VBB 290 Tara Sheahan

Intro [00:00:01]:

Welcome to Virgin Beauty Bitch Podcast, inspiring women to overcome social stereotypes and share unique life experiences without fear of being Defiantly Different. Your hosts, Christopher and Heather. Let's talk, shall we?

Christopher [00:00:19]:

What is your life purpose? Is it the thing you do day after day, year after year? Do you know where your life purpose lives? Is it something you look for? Or do you believe it will find you when you are ready? These are great questions to ask a woman who is living her own sublime life purpose. We welcome Tara Sheahan, a remarkable woman, to Virgin Beauty Bitch. Welcome, Tara.

Tara Sheahan [00:00:53]:

Thank you so much. It's such an honor to be here, and I loved that introduction.

Christopher [00:00:59]:

We are honored to have you. Now, Tara, your life purpose, your mission, your passion is to help heal a sick planet. And you do so in a very specific and very unique way that we'll talk about. But can you relate to women and men, really, who feel trapped or stuck just surviving life? Women who might now, right now, they can't even imagine having a life purpose or living their joy? Were you ever there? Were you, was there a time in your life where that was you?

Tara Sheahan [00:01:34]:

Oh, thank you, Chris. Hugely me, hugely, hugely me. When I was 36 years old, I got bit by a Lyme tick. It actually happened right after I blew my knee out skiing down a mountain in Breckenridge, Colorado. And then, three weeks later, I got bit by a Lyme tick. And for about seven years, I went down a rabbit hole of healing. And so I completely understand. There were about four years that I never was without pain. I was in chronic pain, and I couldn't walk.

Tara Sheahan [00:02:15]:

I looked like I was, you know, I was an elite athlete. I tried out for the Olympics when I was 20 years old in cross-country skiing, and I looked like a hundred-year-old woman. I could barely walk. And my body used to shake because I was just in so, so, so much pain. And so I can definitely, definitely relate. And what I found through that journey, that was my awakening. And what I realized is what that pain was doing. It was deconstructing my ego and my identity because I identified with myself as this. My former husband said you were superwoman. I was strong, I was fit, I could run up any mountain. I would help anybody at any time, but I wasn't doing it for the right reasons.

Tara Sheahan [00:03:12]:

I was doing it to have an identity that I thought people would love, and I would get what I wanted from the external world. And you don't have to ask for help when you're in that place. But the moment I got sick, I always said to people that a lot of the suffering and the pain was from my feeling ashamed that I had to ask for help.

Christopher [00:03:37]:

Wow.

Tara Sheahan [00:03:38]:

And I finally realized it was the first time in my life that I just said, I have to ask for help. And the other thing that happened during that time was I didn't really believe in a benevolent universe. I was brought up in a very, you know, catholic way of guilt and shame. If you did something wrong, you must be responsible. And so I was terrified to reconnect with that religion because I felt like I did something wrong. And so one night when I was really suffering, I went out, and I looked up at the night sky, and I said, if there's a God, please help me, because I was going to take my life. I thought, I can't live in this pain body. I had little kids.

Tara Sheahan [00:04:24]:

My kids were three and five years old. And I let go, and I surrendered. I just surrendered. And from that point, point of just completely surrendering and just surrendering my life, surrendering everything and just letting go, even to let go to dying. Like, I'm okay with it because I can't live like this, but there is a release. And that's when everything changed, and I got diagnosed. I started to work with a therapist who showed me that it was my fear of being a nobody. It was my fear.

Tara Sheahan [00:04:59]:

And then, I'll share one other experience that completely transformed me. A therapist said to me, what's the worst thing that can happen? I said, to die. I have little kids. And she said, well, what's before that? And I said, to be in a wheelchair, because, you know, when you're able-bodied, and you take care of everything, the wheelchair is like the worst thing that can happen to our ego, our identity, to be helpless and need help. And she said, okay, well, sit in this chair like it's a wheelchair. I want you to sit in this chair and go there. So I sat in the chair, and I had the most profound experience. I sat in the chair.

