Today we’d like to introduce you to Lotara James.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Two weeks before 9/11, I transferred to a school in Greenwich Village to finish my bachelor’s degree. I had moved from the quiet forests of Northern California to a lively and noisy new reality and was so excited to be at a school that reflected my values around education. What happened leading up to and on that day is a whole long story in itself, suffice to say I learned so much and the experience was so dense that it took over a decade to unpack. A month and a half later at the strong urging of my family, I went back to California, incapable of understanding how deeply I had been affected, likely because I was still in a state of shock.
When telling people that story, they would often say, “What bad timing!” I always responded that I knew being there for that life-changing event was a gift somehow. I didn’t understand how exactly at the time, but I knew in my bones that I was supposed to be there for it. The next 11 years, I dealt with an increasing list of symptoms and no doctor could pinpoint the sources. I hurt myself at work three times and was put on temporary disability at the age of 26, having been athletic and injury-free all of my life. I was unable to lift a phone, carry a bag of groceries or complete other simple tasks without extreme physical pain.
Gabor Mate’s book “When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress Disease Connection” and Peter Levine’s lists of PTSD symptoms in his book “Waking the Tiger” were two key things that helped me solve the mystery. I had that experience of the clouds parting and the sun shining through at the moment I realized I had long-term untreated PTSD. I was overjoyed to know what was at the root of a variety of symptoms that seriously limited my ability to live a fully engaged and happy life.
It had become clear to me that 9/11 was the externally traumatic event that shook loose all my early life trauma, and the Universe let me know it was time to address it – it was no longer lying undisturbed underneath my conscious mind! Once I had a name for what was happening, I explored my options for treatment. I knew that just telling my stories was not sufficient. Traditional talk therapy stirred up old emotions/energy that then didn’t have anywhere to go, which led to me doing things that weren’t healthy to desensitize myself to the pain. It was 2012 and I knew there had to be a way someone could wave their hands over me and make the pain go away! I posed my question to the Universe and heard that quiet little voice whisper, “What about that BodyTalk thing?”
Two people had mentioned BodyTalk to me in years past but I wasn’t ready for it then so it had been filed away in my memory bank and it popped up right at the moment I needed it! I immediately looked it up and every cell in my body was vibrating with a resounding “YES!! This is it! This is the thing you’ve been looking for that will heal you, and you can practice it and help other people heal too.” I signed up for a class straight away and started my journey in early 2013. After my first four days of intensive class learning the basics of BodyTalk, 90% of my physical pain was gone! I knew that I had come into something magic, like in the way true brilliance makes the mind stop and the body rests in that place of recognition of something wonderful. Recognition of Truth.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
My life before BodyTalk was definitely more challenging because I didn’t understand that what was happening underneath my conscious mind was negatively impacting different areas of my life. BodyTalk gives people access to the secrets that are within their bodyminds. Our bodies are always trying to communicate and if we don’t speak that language, we can go years trying to solve the puzzle and can get frustrated (or bankrupt) when traditional and alternative methods of healing don’t resolve our issues.
The biggest struggle for me has been in building my business. I have always been very sensitive to other people’s energy and emotions so I needed to learn how to have healthy boundaries so that I could do this work without sponging up the energy that the client was releasing. Another part of caring for myself with healthy boundaries looks like minimizing intake of data and time on devices so I’m not big on creating content for social media which is how many businesses are promoted these days. Most of my clients come by word of mouth which is awesome because that means my clients are benefiting from the work and share their passion for it with others.
Growing up, I was one of very few Black kids in a conservative beach town where White Supremacy was and still is palpable. I was taller than everyone my age and stood out so I tried (unsuccessfully!) to hide in order to feel safe. Opening a business required that I work through a lot of my fears around being visible. Many of those fears were personal to my life, but a lot of the deeper fears were from generational trauma I inherited from my Black Ancestors. The beliefs about needing to be invisible to survive were activated when I imagined myself as a professional offering a service to the public. As my luck would have it, BodyTalk is incredibly effective at finding and releasing these traumas, both personal and inherited. BodyTalk allows me to heal and fulfill the dreams my ancestors had for me. From a spiritual or consciousness perspective, it also helps my ancestors because whatever they were unable to process in their life that got passed onto me can finally be released doing this powerful work.
BodyTalk is a remarkable healing system that can radically change people’s lives and to date, it’s not very well known. A large part of the work that I do is educating people about their body’s amazing capacity for self-healing. BodyTalk taps into the infinite resources within you to heal yourself – what else does that?! Your innate wisdom (the “you” that knows how to replicate cells to grow a body, stop bleeding and regulate hormones) knows you better than anyone, so let’s ask your innate wisdom what we need to do to get you feeling better! There is an awesome new online marketplace called WellSet. They have done a lot to help me spread the word about BodyTalk and get my feet wet doing public events that always end up being super fun. I’m grateful for the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone and meet other people in Los Angeles who are passionate about health and wellness.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the We Heal We story. Tell us more about the business.
As a young person, I knew that during my lifetime, we were going to go through a huge collective shift in consciousness as part of our human evolution. I had no idea it would look like this. Everyday I am so grateful to have found work that utilizes my life experience, skills and talents and answers the question: How can I best help people to be more healthy, balanced and free so that they can do the work they are called to do in all areas of their lives?
Some of my clients say I am the only person they want to do this kind of work with, and I feel honored to be able to hold and witness people in that way. I understand how uncomfortable vulnerability can feel and I know that healing and relief from suffering are available on the other side of it. One of the beautiful things about BodyTalk that was really important to me was that I didn’t want my healing process to take a lot of time or be painful. While some goals take more sessions to achieve, people can experience great relief after just one BodyTalk session. The sessions themselves take about 1.5 – 2 hours and I equate the post-session feeling to the clarity and peace I feel when coming off a deeply restorative meditation retreat after having lots of useful insights.
The BodyTalk System combines aspects of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Kinesiology, Western Medical Science, Ayurveda and Quantum Physics. It is non-invasive and uses biofeedback and tapping techniques to release obstructions and repair lines of communication within all parts of the body. During a session, I listen for the stories my clients’ bodies need to tell. Our bodies speak to us in symptoms. Using BodyTalk we can access and communicate the stories at the root of the symptoms to the client’s conscious mind. This initiates the body’s self-healing and self-regulating systems to take those instructions and do the healing work they are capable of and designed to do. I have witnessed many healing miracles and I’m repeatedly amazed by the quality and intensity of change that is possible when the body is given what it needs to heal itself.
At the moment, all my sessions are done remotely. In the seven years I’ve been doing BodyTalk most of the sessions I have received have been over the phone or even over email. Because it is energy work done in the field of Consciousness, it is not limited by time or space so remote sessions are as effective as in-person, which is amazing to be able to help people all over the world during this time when so much is shifting.
I love working with people of all ages. I sometimes work on people’s pets since in many instances, the pets are responding to what is going on with their people. A lot of highly sensitive people and empaths come to me, especially nowadays when the collective energy and emotion is at an all-time high. People come to me for help with mysterious symptoms, chronic conditions, sexual and other kinds of adult and childhood trauma, depression and anxiety, physical ailments and injuries, lack of direction or inability to achieve their goals, relationship issues, psychic and energetic boundaries – really, anything goes in a BodyTalk session!
Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I think of myself as lucky in the sense that having found my spiritual path, I’ve since been able to make use of the painful and disappointing experiences in my life. I know that’s not the case for everyone. My spiritual understanding of the nature of big “ R ” Reality has allowed me to have a life full of interesting and helpful synchronicities amidst the challenges and I feel very blessed and grateful to be where I am today.
Contact Info:
- Address: Golden Folk Wellness
1615 Lucile Ave, LA, 90026 - Website: wehealwe.com
- Phone: 3233297139
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @LotaraJames
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/We-Heal-We-107373947490046
- Other: https://www.bodytalksystem.com/practitioners/details.cfm?id=62276
Image Credit:
Shasta McBride
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