Episode 52: Blending Ancient Wisdom with Modern Healing | Christina Sofia | Therapist, Reiki Practitioner & Transformation Coach
Christina Sofia is a licensed therapist, reiki practitioner, and transformation coach who blends ancient healing traditions with modern practices to help clients reconnect with their power. After realizing she wasn’t living her true purpose, and feeling the toll it took physically, emotionally, and spiritually, Christina made the leap from traditional therapy to a coaching practice that incorporates reiki, crystals, essential oils, and other holistic modalities alongside her clinical expertise. She shares how to recognize when you’re out of alignment, the practices that can shift your energy, and why she’s committed to helping women see their light. Christina also offers insight into running women’s and healing circles, her journey through various spiritual traditions, and why self-worth is the foundation for transformation. You’ll leave inspired to honor your needs, embrace self-care, and trust in your own ability to heal.
“We don’t really know our own power and how bright our light shines. We’re all connected.”
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Powerful Ladies Meet Ups
Reiki Practitioner
Young Living Essential Oils
Therapy
Women’s circles
Essential Oils
Emotional Release
Empath
Psychology
Social Work
Crystals
Christian
Buddhist
Wiccan
Holistic Practitioners
Empath
Marie Forleo B School
Meditation
Affirmations
Marianne Williamson
Louise Hay
Gabrielle Bernstein
Marie Forleo
Katie Byron
Alexi Panos
Preston Smiles
Abraham Hicks
For Small Creatures Such as We
Sasha Sagan
Carl Sagan -
Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters
00:00 Meet Christina Sofia
04:15 From Licensed Therapist to Transformation Coach
08:30 Discovering the Power of Reiki and Energy Work
12:20 How Ancient Practices Support Modern Healing
17:50 Essential Oils and Emotional Release
22:15 Running Women’s Circles and Healing Communities
27:40 The Intersection of Spiritual Traditions in Her Work
32:05 Recognizing When You’re Out of Alignment
36:50 Self-Worth as the Foundation for Change
41:20 Daily Rituals for Energy and Clarity
45:35 Mentors and Teachers Who Shaped Her Path
50:10 Affirmations to Remember Your Power
54:55 Closing Thoughts and How to Connect
The amazing thing I see, especially with women is we don't really know our own power and how bright our light shines, and I'm such a big believer. We're all connected and there's no competition or jealousy. It's like when I rise, you rise. And when King Christ, I rise.
That's Christina Sofia and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I'm your host, Kara Duffy, and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast where I invite my favorite humans, the awesome, the up to something, and the extraordinary to come and share their story. I hope that you'll be left, entertained, inspired, and moved. To take action towards living your most powerful life.
There are people you meet in life who instantly make you feel calm and present. Christina Sofia is one of those people. She's a licensed therapist, reiki practitioner, and transformation coach. After knowing that she wasn't living life to her purpose and it was showing up for her physically, emotionally, and spiritually, she knew she had to make a change.
By choosing to leave therapy and move into coaching, she's now able to bring together ancient healing modalities with modern healing practices to help people in all the ways and to heal herself along the way. On this episode, we clarified different types of healing, how she discovered this path, and what it is about women in particular, that she's committed to making a difference for all that and so much more coming up.
But first, if you're interested in discovering what possibilities and businesses are available for you to create and to live your most fulfilling life. Please visit the powerful ladies.com/coaching and sign up for a free coaching consultation with me. There is no reason to wait another day to not be living your best life when you instead could be running at full speed towards your wildest dreams today.
Thank you so much for being on The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Thank you for having me.
Of course. I get the pleasure of meeting you because you came to one of our powerful ladies meetups and instantly I was like, this woman is awesome. We need to talk more and hang out more. And as you shared throughout the evening I just really saw who you are for people and what you're up to.
And I thought this is a story that we need to share with the powerful ladies audience. So maybe we begin there. Oh,
thank you. You're welcome. Yeah, thank you. I'm actually really honored to be here and nervous, but I'm very honored.
Good. You should be. You should be. Let's start there. Let's tell everyone who you are and what you're up to.
Sure. My name's Christina, and it's Christina Sofia. I am a reiki practitioner transformation coach and also a business builder of young living essential oils. My background is in therapy. I'm a licensed therapist in the state of California. And currently what I've been up to is just hosting women's circles, healing circles classes on essential oils and emotional release.
That's a lot of stuff. Yeah. Since you're such a slacker how, how did this all begin? How did the journey start? Were you a therapist first and then you moved into these other areas? Let's break it all down.
Sure. At a very young age, I was always drawn to people and always helping people in my community making like sacked lunches.
So as I went through college, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and I knew I wanted to help people, but it didn't make sense to me to go into psychology, even though my bachelor's degree is in psychology, I didn't want to pursue it. Just because I felt like how do you treat someone's emotions if their.