Tara Sheahan [00:05:47]:

It was such a relief to sit and not have to take care of everybody. And then, all of a sudden, this thought came in. I can just be loved. I can hold my kids, and I can be loved. I had the opposite thing happen. And I said I'm okay with it. And as we know neurobiologically, because I teach neurobiology, the moment I went into love, my body started secreting feel good hormones. And feel good hormones are alkaline. The body doesn't grow disease in alkalinity. It grows disease and acidity. The moment I let go to love, the healing got even better.

Heather [00:06:40]:

I think that's such a beautiful story because I do think that, with a lot of the women that we've had on our show, feeling like you have to be all these different identities for other people so that you can be loved is something that I think a lot of us carry every day. And I was talking with Christopher about one of my revelations that mirrors what you had to say in that for so long the energy between giving and receiving, that my life story had showed me that receiving was the lesser of the two. That you were the more vulnerable, that you were the one that didn't have it all figured out. Or, you know, just, I think that the perfectionism that women put on themselves that is unrealistic amd it's tied to I don't need anyone else's help because I'm going to figure this out. I can do it. And the big revelation for me was to really dive into why I had felt like receiving was the lesser. Mine happened in a sweat ceremony in a lodge. But the feeling was the same, that, you know, when you sat down in that chair and when I was laying down against the ground of earth, I was able to just really feel the beauty and the necessity of the flow between giving and receiving. So, I just don't think that it can be overstated enough for women to open up to the importance of allowing that in. You don't need to change or be anyone but yourself in your essence to be deserving of that.

Tara Sheahan [00:08:39]:

Heather, what a blessing that you were laying on Grandmother Earth, who gives everything unconditionally, right, that she gives it all. And then us giving back is exactly why I'm here. It's what can I give back to her? And it's love because she knows how to heal her body. And now you, in that alignment, in that going inward, and asking the deeper questions about what in me doesn't want to receive. It's our feeling that we're unlovable and we're unworthy. And you found that. And I really honor you because more of us need to realize. I was working with an Indigenous woman yesterday; she's both European and Indigenous on that very core issue. At what age were we stuck? Because we never got that unconditional love, that frequency that we're worthy.

Tara Sheahan [00:09:44]:

And in the indigenous way, they have a word, waka, or sacred. We are born sacred without having to do anything. Just being here is sacred. And as we know, being a human being, it's a journey of transformation. We aren't imbued with your sacred, we're imbued with, be this, and you'll get love, be that, and you'll get achievement and significance. Be some identity other than just rock and water.

Tara Sheahan [00:10:17]:

That's all we are, is rock and water. And then we spend our lives trying to become instead of being. So, I really honor your journey. That's beautiful. That's absolutely beautiful.

Christopher [00:10:33]:

You speak of the indigenous culture, and that is something that you have obviously embraced wholeheartedly. When did that come to be? Well, and I used the word sort of loosely here. When did that become your religion, to live an indigenous existence?

Tara Sheahan [00:10:59]:

Oh, that is such a beautiful question, Chris. So when I started waking up, you know, they call it, you know, we awaken into oneness. We start to realize we're connected to everything, and we're made of the same life force, energy. And it's sort of a natural progression in our brain. When we're slow enough to be in the present moment, we start connecting with the consciousness of the grass that's growing in unity with the soil. When a cow or something that gives us life. It's a circle; it's a web. And so when I began to wake up, and this is probably in about 2000, I'd been going to a wisdom school in India.

Tara Sheahan [00:11:43]:

They call it now the Oneness Movement. And I, as we sort of drop that ego and identity and chasing it, our nervous system starts doing a lot of meditation, and we start to live in the present moment, and it's actually wondrous. You start seeing the clouds. You're like, whoa, whoa. And then the first thing that happened when I had Lyme is a man, when I didn't believe in God, this man named George Schenck, he said to me, well, the Indigenous people call God the great spirit, which is just the energy that runs through all life. And I thought, wow, I really like that.

