The Path To Empowerment: Transforming Life Through Healing With Stephanie Garvey

The environment we grow up in informs the kind of person we become. Unfortunately for some, they take on a programming that is limiting and harmful. Growing up in a cult, Stephanie Garvey had a rough childhood. She then took the chance to start questioning her programming and discovered the hard truth that there is more to life beyond what she grew up to believe in. Now, she is an optimization coach helping people succeed and be more empowered using different modalities. In this episode, she joins Yanet Borrego to share with us her powerful story, the lessons she learned, and the path to empowerment that took her to personal development. Stephanie also opens up about her PTSD and how she overcame it with therapy and neuro-linguistic programming, particularly in the healing arts energy and plant medicine. Follow along to this inspiring conversation on transformation, empowerment, and living the life you want.

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The Path To Empowerment: Transforming Life Through Healing With Stephanie Garvey

In this episode, I am beyond excited because I have a very special and inspiring guest, Stephanie Garvey. I met s Steph back in 2019. We were both doing our Master Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner Certification. Stephanie has this energy that draws you into her. Something that impressed me from your journey, Stephanie, is how much you have overcome and how many obstacles you have overcome to build who you are now to build this empowered self.

I cannot wait to dig deeper into your story. We were together for three weeks in Hawaii and truly bonded over a common experience, which is that we both had a miscarriage a few months back. I feel that allowed us to dig deeper within each other's story. I'm so happy to be here. Steph is an optimization coach. She loves helping people succeed and be more empowered by using different modalities. We are going to talk about some of them. Neuro-Linguistic Programming being one of them, the healing arts, energy, and also plant medicine. I love that last one. I haven’t done it yet but I’m curious. Welcome to the show. How are you doing, Steph?

I'm doing great. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.

You have an inspiring story, and I cannot wait until our audiences learn about it. Tell me more about yourself. Where were you born, and what happened during your childhood? Tell me everything.

I was born in Southern California. I grew up though in Portland, Oregon. I was raised in a very religious home, and my parents became a lot more religious as time went on. When I was young, they weren't extraordinarily religious but around age eight is when they started getting into some interesting religious activities that ended up in us being in what most would consider a cult.

We ended up with a family of nine because they believed that you should have as many children as possible. It had to do with having enough members of God's army or something like that. To paint the picture, I was homeschooled my entire childhood. My education was through homeschooling, and I didn't have a lot of friends that were outside of the cult because it was looked down upon to have people outside of that.

What do you think drove your parents to dig even deeper into that religious component and end up in a cult during that time?

As you and I both know, everyone is doing the best they can with the resources that they have. My parents both came from difficult childhoods. My dad's dad committed suicide. His parents had a painful divorce. My mom came from a very physically abusive family. When we come out of those difficult experiences, we are looking for something to fill us up. Oftentimes, we don't look at only finding that within ourselves.

We look for things outside of us. They both got into the Jesus movement when they were in their early twenties. They were slightly religious for several years. They were trying to do the best they could. They were sold on the idea that they could be the best Christians out there because their label was Christianity. Don't come at me. I know that there are good Christians out there and everything but that was the label that they had.

They were sold on the idea that they could bypass the lessons in life if they followed these teachings. It was actually out of self-improvement and also out of a desire to see their kids do better in life than them. It was out of love that they chose that path but it ended up being extraordinarily destructive in many of their children's lives.

I love that, and you are right. Everyone has good intentions. It doesn't matter what the behavior might be. I love that you give the perspective that they were trying to do better, and that's why they made those decisions. How was your childhood? I didn't know you had so many siblings.

I'm the third. I'm the first daughter. My younger siblings, the next one, are five years younger than me. I was a caretaker for a lot of children growing up. I have been a mom my whole life. In a lot of ways, it was fun. My family had a very magnetic pull on people in our group, so we were always the fun family. Behind the scenes was a little bit of a different story because there was a lot of physical and sexual abuse that I experienced from a very young age all through my childhood. It was both. It was a rough childhood with a lot of big T, Traumas, and it was also a really fun childhood where we didn't have the confines of a regular school schedule, and we could go and have adventures and everything. It was both/and.

That’s interesting that duality. We are going to get into the lessons after we dig a little bit deeper but when did you start questioning this cult and environment that you were in? How did that happen?

At nineteen, I got married. It was one of those situations where women weren't supposed to get a higher education. They weren't supposed to work outside the home. Their goal was only to be a helper to a man. My parents liked this guy, he liked me, and I wanted out of the house. I ended up getting married to an amazing man. We are still friends. We are still co-parents. I got married and had a honeymoon baby right away and a 2nd one right after that.