Primary needs are not being met. 'cause I would meet a lot of people and for example, like a depressed mother and she's depressed and yeah, we wanna talk about that. But how do I serve her at this time? And she can't even feed herself and her children, of course she's depressed. So that's when I was introduced to social workers social work.
So I got my master's in social work and I got licensed to become a therapist. And I was a clinical director for over five years at a outpatient mental health program. And I would say when I got that position it is a leadership position, but I had my own spiritual awakening and I really wanted to deepen my own spiritual practice and also to use it to help others.
So that's when I started getting into crystals and oils and different, alternative modalities and reiki as well. And I just. I love it. I love that I can help people on different levels, which is why I went into coaching, because in therapy, you're restricted to what you can offer.
So as a coach, I can integrate all of these things.
When you talk about your spiritual awakening, like what happened, what caused you to switch from the, scientifically proven methodologies to these more progressive what do you call them, spiritual modalities?
Yeah.
It's interesting because I don't recall like one event happening, but one of my family members, she, I mean I have family that were, we're, we are Buddhist, I have family that are Catholic and Christian, so I was raised in Catholicism and Christianity. And so one of my aunts, she, she still goes to church, but she identifies as a Wiccan and she was just teaching me things.
And then my youngest son, his father, he is very open-minded and progressive, and he was shining light to these different issues going on in the world and how we're conditioned to think and feel. And so I just. I just find it fascinating, just like psychology. So I started paying attention and really implementing things for my own life because I was suffering.
I've suffered a long time from depression and anxiety, and I was like, determined, I'm gonna heal this on all levels. So that's what really it was about my own journey, and then how do I help people with theirs.
Yeah, and I think today it's really interesting because they have a lot more attention on how you said all the levels when people think about mental health and wellness in general.
It used to be, it was physical and then it became, oh, there's mental parts and now there's spiritual parts. But then underneath all of that. Everyone's looking at, what food are you eating? How much sleep are you getting? All the things that we never really thought about before, 'cause they were just part of existence and how important they are to your overall wellness.
How did you see that in your practice and how has that changed as you've added on these additional components of working with people?
So it's interesting because working in mental health so long we always, we are taught in school to address the whole person, but you're limited in that as a therapist or a program, especially when it comes to spirituality.
And yes we find out what the person's spiritual beliefs are and we encourage that, whatever they are. But I just, for myself, like I said, it started with myself and healing myself and it was like, okay, let me look at this at all levels. What am I putting into my body, in my mind, in my physical body, in my spirit?
What am I feeding myself? And working with all those components. So even now when something happens, like I recently had an allergic reaction on my eyes. I'm like, okay, what does my physical body need? What does my emotional body need? My psychological body and my spiritual body? And really, yeah, just looking at it at all different levels.
So it's made a huge improvement in my own life, which is why I like to teach it and advocate for it and help others. But it's definitely very needed. And I think that our society is starting to catch on, but there's a lot of work to still be done. And I don't think any of this is new information.
This is like ancient information, but it's our western world accepting it. And a lot of people have been. Woke and a lot of people are now starting to integrate even doctors into their practices and we see holistic practitioners and so it's really awesome that everybody is starting to realize how it work.
It's all connected.
Yeah. When you were making the transition from being the, pr, practicing as a licensed therapist to becoming a coach, how did your family and your colleagues react? Was there a pushback? Was it all supportive? What was that transition like for you?
It was a long process.
I, I knew that in my current job that I was at, that I knew I had outgrown that position and I had no interest in moving up the corporate ladder. It just didn't seem meaningful to me. And, the problem was I was suffering from so many stomach problems and fatigue. So when I officially resigned, I think my coworkers were super supportive because they're like, you're meant to do so much more.
Go. But my family was like, okay, that's cool, but what whatcha doing? Yeah. So it's been interesting. By far my friends have been supportive in my family as well. It's just, it, I think it was more me believing in myself to do it.
And for people who aren't familiar with all of these other options that are out there you mentioned reiki, you mentioned crystals, you mentioned emotional release.
Could you explain this a little bit more and like how they can help people and what actually happens like working with those tools?
Sure. Reiki, for those who don't know, it's a Japanese form of energy healing and it uses spiritual energy or life force energy to treat physical elements. I get trapped in our body, for example through pain or something very emotional or stress.
We get these physical elements and or just ease in the body. And so it's just a form of moving that energy and balancing it in mind, body, and spirit. So it's working with your chakras, which are your energy centers, and really balancing and opening them. So it really leaves people feeling balanced and relaxed and clear.
But crystals is another form. They have their own healing energy powers 'cause they're from the earth. I use those in practice. And the same thing with essential oils. It's plant medicine, so every crystal, every oil, it has a certain vibration, which. It matches up to a certain vibrations of emotion.
So I really like to incorporate those with healing as well.
And when you look at the coaching that you're providing today, what would you say is the mix between, relying on your skills as a therapist and a listener, and like the verbal practices versus some of these more energy and physical practices?