Tara Sheahan [00:12:22]:

And then I felt that energy running through all life, and then somehow I started singing. And, you know, you realize when you sing, you lift your own frequency. And then, like Toschka, he's from the Yahweh Nahua in the Amazon, he said, we stopped singing to nature and honoring nature. And so, as I woke up and realized who we used to be as indigenous people living in unity with nature and humble to nature and listening and learning, it was like a child again. It was wondrous to me to start connecting, it was almost natural. I started asking that question, well, where are all the people taking care of grandmother earth? Where are they? I want to go meet them.

Tara Sheahan [00:13:06]:

And I started meeting them. I started seeing the brokenness of the web, and I ended up befriending Lakota. And then I went to the reservation, and I was like, wait a minute, what is this? Like, you're living hand to mouth, and you're the ones that you're supposed to be taking care of her? And then I learned what happened. The historical, you know, Europeans who came over with no connection, and they came over with domestication and fear and all that. And that's how our consciousness was when we arrived. We're owners of the land. We're not humble to the land. We're not listeners to the bees and the trees.

Tara Sheahan [00:13:52]:

And so they started teaching me, Phyllis Bald Eagle, Amos Black Horse. They started teaching me, Lloyd Bald Eagle, Scott Redhorse, Chris Bald Eagle. They all started teaching me and sharing with me their perspective. And I was like, whoa. It was so familiar and it was so natural, and it lit me up. And so then my mission became, how do we heal these people who still hold the medicine, they hold the wisdom?

Heather [00:14:26]:

Can you share that bridge from there to Oneia?

Tara Sheahan [00:14:30]:

So it gets kind of interesting. So, when I began to learn about the wound of the separation from Grandmother Earth, my former husband, beautiful man, love him so much, Casey. I went to him, and I had met this man named Christopher Bald Eagle. He held the original instructions, and he was actually in prison. And I said to my former husband, I have to help him walk free. And I really, I always say I loved him. When you meet Indigenous people who live very traditionally, they're very soft-spoken, they're very gentle people because they live that you don't disturb.

Tara Sheahan [00:15:13]:

You're very almost invisible. I was like, and I thought, you can't stay in that prison, you have to come out. I have to help you come out and share these original instructions. And my former husband, we all make these karmic agreements. People play roles in our life, right? And he's like, I can't go there with you. And I said, but I have to do this. I would pray to God, I go in my heart, and God the divine, whatever creator, my higher self, would say, you must go. You must go.

Tara Sheahan [00:15:44]:

And I left the comforts of my family because my former husband was, he was the CEO of Patagonia, a global company that was doing conscious things. We were teaching conscious global leadership together, and I was doing some really magnificent partnerships working with Deepak Chopra and all these people around raising consciousness. And then I left. I left the total comfort of that life to go and live outside a prison to help this man walk free. He had a lot of trauma from prison. It was a lot of life force energy it took for me to take care of him because going back onto Pine Ridge, there's a lot of trauma there.

Tara Sheahan [00:16:27]:

But finally I realized, I can't do this anymore. So I left. And I knew because, you know, I connect with nature, and I was listening to these wild horses when I was really stuck. These wild horses that were living on the Cheyenne River reservation. I would lay down on the ground and I said, give me these instructions. And this stallion came up to me and said, you're going to be with this man for one year, and then you're going to go back. And I did literally, one year to the day, because I talked to everything. There's intelligence in, you know, in this beautiful, sacred world.

Tara Sheahan [00:17:09]:

And so I came back in a year. I was back in a year. And then fast forward, I met a man named Scott Redhorse. And both Chris and all the people on the Lakota, they were teaching me about the bison. They were saying 100 million bison were wiped out, probably more. And that's why the earth is so sick.

