Episode 29: Serving Empaths as an Empath with Empathic Coach Fraya Mortensen

Apr 22

Conversation

Welcome to the authentic calm podcast. I'm your host and guide Jessi Michel Agadoni . And season two is all about learning, how to navigate this chaotic life with its overwhelm and over-activation and ups and downs as a sensitive spirit. You and I are in this together. Let's dive in.

Jessi Michel Adadongi: Welcome to the authentic calm podcast. I'm your host and guide Jesse Michelle . And season two is all about learning, how to navigate this chaotic life with its overwhelm and over-activation and ups and downs. As a sensitive spirit. You and I are in this together. Let's dive in.

Welcome back sensitive spirits. It's so good to have you today. We have on a guest Fraya Mortensen, and she is an empathic coach. So this episode is really for those that align with the label of empath or are really intune with that role of being the listener of being the person that people just cozy up to you and share their entire life story with, or feel really safe around.

You may have had a lot of life experience of being the emotion carrier of being the one that people can turn to. And there's beauty And that, and Fraya is just a walking legend. She has 20 plus years of working within a correctional facility in Canada as a PO. And talk about, you know, a learning ground of, of finding that ability to.

Remain kind and compassionate, which is her gifting. And our gifting is impasse while not losing herself and not making herself ill really right. Because one of the biggest things and she has really mastered that. And I won't give too much more of her story away because I want her to tell it, but I'm just so excited for you to connect with her.

She has incredible resources for you and is herself. I said a coach. So we'll, we'll leave. Below all of her resources and connections. Cause I know at the end of this podcast, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, how do I get to know her? How do I learn more from her? So without much more, I just want to encourage you to tune in find a safe, quiet space to listen.

And if you have, you know, pen and paper or notes up on your phone get ready to write down some good resources some really thoughtful takeaways. And I promise you're going to want to connect with her when it's all done. So here we go. Let's hop on in welcome back sensitive community. So excited to have with me today, a wonderful guest, Fraya Mortenson and empathic coach.

And today we are just going to dive into her story and, and share some nuggets of truth around what it looks like to be an empath in the real world. Not just in theory. Right. So frail welcome. I'm so excited to have you all the way from Canada. I love it. My neighbor, my friend. It's a pleasure to have you on and I just want to get rolling and started right away with just hearing your story.

Tell us how you landed here, how you discover that you were an empath and what that has meant for you in the last few years.

Fraya Mortensen: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you Jesse, for giving me this outlet to speak and share my story. And over the course of the last year, I've been having to go back into my own history and recount.

Who is that little Fraya depends a little Fraya. No, that she was an empath back then. And when I go back to my little self, oh yes, she did very much. So all of these missing links are, are put together. And it's the traditional a classic empath trait of not feeling like you fit in, you know, being shy, not having a lot of friends and the friends that I would have would be the outcasts or the ones that, that were also those shy types.

You know, I remember having houseflies a little pet for as long as it would stay alive, you know? So even from a young girl, I was, I was very intuitive and very into. With myself and also, although not feeling like I fit in looking back, I seem to be okay with that. I think that what was really grounding for me and what pulled me through and what linked me to the work that I'm doing now in a weird way.

And I was coming to this realization yesterday, thinking about some of the stuff I was going to talk to you about. And from a very young age, from the age of two, I started dancing. I started having this really intense passion for music and then moving my body to it. And a lot of my time, as a kid into my teens was spent dancing in my room, making up routines, listening to music, being very creative.

I also wrote a lot of poems journaled a lot. So it was very introspective in my mind and in my body. And that led me to a really great experience when I was in university where I got an opportunity to dance for a professional football team in Canada. And you know, when I was dancing on my own and I was dancing on stages as a kid, it was always about, it was always about this dance is gonna make people feel good, this dancing that I'm doing and showing people this, this, this movement and the song that I've selected, they're going to feel what I feel.

And I just want people to feel what I feel. I want people to be moved. And so then I. I'm cheering, you know, for, for a sports team and I'm dancing and I'm still passing on that vibration of, of joy and excitement and uplifted meant to people through that five years that I danced and traveled around Canada, this team.

And so it really did then transpire throughout my university years where I'm studying to be associate. I got a bachelor of arts in sociology, and also a lot of my focus was also in law and psychology and criminology. And I had a real keen focus on helping people who were in conflict with the law, because I knew that people who were in conflict with the law had a lot of deep dark issues and trauma.

And I really related to that as well as addiction. And I could really relate to that coming from. Family with a parent who is struggling and continues to struggle with addiction.

Forgive me if I'm going all over the place who need to know? Oh,

Jessi Michel Agadoni: I love it. No, this is, you know, as empath and you know, that intuitive nature, that introspective nature. We have so much to share. And so I love I feel like a huge part of connecting with other impasse is going on that journey into the mind.

