Julie Hilsen: 0:00

Life of Love Life of Love Life of Love Life of Love With Julie Hilsen. Hello, dear friends, and welcome to another episode of Life of Love. We’re so excited to join in the sacred space of curiosity, creativity and connection, and I’m so honored to bring you the special guest this week. She has been living her life of joy on a spiritual journey of growth and personal development, and her trajectory has been amazing. She struggled as a child with body identity and she’s just lifted everyone else up along the way with her healthy servicing of others, from her pop-up yoga platform that she created and grew to her intuitive gifts, and now she’s releasing her first book. So I’m so excited this book will be out by the time this airs and I want to talk about her book Inner Goddess A Guided Path to Radical Wholeness. It’s just a wonderful book and I really love it because it reminds me a lot of my book and I think we’re kindred spirits and the idea that we just want everyone to just live their ultimate happy self and these ways to get there so interesting. So I’m going to talk about that with her. Lauren Leduc, I appreciate you coming on. Life of Love Thanks for being here.

Lauren Leduc: 1:26

Hi Julie, thanks so much for having me. I love your voice.

Julie Hilsen: 1:31

I love yours too. It was so funny. I was doing my throat chakra opening exercise. I saw it on your Instagram.

Lauren Leduc: 1:39

Oh, nice this is so cool.

Julie Hilsen: 1:41

I need to align my. What did you call it?

Lauren Leduc: 1:44

That part, that part A Vashuda.

Julie Hilsen: 1:47

Yes, I love the way you pronounce the how you know our energy centers and our body are called.

Lauren Leduc: 1:54

I say chakras, yes, but they’re like. I think chakras are fine. I love how you said it, though I’m just a yoga nerd.

Julie Hilsen: 2:03

It reminds me of chutney. I was like chakras. I loved it. It’s really cool because it’s like your frequency, you’re pronouncing it in your divinity. It brings a different light to it, so I just loved it. I want to have her say that word.

Lauren Leduc: 2:23

Thank you. I’m definitely not a Sanskrit scholar or expert in any way, but I do try to do my best to pronounce it because those words, all of Sanskrit like it’s not every language holds a frequency, you know, but that one is very special and every word is very packed and loaded. So I don’t think that pronouncing it incorrectly doesn’t get the energy across. But for me that’s one way to honor the roots of the practices that I steward and to hopefully get, like a specific energy across when I’m talking about them. But it’s certainly not perfect.

Julie Hilsen: 3:04

Oh, it’s lovely. I agree with you. Every word has this powerful frequency behind it and it’s a powerful way to get your message across. And our words, our words, are like you said. We’re stewards of our frequency, and just understanding that divinity of even the things that come out of your mouth, it makes your experience so different. And gosh, that’s what I wanted to kick off with you about was you know? It’s obvious you’re dedicated and devoted to the divine feminine and I just wondered when? What sparked that in you? When did you start, you know, seeing the divine feminine? Was it? Was it a path or a light bulb? Or I’m curious about your story.

Explore the Divine Feminine and Inner Goddess

Lauren Leduc: 3:52

Yeah, it was out of desperation, I think, is truly how I found her. But I grew up in like an evangelical Christian setting and I had a very specific idea of what God was and although I had moments where I could like feel the divine within me and to me it was less explicable, I didn’t really have any exposure to God beyond. Like God created man and then created woman out of man and you know, women are kind of left out of that story in a way. So well, fast forward a lot. I’m on my healing journey. I accumulated a lot of student debt and just had so many money stories and so much like sickness in my body, even around money in general, and I knew that to start turning that around and start healing it I needed to really go beyond the typical advice and guidance that one normally gets like could I start fixing things on a spreadsheet? Yes, but I knew I needed to go deeper than that and to spiritually heal. I just always had that intuition about a lot of things. I think that I carried and I found a chant on YouTube this is like when YouTube was fairly newer To Lakshmi, the goddess. Lakshmi is the goddess of abundance.