I would say when, while doing the coaching I think I I intuitively, and I'm an empath also, so I usually can feel what that person is going through. But in the actual coaching, I think I rely mostly on talking in their nonverbal cues and whatever feeling I'm getting. But it's different than in reiki and reiki.
It's all. What am I feeling from this person tapping into their energy field and coaching? I don't choose to tap into their energy field, but I do feel things.
Yeah. I think California's obviously where you're based and where we are is, has been open to a lot of these things for quite a long time.
And of course there's still people who think it's woo and there's still the pushback. But compared to other parts of the US and the world, it is more open to these alternative practices when, is science catching up with these, this ancient wisdom? Or like, where is it at? Like when people are looking at does science support reiki or if it supports essential oils or things like that, is research happening in those areas to give it, more traditional validation?
Yeah, it absolutely is, especially with energy. And I used to have a boss who'd be like, oh, it's fakey. It's called fakey. I'm like, there's so much research with energy and how everything is connected. So they definitely are so people, they choose not to look at it or they just, they're not ready to accept it and change or open and expand their viewpoint.
But I, hopefully I can start planting seeds and they can go do the research themselves. But yes, there, there is research out there and there continues to be research and they're doing a lot more to bring it more mainstream.
And what would. For people who are going down the traditional therapy paths, what are reasons that they should look at alternative options?
Whether it, is coaching or reiki or anything else that's out there? What are signs that they need more than the traditional therapy path?
I think therapy and depending on the type of therapy you're doing it, there's different forms of therapy, but traditional psychotherapy, talk therapy, it can help you to process emotions and your thought process.
But there's also, you wanna look at, again, your physical body. You wanna look at your energetic or ethereal body. So going to some of these other methods, it's just a more holistic and whole approach to the person. 'cause you're not just made of your mind, your thoughts, and and your emotions.
There's much more to it. Even doing yoga, it's a form of moving energy through your body. So really looking at different forms to kind to heal yourself and to nurture yourself and take care of yourself.
Yeah, because I think in general, if you're not feeling optimized, then go check out something else, right?
There's so many choices today. Being an advocate for yourself of, I need more, or, I think it's stuck here, or just exploring it in general. Even just to go see what it's about is sometimes my favorite thing, right? You don't know what's gonna happen until, unless you've done the research yourself or you go and experience it.
And I think one of the main things is figuring out what works for you. And unfortunately, with doctors they're just trained to see it one way. For example, myself, I was suffering from depression and fatigue and, they're like it could be gallstones, but we're not sure, but here, take this medicine.
And it was just like medication after medication. And eventually I'm like, no, this this cannot be it. And and if you were to ask a doctor, oh essential oils work, they're gonna laugh because that's not how they were trained. That's not what they believe in. But it's really, for me, I was a quest to figure out how to heal myself.
And I'm not a hundred percent healed. I still have a physical body that needs attending to, but, when somebody's having something, when something's wrong with them, whether it's physical or it's emotional, like depression, it could, there's so many things to look at. How are, how is your labs, how is your sleep like saying, what are you eating? What are you doing to take care of yourself? What's your stress level like? So it's really just looking at all those different layers and figuring out which one is helping you.
It must have been hard to I don't wanna project onto it, but was it hard to be dealing with your own depression and to be working with patients who may have been experiencing the same thing?
Hard, it was hard in the sense of the fatigue.
Like just having the energy and pushing through your day. It wasn't hard to sit with somebody and connect with them and forget about myself and just be there for them and be in the moment with them. It was just the daily, like getting up, taking care of kids, getting to work, taking care of all the problems at work, meeting with clients.
But as far as. Helping them to heal while I was healing. It's actually, I feel like that probably made me more sensitive to their needs. And more empathetic to their needs.
So it sounds like you have a similar story to other people who have been in this podcast where there, in one line of work and they're succeeding at some level.
Like on this, on the modern scale of external factors of success. You're like, no I have a job. I'm doing good, I'm getting paid. My clients are happy. Even, bosses could be happy, but there's something that tells you like, there's more. Yeah. How long do you think you heard that, inner voice of there's more before you finally started to take action to figure out what that was?
It was about two years because I rationalized it like. I get paid well. I love my job. I love my team. I love our clients. Like why would I'm not ready, i'm not ready. And then I started I invested in Marie for Leo's B school and took me about a year to go through with the fatigue and everything.
And then I was hosting my women's circles here, which I had actually created for my coworkers because they wanted a space outside of work for the women to connect. But I just, I wasn't, I didn't feel ready. I didn't feel good. I didn't physically feel good. And yeah, when I resigned, I was really nervous, but I just sat, I sat outside.
I was at a restaurant. I sat outside by myself and I was just praying okay, if this is what I'm meant to do, show me. And I just felt this warm feeling like, come over my body. And like this voice was like, you know what to do, send the resignation letter. So I'm like, okay, here we go. Stepping out in faith and we'll see what happens.