Right. And so I love hearing your story of, of when you were young and how even at that young age, everything was very. Right versus outer, which is a big sign of that difference, you know, from kind of the general population where everything is like, oh, I want to connect with someone. I want to share everything I'm doing.

I have to share in some way. Whereas for you, it was like, this is actually originally just for me, just for pure delight. And then it turned into that. I want to share it with others, but there's intention behind it. And it's because I want people to heal. I want to and maybe back then it was like, I want to rescue, I want to save.

Right. And that's usually where it starts. And I'm sure that originated within your relationship with your parent, you know, I've been like you needed to step in. So that's really cool. And it sounds like dance was your outlet, your place, where you felt free and maybe had a release of a lot of the weight of your childhood.

You just gave us a glimpse of possibly some of the heaviness of your childhood that you were finding escape from.

Fraya Mortensen: Absolutely. It was that sematic release, stress and trauma that was in my body from a young age that intuitively I knew that this is some way that you can release that amazing. And just carrying through.

Of course, I didn't know that's what I was doing back then, but now I recognize it as one of the biggest tools that I continue to use. So yeah, it was just really this. Urge to help others in whatever way. And as I'm studying through university and trying to decide where I'm going to land and recognizing that I had this strong interest in social justice and wanting to work with people who are less fortunate, I had landed me at first working in a youth open custody facility and helping, you know, just kind of really connecting with the young people that were having their own issues.

And then within a year of graduating and getting my degree, I got a job at the probation office working as a probation officer. And, you know, when I would tell people I'm a probation officer. Oh, my God, you do that. How can you do that show? Oh my gosh, you must see some really awful people. And you know, it is not the depiction of what you would see on television and in Canada, our correctional system is so much different than it is in the United States.

I mean, things are starting to shift. Yeah. But I would always refer to myself as a change agent. So I got myself into this role where now I'm, I'm meeting people. One-on-one, I'm talking to them about some really serious things that are taking place in their life because they're at a time in their life when it is the worst time of their life.

Right. They have lost their families. They have lost their jobs. They have lost their homes. They have lost a lot of money when you come into conflict with the law based, you know, who knows what brought them there, variety of things. These are people who are really at their lowest point. And so I was able to come in there with my compassion and my empathy and see these people for who they really were without judgment.

Yeah. So in a system where they are constantly being judged, now they've come to see this probation officer expecting her to be this, or, you know, lay down the law, lay down the hammer kind of thing. You better do it. You're told, or I'm going to send you back to jail. Which of course I did have that, that power to issue warrants for people.

If they were a risk, you know, I, I had to take a different approach that my approach was going to be, Hey, you know, We're not here for change. And you come into my office, we're here for transformation and people can change. People can change all the time, but they can also change back. That's a good point.

So transformation people transform. There's no going back. You've reached a new level. You've reached this new level. So that's what I was I was doing. And it was very much got to a realization. I was in this role for 20 years and got to have a lot of opportunities to get training on trauma and domestic violence and personality disorders and mental health and the, just the whole gamut of high, you know, substance use, relapse prevention, healthy relationships you know, working with the victims, domestic violence.

Working with people who are victims of sexual assaults, all of this training that I received in the 20 years and how to purposefully and effectively assist people with those issues that they're going through and struggling with. I would run groups and this is why now is my role when I'm doing videos and doing lives bringing all of those skills that thank you, government of Ontario, you invested in me and you gave me all these, all these, all this wisdom, all these tools, all this practice, 20 years of practicing with these people and really making yeah.

Changes in so many people's lives. You know, usually people don't want to come in and see a probation officer, but it was really different experience I had with the clients where they would say how can I say, how can I keep seeing you? And some of them. Do things to make sure that they get stayed on probation and never got off.

Wow. Interesting. Because a lot of, you know, a lot of the times I'm the only one that they had in their lives. It was

Jessi Michel Agadoni: just me. What was that like for you to have that kind of weight on you with having all of those people that you are now the sole carrier of their their heart, because you actually listened, you showed interest, you showed compassion and you were in that space trying to hold that pain with them.

Or at least that's probably how they received it. What was that like for you in that time?

Fraya Mortensen: It could be really intense. I was very much aware of my physical body and my physiological state in my breathing and my, you know, physical cues because as an empath and at that time, maybe not having the greatest energetic boundaries at that time, someone would walk into my office and I can immediately just feel and take on all of their anxiety and sometimes their hostility and their anger that would sometimes I would be sitting there shivering that reaction in my, in my energy.

I became the, like the poster child of self care. I really had to make sure that I was taking care of myself, like twice, three times, four times as much. People who don't do this kind of work would have to. Absolutely. Yeah. So that I could continue to show up

Jessi Michel Agadoni: and probably even similar more than your peers in that workspace.