Julie Hilsen: 5:25

Oh yeah, I say it like she me. I don’t know why I think I add an extra vowel, but yes, I have a connection with that goddess as well. I just talked about her on the last podcast. I was a guest earlier and I was like, because I was talking to a man from India, the synchronicity is crazy. I said I think I brought India into my field because of Lakshmi, Is that how you say it?

Lauren Leduc: 5:47

Lakshmi, lakshmi, yes, I know exactly what you’re talking about.

Julie Hilsen: 5:51

Oh, that’s wonderful. Ok, yes, I didn’t mean to interrupt.

Lauren Leduc: 5:54

I was just like, oh, it’s OK. That was like kind of my first exposure, I guess, to the divine feminine and to goddesses. I of course knew they existed in other cultures, but hadn’t really interacted in any way, didn’t know much about them. So I would do this chant to her and that was really my first exposure as well to Mantra, mantra beyond affirmations and things like that. And, funny enough, I feel connected to India too. Now on my altar I have a beautiful rosewood Lakshmi that I got while I was visiting several years ago. So it felt like kind of this full circle moment. Yes, oh, wow, yeah, I still am a devotee to her. But as I was studying yoga and learning more about the philosophy and the culture, I learned about the other goddesses as well. There’s many of them, but I learned about the main ones and did practices to kind of awaken and embody them within me. And what struck me, I think, is just the diversity in them and their energies, and that there isn’t just like one way to be in the feminine, there’s not just one way to be a woman. By the way. Feminine exists within all of us. It doesn’t matter what our gender is, but there are so many facets to it and we talk about shakti energy, which is this feminine, like the raw feminine energy, and it’s wild and it’s creative and it’s expressive. And as it is expressed through these different goddesses, we get to also look at these different qualities within ourselves. So, for instance, where can we emit and embody abundance and luck and fortune? How can we maybe find gratitude practices to realize that within us already? And then I was introduced to goddesses like Kali, who’s the destroyer of ego and who looks scary and she slays demons and she has this very powerful energy, and Dorgha, who’s a warrior, and Saraswati, who’s a muse and a teacher, and Parvati, who’s a mother and a yogi. So I mean, those are just a few of the goddesses, but they all embody these very different qualities that live within each of us. So for me, certain parts of those energies were not things that I had really explored within me or that I had maybe shut down. So by exploring that, I was able to learn more about myself and my own soul. And now, when I’m working with the sacred feminine and I’m working with my own energy, while I have guides and call on angels and things like that, I work with the inner goddess, and that is the feminine aspect of one’s highest self. We each have one, and when I’m doing readings and things like that, that’s who I’m working with the most. And we all have this access to our highest selves, to our souls, to the divine within us, and I especially love working with the goddess. They’re all different and beautiful and they have so much to teach our human selves. So, yeah, as I’m working with the sacred feminine now, while I love the different goddesses from different traditions and they’ve taught me so much, I’m looking more at this individualized personal deity that we each have.

Julie Hilsen: 9:29

Ooh, that’s so fun. It’s so fun because I mean, do you come, does the name of the personal goddess come into the field when you’re doing a reading, or is it just, you know, like Julie goddess, is there a name assigned, separate from that person’s, human or given?

Lauren Leduc: 9:46

name. It’s kind of an interesting thing. So when I’m working with someone else’s, I don’t actually ask them their name, I just look at them and you know, describe what they look like and what their energy is, and all that. I do have in my book a guided meditation to meet your inner goddess and when I’ve led that for people before, sometimes they ask them their name and sometimes it’s their name, sometimes it’s no name and sometimes it’s like a totally different name. So it is kind of all across the board and I typically think what I see and or whatever the client or the student is seeing, is what is going to, I guess, convey the energy and the best way for them. So I suppose, does the name matter? It can if it is impactful for them in some way. You know what I mean.

