I am thrilled to introduce you to Erin Nicole Porter on the podcast today. She is a Spiritual Business Coach, Master Practitioner & Trainer of NLP, Breathwork Facilitator, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner in Training, Adult Attachment. Erin works somatically with women to help them heal internally, she is a business coach and she teaches others to facilitate spiritual coaching
In this episode we will cover:
- Types of somatic work
- Layers of self and connection
- Digging into yourself and finding your essence.
You can reach Erin Porter on her website, or on Instagram and Facebook. You can purchase her book “Burnout to Breakthrough” on Amazon.
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The Legalpreneur Podcast is advertising/marketing material. It is not legal advice. Please consult with your attorney on these topics. Copyright Legalpreneur Inc 2022
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Episode 185: Finding Your Core with Erin Porter Transcript
Andrea: [00:00:03] Welcome to the Legalpreneur Podcast. I’m your host, Andrea Sager, founder and CEO of Legalpreneur, Inc. As a serial entrepreneur and someone that works exclusively with small business owners legally protecting their business, I’m dedicated to covering common legal issues faced by business owners, providing you with the business knowledge you need to catapult your businesses growth and showing you just how some of the world’s most elite entrepreneurs have handled these legal and business issues themselves in true attorney fashion. The information in this episode is not legal advice. This is for informational purposes only, and you should always consult with your attorney before implementing any of the information in the show. Hey there. Welcome back to another episode of the Legalpreneur podcast. I am so excited about today’s guest, Aaron Porter of Aaron Nicole coaching and she is about to blow your minds with so much amazing stuff. Like what she does just it’s all, it’s all the spiritual stuff that I’m like really deep into. And she’s just an amazing practitioner at what she does. So I’m really excited for you guys to hear from her today. So, Aaron, thank you so much for being here.
Erin: [00:01:13] Thank you for having me. I’m super excited.
Andrea: [00:01:16] Me, too. Well, let’s get into it. Just tell everybody who you are, where you come from, what got you to where you are today.
Erin: [00:01:26] Yes. So again, I’m Erin. I live here in San Diego, but I grew up on a little farm town in Ohio, so like out in the middle of nowhere and then went down the the rabbit hole of what’s called student affairs. So like in college, a first generation college student. I love the support that I got from the staff members there. And I was an orientation leader, did all the things very like high achieving go, go, go, burn out, had a million medical things from burning myself out. But what led me kind of down to this work was going to get my graduate degree to supporting students. So my master’s degree is in like counseling, helping students in distress. I was on call for a university of 50,000 people. Like there’s just a lot of like leadership development managing and that. And during that time I was also growing a network marketing company and working in that business. And I had a moment just as I was graduating and I was getting ready to go out into my first full time role where I was like, I can’t keep doing this. It’s a field that’s amazing and has a lot of impact. But it’s like if you’re taking emails at 2 a.m.
Erin: [00:02:41] and you’re the first one into the office at seven and then you don’t leave until 10:00 pm, like you’re rewarded for that. And with all of my burnout, all my health things, all all of those things, I was like, I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep going and going and going. And I discovered at the time some people that were doing health coaching and online coaching, but they weren’t with a network marketing company, they were doing their own thing. And I was like, Wow, I could create my own courses, my own program. So I was kind of already doing that while working full time. And so that led me down the rabbit hole of coaching and working with people. And I had a moment in that where I was so focused on the strategy, I was like, You know what? I need to learn this strategy and I have to learn this thing. And I kept searching and searching and, you know, my business was growing. But I kept coming back to that moment where I was like, okay, I’m not I’m not getting somewhere. And I actually hired a relationship coach at the time.
Erin: [00:03:43] We did kind of like a trade. I was doing health coaching for her and she asked me, Who did you have to earn more love from and how did you have to earn it? And I was not like I’m an emotional being, but like, not like I was not a crier. And I just broke down like broke down crying. And I realized all of these achievements, all of these things that I did were so that I could earn love. And I was like, Holy crap, my mind was blown open. And then down the rabbit hole I went and I realized it wasn’t the strategy that was holding me back in business. Like, Yes, you need that and that’s important. But it was my own trauma, so it was my own attachment to things. It was all of these different experiences trying to earn love and earn success and just thinking that when I get to the next income level, then I feel safe, then I’ll feel worthy, then everything will be good and then yeah, needing, needing something to shift in there. So that opens me up to like all of the work that I do now, but that’s been the journey.
