Holistic Mental Health: Calm, Clear, and In Control for the Rest of Your Life, Volume 2

By Laura Mazzotta

Natural health solutions from the experts

Laura Mazzotta leads an expert cast of co-authors in this second volume of her Holistic Mental Health series with a goal to expand and redefine the topic in a deeper, more effective way. With a powerful collection of profound stories, each author is a trailblazer for coura

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brave Healer Productions
• Release date: Apr 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781961493261

Laura Mazzotta

Laura Mazzotta is a Holistic Therapist of 20 years and Akashic Records Channel, grounding you into sustainable selfmastery through the expansion of your consciousness, confidence, and sovereignty in human connection. In the space of The Akashic Records, Laura extracts the deepest, most potent truths you could never access with the human mind alone. Connecting to this depth profoundly opens awareness, humility, consciousness, and self-actualization.What is self-actualization? Wholehearted self-acceptance, appreciation, and enduring self-love.Although Laura channels mind-blowing multidimensional energy, she believes even more in guiding you into how you are meant to do so. Extracting your own unique wisdom brings a level of love, empowerment, and liberation that secures your energy as your most unwavering foundation. All you desire in life extends and naturally unfolds from this space. Aside from her devotion to her mission, Laura loves spending time with her three children, husband of 26 years, and golden retriever. Her favorite thing to do is visit her mother in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, every couple of months and travel as many places as possible to explore the beauty and magic of Mother Earth. Laura also enjoys hiking, breaking into song at a moment's notice, bringing humor into almost any situation, and eating dark chocolate.

Book preview

Introduction

You’re Meant to Experience Discomfort and Magnificence

You’ve heard the stories of people finding themselves and figuring out the meaning of life after they’ve experienced something traumatic or life-threatening. They’re everywhere.

I have one myself, from when I almost died from sepsis eight years ago.

Why do we wait until we are completely knocked on our asses to make lasting change?

Why do we care for ourselves begrudgingly, as if deeply loving our bodies, minds, and souls is a burdensome load to bear?

Why do we check self-care off of a list without deeply immersing ourselves in how good it feels to simply be with ourselves?

Why do we fill the emptiness inside with temporary band-aids like substances, food, external validation, money, societal markers of success, and codependent relationships?

Because we are terrified of meeting who we actually are.

We either:

Don’t trust ourselves to sit with what comes forward.

Don’t want to see what we are really meant for because we’d have to step up responsibility (which is scary).

Feel inherently flawed or like nothing could save us from our personal hell.

Truly don’t see that there are other layers to who we are and are oblivious to how much better life could be.

Are accustomed to the way things have always been, and rewiring the nervous system feels like a giant undertaking.

Feel unsafe with too much goodness (like the other shoe is going to drop) and don’t feel the sustainable energy to maintain it.

Feel we should already know better and carry shame for changing too late.

Or have no clue where to begin to meet deeper parts of ourselves.

Like I said, I’ve been there, and I’m writing Holistic Mental Health Volume 2 to scream self-loyalty from the rooftops so you can limit the occurrence and intensity of challenges in your life and choose to love yourself just because. Not because you must, not because you’re supposed to (or you should), but because it feels freaking great.

Our souls were sent to this planet to experience sensation. That’s what’s missing from the spiritual realm: the tangible feeling of tender love, passion, vigor, warmth, comfort, joy, enthusiasm—you name it! To continue expanding at multiple levels, the universe needed to experience itself, so it created something called duality (described below) so we had a benchmark for knowing when we’re embodying these elated emotions.

Bear with me in explaining this concept (what’s in brackets are my additions to enhance understanding):

In Conversations with God, Neale Donald Walsch states, The soul seeks to experience [to continue its journey of being ever-expanding as the universe continues to grow]. In the beginning, that which Is [Source energy] is all there was, and there was nothing else. Yet All That Is could not know Itself, because All That Is is all there was, and there was nothing else. And so It could, and would, never know Itself from a reference point outside of Itself. Still, the All of Everything chose to know Itself experientially. In order to do this, It realized It would have to use a reference point within. If It thus simply divided Itself into portions, each portion, being less than the whole, could look back on the rest of Itself and see magnificence.

Human beings are part and parcel of Source energy (the portions that have been divided), which means we’re going to hold multiple flavors/portions of universal energy within. And universal energy is powerful as hell! We’re talkin’ black holes at the center of our galaxy that will obliterate anything in their vicinity into subatomic particles. And this energy is even less intense than Source!

So, you can see the potency of what we carry inside us, which leads to feeling these light and dark aspects in human form. There’s beauty in all of it. Instead of labeling parts of us as flawed, sick, dysfunctional, or problematic, we get to interpret sensations and experiences as energy always moving through us and inviting us closer into full self-acceptance, self-compassion, and love. We get to witness our magnificence and feel the intensity of being pulled toward universal change and expansion.

I’ll explain this from another perspective so you can really grasp this concept. Duality is most easily described by considering the two poles of a battery (a tiny representation of the magnetic and naturally polar energy of the universe). One side is negative, and one is positive. That doesn’t mean one charge is better than the other. They are equal and opposing charges. Put them together in one battery, and you have a power cell that can sustain itself and whatever it is powering for a period of time. Just like the human body!

In outer space, this kind of opposing energy results in the spontaneous creation of stars, planetary objects, asteroids, and the like. Internally for humans, this can present as new ideas, emotional experiences, physical sensations, and the feeling of momentum. Sometimes, these experiences can feel uncomfortable to the human body, but they’ll always result in forward momentum (even when you feel stuck).

You’re meant to acknowledge both the dark and light aspects of who you are, witnessing them without judgment, and welcome all forms of energy moving through you with understanding and patience. Ultimately, dis-ease is the culmination of several iterations of dismissing or trying to get rid of things we perceive as negative or uncomfortable.

This book is here to change that narrative. Holistic Mental Health Volume 2 invites into consideration all the stories, memories, feelings, and experiences you’ve labeled as toxic or destructive. Take your space to honor their toxicity and release any emotions that have deeply impacted you.

Then remember, it’s all sent to you from the universe for the evolution of your soul. Growing as a soul in a human body is not comfortable all the time. The soul has big work to do, and that’s no small assignment for humanity.

The shift is to bring more people into understanding all these big feelings and reactions as energy. Energy is in constant motion, no matter what form it takes. This means that literally anything, including the body, mind, and emotions, can shift at any time.

My request as you read this book is to open your mind and heart and deepen your faith in what’s possible. There are 25 brilliant experts in this book who have gathered to share their vulnerable stories and reliable practices that have helped countless people heal and thrive.

Trust their words and try the practices on for size. Connect with how it feels to read the following chapters and allow the feelings that come alive within you to be evidence that the energy is shifting. By the time you complete this book, something within you will have changed. Even the tiniest micro shifts make a world of difference in your journey toward wellness and self-appreciation.

Never forget that Source desires for you to feel the elation of your soul. Joy and love are the highest vibrations of the universe. When in doubt, choose to do something that brings you joy. Make a joy list that you can refer to when you’re in a funky space. And if you can’t get there with a simple choice, use this book as a guidepost and personal roadmap to help you feel unstuck.

Enjoy!

Love,

Laura

Chapter 1

The Freedom of Self-Acceptance

Welcome and Fall in Love with Every Part of You

Laura Mazzotta, LCSW-R

My Story

My parents are getting a divorce! I shouted as I rode my bike through my neighborhood.

I was never a quiet child. I spoke my mind and expressed myself more than some people appreciated.

I was seven when I found out my parents were getting a divorce, and I was anxious, restless, angry, and confused.

I jumped on my bike and started riding and screaming the truth. I’m not sure anyone even came outside. Regardless, my mom was understandably embarrassed, "Laura, what are you doing?"

Um, expressing myself! Not that I said that, then. I just lowered my head in shame, realizing I had opened my mouth, yet again, when it was not serving others’ best interests.

As a kid, there was nothing like the feeling of freedom as the wind blew through my hair, knowing my legs could pedal as fast as my heart was racing, and the exhilaration of the bike’s speed as I continued to move forward.

My bike was my happy place throughout most of my childhood. It’s where I could get away and not feel held back by my circumstances.

The fact is, I felt trapped. It was no one’s fault, but I definitely threw some blame around back then.

Who I was mostly angry with was God.

I sat in the moonlight of my bedroom window, on the floor, just peeking over the ledge. And I yelled at God.

How could you do this to me? I hate this! I hate You!

And God would always reply, I understand. And I love you.

I had many of these tantrums throughout my childhood, mostly at my father’s expense. Subconsciously, and without much information to the contrary, I blamed him for leaving my mother.

I don’t remember much about their relationship before this point. All I knew was that my dad was working a lot, my mom took on everything else (based on appearances), and there was immense tension between them.

But the angst settled in further when we had to travel back and forth between houses so often—every Wednesday night and every other weekend. I remember telling my friends, I feel like I live out of a bag. After I unpacked and settled into one house, it was time to pack up for the other.

I felt so unanchored, and not just because of the physical location and which parent I spent time with. Their houses were two completely different worlds. It was like turning on the switch for certain parts of myself and turning off others to feel a sense of belonging in each place.

It’s no wonder I became a Grade A people pleaser, molding to my environment to ensure each visit went smoothly. I felt like I was always on, making the most of my time/connections in each place.

As you can imagine, this did quite a number on my nervous system. No kidding, I slept with a knife under my bed for a long while because I was so scared. I didn’t feel safe.

I remember one particular night very vividly, a night or two after my dad left. My older sister, mom, and I were asleep in our separate bedrooms.

In the middle of the night, my golden retriever started barking like crazy. We all jumped up to figure out what was going on.

A car just pulled into the driveway, my mom said. She looked scared and confused. Who could it be?

I felt my heart pounding in my throat and my eyes opening wider. My breath was quick, and my palms were sweating as we stood on the top of the steps leading down to the first floor.

It was pitch black except for the headlights of the car pointing toward my front door.

The doorbell rang.

Stay here, girls, my mom instructed.

She quietly tiptoed down the steps in her nightgown and looked through the peephole. There was a man standing there in the dark. He kept knocking on the door.

My mom said through the door, I’m not opening the door. What do you want?

He replied, I’m a taxi driver, and I just dropped off your son. I need to be paid.

I don’t have a son, said my mother.

Well, he said his name is and that he lives here. He just ran around back. Someone needs to pay me.

At this point, my sister and I had come downstairs. We didn’t want my mom to be alone and wanted to be next to her.

We crept into the back rooms to see if we could see anyone through the windows. Our hearts pounded in our chests, taking hesitant steps, not wanting to be seen by anyone who was potentially outside.

My mom replied to the taxi driver, That’s my husband’s name, and I do not have a son. There’s no one out back. I don’t know what to tell you, but I’m not opening this door.

He hesitated, and we waited for what seemed like a lifetime before he eventually said, I’m going to call the police.

My mom replied, Go right ahead!

He promptly returned to his car and drove away.

We all crawled back into my mom’s bed and cuddled, sitting up with the dog at our feet, staring like deer in the headlights for hours. Initially, we waited for the police to arrive, but they never came.

We talked about what happened, how freaked out we were, and how, of course, this had to happen right when my dad left. But we were grateful to be okay and to have each other. We even shared some nervous laughter.

It was then that we felt the palpable understanding of just being the three of us going forward. It felt strange but also intimate that we were so banded together.

There was a sense of relief, coupled with intense anger and helplessness, that my father was no longer in my childhood home.

The tension between my parents was initially lifted, but there was an emptiness I couldn’t pinpoint at that age.

I sought solace in my dog, prayer (even if I wasn’t super friendly to God all the time), and, inadvertently, codependency.

I had trouble making decisions on my own and needed excessive validation for how I felt and who I was. I was a chameleon, having learned to adjust to any circumstances I was placed in. This was a strength but one that also scattered the many parts of myself throughout my life experiences.

My mother took me and my sister to a therapist to make sure we were processing things okay. He gave us the green light, but man, did I appreciate the safety his office offered me. There was a gentle, calm presence I hadn’t felt in a while. Maybe ever. This was my first nudge that I wanted to become a therapist.

I led a fairly active and enjoyable childhood after the divorce. I never missed out on things I wanted to experience, and I remember countless moments of side-splitting laughter.

However, I always had persistent anxiety in the background. Whether it was shuffling back and forth, trying to make everyone happy, or overachieving to prove my worth, I wasn’t feeling good enough inside. Hence, becoming boy crazy starting in middle school (maybe even before that)!

Some of this anxiety was genetics, conditioning from my parents, and their own unresolved trauma, and some was a product of circumstance.

I eventually came to realize how much of a blessing it was that my parents got divorced. If they had stayed together, I wouldn’t have found my voice. I would’ve been lost in the space between their conscious and unconscious anger at each other, reflecting the confused and disintegrated parts of themselves they weren’t able to resolve within the confines of their marriage.

Instead:

I had two completely different lifestyles to experience, one being more linear and academic and the other being more laissez-faire.

I had fresh traditions (two Christmas mornings) and adventures to enjoy (skiing and European vacations with my father and camping and cruises with my mother).

I had two seemingly dissonant perspectives on life, and I got to witness how each unfolded. We’ll keep this fairly simple to ‘conservative and practical’ vs ‘spontaneous and wildly liberal.’

I witnessed new expressions of love when each of my parents remarried. I was able to experience their affection and sparkles of love in their eyes that I hadn’t seen between my parents when they were together.

What I know now is that much of my anxiety stemmed from the scattered, people-pleasing aspects of myself that I had learned to adopt. It came from the angry, resentful, jealous, and spiteful parts of my parents I had previously not seen.

I was trying to integrate it all into one piece, to make sense of who I truly was, apart from the events in my life and experiences in my childhood. My motivation for doing so was not just for myself; subconsciously, I was clearly invested in saving my parents from their own demons.

Ultimately, I grew up with insights about myself and the nuances of human behavior that were far beyond my years. As much as this included a lack of trust, I was grateful for the awareness.

In fact, I was fascinated by it, which is exactly what led to an in-depth study of psychology and spirituality. In my senior year in college, I dove into a year-long research fellowship that combined both disciplines.

I designed and conducted a study and authored a 90-page manuscript on the connection between parental attachment and attachment to God. Not surprising, considering I had quite a push-pull relationship with God since I was young, and the attachment wounds with my parents’ split felt like they were in direct relation to my wavering faith.

I could never fully get behind organized religion, though, no matter how hard I tried. I felt a sense of home in the church but didn’t feel like I belonged there. I always felt closest to God when I was camping, lying on the top of my conversion van, looking at the sea of stars overhead.

It was only when I got older, both of my parents had cancer, my father died, and I got sidelined with sepsis, that I found my own relationship with spirituality that was unrelated to my past.

I found myself in this place where I could receive and explore this relationship with God on my own, without conditioning, religious tenets, or the stimulation of the outside world. I was completely laid up, and my soul had been calling to me for many years. Now, I had the chance to listen with full presence.

In getting to intimately know my soul, I saw all parts of me come forward; the anxious, insecure, bored, angry, lonely, resentful, jealous, cocky, liberated, abundant, powerful, sad, hilarious, loving, divine, masculine, feminine, sexual, feisty, and resilient parts of me. I’m sure there’s even more I’m not listing here.

Seeing all of myself was quite an emotional process. I grieved previous versions of myself, was confronted with parts of me that weren’t even mine to carry, came to understand the human manifestations and stories that differed from my core essence, and learned how to celebrate all of who I was.

That’s the exact process I’m going to be taking you through below, step by step. The full integration of yourself and your story isn’t meant to happen in one fell swoop. Take one aspect at a time so you’re gentle with your nervous system as you gradually come into complete self-acceptance.

The Practice

Are you ready to welcome and fall in love with every part of you, no matter how your ego judges and labels these parts, so you can feel immense freedom and self-love? Here we go!

To be guided through this practice as a meditation/visualization, head to my website for a recorded experience:

https://www.theakashictherapist.com/resources

Know that you’re welcome to pause this exercise any time you feel too far beyond your comfort zone or in need of greater support. Listen to your body and intuition first and foremost. Unless you’ve recently experienced a traumatic event, I encourage you to extend yourself a bit beyond your comfort zone before pausing to soothe and offer compassion to your nervous system.

1. Begin standing up, perched on your tiptoes. Bounce up and down on your tiptoes, shaking out your entire body. Shake your head, hands, arms, neck, torso, and booty. If you can’t stand to do this, feel free to shake out as much as you can while seated. Don’t forget to breathe deeply, in and out, extending your breath deeper and wider as you continue. This releases stagnant energy and begins to decouple what’s been stored in the body from the conscious stories and understanding that accompany the memories.

2. Now stand still for a few moments, arms at your sides or held in front of you like you’re holding a ball of energy. Just be with this energy you’ve generated for a couple more breaths.

3. Take a seat and close your eyes. See if you can hold the sensation of this energy you just felt when you were standing. Breathe in a relaxed manner.

4. Allow your shoulders to fall back and down, your jaw to loosen, and your face to soften. Take deep breaths from the base of your spine to the top of your head and back down. Do this three times.

5. In your mind’s eye, welcome in any part of you that desires to be seen and integrated right now. Allow this part of you to come forward in any way it desires. It may arrive as a physical sensation in the body. It may arrive as an emotion bubbling up. It may arise as a deep knowing, memory, or narrative of some kind, and it may arise as a visual (e.g., a person’s face, a color, a symbol, an image, or a scene).

6. Give it a moment to just be there with you, to be seen and witnessed.

7. Without placing any labels (e.g., loneliness, inner child, trauma, anxiety, anger, negativity, depression, etc.), invite this part of you to speak its mind however it desires. Just give it space to be heard without judgment.

8. Thank this part of you for sharing so openly, and ask it to share the purpose of its presence in this lifetime. Offer space to receive its expression.

9. Share your appreciation for the service this part has offered you. Let it know you’ve got this now, and it can be liberated from the burden it has carried for so long.

10. Enfold this part of you into your heart space with a deep breath, requesting that its wisdom be integrated, and any outdated cords, ties, agendas, or belief systems that do not align with your soul’s core essence be dissolved into Mother Earth (where they will be rebirthed into something else).

11. Take a moment to honor and appreciate yourself for committing to such an intimate practice. Give yourself space and time to rest, drink water, move your body, listen to music, or head into nature so you can fully actualize this energetic shift.

After you determine how this practice makes you feel, you can repeat it with other parts of you desiring to come forward. I recommend giving yourself anywhere from 24-72 hours initially to see how your body and field adjust.

You can also use a modified version of this practice in a moment when you’re feeling emotionally activated or in physical discomfort. Simply recognize there’s a part of you speaking that would like to be heard, and offer some space and time to integrate it with steps 5-11 above.

The purpose of this is to be an intentional, loving, compassionate, patient witness for all parts of you, even the ones you label as dysfunctional or uncomfortable. As you continue to welcome these parts of you forward, little by little, you’ll notice yourself as less reactive, more understanding (of yourself and others), and more appreciative of even the most challenging parts of your story.

The fact is, most of our reactions are projections of subconscious material that we don’t have access to at the ready unless we do consistent practices like these. By opening to see the hidden parts of ourselves that are operating on autopilot, we take responsibility for how we show up and experience more intentional, aligned, and intimate relationships and experiences.

Do you see how coming into an appreciation of all parts of you will eventually grow into a life you love? A self that you love? This is the integration that gets you closer and closer to the actual you. The soul-version of you that came here to share love, joy, and conscious connection.

It also separates you from blaming others and life experiences, which ultimately just reflect these unresolved aspects of you that have not yet been fully accepted and loved. Owning all these parts liberates