Was it scary?
I was really nervous, but when that warm feeling came over me, I was like, okay, I'm doing this. We're gonna do it. There's no turning back. So I was excited. Excited. Yet scared.
Yeah. To me that's like the, it's the same feeling, right? When you're, when you have that low level of fear if, and the excitement, like it feels the same.
Like it's sometimes hard to distinguish between the two. 'cause both make you feel nervous, both make you feel like, oh boy, what am I doing? Like you don't, 'cause you don't know what's coming next and that's okay. Like that feeling should be celebrated I think more than, yeah. We allow it to be.
Yeah. For me, the fear is not a failing per se, although I know there's some subconscious work there.
It's more of failing in the sense of not being able to provide for my kids so that living in the gray,
am I gonna be able to do this and time to provide for them? And for me, failing can't be an option, and it's not an option. And I have children to take care of. So it's like making sure am I doing the right thing?
Am I being selfish? Is this being, irrational or, so all those thoughts and emotions went through my body.
And when you were making this transition, were you a single mother?
Yes. Yeah. I am still a single mother.
Yeah, because I think that's a lot of thing that people also don't talk about a lot is, it sounds like it's safe to make a career change or a leap into the unknown when are in a partnership and then but so many people are making that leap happen when they're not, like, when it really is, as you said, like it's all on you. What's gonna happen for your family and your kids? And I want people to know that they don't need to wait for the answers or a person, or like the structures that we think we need to give us the safety net, like you're powerful enough on your own to make your own safety net. Like you can just go and do it.
Yeah. And that's the thing is, when the holidays come around, it's like preparing for those ebbs and flows of business and how am I gonna make the money? And I've, I've been in my business now going into my second year, so it's pretty recent.
So it's really trying to plan ahead, but knowing at any time I still have a degree, I can go pick up work if I need to, and we'll be okay. So it's really, yeah. It's it, you don't have to wait for everything to be perfect. Of course. You don't want to be irresponsible. That was going through my head anyway.
But having a plan, and I had a plan, I had money saved, so I'm like, I'm going for it. Because what happens, it's also motivating to know you can't not make money. Like your children depend on it. And it motivates you and it puts a fire under your butt and you're like, okay, I need to, number one, stay aligned so I can come from a place of love and creative flow.
So I take care of myself first and foremost. And number two, continue to do the mindset work to break through those limiting beliefs to continue to grow and offer services to other people.
When you think about what you know, how much your life has changed and all the things that you've done in, the past two years, are there people in your life who are critical in allowing you to come into who you are today and where your business is at?
I have to think about that. There's always gonna be critical people around, but I really don't. I don't have time for that. Yeah. So I, even in my field of social work and therapy, there's a saying, you don't let people hand you their stuff, their anxiety, their limiting belief, their criticism.
Yeah, those people just vibrate out of my existence because, I don't have time for that, but there's always been haters around my whole life, and it's not that it's not that I don't have compassion for it, it's just that it's, that's we know what they, how they choose to see the world or me, then that's okay.
But you need to go over there. Yeah. What about
people that helped you?
Helped me. It, there's, my friends have been phenomenal, my family's been supportive and although my family doesn't fully understand what I do, they're just like, you can do it. We believe in you just keep going.
And so it's been really nice to have support on different levels in different ways, but especially on those times where I don't feel confident or I feel scared or whatever, the fear that's coming up and you have those people to remind you of who you are and when the same, when they're feeling down or they're going through something, like I can be that reminder for them as well.
So that's what my friends have been for me. They've been really been a light for me.
When you look back at who you were as a kid and growing up, do you see does what you're doing now make sense? Could somebody have predicted this back then?
Maybe not the spiritual work, but definitely. Oh, actually, I can't even say that.
I forgot. My friend Sarah and I, when we were younger, we used to go buy books about WCA Magic, and I was reading Freud about dream analysis and I was like a seventh and eighth grader. And we used to make up our little rituals with the directions, and we didn't know what we were doing, but we just, we were just fascinated by it.
But but yeah. But as far as helping others, yeah, that definitely people know that I'm in the right lane here because I've always been like that. It's no surprise I became a social worker. I was always, the one trying to keep my family together or go look for my brother when he started getting in trouble and, really just.
Helping people however I could. And like I said, even in the community, making people suck lunches, if they were homeless, I used to hand them out. And yeah. So it's no surprise that I ended up in, in the field of helping people and or to therapy to transformation coach.
When when you're looking at the resources that allow you to stay at your best, that you can help all these people what are practices or resources that you rely on?
Let me think about that. Resources I do well, it depends. So sometimes when the money's good, then I have access to more resources, of course. But I do I do a lot of meditating, so there's a lot of free YouTube stuff. There's a lot of stuff you can get for free to help you set your mindset right and work on yourself.
