I’m joined by Lara Riggio, Energy Medicine Practitioner and Expert Energy Trainer, to learn how to use physical pain and emotional stress as an opportunity to get stronger and become happier instead of viewing them as threats.
In this episode, I’m joined by Energy Medicine Practitioner and Expert Energy Trainer Lara Riggio.
In our modern world, we need tools and techniques to cultivate resiliency and calm in the midst of chaos.
Lara explains how working through an upset can help us break out of patterns that make us feel powerless. We explore how to relinquish control and fear over the unknown, which can be especially difficult for caretakers. Lara also highlights how she’s used EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) tapping in her own life to overcome physical and mental health challenges.
Lara walks us through two quick exercises to help release overwhelming emotions.
Listen in to learn more about the tapping technique and how you can use it to process stress, anxiety, and so much more.
If you are enjoying these conversations, please subscribe and spread the love by leaving a review and sharing it with your friends.
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, or on your favorite podcast platform.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture and spirituality and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:53
Hi, everyone. I'm Dana Frost your host Welcome to the Vitally You podcast and Hey, happy new year. My guest this week is a personal friend and mentor and energy medicine lawyer regio. She is a professional energy trainer who helps people overcome physical and emotional limitations. Leros approach to energy work it is realistic and results oriented. She has helped 10s of 1000s alleviate stress, anxiety, insomnia, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, and the limiting emotional patterns and beliefs that can sabotage relationships and career success in her sessions, classes and online videos. She has been featured in Huffington Post MindBodyGreen and prevention. She has been featured on CW elevens Morning Show New York one and Fox News. Now I want to share two of my favorite lyric codes with you. The first one is upset has access. The second one is where energy flows disease can't take hold so upset is access. So when we are upset, we don't need to be stressed about it. We need to see it as the place the entry point for creating what we really want upset really gives us information about the things that we need to look at. And where energy flows disease can't take hold. Lera teaches you how to embrace upset triggers and disappointments and turn them into opportunities for growth and expansion. Get ready for an inspiring conversation. Lera I am so delighted to have you. I'm so happy to be having this conversation. So thank you for being on the podcast.
Lara Riggio 02:29
I am excited to be here excited to be with you because it's been too long. And yeah, so lira. I
Dana Frost 02:36
know so much about you, but the listeners don't. And could you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are today?
Lara Riggio 02:45
Sure I so I practice something called energy medicine. And what the heck even is that? Right? I didn't know what that was either I was experiencing. This is my goodness, this is back in over 15 years ago I was I was really struggling with chronic fatigue. I was tired all the time. I was drinking, three grande americanos just to get through my day. And then I started to have adrenal fatigue that wasn't working. And I had gone through diet. First of all, I'd been to every medical doctor on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and spent, you know, 10s of 1000s of dollars trying to figure this out, and the medical route. Nothing really worked. And then I wound up changing my diet, did an elimination diet cleaned up my gut and it helped. But it didn't really fully restore me to the vitality and the energy levels I used to have before all of this happened. And what really spurred it was a year of massive stress where I was doing a lot of traveling for work. I was traveling also because my mother was in a middle of a crisis health crisis as well. So I had just time pressure and you know, work stress along with family emotional stress around health. And it beat me up to a point where as my mother was getting better, I was just feeling more and more drained. And then I did all of this in the next year to try and help myself and nothing worked until a friend of mine handed me Donna Eden's book energy medicine and said, Laura, this is really interesting, but it's not for me, it's for you. She had this just guidance to give it to me and found a practitioner in Brooklyn started going and it made a lot of sense to me because it was based on muscle testing and there would be a muscle test and I could resist pressure from my practitioner and feel myself strong. She would touch one point or my body and then I would lose all my strength. She was like that's related to this organ, your liver, your liver is really backed up and out of balance that at Meridian needs help. She was like tap this point, I tap the point. Immediately I felt more energy, more mental clarity. It was amazing. And then she retested my arm and said, resist my pressure. I did and I was struggling. And I was like, This is amazing. This is this is immediate results. And at the time, I was practicing a Muscle Therapy in my as part of my personal training, business. And, you know, helping people overcome muscular weaknesses that were causing pain. And I had results like that in my sessions, I was like this, this, this is concrete. And it dramatically it was making me feel better in the moment that as I started doing the exercises every day, I was like, Well, I can control my own vitality, and I can control my own energy finally, and it wasn't in strengthening my meridian system doing tapping exercises to strengthen my spleen, my liver and my kidney that ultimately helped me get over chronic fatigue. After that happened, I wound up playing around with how I could use those exercises, then, to address things like procrastination that were more emotionally based. I discovered this when one morning I woke up on a Saturday and I was really overwhelmed