Meet Laurie Teal

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laurie Teal. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laurie below.

Hi Laurie, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

Well the story begins with early childhood truama, violence and abandonment by my father. Then came sexual abuse, which brought about sexual confusion and distortions of how to connect and use my power. I was 5, Later my parents would become foster parents to over 250 children. From the time I was 12 there were other very hurt people living with us. Acting out, stealing things, I would get attached and they would leave. My mother always spoke of the improtance of helping others. Except it was stated in ways that created guilt for having needs. A few times she even asked me to do a group with some of the other girls that were living in our home, so I could share about my abuse and abandonment. I never felt like I had a place to be me, be heard, not be shamed for the sexual acting out I was doing at 5. So outwardly, I was the good girl with no needs, always helping. As I became a teen ager, I became resentful, still looking for connection in r/t’s to the boys who were also hurting and using substance. I became pregnant at 18 from one of these boys and had a child at 19. This was the first time I felt my own power in my body and the first time I saw the generational truama that would cont if I did not make some changes. I left this man and returned to my parents home. Struggled with depression, the shame and the stories of my won childhood began to rise up. I saw a therapist for the first time. I discolsed to the therapist one day about the violence and the sexual abuse. I felt so vulnerable…cracked open. I was actually worried about my own safety with the level of shame I was experinceing. The therapsit called my mom to say that I was struggling and could use some support when I got home. When I got home she took one look at me and went to her garden. Abanonded again. The pain I felt in this moment was astronomical. I began throwing myself against walls, screaming, vomitting. It was aweful. Shortly there after met another man and the cylce continued. Except early on in this relationship I became very ill. In and out of hospitals. This was 1992. A dx of chronic fatigue syndrome came. I had a small baby and couldnt keep food down, and needed to sleep constantly. But I was deteremined to not give up and find a solution. At that time the solution was so that my daughter had a mommy. Fast forward…Thru the many layers of finding support for my own health, regardless of what my husband beleived about what I was doing, I began to find my power and my voice. Over the next 15 years I dug deeper into myself. My mind, my body and my spirit. I did additional education in energy medicine, shamanism, hypnotherapy and breathwork.I did vison quests, sweat lodges, sun moon dances, meditated. I climed my career ladder. See the patterns of your life is not easy, breaking free requires courage and so much faith! I left that marriage and would spend the next 3-4 years finding myself. I have come to see that the patterns that formed early on continue to shape us, and to some degree define us. But its not thru the same lens. It becomes an opprotunity to continue to deepen our own understanding of ourselves. The illness while so challenging actually set me on a tragectory of such healing. I truly dont think I would be alive had I not gotten that 2×4 wake up call! The dis-ease has helped me to find value in ME, and guided me to what I am doing in the world now. While my health is so improved, I have learned to trust that when my body is speaking its from wisdom and love, not from victimization. Its guiding me to see myself in ways that I may have overlooked. The lessons have all been about coming back home to myself, to love, to forgiveness. What if there is no one to blame, not even you? So much freedom. So I meditate, I sing, I dance, I sit in stillness and just be open to the energy of the universe. I sing to the sun, I feel the breeze on my face, I practice gratitude, surround msyelf with nourishing realationships, I speak my truth. My practice is living in love and when the other emotions rise…cause they are going to, I lean in, feel, release. Its all about awareness, release, healing and then transformation! While there is so much depth to a life at 53, that I could talk about as the weaving of this message…if you want more, I am happy to speak about it more. But I am here because I choose love.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am in Integrative Psychiatric NP who specializes in looking at each individual’s story, their unique strengths and what is getting in their way to a life worth living. The pattern getting in the way wil very likely become their superpower as the re-define that pattern.
I believe each person has the capacity to heal, that our dis-eased state is just our 2×4 for awakening to deeper layers of love. I no longer believe in the tradional mental health system. There are many tools in my tool box hypnotherapy, breathwork, heart math and homoepathy. I will also utilize lab work to look at fuctional status. I do prescribe medication but most of my cleints are on plans to de-prescribe.
I offer 1:1 sessions, 3-5 day personalized emmersives and retreats.
My logo represents that in the center of the chaos, there is a lotus blossoming…YOU
“You are the one you have been waiting for”

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

That my discomfort, illness, mental health, was the compass to guide me forward.
Changing beliefs from early childhood, changing perspectives shifts 1400 chemicals in your body
Your pain can be released! Changing beliefs is a super good start, but you must also release the pain from the body!
Energy medicine, vibrational medicine can help faciliate change in a way that that traditional therapies cannot or will take years to do.
There is a right time and right place for everything if its working! Including false beliefs and denial. It all serves us unitl our awareness catches up and we learn its no longer serving us.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

This is a big question. But I believe that each person we encounter has something to teach us. We are mirrors for each other.
I have learned the most however from people who’s values do no look like mine. They have guided me to go deeper into my own knowing and find my own answers rather than just complaining about the “authority”.

I had great leaps from my trainging at the Wellness Institute, The Four Winds Society, My dance cheifs for the sun-moon dance, my mentors in Homeopathy, Autobiography of a Yogi, Dark Night of the Soul, Carl Jungs work, Bruce Lipton, the names go on and on.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

I am co author in a book
My logo
Pic of Amanda Carpenter and I during retreat, we often do them together

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