Say it Sister...
Lucy and Karen, two 40-somethings, are always chatting about life, and all that it has to throw at them, and now want to share their raw, honest conversations with you. Their journey of self-discovery and healing is something many of us can relate to. We all possess a unique power within us, but life’s trials often knock us off course. They have the tools, the courage to speak up and simply say it as it is, so you might feel seen, and understood and gain practical tools and techniques for self-discovery and personal growth during the changes we experience.
Say it Sister...
Sonja Leason : From Homeless to Healed
Lucy and Karen welcome Sonja Leason, a resilient entrepreneur who transformed her life from homeless teenager to successful business owner and author. Sonja shares her powerful journey of healing from trauma and discovering purpose through helping others align their businesses with their authentic stories.
• Running away from home at 16 with just £150 and finding "earth angels" who helped along the way
• Experiencing homelessness, toxic relationships, and surviving in difficult circumstances for years
• Facing a critical turning point when her son became seriously ill, prompting her to challenge conventional systems
• Embarking on a comprehensive healing journey using multiple modalities including hypnotherapy and cellular healing
• Discovering that transformation happens through "many mini turning points that add up to a big shift"
• Learning to recognize default trauma responses (fight, flight, freeze) and developing self-awareness to choose appropriate reactions
• Using personal trauma as a foundation for helping business owners reconnect with their purpose and authentic messaging
• Recognizing that hope fluctuates during healing but remains the essential bridge to transformation
Find Sonja on LinkedIn or Instagram . Her book "A Woman's Work" is available on Amazon or as a free PDF on her website wearelovemondays.co.uk.
Hello and welcome to the Say it Sister podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm Lucy and I'm Karen, and we're thrilled to have you here. Our paths crossed years ago on a shared journey of self-discovery, and what we found was an unshakable bond and a mutual desire to help others heal and live their very best lives.
Speaker 1:For years, we've had open, honest and courageous conversations, discussions that challenged us, lifted us and sometimes even brought us to tears. We want to share those conversations with you. We believe that by letting you into our world, you might find the courage to use your voice and say what really needs to be said in your own life.
Speaker 2:Whether you're a woman seeking empowerment, a self-improvement enthusiast or someone who craves thought-provoking dialogue, join us, as we promise to bring you real, unfiltered conversations that encourage self-reflection and growth.
Speaker 1:So join us as we explore, question and grow together. It's time to say say it, sister.
Speaker 2:Welcome back for another amazing conversation about how the darkest moments can be powerful turning points in our lives. Today, we meet an amazing woman called Sonia Leeson, a woman whose life could have taken a very different direction. Having lost her father as a young child to an unhappy step family experience, sonia found herself homeless and pregnant at 17 and then spent the next 13 years in survival mode Survival for herself from toxic and abusive relationships, male violence and harassment from her own ill health. And then a pivotal moment when something shifted inside her no more surviving, she's now the owner of multiple businesses, an author, and inspires other business owners to grow both professionally and personally. Oh wow, I am inspired already. Lucy, how are you?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm just buzzing because I get two of my best friends to chat to on this wonderful morning. So, yeah, I'm really good, and I think I first met Sonia in around 2014, and it was around the same time. I met you, actually, karen. So I was like meeting all these amazing people, um, we were all in startup phase and we just met on the networking scene and, um, and, to be honest, there's quite a few of us that still still meet up and keep in contact. Um, one of them unfortunately, is no longer with us, um, and we gathered together to remember him. Um, and this group of us, we just instantly clicked and connected.
Speaker 1:And then something happened with Sonia and myself and we just connected in a much deeper way. We started, you know, our huge healing journey. We were just, we were always like questioning why, why is the world like this? Why is that going on? And that just left, led us, uh, led us on a path of, like much deeper conversations, and then she'd discover something. I'd be like, oh, and you try this, and we were like constantly passing tips of new things to try or new ways to look at things. So I am so honoured that she's one of my best friends and, honestly, she's one of the most straight talking no BS friends that I've got and she's got the heart most straight talking no BS friends that I've got and she's got the heart and courage of a lioness to heal herself and to go to the places that most people are afraid to go, and she is rising powerfully because of it.
