Ever since I can remember I have always been drawn to working with pregnant woman , new mothers and children. Over the years, I have studied all types of holistic healing and I always thought, how can I gear this towards pregnancy, children and parenting? I often asked myself, where was this pull towards pregnancy and working with new mothers coming from? Was it my longing to be a mother?

It wasn’t until I was taking my doula training and the first thing my teacher said was, "there is a reason you are here, something happened to each and every one of you in your life that brought you here today.” I had one of those, “a-ha” moments – this makes sense…but I still wasn’t aware of what it was. During this same time I was doing a lot of therapy and healing work on myself. One of my teachers, Michele Meiche, did very powerful “Hypnotherapy Clearing work” sessions with me. In one of our sessions I saw an energy that I carried deep within my core of feeling like a burden; I’m not lovable and I don’t deserve to exist. I realized this energy was the driving force behind my life, every choice and path I chose came from this place. I had no idea where this was coming from, but with the intention of finding out, I was back a week later.

In the session she guided back in time to when I first felt these feelings and I kept going deeper until, BOOM I was in the womb. It felt awful in there!!!! I started getting totally stressed out, couldn’t breathe and started to have a panic attack, she took me out of the session and suggested I speak to my mother about her pregnancy with me. ??I called my mother asking, what happened when you were pregnant with me? She began to cry saying, “Lori the fact that you survived that pregnancy means your soul was meant to be here.” She began explaining to me all that happened from her being so young and the shame of what it was like being pregnant and not married back in the 60?s, feelings of being in denial, not eating, going into a major depression, talks and thoughts about putting me up for adoption, and let me tell you…the first few years of my life were no picnic either!!! (There’s more but I wont go into it) My mom said something shifted inside her and in the 7th month or so of her pregnancy when she felt me kicking and moving, she started getting really excited having me. However the energetic foundation had already been set.

I always say, “I spent the first part of my life getting messed up, the second part living from that place, the third part healing and finally somewhere right before 40 I felt like I had finally arrived." It’s my belief that before we are born we pick and choose our parents and have a soul contract with them. We experience lessons we need to learn that support us on our souls’ path. ??I love my parents!! They did the best they could with what they knew at the time. My greatest wound turned out to be my greatest gift. This was My Path!!! Heck, I even made a whole career out of it. I wouldn’t be doing the work at www.rootedforlife.com that I am passionately doing out in the world without having this experience.

However, times have changed, the state of the world is in major crisis, the future is in the hands of our children. They don’t have time to waste getting messed up, living from it and healing. It’s up to us to lead the way and set a solid and healthy foundation; one of consciousness and awareness to grow from. My vision is that we start by raising our own vibration, doing our own healing and inner work before having children. Otherwise, we keep passing down from generation through generation more of the same wounds and energy. We often unconsciously end up trying to fix ourselves through our children, again projecting our wounds onto them, only it’s not theirs to take on; its ours and ours alone to heal and fix. We need to become conscious and healthy role models to guide these children by being a living example and blazing a trail of light for them to follow in. If we want our children to encompass self-love, self-esteem, self-respect, self-worth, self-acceptance, healthy boundaries, kindness and compassion, health, happiness and empathy- we must first embody it ourselves.

As Gene Marsh famously says, “you can’t lead anyone further than you have gone yourself."