it's a book, whether it's a podcast, whether it's that little moment, I think it's just so important, right? Because we never know how we're gonna affect people.

10:40
Certainly don't. And let's get into your story, because maybe we'll affect people. I think this is important. I think it's helpful for the listeners to understand what your life was like leading up to this pivotal moment. Because we have these, we were talking before recording, it's like most people don't have one life shift. But we try to identify, is there a moment that kicked things off? And I think in your case, there was one, and then it was followed by.

11:10
a more enlightening kind of life shift after that. So we can take the picture of the before times. Sure. So as I mentioned, I was a bright and bubbly 18-year-old who was off to the big old world of college and felt like the entire world just lay in front of me. And it was sort of my first taste of freedom and some autonomy in the world in a way that I hadn't experienced yet. And I was pursuing voice and digging into all of this.

11:37
At the end of your each semester when you're studying music, you have what's called a jury and you just perform in front of the faculty and it's sort of how they grade you, part of how they grade you for the semester. And so I was prepping up for this, which is a little stressful as your first semester and you're doing this thing in front of all the faculty and you really want to perform well and all of that kind of stuff. And I started having some job problems and it started really concerning me.

12:01
Because in addition to affecting my singing, I just didn't, my body didn't feel great. A lot of stuff was happening. So I made it through that time and went home for the holidays and mentioned it to my mom. And she said, well, we should go see somebody. We should go get it looked at. So I went and saw a specialist and he told me I needed reconstructive jaw surgery. And I felt like my, it was like a scene out of a movie where like.

12:27
everything goes black, the sound goes silent, and sort of the camera is sort of straight in on this face that just doesn't even know what to think or what to do, because I just thought, this can't be happening. This isn't possible. I have my whole life ahead of me. I was gonna become a singer. What would happen to me if I pursued this? Because of course, the whole point of our conversation, my conversation with that doctor was,

12:54
We have to go in and take it apart to figure out what's going on. And then we'll put it back together and fingers crossed, everything should go well and you can regain full functioning, but there's no guarantee. And I thought, what if that doesn't happen? In addition to never singing again, I might not be able to do things like talk, eat, anything else you need a job for. And I really had this moment of going, oh my gosh, what is happening right now? And this is sort of my first.

13:23
life shift moment because it was the clearest, strongest voice I had ever gotten. And everything in my system just said, no. No. Don't do it. You said that out loud? Or were you hearing it? I'm trying to re- I think I was hearing it at the time, but it felt like someone was saying it to me. It felt that loud, right? And of course, you know.

13:46
snap back on the movie moment into the room where there's some, you know, my mom's talking to the doctor and there's things happening and people are around. But I just left and I went, I don't think I can do it. And you know, that that moment of clarity really shifted something for me because number one, I didn't realize I had that voice. I didn't realize that that existed. I had really just been driven. Yeah, I had really just been driven by all of the things that

14:12
I thought I should be doing, that I did like doing, so I just kind of leave. Yeah, oh, that's a great way to put it, society's checklist. And so it was that first moment of really deep inner clarity. And certainly it's not like, I'm sure now it's not that it wasn't there, it was that I hadn't learned to listen to it yet. Yeah, it's so interesting too, because you think it's a medical professional, and if you're following society's checklist, they're a...

14:38
They're here, right? Like we say yes, we do what they say because if we buy into everything that we were conditioned to buy into, whether that was intentional or not, it was just how things were, you could imagine that like, I'm going along, you know, like I'm just going along and he says, this is what we need to do, we do. Right, right. But you were like, you were in your, your, your.

15:06
emptiness, I guess, in this black space of, and then you just hear, did you, do you remember hearing it? Like, do you remember, did it sound like you, I guess is really the question. That's such a fascinating question. I don't think it sounded like me, but it sounded, it sounded loud enough and firm enough that it felt like I couldn't not listen. So, you know, my own personal belief system, right? I'm not sure if it was sort of.

15:34
me from another phase of my existence, you know, talking back at a future me, talking to current me, you know, something like that, you know. But I really do believe it just, it spoke differently. So if it was my own voice, it was a version of me I hadn't heard before, right? One that was really no questions, no qualms, no waiting to see what anyone else was going to weigh in and give me as part of the decision. And so that felt really crucial and important.

16:03
But of course it was like almost immediately I had a little bit of regret, vulnerability hangover, right? Regret, because I sort of thought, well, what the heck am I going to do? I still have a job problem. Like this doesn't address any of the issues. If I say no and I know it's no, fine. But now what? Right? That whole like, well, what happens now? And fortunately, I think listening to that voice in that pivotal moment.

16:28
was what really opened up some space for things to start moving and happening. Because I went back to school a few weeks later and I went to my voice master class that week and that he had brought in a guest.

16:42
And she was a teacher of the Alexander Technique. I had never heard of the Alexander Technique before. I found out later because I dove into it myself. It's a body use technique that focuses on increasing awareness of the way we physically use our bodies so we can enhance performance in whatever area we work, live, or want to be. So the really simple version is it helps people do what they do better, right? Because you're maximizing efficiency, optimizing the way the system works.