Speaker 3:So hey, sonia, what a powerful intro. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here with you, lovely ladies, and I just think it is so important the work that you're doing for women. I know we touched on it briefly just before we started recording, but the world's shifting and it's just incredible the amount of change that we're going through. So, yeah, these conversations and I know what you're doing with leadership is just so important now. So, yeah, great to be here, thank you.
Speaker 2:We are really, really happy for you to be here and I can feel there's a lot going on in my heart there always is but I'm especially charged by your story and you've had a lot of living in 40 years. So tell us your story and how it brought you to where you are today.
Speaker 3:It was extremely traumatic from the age of probably about six, but it really ramped up at eight and nine and then it led me to be homeless by 16. I actually ran away. So when I ran away, I ran away with a rucksack £150, which I'd saved up when I was earning £3.50 an hour around college. I left college, just walked out of college, got a rucksack with some clean underwear, a CD player with Craig David born to do it album and, yeah, jumped the train, ended up in Birmingham, walked to Digbeth coach station, got a coach to Liverpool Iron Street, got on a ferry, got off in the Isle of man and just walked the streets until I could find a job. So I managed to get a job in a hotel washing pots, and they had accommodation and there was somebody that I knew there that I stayed with.
Speaker 3:There's always been earth angels through my life and one of my clients always says you join the dots backwards and this is the perfect story for that.
Speaker 3:There was a lady that I went and stayed with with my 150 pounds and I think she could just see that things were not right and I said I'm gonna have to leave, I've run out of money and, um, she had like it would be Airbnb now, but you didn't have those back in these those days. It was like a little granny annex at the back and it was just a bedroom, a kitchenette and a bathroom. It was tiny at the end of her garden and she said you can stay here for a pound a night. So this old lady, let me stay in this little granny annex for a pound a night. Um, and I didn't know it then, but all the way through my journey I've had these little earth angels that have popped up when I've needed them. So I ended up getting a job anyway, um, and then, yeah, just sofa surfed, stayed in various different hotels, different rooms, um, homeless hostels, and then, yeah, then it was all downhill from there for about 10 years, to be honest oh god, I'm literally in pieces over here.
Speaker 2:Um, oh sorry, I know this is the stories of people helping people. It just, you know, we live in this world and and we're all told it's dark out there, and then these people arrive in our lives and we have experienced so much, and then it shows you that there is our other ways. Um, so these are the stories that always get to me, because it's like we have to have faith. No matter what happens to us, there is good out there.
Speaker 2:Otherwise it's just too depressing um yeah, thank you for bringing me into this space again, because it's it's really important yeah, and I was.
Speaker 3:I mean, it's been hell on earth and there's a lot of things that I don't share and I'm sure people anybody can understand when you live that life in homeless hostels and council flats had my flat burnt down down just because somebody didn't want to pay. The council was evicting them. So rather than be evicted, they just decided to burn my house, everybody's flat down on the top floor. So I was back in the homeless hostel and that's the way it was for years. I had my baby as well, my son's, 23 now. So one of the things that has come out of this for me is when I see people on social media saying these people are on benefits, they have these huge TVs, I can tell you now that is not the case. I know the media like to portray that people are out here with their sky glass televisions and I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but what I am saying is that is a minority, because the majority of people were like me.
Speaker 3:I wanted to work, I was really academic, I found school very easy, I picked things up very easily, I had GCSEs behind me, but because of the life circumstances, I couldn't get a job. You know the only jobs that would have me were bar staff working in packing factories. So that's all I did for years because those were the only jobs that would have me. You know you've got no address. How do you get a bank account? I mean, I was lucky, I suppose, in a way that my childhood had been relatively normal to the point where I did. You know, my mom had set me up a bank account and I had those basic things. But for people in that situation that don't have that early link to some kind of normality or matrix world is very, very difficult for them.