and stressed about my to do list. But I couldn't get started. I was paralyzed in fear. And I was watching the same newsreel over and over and over again, I'm like, Oh my gosh, I need to just go do that exercise that helps you go to sleep to see if I can relax late in bed, but one hit on my forehead went behind my head. By the way, this can help you go to sleep more peacefully, guys. Just this position here. I can talk about that later. But I wound up resting for 15 minutes got up and then literally knock three things off my list and got it all done, but got it done without anxiety, and just released my the press procrastination that I felt like I was stuck in. And so then I started delving into more and more. How does this work effect anxiety? How does this work, affect worry. And realize that these are the things that tend to really stop people, these are also the emotions, the upsetting emotions, that keep us stuck in patterns that are just no longer serving us in our lives. And if we can release upsetting emotions, what could stop us. And so this is how I got into doing what I'm doing. I continue to learn new things because I'm facing, you know, whatever my own blocks are. And my motto, I'm I'm always growing, and always changing and what helps me move to the next level, the next level of success, or the next level of just life expansion with, you know, I got pregnant at 45 and had a baby naturally, you know, all these things, you know, whatever, whatever physical or emotional block, I'm feeling, I approach it by looking at what's the energetic block in my body, moving the energy balancing my system, so that it's prepared for what I want next. And then, you know, moving in and manifesting it. So that's really how to live my life. That's how I've gotten where I am. And it's all down my life now is about moving energy, and balancing myself and my clients for what we want next.
Dana Frost 08:30
I love that. And because I've been a client of yours, I've actually been a student of yours, you taught me your method of energy medicine. So I know that it works, because I've experienced it. And I've used it with clients. And one of the things I love is something that you say upset is access and so many times Lera I know in my own health crisis, this was the case for me. I was so I felt so distraught about what I was going through. And it wasn't until I decided to see it as an invitation. And to be curious about what can I learn from this? What am I in being invited? How might you be invited to grow through this upset what you say upset is access. And that's exactly what you did. If you take it way back to where it started. You use that as an opportunity to like follow the breadcrumbs, where can I grow what's you know what's going to help me and not being satisfied until you found the method or whatever the tool that actually really set you free?
Lara Riggio 09:32
And I also like to say whatever you think is happening to you, is actually for you. And the key is to look at I think the most powerful question we can ask ourselves when any upsetting event occurs. Knowing that up is upset his access is okay. What are my feelings trying to tell me in this situation that I need it And, you know, in the case of my chronic fatigue, I knew I hadn't found the answer until I found the thing in energy medicine that helped me feel better. And there are other situations in my life, I think about just what happened to myself and my family recently, we all got the flu, okay, I actually actually did not get it, I was able to head it off with energy medicine, nasal flushing, and also taking l lysine. And while I was going through that, though, I learned such a huge lesson. Number one, where energy flows, dis ease cannot grow. This was why the nasal flushing was flushing the virus out everyday, twice a day, doing the energy work that I was doing was also keeping my energy flowing through my body so that there were no energetic blocks anywhere for this virus to take hold on me physically. And Emotionally, it was interesting, I was very much using this whole situation as access to yours prior, around the same time, right after Thanksgiving, Joe and my son got COVID. And again, I use the same diesel flesh, I did all these things to flesh it out of my system, and it never took hold. On my own body, I was able to keep myself from having COVID symptoms that overtook me, I never really got sick. And yet, my son that was very traumatic for my my husband, and then literally a month after my son had COVID he had seizures at infantile spasms. So the virus affected his neurological system. And he had these reactions, which, of course, was terrifying, and it set us back developmentally six good months. And it was a very stressful situation. As this is all happening again, two years later, I was like, wow, I get to do over of this whole experience. Why is this happening for me, right? And as it's happening, I'm paying attention to what I'm feeling. And I'm noticing the need to try to take control of the next moment, you know, so what is gonna happen if I do get sick, like, do I have to plan for that in some way, however, that wishes and take care of my you know, Sonic, so I did. At one point, we call the doctor because my son was having side pain. And she was concerned it was an appendicitis we needed to go to the ER, oh my gosh, what if it's an appendicitis or I don't know what is going to happen. If it's appendicitis, none of these things I could control. Yet. My impetus was to go ahead and to try to do that. And in noticing all that, I just really present to all my feelings, I started tapping, which is how I helped my body release emotion and energy. And I can give you guys an example of this later on, so you can feel it. But started tapping and holding points to help me self calm these upsetting feelings, these fearful thoughts, because the more I thought them, the more I maintained a stretch state of being. And I was not able to be grounded and make good decisions in that state. I was not able to be as good of an energy medicine practitioner for my son or for my husband or myself. And it wasn't serving me in any way. And so instead of choosing fear of losing control, and buying into that, okay, fear of the unknown, I