Julie Hilsen: 10:43

I hear you, I have a friend and she’s like you know, I’m gonna tell you I don’t associate, I don’t really identify with my given name and and it’s a beautiful name and she knows it’s beautiful and has his, you know, really great roots. But you know, that’s why it was sort of on my forefront of consciousness, was, you know, I wonder if her goddess names match or it matters, and, like you said, it’s probably individuals, probably just like we are, we’re all unique. So a name might mean something to someone and not someone else. And and it’s, it’s really, it’s interesting. And then, if you go into, like the numerology of certain things, like maybe, maybe her numerology doesn’t add up, like I need to look into it for her because she said it to me for a reason and it’s stuck in my consciousness. So that’s always fun and I really do adore the idea that it’s. It’s bringing the feminine. You know, mask, if it’s a man asking about femininity or you know, whoever is asking, everyone has the masculine and feminine, but you’re bringing it back to it’s, it’s in that person, it’s part of them. It’s not something you go out and get, it’s not something you, you strive for, it’s, it’s there, it’s just accessing it.

Lauren Leduc: 11:56

Well for sure, and for me, the reason that I have focused more on the feminine is because Our society and culture is so hyper masculine. So most of us are already pretty familiar with a lot of the qualities of the masculine, because that’s where we’re living. So for me, really Learning about calling upon and loving on my qualities that were more in the feminine Was deeply healing for me, and I think that that’s what many of us need to do to bring balance into the world. So it’s definitely not like, oh, masculine is bad and feminine is good, it’s it. There’s not even good or bad labeled on it. It’s just about bringing in more balance and more care, because when either of them is overly expressed or maybe Expressed and then twisted into something that isn’t sacred, that it becomes a problem. So this is about kind of loving on these different feminine aspects of ourselves and in that, finding wholeness, and that’s definitely been the case for me. For instance, sensitivity is definitely a feminine quality and it’s something that I I don’t know if I could pinpoint, but that that was my Affliction, I suppose, growing up. But once I did and then learned more about it, I realized that it’s not something that is just going to keep holding me back from life. It’s something that, if I understand it and work with, is a superpower. So for me, like a lot of the feminine is like in my process, and then what I guide others through is taking things that maybe we historically have found to be flaws or to be weaknesses, and Learning that they’re actually our greatest strengths.

Julie Hilsen: 13:53

Yes, I hear you. I hear you so clearly and I can identify, because I was always told I was too emotional as too sensitive, and you know, toughen up, you know, don’t be a baby, those kind of things, and and I went through that same thing and maybe that’s why I gravitated toward goddess too, because it’s like our, the programming, the overlay on our society is, is so based on productivity and the masculine that you know you don’t feel connected because you’re not serving that whole, that system of the masculine, and Sometimes you have to run up against a wall to see what’s right in front of you and cherish what your gifts are, and I believe that that’s what happened to you too is that it’s like you had you had to own it because if not, it was going to tear you apart.

Lauren Leduc: 14:45

Yeah, that’s exact. That’s exactly it. Trying to conform, I suppose, into the more masculine world was was detrimental for me on all levels physically, mentally, spiritually. It really wasn’t until I was able to unearth some of these things and live in a different way that I Felt more happy in whole.

Julie Hilsen: 15:15

You could shine your light and it just shines so brightly and the things that you’re doing, and I Honor that, because it took a lot of courage to be like I’m vulnerable and to go there and and it’s inspiring. So it’s just and I wanted to talk to you a little bit about you know we do we have this overlay, but then you know we follow these breadcrumbs and and I love how you have things on your website and it’s part of your field to help people unlock their purpose and To make sure that you’re on track. And one of those things that popped out to me was your chakra superpower quiz, and so I wanted to before we got in another track. You know, because this goes along with purpose and fulfilling your Specific. You know your uniqueness and each person has their own uniqueness, so ignoring anything that you feel or go through is is just causing you pain. So you know it’s it’s embracing your uniqueness and knowing that it’s your divine being. So we’re coming back to divinity again, and now we’re going into your chakra superpower quiz and and how did you come up with that?

