There were some connection glitches during this conversation but since they didn’t interrupt the flow of conversation, Laura and I decided to let them roll. After all, this is an intentionally wabi-sabi project of being exactly where we are.

Laura Guilliams got a jarring wake-up call some years ago when a trusted teacher referred to her longstanding people-pleasing tendencies as a God complex. In the years since, she’s worked to find a healthier balance between her deep drive to make the world a better place and the boundaries she needs to both care for herself and give those she seeks to serve the full respect they deserve.

Find show notes at: https://rawzcoaching.com/laura-guilliams

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About Laura Guilliams | Advocate, activist, yogini, country gal

Laura Guilliams, MA, RYT-500, is the founder and owner of Laura Guilliams Yoga & Wellness, providing individual and small group yoga to survivors of trauma. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in Communication at Radford University (Radford, Va.) and a Master's of Educational Leadership from the University of Central Florida (Orlando). She has served survivors of interpersonal violence for 20 years in the education and non-profit sectors where she has provided crisis intervention and advocacy to survivors as well as advocated on the local, state, and federal levels. 

She has been a student of yoga for more than 25 years and has been teaching since 2014. She is currently working toward her yoga therapy certification with her teacher, Sarahjoy Marsh. 

She lives on unceded Saponi and Tutelo land colonized as Ferrum, Va. with her goodest boy, Duke (a shepherd mix of some sort) and her 14 entertaining chickens. She is a certified aromatherapist and a student of plant and herbal medicine, using her knowledge and skills in her small handmade soap business. She also loves to cook and makes a mean celiac-friendly, gluten--free gravy biscuit! 

Laura Guilliams Yoga & Wellness:
www.lauraguilliams.com  
Instagram: @lauraguilliams 

Mountain Laurel Apothecary: 
www.mountainlaurelapothecary.com  
Instagram: @mtlaurelapothecary 

Laura highlighted Ursula’s Café, a Roanoke, VA, a pay-what-you-can non-profit working to feed everybody regardless of their ability to pay; it’s also an event and community-arts center with a focus on inclusivity.  Learn more at: https://www.ursulascafe.org/

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All Up in It is a project by coach SB Rawz focused on telling stories of growth and change from the thick of learning. Learn more about SB & her projects at https://rawzcoaching.com

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Some key moments in our conversation:

• Recovering people-pleaser doing the best to make the world a better place once person at a time while also keeping an eye on boundaries
• In her work supporting people in the midst of trauma, she finds opportunities to manage her desire to fix and instead allow people their process
• How trying to control other’s experiences through fixing is really a way to control our own discomfort – something her teacher called her God complex
• Healthy and unhealthy selfishness
• Laura finds the work of learning better boundaries as both freeing and exhausting
• In her budding work as a yoga therapy practitioner, how to de-center self without losing the connection and the tool of discernment in that process
• Self-care as a need that’s showing up: Who and what do I need in order to manage this experience
• People-pleasers as mind-readers
• Learning about the brain and the nervous system and how it’s factoring into her work
• Tools: The full array of tools that fit under the wide umbrella of yoga (remember, the movement part is just one sliver), knowing who her people are and in what kinds of situations they shine, and Laura’s chickens – literally! – and her garden, home, and her various creative pursuits including her soap company, Mountain Laurel Soaps
• Spotlight: Ursula’s Café, a pay-what-you-can non-profit working to feed everybody regardless of their ability to pay; it’s also an event and community-arts center with a focus on inclusivity