Right. You know, how did you notice like a big difference between those that, you know, I wouldn't assume that most people in that role are pass or if they are, they've probably gone to the extreme of fully disembarking, you know, and disconnecting so that they can survive. Whereas you tried to stay in that tender zone, right.

You tried to utilize your giftings, but that also opens the door to being run over, you know and to be in a way to take advantage of. So what was that like to kind of feel like you had to take such measures in comparison to your peers?

Fraya Mortensen: You know, you maybe you'd be surprised that the majority of, of probation officers in, in Canada are women and.

Because we do have to have a compassionate position to help these people who are so vulnerable. You can't come in. I mean, some, some officers would come in with a very authoritative state that they didn't make any progress with their clients. And I did see other other colleagues who I knew they were impasse and they were struggling.

They were not practicing healthy boundaries with themselves. They were pushing themselves too hard. They weren't taking vacation. They were engaging in unhealthy habits. They were engaging in, you know, negative talk in the office and creating a toxic workplace. So that's another layer working in a toxic workplace because people aren't taking care of themselves. Yeah.

Even when you are, you're still having to reenter that space everyday. Yeah. Wow. So what was the, I don't want to call it the breaking point, but when did you feel ready to launch yourself out of that space? In the last

four years, I took on an intensive caseload. So it allowed me to supervise less people, but gave me more responsibility.

These were the worst of the worst. These are the people that it wasn't a matter of if they were going to re-offend in a serious way, but when wow. And those last four years were really intense. It was, it was especially productive though, because I was seeing transformation take place in myself through a new set of mentorship that I was experiencing with the government to come into my role with a different approach.

And when the government cut this funding off, I had been mentoring for four years. Well, it's about three years at that point. And I feel like, okay, I think I've, I've maxed everything out of this rule that I can, and I would come into the office and I used to come into the office and say, you know what, I'm going to retire here.

You know what? Even if I won the lotto, I would still come and work here because I love the work that I did so much unhealthy boundary there, probably. But then there came a time when I would walk in there, I'd be like, I am not going to be working here much longer. Just started to get this sense, this urge something, I don't know what it's going to be.

I don't know how it's going to happen, but I'm not going to be here forever. And then. Pandemic struck. And everybody was sent home and closing things down and shutting things down. And that was that moment, like so many other people where I realized, okay, here's an opportunity. Now I'm taking a leave off of work to stay home with my daughter while her school is figuring out what's going on in the world.

And now it's a great opportunity for me to finally realize, all right for ya, but what are we going to do here? This opportunity.

Jessi Michel Agadoni: That's a beautiful perspective to see it so quickly as an opportunity. And it sounds like you were. You were in this little cocoon, you know, at at your previous job, just building all these amazing skillsets, learning a lot about yourself.

It sounds like, and really learning how to be you and not give that up, but still be able to utilize your giftings for others. And then this, yeah, the pandemic hit and you it's like here, your good Coon does burst open and you got to just come out and go, I'm ready. And the world is so ready. There's so much discussion around things like empathy and sensitivity and intuitiveness and introversion, all these things.

I feel like have been coming forward in mass. And my theory is over the pandemic, a lot of people realized how good it felt to have a quieter schedule to be home. And then they realize, oh, that's maybe my natural, healthy state. Right. So there's a lot of people kind of rebirthing and coming back into their authenticity, coming back into their whole healthy selves, like through that awareness.

And you are stepping into this now with all of those skillsets of being safe, I'm here to help you and guide you because there's so many people that need what you've developed. So talk to us about what it looked like when you started kind of stepping into that new, new calling that was coming forward. Yeah,

Fraya Mortensen: it was pretty exciting. I'm like, how do I take everything? All of this knowledge and experience that I have and put it out there to the general public, to the global community and right away, I grabbed on to the impasse right away. I'm like, this is a niche that I'm, I want to be a leader in. Hm.

Because. As we know many impacted people are very introverted and shy and they don't often step up and they're not comfortable with speaking, being that, taking a leader position. But I knew that I had that capability and I just started to come up with a lot of different plans. And what will I talk about?

And I started listening to Gary V T with Gary V at 9:00 AM every morning, because what else was there to do? I'm not going to work anymore. What's going on in my life. And he was talking about tick talk. Okay. If you have a business, if you had this, if you have that, why aren't you on tick-tock you'd better get on there.

Just start posting some videos who cares. I'm like, okay. And my daughter who was nine or 10, 10 at the time. She tells her 11th king she's 14 now. So the few years ago she was really good at math. Math is definitely my strong suit. She was on Tik TOK. Okay. And I thought, how am I gonna figure this out? So she's teaching me how to use this thing and helping me film stuff and choose the music.

And you know, my first few videos, just like whatever, it's totally not the tech talk video. It's just like fray doing whatever she wants and not hearing Tik TOK guidelines. And then finally it started to get into the flow of it. And it started to get some response. People like what you're talking, people are resonating.

Wow. There's people who are really soaking this up and starting to develop a community of other empathic people. And, and it's getting to be like really passionate. Like this is, this is cool. This is working. Okay. Let me, let me keep going. And they kept creating videos until it got to a point where I got a thousand followers.

And when you hit a thousand followers of Tik TOK, now you can go live. And so I would start to go live and I would start to connect with people in live broadcasts. And then I would get messages on my videos. Hey, are you doing coaching? Are you coaching clients like, oh, huh, I'm interested in what I have to say.

Okay. And so I created, okay. I guess I better, you know, create some links for people to book a call. And I guess I better, you know, start thinking about a website. I better start thinking about taking this. It's a lot more serious than these Tik TOK videos over the slow. You know, putting my foot in the water and then taking it down a little, some steps, and then finally, you know, dive in deep into those waters of entrepreneurial-ism.

Jessi Michel Agadoni: Wow. And it sounds so natural. Like, I love that. I feel like when you are aligned with your giftings, when you are aligned with what you're here to do, right? Your purpose, your intention, things just kind of fall in place like that. And that energy that you created, people would just couldn't ignore it. They had to come and they had to ask you was a compulsion.

Are you coaching? I must meet with you Fraya because you're just glowing and sharing all this wisdom. Like where did you come from? I need to hear all about this. How amazing. That's gotta be so affirming and empowering. Yeah.

It just affirmed. Okay. Yeah. You're on the right track. This is what you're doing it.

Yeah. So you establish a coaching practice kind of like navigating your way through one step at a time as people were asking for it, which is really a beautiful way to do it. Right? Cause then you are just tuning in and not necessarily, I know a lot of people, especially a lot of impasse can get stuck with the, you know, copying what other people are doing or feeling like you have to do these certain steps in order to be successful.

And we get caught in our minds, right? Because we love to overthink and just stay there and whirl around and around and around. But what I hear you saying is a lot of this. And just listening to your own intuition and also just observing how other people are responding to you and allowing that to be your guide, as opposed to some structured, you know, forced mentorship.

You had a lot of mentorship, but business wise, it sounds like you just kind of let it roll out, which is really cool. Yeah. Yeah. It's just started taking those risks. And what do you feel like allowed you to step into that, that risk room?

It was kind of like, I have been held back by this bureaucratic red tape working for a government agency for 20 years and I just want to be me.

And you know, the name of my coaching business is for you to be you.

I love that. And that's the message it's like, I'm free to be me. If I am going to be putting myself out there and encouraging other people to be their authentic, real self, that is who you really are at the core of your being. Then this is what I need to model.

I need to be a role model for those changes that I want to see in other people. And it really was that, you know, that four year old little Fraya who wouldn't talk in school in her class all year, but come that last day of school where the teacher is offering a little talent show, well, Fraya is showing up with her record player, ready to play that song and do her dance and then sit back down, you know?

And so it was kind of like that there was no fears. Like I have a mission, I have a purpose and it needs to be shared. And so there was no hesitation. There was no question. There was none of the.

Jessi Michel Agadoni: Amazing. It's almost like you, yeah. You step into this persona or this role of like, I'm going to put on this outfit, I'm going to put on this suit in order to reach who I need to reach.

And then I can always take the suit off and get comfy and cozy and curl up on the couch and do my thing, you know, but it's, and not that it's a, a false impression, but it's like your power suit, you know, like this is Fraya at full max for everyone to see. And you have that in you. And I think all of us do, I think all of us have that piece of us that can step up.

Right. But for many reasons, maybe it's been discouraged or not even trained in us. Right. What do you see with your coaching clients that really holds them back from allowing them to be free, to be them or free to step up and take a risk or communicate their needs?

Fraya Mortensen: Yeah. Judgment. Judgment is huge because they're holding onto that judgment from others that started at a very young age, being told you are not good enough.

You can't do this. Who do you think you are? People are gonna laugh at you. You're not smart enough, all of that. And that becomes internalized. So when you want to go out and try and step out and show who you really are, there's that self-judgment now. And that's what I notice with, with so many is the judgment that's been imposed on.

You now becomes your belief about yourself and that's really what holds people back until they find the other side

Jessi Michel Agadoni: of that. And how do you help your clients? And I know it's probably different for everyone, but if there was kind of one. Approach that you personally love helps you kind of get out of that rut, get out of that patterning, that thought patterning of, of, like you said, it starts with maybe judgment as a child receiving that, and then you process it, hold onto it.

And then it becomes a self judgment. Right. And potentially even projection, right? Like assuming people are judging you and if they're not and you create this whole world, so how do you step out of that? How do you create a new perspective? Yeah. Yeah.

Fraya Mortensen: And, and what ha what ends up happening is that my clients abandoned themselves.

They've started to hand themselves over to other people to define their worth. They started to hand themselves over to other people to take care of their feelings, be responsible for their feelings. And so what I find to be so healing and impactful for many is inner child work. And that is something that a lot of clients also resist that saying what you resist persists, and you're resisting connecting to yourself because you've been abandoning that little child, that little child in you is saying, Hey, I need some compassion from you.

Hey, I really want us to be getting to sleep a lot earlier. I really need us to be going outside and enjoying nature. Hey, I really just need some time with you and some time alone to do the things that we want to do. And. We're over here with our wound itself saying I don't have time for that. Nope. We don't.

We're not going to do that. No, we got to take care of other people. Our needs don't matter. I'm just, I don't even hear what you're trying to say to me. And so the reconnection back with our inner child, which is your feelings, your needs, those things that you've been ignoring and running away from has been one of the most profound things that I've brought my clients through in a certain exercise that I guide them in to connect to their younger self, have a conversation with their younger self and come out the other side, feeling more connected, feeling more self-compassion that self-compassion is huge.

Jessi Michel Agadoni: And that is, I hear you say that there's this. Capsule that you create in order to reconnect because a lot of times that disconnect and I love that word. I love that word. I use it in my practice too, when I work more with the body. Right. So, but reconnecting, we often disconnect because there's pain, right.

There was some sort of pain or fear or. Rejection that occurred. So in order to reconnect you almost, you have to face that again. Right? And so for you, for someone to have the safety of stepping into that space with you as a coach that is fully aware of what may come forward, they can, they can step in because that is a risk room, right.

But they can step into that risk room, knowing that you're holding their hand, you are there with them. They're not experiencing it alone. And you've done this for 20 plus years, right. With and seen probably much heavier you know, or harder things. So what they have to share, what they have to experience, you know, is, is nothing that will overwhelm you.

And you can help them move through that. That's so, so amazing how life giving for your clients?

Fraya Mortensen: Absolutely. Absolutely. But they do have to still connect with their body first, before you can go in to do that in our. Yep. You got to center yourself, you've got to ground yourself. You got to connect with that part of the body.

So there's very specific steps that we take that is a really powerful for

Jessi Michel Agadoni: them. Yeah. Do you find that? Cause that's my passion too, right. Is reconnecting to the body and understanding how we store things in our body. Do you feel like there's a specific area of the body that you see a lot of your clients storing or oppressing their emotions in their pain? Yeah. So

Fraya Mortensen: a lot of the times, for instance, when we go into this exercise, if there's a feeling of anxiety, I'll ask them, you know, they're there, they're closing their eyes and focusing on their physical body. And where does this anxiety show up in your body? Where do you feel it the most? And it's either between that, that chest area.

The heart chakra or it's in that stomach area of the sacral chakra. And it depends on what's been happening with that insecurity versus, you know, in lack of creative passion, that's, that's been void versus being too open, too compassionate with what, where, where they've been in the, in their lives.

Yeah. Giving too much of themselves away. Yeah. Just really

having that, that heart space to open and being vulnerable. Hm. Yeah. Leave some with that anxious feeling that they've just gone out of alignment with them.

Jessi Michel Agadoni: Absolutely. And once they've stepped into that, they've worked through with you reconnecting to their childhood, which I know is not like a one-time thing, right.

It's really a lifelong journey to reconnect with yourself and keep removing those little layers and layers that have been built up and. I don't know if maybe you probably are into this too, but just familial trauma, you know, passed down for generations and those can even be layers, right? It's not just like what you've experienced.

It's also what your parents have experienced and their parents have experienced. And how, you know, especially if you're called to be a link breaker, right. You're called to step into clearing that for your family. That's a huge job that requires a lot of internal work and a lot of moving through what you just said, you know, stepping back into the body, stepping back into healing.

Have you encountered much of that, of, of people experiencing emotions or associations that they're like, I don't know where this came from. It doesn't feel like it's mine, but perhaps it is connected back. Is that something you've seen?

Fraya Mortensen: Yeah. The intergenerational trauma is deep. There was a client that I had out of New York and her grandmother was a Holocaust survivor.

And so she was picking up some of that trauma in her own body as well. Indigenous people of Canada. I've, I've coached some, some of our indigenous women who feel that deeply as well, that that comes up. And it's hard to pinpoint because there's already so much going on in their, in their immediate family structure and not realizing how deep it goes.

Definitely just cultural and, and then gender specific as well with just the, the generations of women in our history of trauma that has been carried on. Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

That's something. Do you feel like people can move beyond that, that there is opportunity and change and transformation, as you said out of that generational trauma.

Absolutely. It's sometimes people have had a hard time accepting the statement that things are happening for you. Things don't happen to you, they are happening for you. So this happened for you. And so how are you going to use this? And like you were saying there, Jesse, you know, breaking that chain, breaking that cycle, I'm not going to pass this on, I'm going to transmute this so that it doesn't continue to be you know, set to somebody else for them to take care of.

