Reclaiming Your Inner Gold: Healing Trauma & Boundaries with Annette Knopp

In this transformative episode of Chat Off The Mat, Rose sits down with Annette Knopp — trauma therapist, teacher, and author of Mystic Nomad: A Woman's Wild Journey to True Connection — for a deep dive into reclaiming our "inner gold" by healing trauma and creating healthy boundaries.

Annette shares her own journey of leaving Germany at 21 to travel the world in search of belonging after a childhood shaped by her parents' unresolved wartime trauma. That search became a decades-long study of somatic healing, attachment patterns, and the subtle energy body — work she now brings to clients and retreats around the world.

Rose and Annette explore:

• The childhood wounds that catalyzed Annette's healing journey
• Why boundaries are so challenging for trauma survivors — and where to begin
• The difference between somatic healing and talk therapy alone
• How early attachment patterns shape our adult relationships
• The "inner gold" ceremony: a ritual for reclaiming projected qualities
• Boundaries as a spiritual practice — honoring our true yes and no
• A simple breath practice for feeling safe and connected in the present

If you've ever felt like your suffering was something to fix rather than something to understand, or like true connection was something you had to find outside yourself — this conversation will meet you exactly where you are.

Annette's book Mystic Nomad closes with the same "inner gold" ceremony she guides listeners through in this episode. It's a potent ritual for reclaiming the qualities we've long projected onto teachers, parents, and guides — one that calls us home to our own unshakable wholeness.

Annette Knopp, MA, is an internationally renowned meditation and dharma teacher, retreat leader, transformational counselor, and author of the award-winning book Mystic Nomad – A Woman's Wild Journey to True Connection.

With over 25 years of dedicated meditation practice and integration work, combined with her background in psychology, spirituality, and the healing arts, Annette has a profound understanding of the human experience. She is certified by Naropa University and teaches Diamond Approach Meditation.

Annette teaches in Germany, Costa Rica, and virtually from her home in Northern California. She founded Being & Belonging, an online forum dedicated to cultivating compassionate communities worldwide.

Passionate about raising awareness of our shared humanity, Annette illuminates both our inner gold and blind spots to support living soulful, empowered lives in harmony with each other and the Earth. Her uncanny ability to attune to people touches into the core of their being.

Connect with Annette Knopp: AnnetteKnopp.com | Book: Mystic Nomad: A Woman's Wild Journey to True Connection

Connect with Rose: rosewippich.com | rosewippich.substack.com | Book: Empress Rising: Own Your Energy, Trust Your Wisdom & Rewrite the Rules of Aging

✨ The deeper work lives on Substack and in my book.

Rose Wippich — weekly essays on Remembering, Returning, and Reclaiming the energy, voice, and years that are yours.

If you're ready to stop fading and start reigning, meet me there. Substack Link

Rose Wippich is an Energy Alchemist & Empowerment Guide, Reiki Master Teacher, qigong and yoga instructor, and author of Empress Rising. She's here for the woman who knows she's ready for something more — the one who feels the pull of her next chapter but isn't quite sure how to step into it.

Through her book, podcast, and teaching, Rose inspires and guides women in midlife to reclaim their energy, identity, and voice — and step boldly into their Empress years.

📖 Book: EMPRESS RISING: Own Your Energy, Trust Your Wisdom & Rewrite the Rules of Aging. 

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Produced by Rose Wippich | Chat Off The Mat Podcast

© 2026 Rose Wippich

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Welcome And Guest Setup

Rose 0:00

Welcome to Chat Off The Mat. I'm your host, Rose Wippich. This is where we explore energy, empowerment, and what it means to embody your Empress energy. Today's guest left her fiance, her career, and the safety of a conventional path at 29 to follow an inner calling that took place across the globe. From ashrams in India to the Australian Outback, from profound awakenings to devastating betrayals. Annette Knopf is a meditation teacher, somatic counselor, and author of Mystic Nomad: A Woman's Wild Journey to True Connection. A raw and luminous spiritual memoir about seeking, suffering, healing, and ultimately coming home to embodied truth. In this conversation, we explore the pearls of the spiritual path, guru culture, spiritual bypassing, trauma, intimacy, and what true connection actually means. Welcome, Annette. Thank you for being here on Chat off The Mat. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

A Childhood Without Belonging

Rose 1:26

Just to uh let uh the listeners know uh a little bit about yourself, can you tell us about your background and also um what started you on this healing uh journey, traveling the world and eventually writing your book? Thank you.

Annette 1:40

So I was born in Germany and into, let's say, uh quite complicated uh childhood home. And I think that that starting pad, there was so much suffering and so much pain, really uh pressed in on myself from very, very early on. I suffered, which I didn't know back then. Of course, today I can give it names, but really from a profound lack of belonging. And together with I think a very innate attitude for devotion, these two strands of the suffering and the devotion to something that is maybe invisible, a sense of presence that I could feel in nature. All of that sort of set me a little bit on the path of becoming a seeker, a seeker for belonging, a seeker for true connection, a seeker for relieving suffering in myself. And so that was the starting point. And I left my country when I was 21 years old. I I moved to Spain. There was a sense of in Southern Europe that there's a little bit more, you know, the culture is a little bit more heart-centered, you could say, or even family-focused. And in my native culture, Germany, I I really struggled with this emphasis on productivity and duty and cerebralness and all of that. And uh so I really needed to leave to not just reinvent myself, but even feeling who am I when I'm stripped of you know that familiar environment. And and that was the first starting point. And then with time, I saw wherever you go, there you are. And I suffered quite a lot from depression. And the first time those balls of depression lifted, when I found myself in a yoga and a Tai Chi class years later in in Spain, in Madrid, where I lived and I was studying. And it was for the first time that someone had given me the instruction to place my attention somewhere else than just being hijacked, you know, by the negative chatter of my mind and the continuous rumination and the self-doubt. So that was there was a first opening in the sense of, you know, that we can do something with our attention. And from there things started to unravel. And I think there was a deepening of my hunger and a deepening of I want to understand more about the mind, I want to understand more about, you know, the human experience, how we can decode it, and how we can find contentment or a sense of deep okayness within ourselves.

Rose 4:19

Yeah. Yeah. And you and and your travels took you to many, many places, and in it most many times, and it was I I find it quite brave that you did that, that you ventured off on your own. And many times that, you know, you didn't have money or you or you sought places to live, and but you were so inspired in a way to just pursue this understanding or to uncover an understanding, a deep understanding of yourself. And that kept you on your journey. And you just kept going and going and and and living that experience. And and I and I find that fascinating. Yeah. Thank you. Do you feel that a part of your upbringing, you talk about a lack of belonging, it was like maybe some aspects you felt abandoned in a way by maybe family, your environment, your culture, and you realized that. So you needed to connect with nature and maybe the teachings themselves, and that's why what drew you away from your environment.

Annette 5:23

I believe today that I haven't hadn't even really landed in my body. So the circumstances at home, so my own parents' unresolved trauma, both of them growing up, uh, I mean, my father was older, but during Second World War and my mom more post-war Germany, there were so many factors and their own upbringing that didn't allow them to be as present and as uh consistent or protective as you know, a child, as we say in good enough parenting by Winnie Cott, there wasn't enough good enough parenting. So there was also for my psyche, you can say, there was very little uh ground because for us to really starting to rest within ourselves, we need to have a bodily felt felt sense of safety. And that was not something that was given in my environment. And it's not so much that my parents didn't want that, but it was just my father became a high-functioning alcoholic, my mother is diagnosed as borderline. So there were just not enough positive protective experiences for me to really feel here, here is where I am, even here's where I start, here's where I end. I I had literally almost no boundaries. So there was a lot of turmoil, uprootedness, and and and pain within that. I think there was just from me, for whatever reasons, we all have different strategies around our trauma, right? How we cope with that coping right to cope differently. Yes. And for me it was the escape forward.

Rose 7:06

So I was going to say say that it was almost when I read your book at the beginning, I felt this sense of escaping, which is not a bad thing. You really tuned into that inner compass, that guidance that told you that you needed to leave here in order to experience your um and unpack what what you needed of and it brought you all the way to where you are now, full circle to a teacher, teaching others on how to do that as well.

How Suffering Loosens Its Grip

Rose 7:37

And you and you talk about suffering, and as I'm hearing this, you know, suffering as a teaching in the Buddhists they we talk a lot about suffering suffering. And I wrote here as a question like, do people hold on to suffering as a coping mechanism or through conditioning? Now you took that suffering, you didn't hold on to it, you and you didn't escape it, you went on a journey to figure it out. Like, what what is this suffering I'm experiencing? Do you feel sometimes people hold on to that suffering because they're so familiar and that they don't know how to break free or remote? I think themselves right, yeah.

Annette 8:14

I don't think any of us does it with their right heart and mind, you know, holding on to suffering. However, there's so little tools, there's so many so few conversations of how how can we actually relieve suffering and what suffering is. So in my experience, walk working with clients, and in my own experience, I don't think anybody likes to suffer. And I know there's sometimes some people say, oh, you're just holding on to it, you're and I I don't find that. It's just we don't know any better way. And once we understand right the mechanisms, then we have a pathway out. And even then, as you probably also write in our own lives, it's not just seeing at once, right? There's sort of like a a practice that we need where you where we walk ourselves out of suffering again and again and again. Yeah. And uh and there are different tools for that, right? Yeah.

Rose 9:11

Yeah, it's not a one-time and the suffering is over, because as you start to unpack and you work with one particular thing that's suffered, right? Something else becomes uncovered. You know. A way that I think modern language around suffering is core wounds. You know, a lot of people talk about the core wounds, and uh, you know, my parents also came from Italy during the World War, so World War II. And I relate a lot to your story about how their conditioning was reflected in their parenting as well. And they didn't know any better because that's how they were raised, right? Um, but but a lot of women, and maybe women our age, which is a lot of my audience, we came from that environment where people, you know, had parents that didn't know how to correctly parent or parent the way they did. And maybe they didn't have the tools today. We have the internet and we could find all these teachers. But you know, but it's not too late. I mean, you embarked on your journey at 21, you went and traveled and learned from teachers all over the world. But there are women who are older and maybe have yet to really recognize that they've suffered and that it's not too late to to to learn and to find the teachers.

Annette 10:20

Yeah, I totally agree. And also I need to say we don't have to we don't have to travel the world. Luckily, today a lot is available and it's amazing how many resources are available online and also how many quite solid teachings are available, as well as therapy and you know, your Qigung teacher, yoga, meditation, right? It's no longer this thing that you have to find somewhere on a mountaintop or in the east, you know, thousands of miles away. So that's so that's one thing. And the second thing is wherever we are is a good place to start. And ultimately all that we have to deal with is this present moment. And of course, yes, we want a plan, yes, we need to make arrangements, but I think even with suffering, it's really helpful to see, okay, what is my experience right now and and what is here, and how can I relate to my experience so that it there's space around it, or I can probably learn to sit with a particular sadness that before I didn't have the capacity to sit with, and letting myself actually be with the experience cleanly versus trying to cover it over or telling more stories about it. So all that we ever have to deal with with is really in this moment, and and a lot of suffering has to do with that. And I'm not saying let's say unnecessary suffering. I don't want to even go into, you know, living in a war zone and right uh physical pain, chronic physical pain and so on and so forth, but this psychological suffering that so many of us of us, you know, are inflicted by, that's something we can work with. And we don't need to look for the future. We can look in the moment of how we can disentangle that.

Rose 12:16

Yeah. And I think having the practices, it strengthens our ability to move through that suffering as well, like you said, right? You know, it's important to have that practice. I wanted to talk more about that certain practices later. Yeah, so so yes, thank you. Thank you for that.

True Connection Beneath The Waves

Rose 12:30

That was that's important. Um, I want to talk a little bit about true connection. You talk about true connection, I think that it may even be uh one of the tools to help us with the suffering. Talk about what your definition of true connection is.

Annette 12:47

So I think I like to use an analogy. I like to use the analogy of the ocean and to understand sort of the different the the territory of our inner landscape, also the territory of reality, you could say. So if we look at an ocean, we tend to look only at the surface level, right? We see the waves, we see the weather patterns, we see, you know, choppy waves, pleasant weather patterns, and so on and so forth. And that's where I think um most of us just look at the surface level of reality and we look at, you know, certain emotions I have or certain things that happen, and we also experience ourselves. If we just at the surface level of reality, we experience ourselves exclusively as this independent wave, right? There's this wave of Rose, there's this wave of Anetta, there's the wave of my husband. And as long as we believe that life is just this, you know, these separate waves on this vast ocean, it it feels quite uh disconnected. There's always a lot of struggling and reactivity with whatever is going on. And then when we go a little below the surface level of the waves, we come to, you know, there's some energies like these oceanic currents, the flow of energy, which you could say is our basic sense of aliveness. And I think all of us right now can even tap into well, how does my energy feel today? Do I feel vibrant? Does my energy body feel depleted? And no right or wrong, just noticing, right? Is it calm? Is it frizzled? Is there restlessness? And that's sort of the the dimension of our own being, of reality that you deal a lot with as a qigong teacher, right? Is the cheats or prana, they would say. And then when we go all the way, if we could imagine we would go all the way to the bottomless depth of the ocean, we notice that underneath it all there's something that's incredibly quiet and undisturbed. And that's the dimension of our own being, that even as we talk and even as our mind is chattering, and even as we have, you know, grief or sadness and problems to solve, but something within us is profoundly at rest. And it's similar to the experience of when we go to sleep and we have the deep, deep, dreamless sleep. We we really come to rest in this essential beingness where we stop being a somebody who tries to be happy, we stop trying to avoid suffering at all costs. There's something that is just so. And that for me is a hallmark of connection that we that we familiarize ourselves with these different dimensions of our being, so that also from where we source ourselves in in daily life doesn't need to be from just a disconnected place of I'm just this mortal human being struggling to to understand life. No, there's something deeper within all of us, and a big part of spiritual practice is about remembering that, recognizing that basic okayness, and then familiarizing ourselves so it becomes more and more like a part of our identity. Yeah.

Rose 16:08

Yeah, I totally understand that. I I I the way I phrase it is that we return to a sense of self. Yes. And we because we get so disconnected from that because of day-to-day chaos and all the trauma, or even not even trauma, just anything of the smaller challenges in life. And then we f we forget those pieces of ourselves and we need to remember them. Yeah. I I feel that because we don't look outside we like to look outside of ourselves when we are suffering and when we need help, but a lot of that strength comes from inside. And when I read your book, I felt that strength and that resilience that you had overcoming all those situations and you know, going through your journey. And and you've met a lot of teachers in your life, some that were very helpful, and some that taught you some lessons. And now that you're a teacher as well. And so in your book, at the end you talk about this, I have it here. Sorry. The golden, holding someone's inner golden, and you talk gold. And I love that analogy, but it it does come from a Jungian analyst, uh Robert Johnson, that you took that, and I love that I'm going to share that, share that with my students. But it's about being a teacher and having a relationship with a student. Can you share a little bit about like the the importance of that connection, but also the importance of that having that autonomy like as a student and not relying solely on the teacher's teachings?

Power, Projection, And Teacher Roles

Rose 17:32

Right, yeah.

Annette 17:33

So uh first, I never I never call anybody a student. And not that there's anything wrong, I always call people clients. And I have to say there are different ways of how one can uphold the role of a teacher. So I'm very non-traditional. If we would go into different traditions, whether it's Sufism or Tibetan Buddhism or this or that, right? There are certain ways of how also different traditions say a teacher should be. And I am non-traditional in the way of that I've found that many of the ancient ways that often come from East, from very different cultures than our Western culture, can often be almost counterproductive for us Westerners. I think as Westerners, we have a very different type of wounding. We can say, yes, we all have the different minds, we all have the same minds, you know, how it works and how it produces suffering. But there is something in our culture, and I think one particular way in which our modern Western culture's suffering is held together, is by this incredible emphasis on accomplishment, on productivity, on externals. And so there is very little value given to what we call, you know, that beingness. Or let's say you go to certain cultures where the sacred, whether you want to call it spirit, God, whatever name you want to give it, is so interwoven in everyday life. There are rituals, there are so many ways of how our psyche, our mind can orient towards something that's beyond this, just this everyday person that struggles to, you know, become happy. So having said that, there is, I think many of us suffer from so much more sense of worthlessness. So then the there's also then more a propensity towards projecting perfectionism or projecting an all healing mother figure, all healing father figure outside of ourselves, so that this pain, right, that we feel inside, this disconnect, hopefully can be just, you know, made go away. Go away, go away. Exactly. So, but back to your question. So me, I I I find myself I'm more of a spiritual friend or a mentor. And and I think what's really important for me is that I humanize myself. So, and I think this is also part what I why I wrote the book, even though originally I wanted to write a manual and wanted to, you know, hand down, pass-on practices, inquiries that I find really helpful. And then it became very clear, oh my God, I have to write something personal. And and I thought then also this is a fantastic way of sharing, you know, the the trials and tribulations, the pitfalls, you know, on this awakening journey. And and also really showing that, you know, we we all struggle. No one gets a free ride. And and that there's a way of how everything can be worked through. So I think humanizing ourselves as guides, right? And hopefully, hopefully creating uh containers, creating conversations where there's not too much of a power differential. I think these are sort of really important pieces for me when I facilitate and when I teach.

Rose 21:00

Oh, I love that. I I agree. I love the term guide, I love the term mentor. I use that myself because I think that I don't feel I'm above or below everybody's on the same level, right? We're all here, we've all suffered, we've all are learning, we're all on the same path. And I also feel that we learn from our students, quote unquote students, or uh the people that are in our container of practice. I I love that. That was great.

The Twig Ritual And Inner Gold

Rose 21:26

One of the you have a ceremony in your book towards the end of the book, so I encourage everyone to read the whole book. Please don't skip any any parts because they all build on one another in the chapters. But at the end, you have us you you were guided to do a ceremony where you picked up twigs along the beach and ceremoniously in each twig represented a teacher. Can you talk about that? I I don't want to share your story because this is your story. Can you tell us a little bit about that in the context and and uh how how how one can do that to release certain things, you know, right.

Annette 22:04

Good. So when I tend to teach for a week, like I have week long retreats and you know shorter workshops and things, but when I tend to facilitate a week-long retreat, I always like to end the week with the participants having a ceremony, having a ritual. I have different ones. In the book I'm describing this particular one with a twig, where they get to see what they might have projected, not just onto me during the week, because it's so easy, right? I'm there to facilitate, I know what I'm going to say, and you know, and so it looks like, oh my God, she is just so whatever, right? We all tend to have this comparative mind and so quickly we can sort of look at someone and thinking they have it all together or they know so much and they're so wise. So I'm having these rituals where people get to reclaim the inner goal that they have left with somebody else, whether it's me, whether you know, in this ritual where they find all a trick for each of their teachers. And a teacher is not just you know a guide or a therapist or a spiritual mentor. A teacher can be you know that that good friend that we had but then we felt betrayed and they're still holding a piece of us or you know a parent and so on so forth. So the ritual is about taking a half a day and finding tricks for any person where you still feel there's something hanging there. And particular where you feel there's something hanging there thinking you know you you see they are ahead of you or you know they're so much wiser or they have so much strength and you can't find this in yourself. And the idea is of you know naming those things and claiming them and they're different steps which I didn't go in full length in the book about but how you can feel that quality within yourself and recognize oh my God this is also within me. It's not just out there. They're just reflecting that gold back but it's about owning it. So we burn then the twigs in the ritual which is sort of I let go of that projection I sever the you know that that energetic yeah angle. Yes. Yeah so I bring it back to myself and yeah I claim my inner gold. Yeah.

Rose 24:27

And I and you had a very powerful experience from that. So now you teach that to others and I and I love that and I I just love rituals and I think that one's really powerful because I if I can share just I I too feel that I've learned so much on my journey from many people but oftentimes I'm still seeking the the teachings of someone else but once I am in their presence and listen to them I'm like I know this stuff. I already know this I'm I've already embodied this what else am I seeking? So I need to I'm starting to I I've been reflecting on that. You know before I want to connect with someone else I ask myself is this the right person am I going to learn something different? Perhaps I am or am I just not recognizing within myself that I have the tools that I need in this journey too. And we can always learn new things. No absolutely yeah yeah there's no end. No no end I mean I see you and I'm like I would love to to be in your presence during this fire ritual and I'm gonna try to manifest that someday it's I would love to to learn from you.

Annette 25:34

It's just your your uh story inspires me I want to talk about the somatic trauma or attachment therapy because you work with that or you do that and somatics is a word that's tossed around a lot can you talk about that and and what you do in that sure so uh somatic comes from soma and that's the Greek word for body and and it's the other the the pair

Somatic Work And Attachment Imprints

Annette 26:00

together with the psyche so psyche and soma and when we say we work with the body we mean the embodied brain we mean the nervous system or if we would look at the east like you from your background with Qigong or from my Tibetan Buddhism background we would say we work with the subtle energy body. But why is that so powerful? Working with the body whether it's nervous system energy or we understand it as the survival brain that's wired all through the body is because thoughts have a somatic attachment. So whatever thought I entertain whatever thought I think has sort of an impact on my energy body but also the other way around so much of what we are trying to achieve sort of a sense of contentment or peace or having a clear mind if we just work only with the mind we we we just sort of work with one one third and two thirds of the iceberg right underneath seem to be unaddressed. So when we include the body and what I mean is also our embodied feeling physical sensations in our practices we we start to get in touch with experiences unprocessed experiences blockages we start to feel certain knots you can say and we can start to work with those knots instead of just looking at the content of our mind and learning nurturing our capacity to to track what is going on in the body is my body in a fight response is my body in a flight response is my body my nervous system collapsed is it depressed so there's a a a very vast territory where we can sort of walk gently in and disentangle certain organizations that that keep us stuck in sense of dis ease we could say and also ignorance in a certain way so when I started to study and train in working through the body with attachment trauma and attachment trauma means trauma of early bonding experiences I very quickly saw how it is in this early early bonding experience of how our caregivers handle you know us as an infant how they talk to us how they hold us how they how they cherish us or not right? How they how they nurtured us how they nurtured us or the lack of that that has a deep imprint on this internal sense of self this sense of self that feels oh this is how love feels like love feels just extremely austere or love feels punishing or love feels I'm on my own. So there are implicit memories in our subtle body implicit memories laid down in our body that become like a wallpaper in our everyday life. And what I mean by that is we don't notice anymore that these experiences are there and they're actually largely influencing how we feel about ourselves, how we feel about the world and even the relationships that we seek and relationships how we experience them. So we you know need to go into that territory in order to make explicit what has been there and laid down like a blueprint for who we think we are and what do we believe we deserve because your body does give you that feedback and right it's being aware I I teach that in my classes too.

Rose 30:28

What are some practices that that you do or that people can maybe begin I know yoga is one of the practices

A Simple Practice For Safety

Rose 30:35

and Shigang or meditation.

Annette 30:38

Are there any other practices that you a person can maybe get curious about well I have to say you know I I became a yoga teacher and if I look back at my early early days of a yoga teacher even though I was you know very interested passionate diligent and practice I could see how I still was so disembodied. So we could do any amazing practices, meditation and so on so forth and still remain somewhat you know dissociated but also our culture tends to really foster cognitive bypassing. You know, yes we are able to talk about everything but we're actually not fully feeling it. We don't create a relational home for the experience that we are having. And that's something that we do need to practice even when we don't have trauma I don't believe anybody is free of that because life you know is traumatraumatizing to a certain degree but here's an important practice or important inquiry and it is quite simple which is learning to find some sense of safety within ourselves moment to moment and I want to offer this to our listeners even if we cannot find maybe safety within our own body in a moment we can allow ourselves to maybe look around in the environment where we are seated right now and as you listen and let your eyes maybe catch something that looks soothing or looks beautiful it might be a piece of art it might be a photo it might be a plant it might be the color of your wallpaper something that feels yeah let me just rest there. And allowing our eyes to rest on that visual object that feels pleasant or neutral or calming just for maybe 10 20 30 seconds just allowing it to sort of come in and then feeling tracking in your body where can you feel that that effect does maybe something softening you or does something come to settle and then staying with that which feels settling or soothing or coming down and really savoring that for a moment. And that is sort of like a very simple way of coming back to a baseline of safety and this is an important platform because when we have this as a everyday little practice of bringing myself back to a regulated sense of self, helping my nervous system to settle then also we create more a carpet of, you could say of of greater resilience from which then we have a bigger capacity to then spend time with other parts of ourselves that feel restless or that in pain or feeling grief and feeling sadness because we do need some sense of some window of tolerance in order to mindfully consciously engage with difficult experiences. And that's something that is just part of life. Difficult experiences or unpleasant they will not stop. There's both brutal and the beauty and the pleasant and the unpleasant there's no way around it as long as we're in a body yeah and and and your voice was very soothing and and you're just giving yourself permission also even if you're not if your nervous nervous system isn't this regulated at the moment even just to give yourself a gentle pause throughout the day absolutely absolutely yeah it's it's a radical act to slow down yes to slow down and say whoa what is going on around me is what it is and I need to take responsibility. It doesn't matter how lovely the teachers are how amazing it is to read books we do need to practice this and and this is sort of where we really need to understand that freedom is something that you know comes from within that's beautiful.

Rose 34:51

And and I know you you you uh encourage meditation or meditation has been a big practice for you for a

Meditation, Grief, And Self-Worth

Rose 34:58

long time as as have I and I have found that my meditation practice changes over time and sometimes I I detach from it or forget it. But there is importance in in having that meditation what have you discovered through your own personal practice or maybe seeing how it has impacted or affected others even a five minute meditation practice because it's not as difficult as what people think.

Annette 35:26

Yeah and and also you know meditation is is just one word but it can mean so many different things to so many people. I think the most important thing for myself has been am I worth it? Because for many years I also struggled with you know consistency and it's not even consistency or discipline it is I would not show up for myself meaning I thought everything else was more important or distracting myself versus really showing up for my own happiness and I don't mean haha happiness but sort of like yeah I deserve this peace and I deserve this time to work with my experience because no one out there will be able to give that to me. So it had a lot to do like I'm worth it. I'm worth it this time to sit down and practice. So that's one thing. And the second thing about meditation right again mindfulness has become a household name but there's so much more than just mindfulness and mindfulness can go deep and wide and is profound maybe what we could bring in here for our listeners is that often meditation we think of it as something to do. Right? We we think like meditation is now the act of sitting down and being on the chair or the cushion and watching the breath or becoming aware of the stream of thoughts and naming it and so on so forth. But we could say that meditation is actually our true nature. I think in the deepest sense the practice of meditation was always about waking us up waking us up to what is already wakeful inside what is already okay and complete and at peace within us. And another aspect of meditation is really learning to come into relationship with our experience in a healthier way. So instead of becoming falling completely under the spell of our experiences let's say let's say I I'm grieving these last few weeks a lot because there's a tremendous loss in my in my personal life right now. So grief for me is no longer a problem. It's sort of like a wave that I am able to feel with and I can feel it quite cleanly and then it it expands and it feels tenderizing and there's a a sort of a befriending to an aspect of life that there will be loss right but if I look back at how maybe 30 years ago I would have dealt with a loss like this for one I would not have allowed myself to feel grief because I grew up in a grief illiterate family. There was no grieving you just get through you soldier through right so being in relationship with the pains, the losses in our life the challenges versus making it then this means there's something wrong with us requires sort of some practice where we can be in relationship with what's happening without drowning in it, but also not ignoring and suppressing and dissociating. And that's a big part of meditation practice. Yeah.

Rose 38:47

Yeah thank you for explaining it that way and and I think part of it is also giving yourself a little bit of compassion when you are going through some of these very deep emotions. And I agree with you I think for me I've suffered through a lot of grief in my life too but my practices have helped me to just deal with them better and and know it's part of life and and not not become the victim and and not lose myself and and not fall down and become depressed. I I I know how to to be just be very lovely thank you.

Annette 39:24

Is there anything else that you would like to to share or talk about yeah nature yes let's

Nature As Medicine And Relationship

Annette 39:30

talk about nature I do want to bring in nature uh because nature was and is such a big part of my healing journey and the sense of well-being but I do believe also that we do need a different relationship with nature as a you know collective humanity nature for most of us in modern cultures yes we appreciate it you know we go for hikes we all know how nourishing it is to you know walk along the beach or being out in nature but we still as a culture see nature is something separate from us. We don't experience ourselves as nature. And partly you know that's of course a lot of philosophy or even certain religion you know hold nature as this this dirty this yeah this this raw dirty something that we need to subjugate and and make work for us, right? But there's also because most of us we live constantly in roofed places and then we go to work in a you know driving in a car subway train then we work in a factory a clinic or again like sort of a shelter place roofed so so rarely we are really exposing ourselves to the raw elements. And there's something not just exposing ourselves to us but starting to have a conversation with nature not in the sense of oh this tree is so lovely but talking to a tree being when yeah yeah I do that right yes lovely so when we are with nature um or river really treating this nature being as as sentient animate something right and what happens when we start doing that I find like our the sense of being so separate already sort of fizzles more out and there's we tap into a sense of aliveness right you speak again about the energy body we tap into that moment into that energy body of nature but which is also ours right because we are not as separate as it all appears to be and a beautiful practice from my that lineage I've been studying with from the Andes is for instance when you take a breath so often we speak about mindful breathing but maybe next time not just mindful breathing on your meditation cushion or with your eyes closed when you're out and you take that mindful breath and then turning whether it's the sky or maybe there's a tree, something in nature or the sun and taking in not just the breath but imagining and feeling and I say imagining for me for me it's reality but you take in this refined energy it's called sami in quechua so taking in this love and really allowing it to come in like a nourishment and when you exhale exhaling that love back or the gratitude and the or and this is again another very simple practice of finding beauty and breathing in beauty in our everyday life just a few minutes. And that also helps to rewire you know this negative biased brain that we all have that tends to get stuck on problems and what's wrong with me and what's wrong with you. Yeah.

Rose 42:43

And you can do this anywhere even if you live in the middle of New York City there's nature. And exactly I have to I have to say that I am at fault of not connecting more I feel a lot that I'm in a bubble especially now that today we have two feet of snow. But the first thing I do every morning is I I walk outside and I I say good morning yes whatever's out there. And one of my practices is I love the moon energy so I actually step outside and I I look at the moon and I I open my arms and I feel that that energy that you were talking about that love and that connection that I feel it's you know a part of me because we all are part we're all yeah all connected into Voven. Yeah yeah and I I I do hope that and I I feel that there's more of a move towards connecting with nature and feeling more grounded I I hope there is because I feel there is I hope there is and I and I thank you for bringing nature up it's so important very and I do talk to trees they talk to me first and so I listened and we we talk and it's so important because there is this mystery and this mystical but they're also teachers I feel that the nature in in of itself is is a teacher. I agree that up thank you.

Annette 44:06

I know you have some offerings in Costa Rica as well and perhaps some online things can you share a little bit about what you

Offerings, Boundaries, And Belonging

Annette 44:12

do offer sure thank you I offer online on Sunday mornings every two or three weeks depending a little bit like how busy my schedule is every two or three weeks on Sunday mornings I offer an hour free online class where I guide meditation for 25 minutes and then the space is open I don't do any recordings. People share from the heart what they're struggling with or what they maybe need to unpack or question about practices there's everything is welcomed and it's lovely. It is a very respectful caring community I feel and then I just was teaching for the last few weeks here at our retreat ceder in in Costa Rica Blue Spirit I was teaching about embodied listening uh different ways of listening inside understanding the nervous system but also how to unpack difficult experiences and uh I have a big retreat always in December this upcoming December the retreat is called Boundaries Being and Belonging which I co-teach with an amazing colleague trauma therapist so where we go really deep into that sense of self but also learning boundaries and working with you know the early early attachment experience that that inner self-model that might feel like I'm not good enough or I'm not you know I'm unlovable and so on so forth. So to lift that up more and more and coming more into that genuine sense of self that our deep innate completeness and okayness.

Rose 45:49

So that's something that's a that's a wonderful topic to talk about boundaries and I think especially for women I write about it as well boundaries are important to protect our energy right and value who we are as part of that concept.

Annette 46:05

Yeah yeah yeah and yeah yeah it did you want to say something else? I thought oh I wanted to say something more about boundaries but it's because it's so interesting right it's even boundaries you know of course there are physical boundaries and sexual boundaries but even these boundaries of like no this is this is what is true for me right the boundaries learning to honor when we actually feel a no versus reflexively saying yes and overaccommodating right which is a a big collective conditioning for many women these days so there's also there's a sense of boundaries what is really true for me. Okay yeah yeah I teach that as well it's a we're super important.

Rose 46:44

Yeah yeah so I know that you you have a website uh Annetteknock.com I I'll put everything in the show notes so there's there's

Closing And How To Follow

Rose 46:51

uh all that thank you and I'll also put a link to your book Mystic Nomad a woman's wild journey to true connection and I have my copy here and I have underlined so many things and have notes it is an amazing book so I encourage thank yeah anyone to to buy that as well as thank you I I honor your presence and your time here and and your teachings thank you so much and thank you Rose for having me thank you ready for more subscribe to Chat off the mat leave a review and share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it learn more about embodying your Empress energy and claiming your throne at rosewicht.com until next time I'm Rose Wippich reminding you wear your crown proudly and live the magic