Tara Sheahan [00:17:28]:

And then I started talking to the Savory Institute and the Savory Institute of Holistic Land Management organization that's doing regenerative rewilding. And so I started, you know, it was almost like the divine universe was just imbuing me with science and spirituality. And then I said, I will follow this thread. Then this land, 45 acres with water running through it came just synchronistically. My mom bought it for me because she's like wow, 45 acres or 38 acres for sale for $45,000. Okay, that doesn't happen. Usually, it's millions of dollars.

Tara Sheahan [00:18:07]:

And so Scott and I came. He wasn't my long-term partner, but again, he was teaching me the medicine. And then I came here, and what I did was, I asked the land, like, do I belong here? And the land, this place pushes you. The wind blows 80 miles an hour sometimes. And I just kept letting go and saying, if I meant to be here, I'm sacred to this land.

Tara Sheahan [00:18:33]:

I'm sacred to these creatures. You know, I will listen to you. And, you know, that was in 2019, and it's 2024, and I'm here. The house got built. I remained here through. My son passed away. His girlfriend crossed over with cancer, and he just didn't know if he wanted to be here anymore because COVID happened. And then he got tinnitus, and he told me, I can't stay mom. I'm in too much pain. And so he took his life.

Tara Sheahan [00:19:04]:

My last year with him, I did a sweat lodge with him down here on the land before he left. He's here with me all the time as a non-physical being. But that journey took a lot of my life force, and I care. It took my mom; she also crossed over.

Tara Sheahan [00:19:30]:

My friend, this morning, Mook da Shelley is her name. Mukta means liberation. We went to India together, and that's the name that they gave her. Mook da Shelley. She said, well, why don't you just sell it all? You'd have a lot of cash in your pocket, and then you could go anywhere. I said yes, but I love it here. It loves me back, and I belong here. And every time I meditate, and every time I pray, the spirit bison come.

Tara Sheahan [00:19:59]:

The physical ones aren't here yet, but the spirit bison feel like the most profound, stable, secure energy. They just feel into me, totally taken care of.

Christopher [00:20:17]:

I want to really lean into something that is going on here. I started this off about people not knowing their purpose or their mission. And I think a lot of us think that once we find that purpose, that it's a jet aircraft to the moon and beyond your purpose, you have found it. You're living it. But it is life at its rawest. Like, you're not having breakfast served to you every morning because you've found your life purpose. Like, this is very difficult work that you're doing, but there's something in you that won't let you give it up or move on from it because you believe in it so much. I want to make the distinction that your life purpose is not your key or your get-out-of-jail-free card to an easy life.

Tara Sheahan [00:21:13]:

Yeah. Our life purpose is to be enlightened. That's why we came to Earth, Grandmother Earth. What is enlightenment? Enlightenment is freedom from suffering. So what is suffering? The stories that the mind throws up all the time, right? Thinking is suffering. Like my teachers in India, their names, Sri Preta, Sri Krishna. People don't cause suffering. Situations don't cause suffering. Thinking causes suffering.

Tara Sheahan [00:21:46]:

Our negative perceptions, our victim consciousness, and the stories that go in our mind. That creates a problem. Because the mind always throws up a problem, right? When the weather is coming in the winter, in the Indigenous way, they welcome the winter as a deity. Like, it's like an angel, right? They welcome it because it's a blanket on Grandmother Earth of snow so she gets to rest, she gets to sleep.

Tara Sheahan [00:22:14]:

We see it as, ugh, I'm cold, you know, and I don't like it. I have to turn my heat up. It costs me money. Right? So it's our perception of everything. So breathing, slowing the nervous system down and then having a wisdom way. We need great teachers right there. Like I said, Deepak and the many, you know, Darryl Slim, amazing wisdom keepers right out there. You, too, are wisdom keepers.

Tara Sheahan [00:22:50]:

If you have a practice of awareness of this mind and the conditioning of it and how we can reframe everything to see the beauty of the mess just by a shift in perception, then it goes from shit show to a wondrous world simply by shifting our perception. So because this throws up a lot of, you know, my refrigerator yesterday, the roof was leaking, and I saw it as a blessing. There was water coming in. I just couldn't go into suffering. And then my refrigerator went out, and it started to top me off. But then I breathed, and I felt into the refrigerator. It's almost like these tests of can you stay in a beautiful state of consciousness? Can you breathe and be in the present moment? Because in the present moment, when there's a quiet mind, there's not a problematic situation that the mind has to solve and solve and solve. That is why the practices of slowing our nervous system down, meditation, breath work, all the marvelous guided visualization, hypnotherapy, sweat lodges, all these spiritual traditions that have these ways where we're dropping into the present moment and the power of the now.

Tara Sheahan [00:24:19]:

And so that's what is required here. And you're absolutely right, Chris. But going back, we came here to become awake, and that is at the foundation of everything I'm doing. I'm restoring the earth with millions of bison, the way that the creation's asking. But really, the very first is transforming human consciousness from fear to peace and love. So, we're operating in our higher human emotions.

Heather [00:24:47]:

Tara, that was so beautifully said. We would like to ask our guests this question: What does feminine mean to you?

Tara Sheahan [00:25:00]:

What comes to me right away is I love our little mind screen and our intuition. So what feminine means to me is I saw the moon, and I see the sun, and the sun is the giver of light, and the moon is the receiver because the moon is the time where we go quiet and we rest and restore and we receive. And so that to me is that feminine aspect of our being, it's that we have this sun part where we give and we do, and then we have the moon part where we rest and receive. And that's, to me, what that divine feminine is. It's the slowing down, and it's the receiving energy; it's why we're here, and we do it because it's balanced. And like you were saying earlier unless you're a really good receiver and you feel worthy of it, the giving is going to come from wanting to get something that we feel like we don't have and fear of not being good enough. So keep doing, keep doing, keep giving, because I'm actually not worthy of getting. Or the getting, a lot of times, comes with hooks in it that we got, we received, but then there were hooks that somebody said, okay, I gave you that, but now you owe me. In Buddhism, they call it Kingly giving. You give with absolutely no attachment. And in the feminine, the true divine feminine is the receiving to know you're worthy. And then the giving back is the wholeness and the self love that fills our cup. So that authentic giving comes from that place of wholeness, not from I'm going to give because you'll like me better.

Heather [00:27:09]:

Do you have any recommendations for our listeners who are really feeling that they may be an important relationship in their life? The type of giving that they've predominantly received has had hooks in it. Have you found ways to have a conversation or notice or, I guess, any advice or insights you have around that?

Tara Sheahan [00:27:36]:

I do. The very first thing my life coach, his name is Jeff Patterson, and he wrote an awesome book called The Big Thing Effective. And it's living these big, big dreams and really vulnerably putting it out there. And he said when he was coaching me, you spot it, you got it. So I ask, where are my hooks? What expectations or disappointments do I project onto people when I don't get what I want? So, I clean that up first. The cleanup isn't the shaming of myself.

Tara Sheahan [00:28:12]:

It's the loving of myself that I can sit and feel what it feels. And, you know, I do believe in God. I do believe in this higher power, higher self, universal energy, whatever we want to call that intelligence, that created me, right? Because everything in the universe has been created. And that it wanted to create me because I wouldn't be here if I were created. And I feel the experience of being cherished and loved, and honored in my nervous system. And that's from, you know, I teach breath work. Inhale for four, exhale for eight through the nose. Stimulate the vagus nerve.

Tara Sheahan [00:28:54]:

Stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. Come into that really beautiful state of calm and peace. And then, like, when I'm thinking of a healer. His name's Howard Wills. And he used to say, like this, y'all, put your hands out, put your head up. And then he'd say, do you feel it, y'all? It's love. And it's available twenty-four seven. And it.