He decided to go to college. He was at a university, and I was in the throes of parenting and trying to be the good girl creating the perfect idea because I had gotten sucked into that. If I was going to be a part of this, then I needed to be the best. I was in that, and he started questioning things. He would come home and be learning Philosophy or something. He would be like, “This doesn't make any sense. This part of it where the guy who was leading our cult, our church, had this idea that we were the only ones in history who had been given this truth.”

My husband at the time would say things like, “How is it that in all of history that this little tiny group of 150 people in a little tiny town outside of Portland, Oregon, would have the only truth of the entire world? It doesn't make any sense.” He would start bringing logic in, and I couldn't handle it. I would push back so hard. Looking back on it now, it was because I knew that if I took that first little Jenga block out, everything was going to fall. I had to deal with it all, and I couldn't. I wasn't in the place to do that.

This went on for the whole three years that he was in school. We had made a pact that if he did his 4 years, in 3 years, that we would somehow find the money to study abroad for his last semester. We packed up our two little kids. We went and lived in Austria for his last semester. It was amazing. It was a great experience. It was my first time out of the country and away from my family.

I had a lot of interesting experiences there because he was in class a lot of the time. I'm in this foreign country without people that speak English with two babies. I was still playing the good girl. I found a church that spoke English that I could go to. I was in Salzburg, and they have music festivals there. They bring in a lot of people and talent from all over the entire world. There are all these different people from all over the world.

We circled up at the end of the service and held hands. There was a song that was playing, and they were giving out a sacrament to whoever wanted to partake. I looked around and thought, “This doesn't make sense that these people don't have the truth, and I would say that I did when we are all here from all parts of the country or all over the world.” Anytime you travel internationally for the first time, especially if you are an American, it's a big deal to go outside of what you also think is the best and see that people are thriving in all areas of the world. They just have different ways of doing it.

It's totally fine, and no matter how you say a word, it still is the same concept. For me, being in Salzburg, Austria, was my first awakening. It’s because I had space away from the friends I had grown up with, my family, and the cult I was in that gave me enough space to explore that even internally, even without saying it out loud.

Tuning out all of the inputs because even though I feel if our readers haven't gone through a cult, we live in this hypnosis all the time of getting validated by everyone else. We barely tune out and tune into ourselves, even if it's the hard truth, the ones that we need to listen to. It blows my mind that you took that chance, and you took that chance to believe and start questioning your programming, the one that you had received during your whole childhood. That's such an experience and a powerful lesson right there. You went to Austria, and the one who planted the seed was your husband, and the egg started cracking.

We all live within the confines of our minds. Regardless of what you've experienced, we all have that. When you start cracking at that, it starts falling apart fast. It got worse before it got better. We did some traveling for his work after that, so we continued to not leave the cult but not be a part of it because we were in different locations for six months to a year. At that time, my PTSD went out of control. I had anxiety and panic. It’s because I had started to question these things. My mind was fighting the safety. I had created this false sense of security by playing this role within the confines.

When I came back, we realized that we could not be a part of that anymore. We had been gone for two years and came back. We tried to go back into it. It took a couple of months, and we were like, “We can't do this.” It was a very big deal for our families because they were leaders in the cult, and it did not go over well at all but we started going to a different church.

They were doing a group trauma therapy for women. I decided to go, and it was a year-long program. I found a therapist, and I found that at the same time. It was my first experience of being heard and having space held for me. It was so beautiful. I talk very fondly about my first experience with talk therapy because some of us need to have the space to even speak the unspeakable. For me, it was powerful. I ended up being in group therapy.

It was led by a therapist as well, although that wasn't technically why she was there. She was a leader in the church but serendipitously, she was there. Out of the three other women, we all had completely different stories. We were all working through completely different things. We had workbooks so we could work through things on our own during the week and then come together and share our experiences.

For me, it was like, “I'm not alone,” because even though my experience is very different in the story and facts of it, we are all having the same human experience of working through it. It was powerful for me to be vulnerable and not feel alone. That was the first time that I didn't feel alone, and I had never told anyone about my sexual abuse. Even my husband at the time didn't know about my sexual abuse.

It is so powerful to be vulnerable and not feel alone.

For the first time, asking for help and being transparent and vulnerable, getting that experience, and knowing that you are not alone that’s amazing. Let's go back to PTSD. When did you start experiencing PTSD? Was that when you started doubting or were you experiencing it even before then?

I was experiencing it before but I feel like it was manageable. I had panic attacks in my teenage years and had very disordered sleep ever since I was a child because my sexual abuse started when I was around seven years old. My sleep was always disturbed ever since then. I would say that there were parts of it that had shown up but I could still manage it. Not in an empowered way but shutting it down and burying it away.

