Beyond Business Podcast Ep 5

Written By Debbie Lee

Episode 5

Healing through business with Gulara Vincent

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EPISODE SUMMARY

Join me this week on Beyond Business as I welcome Gulara Vincent - relationship coach and trauma healer. Our conversation illuminates the intricate ways that unhealed trauma, particularly from early experiences of rejection, influences our personal and professional relationships. Gulara shares her insight on the link between past rejections and patterns that later emerge in our daily lives.

We uncover the transformative power of addressing these core wounds rather than their symptoms, and how that can open the door to a life lived with more ease, authenticity, and free from the constraints of people-pleasing.

Gulara shares her own journey from university law lecturer to the owner of a thriving business. We delve into the challenges that can come with following your own path, and the time that is needed for transition, inner work, and addressing the unique challenges women face in being visible.

Gulara's story gives an enriching perspective on growth, confidence, and self-discovery and is one that is sure to inspire.

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You can find out more about Gulara and her work in the following places:

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION

00:03 - Debbie (Host)

Welcome to Beyond Business, the podcast, the show for impact driven egopreneurs who want to be part of a bigger change and make a difference that reaches beyond your business alone. This week on the podcast, it is my pleasure to chat with Galara Vincent. Galara is a relationship coach and trauma healer. She supports people in finding a deeper connection both within themselves and in their relationships, and this week we're talking about how impactful that can be, not just for our personal lives, but also in business as well. Good morning, galara, and a very, very warm welcome back to the podcast. This is not our first interview together and, it's absolutely wonderful to have you back again.

00:53 - Gulara (Guest)

Hello Debbie, Thank you so much for having me. I'm just so excited.

00:57 - Debbie (Host)

Thank you so much for taking the time in what I know is a very full schedule for you. So I wonder if, to start off with you, could I know a lot about you, but I suspect some of our listeners might not. So I wonder if you could give us a little introduction, a little flavor of who Galara is.

01:18 - Gulara (Guest)

I find that the most difficult question because I have so many flavors. But in terms of what I do, for my work at the moment is I am a relationship and trauma healing coach and I help women predominantly, but I work with men too. I help them to find a way in life, you know, like if they're lost, split, conflicted, confused about the direction of life, direction of their relationship, then I can hold the space for them to untangle. Untangle that note so that they can stop feeling stuck and they can move forward with more ease and clarity.

02:00 - Debbie (Host)

I love that, yeah, and it really strikes me that a lot of what you touch on there can go quite deep. It's topics that people you know that it involves very complex layers, involved in lots of those things that you mentioned, and yet I imagine that they can also then present themselves in very day to day occurrences.

02:27 - Gulara (Guest)

Yes, absolutely so.

02:28

I've been working a lot recently on rejection and what I find often that your experiences of rejection from clients, rejection at work, applying for promotion, not getting it over and over again Sometimes the root causes can be so deeply buried that you don't even realize.

02:47

So here you are battling the symptom of that rejection, but the original rejection could have happened in the womb when your mother found out she was pregnant with you, and it doesn't mean that you know our parents' birth was and the grow up and they love us the best they could. But in that moment that, when mother finds out and maybe she already has children, maybe it's just she wasn't ready and that original oh no imprints into our energy field and then we're projected out, we're expecting people to reject us, and so what I do in my work is go to the root cause, find, as you know, as the original wounding and heal it there, rather than looking at the symptoms. Because the symptoms will show up everywhere in your life it will be at work, it will be in your partnership, it will be with your friends, and you can spend lifetime looking at the symptoms without finding the cause.

03:51 - Debbie (Host)

Yes, that I really like that, that perspective you present, and someone once described it to me as a hologram, if you like, like a challenge that can show up in one area of your life, often in like, in quite a minor way, like, for example, the way you speak to a certain person, or, and actually that can be reflected in all different areas of your life that are, you know, are seemingly unrelated. And, yeah, when you describe it that way, that it's all the symptom then of this, this root cause, and am I right in thinking that, like, very often, that root cause is something that we, we can't necessarily remember?

04:43 - Gulara (Guest)

Yes, I mean some people know, like their parents might have told them, or you were not a blind baby, right you and? And that sense of not being welcomed or unwanted, or like expecting people to say no to you even without you asking for something that you want, that can be part of that picture. So, but for many of us we don't necessarily put two together. You don't get a rejection from a client and say, oh, my mom rejected me and conception, right. But healing that root cause can and will shift your present day circumstances so that when there is rejection you don't take it personally, it doesn't feel like rejection to you as a human being. It may be a note to that particular action, but your relationship no-transcript was rejection changes.

05:43 - Debbie (Host)

Yes, I see, and it's like very much, I guess, yeah, feeling base rather than having like tangible memories to work through, it's like that sense and the feeling that you get within.

06:00 - Gulara (Guest)

Yes, you're kind of relaxed and you can be more of yourself, because if you're carrying and we were talking about this as an example but if you are carrying this fear of rejection, it's going to hold you back. You're going to bite your tongue, walk on eggshells, make sure that you maneuver sharp corners, you don't say things that would leave people. It takes up so much energy, right Apart from anything else, it's very time and energy consuming to avoid that reaction. When you release that lock, that imprint, then you have more energy just to relax and to be, and sometimes you'll get yes and sometimes you'll get no, and none of it is bad or wrong. It's just there's more relaxation in your being and then there's more flow in your life, whereas if you're constantly calculating and anticipating certain response, that can create a lot of rigidity and tension in your being.

06:59 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, it really so when you describe it in that way. It describes or it strikes me as what I've often heard, where people describe as people pleasing, and you really lose the sense of yourself within that, when your attention and your energy is constantly taken up by trying to make sure that everybody else is okay, often at the expense of ourselves.

07:28 - Gulara (Guest)

As a recovering people pleaser, I know I can confirm that it's absolutely life changing To put attention on yourself and just be okay with what other people do and trust that they can take care of themselves.

07:44 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, and it feels really fitting. I know you've got a workshop coming up about. What do I want? And I can really see how that is so beneficial within that context, because I guess when our attention is taken up by what everybody else wants, it's hard to even know what it is that we want in the first place, never mind being able to assert that.

08:07 - Gulara (Guest)

Yes, and then asking for what we want and receiving what we want and allowing ourselves to have what we want.

08:15

There are so many layers around where you might be selfish or you feel guilty for wanting more or wanting this, or frustration of not having what you want and it's trying so hard to make it happen and still not getting what you want, and this deep belief that I can never have what I want because as a child you were constantly denied whatever you wanted and you had to learn to want only what you were allowed to want, which is so limiting. So many layers really fascinating talk.

08:48 - Debbie (Host)

And I think, when you put it in that context though I guess, like everyone has some of this you know, we were all children at one point, and children learn to adapt to in whatever way they need to, and so we all. I guess a result of being a human being is that we all carry around some of this to some extent.

09:11 - Gulara (Guest)

And it's even more than that, because some of it is not even ours, like so much we absorb from our parents, from our grandparents, so much we carry in our DNA, and some of this is like a loyalty to the system, like who am I to have what I want, when my ancestors struggled and suffered and weren't allowed to have what they want? It's like somewhere, unconsciously, we limit ourselves. We don't even know why we're doing that, but the stories we absorb from our family around love, around money, we then leave those stories because we want to find a solution for them. We kind of take on their burdens so that then they are able to love us more.

09:59

So, yes, there are lots of experiences we have as children. Our parents do their best. It's not a judgment or reflection on anybody's parents. Okay, okay, we also take on a lot of stuff that we carry throughout our life without ever questioning that we could actually put that burden down.

10:25 - Debbie (Host)

I guess we all become like normalized to a certain degree and, whatever you know, if you're in any particular environment for a long period of time, you could become normalized to what's what's happening there, without saying that there's an alternative. An alternative not necessarily like a better or worse way to do things, just an alternative way to do things Exactly you don't know any better.

10:49 - Gulara (Guest)

When you're growing as a child, you have a set of parents and you just assume that that's how it is. It's only when you start comparing the notes you might think, oh, oh, that's different. Perhaps I want this this way or that way. But really, as young children, we have no choice. And up until age two, a child, energetically, is one with a mother. So whatever your mother feels, you feel you don't have much choice really. And so, yeah, by age seven you have imprinted pretty much everything that you then repeat throughout your life.

11:29 - Debbie (Host)

And I know myself as a mum of two young boys like that those initial early years can feel so like as a mum. It can feel really challenging in so many ways. I know myself. I just couldn't anticipate what it was like to be the caretaker of a newborn baby until I had a newborn baby and there's so much to go on about wanting to do things the right way and wanting to do the best and all of that can feel really challenging in those early years.

12:05 - Gulara (Guest)

I remember a friend of mine telling me horror stories about not sleeping and all the rest, and I was thinking you just, you just were unlucky. It's not going to be anything like that for me. Oh, how wrong was I. But what I have to learn the really hard way is like I noticed that I was running my grandmother's program around parenting, where you self sacrifice and you are the martyr who doesn't sleep for two years and and then you're really grumpy. You are not a good parent and so I had to learn the hard way that actually self care and taking care of my stuff and being happier in myself is the best way I can serve my children.

12:55 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, being in that, yeah, I really like where you're, you're resourcing yourself. It strikes me, yeah, yeah. Which is why I always have like a bit of a bee in my bonnet about how self care is portrayed in our society, because, you know, I think a bubble bath just doesn't cut it. It definitely contributes and I love, I love a good bubble bath.

13:18

But it goes back to what you said at the start about that, that root cause and it's sort of like putting a plaster on things, whereas I think real self care and yeah, it just goes so much deeper.

13:33 - Gulara (Guest)

And so self care is looking at what's what's triggering you, what's bothering you, what gives you up at night. You know that that is self care taking care of parts of you that were neglected, that were orphaned at some point in your life, that those feelings that you had to suppress because that there was no other way at that time. But they're still in your system and you're literally living your body in your cells. And then, until our body starts screaming with an ailment or something else, we don't, we don't really pay attention, and even then I'm not against medicine, but even then we might resort to medical solution and not look at what is it, what's underneath all this pain that my being is trying to communicate to me.

14:27 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, and what's underneath that, I imagine, is often a lot, all those layers, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

14:36

I really recognise that. I could talk to you all day on this, and today we were going to talk around the like the the part, I guess, that healing has to play in entrepreneurship, because I have found that it is, it's been really vital and in my own journey with with entrepreneurship and, yeah, very much along the lines that we've been talking about, it's these challenges that present themselves in one particular context. So, you know, if you're an employee, for example, things like, if you find it difficult to find confidence in your, your employee, employee role, and like I know that for me, I was very much of the mindset that, like, my business was the answer, you know, and my business has been the answer to many, many things, and at the same time, I still find, like some of those, those challenges sort of followed me around a little bit and and, yeah, your work has been absolutely instrumental in that. So, yeah, I wonder if you can maybe share your own perspective on what part healing has to play.

15:48 - Gulara (Guest)

I feel like, whether it's an employment or whether it's business, it's an extension of you. So whatever imprints and blocks you're carrying in your day to day life is likely to project into your business as well. You're not going to escape into your business and suddenly everything will be wonderful there I had. So I started building my business actively. So I was doing some healing since 2009, but 2015 is when I'm mark the start of my business and basically all the difficulties I had in my corporate job. So I was a university law lecturer.

16:36

I was good at what I did, but I, somewhere down the line when my children arrived, I fell out of love with my job because my priorities changed. I just wanted to spend more time with my children and I felt frustrated that I needed to give a lot. So the pace at which I was working pre-children which meant weekends, holidays, christmas days, nights, like there was no break I just did not want to do it at that pace. But that created some wobble in my confidence because it felt like, oh, I'm not delivering at the level that I'm used to, and so I have tried to transition from that academic job into my business, and in the meantime there was a lot of insecurity around money. So how am I gonna support myself, will I survive?

17:32

But that insecurity was there anyway, so it wasn't necessarily driven by my business. The business really revealed it. It revealed how much insecurity I had in life about the unknown, about the future, and most of them were rooted in my childhood. So by healing those, I came to the point where I was able to let go of my academic job and I have not looked back. It's been December 2020 when I left and, my God, my life has just blossomed. But it took a lot of work to get to that stage where I had faith in life. So it wasn't about business, it wasn't. I just took the leap and I knew that there will be support, but it wasn't, given that.

18:19

It was there, but it took me a lot of work to really trust that I am supported by life itself and things will work out. But that block showed up very much in my academic life. I didn't necessarily trust that I would be supported and that there will be, something will appear that will propel me forward at the pace that I was working. So I kind of gradually gave up on that vision.

18:54 - Debbie (Host)

It sounds to me like you put so much effort into like building those solid foundations within yourself, yes, first. So when you were taking that leap, like, yes, it was a leap into the unknown, but you knew that there was something there.

19:12 - Gulara (Guest)

Absolutely so. I actually I got my permanent lectureship in September 2011 and I remember two months after that, I was sitting in my office marking 7.30 PM, marking exam scripts, and suddenly I had a voice like I don't know. It wasn't like hold like a voice, but I had such a clear message. It was very simple. It was like I'm here to teach and I'm here to write, but law is not the right content, and I remember thinking I can't do anything else. What am I gonna?

19:51

do I don't know why do you do anything else? Yeah, and so it took me quite a while to find the way, and if you are in corporate at the moment and you are dreaming of transitioning, give yourself time. But there's no right or wrong Like. For me, it was really essential to have that stable income coming in that supported all the healing work I did. I am so grateful for having that job that enabled me to really dive deep and uncover all the blocks that were stopping me from being me and from showing up fully and delivering what it is that I do today. So you need as much time as you need and for some people they just jump and, depending on your history, it took me almost 10 years to get to the point where I was like I'm ready, this is it, and even then it was scary, but it takes as long as it takes. Don't put necessarily pressure on yourself. There isn't the right time or the right way. There is your way, and that way is determined by your inner readiness and willingness to make that step.

21:07 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, it really goes. It strikes me that it really goes back to that self-care, Like really taking, like being kind and caring and loving to yourself and allowing yourself to whatever space and time you need.

21:22 - Gulara (Guest)

Exactly. You can't really thrive on the pressure your whole nervous system shuts down. If you are constantly worried about money, how I'm gonna support my family and et cetera. It's not going to produce great results because you're constantly in fight of flight mode or your nervous system freezes down and all the great ideas you might have will not particularly come forward because you are in so much stress and tension. And the more you can create space for your being to relax, to find the way forward, the easier the path will be. If you're kind of pushing against the flow, you're just expending so much energy on shoots and pressuring yourself and blocking yourself in the process. So I know it's easy to set them down, to just relax and allow, but really when you do the work, when you do the inner work, Ultimately that it can allow you that ease and trust in the timing.

22:28 - Debbie (Host)

Yeah, like where it comes from, a place that genuinely feels good, it's aligned. Yeah, yes, because I think that what you described there is that, that voice speaking to you. I hear lots of people describing it as that little niggle inside, like that niggle, that sort of questions, and it keeps on, it won't go away. And yet sometimes it's hard to do, to know what to do next with, and I'm really into it. So you talked around like money insecurities being the thing for you, and I think another common one, particularly amongst females, is visibility as well, like people and just being hesitant about being visible, and I think that it can show up in lots of different ways.

23:23

It can be like just not want to you know that you just don't want to be visible or for me, I know it can show up as like making everything really complicated, so like I can't just put a post on Instagram. I have to have like a whole schedule and I have to have a month's worth of content math, diet and this and that before I'm able to put just even one thing right there. And like I I've got something against this, this mantra of you know, feel the fear and do it anyway, because I think like, typically we can be told to, oh, like, just get over it. You know just, you can force yourself to then to be more visible, but it pushes us so far outside of our comfort zone that we almost then just reinforce that old story because we get super visible in a way that just doesn't feel good and then we never, ever want to do it again. We're just like perpetuating that story that visibility isn't like a safe or isn't a good thing to do.

24:29 - Gulara (Guest)

Yeah, absolutely. I mean I I'm smiling because when I did my first Facebook live, I had to have an hour if the session beforehand just to turn the camera on and point it at myself and say three words or whatever I did. And now it's kind of new normal. And I had a big visibility story because I had a big sexual trauma when I was younger. There was a brief period in my life when I was involved in prostitution and so something around that time I went into hiding and so for about two, three years I just completely disconnect. I was in a bubble in a really abusive relationship and so that fear was still in my system and so even when I came forward and I would come and be visible, there was a part of me that was saying don't look at me, don't say I want these people to see me, but not those people. And trying to control, and that result was nobody saw me.

25:38

So like you put all that energy into EFT session, show up on the screen, and then nobody, or not many people, responded. And so, yes, you can make yourself visible, but if there are parts of you that don't feel safe to be seen for whatever reason, they are going to cancel it out. It's like you're constantly pulled into directions, right? One says, no, no, you should be doing this, this is the only way. And then the other part says, no, I'm not safe, they're going to judge me, they're going to criticize me, they're going to punish me, they're going to attack me. You know it's going to be really bad, normally from the childhood, because that's how people responded to you when you showed them something, show something of yourself, and so this expectation is still there. And so it's going to be an interval, and who's going to win? Chances are that you will push through and then this part will cancel it out in one way or another.

26:36 - Debbie (Host)

And I think it's such an important thing to talk about as well, because I think it's so easy to see someone else on a camera or someone else posting somewhere or someone else standing up and speaking on a stage and like drawing that comparison, like, oh you know, that person makes it look easy, so why can't I make it look easy as well? Whereas you know from that example you just shared, quite often like everyone has their back story and there's a lot behind that person on the screen.

27:14 - Gulara (Guest)

Exactly, and you're kind of comparing your inner to somebody's outer Right.

27:21 - Debbie (Host)

It might be a little bit complicated but you don't expect them to be the same.

27:27 - Gulara (Guest)

And also it's like comparing your first draft of the book to somebody's finished product that's been edited and looked at many times. It's practice practice makes perfect. But you need to take care of the parts that objecting. You need to take those voices seriously. In a sense, you don't need to act on them doesn't mean that you have to follow them, because then you would never be visible Even to yourself. But I think the more visible you are to yourself, actually it's much easier to be seen by others.

28:03

It's when we have all this unexamined, unexposed parts of ourselves that need something Right, like there's a normally need for love, belonging and safety. So if one of those is going to be threatened by you showing up in a particular way, chances are you'll be hiding for a long time and you'll find a way. You'll get ill, you'll get busy, there will be some drama or crisis. It won't be the right time, like there will be some circumstances that would conspire and stop you from doing it. If you don't take those parts seriously by listening and finding out, what is it? What is it that bothering? What's the worst that could happen if you were visible as you are? It's a really, really fascinating exploration.

28:55 - Debbie (Host)

It is and it's like I really like that perspective where you know it's coming from that place of kindness and listening to those, you know it's not trying to do away with those ports because you know at some level they can still be useful for us and beneficial in some particular circumstances. But I think for me it's like not letting them rule the show and not letting them dictate everything. And you know, knowing that that's not entirely who you are, it's like one part of who you are but it's not everything.

29:32 - Gulara (Guest)

The thing is that when you haven't examined those stories, those parts totally run the show. Yeah, your unconscious mind is like 90, 95% of your mind is your subconscious unconscious thoughts. Only 5-10% is your conscious mind. So here you are, consciously choosing to run your business and take action and be visible, and then 90-95% behind the scenes actually orchestrate how and whether you show up. And the more you can take care of those parts, the easier the conscious decision will take it over.

30:13 - Debbie (Host)

And this is, I think it's worth like recognizing as well that these are patterns that have been built up over a lifetime. You know, we're really really good at going into that like default mode of operation.

30:29 - Gulara (Guest)

Yeah, at some point in your life all those strategies were essential. You have to develop them because you absolutely needed them. They were important, they got you here. They're not bad, they're not wrong, but they're in a default setting. Most of them are very young and most of them have very limited repertoire of what they can produce, and they're blunt you know, so they're like okay, so I want to keep you safe. You won't be seen, boom. Yes, that's it. There's not many nuances to it.

31:03 - Debbie (Host)

Absolutely this way. It's very black and white, that's it. Yeah, oh, amazing, like I think. For me, even just being in your presence feels so nourishing and calming and grinding, and I imagine other people listening will feel the same. So if anyone would like to reach out and find out more about your work or find out more about your book or any of the workshops you offer, what's the best way to get in touch with you?

31:36 - Gulara (Guest)

I have a website, goularavincentcouk, and you can find ways of connecting with me there. There's a list of courses I run, in-person retreats in a gorgeous part of Devon which is so deeply nourishing and healing. So there are all sorts of opportunities online and in person, and I'd love to hear from you.

32:00 - Debbie (Host)

Thank you so much, clara, and I think, just to add to that, that I can personally vouch for how absolutely transformative your work is, and I know that anyone else I put in touch with you has found the same. So, yeah, thank you so much for all that you're doing and for, I think, so courageously following that niggle inside of you. Yeah, it really means a lot to be able to see someone else do that. So, thank you.

32:27 - Gulara (Guest)

Thank you, Davie. Thank you for having me and for your kind words. It's such a pleasure talking with you.

32:33 - Debbie (Host)

You too, I feel like we could go on for a lot longer, but yeah, thank you so much. Take care, clara, thank you, and thank you for listening.

32:42 - Gulara (Guest)

Bye.

32:45 - Debbie (Host)

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Beyond Business. If you've loved what you've heard, I would be incredibly grateful if you could rate and review the podcast so that together we can create a global ecosystem of changemakers, pioneering business as a force for good. Until then, I look forward to speaking to you in the next episode.

Debbie Lee
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