Jessi Michel Agadoni: Yeah. And what I hear you saying too, is a lot of ownership of saying, you know, Even if in the past, I felt like this happened to me. I can now say that it happened for me and I'm going to use this to change, to move forward, to shift my family's history, to shift my personal story and therefore, you know, change the, the experience of anyone that comes after me.

Right. And there's an energetic mess to that too. Right. It's whether you choose to have children or not, like you're still going to be passing on that energy, right. You're still going to be breaking that link. And that is just so freeing and I know. For me, that shift was really big to not feel. I grew up in a family where it was kind of a weird mix of ownership, but also martyrdom.

Like there was a weird flip flop between the two. And and so for me, I know a big part of my personal healing, which is ongoing, was acknowledging when I choose chose to let things happen to me and to kind of simmer and sit and get cozy in that martyrdom and get cozy in that victimhood because it just, it kind of feels good sometimes, you know, to just hang out there and, and kind of, you know, talk smack with other people and just, oh my gosh.

And I see that so much within the world of, of impasse and introverts Especially within the social spaces of this. Like everyone's out to get us, you know, like we are so different and it's kind of almost as negative. I'm like, you rejected us. So we're going to reject to you kind of approach. And I know I personally don't find that helpful or healing, but I know that it's a part of the process of healing.

Like in order to step out of something that you've known, you kind of have to go the other extreme. Right. Have you seen that a lot where it's like, you go from one to the other and then health is slowly moving towards that balance. Right. Those spectrums and so I think it's so important. At least I've seen for myself too, when you're ready, gently step out of that place of victim, hood and martyrdom and, and take some ownership with excitement, not of a, it's a burden, but I get to choose.

I get to decide how I wanna live. So I, I just love that. That's what you're doing with your clients. And I think we need more people like you Fraya, because like I said, I do see a lot of that getting stuck in just kind of claiming that we're different and then being kind of mad about how everyone treats us, instead of saying like, I'm going to take this back and we're going to join as a community and move forward.

And that's what I see you doing. And that's why I'm so excited and thrilled for your coaching and the communities. You've created huge communities on Tik TOK and Instagram. And I know within your own personal space too. So thank you first and foremost for doing that, stepping into that risk room and doing it.

I'd love to hear a little bit more about like your daily practices, especially now that you are back in that you're still working with people, right. You're still being exposed to other stories and journeys. And so that personal care that you were talking about, what does that look like for you now?

How do you create the healthy energetics that you were talking about? Yeah, that's

Fraya Mortensen: huge. That's huge. My energy is such a valuable commodity and how I spend it and who I give it to. And who will I share it with is, is really important to pay attention to. And so this paying attention on purpose in the present moment without judgment.

As if my life depends on it, that's junk that Zinn's definition of mindfulness. So again, so it's a daily mindfulness practice from waking to going to close my eyes at the end of the night and waking up with intention, waking up in a mindful state and checking in with my body. How are we feeling today?

What's going on? You have some anxiety. Why is that? Okay. And let's take ourselves. Wow. To eat something that's grounding. And I always start my day with, with water and protein and caffeine is always one of those things for empathic and highly sensitive people that we gotta be careful with. So it's not the person that comes into my body.

So I'm just being very mindful throughout the day. And before I have client sessions, I only do my client sessions on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. So there's those three days. And I give myself the other four days to do whatever admin work I need to do, or other kinds of calls that don't require video.

So video calls are reserved for clients and when necessary. And I'm going to take a moment of mindfulness before my client's session started and I light a candle and I bring some incense and I make sure that I clear my space. So that when they show up on the screen, I'm ready with that good energy for them, because they're gonna have a lot of stuff going on themselves.

And I have to make sure that I'm not absorbing that. And I have to make sure that I'm present for them in their space. So those are, those were a few things. I mean, other modalities that I'm practicing are, you know, those dates there's moments in my day where the energy feels stuck. And I know I need to move my body.

I need to put on some music taking those breaks. I know that some days I, I need to engage in a lot of breath work. And so I'll set aside time for that set aside time to go for regular floats and float tanks and yoga practice. But otherwise, yeah, I'm making sure that that I'm, that I'm tending to myself so that I can show up.

At least clients that I'm helping. Mm.

Jessi Michel Agadoni: And so important. And, and what do you do kind of following client sessions, for example? So I'm thinking of, for, you know, our listeners who are a lot of us are doing healing work, right. Are healers, or are doing some sort of work where we are caring or experiencing other people's pain whether it's in their, I guess, their work work, or even just their day to day, if they're a mama or they're they're usually that friend or that partner, right.

That is the listener. That is the one that people come to to share their, their heart and their pain. What do you do when you've received something really heavy and you feel it, you feel it in your spirit and your body and maybe your mind isn't is struggling to release Rolling around in that person's experience, thinking about ways you can maybe help them or how you see it, or even just experiencing their pain with them.