That's what I pretty much do every morning is put on some sort of meditation. And I use my essential oils for my affirmations, but also working out. I love to go to spin class and to yoga and to the sauna. And when I have more money, I love to go get massages and chiropractor and I invest in minerals and vitamins, so that really helps me a lot.
And my coaching, I have my own coach and I feel like she's such a huge part of my life.
Let's talk about that more. How has a coach changed your life?
I hired her when I decided to take this leap of faith and start my own business. And she is also a transformation coach and she's also an LCSW, so she was a licensed therapist as well.
And she has just been able, she was what I was looking for because I had been to therapy, but the therapist would just be like, oh you know what you're doing. And I'm like, okay, but I need you to call out what I'm not seeing, my blind spots. And that's exactly what she's done in such a loving way that it's lifted so much off of me.
And she's just helped me see, some of the patterns, some of the the limiting beliefs that are stopping me that I wasn't aware of or I didn't see. And that's exactly what I was seeking for somebody to see my blind spots.
Yeah, I get a lot of clients that come to me and they say I know that there's things I don't know, and I know that we can work on, the questioning part of coaching, but they're like, I also just want you to tell me what to do sometimes.
I'm like, sure, no problem. And like it's why I always have the coul, the coach consultant hybrid in the, in my title because, you, some coaches will just ask you questions. Very much more aligned to what I think people imagine licensed therapist kind of path is. And then there's, consultants who are like, do this.
You'll have a result. And I think a lot of coaches today are a hybrid between the two because you want people to see results and have momentum, and sometimes you need to give someone the key or the map so they can start seeing the momentum. And once there's that momentum and trust, then.
There's access to talk about all the other things that are available to someone.
Absolutely. And I think for me, it's like I could give somebody the to-do list or the tools, but if they're not attending to their emotions, to their mind, to their thought process, to their energy levels, to their body, then I don't even know that they're gonna implement those tools.
So I do like the hybrid because yeah, sometimes they just wanna know what to do. Yeah. And it's okay, let me give you the tools. Let's start where you're at and let's really look into, like I said, attending mind, body, spirit energy, and and then we'll do the practical things as far as business, but first things first let's get you set up for success.
Yeah, completely. I really like asking the question, what are you listening on top of? Or what are you creating on top of? Because we don't realize that we already have our mind made up about a position or a possibility or like what is or isn't possible before you ask a question.
So to your point, if you're like, how do I make a million dollars? And I'm like what do you asking that on top of? And they're like, that I can't do it. I'm like, that's gonna make it a lot harder.
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So with my clients, we, I like, to first identify what their goals are, where they're at now, and their perceived barriers to bridge that gap for them.
And a lot of it is mindset work. A lot of it is uncovering those core limiting beliefs and working from that angle. Because first acknowledging it and then healing it, and then we'd go into the reprogramming and the business stuff.
Yeah. Very cool. What do you see are some of the themes that or are there themes that run across the different clients you have?
And do you think that these themes apply to people in general right now?
Oh yeah, absolutely. A lot of the themes are those core beliefs, those core limiting beliefs. It's underneath all of it. I'm not worthy, I'm not smart enough. I can't I'm on my own here. I don't belong here. Just different things.
But I feel like the, a main thing I see, especially with women, is. We don't really know our own power and how bright our light shines. Ah, man. And those are because of our limiting beliefs. Yeah.
That is 100% why we have started Powerful ladies. Yes.
Yeah. And I'm such a big believer. We're all connected and there's no competition or jealousy.
It's like, when I rise, you rise. And when you rise, I rise. So why not capitalize on that? But yeah, it's really, I love helping women to just unpack those core beliefs and really see that it's not even potential. It's like what's already there. It's just gotten covered with layers of, nonsense from life.
But
Yeah.
No, completely. The the monthly meetup we're gonna do in March, the theme is women rising Together. Oh, yay. I can't wait. Yeah, and that's because it's true. The the subtitle is like how women working together is changing the world and it's 100% true. There's, for better or worse, women are often the strongest influences in a household and in the community and in a workplace, and even if it's subtle, if it's the subtle subliminal changes and when women are stepping into their light and their power and what's possible, like things move faster and bigger. And it's not that men are not capable of the same power, but there's something about the coming together part and the balancing it together that starts to change things.
And you mentioned something earlier about how you have to make sure that you are coming from the place of love and not. Whatever the blind spots or fears are and I think that's so important as well. And really asking like, why am I doing this? Is this coming from a place of love or is this coming from something else?
Absolutely.
Yeah. And I think the, I don't know, is it godmother, fairy godmother of coming from love might be like Marian Williamson and all the books and works that she's done. Are you familiar with her?
Yes, I am.
Yeah. I think it's really interesting seeing her on a political stage because she's basically asking us like, if we believe that love can solve everything, what would that look like in politics?