17:10
So she did a little presentation and something about it just kind of grabbed me. And I said, okay, I want to dig into this. And I went to our first lesson and I told her I said I have a jaw problem and I'm doing this and much to my chagrin, she didn't work on my jaw at all. She's talking to me about sitting in a chair. She's talking to me about this. Do you feel your feet on the ground? And I'm thinking, geez lady, don't you listen to me. My jaw is the problem. But of course, feel it, fix it.

17:38
But that was, you know, my fatal flaw was wanting to get fixed. And in that moment, you know, I just sort of thought, OK, I guess I can try this. What's it going to hurt kind of situation? So I bought it and I went along with it. And a couple of weeks later, I was at one of our lessons and she very rarely had homework or anything we were supposed to do. Right. It's really about non doing it, really about sort of letting go of the habits and patterns that we don't need anymore.

18:06
But she said, you know, I want you to just try something. And anytime you remember this week, I want you to just see if you can stop before doing something. And I thought, stop before doing something? Yeah, that sounds a little ridiculous, but okay, whatever. We'll try it. I was in this mode, right? So I left and I went out to walk to my car and I remember getting to my car, thinking all of these things and stop, mumbling to myself there. And I lurched forward to open my car door.

18:34
And I thought to myself at that exact moment, wasn't there something about stopping? And I found myself literally hunched over, lurched, gripping onto my car door going, oh, well, that certainly isn't great for my system. So I took my hand off the car door, and I just thought, can I do that differently? And so I just sort of gently extended my arm rather than lurching my whole body forward and opened the car door. And I sort of had a moment of going, ah, whoa.

19:04
And this, interestingly enough, was like the light bulb life shift moment, because in that moment, it was like a thousand thoughts flooded into my head. And I just went, oh my gosh, if I could choose how to do this, open a car door, I could choose if I wanna get in the car. I could choose where I wanna go. I could choose when I wanna go. I could choose anything. And if I could do that here, I could choose anything in my life. Like...

19:31
It was like the whole world of possibility had opened up in front of me when I recognized that I had a choice about how to show up in the world. And that really was mine to make. So that hilarious standing in front of my car, opening the door moment ended up being this like incredible light bulb that shifted my baseline in a way. It was like, I couldn't unsee that learning anymore. And.

20:00
It was like your Wizard of Oz moment. Yes, absolutely. And once I had shifted my core level of what neutral was, it was like, well, do I want to choose that? No, I don't. Interesting. What do I want? And I started being able to ask myself these questions that just had never had enough space to be in the conversation. So it was like that moment of pause.

20:29
opened up this idea that you have agency to do whatever the hell you want. Before growing up, did you have this curiosity? I guess I don't. I'm very type A. I'm very like task driven. And so the idea of like, oh, let's just try it. It sounds like I could pause and I can with this technique that you were learning and leaning into it. She wasn't fixing anything. She was just kind of.

20:56
guiding you to agency, essentially. Were you someone growing up that was curious in that way or? No. I'm actually, I would describe you, I describe myself exactly, I'm still a list person and I'm trying to break myself up of it only because, you know, I've realized it's a better thinking tool for me than an accountability tool because if I live so tightly to my lists.

21:20
I sort of get into my own head about it, where it's a great thinking tool for me because I'll write lists of things and then all of a sudden I'm like, ooh, it's out of my head. Now I can actually go do different things. But yeah, I think I was not that kind of a person. So it was, you know, I lived a life where, you know, I loved singing when I was little. And my music teacher, I think I was in third grade, my music teacher might have said to my mom, you know, I think she really has a knack for this. You know, you might want to consider cultivating that.

21:49
in the most supportive way possible. And I'm so grateful she did because it led me on an incredible path. But music became my thing. And it was the thing that I did. And it was the thing that defined me. And so of course, when I was thinking about going to college, I was gonna major in music because it was the thing I did. I didn't stop to say, what does this look like as a career? What else would you wanna do? It was just, and I was happy with that. I don't wanna imply that.

22:16
for any stretch of the imagination I was coerced into it or something like that. But I really, looking back, I'm not sure that I sat there and really chose it. It sort of felt like it chose me and I liked it and it was a good match. And so we just kind of kept going on that dance, right? And again, I made some of the most influential and substantial relationships of my life through music, through the world of engaging in that. So I wouldn't not do it again.

22:46
But it was a fascinating realization when I had then this huge light bulb moment to say, how often have I exerted agency over my choices versus just doing what the next thing was because it's what I quote should be doing, or it's the easy thing, or takes the least amount of thought, or, or, or, or, right? Yeah, I can relate to that. I feel like that was very much my life of following, like just the next thing. You just do the next thing that's kind of expected of you.

23:16
I sometimes in these conversations, these visuals come up. And so this visual that I have for your story, you know, like growing up, it was like, there was one highway that you could take. And now it seems that all of a sudden there's every back road that you could ever possibly want to go on and you can choose whichever way you wanna go to get to wherever you're going. So it feels very like there was one thing and now there's, it's like spaghetti junction over here with just like roads that you can

23:46
whichever one and you can take them and anyone will take you wherever you want to go. I love that and I have to share a story with you that I think you'll appreciate actually. So when I was writing my book, the first title I had when I first started writing my book, I thought the book was going to be called Points of Intersection. And it was going to be about these moments in people's lives, lives where they make a choice and their sort of life goes off on a different path and it sort of diverts and then following that road, right?

24:14
This was going to be the book that I started writing. That's what I thought I was interested, those moments where we make a choice at a crossroads and move toward there. And the book I ended up writing was a book about what it means to change and exploring the pathways, which are unending. And if we approach them with the right tools and resources, it lets us choose all of them because they're not, one's not right or wrong. They're just all choices we make and they can all take us to different versions of who we want to be.

24:43
So I absolutely love that you brought in that visual because I actually experienced that through my creative process because I was so focused on this like point A, point B kind of approach to the world. And then it just really blew itself open to become this interestingly messy, like we love spaghetti. Who doesn't love like a good mixed up spaghetti, right? With all of the good stuff in it, but it's not always.

25:09
I guess we'll say culturally celebrated or supported for people to take the road less traveled the sort of quieter path or the darker path, right? That sometimes appears off in the distance. And yeah, if we let the curiosity lead, we sort of go, hey, wait, what's that one over there? Yeah, I still don't imagine. I still can't do it. I think it's funny. You know, it's like, it's scary. I think.

25:38
I think part of my development and my choices in choosing the most appropriate path is probably related to my childhood trauma and the fact that I was abandoned as a child, right? My mom died and so for a tiny brain, that's an abandonment issue. And I think if I, growing up, if I didn't choose the next right thing.

26:04
would my dad leave, would, you know, with the family member. So I think a lot of that is very much. And so it's, I think, not uncommon. I think there's a lot of us that kind of stick with that because we're afraid of what the other road takes. It might be beautiful, it might be wonderful, and we might understand that logically, but taking or making those choices can be really hard. And so I'm wondering if after your light bulb moment,

26:35
Like, what was something that was, do you have, what was the first big thing that you decided on that was maybe less like the older version of you? I don't know if this was the first thing, but it happened sort of not too long after that. And I guess looking back, I would sort of wonder if this, I've never made the connection until you just asked this, but you know.

26:58
Performance is a big competition. I wasn't a performance major, I was an education major, and I did perform, so automatically there was a little bit of a differentiation, right? The people who were the performance majors were gonna go into performing. And there was an audition available for a scholarship, and it was a very, very specific scholarship. It was only available to women, only residents of the state of Illinois, and music majors. So sort of this very, very specific thing.

27:26
and it was judged by partially a performance, and then you wrote, I think, an essay or something like that, and they looked at your grades and all of these things, like a scholarship would do. And I had a lot of people sort of saying, I'm not even gonna apply for that, because I can't compete with the people who are performers, right? And I thought, you know, no, I'm gonna throw my ring, my ring in the hat, my hat in the ring. I'm gonna throw my ring in the hat, too.

27:55
But I'm gonna throw my hat in the ring for this because I know that I'm a good package. I worked really hard to get good grades. I'm proud of who I am as a performer, even though I might not be performing at the same caliber as other people who have decided to commit to it at a certain level. And I got the scholarship. And I don't know if I would have applied for it had I not really had one of those moments to say, why not?

28:24
what if and sort of what's the worst that could happen. Because it became less about, well, if I don't get it, I'll be rejected. It wasn't about that at all. It was just about, hey, I'm just gonna go for this because I do actually trust and believe in what I bring to the table. And that felt like a really, really, like I said, affirming moment. Do you feel that when you were doing, well, like that moment, was that?

28:51
replicated through the rest of your life? Do you feel that you were now approaching life differently because you now have this, I guess, awareness that maybe you didn't have before that like, oh, I can do whatever I want. It doesn't matter what, I mean, as long as it's legal, right? It doesn't matter what the people next to me think I should do or whatever. As long as it's not hurting someone, I can choose whatever path I want. Did you feel like...

29:18
different in your skin moving forward? I'm just trying to imagine this for myself. Yes, I did. And part of it was I continued studying the Alexander technique, and then I trained as a teacher. And for the last almost 15 years, I've been a certified teacher of this work, which is about sort of conscious change and body re-education. So it's almost like I started to wind it in at a super physiological level because

29:44
You know, a lot of people will approach something like body use and say, I have a problem with this. I want to fix this. I want to focus on this. Not recognizing that what we do with our body system, the rest of the 95 or 99% of the day is actually when the habits are coming into play. So I think as I started unwinding the principles of this technique and the way that approach to the world,

30:14
really continue to unfold, it started just seeping, seeping into all of the corners of my life. And yeah, it was almost like, it was almost like my senses were attuned a little bit differently. And it's sort of like someone would say something and whereas previously I might have just let it gloss over me that, oh, that's interesting. I would start hearing things and going, hmm, I wonder if I could, or could that be an opportunity to...

30:43
You know, and it was almost sort of like I had different filters that my system was working with and that really allowed me to sort of step into spaces differently. I was also, I don't know if this is sort of a type A thing or just a me thing, you know, I was also always really obsessed with this identity question of like, who am I? You know, and like defining it in the list form down to the I am this, I am this, I am this, I am this.

31:09
and the tighter I could make it and the clearer I could make it and the more succinct I could like peel the layers down to the core of who I am was sort of like one of these mission things for me in the back of my brain. And the hilarity is, you know, I've come to realize is identity is probably one of the most fluid things that we experience. And actually the more I can allow myself to be all

31:39
things, I can actually, like I said, it's almost like a gem. Like you can choose which facet you want to reflect or project out into the world, but you've got to have all the facets to do that. If I like, if you, you know, file it down so that there's only one way to shine and reflect, is that the fullness of who you are as a person. So it was like my whole concept of identity has just slowly shifted over the years.

32:07
It's fascinating too to go from, I mean, I guess you still have tendencies of type A and... Oh, for sure. Did you ever have a moment, I can imagine this happening to me, in which I start to feel like you're describing, but then like this, the other part of my brain that's existed for so long, starts to question myself and question like, what are you doing? Like, this doesn't seem normal, this, right? Like the quote unquote normal, this doesn't...

32:37
This isn't what I was taught. This wasn't, did you ever have these moments in which you were now, at one point you questioned the identity and moved to this space in which you had more awareness, but then did you ever have this like where you're like, well, now I gotta question this space because this feels different. Always and constantly and still. The last two years I dove really deep, literally and figuratively into some somatic trauma healing work. And the mentors that I have been working with are amazing.

33:06
but also just really were so key in helping me understand that that's not just a my brain or your brain phenomenon, that our system actually has these mechanisms in place that are trying to actually keep us safe because doing things that are unknown to us is actually, it's scary because anything that's unknown, we haven't done it before. We don't have a frame of reference.

33:35
Our brains are prediction machines that work on creating choices based on a combination of factors that are going on in our systems, but it works on information from the past. And if it's not a good prediction, the brain tries to do it again and get a little clearer prediction, but when it works, the brain kind of sticks it and stores it and sort of goes,

34:03
that can be useful for another instance that's kind of like this. But again, we're not really wired for this like wide open space of unknown, which sucks, right? But it also keeps us really, it keeps us safe. So it's this fine line of figuring out how we remind our systems that it isn't always actually unsafe to move toward things we don't know yet.

34:32
And that's a big thing for me, is I used to get really obsessed with the things I didn't know, and how do I gather that information? And I've adopted a new way of describing it, just saying, like, I don't know what I don't know yet. So it's like, it's just something I haven't learned yet, right? It's not something that's sort of like, you're a bad person, you don't even know that? Come on, no, I just haven't had the chance yet, right? And now that it's in my system, I can take it and use it and figure out what's next. Yeah, and the first time you told yourself that, you're like,

35:00
Yeah, right. Okay. Exactly. It's like one of these things where you're like, you gotta tell yourself, you know, I can, I understand that now that you explained it in my own circumstances, like when I found a therapist at like 30 something, which is how long it took me to grieve losing my mom, she was like, you know, I was telling her all the things, all the decisions that I would make, all the fears that I had, and she was like, hold up. You realize that...

35:28
Ever since your mom died, you've been making decisions as that eight-year-old who's so afraid of what just happened. And it was like one of those clouds parting, everything was like, oh wow, I have every decision that I made was the easy one because I knew it was safe. I knew I didn't have to take a chance that I wouldn't fail. I would do the easy degree. I would do this, I would, you know, like whatever it was moving, I would get the easy promotion because it was safe. I knew I can move into that space. And

35:58
So when she said that, it was like, oh yeah. You know? And so you're right. It's like, it's in your body trying to keep you safe. It wasn't like I was intentionally doing that. No, no, exactly. And I think that's the whole crux of it is, our comfort zone is comfortable, right? Oh yeah. It's safe, it's warm, it's cozy, it's, you know, but it's not a space where growth and shift happens. We have to move outside of the comfort.

36:27
in order to start experiencing something new, right? I think for me, what I discovered, the trick is we also have to know when we hit a panic zone, right? So it's like the comfort zone, we get stretched a little bit, but we can get panicked. And a lot of people go really quickly from being comfortable to being flooded and panicked in their system, right?

36:50
So it's sort of the sweet spot of figuring out what it feels like to stretch ourselves a little bit. And sometimes it's just sort of thinking about the idea for a little bit, and then going back to the thing we're always gonna do in the way we do it. And then maybe the next time we think about it and, you know, I don't know, talk to somebody about it. And then this, you know, and that it builds up our ability to actually like manage.

37:12
that stretchy space and the more we can learn how to stretch, that's when things start shifting. I mean, think about any athlete or anybody that trains for anything, right? Your muscles start shaking when they start changing. And if we never go to the shake point, if we never go to the point where we're actually putting stress on them, they're never gonna actually transform, right? Yeah. So you said no about your jaw. You said yes to a...

37:43
nebulous, I guess, idea, right? Like at first, like when you were entering, like, I don't know what this is about. It seems like she's not even trying to fix my jaw. She's just trying to like, help me figure other stuff out and why aren't she not helping me with your jaw? Were you able to find relief with your jaw? Yes, thanks for bringing up, I realized we didn't really close that loop of the story. So the fascinating thing about my work with this teacher.

38:09
was that over time I realized that the jaw was not actually the problem. It was a really loud symptom. And I do have an issue in my jaw physiologically. I had an accident when I was a very little, like maybe one and a half. I fell down a flight of stairs and one of those walkers with wheels on it. Right. Why they don't, why they don't make them with the wheels on them anymore. Probably. But I kind of tumbled down some stairs and it kind of landed on my, on my chin. And it probably just kind of like.

38:37
dislodged something in my jaw joint, right? So it is a physiological thing, I still have it. But all of the other habits that I had created because it was sort of a thing and my system was sort of like, well, we'll try this and we'll try this and let's help you with this and let's help you with this. And my body was well-intending, but none of it was helping and everything else would just create another compensation and another part of my body. So I had pretty bad posture because my neck sort of was.

39:05
doing this to try and create more space for my jaw, and then my back was doing this to compensate for my neck. So it was like when all of the other stuff found a more natural way of being in my body system closer to how it can be, how it was designed to be at the core level, it was like all of a sudden the jaw didn't have to be a problem anymore. It had its space to do its thing without anything else interfering with it. So...

39:33
I still have quote the job problem and sure, and I'm tired to see a chiropractor who would joke with me when I would go in and my job was really so he'd be like, are you talking too much again? But you know, it was just, which is probably true at some point, but I've learned what needs to happen for the conditions of my whole system to just be better supporting the challenge that is the

39:57
the jaw I have and everybody has those versions, right? Like maybe you don't have an actual jaw issue, but we all have something about the way our body learned how to do something way back when that we never revisited before. And if we're not careful, it can fall into some.

40:13
some bad habits pretty quickly. And I think unfortunately, the older we get, the more apparent that becomes, right? Yeah, and I think that we overcompensate, we'll have an issue and we'll just kind of like overcompensate in a different area then we cause another problem. Exactly. Yeah. So that's really, that's kind of what happened. So once everything else.

40:36
was feeling more back in order. All of a sudden the job problem wasn't as much of an issue. But again, by that point, something had really shifted to me. I think I always knew I wasn't gonna be a performer. And I think I knew I wasn't going to teach once I graduated. I mean, I finished my student teaching, I got my degree. I just, really when I sat down and thought about it, I kinda went, I don't.

41:00
I don't know if this is what I want. And in some ways that was another version of one of those moments, right? I had gotten this degree, I had the certification to teach. Why wouldn't I? It was right there in front of me. But I don't know, it just wasn't the right fit. And I listened to that. And again, the more that I did that throughout my life, the more I really came across things I probably would have missed if I had been.

41:26
on that, you know, as you were describing it before, the sort of one-road highway or the one-way road. Sometimes I'll kind of think about it to myself as really we're not on one-way roads as often as we think we are because a lot of times we can probably turn around. It's not actually, is it actually one-way? I don't know. So yeah, that definitely has shown up for me at multiple points and the things I'm doing now were not things I ever would have imagined as that 18-year-old, right?

41:54
Do you, this is always so like woo woo to me, but also like a weird thought exercise. Do you ever think that your body created that kind of pain in your jaw? Like, do you ever think like your body, that was like a trigger, like wake up, you know? Like maybe somewhere deep inside. Sorry if this is too woo woo for people listening, but like.

42:21
I mean, maybe your body was like, hey, I'm going to do this because this is the only thing that she's going to pay attention to. Yes, I do believe that actually. And my kind of version of that is I think I was probably fighting with what my body was trying to tell me. Right? Which is part of the reason that pivotal like hearing the no moment felt like such a big deal is because I think my body- It's like you had to be cornered. Yes. I think my body was trying to tell me things for a while.

42:50
but I think I didn't wanna hear it, I didn't know how to hear it, I didn't know how to listen, right? I can't really identify exactly what that is. I also kinda think as you're saying that, and I'm just making this up, but it's like your body knows that you follow a yes or no, you follow a this or that, and the only way to get you in that was to get you, like you had two options, you had do the surgery, don't do the surgery, and so like you could pick one, and maybe that in your body was like, guess what?

43:19
I pushed you into the right one, the one that worked for you to get you down that path. Absolutely. And now I'm a person that really tries to, how do I say it, as much as often eliminate the binary. Is it really just yes or no? I'm sort of a loophole person in terms of like, is that really, are there any other possibilities here? And so I think that is also important, because I did find myself to be a very binary person, very black and white, very yes or no. I think we're conditioned. I think growing up, we were very conditioned.

43:49
to, that's just how it was. I feel like that's just how, there weren't as many people like you now in public spaces that we would see. And if we did see them, we would be told that that's different. That's not what we do. Exactly. So that conditioning runs pretty deep and that's taken a long time to unwind. And again, I definitely will find that creeping up in my thought patterns still. And I have to sort of, you know, do the whole like.

44:18
No, those are not the only two options here. Let's look at this, let's flip it upside down and see what we can see. But I think you also have to, you have to reach that point of awareness. And I think that's true of a lot of quote unquote conditions, right? I think having had like depression, I don't never like diagnosed with depression, but having felt depressive moments, I feel like until you have the full awareness of the experience that you're going through, you can't get out of it.

44:48
because you're not fully, like you're not there. You're just experiencing it. And I think the same thing of like what you're describing is you had to have that light bulb moment of like, I can make my own choices. I can do whatever the hell I want because I'm me and no one else is me and I can do whatever it is. Yeah, exactly. And I'm a slow learner. You know, my life in a lot of ways has felt.

45:13
a little bit like some best laid plans and over and over and over again. And I am by no means complaining about my life, my circumstances, any of these things. But you know, if you would have asked me in college what I was going to do when I grew up, what job, I would have sort of said, I mean, honestly, I'm kind of here just to meet somebody and probably going to get married and have kids and you know, I'm not really planning on doing that whole career thing. So you know, surprise. A lot of years later that it has not been my life path.

45:43
And at each one of those moments sort of going, okay, so what does my life look like if it didn't go along that road? And some moments have been grief stricken and difficult. And of course I watched a lot of my friends going through those milestones thinking like, when's it my turn? Or, you know, like why, what's wrong with me that I'm not achieving these things in life? But it has had to have been thoroughly my own path.

46:12
the whole time, which, you know, I had definitely have gone kicking and screaming a little bit at moments going like, no, but that is not what I want. And then on the other side, I go, okay, fine. It maybe it was a little bit of things that I did maybe kind of sort of appreciate in retrospect, but it's, it's been a challenge, right? And like I said, lovingly to my own self, I can say I've been pretty stubborn and I think life has had to present me with those moments.

46:39
more than a few times so that I can really almost be forced to not only make the choices in the moments but really wrap my brain around like, okay, what does this mean for me and what do I choose about who I'm going to become? Because that's really it for me is less about the things that I do or check off my list but about how it creates more wholeness in me as a person and helps enhance who I want to be and how I show up in the world.

47:09
That's really kind of from that pivotal moment that was really, I can choose how I show up in the world. And so asking myself that question continues to be, okay, how do I wanna show up in the world? And what is this, this job, this opportunity, this conversation, this relationship? What is this going to do to me to allow myself to be more full and more whole? And it's not contingent on what other people may be projected for you or planted the seeds. I'm wondering what you...

47:37
What do you think of the word mistakes? Do you, is there such a thing for you? Mistakes. I don't know if there are mistakes. Certainly I think some things I can like watch myself doing, going this is probably not going to be the best thing for me and I still kind of have to have the experience. So some of those things I might classify as like a calculated mistake, perhaps, but accidental mistakes, I'm not sure. I definitely don't believe in coincidences.

48:05
I definitely feel that there's sort of almost always a bigger plan that we can't always see. It's that whole funny quote, you can't see the forest through the trees. When you're sort of in it, you can't really see the bigger picture. So I think I would say I'm less a fan of the term mistakes and more learning opportunities, but that probably pretty highly reflects how I view the world.

48:34
I mean, I think it's a hard place to go. I think, again, we were, even you think of school, I mean, maybe different for someone going in for music, but even still, you don't hit the right note. In that case, there was this binary of it's right or wrong. You're in math, it's wrong. You didn't get the right answer. And so we're very conditioned, or grades, even the grading system in schools is very much mistake-driven, right? You didn't.

49:03
Do it right. And rejection oriented, right? Surely in music you got the part, you didn't get the part, but look at any of these other things, athletics, like you made the team, you didn't make the team. But all of this stuff that really just creates all of this really, I don't know, broad separation points that it gets really easy. How do you shed that? Well, a big thing for me is curiosity over assumption. I hear somebody that's clearly curious in the way that you ask questions, the way that you just listen and give people that space.

49:32
But I think often without even realizing it, it's kind of back to what I was talking about before. Those assumptions tend to be ways to make things more palatable and understandable in a moment, but they're really limiting. They force us to sort of see through the blinders, put it in the box, check it off and walk away. Whereas like curiosity basically does the opposite where it sort of like blows open all the corners and allows us to see that. So even this idea of mistakes, I guess, right? Like...

50:01
If I assume that it was bad, if I assume that it was wrong, if I assume any of these things, it's gonna be stuck in that categorization and that definition. But if I ask myself questions and I just sort of say, interesting, why did I do that? Why did I do that? Did I learn something? And maybe the answer is no, I'm not one of those people that's.

50:27
Sometimes there is not a learning opportunity. No, I did not learn anything except I'm just not doing that again. But sometimes that's really important. I mean, one too many times I've done things that I really had a sense that probably wasn't going to be that enjoyable or fun, but I still did it. I think, again, my stubborn system needed to really, really learn that in that moment. So yeah. I think it's a challenge. I think I still.

50:54
will assume things. Even coming into these conversations, I know very little about the guests, but I will still start to make assumptions. But what I think I'm learning to do through this podcast and just in life now is to ask the questions about my assumptions and be totally cool with being wrong about my assumptions. Whereas I think 10 year ago version of me, five years ago version of me.

51:21
it would have been harder for me to let go or maybe I wouldn't have asked the questions to begin with. And I think that curiosity plays a lot with assumptions because it's hard not to, I mean, I think, it's hard not to make assumptions with what we already know, like the experiences we've already had. Otherwise it's kind of like a blank slate, which is uncomfortable for a lot of us. Which is super uncomfortable, which is super uncomfortable. And that's kind of...

51:47
what I landed on, right, when I started doing this deep dive into this question of what does it really mean to change? And for me, the title of my book is reflective of it. It's Embracing the Unknown, which is basically the whole point is what happens if... That's too scary. No, I don't want to do it. But what happens if we actually embrace the fact that we're always not going to know things? There's always going to be things we don't know. Well, and how do we know we know what we know?

52:15
Do we know? No, like seriously, like the things we think we know, do we really know? Are we really here? And how often are we having this conversation? And how often do we actually forget to wire in the new learnings? And then they just kind of like, I've started thinking about this concept, like, what does it mean to develop a proof loop? Right? Like this loop of saying like, oh, it did happen. How many times? Does it have to?

52:45
I think it's less about how many times and how good we are at wiring it in. Okay. So my whole thing is, you know, it may not stick forever, but it's a more permanent, you know, it has a more permanent place when we remember. And whether that's celebrating it, whether that's sort of really taking it and reflecting on it, I think that can look really different. But you know. I think in that sense, it feels like you have to feel it.

53:12
for me, for something to be ingrained. And if you just think it and not feel it, I don't know if that's possible, but I'm just making things up now. But I feel like if I, I have to feel it in my body, like you're describing in this technique that you had, you have to feel it there for it to become.

53:30
of you, whereas like a lot of things we think and then we forget. Like how many times have you watched Jeopardy and not remembered every single answer that you just heard? Like you could hear it the next day and still be wrong. Exactly. So like unless you feel it you really can't bring it into your wiring I guess. Exactly and I think it's really, I mean it was pretty brilliant to be honest. But you know and it is an important reminder of the power of our thinking, right? Because when we think about something

53:58
it does start to happen in our body immediately. That's one of my big takeaways from what I learned way back when and I continue to work with people on. But also the opposite is true is if we really focus on what's happening in the body, it can change our thoughts. It can influence, it's, you know, we are a whole body mind system, right? It's interchanged or it's intertwined in a way that we cannot extricate. And that's pretty cool. But when we sit in the world of

54:28
I can control it with my thinking and ignore my body. That tends to, I think, be the more challenging piece for people. So yeah, whatever ways I think we can get it into our body is going to support us in taking those next steps. When you started writing your book, who did you write it for? When you were sitting.

54:51
I don't know, maybe you're standing. Whenever you were starting to put these ideas together for your book, like who was the person you were talking to? Was it you or was it, you know, like who was this person? Great question. When I first started writing, I was convinced I was gonna write a quintessential book on change and I was gonna sort of do this whole I'm a super expert thing and.

55:14
Talk to this room full of people who need to change. They didn't have faces. They were just the people. It was sort of like this really big ominous thing. And I hit a moment in my writing process that I lovingly refer to as my writing therapy session. And one of my poor editors, I showed up, and I just started bawling. And I was just struggling with all of this imposter syndrome. And who am I to write this book? And all of these kind of things.

55:42
And she let me have that space. And then she said to me, you know, you're trying to be an expert, and I'm not sure that's what you are. Not because you're not actually an expert at anything or knowing things, but because no one's an expert on change. And she said, what if you stop trying to write from the vantage point of being some expert that perhaps you're not, and started looking at who you actually are and bringing that into the story? And she said, I don't know you that well.

56:11
But to me, you're sort of a friend, mentor, guide. And she said, what happens if that's why you're writing the book? And the permission in that conversation changed so much for me. Because all of a sudden, it wasn't this sea of people that I didn't know that really needed help changing. It was really this intimate moment of like, I wanted to talk to you, and I wanted to talk to this person, and I wanted to like sit down and just be like,

56:41
I see you, this is hard shit, you know? And I've been there. And yes, there are moments that it totally sucks. And you do have more tools and resources than you think. And what if we did this? And how about if, and that's really the way I wrote it. I don't consider it a how-to book. I'm consider, I call it an invitational exploration, right? I can't tell you how to change. I can't tell anybody what to do with their lives, but.

57:07
Well, even if you could, it doesn't mean they would. It doesn't mean they would. So for me, it feels more useful and more authentic to who I am to just sit with people and help them ask the questions that are going to help them figure out who they want to be. Yeah. And the reason I ask that is because I thought, you know, this your book wouldn't work for a lot of people. There are a lot of people that are just stuck. Yeah, they're stuck and they're not ready. Yeah. You have to be ready to read your book. You have to be ready to.

57:35
be curious enough or kind of desiring the work that it might take to make a change of the way you're thinking about things, the way you approach things. It's like you said, it's not like when you first learned about this Alexander technique, is that what you said? Yes, yes. When you first learned about that and you were like, well, my jaw, you can fix it, right? That's what so many people.

58:03
myself included sometimes want, like just tell me how to fix it. But this is a journey. This is something that you probably have to reach a space of awareness that like, okay, what I'm doing right now is really not working for me and I feel like I want to exist in a different plane but I don't know how to get there. And so your journey is put through in this book in some way, you know, like like you said, you're kind of coaching them and it might work for them. It might not. Yeah. It's an opportunity to explore and think about and

58:32
But I would be hard pressed, really hard pressed to say, I bet you might come to some awareness. You may not be ready to tackle any of that, but I think for me, half of it is not whether people change or how much they change or how, but it's really about, did you just, something that shifts your perspective about the way you engage with the world or reminds you?