It wasn't until I started doubting and opening myself up to other possibilities that it was my body's response of not knowing how to feel safe with me exploring these new thoughts. Also, a way to show me that it wasn't okay what I had experienced. I can see that now. It was trying to help me to fix it because if it gets louder, you have to fix it.

I appreciate you so much for being vulnerable in this interview and for sharing because a few years back, I realized that sexual abuse in males and females was a lot more common than I ever thought. You sharing your story is also inspiring others to realize that you are not doomed or anything that happens to you. You can go through an empowerment journey that will let you realize that it wasn't you.

That happened to you, and there is a lesson to be learned there too. The PTSD, all of that started, and you moved back after two years. How was the conversation with your family? I've met people that still don't talk to their families. They have gone through a similar scenario. How were all of that communication and the relationship even now?

At that point, the conversations were very challenging. My family is a lot less aggressive in their communication, so they like to put rugs over the dirt. In that way, it was easier to be around them. Even though there was more to deal with on my side of the family, it was easier to pretend and do my own work while pretending with them. With my husband at the time and his family, it was a lot more in our faces or their faces. From whatever perspective, we were in each other's faces. It was interesting too because it was an outcropping, and it got projected onto other things.

We had a family business with them. It got projected onto my children and their grandchildren. A lot of our disagreements and explosions happened about things that didn’t have to do with the cult but it was almost a safer projection. There were things that were happening in the business or with the kids that became a severe break in our relationship with them.

We ended up moving away again, and it was more to get away from all of them. To get away from the friends that we grew up with and mostly to get away from our families because we didn't feel like we could grow in the same environment that had kept us from growing. We were looking for all these opportunities to move away. This was right around 2008 time and the fallout after, so jobs were a little bit scarce. It was trying to find a good job and a place to move to. My husband got a job at Zappos in Las Vegas. We ended up moving to Las Vegas. While we were there was when I decided to talk with my family and confront them.

I had done enough work at that point. It had been a year and a half or something working with the therapist. I did a year of group therapy and felt like I can't grow anymore until I set this boundary and speak my truth. There was part of that that was for me but part of that was also for family members who I found out were still experiencing sexual abuse. For me, when I found that out, it was this glaring, “You have to face this. You are the only one that's willing to see and say it.” I did.

I confronted my parents, and it did not go well, which I expected. I confronted some of the abusers, and that did not go well either. I did it in a way where I was very open with them about forgiving them for what had happened and that I wanted to shift the experience that was occurring in our family to those who were still experiencing things. We got pushed out of everything. It was an easier way because we weren't part of the cult.

We had already left it. Even though we had kept some of the friendships and everything, there was tension but there were still good graces. That was all over. We lost all of the friends that we had grown up with. My then-husband, his mom reached out to say that we were dead to her when they found out that I was calling out my family. My family would not deal with it, so it was mutual, “We can't be around you, and we don't want you to be around us,” kind of thing. I was 27.

Was that before we met?

Yes. If anybody is into astrology, that's right around your Saturn return coming around. Even in a very nerdy, culty group, I had a lot of friends. I was pretty popular and liked, all of a sudden, down to two people that I could talk to. It was hard. It was very traumatic to experience, and it was the best thing that I could have asked for, ultimately. Looking back now, I would never have become the person that I am now without that experience, and I'm so grateful that it happened. I'm so grateful that the people that weren't meant to be in my life fell away and weren't part of my life.

That's what happens when you start to open up on speaking your truth. Naturally, the people that are not supposed to be there leave. You don't attract them anymore. What did you learn about the environment? There are many studies that the environment influences you and that you can influence your environment. You were in an environment that was very toxic, and you took action to align more with who you are and be free of that. What were your key lessons around the environment, and even now that you apply them in your life?

My then husband and I knew that environment was playing a huge role for me because we could see the work that I would do throughout the week with my therapist, with my group therapy, with making these breakthroughs, and then I would be around my family and close back up again. The vulnerability and the freedom that I was experiencing in my life were in direct conflict with the environment in which I was trying to grow.

It was like if you are a baby plant and you are trying to push through the soil, and someone keeps dropping poison all around you like, “We got to go back in. Go back to the seed and strengthen up again because we are not quite strong enough to push through the soil,” or maybe it's just the wrong soil. Maybe it's the wrong food for you.

During your work with your therapist, what was the point where you were like, “I need to speak my truth and not one more day?” What was the breaking point for you?

A second person came to me and told me that one of my sisters was being sexually abused.

We do for others sometimes much more than what we are willing to do for ourselves. That's amazing.

I knew that I should do it for myself but it was for someone else that I took the action that motivated me. It was also interesting because my therapist had already been saying, “You've grown so much in the time that we have been together. You need to find a different therapist to help you continue to grow. I don't know how much more I can help you.” I told her, “I'm going to have this conversation with my family.” She's like, “I've already said that you've already surpassed it. I'm not prepared to help you with that, and I can help you find another therapist.”

It was fascinating because I understand now why she was saying that. Maybe she had some stuff that she was dealing with too from her own life that she, even as a therapist, couldn't be there for me for that. It was a very lonely road but it was so important. It doesn't matter how lonely it gets if you are on the right path, if you are choosing that new environment, that right environment, the right food or the right soil. It doesn't matter who's there or not there. You just take the action and know it's going to work out.

If you know Stephanie, she's someone that is always willing to go to the next level, so I'm not surprised that you were like, “I'm already there.” Thank you so much for sharing that, and I love what you said, “It always gets worse before it gets better.” It is important. We forget many times, even in our daily lives, that it takes effort to get to that desired outcome. Sometimes you may feel that you are not getting closer. You are getting farther. What are the things that you learned from your experience that you apply in your daily life to get you through the next day or the next milestone, even when it seems hard and challenging?

By choosing to do something, even if it is difficult, once you do that one thing, it's easy to do other things. It’s similar to if you've ever run a marathon or something like that. You do one thing and then it's like, “I did that. I can do this too.” There's this level of knowingness about yourself. You get a lot of respect for yourself when you go through with something that's challenging, and the only thing that would hold you back from doing it is because it was challenging. What I took from it was, first, God, the universe, source or whatever you see as that always has your back when you take that leap of faith.

Choosing to do something, even if it is really difficult, makes doing other things easy.

I can explain more about how that showed up for me but making those decisions creates so much rapport with who you are at an unconscious level and choosing to trust yourself, honor yourself, and your truth. My next-door neighbor ended up becoming a close friend, and she was a therapist. I was like, “She is from the universe.” She still laughs about that. She only lived in Vegas for three months and was like, “That is 100% the only reason why I was supposed to be in Vegas was to meet and help you. What I took from it was that even on our worst days, we make it through. There has never been a day where we haven't been able to make it through.

I always tell myself in those days, “One more day.” One more day passes, and it gets better, and I feel better. I feel more hopeful. There are always three questions that I ask myself in those moments that are so hard because I truly believe that the most aligned decisions are the hardest ones. I always ask myself, “Am I doing this out of external validation to please people or out of internal fulfillment because it's my own truth?”

My transitioning voluntarily from my corporate job to entrepreneurship was one of those instances in that I started to ask those questions, and the second was, “Am I doing this out of love or out of fear? Is it out of fear of not having a steady paycheck? Is it out of fear, not because I had a bigger aspiration?” I wanted to move towards something versus moving away from something, which is the same thing you had. The last one is I do this future pacing like, “What is the consequence of my decision 10 minutes from now, 10 months from now or 10 years from now?” Sometimes we are so zoomed into that situation that we don't see the bigger vision, which is part of keeping faith in the universe, as you very well said.

At some level, when you get that gut hit that you know what you are supposed to do, it's worse to go against it. It's more painful to go against it than to run with it because you have to surrender.

That's something I'm working on. We are on the same platform but how do you keep that faith and your trust even when, at times, it doesn't make logical sense? How is that for you?

I decided at some point in my life that this was Stephanie's life. I'm the one that has to live with it. I'm going to make decisions that are based on, “Is that the way that I want to live?”

I was listening to one of the coaches we know, and she was giving this question that she learned from a psychologist and was like, “This is how I make decisions. Does it feel yum or yuck?” It’s like a child. That's simple but powerful too because we tend to overanalyze and overcomplicate anything. The moment we start over analyzing and justifying while we are making the decision, that's the moment that we get in our head and are dead. Is it yum or yuck? You then decide. It's simple but hard to go with our gods at first.

In my experience, and maybe this is who I am as a person. Being indecisive is the worst possible experience to have. I would rather make the wrong decision and make decision than be stuck in indecision because it sucks.

Sometimes people have this idea of right or wrong but there is no right or wrong. It's because, through schooling and education, we have been programmed to believe that there is always a right choice but that doesn't apply to life at all. I always say, “Is it right or do you learn?” There is no wrong with anything. There is always a lesson in those moments when we face challenges and obstacles, as you did, Stephanie. You didn't decide even to be there but you needed to go through that to get the lessons you got.

It's about having an aim and finding a way to get there. When we were in Hawaii together, I sat up in the piko area where there was coffee. For those reading, it's this area that overlooks the ocean. It's a platform almost. It looks down on the pools, and then below that are the beaches in the ocean. There was a little one-and-a-half-year-old who was there, and he wanted to go to the ocean. He would look at it. He would stare out because it's all glass, and he had figured out that you had to walk over and take the elevator all the way down to the bottom floor.

He would keep grabbing our hands and trying to bring us. He finally got someone who would do it. He grabbed their hand and walked over. He figured out in his mind that the first step is to get someone, to get them onto the elevator, and to press the bottom button. He knew that. He got down there and didn't know where to go. The funny thing that came to my mind was that it didn't matter because either way that he went, he would've found the beach. I was like, “This is such a great metaphor for life.”

It's remaining flexible and not being attached to the how because you are going to get there somehow. Kids are so flexible with their communication. It’s something that we can always learn more of to get there. You left with your husband, and both of you decided to leave. You were kicked out and were like, “Thankfully, this is the line path.” What happened after that? You were homeschooled. What was happening with your career situation? How did that unfold?

I didn't have a career. I was a stay-at-home mom for nine years. I put my kids in public school and which in my group was a huge no-no. That was the same year that I ended up breaking communication ties with both sides of the family. After that happened, I decided to feel into where I wanted to live because everything was different. I was like, “If I'm creating this new life, where do I want to create it?” I don't have to think about other things now. I only get to decide where or wherever. I looked in a lot of places and decided on Southern California. I had not been back to Southern California since I was three years old. For some reason, I was like, “It's Southern California.”

I drove from Vegas. I started in Malibu and drove the Coastline down. Every place, I was like, “Nope. I don't like it.” I didn't care about the price. I didn't care about anything. I was like, “Nope.” I hit this one beach, this one view going into Laguna Beach and I was like, “This is it. I'm home.” I moved the next month. My husband at the time was like, “How are we going to afford this? I still have a job in Vegas.” I was like, “We will figure it out.” It was because, for me, I had already accomplished the hardest thing that I could ever possibly imagine accomplishing. I knew that I could do anything.

I got a place. I knew that I could take care of kids even though I didn't have a higher education or had never pursued a career. I was like, “I could be a nanny and make pretty good money.” I ended up nannying for a couple of years while I got settled here in Southern California, which is where I still am. The ocean was calling me. I spent so much time at the ocean that first year healing. I needed a lot of nurturing and healing that I hadn't experienced my whole childhood but also with that traumatic break. I needed that space and something to fulfill my heart.

I did that for a couple of years and then decided to become a real estate agent because if you live in one of the most expensive places in the world, why not make money off of it as being one of the most expensive places in the world? I began a career. I became successful in it with multiple six figures. That's when I started getting into where I met you, into personal development.

If you live in one of the most expensive places in the world, why not make money off of it?

What drove you to get into personal development? Is it because you were in therapy before?

I was still really unhappy internally. I felt like I had recreated the perfect picket fence, the dog, the two kids, and the perfect family. It all looked so good on the outside, and I was unfulfilled. It was because my inner thoughts plagued me. I don't know how to explain it other than that. It was like a plague. It was so destructive inside of me. I started with going to a real estate thing where they were using NLP but they were doing this like seeing where you've come from the past 5 years and projecting out into the next 5 years of who you want to be.

I was in such intense shock when I realized the amount of growth and difference that had transpired within five years. I was like, “I could be anyone and do anything that I want.” If I am able to accomplish that in five years, I can do whatever I want. I thrust myself into this self-development idea and started going to other courses that friends would tell me about. It was all based on being referred by a friend. I tried one company and went through a lot of their programs. What I found was that they were helpful in me seeing where I needed to work in my life but they didn't give me any tools to work on that area of my life.

You didn't realize that you were carrying a backpack full of crap. It was like, “You are holding a backpack.” It was like, “Yeah, I am. You are right. I'm aware of it now.” They were like, “Open it up and see all the crap in there.” I opened it up and I’m like, “Oh my God,” and it’s like, “Now, you can't put it down.”

Now it is activated. What do I do with it?

I had gone through three programs with that company, and that's when I found the NLP company that you and I have both studied with. I was so amazed because it was the first experience where it was gentler and like, “Here's your stuff, and we are going to teach you a couple of things to help you get through it.” To help you process, set that aside and become more empowered. Within four days, I had such a shift that I was like, “This is it. I have to go to their master level of Neuro-Linguistic Programming,” and it's not to work with other people. It’s for me.

Over the years, I found a different therapist. I had worked with a different therapist for years. I tried a lot of different things along with personal growth and development. I don't even know if I could have articulated it at the time but what I wanted was to find happiness, to find peace inside of myself, and to not experience any of the PTSD symptoms that I was having on a daily basis.

That whole next year, when I met you, right after I did the practitioner level, I started eating differently. I started working out every day. I let go of a lot of things that weren't helping me. I made decisions to divorce my husband and all these things. The energy when you decide that something is going to help you, the energy of it begins before you even get the training.

You just trust. You know that the universe or God has your back.

It's like, “We are doing this.” It felt so much like that 2013 year for me when I broke up with my family. It was like, “We are going big or going home.” There were a lot of challenges that year with all the decisions that I made. I'm not going to say that it was always easy and butterflies and rainbows. I chose to be me in a new way that year. To show up as me and as the life that I wanted to live.

That was back in 2019 and with the tools that we learned in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. For those that don't know what NLP is, imagine that your mind is a computer or a phone application. NLP is the code of that application to reprogram your mind to achieve the desired outcome. In this case, you were experiencing PTSD and anxiety, and with the tools we learned, you were able to completely release all of that.

That week that I met you, I did a PTSD release, and in fifteen minutes, it released all of the PTSD that I had. I have been able to sleep through the night every night since then. I had never been able to sleep through the night in more than twenty years leading up to that. It took away my panic. It took away the anxiety. It took away the thoughts that were so intrusive. It totally shifted some of the traumatic experiences that I had into empowering experiences because I got to rewrite them to see how I wanted to experience them. Even though it wasn't something that I would wish on someone else, it still allowed me to see how I got out of those situations.

In that way, it was empowering for me. I remember the very first day, and whoever was on stage said, “Who's here to work with other people?” 99 out of 100 people raise their hand. They were like, “Who's here to work on themselves?” I was like, “Me.” I was both hands up. At that point, I was like, “I'm not a coach. I don't care about working with other people. I have so much stuff to handle within myself. I need all the help.”

Even when you don't have the clients, a coach is not reliant on having clients. We are coaching ourselves all the time.

What was crazy was that after that, any of my friends who looked at me would go, “What did you do?” They were looking at me. It was like, “You are different. What happened?” I had never been a coach before and had many people requesting to work with me. I started doing it on the side, and then eventually, it's become my career.

I won't discount the work that I did with the people that I worked with for the years leading up to when we met. I spent ten years of my life and so much money to achieve a fraction of what I achieved in such a short amount of time by having these tools. It doesn't end. There are more tools, and for me, it was such an amazing experience to realize that there was life beyond PTSD. There is life beyond that experience.

You have overcome so much. This is one of the most inspiring interviews I've had. I appreciate you being here. If you overcome all of that, you can do anything. We bring these stories into the show to make all of us realize that we are creating our reality all the time and that anything is possible if we put our heart and mind into it. Something that I'm curious about is plant medicine. Eric, your fiancé, and you are putting together a retreat. Tell me more about it.

I met my fiancé when I met Yanet. He was going through a similar experience of creating lifestyle tools. It’s like, “In everyday life, what do you use to create the life that you want to live?” We've done that together. We have explored different modalities of healing arts and energy work. Something that Eric had done at the beginning of his personal growth and development is that he had gone out to Peru to a center and did plant medicine. It's a holistic healing center where they don't only do one particular kind of plant medicine. They do a variety, and it's all to help you integrate and have a spiritual awakening.

He had told me about his experience, and I wasn't interested in plant medicine. It didn't strike a chord with me. A few years ago, though, I woke up in the middle of the night in a dream because I heard this voice say, “You are supposed to go to Peru. You need to go to Peru and work with the plants.” It was 3:00 AM. I sat up in bed and was like, “I'm supposed to go to Peru.” I reached out to the place where he had gone, and the next day, I booked my flight.

I was like, “I know what a call sounds like. I'm going to respond to whatever this is.” At that point, I was a virgin when it came to plant medicine. I had experienced pot like twice, and I didn't like it. It was not my thing. I had never done anything else at all. Some people in their college years have done different things. I had no idea what I was getting into.

I went for three weeks. There's so much to share about it but the biggest thing was when I got there, the first day, I ended up being in an ayahuasca ceremony. Every time that you are in an ayahuasca ceremony when you work with ayahuasca, it's different. You can't say, “It's going to be this way or it's going to be like this,” because every single person, every single time, it's different.

Were you with more people?

I was with one other person as an experiencer. One person was holding the space, and there was a shaman. It was the most beautiful experience that I have ever had in my life. I saw the connection that we have with people. I saw the other side where we come from. It's psychedelics, so you are seeing visions. I could see that every particle in the air was a different color. It was this heart-opening experience of you are so connected and loved. We go through these ups and downs in life. When we get to the mountaintop, we have the clarity, and we are like, “I remember where I'm going.”

Sometimes we get down in the trenches and are like, “I can't even remember where I was headed with this path.” I can't turn around. I can't move forward. I don't know what to do. It was one of those moments in my life and was so powerful. I went into working with some other plants that are not psychedelic and are for clarity. That's one of the main reasons why they work with this particular plant. I had so many experiences of being able to see patterns I was running in my life, and we are so blind to what we do because it's an unconscious behavior. We don't realize that we are doing something. We all have ways that we say things and don't even realize that it's how we say things.

We have blind spots all over.

This plant was not psychedelic. In a non-psychedelic way, I started seeing as if it was a movie playing out of my life, and in each scene, the actors and the background would shift, and it would be the same scene, only with different players and backdrops. It helped me to see the things that I was doing in my life that I was unaware of, which would shift my life. When we shift, it shifts other people. It shifts other experiences.

When we shift, it shifts other people and other experiences.

I had a lot of experiences like that where it was coming back home to yourself. Coming back home to realization, quieting out the noise. Out of the 3 weeks I was there, for 10 of the days, I was in solitary because you are not communicating with people. You are on your own in your little tree house, and they bring you food, drop it off, and stuff. There's something about being in nature alone without any distractions or responsibility that helps you to have an awakening. Not even a spiritual awakening but a human awakening.

I haven't tried ayahuasca. Cody has, and he enjoyed the experience. I've become more curious about it. There are many doctors that study it, so it is not this woo-woo thing. There is data and science that backs up all of the things that Stephanie is saying. We were listening to this episode with Joe Rogan and Dr. Gabor Mate. I think you would enjoy it.

I've listened to half of it. I have it.

Do you like it?

Someone else sent it to me.

He starts talking about ayahuasca around halfway or a little bit before. He talks also about ADHD and all of these things. It’s insightful. Everything that he provides and the experiences he has had are literally very similar to what you are describing. Again, this is not Stephanie and Eric. This is backed by experiences, data, science, and experiments. I love educating myself, and I have. I’m curious to try it in the future.

The benefits of it are incredible. A lot of people that have anxiety, depression or PTSD are cured after an experience with plants. The other thing that's very cool about it is that we think that it's crazy to go sit with plans in the jungle but look at the human experience. We are looking at screens and letting that rule our lives. Go out to dinner and look around. See who is communicating and present. This is what's crazy. The human experience currently is never giving yourself enough time to hear your inner self and never giving yourself time to check-in. We have all the answers within us.

Learning how to tap in that's what the plants do. They help you learn how to tap into your own wisdom. They open you up to believe that there is a different reality out there. You can lift back the veil and realize that there's something different. You get to create your reality. You get this understanding of what the human experience is supposed to be about, and you realize that what is occurring now in our world is affecting you. We were talking about the environment earlier. The environment that we set ourselves up in is not necessarily healthy all the time.

I was telling Cody this and he was like, “Maybe you need to work on that.” It may be true, and you are like, “I wasn't ready for that but thank you.” It’s because we are projecting all the time but sometimes we are not ready to hear that truth. I was like, “What about trusting me being with someone else doing this plant medicine thing on me, which I don't know.” I want to bring this to life because trust is a big thing for all of us. You guys are working with someone who is trustworthy and has a lineage. Tell me more about that part. How do you trust them, this company or a person to be there in a room with you? That's always my concern but I'm working on trust, apparently.

Me, too.

I’m like, “Thank you, baby.”

I had a level of trust because Eric had been there. Another of our friends had been there. I had a certain understanding. It wasn't like I was going into a place that I had never heard of that I'd found on the internet. There's that but a lot of the trainings that you and I have done together with energy work talks a lot about holding space. We talk about it in the coaching world too. When you get into a space where you can psychedelically experience what is occurring, and you can see it, you understand what it means for someone to hold space for you in a totally new way. It's not a concept. You get to experience it.

For me, when I experienced the first night that I was there changed everything for me because I realized that it wasn't something that I had to cognitively work myself through. It was something that I experienced. That brings up a good thing that I would like to point out as well because I didn't realize how important it was before I went. That's the reason why we decided to start leading groups to Peru because we realized that it is absolutely crucial who you have as a safe person or persons to hold space for you that know how to work with energy.

The man who runs the center where we take groups has been drinking thousands of times. He has been given permission by the tribes to serve ayahuasca and still defers to the people with the direct lineage of ayahuascarus that can speak with the plants from their family line. He will sit and hold space. He knows how to work with the plant but he defers to them. He has created this beautiful environment where you are detoxing from the food that you eat or the air that you are around.

We are detoxing from our cell phones, from responsibility, conversations about work, and all of that. Providing the most amazing and incredible local organic food. He has dedicated his entire life to working with and dieting different plans to see how they work in interaction to see how he can best support anyone that comes in because it's all individualized care. If someone needs something very gentle, he knows how to help them with those plants. There are some sacred plants that work alongside ayahuasca, in particular, that work well in helping you open up to the messages that Ayahuasca helps you to see.

Also, to gain clarity after you receive the messages because when you have this big experience and you are opened up, what good is that unless you bring it into your life and integrate it? What he has dedicated his life to is honoring the traditions of the tribes, allowing us to experience them as well, and how to integrate best. That's why in some ayahuasca centers, you only go for a few days. You drink as often as you can, and then you go home. Here, that's not recommended because it's about transformation. It's not about an experience. It's about integrating the spiritual awakening into your life.

Even with all the work that he's done and it's very beautiful how he puts it all together and the different people that he brings in to work with each person. We also notice that there’s a lack of once you get back to the “real world” of integrating even with the help of other plants because you leave for 2 or 3 weeks and you grow as if you were in a growth seminar for 300 years.

You come back, and everybody thinks that you went on vacation. You were gone that long but time doesn't exist. You come back, and sometimes we need help to not only integrate the teachings into us, which is a lot of what happens at this center but then we need to integrate it into our lives. That's why we chose not only why it's important to go to this center that we found but also to do integrative coaching with it so that people can bring everything that they learned that they integrated into themselves and their lives here.

I love that so much because one of the things that Cody was telling me is that you get a lot of insights and lessons. One of the most important parts is to implement those as you integrate back into life. I love that you and Eric are providing this coaching component after the transformational experience in Peru. That's very well thought out. Congrats. I'm so excited.

There are many modalities to get to a similar place. There is NLP, Neuro-Linguistic Programming, hypnosis, and plant medicine. All of this help. What's important is to learn what resonates with you, to experiment, and see what works best for you. If plant medicine resonates with you, I couldn't recommend someone better than Stephanie and Eric. Reach out to them because they are amazing coaches and leaders. They have gone through a transformation themselves. They lead by example, which is important.

Stephanie, I'm so excited to have you here, and I want to start by concluding with this question. If someone feels stuck in their life like you were when you were in the cold if someone feels like they don't see the way out, what would you recommend to this person to be more empowered and continue finding their own life?

I would recommend that they find someone to help them. The first step is when you are stuck. You need help. Even for us, for people that are working in this day-in and day-out, when we get stuck, we forget that we have the tools that we have. In my opinion, it's always reaching out to someone who can help, and not a friend where you can bitch about what's going on but where you can reach out and get help from someone. Coaching with Yanet is an amazing way to help you get unstuck. If you have a lot that you need to get through and you are willing to deep dive, come with us to the jungle and then coach with Yanet.

When you're stuck, you need help.

Also, with Stephanie or Eric and whoever resonates with you. One of the teachings that we learn from is that not all knowledge is in the same school. We all believe in experimenting and learning what resonates because there are so many paths to the same destination. Part of this life is to understand what that looks like for you.

That's why I love your journey. I know you are super busy, so I'm happy that you dedicated one hour of your time to spend with us to share your story, your magic, and your knowledge. As I mentioned before, this has been one of the most inspiring interviews that I've done. I appreciate you. I respect you as a person and as a coach. I know the legacy you and Eric both are leaving is going to impact many people, my friends. Thank you so much. How can the audience find you?

You can find me on social media, @StephGarvey or if you are interested in going to the jungle, you can find us on Light in the Jungle. There's a website and social media. It’s in either of those places.

Is there anything else that you want to say as we conclude?

Thank you so much for having me. I am grateful. One of the things that I did not expect on my journey was to find people that are empowered like you to be good friends with. I'm honored to be able to share this lifetime with you.

Thank you so much. Me, too. I am honored to spend this lifetime with you. Thank you to all of our readers. I hope this story was super empowering, inspiring, and aspirational. We will see you next time. Thank you, Steph. Take care. Bye-bye.

Important Links

• Stephanie Garvey
• Three questions – 3 Questions Framework
• Dr. Gabor Mate - The Joe Rogan Experience Past Episode
• @StephGarvey – Instagram
• Light in the Jungle
• https://Calendly.com/yanetbcoaching/clarity-call
• https://www.YBCoaching.com/wellness5minsroutine
• https://www.Facebook.com/yanetbcoaching
• https://www.Instagram.com/yanetbcoaching/
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/company/yanet-borrego-coaching/?viewAsMember=true
• https://www.YouTube.com/channel/UCqxL829o0Vk-QdY12F-GgMw

About Stephanie Garvey

Stephanie Garvey is an optimization coach. She loves helping people succeed and be empowered through different modalities, such as NLP, healing arts, and plant medicine.