decided to choose faith. And the faith I decided to choose was in our own resiliency. So I held points every night and did everything I could to fully trust what I knew to be true, where energy flows, dis ease, can't go, I kept myself calm, as calm as I could. I moved my energy and then ultimately moved through it. And we had the sweetest weekend together by the end of it. And turns out with the appendicitis My son didn't have an appendicitis all he was just a little backed up and constipated. Because toddlers, lymph nodes have a tendency to get swollen when they have these issues. And so, after an enema, he was completely relaxed. And just like he's almost looked like he had like, you know, the best massage ever laying on the table. It was hilarious. But there were constantly these moments of like, you know, there's high stress. And then there's this funny amused, you know, I was in the middle laughing in that moment going, Wow, look at the relief. How hilarious is this, that we've, we've made it through this and the recognition of the resiliency and the humanity of it all. And so it was phenomenal to experience it all. And to move through it in this way that was more of a learning experience than a reactive process. Yeah, you
Dana Frost 14:55
stepped out of and it's hard for me to conceptualize you as victims. So I actually don't I'm trying to think of the right word. But we do get these redos. And if there's any, you know, energy, that's a victim consciousness, which just isn't really you, but then you get an opportunity to actually have dominion. And that's what you're describing to me is I'm going to take dominion. And in the moment and not project, I think that, well, this is a great way, this is such a great conversation to have at the start of the new year. Because when you said it's humanity, this is our human experiences is all of it, all the feelings, all the frustrations, all the interruptions, all the exposures to viruses, bacterias. It's all the things, we cannot shield ourselves from all the things we don't even want to why would we want to shield ourselves? What we can do, though, is
Lara Riggio 15:55
so we don't have to go through pain. I think it's so we don't have to go through pain and suffering. That's what we're trying to avoid. Right?
Dana Frost 16:00
That's true. But the lesson what we get to learn through the upset is new is access is access and new. Yeah, like, oh my gosh, I'm actually so powerful, I can hold these points I can call my body down like that is powerful to realize that we can support our mind body system, in the healing journey and whatever comes our way.
Lara Riggio 16:27
And I really love this idea. And this was the one of the halls I had, as I'm going through this of as things come to us when we notice our reactions. And we're able to work with our emotions and help our body digest them via tapping, it's very much like in a sense, flushing, upset through your body, allowing like water to flow almost like off a duck's back. It's allowing it to flow, the emotion to flow through your system. And in the release of it, it gives you the opportunity to say, hey, you know, this just happened, I had this feeling I was able to release the feeling about it so that it's not overtaking you anymore, and say, What was that telling me was out of alignment with what I want, right? So. So in the case of our situation, it's something that happened, it was unavoidable. However, what I did notice was that I didn't want to approach disaster, in a way where I was trying to control the outcome, I wanted to trust, our ability as humans to move through it and to heal, and to support our own resiliency versus our suffering. And I think when you think about what you want, in any situation, even if it's Wow, I'm really stressed out right now, I'm not sure why I'm stressed. Let me take a minute in the in the middle of my day and think, hmm, I'm feeling anxious. Why am I feeling anxious right? Now? What were the triggers here? Now? Hmm, how could I be structured my day differently so that I wasn't so triggered? What did I plan too much, maybe doing that extra thing is what pushed me over the edge, or maybe this thing that I needed to do, you know, maybe I need more support in some way, maybe I need to ask him for help to, to, to, you know, get this get this accomplished. So it doesn't feel like it's all on my shoulders, using our emotions or upsets, to allow us to figure out what we need. Because whenever we are upset, it means something that's happening is not aligned with your heart's desire. And, you know, at night when I would be unable to sleep, when I was thinking about all these things that could go wrong, and I had to stop myself by you know, moving my energy. I thought to myself, How do I want to approach this? And you know, we were resilient last time, and it was the worst we can be resilient again. And what's absolutely phenomenal is I feel like we've all come out of this, you know, even better, more bonded together. It's The Sweetest weekend together resting after everybody was sick as they were all tired, and I was exhausted from taking care of everyone. And we it really felt like that moment right after JP was born when, you know, we just got to, you know, he would he would eat and then we'd sleep and cuddle and we just did that all together. It was just so beautiful and magical. Rebounded us and then from all the rest. JP is now raring to go. He's got all these developmental breakthroughs this week. And it's just been really, really a very cool experience. And the lesson being that all of it, the pain, panic around it, then the pure bliss and the joy of being together afterwards. That's all life. And when we can accept that we can't just necessarily control outcomes. And honestly, we can't. So like trying to control situations like controls and illusion, we can't really control anything, right? We know all the time that things happen, they're out of our control, if we can trust our own resiliency, and then give ourselves what we need to support ourselves through tough situations, that's how we can ultimately trust the process of life and all the ups and downs that come with it. Because those ups and downs, the highs wouldn't be as high if we didn't have the lows.
Dana Frost 20:33
That's so beautiful. Aaron, it makes me think about, I think one of the greatest lessons that women learn whether they are women, I think, in the archetype of being a woman is being a mom. So you might be a mom to children, you may be a mom to a business, you may be mom to the people who work for you in your business, or you know, whatever. But it's that mother energy. And one of the lessons that we gained from that is that control is an illusion, because we realize we cannot control outcomes. So I think that's one of the greatest lessons and then also made me think about, one of the frameworks I used as a mom raising my five kids is that they are capable, if I held this space that my kids are capable, and my kids are not victims, to the things that happened to them, but they are capable, and they're going to know, they're going to be able to step up to what ever comes their way. And I held that space. It really allowed me just to set them free actually, to have dominion in their life.
Lara Riggio 21:41
And I think even that concept, yeah, that concept is one that absolutely, that I leaned on last week, my husband was capable of healing, my son was capable of getting over this, the doctors are capable of handling it right. And I'm capable of of managing it all too, without, without getting sick myself. And without losing my mind. Right. Like, it's all it's all possible. And I think the other thing that happens a lot of times, especially with overachieving women, but also if you've been a person that's been a giver, and a caretaker to your family, when you were a kid, you had took emotional responsibility for the family. When things go wrong, we try to control but then we also have a tendency to beat ourselves up, you know, around whatever is not working and criticize ourselves. And, you know, look, I think it's always great to look at gee, how could I have done something differently to improve upon it? But, you know, that's like one question, not a whole day of beating yourself up. So also seeing yourself as capable, and seeing yourself like, I am capable and resilient. And I am moving through this. And this is happening for me. And I'm coming out on the other side. Even a little better for it.
Dana Frost 22:55
It really starts with the mindset, right? Yep. And I mean,
Lara Riggio 22:58
I think for me, I often to get into that mindset, I often have to tap. And so I'd love to give everybody an experience of tapping, I do believe our resistance to growth and taking chances in our lives has to do with fear of the unknown. And fear of being out of control. Right. And so it's funny, as I think about even just the holidays approach, I think that's one of the big things with the holidays, that gets people people are really trying to control outcomes, make sure they please everyone, make sure they meet everybody's expectations, make sure that they don't upset anybody's feelings, you can't control any of that. And all that desire to control it can really get you too overwhelmed, to a point where you it's hard to do much of anything, right. And it will I think a lot of times when we're even facing the new year, and we're thinking about, Oh, I want to do this this year, the thing that will stop a resolution in its tracks is thinking about it and then starting to think about like how you're going to go about doing it and then getting nervous about it. And then again, moving yourself up into a level of overwhelm where it's difficult to to make any move. Okay, so I wanted to just give people just two quick at tapping exercises to help release overwhelming pressure in the face of fear of the unknown and just tap into their own resiliency. So I think it'd be great if everybody wants you to think about something that maybe you want that you don't have yet. And something that when you do think about taking steps toward it, maybe brings up a little bit of anxiety for you. Okay, which guys that's natural. That's what happens. Whenever we think about growing it's natural to have anxiety because we're just, we're moving into the unknown, the different the change, and it's moving away from our status quo. So it's a very natural reaction. So let's work with it. Let's do their selves through it. Okay, so the meridians that most often are, are affected. Oh, We think about the fear of known or unknown, our bladder, key bladder points right here on the inside of your eyebrow, okay, and bladder is going to to affect fear of the unknown, you know, on the opposite side of it helps you feel hopeful and trusting of the future, and gallbladder which is on the side of your face, where you could probably hit stomach and gallbladder points like this, if we tap can tap kind of like that, okay, you could just do your whole hand here and get your stomach and your side of your face with the inside of your eyebrow. So as you tap those points, you're tapping here and here, just take these words in, I am willing to acknowledge and to release these feelings of overwhelm, knowing that I can give myself what I need the support, I need to make anything and everything easier. I am willing to release this internalized pressure, and this fear of the unknown, knowing that I can give myself the help and support I need to make everything easier. And now maybe just switch sides, you're into the other side like this and tap in between your eyebrows here. I am willing to acknowledge and to release these feelings of overwhelm