What do you do to break out of that pattern?

Fraya Mortensen: Yeah. Breathing. Breathing is a behavior. I tell this to my clients. What else do you know what you can do? It's brave. We take it for granted. Hey, what do you want to do? I'm going to breathe right now. So a lot of mindful breath and placing my heart on my hand, on my heart and taking that experience with compassion and sending it out to the universe that it's, it's going to be taken care of.

This is not mine to take care of. And just like how I would debrief after a client in the probation office. I would write a case note now, write it all out, write all the thoughts and everything that they were saying. It would be there saved. And that's sort of my closure to that little experience. So, so too, with, with my client sessions, if something has in this work that I'm doing now in paths and highly sensitive people, when there's been something very deep, I will then use it to process in their followup session, email.

This is what we talked about. This is some of the stuff that stood out for me. Here's some additional questions that you could consider and then sending that off to them. And so it's kind of that sending that off to them. I've done my S my piece and I've left it with them so that they can. Take that for

Jessi Michel Agadoni: themselves.

And I hear you saying, I am the catalyst. That is what I am. I am the catalyst, not the carrier. So it's, it's that I'm here to ignite, to be a mirror and reflect back and ignite change by sending those questions. But I'm going to let it move through me as a channel, as a vessel, but then it's going to come back out, like I'm I have an open-ended an open bottom, like it's just re you know, it's coming back out and I put it back on them and say, this is your life again, ownership, you know, I'm just going to help you reframe, help you see it, and then move it into your life.

That is so beautiful. Fraya. I just, oh, I'm just so grateful for you right now. I think there's, we need more of that in this world. And you doing that every single time with each one of those clients is bringing that energy and entering. You know, people had to do that themselves and that's to have a huge ripple effect into this world.

So I, I believe as impacts, especially in this kind of new, interesting world, that's being reframed and restructured, we are so needed. And for a long time, I think a lot of us have been under the rock, like kind of hidden, you know, just like we don't, it's scary out there. I'm just going to either assimilate or not be seen.

And I don't think that's any, not that it was acceptable before, but no longer, you know, the, the empath, the, the HSPs, the sensitives that are here now, we are being called to speak up to allow ourselves to be different. Right. And, and that requires that ownership that requires that acceptance of our journey.

And as we step into roles of leadership, like you're demonstrating learning how to be ourselves without taking on others. Others journey's others pain, others emotions. So, wow. I'm so impressed by you honestly. So thinking about you mentioned John who am I love, and is there anyone else that you feel like has really spoken into your life, given you tools or new perspectives that you would share with this community?

You would direct them towards? I

Fraya Mortensen: have so many that came from my 20 years in corrections. You know, my mentors that I had, this woman, Susan Cox, who she was just like this legend to me, she would train me on how to facilitate groups and the particular language to use when people were. In a certain stage of change and we're motivated how to speak to people.

She taught me so much, so much. There was this, another man, his name was Paul Lamb. And I remember he was a probation officer, but then he suffered a stroke and the government of Ontario is wonderful with giving people accommodations. And he took on this whole new role at the correctional college where he was teaching people, Myers breaks.

He was bringing people dis you know, information on quantum mechanics and quantum physics and quantum theory that none of us had ever heard of before. So this is, you know, five years into my career and I'm learning all this stuff and fascinated about laws of attraction and started to eat that up. There was another mentor that I had, who mentored me in my last few years, I was there where I was learning a lot of the tools that I implement in my coaching now is Liz booking y'all.

She was another, just like legend that I looked up to. And now, you know, the people that I, that I really seek guidance from are in books. You know, Wayne, Wayne Dyer is a big one loud too in, in the Dow. Those are things teachers for me that I returned to Abraham Hicks and how she has these, these downloaded messages.

And Dr. Judith Orloff, who I was, she helps she's the author of the impasse survival guide. The one book that I recommend for sensitive people, it's like a Bible it's like a must read. I was lucky enough to interview her on my

Jessi Michel Agadoni: Instagram last

Fraya Mortensen: year. And and then most recently I've, I've invested in coaches for myself, you know and they've taught me an immense amount.

And just recently I completed an eight week mindfulness program through mindful leader and with a wonderful man named John Aaron. And he was just such a calm presence. And with a nonjudgmental attitude ask really great questions, listened so well. Just like this, this pillar of strength, and I'm so grateful to have had such a great leader in mindfulness.

And that is something that I will continue to, to seek mentorship with because I really believe that the bottom of it all. Is this mindful

Jessi Michel Agadoni: approach. Beautiful. My goodness. I hope everyone wrote all those down. If not, there'll be in the show notes so much. Goodness. And I think too, like as impasse we, we absorb really well.