Speaker 3:So after that I went off the rails for 10 years. So I started drinking when I was 11. And I mean seriously drinking. I was drinking vodka. So I started drinking at 11. And it was just downhill. So then when my son was 12, was about 30, 29, 30 my son got extremely ill so he got food poisoning, we think, and he ended up blind and paralyzed. So everything I'd work for I was working in advertising for a huge corporation then and I was doing really well. I was top sales. I had a really nice house you know I'd built myself out of. I was still very dysfunctional and not coping internally, but externally I was doing OK and, yeah, lost everything again Lost my job, lost my house, nearly lost my son.
Speaker 3:Anyway, that was the turning point for me. I just thought this system or these systems are not working, or these systems are not working. The, the medical system completely failed us, the corporate system completely failed me. Um, the addiction road that I was going down was failing me and I had to turn everything around.
Speaker 3:So I took my son out of hospital. Um, he had a driver for five days of steroids and call it intuition, uh. But I just thought I can't do this. You know his body's in overdrive already. He really does not need industrially manufactured chemicals pumped into his system as well. So I just said enough, you know, scan him, scan everything. I want to know what I'm dealing with.
Speaker 3:And thankfully nothing came back. So he didn't have any, anything internally that was causing him. Um, he had lumbar punctures and MRI scans because he was blind at the time and they said, no, no adhesions on the brain, no, nothing that we can see. And I was like, right, it's over to me. So I took him home and then six months of rehabilitation. Um, there was probably four nights I slept on his bedroom floor, thinking he wasn't going to make it. Um, I didn't think he would see the next morning like that's how bad it was, and I was taking him back to hospital but they didn't know what was wrong with him, so they were just sending him home again. Um, so that's, that's how we lived.
Speaker 1:That's, that was really, really rock bottom that was like the turning point, and I think I met you not long after that, really and uh, because obviously you had to make a change in your life. Everything just just flipped it. But, like I said, that click went off in your brain and thought that we need to do something different. And even though um your spirit was, you know, so bright and your drive and determination was there, you were also scared scared to use your voice, you'd I remember your skin was you know um you had like adult acne. You were like having these migraines that would just um lock you away yeah, yeah and it and it was horrific and you'd shared that.
Speaker 1:you'd also been agoraphobic at one point as well, and the person that I saw in front of me, who'd got this drive and ambition, I couldn't marry up to this person. But as I got to know you, you started sharing some of your past experiences. It was almost like, okay, ben's safe. Now You've got some stability in your life. Now I have to think about me and healing me, so just share some of that journey, about how you became the woman you are today, almost from a healing point of view, and some of the things maybe that you've tried or things that didn't work I, I.
Speaker 3:I think when you're at rock bottom, it's the most powerful choice point you'll ever have, because I just thought I have nothing. I had nothing internally, I had nothing externally, my son had nothing. Physically there was nothing. So I thought there's only one way out of this, and it's it's sink or swim. So I set up my business.
Speaker 3:Who does that? Um, so, yeah, I went back to work when I could. I just thought I can't do this, so I just sacked everything off. I was like right, I'm not going back to corporate life, I'm not going back to being employed, I'm not going back to having a boss, I am going forward from here. And so I just decided categorically, this was not going to be my life. Um, and then everything else was just noise. So I just had thisically, this was not going to be my life, and then everything else was just noise. So I just had this beacon that I was heading for and I studied everything from. I went to strength and conditioning coaches, nutrition, reiki, you name it, everything.
Speaker 3:But thanks to Lucy, actually I you read a book to me which was about hypnotherapy and actually cellular healing work. So that's what's done the majority of the shift for me you have to go into your traumas and you release it from the cells. And so through that work, I got off nine actually 10 medications. I was on 10 long-term medications for my skin, for my periods, for my migraines, for my depression, for my anxiety, blah, blah, blah, on and on it goes, um. So I just tried everything and everything, anything and everything.
Speaker 3:Somebody said to me oh, this has worked for me. I was like great, I just became my biggest experiment and I'd love to say there was one big turning point, but there isn't there's many, many mini turning points that add up to a big shift. And but there isn't there's many, many mini turning points that add up to a big shift. And then you go again many, many, many, many turning points, big shift and, over the years, probably 10, 10 years of transformation, many transformations that have led to a big transformation. And then, as I healed myself, my son healed too. Um, and it was a real joint effort.
Speaker 2:It's amazing I had I've had similar experiences, um, in my life as well where everything comes, it seems to all come all at once. You know, there's like one thing happens and then the next, and for me it was like miscarriage, sexual assault, loss of like core friendship groups, like my whole world fell apart in the same period of time and I was like I was on that. I was at rock bottom and I remember just thinking I've never I don't know if I don't know but for a while I was in my own little world and then I was like, right, no, you know, I had Catalina, my daughter, and I was like I have to take care of this because if I don't heal myself, that all of that is going to get put into her and some of it will already be in her. There's an awareness of that. It was like whatever I'm carrying, it doesn't matter if I'm smiling on the outside, it's on the inside and she'll be picking up on it and she'll be feeling it. She was, you know, she was a baby, um, I was breastfeeding her and I was just very, very aware. So I really started my healing journey, more for her than for me at that point, and I knew that I had to do something. I was like I can't live the rest of my life like this. I just can't. It has, something has to change.
Speaker 2:And I was working with an amazing man called Richard Perry, who I'd known before and I'd worked with him before, and I was like, look, this is what's happened to me. I'm going to tell you it all because I need someone that I can talk to, who won't judge me and who will take care of me. You know, from a um, almost like paternal place, because he was like an older man, um, but he was a brilliant coach and leader and trainer. So I went to him and he was like, and I kept saying, what if I don't get better? What if I don't get better, you know?
Speaker 2:And he just said to me he was so solid, he was like not on my watch, not on my watch, kept saying that like not on my watch. And it gave me something that was like well, you believe. And he'd say I believe in you, I believe in you. Sorry, I'm getting emotional over here. I just the power of him. He didn't need to say very much, but I could feel it from him and he was the first person that I worked with, and there's been the stream of people you know that have come into my life at the right time, right place. I've done the work and then I've gone off and trained in the work, you know, and thought, well, I'll bring this into my work.
Speaker 2:If I need it, someone else needs it, and we become like you know, like we. We have the experiences, we step into it, we do our own personal work and then we can stop there if we choose, or we can share it outwards. And we can share it outwards, and my hope is that we all continue to do that because it's cascading out, because it should never be about not experiencing not experiencing trauma or not having bad experiences, because that's just not realistic and life isn't like that and everyone has their own journey and story to tell.
Speaker 1:But how we approach it is what really really matters, and I think this is something that I see with the the three of us and many um, in particular women, but many healers out there. We go through these experiences and you, you do have that choice, um, of whether to stay stuck or whether you're at rock bottom and you're like I've got to crawl my way out of this. However, it's done. But then there's that part where, now that you know and you've done the healing and you've learned your methods and things like that, now it's that pass it on so that other people aren't in that pain.
Speaker 1:And sonia and I, last week, um attempted to do a mini intervention for some friends of ours, knowing what we know now and how liberating it is on the other side, but also acknowledging how much hard, deep, painful work you have to do to get to the other side. We tried and they're not there yet. They don't want to, and it's heartbreaking to walk away from people that our hearts are still there, our love is still there for them, but you've got to make that choice. You know the staying where you are stuck is scarier than actually doing the work and I think when you get to that point, it's non-negotiable. You have to go there and that's something that um, sonia and I talk about a lot. It's like it is a choice, everything is a choice. So you use a lot of paying it forward almost in your work that you do now, because you're not just doing you know scale and business growth, you're doing it from a real human perspective. Tell us a little bit how your trauma now informs the work you do today.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and going back to what you were saying, karen, I think when you get to a point where you've healed yourself enough that you can start thinking about other people, that is when I knew, anyway, that I had some freedom and I had some space from everything that had happened to me. Because when you're in survival and you're in deep healing so your guy that you were just speaking about, I had Jan and Jan sat with me for hours upon hours upon hours upon hours, for years and years and years and years, where she took me through all of these cellular memories that you know I've had to uncover, suppress, memories that I didn't know where I would be really. So when you meet these people and then it's all about you, you can't get outside of your own pain, you can't get outside of your own healing enough to think about anybody else going through the pain. And then, at some point, you get to a point where it's not as painful, it's not as raw, and that's when you can start talking about it a bit more and you can start helping others, and I think that's a really empowering and important place to get to. Um, but going back to what you were saying, lucy, it's.
Speaker 3:It was interesting because we spoke about this and I think it was really eye-opening for me to see people that are completely unaware of the choice point. Um, and I lived there for 10 years, right, I didn't know what was available. I didn't even know to look that something was available. I was just caught in that life happens to me. I've got no say. You know, I was just on that train and I think the biggest message is you have got a choice. These things are out there. You have to become your own biggest researcher out there. You have to become your own biggest researcher, you have to become your own biggest experiment and you have to find these people that you can trust, because that's where you start shifting, but in terms of work.
Speaker 3:So I do business, growth through tech, but what we do first of all is I strip everything away. I'm like, right, what happened to you when you were younger? Why did you choose this business? What is your message? Message, what are you doing differently? And, just as an example, I spoke to somebody last week who I'm hopefully going to be working with and she was saying to me that they work in energy battery storage and it might sound really technical, quite boring, but actually for her, the message was decentralization. She wants people to have control, businesses to have control of their own energy, decentralize, better price points, less downtime, blah, blah, blah. So the messaging for her was actually decentralization, away from this control or this monopoly. And I was like how powerful is that? Why is that not in any of your messaging? So, and you know where does that come from. You can go on and on and on about whatever she went through when she was younger and all of that.
Speaker 3:So it's so important when we're business owners to really connect to our story, because I believe it's all content. The reason why we've been through this is not so that we can just close the door and never mention it again. You're supposed to keep the door open. You're supposed to then turn it into something, because otherwise what's the point? Right?
Speaker 3:And I went through, went through that for years. I just I could not touch that place. It was so painful, it was so hard, whereas now, because I've got my own space from it and I've healed enough from it, I can use it to empower people, I can use it to understand people on a really deep level, I can use it to realign business owners into their businesses and a lot of people have lost their mojo and it really when you start connecting to this stuff, it really helps you get your mojo back, I think, because your purpose comes back what I was saying and thinking about was around the message of hope, because I feel like this is the common thread that's coming through your story, sonia, because you know, and my story and Lucy's story.
Speaker 2:You know, like when we have hope, we can heal, and then a bridge will arrive and we can step onto it and people join us without hope. When we're in that, I have no choice. Life is happening to me, um, we're caught up in the trauma and the deep, dark pain, um, which we do have to feel. We have to feel that stuff like if we don't feel it, then we can't heal from it either. So we do have to go into that tunnel, yet we know that there's a light at the end of it and something is guiding us and we have that, that bridge of hope, to stand on. Cause that's when it's dark, it's full darkness, when we have no hope. So that's when I'm I'm picking up on, and you know, for the women, um, out there who have no hope right now, what do you want to say to them?
Speaker 3:Firstly, I was running away. For years I was running and running, and running and I would do anything possible to run away from that, which meant going into any dark place, healing any single trauma, because I was like I cannot live in this place. So it was like, whatever I've got to do to get away from it. There was no hope. I wasn't looking forward. I was like I, I can't, I've got to get away from this, just heal myself out of it. And it's only really been recently that I've started thinking, actually, what am I capable of? What am I capable of? Because if I can do that, I can do anything. So then you start looking forward, and it would.
Speaker 3:It was probably about an 18 month process to change from this fear-led healing to this like, actually hang on a minute, how about if I can talk to people about this stuff? How about if I can do public speaking? How about if I can? All of this stuff started coming in. Um, and I think the hope thing has always been a big. Sometimes it wavers right, it, it comes and it goes. Sometimes you think I'm never going to get through this, but you get up and you try again and it might take you a week to get up. It might take you a month to get up, but you will, and you've just got to keep going, no matter what, because the the light at this end is a lot better than the darkness down here. And you just, I just don't want to live like that.
Speaker 1:I could not live like that one thing that I'm really aware of in the healing journey is sometimes you you do go right deep into the dark, but for most people I think it's just moments of like, we say, just small moments, and then you only go as deep or as dark as you are ready for as well. So a lot of people are scared about going to see a therapist or going to see a coach or going to do any kind of hypnosis, and they're scared about what might I see. But actually the body is really good at protecting you and you only go as far as you're ready to right now. And then one of the things that I'm really aware of is that when you're now ready to go and look at it again, some new information will come, and it might take a week, it might take six months. In my case, I've had a revelation recently that that took probably another 15 years to like oh, that joined the dots, and so one of my things is always don't be afraid, because your body will protect you, your mind will protect you, you will only go as far as you want, and I joined some of those life purpose kind of dots because 12, 13 years ago, when Karen and I were on the coach training, we had to do this life purpose kind of activity and out of it I got my tagline, which I don't normally share publicly, it's just for me, but it is.
Speaker 1:Lucy means the bringer of light, and it's I am the light that holds you in your magnificence and radiance, and I just knew that that felt right.
Speaker 1:It just landed with me and it was. It was awesome. Anyway, about two months ago I went to a women's circle and it was about the good girl and you had to write a letter to your child with all the things you remember, and for me it was like everything was don't do this, don't do that, don't do the other, and it just made me realize the reason why I am here is to shine those lights, build people up, let them see their remarkable amazingness, because I think I needed to break my own cycle of don't, don't, don't and instead it's like do, do, do, be, be, be, and again, probably in another 10 years I'll get another revelation because I'm searching, I want to go there, but it wouldn't have made sense to me all those years ago. So can you just share some of those things that maybe you kind of and this is for both of you really, and you knew logically, but it was years later that you really felt it or you really understood it.
Speaker 3:Oh God, you still have them now, don't you? You know when you start, and I think once you start on this path, it's almost like you can't get off it, because even sometimes I'm like I'm exhausted, just leave me alone, and then you just go ding, ding or someone will speak to you about something, and it'll just on and on. It goes um, but it was a really great point that you made. So the really, really traumatic stuff I didn't actually remember until 2018. So I was kind of eight, nine years into this journey and I think if I'd have remembered that when I was on the first go round, there'd have been no chance. But because I was a few years down the line and I had internal skills. I had skills where I could move through things and process emotions and release things cellularly, and I've got a spiritual connection. All of these things added up to the point where I was ready to deal with the tougher stuff. So you are absolutely right your body always protects, protects you. You've got to this point alive, you've got to this point functioning, and well, if that isn't proof enough that your body knows what it's doing, that, then you can trust it on the healing journey too.
Speaker 3:Um, and, yeah, I still have things now where I think, oh, one of the things for me is conflict. I'm not good in conflict and I'm not good with my communication in conflict, so I avoid it at all costs. And that's something recently where I've thought, oh my god, I can completely see now, I can completely see my patterns in this and why that's there, whereas before I was so busy with healing, I couldn't have faced any kind of conflict because I had no internal strength to be able to say, okay, let's bring some more stress in, because I didn't have enough space to deal with the stress, whereas now I'm feeling stronger, I'm feeling more grounded, I'm feeling so actually I can think about having this in a healthy way Now I can think about my approach to it and how I so all of it's a lifelong journey, right, right, everybody says it's not a five minute thing. You're on this kind of path for life and also.
Speaker 1:It just ties in beautifully for the work that Karen and I are doing, because it sounds like wisdom and you only get through that, uh, through going through these life experiences, looking and piecing things together and making sense of it. Has there been a moment for you, karen, where you've, like, joined the dots?
Speaker 2:but the thing with it, as well as what I want to say to you, sonia, is that I'm hearing, you know, we have strategies on how we cope with certain things and it sounds like to me you, yours, was to run, because you ran away, so you did that, and so that can become, and that was was no doubt the perfect thing that you needed to do actually at that moment in time. But I think what can happen to us, it's like we learn these strategies. It's like, well, I'll do that and I'll do that, and we just keep doing the same thing.
Speaker 2:So we run away from conflict and we run away, you know, or it might be that we fall asleep, like I'm a bit of a fall sleeper, like I will literally like zone out and I'm not even in the room, I'll disassociate from my body, um, I'm not here, I, this is a really dangerous place for me. So for me it's like and sometimes I'll run as well I'm not a fighter necessarily, but as I've got older and as I've kind of developed my wisdom and my um, my approach and my depth you know I'm more I've got this depth to me. Now I'll actually fight, um, but I would have done everything to avoid that, because that was really just is not inside me. But now I can and I will, and that's given me a lot of power, you know, because I just think, hold on a minute, no, I'm gonna stand my ground and I actually I mean I'm not out there to go out and have fights on the street or anything like that.
Speaker 2:But I stand your ground, I stand my ground.
Speaker 2:And I was in a situation on the tube when I went down to London recently and a guy blocked the door and my husband was in the next carriage but we could see each other through the windows and then we got stuck on the um platform and he was huge, this guy like I think he might have been Dutch, he was funny, he had a rucksack on his back and he blocked the doors and I said I'm going to get out to go round and he went, okay, and then he continued to open the doors and I said, and I was like this, I'm going out, move.
Speaker 2:And he was still doing and he was saying, yes, I will, but he wasn't moving and I was like, which is also very confusing, someone says something but does the opposite. And that happens in life, doesn't it? It basically went. I mean mean, the words that came out of my mouth are not words that I would normally use but I called him an effing c-u-n-t and he came out with me and he moved and I got off and I got on and Richard was like, are you okay?
Speaker 2:and I'm like I'm not okay, but, um, I needed to do that. And it was like, and I said to him sorry, the rage, when it comes out of me these days, it really comes out. That is a life stage thing. It's my perimenopause as well speaking, and I'm glad I did it. I have no, you know, no guilt or shame for that one, because what he was doing was wrong and I wasn't. I needed to get in there with my husband. Basically, I wasn't going to stay in this thing with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we have many different approaches and strategies and I think when we know where our default is, we can use that sometimes, but we need to know that we have other ways of and this is why I'm loving this stage of the perimenopause, because I'm six, seven years into it now, and this is what I'm loving is, whether it's the rage or the intolerance or whatever, it is my healing journey. I've got to the stage now where I will try new tactics, sometimes thoughtfully, wisely, sometimes I've just got to get it out of me and actually it's worked. So now it's like there's another skill I've learned, and I think this is why people say it's liberating in your 50s, because you've now got all these new skills that you would never have tried if it wasn't for perimenopause or the healing journeys or the life experience. And then hopefully we get another 20, 30, 40 years to play out with these, these whole new skills.
Speaker 3:So we want more swearing, karen it's so important, isn't it to have this awareness? Because we've got fight, flight or freeze for a reason. Those three things are very valid, but when you start fighting when you don't need to, or when you start running away when you don't need to, it's just misaligned. None of them are wrong, none of that. We are blessed with every emotion as a powerful messenger to tell us how we're responding to the outside world, whether we want to be here or not, our intuition, all the other things, whether this person's good for us or not. On and on it goes. So actually, it's becoming more self-aware and not triggered because you're right, karen, I think you default back to what's worked as a child generally. And actually, do I need to be in positions now where I'll run away? No, I've got a home, I've got money in the bank, I've got clients.
Speaker 1:You know, everything's so.
Speaker 3:Say quiet and got quiet life. I've built a very quiet and respectful life. I've got great clients. So do I need to be running? Do I need to be fighting? No, but are there times where that would be appropriate, yes. So I think it's about healing yourself to a point where you have the awareness to be able to say right, I feel like I'm running, do I need to? Or I feel like fighting, do I need to? Yes, I do need to actually. So it's almost. It's not a choice, but it's more directed in the right places rather than misdirected.
Speaker 1:We had so much more we wanted to talk to you about, especially astrology, and I'm loving the stuff that I'm seeing on your uh, your stories, and it's uh, yeah, it's definitely something that I want to to learn more about. So we are going to invite you back, if that's okay, um, because karen and I have both found other approaches that just support us and, um, add to our practice of, you know, being whole amazing human beings, and that's one that we know we know a little bit about, but not a lot. So we will invite you back and we'll share some of ours, but it is time to say goodbye for today. So what I'd really like to do is, um, just ask, uh, you just to share. If people want to connect with you, where do they go? Where do they find you?
Speaker 3:so I am the only sonia with a j leeson with an a in the world. So you can find me on linkedin, sonia with a j leeson with an a um. Otherwise, I'm on instagram, which I'm not very active on, to be honest, which is at love mondays hq, so you can follow me there for more story things, but linkedin is the main one. And then if you want to head over to my website, it's wearelovemondayscouk. I've also got a number one best-selling book for women, which is called a woman's work. As in, a woman's work is never done, so you can actually download a free pdf copy off my website. Otherwise, you can go to amazon and search sonja leeson, a woman's work, and you'll be able to find us there. It's 99p on kindle, um, or you can buy the hardback as well. So, yeah, thank you for having me I'm gonna go do that straight away.
Speaker 3:I'm adding you on everything maybe I should share more about astrology on linkedin. Haven't quite got to that point yet, I never know.
Speaker 2:Please do please do we. I think you know it's interesting. I'm never signing off here and I'm opening up another little book here. But, um, you know me and lucy are working out what we're going to do next and you know there's a part of me that's like oh, can't we? You know, like, what permissions do we need from within ourselves to really share the work? You know that we do and and and have it out there loud, proud and bold.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I want to. I spoke, I spoke about tarots on a post, not a post somebody else's post, but I mentioned tarot cards on LinkedIn this morning so it's happening.
Speaker 3:We're feeling it, oh yeah nice I was just going to say. There's so many approaches that have helped me and when, when things were so tough, I just thought there's got to be, there's got to be. A reason like this is not coincidence, and so when I started looking, the more I could see, the more I could learn, the more I knew there was to learn, and so probably, if we come back, it might be interesting to do your life's purpose, but also your career, because those two things are in your charts and it really can help people overcome these blocks and think, oh no, actually I am on track, but I probably should share this stuff on social media because it is how I've got to this point and it might help more people. But it's a big step out for LinkedIn, it's very great, right.
Speaker 1:It's all that, all that woo, but anyway we are having you back um. This is your life purpose to be back on. Say it, sister yeah, so we will sign off now, but thank you um can't wait to see you again thank you so thanks for listening, and we can't wait to welcome you next time.
Speaker 2:Until then, use your voice, journal, speak or sing out loud. However you do it, we hope you join us in saying it's a star.