and internalize pressure. And think about what I could use right now. To help myself feel better. Maybe I need a nap, maybe I could just use a walk around the block. Maybe I could call that person that knows something about this and asked for some help and guidance. Maybe I can just let go of the whole problem and hand it over to my you know, spirit guides and see what kind of guidance I get. Who knows. But I know I can give myself the help and support I need to make moving forward easier. I can do anything with the right help and support. I can ground myself and find my inner strength and empowerment. With the right help and support. Just pause and just take a breath and just see how it feels. Just think about that thing now. Then think about how can you resource yourself. I mean, ultimately, you can resource yourself you know the law of attraction really does work. So you know, if you think about cheap, how might you feel if that thing you really want came to fruition? Like, you know, how would you feel if you were at the end of it and the ideal way for it to occur happened? How would you feel if that thing happened for you? Maybe it's just joyous. You know, what else makes you feel joyous? It doesn't necessarily have to be related to that thing. If you do something else that just makes you feel joyous, like going for a bike ride makes me feel joyous listening to Hamilton Broadway, you know, the Broadway recording makes me feel joyous. If I do that I get myself in a different energetic state. And then from that joyous, energetic state, I can take action in an easy and powered way. So it's all about frequency. And it's all about the energy you're carrying and feed yourself the energy you want to embody.
Dana Frost 28:32
I love that Lera thank you so much. I've never done I've never talked about tapping on the show, we haven't done tapping such a great such a great powerful, simple tool that we can take into the new year. I really love that and I just when I tap I feel this kind of calm just come over my whole system and it it is it shifts the energy so that there is that possibility, right.
Lara Riggio 29:02
And really we talked about being moms the way I really like to think about it is we are mothering ourselves and self soothing, and ultimately letting ourselves know that it's all going to be okay. And so I often just think like that's really if we're able to do that for ourselves. It's like our souls really being present in our human lives being able for helping us you see our resiliency and see and see our total capacity to handle anything and pulling sort of the human side of us along because there is a part of us always that knows our capacity is unlimited and so you know when we can soothe ourselves through any upset we overcome those upsets and then just move forward.
Dana Frost 29:50
That's so beautiful there. I want to thank you so much for sharing your insights and your what I know to be your genius With us, I know this is going to be such a gift to the listeners. And I would love for you to tell us what does feeling younger while growing older mean to you Lera
Lara Riggio 30:10
Oh, feeling younger, while growing older is nice a lot about what we talked about. But the way that I experience it more, most palpably every day is playing with my son and just experiencing the wonders of the world with fresh new
Dana Frost 30:26
eyes. I love it. That's beautiful. Thank you so much, Lera. It's just been such a pleasure to have you this week. Thank you for joining us.
Lara Riggio 30:36
Thank you so much. And I do I actually wanted to give your listeners something to there's a longer tapping routine that I did, and it's my slack system. So anytime you are feeling like you're in the midst or the muck and the upset, you can tap into that and do that whole routine and feel your power again. So there's a little bit of a gift there too.
Dana Frost 30:59
Yeah, Lira, do you? So we'll put links in the show notes. Is your YouTube channel still active? Yep. Okay, yeah. So what's the best way for people to connect with you lira?
Lara Riggio 31:09
Well, one thing that I you can connect with me on YouTube, but probably the most direct way though, is through my blog. And the every week I put out a new blog, it's about something that's happening for all of us. Like it could be an astrological change that I'm, you know, helping guide you through energetically it could be something big that's happened in our world and helping you manage the stress of that could be seasonal changes. But I do try and address what's going on in it. So it's usually dresses what you need right now gives exercise to help you move through that. That's awesome.
Dana Frost 31:46
So they can sign up for that on your your I think from your website, there are regio
Lara Riggio 31:51
from my website, right on the right at Lera regio.com on the front page, and
Dana Frost 31:57
we will have that in the show notes for everybody. Thank you Lera
Lara Riggio 31:59
Thank you, Dana. It's been so fun.
Dana Frost 32:03
Thank you for joining me on the vital EU podcast this week. Episodes are now going live on Tuesdays instead of Sundays. Don't forget to hit subscribe, download and share this with a friend. If you haven't already, please leave a review in the Apple podcast app and rate the show on Spotify. These are the acts of kindness that boost my show before more listeners. And as always, I am streaming love from my heart to yours