And so. You know, a lot of times we frame that as a negativity, but it actually can be such a huge gifting, right? Such a positive thing that when we are exposed to people that are healing, people that are empowering people that you know, will bring us an amazing toolkit, we can absorb that really, really well.

And so seeing that flip side and utilize that, and that's what I'm seeing in you and hearing in you is this beautiful sponge-like approach where you're just like, let me surround myself with all these amazing people and I'm just going to soak it all up so that I can then ring it out all over my clients, you know, just, and bring it into my own life and and just be able to be that, that, that beautiful representation.

So I hope that those listening will emulate that and we'll see the possibility for themselves. You know, you are a living example of someone that has. At tenderness in a society that struggles with, you know, embracing that, but you've really flipped your story. You've allowed yourself to use that.

And, and really from pretty young too, it doesn't sound like, you know, it's been a progression. And so I think there's been a deep calling on your life, which is really, really cool to witness and see, thank you so much for sharing all of that. I, I just want to like, keep asking you questions, but I know this is your wonderful day off, and I feel so privileged that you joined us today.

So I just have like a few little silly ones that I always love to ask if there was like one truth. I know you mentioned mindfulness, so maybe it's around that, but one truth, one affirmation that if someone, if you could only give them one thing, what would you give them? I know it's a hard one, but it's hard because I

Fraya Mortensen: have so many.

I know you do. But the one that I probably say the most often is practice doesn't make perfect practice makes progress. I love that. And so just keep practicing. Life is a practice. You're going to make mistakes and that's okay because that's how you make progress. If you're not making mistakes, you're staying stuck.

So. You'll never be perfect for all those perfectionists practice doesn't make perfect.

Jessi Michel Agadoni: It makes progress. I'm receiving that. I'm personally receiving that. I know our listeners are receiving that. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to like live into that today too. I'm totally a perfectionist.

I always have to step back and see the journey. See the big picture. See the forest, not the tree. Right. Okay. So speaking of nature, and I know you are a nature lover, which I so appreciate. I am too. What plants, if you had to choose one plant and I say plant, cause there's like flowers, trees, whatever you want it to be.

If you could find one that really embodied your spirit, your personality, or what you want to be, whatever comes to your mind first is probably it. Right? What would that be? It's a true.

Fraya Mortensen: I love it. It is a big old tree. That's got some loss climbing up in and birds nest in there, and it's just got a lot of bugs underneath and it's just this beautiful space that of wisdom and growth and beauty.

Yeah, the tree for sure. What kind of tree? If we can Willow. Oh, so beautiful. Yeah. Blows in the wind. And it's just so fluid. Yeah. That

Jessi Michel Agadoni: guy, I see that. Yeah. I'm visualizing that. That's and there's dance to that tree too, which is you, right? There's that elegance. Yep. And that care and that willingness to sit and hold space for people.

It is that protection, you know, when you see the Willow tree. It's a safe room to enter into, which is so you, oh, I love that so much. Oh, Fraya. You were amazing. Obviously we're now all obsessed with you. So where do we go to follow you? Where do we go to continue to connect with you and learn from you? Give us all, all the information.

Absolutely.

Fraya Mortensen: I make it easy at Adam Pathak coach empathic coach on Instagram. And talk about the same handle on both of those. I also have a Facebook group and this Facebook group has grown over the last year that I've had it to both 4,000 members and it's called the high vibe and path. And I've got a bunch of guides that I've written that I can, that I share with people in that group.

And I'm going to be doing a three day boundary workshop this weekend, and that's free for the members to watch live in that group. So some real great great perks to join him. I also have a website free to be you.com two with the two number two, it's going to be under construction. So what you see right now is not what it's going to be in the coming weeks.

But that's got a lot of details about me and my program. And what I do and ways for people to book a call, if they're interested in working

Jessi Michel Agadoni: with me. Beautiful. Perfect. And now they can listen to you on the authentic com podcast is perfect. Spreading your wings, getting your information. Thank you for having me Jesse.

Oh, that's such a joy, honestly. Well, thank you. And for those listening, I highly highly recommend you check in and connect with Fraya, her Instagram and her take talk are just out of this world. So much information. And I think you will find yourself. Craving time with frail one-on-one. So but do it, take that ownership, take those steps.

And if you feel you really would like to be in a safe space to be held, to be carried through that journey free as a wonderful, wonderful resource. So thank you again for your, for coming on. And I look forward to, yeah. Continuing to watch your journey and watch you lead and, and bring all of us impasse with you.

Cool. I'll be here. Thanks for listening guys and can't wait for our next episode

To connect further, visit my practice website, merfleurwellness.com M E R F L E U R wellness or pop over to Instagram and find me under the handles @merfleurwellness or @authenticcalm. I'll see you soon.

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Resources Mentioned

To live authentically, rediscover your natural self, and restore your health as a Sensitive, peruse the resources below: