Meet Leigh-Anne LoPinto

We were lucky to catch up with Leigh-Anne LoPinto recently and have shared our conversation below.

Leigh-Anne, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

I love this question because I have been thinking a lot about resilience lately, and the importance of it – now more than ever.

Resilience is built from doing hard things, not from having everything be easy and having things handed to you. This develops our ability to face challenges in life with ease and grace, and to know that these challenges are often ‘for’ us – to teach us necessary lessons for our growth and development.

It’s taken me time to develop that mindset, that growth mentality – it didn’t happen overnight! But I now see it as one of the most empowering things for us.

My resilience was built from learning to overcome a traumatic childhood, and to later recover from a painful divorce. The healing process took humility, I had to look at myself with clear eyes and realize that certain things needed attention (for example, challenging and rewriting limiting beliefs, learning solid relationship skills, etc.)

I’ve learned that I can get through anything, and that I’m not fragile. I have also learned that these things have built certain attributes within me that needed to be built – such as self-love, strong boundaries, and secure attachment.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m a psychologist who specializes in relationships, and I also blend coaching into my therapeutic work. I believe that a combination of coaching and therapy is beneficial for most people, since we can focus on both present-day things we can change now, in addition to going back and healing wounded parts of us that may be preventing us from taking the action steps we need to in order to reach our goals. Often times, therapy by itself (or coaching by itself) is an incomplete modality.

Additionally, I use breathwork in my sessions with clients so that we can get into the subconscious more easily. The style of breathwork that I do is a longer form that is done for about 30 minutes, and gets you into an altered state. This allows us to bypass the mind to get into the truth living in the heart, body, and intuition. For many people, they live in the mind almost exclusively, and are cut off from these other centers of wisdom. Using a combination of talking and breathwork can help us work more holistically, working both consciously and unconsciously.

My passion with helping people with relationships involves taking people into the new paradigm of relationships. These type of relationships are built on a foundation of secure attachment and include healthy, open communication, ownership for one’s triggers and unhealed childhood wounds, and self-love. I also help people move into truly conscious relationships, which means that we can start to use relationships for major healing and growth. A relationship will bring up all of our ‘stuff,’ which happens for a reason – so that we can see our blind spots and take responsibility for healing them. We cannot fully do this on our own, it is only in relationship that we can see that mirror that the other person holds up for us so that we can see all parts of ourselves. Practicing relationships consciously is the next evolution of relationships collectively.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

1) Understanding co-creation and the importance of personal responsibility.

Ten years ago, I was going through a painful divorce where both of us were pointing the finger at the other for causing all of the problems. Our therapist at the time gently helped us to understand the idea of co-creation, that BOTH people in a relationship create the dynamic. It is never just one person in isolation creating the relationship. It was a hard pill for me to swallow, but once I saw how my unhealthy levels of self-worth, poor boundaries, and lack of direct communication were contributing to our unhappiness, it allowed me to work on those skills so that I could help create much healthier relationships.

2) Knowing that relationships are vehicles for us to grow and evolve.

When I came across the idea that relationships are actually meant to help us heal our wounds and grow into our highest potential, it was mind blowing for me. It made perfect sense to me that all of our ‘stuff’ comes up in relationships – not so that it can make us miserable, but so that we’re able to see what is still unhealed inside of us so that we can work on those things. It’s a much more positive outlook and actually gives you something to work with, rather than staying stuck in a ‘poor me’ mentality that drags you down and leads you nowhere.

3) Seeing that self-love is the foundation for healthy relationships.

Time and time again, I’ve been shown in my own life and the lives of clients that if you don’t love yourself, relationships are going to be very, very hard. Low self love and self worth often lead to settling for mistreatment in relationships, having poor boundaries, and codependent patterns. Once we learn how to love and value ourselves, we dramatically shift the types of people we choose to be in relationships with, and how we show up in those relationships.

How would you describe your ideal client?

My ideal client is ready to see themselves with clear eyes, and knows that growth and healing isn’t always easy or comfortable, but it’s always worth it. She knows that unconscious patterns from childhood will continue to run the show in her adult relationships until she’s able to uncover them and change them.

She may be settling for less than she deserves in relationships, and knows that she needs to heal her self-love, boundaries, and communication patterns. She may need to overcome codependent patterns and insecure attachment styles.

My ideal client can feel into the new paradigm of relationships and can easily see that we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible in relationships right now. She is ready to invest her time into a complete overhaul of how she shows up in relationships and feels excited about the possibility of this. I call my clients The Wayshowers – they are leaders in this new paradigm of relationships and are setting the bar for what is possible, doing relationships very differently, in a much healthier and more conscious way.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Melodee Solomon

Suggest a Story: BoldJourney is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems,
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
Resilience
Where does your optimism come from?

Optimism is the invisible ingredient that powers so much of the incredible progress in society

Confidence
Stories of Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Learning from one another is what BoldJourney is all about. Below, we’ve shared stories and

Resilience
The Power of Persistence: Overcoming Haters and Doubters

Having hates is an inevitable part of any bold journey – everyone who has made