Meet Heidi Liese Edsall

Today we’d like to introduce you to Heidi Liese Edsall.

Heidi Liese, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was raised in a very religious household, my father is a Catholic deacon, and I’m the only girl among four children so my upbringing hit all the clichés! Lots of rules, lots of fear, lots of anxiety over reputation and what people think of me… Or, more importantly, what God thinks of me. The God of my childhood was an old white man in the sky who was constantly evaluating me and I was terminally uncomfortable; never sure if I was doing enough to measure up. Always teetering on resentment that I had to answer to someone who I didn’t know and who didn’t know me.

That said, there was a bright side to religion in my life! We were part of a wonderful community of truly loving, accepting, generous people who cared very deeply about me and my well-being. Service was a cornerstone of our faith; my parents have very charitable hearts and I love that outreach and volunteerism were such a part of my development. I really saw the best of spirituality alive in our world.

Both of these things—spiritual resentment and spiritual affection— followed me into adulthood; I rejected God and religion but I threw myself into community and service. I insisted that I didn’t need God, that I had found a workaround by cutting out the middleman of religion and just living a life of kindness, but it eventually caught up with me. What I understand now is that I am mind, body, and SPIRIT: All three need to express fully in order for me to be healthy. The more I suppressed my spiritual self, the harder life became. I struggled with perfectionism, workaholism, codependency, fear of intimacy, panic attacks, an inability to express anger… The list goes on! I dismissed all of these as the inevitable hardships of “adulting” and it wasn’t until I fell into energy work that I discovered that that isn’t true… Life is not meant to be hard!

I like to say that I was tricked into my first experience of energy work. I blindly followed a friend to (what I thought was) a workshop about unblocking creativity but it was facilitated by an energy healer. I started bawling as soon as I entered the room and I had no idea why, I felt crazy and I was horrified to be crying in front of strangers! That was the beginning of a 10-year journey of classes, retreats, receiving private healings… It was like energy healing cracked me open and my true self poured out—and what I found is that my true self is God, that God is separate from religion, that there’s nothing I need to do to access spiritual connection (and there’s also nothing I can do to refuse or escape it). I came to understand that a relationship with God is really an intimate relationship with myself and that life is way easier/more abundant/more joyful when I am in conversation with the God within me… That awareness launched my mission!

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
My number one struggle is personal: My parents don’t understand or approve of my work and the way I talk about God and so being visible with my message and growing my business is always tinged with grief. For a long time, I resisted my work because it felt like a betrayal. I’m very close to them and I hate that I can’t talk to them about this part of my life, but at the end of the day, this fuels my mission! I really want to shift the way we understand and talk about God so that we can enjoy a very intimate, individual, and fun (yes, fun!) experience of spirituality. Whether you’re religious or an atheist or anything in between, acknowledging that we are God doesn’t have to threaten those positions. My intention is to create a more colorful experience of any belief.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I help people find God! (And by that I mean, I help them find themselves) I’m a writer, teacher and spiritual coach here in Los Angeles and I want to change the way we think about and talk about God—and I purposely use the word “God” because I know it has a lot of attachments and I want to shift the way we relate to it!

My work is founded on the belief that God is not an entity outside of us that we need to earn access to. In fact, God resides within each of us and we commonly label it “intuition”—that voice or sense that always steers us toward our highest good. That Divine Intuition is uniquely alive in each one of us, and aligning with and expressing that spiritual part of ourselves is the key to sustainable anxiety relief and mental wellness. My practice combines energy healing, mindfulness tools, expressive art, and therapeutic essential oil regimens to heal root causes of anxiety that are inhibiting divine Intuition so that we can all live the joyful, peaceful, deeply connected lives we’re designed for! My work spans private sessions, group classes, retreats and community programming. I love presenting my work in schools and institutions and spreading God around in the “real world!”

The way I see it, God is healthcare. We are each mind, body, and spirit, which means that nurturing and expressing the God within us (Divine Intuition), is as necessary as getting good sleep or exercising our minds; When we suppress our Intuition, it’s just as harmful as denying ourselves food or avoiding feelings. Unfortunately, we are culturally conditioned to ignore our Intuition and favor “reason.” Not only that, but high-stress life experiences biologically wire us for fear and anxiety, further burying our spiritual nature. This is problematic because an underactive Intuition ultimately causes spiritual pain: anything from control issues, insecurity, and stifled creativity to anxiety and depression, compulsive behavior, and intimacy issues. God. Is. Healthcare.

What sets me apart is that my work doesn’t fit into a traditional wellness box and doesn’t fit into a traditional spirituality box. I fall right in between: My mission is to make a relationship with God a normal part of our daily self-care. I especially love doing workshops with children and getting them started early, cultivating emotional intelligence and a spiritual understanding of themselves. I really want to see more spiritual education in the health curriculum of public schools!

What is “success” or “successful” for you?
Every night I take a personal inventory to reflect on how I navigated the day and the first question I ask myself is: Did I act from fear today? Success for me is living from a place of faith instead of fear: Faith that I’m enough, faith that I am safe, faith that I am always taken care of, faith that love prevails. When I act from this faith, I can’t help but live a divine, Intuition-driven life of authenticity and joy and deep connection.

As for my work, I consider it a success when my clients and students express a willingness to lean on God for spiritual and emotional support. God thrives on willingness! The more we open to the divine relationship alive within us, the less of a grip fear and anxiety have. Anxiety is part of the human experience, we’re never going to get rid of it entirely, but to be able to identify it and be willing to let go of it is everything. Any moment of willingness is a success!

Pricing:

• Voyage LA readers who book a single Zoom healing session will be gifted a signature Reiki-infused doTERRA essential oil blend (Link on the website to book; note Voyage LA)
• Voyage LA readers who purchase a discounted package of Zoom sessions will receive a set of 6 signature Reiki-infused doTERRA essential oil blends (Link on the website to purchase; note Voyage LA)
• I also host free healings and classes throughout the week, which can be found on my website and my Instagram

Contact Info:

• Website: www.heidilieseedsall.com
• Phone: 3237023549
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @heidilieseedsall

Image Credit:
RG Gaznabi (except the screen grab from my Zoom class and the photo from the workshop at the YWCA camp)

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