And I'm like, I don't know, this could be really interesting.
Yeah. Yeah. She an interesting position, but, when I set my day or when I'm getting prepared to work with a client, like it's really just about making sure my energy is right and connecting to my heart space and knowing that I'm there and I'm present for them and making sure I'm not consumed with other things I have to do or and I'm thinking just putting all that aside and really like tapping into that energy of love and trying to be a light for that person. They are responsible for their own healing in their life, but just knowing that if I can be a light that ignites their light then I've done my job, or I've tried to do my job, or I planted a seed.
Yeah. 100%. When you think about the people who have inspired you on this path and who give you inspiration still, who are some of those people?
Gabby Bernstein. Lou Luis Hay Marie for Leo. They were like the ones I came across when I was having my spiritual awakening. Tons of healers I've met on the way.
But these are some of the more more well known ones. And Katie Byron. Yeah. Those. And then also our own locals over here are Alexi Anos and Preston Smiles. And then I just remember listening to Abraham Hicks all the time also. Yeah. That has helped me through a lot of things. How oh, just, I remember even when my kids, they were, two of them were junior high, then.
And testing boundaries. And I remember just oh my gosh, what do I do? How do I handle this? And just being upset and I used to listen to Abraham Hicks driving to work and I remember typing in something like Abraham Hicks dealing with teenagers or something and or whatever was said.
It totally changed my perspective and it was mostly about not getting into the power struggle with your kid. And I came home and I just was in this new energy and I just prayed like God helped me with this. And then my son came in my room and apologized and I was like, whoa, this is weird.
But I was just, came with this whole new energy and perspective in my parenting and although I didn't even have the chance to implement it, I just felt so much better about, okay, this is the strategy I'm gonna take. And, yeah. And he came to apologize to me, and I'm like, what? Who is this kid?
I've heard you say a couple of times about praying for guidance and answers when you've been in a tricky spot. Do you see yourself as blending traditional religious values with this, with new spiritual practices? What does it really look like for you on the spiritual plane of how you would describe yourself or where you go back to?
Yeah, definitely. I incorporate anything that I feel aligns with me makes sense to me. So I still pray, although I believe universe, God, to me, it's the same now. But I still say God, I do believe in angels. So I, I ask for guidance from my spirit guides, from the angels, from my spirit animals and I incorporate just.
Different things. I don't go to church anymore. Not that I'm opposed to it, it's just I felt that's just one viewpoint. And my mom always says, what? You don't believe in God anymore? I'm like, no, mom. It's not that. It's an addition to what I've already learned. It's not taking away.
Yes, there are beliefs I no longer believe in, and that is that God is separate from us. We're all connected. And my belief also, it's not a fear. I believe we're made of love, not sin. So there are some things that have changed, but I haven't completely abandoned all beliefs of my roots and growing up it's more of incorporating what I feel aligns with me and what is truth to me.
So that's also from other religions like Buddhism and different, just different practices.
Yeah. And I think it's nice to be living in an age where it's okay to decide what you're gonna choose versus having the choice put upon you.
Yeah, absolutely.
It's it's, it can be really, like a lot of people wanna make it very black and white, and I think it's coming from a place of, if it's black and white, everyone knows the rules and everyone can play the same game.
But in reality, I think the black and white part is what's limiting a lot of people from trusting their instincts and even asking questions and I really do believe that most of the time we know what the answers are. We, I just don't always want to hear the answer that we're being told, whether it's from ourself or from some external power.
Yeah. Yes, and yes. Yeah, I totally agree. We're like, we think it's the answers outside of us and if we get still and listen, it reveals itself, but we may not be ready to hear it or confront it.
Definitely. And I do love that we're living in an age where we can choose and also with our children, helping them to choose what they feel is right for them.
Yeah. I'm currently reading the book for small creatures such as We by Sasha Sagan, and it's a great book. I recommend it to everyone. She's the daughter of Carl Sagan and was raised as an atheist. Her dad's a scientist. He did the entire Cosmos series and book and. I love how she comes from a place of, people who do prescribe to a traditional religion, how often they're missing the miracles and magic that exist within this, the proven scientific world.
She's you look at these things that happen in, it's phenomenal. Like how, like a flower grows or how a human is born or like just the scope and span of the universe. And we, there's a whole section she talked about in regards to like coincidences and are they, if they're higher power aligned or if they truly are the randomness of our universe.
And she goes, just because I'm atheist doesn't mean that I don't get that like tingly feeling when something happens that seems like it never should have happened. And she's I'm always questioning, right? She's it's not that I don't believe anything is possible, I'm just choosing to believe the things that have been proven and allowing them for space, for discovery of other things.
And yeah, it's, it was just so I thought insightful about taking that time to just appreciate how magical the whole world actually is.
Yeah.
It's
pretty mind blowing when you sit mind and actually think about it and connect to it.
Yeah. Yeah. You can literally find things every day in every place you look that.
I don't know how to make that. Like how did that happen? How did this all connect? Like even just the idea of the sun. You're like, what? Yeah. If somebody talked about this idea objectively of yeah, there's this planet where things grow on it and it like, it flies around this star and you're like, what are they talking about?
But that's our life every day.
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty amazing. And it's funny 'cause my kids will ask me questions and I'm just like, I don't know. Why don't we Google it and see what comes up? Let's figure it out. I don't know, but they're like, but asking me, I don't know. It's just about anything and everything.
And I'm like, we'll learn together because this is fascinating.
What do your kids think about your business and practice and you being an entrepreneur?
My oldest one thinks that it's cool. My 17-year-old thinks, okay, my mom's a little weird, but okay, do your thing. We support you. We love you. And because when my two oldest were little, that's when I was married and we were born again Christians and they grew up in church.
My oldest has always questioned things, but I've always encouraged them to question things like absolutely ask why. But my 17-year-old, he, when he was in sixth grade and junior high, he went back to church himself and wanted to continue going. And I supported that even though I was no longer in the church.
But, so he's was the same way. My mom was like, what is all this energy and crystals and what do you mean here? We, you're moving energy from people and tapping into their energy field. So he's he's warmed up to it, he is just I love you and I support you. My two little ones think it's cool especially my youngest Phoenix, he wants me to do reiki on him all the time.
He has his own oils, he has his own crystals, and I've been trying to teach him and my other son, my 9-year-old how to do reiki because kids are already attuned. And so it's really helping them to learn and channel it, but and, continue their intuition so that they're not conditioned out of it.
But yeah they're, they don't really understand oh, my mom's not working at her job anymore. Now she's doing this. They just know that they see me with crystals and meditating and they love doing yoga, and they. Try to pretend to meditate with me, but of course they just giggle. They just giggle the whole time.
But yeah I wanna teach them more.
Yeah. There's so many studies out as well about like kids and mindfulness and even just being quiet, as the Quakers would do with Quakers meeting, like if you can just sit in silence, even if you're giggling, but just take a pause for any amount of time, like the impacts it has on kids and their wellbeing, I find really interesting.
The one practice that they've been doing in the schools here it's teaching them belly breathing and yoga as well.
That's, and that's in public school.
Yeah. Which I was like, if they're not doing it, I'm gonna be advocating for that. And then I found out that they were I was happy about that.
That's very cool. When you look at your lifetime so far and how you have viewed yourself and being powerful and how that's changed over time how has it evolved and were there some key moments that made you realize how powerful you actually are yourself?
Wow. I think as a teenager I define power a lot different.
I was very rebellious, so using my power in that way. And I was a mother at a very young age. I had my oldest when I was 18. So my definition of power then changed again to just being a mom and keeping this little soul alive and healthy and happy to Now it's really, at a very different viewpoint.
It's about living my truth and creating a life I love embodying light and love, not just talking about it and really helping others to see their light and shine as well. So to me, that's more of where my definition of power lies now.
Yeah, for sure. There's so much, and as we mentioned earlier, there's so much access, right?
When people see that anything really is possible for themselves.
Yeah. It really is.
When people who are interested in exploring these alternatives that they are or not familiar with, how do you recommend they get started? And of course, they can reach out to you and what are other things that they can do as well to learn about more of it and start experimenting to see which ones are for them.
There's a lot of information for information online on YouTube. I have noticed, I don't, it depends where you live, but even a lot of the yoga centers are now hosting classes on different things like human design, on energy healing, meditation. So they can catch a class, and some of them even do like a free community class a month, or so checking out your local resources in your area if you're, if you don't wanna pay for Reiki yet, they have some areas Reiki shares.
But you will also be giving Reiki to somebody else. And if you're not, if you're new to it, you just, they'll just teach you to hold your hands and set an intention. So getting used to the reiki ways, but usually those are like a donation or a really steep, discounted price.
But,
I would say start looking at complimentary and alternative holistic methods.
See what, what are you hoping to gain from it and see which method align with you. And then you can watch YouTube videos about it and see if you wanna learn more. You can go to my website, you can you can look at books. But yeah, there's a lot of different things out there. So it's really where you're at and what are you hoping to gain
and people who wanna work with you from a coaching perspective they can do that from anywhere in the world.
Correct? Yes. Yeah. So after I met you at the meetup and I knew I wanted you to be on the podcast, I was like, all right, I am gonna go get a reiki session because one, I want one and two, I wanna know like what happens before I have you come on. And one of my favorite parts about it was the like blessing you did before we started and it was something so like sweet and.
Uplifting just about having some, another human Bless you. Is a like profound, like micro moment.
Oh, that's good to know. Yeah. I love blessing and anointing people if they allow it. And really just, it's a nice time for us to physically connect to each other because reiki can be, it can be an intimate experience.
And just knowing that I can bless and anoint them and connect to them so that they feel more comfortable. 'cause sometimes people haven't had reiki and they don't know what to expect, so that's good to hear.
Yeah. And it can be intimate to use your words because things can come up like emotions and, yeah. Anything that you're avoiding may come up in, in the experience as well as it could just be a very relaxing. I for me, it was just relaxing. I got to lay on a ba, a massage table and chill out. Yeah. And like just be in the moment.
Yeah. It's, most people feel relaxed after the first five, 10 minutes sometimes instantly.
But yeah, that the idea is moving energy so that you are more balanced and feeling relaxed. And then some people they do cry or things come up because you're opening up those energy centers where energy has been stuck or they feel sensations and throughout their body or they themselves see things.
Things have become more clear while they're, while the reiki is being done. But yes, it can be. And then what I like to do is combine the therapy modality with it. So sitting and talking after what's present, like what came up and really helping my client to process that, especially the blocks that came up.
That I sensed in them during the reiki session.
Do you believe that if more people were practicing even yoga, right? If they just took one of these things and put it into their life, like, how do you think the world would change, whether it was reiki or oils or yoga or anything in the above list of how you can honor yourself?
What could the impact be?
I definitely think that a lot of people, because of the hustle and bustle of life they're disconnected. They're up in their heads a lot. So it's reconnecting to your own body and then reconnecting to nature. To other people, we're all connected. And I do think that it can help tremendously with their emotional health, their mental health, their physical health.
People would learn that they have the power within them. So it's whether, whether that's emotions, whether that's healing a physical ailment. And not to say that you shouldn't go to the doctors or take medicine, but realizing you are more powerful than you realize and you have abilities that maybe you have disconnected yourself from.
But I do think people could be healthier all around. By implementing these different things. So even when I'm doing a reiki energy therapy session. I like to give people mantras or give them tools to continue their healing, because I do want people to know, you don't have to come to a Reiki practitioner.
It feels good, and yes, come, but let me teach you a little bit so you can continue healing yourself.
Yeah. Because the mindset is 99% of it. We ask everyone on the podcast where they put themselves on the powerful ladies scale, zero being average, everyday human, and 10 being the most powerful of powerful ladies, how do you feel today and how would you say you feel on an average?
On average? Oh gosh. This one's a little hard for me. On average, I don't necessarily think about it. I'm just. Being mom and working and but since I've been asked that because being a powerful lady to me means living in my truth. So I would say I try to do that as much as possible and embody enlightened love.
But if I have to give you a number, maybe an eight,
there's no wrong answer.
Yeah. I'm not perfect, so I, this process isn't perfect for me. But yeah, I would say maybe an eight.
Is that today or on average?
Probably. On average I try. I strive for it, but,
I like it. Is there a quote or a mantra that is one of your favorites that you would like to share with the audience?
Yeah. My favorite. Quote is from Gandhi. It's it was a really popular one, but it's been my favorite since I was younger. And that's be the change you wish to see in the world, which is when I got into social work. But my mantra is that I feel every woman should say and benefit from is I'm worthy, is I'm lovable and I'm powerful.
That is a beautiful way I think to wrap up this episode. 'cause everyone needs to hear that. Yes. Everyone should claim it. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. So I am lovable, I am worthy, and I am powerful.
Yes. There you go. I should make everybody say it at or the next powerful ladies.
Yes. Yes.
I'm gonna, that's gonna be my request that's how we start off. Yay. The meetup. There you go.
We'll bind the circle.
Yes. Thank you so much to being a Yes to powerful ladies as meetups as the podcast, and for just being a great example of women who are really up to giving everything they have to the world and making a difference.
So thank you so much.
Thank you. And thank you for having me. And I love. Your podcast and I love your events, so I'm so looking forward to attending them and being part of such a tribe of beautiful, powerful souls.
If you haven't had a Reiki session before, I highly recommend booking a session with Christina. At a minimum, you'll get an hour to yourself. For self-care and relaxation. I love that Christina and Powerful at ease is on the same mission to help you see your light and then have paths to use it powerfully.
You are worthy, you are lovable, you are powerful, and you deserve to have a life that sets your heart on fire. To connect, support and follow, Christina, you can follow her on Instagram at Christina Sofia. You can also follow her on Facebook on she's welcome to you guys sending her emails, and you can visit her website christina Sofia.com.
All of that with the correct spellings is available on the powerful ladies.com/podcast. I hope you've enjoyed this new episode of The Powerful Ladies Podcast. If you're a yes to powerful ladies and want to support us, you can subscribe to this podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts. Make sure to give us a five star rating and leave a powerful review on Apple Podcasts.
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I'd like to thank our producer and audio engineer Jordan Duffy. Without her, this wouldn't be possible. You can follow her on Instagram at Jordan K. Duffy. Thank you all so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, I hope we're taking on being powerful in your life.
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Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud
