Johanna Olivas: A little over a year ago, ⁓ I quit my job. ⁓ I said, I'm done and I do what my heart wants to do. ⁓ immediately, I when I made that decision, it was a couple days before ⁓ Dennis, husband's ⁓ And I said to myself, you deserve to chase what your heart wants. and there's never gonna be the right time to do it. May as well do it now. And I remember the next day, I said, I'm outta here, here's my two weeks. And I had never felt freer as an adult. I knew that it was finally the time for me to take seriously what I had been building and cultivating and growing with Luna Serenity for the last seven years before that. Luna Serenity, I'll never forget, I was driving home, one day after yoga teacher training. was near the very end of the 200 hour teacher training and I was ⁓ a red light and heard Luna and then I was like, ooh, what is Luna? ⁓ What that make me feel? Because I was thinking, I knew already had this itch ⁓ that I to teach and I also that it felt like something bigger was growing. The seed had already been planted and sat there at the light. was like, you know what I want people to feel when they experience ⁓ class with me. Cause right at that time, all I was doing was learning how to teach yoga. And knew that I wanted people to walk out of there feeling the way I feel when I look at the moon. And for me, that is pure serenity. And so this seed that was planted, I don't know, eight years ago, at this point, eight years ago, was planted and over the years there were so many little breadcrumbs along the way that was like, you could do something with this. You could, if you let yourself put aside all of the stories of what you've been told, success has to look like, you could really make a difference. And so a year ago, I said, let's just do it. Up until that point, had already, I had gone on like a teaching binge where I did my 200 hour yoga teacher training. I did my 300 hour yoga teacher training and I then learned how to do Reiki, became a Reiki master, was introduced to sound healing back in 2019 and fell absolutely in love with the modality of what It meant to be able to help people feel something physically in their bodies and tie it to something emotional. Life looked like before being in this chair, in this moment in time, very different. So that seed was planted eight years ago. A couple of different twists and turns along the way. At the time when I started Luna Serenity, my oldest daughter, Violet, was three years old and I found yoga 15 years ago from a place of grief, deep grief around having lost my grandmother. yoga was one of the first modalities, one of the first things that really helped me land back in my body. It helped me work things I didn't have words for ⁓ and... I began chasing that sensation that people feel at the end of a class, which is full relaxation in the body. It's when you start to untangle the web that, you know, our lives put around us that sense of freedom and peace. I remember the first time I was even introduced to yoga ⁓ was at class ⁓ at work. ⁓ And so, know, at the time I was working at a nonprofit. that nonprofit worked on the issue of human trafficking and they really wanted us to be taking better care of ourselves. And so they brought someone in to teach. And I remember thinking, the first few things that came to mind were, number one, I don't have the body for yoga. Number two, everyone who I know does yoga does not look like me. And number three, I work with all of these people. I have to get into what kind of positions in order to do this. And so I remember walking into that conference room at work thinking, those three things immediately made it very daunting and overwhelming for me. But by the end of the class, I had that sensation of just, I guess what we would call oneness of really not feeling like there were all of these terrible things in the world. I felt the essence of what it feels like to just be in a state of love. And so that seed was planted 15 years ago and a couple years later that started me down the path of being open to yoga. But then after I had my daughter and after I had lost my grandmother, I knew that I wanted to go deeper into the practice and the philosophy of yoga. I knew that, There was so much more to this practice than what I was receiving at the surface level. And sometimes I would get nuggets of that when teachers would go into the yoga philosophy at the end of class, but wouldn't really do a deep dive. And so that's initially what brought me in was I had a deep reverence for this practice because I saw the power that it had overcome stress, to grief. ⁓ And becoming a mother was one of those things that really allowed me to see that I needed this practice to get me through everyday life, through raising a child, through knowing and understanding myself. And one of the first ways for me to do that was learning about myself through the mat, because all of the lessons I was learning on the mat, I was then taking them out into the world. so when think back to, again, going back to the original ⁓ thought what was life like before I was sitting here in this chair ⁓ and ⁓ I decided to pursue this full time is that I was really... Just like anyone in life, right? We go through life if you're not mindful, life can rush right by you. You can be swept up in your work, swept in drama, swept up in ⁓ becoming passenger in your own life and not taking time to mindful about what am I here to do? ⁓ Like, why I here on this planet? And yoga for me really opened up those doors. And the more that I began teaching and the more that I stayed in this practice and evolved as a teacher, evolved in the modalities that I was teaching and offering, and started to, you know, host retreats and do different types of gatherings where people were opening up their hearts in community. I was like, I'm hooked. There has to be more spaces where people can have these experiences. And so before I left my full-time career, which at the time was marketing, was craving ⁓ really desiring more where people could come, ⁓ show just as they are, ⁓ and up their hearts ⁓ and that they are not alone in this journey. have some pretty dramatic shifts in my own life. When I started this podcast in 2022, it started from a place of just wanting to share the practices. Eventually that evolved into talking to people about the shifts that they were going through and feeling the commonality that we all experience as humans, things change. Things will have to change in your life because nothing stays the same. And I think, you know, two years ago, I had just made decision to ⁓ leave a career had been in over 12 years. I used to work the Olympic movement. I loved that job, but I also knew that it wasn't where my heart was at. And so I told myself, all right, let's go into the nonprofit world, see where this takes you. And I quickly found out, like, you know what? This is just a band-aid. It's temporary. It's not where you're happy at. It's not a place where you're going to grow in the way that you want to grow. And I said, it's to shift. And so two years ago, I was literally at the beginning of that transformation and moving from the Olympic movement into the nonprofit world in a completely different pace and a completely different type of work. that I was doing on a daily basis. I quickly realized was that there is work that I love to do. I love to do marketing. I love telling stories. But then there are parts that I don't love when you're working in an organization. ⁓ you feel like you can't tell the stories, you want to tell them the way that you want to tell them. ⁓ That for me was really hard coming from a place of always doing things really well to suddenly not doing things really well. it really did make me confront a lot ⁓ inner narratives I had around what success needed to look like. And ultimately where that led me down was path of asking myself, ⁓ what success have to look like for you? ⁓ The more that I began to sit with these questions, the closer it was bringing me into the heart of what I wanted to do in Luna Serenity. know, two years ago I was really excited because I had stepped away and out of one field ⁓ into a different one. But I quickly began to see that I was losing myself in all of that. And that it began to affect how showing up in every other part of my life, it was changing how I showed up as a mother, it was changing how I showed up as a partner to my husband, it was changing how I showed up as a teacher in front of the rooms where I wanted to hold space, but I could barely hold space for myself. And I was like, this is not what you want. And sometimes you have to ask yourself the hard question of, all right, if this is not what I want, what do I want life to look And the minute that I did that, I knew that things were going to change. It took me several months ⁓ for that to ⁓ finally truly I went back therapy, number one, which was ⁓ much ⁓ Number two, I started working with an embodiment coach and she's going to on this season of the vibrational shift. Marisela Rosales, and in that embodiment work that I was doing was a beautiful compliment to the therapy that I was doing. I began myself the same question that I mentioned. when I started working with Marisela, we would do these sessions. ⁓ worked with her for, three months and my life changed in three months. What you'll learn in that episode with her is that we spend a lot of time in those sessions, like truly giving ourselves the chance ⁓ to arrive. and to sit in your body, to notice the things that were arising for myself in terms of, right, you know what? You've been stressed out all day with work. You haven't drank water. You haven't given yourself the chance to just feel into what the body needs. You haven't given yourself stillness because you've been operating from this place of stress and anxiety. And when we started working through our different sessions, she began asking me the questions that I needed to be reminded of. These were all questions I had asked myself the year prior when I was making that dramatic shift in my life of moving from one career into another. And... As we spent more time talking and working and identifying the parts of myself that were holding on to the fear of moving into the next phase of my life, I had so much more compassion for myself rather than frustration. At the time, where I was at emotionally, I was in a job that I was not happy in. And what that meant was that ⁓ It was changing the way that I showed up, but I also wasn't asking myself, all right, well, why can't you make this decision? Some people are like the first glimpse of unhappiness, they're like, I'm out, and they can do it no problem. And those are the people that I envy. But I stayed and I stayed for a while because I think I knew six months before I left that I needed to leave, and I just stayed, right? I stayed in the discomfort. was like, ⁓ well, maybe things will change, or maybe I'll get better at doing this. All the stories you can tell yourself to convince yourself, this is something I need to stay with. And I needed to have the people around me. I had a ⁓ whole support network pushing me through my days when I thought that I literally was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. And the more that I worked with Maricelam, and I came into my body asking myself, ⁓ All right, my heart is racing because I'm thinking about as soon as I hang up, I have to get back online to do these five things, which in the grand scheme of life, like that should not be making my heart race. That should not be something that I'm holding onto like with so much anxiety because it's at the end of the day, doesn't like, it didn't really matter. But what I did know was that I didn't want my daughters to see me crying at the end of every single day, right? It's not like I was sitting there crying in front of them, but they could tell something was off. They could tell that I wasn't my normal self. They could tell the things were not going well. And ⁓ more than anything, I wanted them to a mother. Like your children. ⁓ know you and your children can feel and sense into things even if you're trying to put on a front for them. And I didn't want to have to do that anymore. I wanted to be able to show up and be genuinely present with them when they were celebrating milestones at school, right? I didn't want to be there at like their fun run challenge, you know, worried that when I got back that I was going to have to, shift an acting role of like, I'm to be here, I can do this, this is gonna work, this is gonna be great. It never felt like that. And so I think ⁓ as soon as I had my therapist walking me through, like, talk about what's going on, and having someone be the mirror for me of what I was saying and what I was experiencing, and really pushing me to say like, Is this what you want for your life? Is this where you want to be? And I knew that it wasn't. And what I wanted was to do Luna Serenity 100 % of the time. so... As I went into that decision making process, I think everyone around me was like, it's obvious what you need to do, right? But when you're the one in that position having to make that decision, it's not always that obvious. And I kept telling myself, you're going to quit a paying job with great benefits to go teach. And as soon as I had said yes, to that, to myself, yes, this is what you're gonna do. Everything shifted. It was like something turned on inside of me overnight. The only thing I can compare it to is it felt like someone had literally turned the lights on for me and that instead of fumbling around in the dark, I had a clear path of this is going to work. everything is going to... Align just the way that it's going to because when you're not in alignment, that's like where all of the things start to show up for you of like uncertainty, ⁓ not really being able to listen your intuition. And the minute that I made the choice to pursue this a hundred percent of the time, I knew I was in alignment with what ⁓ my purpose was. I was in with where I wanted to go spiritually, where I wanted to grow and also how I wanted to give back to the community. so I made that decision ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ was scary. ⁓ ⁓ had a couple people tell me like, you're crazy. How could you just walk away like that? ⁓ But then the best part though were the people who were like, finally, like we've been waiting for this for years. Like you've been doing this work, you've been showing up, you've been growing a community of people that are ready to do this work. have, like I didn't realize how many people were cheering for me behind the scenes and that. their belief in me helped me believe in myself even more. And ⁓ my goodness, I'm gonna get emotional thinking about this, but like the amount of congratulations when I told people you're gonna be, like that I was going to be doing this full time, that gave me so much to keep going ⁓ breathed life into me after I felt like I had been completely deflated for a whole year and ⁓ know, I would have conversations with friends all the time around like ⁓ ⁓ ⁓ sound so sure of yourself like that things are going to work out and that's the thing is that as soon as I knew that I was in alignment with what I'm supposed to be doing everything changed. I eventually, you know, I began teaching again a lot. I teach a lot of different classes, whether it be, yoga, vinyasa, gentle yoga, BYO baby yoga, like all of the different types of yoga. And I began immersing myself in community in these classes and showing up. every single day with my heart wide open ready to share. And I think one thing that people, I hope that they can see and feel when they're in circle with me or when they show up for a class is that they're not gonna get a watered down version of like, ⁓ hi, how are you? I'm good, no, you're gonna get, hi, how are you? You know, today was really hard as an entrepreneur. I had to make a decision on something that was really hard or, you know, I'm riding the wave of uncertainty. Let's use our practice today to guide us into how we can sit with those emotions. And so I think that's been one of the gifts of being able to do as an entrepreneur is that I get to put my own practice to practice literally every day. Every single day is the day I wake up and I tell myself everything is going to be perfectly fine because you are in alignment with what your heart is calling you to do and you're going to attract the people that need to hear your message because they need to be reminded of your message and everything's gonna be fine. And I think telling myself and feeling into that from myself over the last year has been one of the best parts of this journey of knowing that I could quote unquote have a failure in terms of the career that I left. My career was not a failure. How I felt in the moments while I was there felt like a failure because I wasn't staying true to myself and I had handed over my power in a way that I didn't realize and I couldn't see it in the moment. I allowed other people's and opinions to be stronger than my own. And the minute that I took that back and said, you know what? I'm very grateful for what this situation has taught me about myself, the pressure that it put me under, the uncertainty it put me through, because that is what allowed me to truly believe in myself, to know you don't need but what you do need is live in alignment with who you are, you want, and that life from ⁓ is only gonna get better, ⁓ March of 2025, I would love to look at what the astrology was because I woke up, I will never forget my first day, like on my own, right? Didn't have a job. I had lunar serenity and that's all that I needed and the love of my children and my husband. And I woke up and said, Today is the day I get to decide to do whatever I want to do to build this, to really cement what it is that I'm building. And the practice that I've always had, that I've always turned to in times of transition, I've, for the longest time, have had different rituals that I turn to. And for some people it's prayer, some people it's meditation, some people it's ritual. Mine is a combination of all three. Even this morning before I knew that I was gonna come talk about this, I sat and I did my three things, which is I always pull out my little cushion in front of my altar. My altar is just a place where I know I can come to and it holds. the different versions of myself that have wished into existence. ⁓ single year ⁓ 2019, I've always given myself. ⁓ permission to sit down and say, what are you calling in for yourself? What do you need to remember? Or what do you want this year to look like? And so I have them every piece of paper, every little slip of paper from 2019 through 2026. It's funny because a lot of those years were clarity. and I think I became very clear on what I wanted in 25, but what I have called in for 2026 is alignment. And I think the meditation. you Ritual and prayer for me are those three things that I always lean on and so I'll pull out my meditation cushion in front of my little altar so that I can see my beautiful oak tree that is right beside me and I always start by either lighting incense sage Palo Santo or a candle Something that brings in that element of fire. I love to feel the the wind the element of wind and so the window will you be open and I take a moment to like close my eyes and breathe in whether it be incense sage or smoke some sort of smoke to fill me. And that immediately grounds me. Having the candle or something burning reminds me about the element of fire, of what is the fire that I'm burning within myself to keep myself going. Over this past year, and especially in the last six months since I opened up this space that I'm sitting in right now, the Luna Sound Lounge, I've had so many people that have... come here with an open heart and are beautiful reminders to me that spaces like this are exactly what's needed. Yes, there are therapists and there's different things that you can do to take care of yourself. But sometimes there are things that talking can't access. And it's something that I feel like I can access when I do that morning ritual for myself. Some mornings I might have five minutes, some mornings I might have. An hour, hour and a half. That's the beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur is that now I get to decide with ease, what do I need to call in for myself and really lean into the practice? And I think when I was at that boiling point, before I stepped into Luna Serenity full time, I had to come back to the practices that had always grounded me. I was doing a lot of meditation, a lot of prayer and a lot of ritual. And people might be like, well, what do mean by ritual? literally tapping into the elements of the earth, whether that be ⁓ lighting candle and focusing I meditate ⁓ or lighting some sage and the smoke to cleanse and clear me. And All of it though is like, could do that no matter where I was at. And over the years, even when I was at a job before where I was traveling and away from, you know, the creature comforts that I just mentioned, like having my own altar, it was always about coming back to myself, coming home to myself. And my desire in having a space like this, In creating these workshops, these retreats, my desire... and what I want people to experience is the ability to come home to themselves. Because that's what I spent every single day in those last few months before I transitioned into being a full-time entrepreneur was how can I come home to myself? And I think that's one of the things that now that I am a full-time entrepreneur is really allowing myself the space to lean into the practices that let me come home to myself. That might mean one morning I'm doing a 20 minute meditation where I can do my own little tactile ritual. It might mean I'm going to come home in between sessions and take a bath with some Epsom salt and herbs because I feel like I need to cleanse myself. It's helping me come home to myself. When I think about ⁓ has me through this last year, it's been community, it's ritual, it's been meditation, prayer, but all of it is about coming home to myself and sometimes you can only do that when you are in community with other people, right? When we can hold one another, when we can hold space for one another to experience having your truth heard and to also speak it, there's nothing like it. So I'm a daughter of immigrants here in the U.S. They came here in the 70s. They were teenagers when they came, ⁓ worked hard, provided for myself and my siblings. And, you know, for me, my has been the pinnacle of what success looks like. She started off at a McDonald's, right? Like in the kitchen in the back and eventually worked her way up until she was an executive for this major multi-national corporation. traveled the world. I got to see my mom talk on some pretty big stages. ⁓ And I was young when I that. so in my mind, ⁓ watching them sacrifice. ⁓ both my parents sacrificed so much of their time and energy so that I could go to a good school, so that I could go to college and be the first one on my family to graduate, not only from undergrad, but also from graduate school. In my mind, I had created a narrative about what success had to look like I think at the end of the day, when I finally sat down and I talked to my mom about what I wanted to do, I'll never forget. ⁓ I was her house, ⁓ and ⁓ was because she was helping me watch ⁓ my youngest Sage, who was sick at the time, I had taken a sick day ⁓ and I started getting messages work. ⁓ And ⁓ they knew that was home caring for my child, that was getting messages I was in tears because as soon as I, you know, I essentially broke down in front of my mother and was just crying and she was like, ⁓ whatever you think you need to be doing, that you need to keep this job. She's like, ⁓ this is not what you need. like, your children need you. And she's like, You deserve to be happy. And I think for me. hearing your mother tell you like you deserve to be happy when you can make so many assumptions about and we create stories about what we think we're supposed to do. We may never have those conversations out loud with other people, especially the people that are important to you in your life. But having the validation of her telling me you deserve to be happy, no job is worth this. Nothing in life is worth being this upset over. That's when it changed for me. That's when I was like, you're right. And also having my mother tell me she believed in me and that she supported me was like the best thing ever. And it was one of those things that, you know, I think myself as a mother, I kept telling myself like, what I want. either of my daughters ever feel like this, to feel like their value is tied up in the identity of what they do or what they work in? No, absolutely. How could I talk to myself the way that I would talk to my own daughters? And that helped me start to say, you know what? No. deserve to be happy. And how can I tap what happiness ⁓ looks like for me and how I could make it a reality for myself. so my definition of success changed drastically after I had that conversation. And I'll never forget, because my daughters had been sick like quite a bit. And I ⁓ firmly believe was because of everything that was going on, right? Like they could pick up on the energy that was in the house, ⁓ my energy. were all sick. Like literally your immune system. definitely is in response to what's around you and the stress levels that you have. so I'll never forget. My mom had told me that. It must have been like ⁓ right around the peak of everything happening for me of like knowing you have got to move into alignment with what your heart really wants. And that was like November, December of 2024. Fast forward six months, three months of being an entrepreneur at that point. the day before Mother's Day, I did a mini Mother's Day retreat. ⁓ And my mom had been helping set up, ⁓ and it was first time she was gonna come to an event of mine. And I've done so many of them over the years, right? I didn't know she was gonna come, but she came. And of course, typical me, I forgot something at home, so she had. rushed back home to go get it for me and she came back and she came in as we were doing one of the rituals that I love in opening up a circle and this was giving people the chance to introduce themselves, say why they were there, and to build a community altar. So as you build the altar, you bring an item of significance and use that as your anchor to tell your story. And so when my mom came in, There was a woman who was introducing herself and everyone is introducing themselves, talking about what it means to be able to be in a space like that. And I think it was the first time my mom saw this work and saw the power of what it is. And for me, hearing her, when she went to introduce herself, I didn't think she was gonna, not that she wasn't gonna participate, but I just wasn't really sure how she was going to. what she was gonna say or do or can experience at least once in their life. I not expect it, I did not her to ⁓ say these things. So my mom goes to introduce herself. And she immediately started gushing ⁓ about how proud she was. ⁓ And in that moment, I felt like she had seen me. And if you've never had that experience before, or maybe if you've had that experience before, the power that that brings, the amount of... I don't know, I just want you to close your eyes and imagine one of the most important people in your life seeing you for who you are and what you do and acknowledging that in a room full of other people, complete strangers at that. And came over and she gave me a hug and. You know, there are things that you can check off your list of things that you've accomplished in your life. You know, accolades, awards, all of it, but nothing really compares to having your mother, your parent, whoever, someone really important to you, tell you that they see you. They see you for the gift that you have and the gift that you're sharing with others. And to recognize that and to know that, like, for me, I felt like she saw me. She experienced it, and now she could see all of the sacrifice, why I've been doing it. And she's been a huge pillar my ⁓ as an entrepreneur, ⁓ because she is, ⁓ her and whole family, they've there to help ⁓ I have an event that comes up and I need someone to watch my daughters because they can't necessarily come with me. No questions asked. Yes, just bring them over. Yes, we can pick them up for you. Yes, we'll do this. And I think there's a little bit of guilt that comes with that. think having that experience so early on into my journey that was just a couple months in where she saw it, it was like she was already cheering for me. But that gave her. the added understanding of what I was doing and also getting to watch her connect with other women in that day at that little mini retreat was also incredible. Because I think about my mom and I think about, I've never really seen her take time for herself. And it's something that I want to change for my daughters, right? I want them to know you can take care of yourself. And it just felt like we were like breaking a generational curse in that moment of saying like, no, you deserve rest. You deserve community. You deserve to be cared for. You deserve to have life poured back into you. And I got to do that with my mom and that made it so much more special. And that was just a few months into the entrepreneurial journey and I'm really grateful for it. I think ⁓ rest and ⁓ are so needed right because everyone is operating ⁓ in such like ⁓ unprecedented of anxiety and stress. ⁓ And I'm seeing that literally in every session that I'm holding here, whether it be a private one-on-one in a yoga class, in a workshop or on a retreat, people are craving permission to rest. And sometimes when they walk in and they sit down, it takes them a long time to unwind. And I just want to leave you all with this. question for yourself is like when was the last time you gave yourself permission to just do nothing? Right? You can start to unpack that mentality we have, think particularly here in the US, especially if you're a child of an immigrant. What does it mean to rest? What are the stories you grew up hearing if you weren't doing something, being productive? And add that. on top of everything happening politically. I work with everyone, but with women of color in particular, something that I'm seeing quite a bit of is like we have the added stress of people coming in and they're caring so much. Maybe they have family of mixed status and they're coming in and they're just like, holding, even if you're not a family of mixed status, you're watching people that look just like you on your phone, in your feeds, be terrorized and knowing that we're watching our world around us feel like it's on fire because it is. And knowing that we still have to keep moving. You still have to go out there. You have to pay your bills. You have to make money. You have to. pay for the ridiculous prices of gas and groceries, and people are holding a lot. People that have the economic stress are definitely holding quite a bit. I think something else that I'm seeing quite a bit of in my sessions is that people haven't given themselves permission to feel, to simply feel, right? You know, I've had people who come in here that are grieving the loss of a loved one, grieving a child, grieving a father, a mother, a friend, and you know, they haven't given themselves permission to just feel because how can they keep going? Like how can they go on with? doing their day-to-day tasks that they need to do. And I think ⁓ to have a space where they have permission to rest, ⁓ to reconnect with themselves, ⁓ if that means ⁓ reconnecting with themselves is gonna be a little bit painful. But holding people, holding the space for people to have that experience and know that in these four walls, ⁓ allowed to feel. You're allowed to have your emotions. You're allowed to cry. You're also allowed to laugh. And that's what people want. People want to be able to come in and experience something. with sound and vibration in particular, it bypasses the analytical mind. And it allows people to finally feel the emotions that maybe they've guarded for years, months, decades, however long it might be. When I think about my daughters... I think about. the stories that society will try to tell them about what they're supposed to do. Because I also had those stories that I had thought I needed to do in terms of what success needed to look like. And I would want them to know that I want them to follow their heart, to allow themselves to dream big. And if someone tells them it's crazy, ignore them and lean into your intuition. I think so much of parenting is getting out of your own way and teaching them how to regulate themselves so that when they are out in the world on their own, that they know how to do that for themselves and that they know that I'll always support them, even if I may question it, that I would want them to know that their dreams matter, what their heart is guiding them towards matters, and that they need to learn how to listen to their intuition. And I think, you know, something I've tried to do as a mother is make sure that I'm always creating spaces and opportunities for them to see, well, this is what mommy does. Mommy sits down in the morning, she might pull a card, she might light a candle, she might be praying or meditating, and she's creating that connection with herself. And so, you know, like Sage, my youngest daughter, When she sees me pull out the cards, she'll be like, ⁓ mommy, can I pull a card with you? I'm like, of course. And so we'll look at the cards, and I'll tell her, well, what's the picture that you see? What's the story that it's telling you? So that it can be something that's not taboo for her. Leaning on different modalities to be able to come home to yourself is something that... I love seeing when people come in here and they're open to the idea of sound and vibration as a modality that's going to allow them to come deeper within themselves. Or that maybe they're using tarot cards or oracle cards to help them start to ask themselves life questions and become inquisitive about, ⁓ that's an interesting picture. Two of wands. see a beautiful castle in the background. What does that mean? Sometimes people will pick an Oracle card while they're here, and I'll ask them, do you see in this? ⁓ so that's a beautiful thing to ⁓ witness. And so I would want that to be something that I'm able to share with my daughters, is that if there is a modality ⁓ you come across that helps you ⁓ into your intuition, it's going to be so important for you in life, so that you learn to listen to your own voice. more so than the external noise and chatter of the other people around you who don't have to live the life for you. You're the one who has to live your own life and you can't live for someone else. if you yourself right now as you're listening to this ⁓ resonating with maybe in a point in your life where you know something has to change but you're not sure ⁓ how you're gonna that happen, I can't say this enough. Learning how to come home to yourself, learning to tap into your own intuition is probably the most important work you will ever do. And it might start off as something small. I might start off as like maybe a feeling in your gut, a flutter in your heart. Learning to listen to those, right? When I started Luna Serenity, every time I got to teach a new class, there was this sensation that would come over, literally over my chest of excitement. Like it felt like