Andrea: [00:04:45] Oh my gosh. Like same journey as me I was when it really hit me. If you’re listening, I mean, you’ve all heard me on my transition period leaving my ex husband, but like September of last year is when it hit me. Like everything I’ve done up to this point is to earn the love of someone else, and I just have to love myself. Like, where did you go from there? So like, it hits you like, okay, everything I’m doing is for the love of other people. Like what happened from there.
Erin: [00:05:17] Yeah. So I mean, another big thing that was kind of underneath of that too is like it was really hard for me to let people in and like let people hold me like I would hold everybody else, make sure everybody else was good. But I’m like, no, no, no. Like I got me very self reliant. And so that journey opened up kind of at the same time too. And that’s where I started looking at deeper mindset work, subconscious healing, and I took more of like a top down approach first where looking at the conscious mind looking. The subconscious. And then I kind of had another moment where I felt like a lot was shifting up here, but it wasn’t kind of shifting down in my body. And so then that opened me up to more of attachment work, somatic trauma, healing, and it’s just always kind of been this little path. It’s like we have so many layers, and I think people get frustrated a lot because like, but I’ve healed this, I know this breakthrough, I know this thing, but it’s like, yes, you have to like I have to work on it consciously. And then in the subconscious and in the body and in the emotional and in the spiritual, like there’s layers of it. And yeah, then I feel like my layers just kept on layering. Is that if that’s a word. And, and then I went on to not just help a lot of people with that, but also create my own coaching certification so people can be trained in these modalities that are so supportive and bring a bigger ripple out to this work.
Andrea: [00:06:44] That’s amazing. So can we I want to know more about semantics, because I’ve always heard the term I know it’s a thing in healing, but what exactly is somatic work?
Erin: [00:06:55] Yeah. So kind of like the most simple ways to talk about it is a lot of people no more talk therapy like you’re talking with somebody or maybe you’ve done coaching work or whatever that is. You usually have a lot of breakthroughs. That’s a lot of people is kind of entry way into inner work and you work top down. So we’re literally working from the mind and then you down into the body shifts with more somatic based healing is we’re getting into kind of like the issues that are in the tissues and we’re getting into what’s living inside of your physical body because what a lot of people don’t realize is Soma body. We hold a lot in our body that you can travel. You want to think your way out of something. But if your body is getting like all of these signals of, stop, I can’t do that, listen to me, pay attention. And you’re like, Yeah, I’m going to keep going. I’m going to keep doing my thing. At some point, it’s going to either take a toll on you emotionally, mentally, physically. This is where we see a lot of disease pop up in people because of that manifestation. I see it a lot in more burnout because I work with a lot of high achieving people and they’re like, Go, go, go, go, go. And then they feel like, Oh, I have these like this body and these emotions and these things. So think somatic, think more of like body based healing. So bottom up, seeing the sensations, what’s here, what’s present, what’s alive. And people can be kind of like kind of be a resistance to that because for a lot of people avoiding the body, it was a defense mechanism. I know for me I’m like, okay, if I don’t have to feel what’s actually here and I just keep going and doing, then I’m safe. And that was my defense strategy. It worked out great. I needed it. But body based, somatic based healing kind of helps us go, Oh, okay. There’s stuff here to explore.
Andrea: [00:08:51] Yes. So that’s exactly what you’re explaining was exactly how what I was experiencing with Melissa. So if you’re listening, Erin knows Melissa Lepidus, who has previously been on the podcast and I’ve interviewed her and she was my go to relationship coach when I was basically I just stopped working with her recently and she helped me get through my transition and when I first went to her I couldn’t even identify an emotion. I didn’t ever cry. And she like now I cry every day, pretty much like, Oh, it’s time to have my afternoon cry session, whatever’s coming up. But I and like achieving, achieving, achieving. Like, she was the one that helped me get through all of those breakthroughs and exactly what you’re explaining that you went through. Like, that’s what I went through. And I mean, I just I despise getting into my body. I despised feeling.
Andrea: [00:09:57] And now that’s like I’m like, oh, what am I feeling right now? I need it. It’s like complete 180 transformation. Like, it is insane. And I know I personally like, I know I’m doing a million times better than I was a year and a half ago. But because I’m so much more in tune, I realize like there’s still so much more work to be done. So I think, like for me, I think somatic is probably is something that’s really next for me. So is this like similar like is this like a breath work or is it just like feeling like.
Erin: [00:10:30] Yeah, you’ve experienced a lot of it with Melissa. Hers is more like in the body. Some of the stuff that she brings in.
Andrea: [00:10:38] Yeah. So like really pinpointing like if I’m feeling an emotion, where am I feeling it? In my body. Yeah, yeah.
Erin: [00:10:47] And like being with the emotion or kind of noticing what happens there. So a lot of people do different somatic based healing. Breath work is one that you just alluded to, do a lot of breath, work, attachment and parenting work that happens. I’m training with somatic experiencing. So again, that’s more what’s happening in the body. I just was actually in a four day training. I was kind of telling you about that right before this. And in the past four days, we’ve been helping people process sexual assault, inescapable attack, medical trauma, anesthesia and motor vehicle accident trauma. So it was crazy. I actually was the group demo for one of these things I did for a motor vehicle accident, and I do a lot of somatic work. I do it weekly, but I am now able to actually move my head like all the way here without having to turn my body, because I had so much energy and emotion from that accident that was stuck in me. And we process through it at 60 people watching me process this trauma yesterday. And it’s.
Andrea: [00:11:59] So you actually couldn’t move your neck like that before?
Erin: [00:12:02] No, like I could move it to about right here, but like to be able to go there. Yeah. So like it helped on a physical level. But the thing was like, so here’s the, here’s the theme, if you will. I was feeling this stuckness and like it kind of made like a season where I’m like, okay, like things are moving. But I also feel like this little bits of stuckness and we started talking about the car accident and I’m like, I’m noticing too that there’s, there’s a stuckness that happens over here when I get kind of like frustrated or locked in. And so we process through that and some of the concussion symptoms that I’ve had in that yesterday. And I’m like, I can move my neck. And I could also notice, too, this was a big edge for me, is that like people were there, like 60 people were there, and I could actually like feel them and let them in because group stuff has been like my biggest edge to, to work of like really letting a group hold me like I can lead a group, but really feeling like held by another group. And so at one point I looked over and I’m like, wow, like there’s all these people here, and I could feel them. So it was it was fascinating and really great and. Yeah.
Andrea: [00:13:11] That’s incredible. Oh, my gosh. That’s amazing. I know. Like, there’s it’s so crazy, like, because just like you were talking about the layers I like, I feel like I’ve been doing the talk therapy now. I know like for sure, like, yes, I’ve been doing the somatic work as well. So let’s keep talking about those layers. Like what? So if I know there’s like not a prescription, there’s not a one size fits all, but like, what are more layers? Like you go, let’s say your intro is like that talk therapy, and then you get to somatic. It’s like, what else is there? Like, I’m always curious. Like, I like to dig and dig and dig. Like, what else is there?
Erin: [00:13:42] Yeah, well, I think it kind of depends on like what angle you want to want to hit it from. So some people, again, like you said, come in with the talk therapy. Some people are processing more like the emotional level. Some people are processing more on the body, more on the spiritual. So let me give let me give like a topic that might help. So let’s say receiving. So everyone wants to kind of work on receiving more, allowing more.
Andrea: [00:14:06] I’m laughing because that’s literally like one thing that I’ve been working on over the past few weeks is receiving.
Erin: [00:14:13] Perfect divine divine download and timing. So when you first probably learned about receiving, you probably learned about it from like a conversation or like realizing that you need to like open yourself up to receive. So now we have a breakthrough normally in our conscious mind of like, oh my gosh, I usually push people away. Or I always give the example of like saying like, thank you. I receive that like when someone supports you, so you have that conscious connection. The second layer of it might be that you’re feeling it on more of an emotional level. So maybe that. You can emotionally receive support from somebody else. Kind of similar on like an attachment level of noticing maybe someone’s here with you. So we receive from self, self to self, self to other self to group and self to source or God universe, whatever you connected with, they’re feeling it on the somatic base level. But I like most of the time, I’m looking at different ways that we can explore things. I’m kind of looking at it more in relational work. So like again, how do you receive from self? I’m guessing for you it felt more easy to depend on your self versus depending upon on others.
Erin: [00:15:28] Same. So I have worked like I know I got me like that’s usually something that’s not hard. So at first it was like, okay, well I’ll need to let somebody else in and really actually feeling them that they’re there without me needing to care, take them or feel like I had to like owe them something or not be there. And then I started to work it more on a group level. So me not just leaving groups and being the one in charge, but actually feeling a group hold me. And then next layer of that is actually feeling that like universe God is here to support and I can really rest into that versus finding control in my day to try to make make things happen. So I don’t know if that fully answers your question, but that’s like a lot of like a good place to go. Okay. What are my layers in? This is kind of looking at the different self to self, self to other self, the group and to source.
Andrea: [00:16:19] That’s huge. And literally what I’ve been working on because it’s so like I know I can rely on myself like I. Can get anything done. But lately and any time like specifically, it’s been coming up when people want to buy something for me or do something for me, I’m like, No, it’s okay. Like, I got it myself because I don’t. It’s I’ve always felt it very transactional base. So it’s like, oh, if they do that for me, I have to do something for them. I do it myself. But now like I’ve been very, very intentional about just receiving and not feeling like I have to give something in return. Yeah, like, that’s been huge for me the past couple of weeks.
Erin: [00:16:59] Yeah, yeah. It’s such a journey.
Andrea: [00:17:01] Oh, my gosh. It has been the biggest journey. So tell the listeners what is more like specifically like what is the work that you do with clients?
Erin: [00:17:13] Mm hmm. Yeah. So on the one side of of my business and I’m doing more coaching based work I’m looking at, I’m working with coaches, business owners, people who are normally pretty like type-A, high achieving. They want to go to the next level. And we’re looking to kind of see, you know, how is your trauma or your attachment trauma specifically impacting your success? And what a lot of people uncover is like, okay, I don’t feel like I can slow down. I don’t feel like I can be. Rest is scary. I must be doing, I must be going, I must be achieving and really starting to help them scale for more ease versus just like, go, go, go. Chase, chase, chase. Do, do, do. And so through a lot of different modalities and techniques, we kind of start to find that like, Oh, I can actually feel safe being and resting and things can still happen. I think that’s the biggest fear when people start to do this work is that they think they’re going to lose all of their success. And a lot of people don’t know who they kind of are outside of their businesses and doing and achieving. Like they don’t realize that they have an essence and they’re not about just what you do. It’s about who you are. And that being this will help you expand more than possible. So it’s that type of work. And then I’m also certifying people to become coaches in hypnotherapy, life coaching and a lot of other modalities. So twofold.
Andrea: [00:18:40] Like so do you when you say Essence, when I heard Essence, I like, I immediately think, Oh, the feminine essence is that kind of what you teach on.
Erin: [00:18:51] And yeah, there’s a lot of feminine principles and like body based principles that I like to, to work with. But a lot in the simplest way to describe it, when you’re thinking about your essence, it’s like, who are you outside of being a mom, being a business owner relationship? Like who just are you at your core? And when I ask people that, a lot of times they start getting like, Who are you? And they’re like, I’m a mom and I’m a business owner and I’m this and I’m that, which is all true. But I’m like, well, like, who are you at your core? Like, what are you? And they’re like, it’s like, I don’t know. Yeah, yeah. And I did the same thing. I was like, I don’t know. I’m like, I’m on all my titles. I’m everything that I do, I’m that I can’t tell you who I am just as a being. Because I was never like mirrored and reflected that I earned love and I got attention and support for what I what I did, not just who I not just and resting and being. So, yeah, that’s kind of the essence piece. It’s like who you are at your core. Are you love? Are you overflow? Are you a beautiful fairy? I don’t know. Like what? Whatever it is that you’re being, be more spiritual. It cannot be. But that’s a good thing to explore.
Andrea: [00:20:02] So how do you explore that? Like.
Erin: [00:20:06] Yeah. It’s a lot of like uncovering and like how I look at this work. It’s a lot of times it’s like peeling all the layers back of like who you are outside of all of the things. And just finding like if all that was like not here and you were just like that spark of life that basically walked into this world, like, who are you at your core? And we usually have to go, okay, well, what’s everything that I’m not defined everything that I am. Oh, yeah, yeah. So it’s an it’s like a, it’s a digging kind of to find that. Yeah.
Andrea: [00:20:38] That’s one thing I have to dig into now. Like my, in my brain, I’m like, oh my gosh, I don’t know, like, I got to figure this out. Oh, my God. Okay, so that’s something that I’m going to be digging into. So wait for a podcast episode eight.
Erin: [00:20:52] If I answer Essence.
Andrea: [00:20:56] So talk to the audience a little bit as well about the legal side like you. So we’re filing trademarks for you and I know you have your entity. Like when did this start coming up for you? You’re like, Oh, I know, I need to get this done for my business. Or like, tell me some of your thoughts around like how that came up in business for you.
Erin: [00:21:19] Yeah, you’re going to you’re going to cringe. I didn’t have anything, honestly, until probably like maybe 20, 20 ish. And I had. I had nothing. Oh, my gosh. Like starting my business. I had PayPal. I didn’t have, like, sales pages or landing pages half the time. So there was there was no contract attached to it. I just was like, people are going to honor all of this and it’s it’s going to be great. That’s fine. And and to be honest, like it, it was. And then I realized something too. I’m like, okay, if I really want to be a CEO of business owner and I want to not just like be legit, but I wanted to I want, I looked at it at a receiving way. So I’m like, okay, if I want to hold more people, I need the legal structure and all the other structures in place. I back in probably up to like 2019 kind of thinking. I just ran everything from my personal card and my personal credit cards and yeah, nothing was separated. So I was like, okay, you know, I need to step into that role as a CEO. And that looked like starting with a 1 to 1 contract and a group contract and whatever the other things are that you need for your website. I just start with the basics. I’m like, Okay, cool, I’ll start here. And not just give people like a PayPal link and call it a day and then like opening up a business bank account and filing by LLC thing, which I was like, that’s, that gives me a headache. And so like reaching out to you to do the trademark, that’s like all I have to do is just tell you what this thing is and the rest is taken care of. That’s huge. That stuff, again, can just send me in like a whirlwind of stress and yeah, so I had nothing. And now I just keep feeling like I keep adding on. It’s like, okay, we’re going to add on the trademark next. And I mean, wherever I need to go from there, I’ll go. But yeah, it’s been my journey.
Andrea: [00:23:13] No, and that’s huge because a lot of people think, Oh, I have to get all this stuff done at once, which if you can, yes, that’s great. But at least start small, like get the LLC filed, start using contracts and then start filing for trademarks, copyrights, because like, yes, ideally you want to get it all done at once, but that scares people. Like that scares people so much. So the way you’ve done it, I think that’s. Very traditional trajectory for a lot of business owners in a similar position as you. So at least you’re getting it done like it is getting done.
Erin: [00:23:50] Yes, I wish to. I did it. I did it earlier. Like I always say, I’m like, I wish I did more of the legal stuff and had my financial shit together, if you will, beforehand, because then I went into like cleanup mode where I was like, okay, these are all the things now that we need to get and whatever. I mean, it worked in the way that it needed to work out. But I always tell my clients like, get this together because it’ll just support you in the long haul for sure.
Andrea: [00:24:15] Right, right. And yeah, I mean, there’s no I mean, I would say there’s no wrong way to go about it, but the best way to go about it is getting it taken care of upfront. And for those listening, if you’re like, Oh my gosh, I love Aaron and I would love to like learn more from her. She’s going to give you her links, but she will also be speaking at Legalpreneur live in October. Her and Melissa Lapides, they are going to be speaking together and it’s going to be a hands down. It’s going to be like the shit like I’m. Because I’m bringing. I like. I keep telling you guys, I’m bringing people like I want you to walk away knowing holy shit. Like, that was amazing. I had no idea I needed that in my life because all the experiences that I’ve gone through over the past 18 months, that’s exactly how I felt like, Oh my gosh, I didn’t even know I needed that. So, yeah, so excited. One more question I ask every guest. What is your number one business tip? Doesn’t even have to be related to your niece to legal. If you if somebody came up to you off the street was like, Aaron, I need just one business tip. Like what is like what is your number one business to please help me what you got?
Erin: [00:25:37] First thing that comes comes to mind is like allow it to be messy. Like we get so caught in this perfection and we don’t want to do anything. We don’t want to take a risk because we’re afraid of things not working out. It’s like you just have to permission yourself honestly to go for it, allow it to happen and enjoy the journey. Yes, journey.
Andrea: [00:25:57] Yes, it’s a journey. And messy action all the way. Amazing. Well, thank you. Okay, tell everybody where can they find more about you if they want to start working with you now, how do they get it done?
Erin: [00:26:09] Yes. So I am pretty much Erin Nicole coaching on all the Places: Instagram website, the Energetics of Business podcast. And if you’re interested in some of the burn out stuff, you can find my book Burnout to Break Through on Amazon as well.
Andrea: [00:26:25] Amazing. Thank you so much, Erin. Here at Legalpreneur, we’re committed to providing a supportive legal community for all business owners. I know how scary the legal stuff can be. If you found this information helpful. I would be so grateful if you could share it with the fellow business owner. And quite frankly, it doesn’t cost anything to write, review or subscribe to the show. Your support helps me reach more listeners, which allows me to support more business owners in their entrepreneurial journey. Have any questions or comments about the show? Feel free to drop me a line on Instagram, I promise. I read all of the messages and comments and if you want to be a guest on the show or know someone that would make a great guest, simply fill out our application form and a team member will reach out if we think it’s a good fit. I’ll see you in the next episode.