Lauren Leduc: 16:27

I’m so excited, yeah so for me, I think a lot of times when we’re talking about these energy centers, we’re talking about deficiencies, we’re talking about balancing them. So I wanted to create something that would kind of unlock maybe what is so great about your energy and and where your strengths lie, because I think starting from there is is More positive and more powerful than like where are you deficient in a way, and I don’t even see them as deficiencies.

The Power of Surrender and Inspiration

Julie Hilsen: 16:56

But well, that’s the sacred feminine is unconditional love for whatever comes forward, it’s no judgment. You know there’s. There’s no Quantifying it, it’s just, you love it because it is yours, so that’s that’s a very empowering Feminine way to look at the chakras.

Lauren Leduc: 17:13

So sorry I didn’t mean to know, no, it’s okay. So I was like trying to look at you and you seem like you have a lot of strengths, so I would maybe guess the third eye, but I that’s the mystical mama, I think it is what it’s called. But I want to know what you got.

Julie Hilsen: 17:28

Yeah, because I told you I took it. I was like yes, I got sorceress.

Lauren Leduc: 17:33

Okay okay, another higher ticada, but you know it’s not like source sorceress.

Julie Hilsen: 17:42

Yeah, so divinely connected and it could you know, I bet I could take it tomorrow and I get a different reading, because I I tend to float in and out of things and I just accept where I am. I float in and out of diets, I float in and out of practices, and then I, you know I’ll come back and so that’s what came up today. But I just love that. That was great. And then my, my thing is to surrender, to balance between action and surrender, and and that was really meaningful for me to read, because sometimes I I feel like I’m not doing enough action and Just to think about those are the polarities action and surrender, and there’s a balance. So, yeah, it’s a good reminder.

Lauren Leduc: 18:30

Thank you, yeah, and it’s funny, I think. A lot of times when we’re talking about polarities, we’re talking about like one or the other, but the thing about them is that they’re paradoxes, like they simultaneously exist, so we can Still do action. Wow, like being in the vibration of surrender, if that makes sense I like that to me. Surrender, Because it’s honestly like, the reason I’ve even thought about it is because it’s been so difficult for me to grasp in my life. To me it’s like an approach to what you’re doing and yoga is really informed that for me too. But it’s like, Okay, I’m gonna take this action, but I’m going to surrender the outcome. Right, Nice Like. I have this book coming out and I really want people to read it because I know it will be helpful and I’m going to do everything I can to get it out there. While not attaching to any specific result, you know I’m going to surrender it and trust that it will reach who it’s meant to reach and that you know my inner goddess is up there orchestrating some things that I can’t even see right now.

Julie Hilsen: 19:45

Yes, yes, and I think part of that is our connection, because I’m just I’m a big cheerleader for you. I just I’m really, really excited for what you’ve done and in the platform you’re going to take off on. And you know just that deprogramming, like letting go of these, these ideas that were not enough, that that we’ve been programmed to think that that we, we need to go outside of ourselves to be fixed and just breaking down those things and living in that, the divine acceptance and non-judgment, and just putting that out there, that that’s part of your goddess, and everyone has an inner goddess. So it’s just a beautiful, beautiful message. And then I just have one more question. I know that that you have a time constraint. I want to respect your day. But my last question was where do you go to find your inspiration?

Lauren Leduc: 20:41

It’s funny. I, for me, inspiration is definitely better if I’m not looking for it, if that makes sense. So that’s a surrender, right? Well, exactly exactly. For me, inspiration comes through surrender and at the same time, when you’re surrendering, you can’t expect the inspiration to come, because I think it comes when it will. I love Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic. Have you read that? Not the whole thing, I’ve dabbled, yeah.

Julie Hilsen: 21:13

Yeah.

Lauren Leduc: 21:15

It’s such a great book and she really talks about inspiration as really something that’s like floating out there and if you it might come to you, if you make yourself a vessel for it, and then if you don’t hop on it, it might just float over to somebody else and come through them, which which I, I kind of love the idea of it as this, like as this living muse in a way. So for me, for inspiration it comes best. You know, I’m an observer, for sure, I like to, I’m more introverted, I like to kind of sit back and take things in and then take time to process them. But for me, like, my best ideas have come when I’m relaxed. So that might be like when I was. I was looking for a way to promote my yoga studio a few years ago and I was kind of like writing down all these different ideas. But that fully formed idea came when I got a massage and stopped thinking about it. The idea for this book came as like one download, and not word for word, but the structure and the thesis and and all of that. And it was when I was out on a walk with my daughter outside just pushing the stroller. And I have a funny story in the book about about inspiration, where it was a new mom had a newborn baby and my mind was so just like on her survival. I didn’t even know how I was going to think about anything else for the rest of my life and you know it was very focused on that and in survival mode for sure, just trying to like adjust to this new life and and no sleep. And my mom came over and I took a long shower and I relaxed suddenly and then all of these ideas started coming through and at the time I was kind of shooing them away like oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let’s save this for later. Yeah, I don’t have. I don’t have the bandwidth or like the physical capacity for this right now, but I thought it was funny just because that totally is. For me, like how inspiration comes is through that surrendered, relaxed feminine state, and I love telling people that too, because I think, like you know, we talk about like creative brainstorming and have whiteboards and you know meetings and all of that, and are those things important and helpful? Yes, but I think for, like the initial divine inspiration, for something to come through, it needs a relaxed vessel.

Embracing the Shower Experience

Julie Hilsen: 23:50

Yeah, that’s beautiful. Yeah, because I thought about asking, because you have done so much. And that inspiration, I was just curious because it’s so pure. So it makes it lines up that it’s just coming to you. And there is a saying the best ideas come in the shower and that’s not a coincidence. And then I always wonder is it the water? Is it your intention when you enter the shower, that you’re just relaxing and letting go? And it’s a very cool thing.

Lauren Leduc: 24:26

I think it’s a combination of things like the warmth and the water provide the environment for the relaxation. They cut off a lot of the outside noise. There’s this white noise that comes with the shower. I love Abraham Hicks. They talk about using white noise or they’re listening to a fan, and that’s how they recommend meditating, which I find pretty interesting. And yeah, I think it’s that you’re naked. There’s just so many elements that come together to provide just a different environment than we’re typically living in and the rest of our day to day lives. And maybe you’re alone I’m not really alone in my showers right now because the toddler I promise it’s temporary and then you’ll be like why is it so quiet?

Julie Hilsen: 25:15

Then your dog wants to come in the shower. After that she always comes and gets under the bed to make sure I’m just taking a shower and not going somewhere.

Lauren Leduc: 25:27

Yeah, it’s a sweet phase in life and I try to embrace it. I love that question and I hadn’t really thought too deeply into the shower thing before, so I appreciate the invitation.

Julie Hilsen: 25:42

Of course I’m here to make space for you and help you. It’s my pleasure I have a door to our conversation. I know we’re getting to the end, but I’ll put the link your website in the show notes so people can have it. But it’s Lauren LeDuke. Yes, so you knowcom and you’re on Instagram and I’ll put your website on there. It links everything together because it’s so lovely and I just adore what you’re doing and the light you’re shedding and sharing and I’m happy to weave in with you a little bit. This has been great.

Lauren Leduc: 26:22

Yeah, thank you, Julie. I would absolutely love to chat again and I just thank you for having me on your podcast and honor you for the work that you’re doing and putting out such beautiful energy into the world, and I know you’re probably helping so many people and using your own story and path to provide that space for others. So just want to say I see you too and send you so much love.

Julie Hilsen: 26:51

Oh, all the best. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you.