58:58
that you do have the ability to choose. And choosing might be, I'm not ready, I'm not doing it, and I'm not going there. And there is no shame if you love your life and you live inside of a comfort zone you have created, that works for you. And I am celebrating the heck out of that, because I think it's what a lot of people strive for in some ways. But I do think we live in a really, really unique time in the world.

59:26
where possibility is so different than what it used to be. And it's such a gift. It's such a gift. No, I think it's wonderful. I think there's a lot of people on this journey now because of the global pandemic, because people had time to think and shift. And like we started out this conversation really, just understanding that our lives are ours to...

59:53
tackle and to bring to fruition in whatever way that looks like. And your book is out there based, I'm assuming, a lot of it comes from your own experience and the way you do it. And totally transparent. I haven't read it. I don't research anyone. So I don't know. But even you sharing this story here, I think we accomplished the task that we set out to, is that someone listening is going to have an idea sparked, might feel like you did and be like, wait.

01:00:21
That voice told me no, and I can do whatever the hell I want. Absolutely. I think there's such power in secondhand growth, right? Like when we listen to people, when we watch people, it enlivens something in us sometimes. Or makes us really mad. But sometimes that's good, too. I hope this doesn't make people mad. That was not the intention. But it moves us.

01:00:49
Right? And part of it is just like what moves you a little bit. And I think any movement is positive movement because you're moving and you can shift mid-course, right? It does. You develop skill over time. You work on how to exactly hone. So you're going to end up closer to where you want to be. And that's a whole other thing. But I really do think it's about being moved. And isn't that what we all want?

01:01:17
We want connection, we want belonging, and we wanna be moved. It's why we watch the shows, it's why we listen to the music, it's why we, you know, yeah, yeah. We wanna feel. Yeah. We wanna feel connected to something, or to someone, or to a group of someone's, whatever that might be. It's also interesting to hear this lightness, I guess, in the way that you present yourself, in the way that you speak.

01:01:45
It feels very positive and I'm sure you don't have all positive all the time, but it feels very like you enjoy what you do and how you do it and the way that you live in this world. But it's always so fascinating to me with the life shift and kind of like like this really sparked from a painful experience in which you sought out medical help. And then you were like, if that's my only option, no.

01:02:12
You know, and this voice told you. And like, it's so interesting to see, like, how someone can develop in this way from a moment like that. Absolutely. And, you know, I thought I knew everything, right? When I was 18, I was blissfully unaware of how much I had yet to learn. And yeah, looking back, I am just so grateful that she, that version of me, listened to that voice and was willing to, like,

01:02:42
meet that little nudge toward the things I didn't know, but felt a little drawn to, because it was totally, it was totally not what I would have expected. And I think in that interesting space of surrendering, like I've just been constantly surprised. Like I think that's what it is. You may have just answered my final question, but if you could go back to the version of Lisa.

01:03:08
before you walked into that doctor's office, before you knew what the solution was, what the fix, quote unquote, fix was. Is there anything that you could tell to that version of you that might help her on this journey? I think I would probably say, whatever happens, you are gonna be okay. Cause that was really the first thing that hit me is like, my life's over. I'm not gonna be a singer. I'm not gonna like...

01:03:35
And I think that really was the first moment of freak out. And so I think that's what I would say is sort of like, whatever happens, it's gonna be okay. It's interesting to think, you know, you were walking in there for a solution. And you got this roundabout solution. Like you didn't really get the easy one, you didn't get, you know, but it really served you in this way that, that now your book, who knows, will.

01:04:01
read it, right? Like, and it will be changed. And you might not ever, ever hear that that person's life has changed, but now it's out there because you listen to that note, because you paused before opening that door, you know? It's crazy. Life is so crazy, right? And, you know, I really am so grateful for the millions of like...

01:04:25
little shift moments, but it really makes these moments even more pivotal and even more poignant when we can step back and, um, gosh, like, yeah, this has been such a cool conversation because it just reminds me that there's so much to dig into about things that we feel like we can just, oh yeah, that happened, no big deal, but there's so much packed into these life shift moments.

01:04:52
I agree. I'm so honored. Thank you for sharing your story. If people want to like connect with you or get in your orbit or find your book, what's the best way to get connected with you? Yeah, sure. So my website is just my name, LisaD'Angeles.com. There's a page for the book. There's some information about me and ways to reach out and yeah, it's been a real privilege to be able to kind of show up in the world.

01:05:18
in such a different way. Like I said, I'm still working on what it means to embody this whole author thing. And so it's really exciting to me and my book's available wherever you can buy books. And I would love to know what you think. So anybody that grabs their copy, drop me a little note. Let me know. Awesome.

01:05:38
Well, thank you for sharing your story and just being so open about and letting me ask questions that maybe will sound silly when I'm going to edit them. So thank you for that. It was great. Thank you, Matt. And thank you for what you do. It's really important. Thank you. And if you are listening and you enjoy these episodes or maybe something that Lisa said reminds you of someone in your life, maybe take this episode and share it with them. I think that would be really helpful and I would be so thankful.

01:06:05
for that. And if you have a moment, maybe rate or review the podcasts on Apple Podcasts. That does something. I don't know what it does, but it makes me feel good when I see them. So thank you for listening. And I will be back next week with a brand new episode of the LifeShift podcast. Thanks again, Lisa.