a bubbling sensation. ⁓ that's something that hasn't gone away over the years. Like every time... ⁓ I mean, I think I've guided at this point thousands of people between the classes, the workshops, the retreats, and it never changes. There is still the same level of excitement of being able to share these practices with people when I'm in front of them. And for someone who is on the edge of making a decision, it's, you gotta ask yourself, all right, if I close my eyes and I picture the life that I want. Notice what you start to feel in your body. Maybe you have to make a decision. I still have my eyes closed. Maybe you have to make a decision between two different paths. If you ask yourself, option A, and you close your eyes and you start to sense into it, start to feel into it, something feels off, listen to that. Now when you think about your second option, if you close your eyes and something feels like, You know, you feel the corners of your mouth turning upwards because you're smiling or you feel a rush of excitement through your body. Like that's something you have to listen to. And so for anyone listening that is on the verge of their own vibrational shift, maybe it's a big milestone you're coming up on and you want to change a career or you need to shift out of a relationship or you want to make a big move somewhere. but you're afraid, ask yourself, is it worth staying in your current situation at the expense of knowing that you could be moving towards where the heart is guiding you? And the heart is so much smarter than the mind. So season ⁓ of the shift ⁓ is very from all of the other seasons because this season we're obviously ⁓ going into my own my own vibrational shift. You're going to be inside of it with me. ⁓ I think throughout all of the different interviews that I've done for this season, especially with Marisela's sellers episode, you're going to get to see some of the practices, some of the teachers that I've leaned on heavily, their practices to get me through this shift. reason and I didn't know this back then, ⁓ but I know it now ⁓ why I it the vibrational shift podcast. ⁓ is because when we are going through transformation or changes in our life, it's not always gonna be beautiful, right? Like in order for us to change, sometimes we have to go through a great deal of discomfort. And you know, for me, when I think about the shift in the change that I had over the last year, there was a lot of discomfort. There was a lot of second guessing myself. But ultimately, what the most important part of that was that I had to learn how to reconnect to myself. I had to remember who I was before the fear, before the doubt, before just the survival element of like, all right, if I walk away from this job, how am I going to feed myself? How am I going to pay for my mortgage? How am I going to meet the basic needs that I have? Like once. I removed those from the equation, but let's be real. Those are very tangible, real energy needs that we have in this world. Once I allowed myself, once I gave myself permission to get past those, and you'll hear more about that in the episode with Marisela, where I got to meet the younger parts of myself that were bringing up those questions, I really reconnected with who I was before the fear had kicked in. And that's where I think the season feels different is because I'm giving you a glimpse into the teachers that I've worked with. I'm giving you a glimpse into different practices that you can use and also into different amazing practitioners that exist out there that I want you all to connect with. Welcome to season four of the vibrational shift. I am Johanna Olivas and we are here inside of the Luna Sound Lounge. this is a space where I hold private sessions and reiki sessions just for you, ⁓ for you learn how to home to yourself. And we're gonna dig right into what is happening, what has been happening the last two years. So ⁓ I know it's been a while since I've released episodes ⁓ and there were some episodes that came out a months ago that were like more than a year old and it's because I've been living inside of my own vibrational shift. ⁓ So it's been a while ⁓ but a lot happened and I can't wait tell you ⁓ all the details because... ⁓ I hope that there's a message in here for you, something in here that will resonate with you so that you can maybe make your own decisive action in how to create your own vibrational shift in your life. if you want more information about ways that you can stay connected, as always, you can find me at Luna Serenity Yoga Instagram. at lunaserenity.com for all updates around my class schedule where I'm teaching in the DC, Maryland, and Virginia area, different workshops coming up, and the upcoming retreats. I have the Vibrational Shift Retreat, which is happening in October in upstate New York. It is a women's only retreat, and I hope you'll join me. That one is gonna be amazing. I have three other sound healing practitioners that are gonna be a part of that, and if you're ready for your own shift. you're ready to say yes to your own transformation, join me there.