Tara Sheahan [00:29:22]:

And it is right because it's a quantum field of energy. And so sitting there feeling that you do belong and then resting in that peace and tranquility and feeling that you don't need anything. It's your dharma to ask for help. Because we are meant to be that person for another, right? Not if our battery is drained. And so coming into that loving and that wholeness and that fulfillment, and then giving from that place, giving from a full battery and giving from intuition. Like, really ask, this person's asking me for that.

Tara Sheahan [00:30:09]:

Do I have that to give? And if I don't, can I give them a prayer? Can I give them a ride? You know, we see people on the corner with a sign that asks for money. And maybe we don't have any in the car. Can I give them a prayer? Can I thank the universe, God that I am in a beautiful dry truck with dry clothes? But I have been that before. I've been wet and cold and hungry. And let me give them the feeling of wholeness. And so it's that self-generating feeling that then emanates. And then we don't have hooks because we feel that wholeness and that lack of expectation and disappointment that's so remarkably beautiful.

Heather [00:30:57]:

I enjoy so much that where you started was to look at the hooks that we give out to others. I just think that internal work first is so crucial. So just thank you so much for your insights on that.

Christopher [00:31:13]:

The work that you're doing now. There are places where people can come and see what you're doing. Get a feel for how they can be of assistance in any way that they choose. Can you let us know where people can go and look at that, get a feel for it, what it is you're doing? That is so remarkably important and how they might be able to be in service to that.

Tara Sheahan [00:31:42]:

Absolutely. So Oneia.us is a very simple website. It has a trailer on it about this project called Rewild our soul. If they're inspired to come and visit, it's outside of Alamosa, Colorado. They can read. I really believe we have to be in a beautiful state of consciousness when we read a little bit of the history about, you know, the bison. Because the bison, you know, we're all incarnated, right? And then we leave. So it's not a suffering story.

Tara Sheahan [00:32:17]:

It's the story of this whole unfoldment. So we have to be in a beautiful state. But, you know, the bison are land healers. You can read about regenerative rewilding, holistic land management, and then, you know, the Indigenous perspective of living as a humble being to the land. There's some really remarkable books out there. I like to help people use their intuition and ask deeper questions, like, what does Tara need? I mean, quite honestly, like, I'm building this house.

Tara Sheahan [00:32:56]:

Your foundation's so important, right? And so the house just has been built. It's just dried in, and there are little pieces and parts that need, you know, there's a certain, and it doesn't always come from financial abundance. Somebody's like, oh, my gosh, I have an extra faucet, or I do a little plumbing work on the side. Or, you know, like, a lot of it is asking your heart, like, what? Why am I listening to this? And what can I do? And if you want to learn breath work and meditation, you know, Tara Onea.us is a way to reach out to me, because I teach online, I teach zooms. I love elevating people so that they know their dharma. And as I was telling you, the last time I did a past life meditation, where I saw they call it a Samskara. I'll be really brief. Samskara is what the trauma we had in the past life that we're coming in to heal.

Tara Sheahan [00:33:54]:

And in a meditation with Pritaji a year ago, I was a little Indigenous girl right over there who watched the bison slaughtered. I never knew why I was here, and I went, oh, my gosh, my soul has come back to help this earth heal. Grandmother Earth, she's a living being. You know, she has a spirit, and so love her as you love yourself and you love your heart, then just take that love. And every time we eat and look at our clothes and you know, she's giving us everything that is such important work, and then it generates love in you like, oh my gosh, I love this earth. Oh my gosh, I love me. I made it the same thing. And to get there is to be free of trauma.

Tara Sheahan [00:34:45]:

So if I can help the assistance to anyone and anything comes to you all, because I want your podcast, I send the podcast out to all of my tribe to generate more interest. Because you've asked such poignant questions. You can tell what state of consciousness you all are in because this offering is lifting the field of consciousness. It's lifting us into love.

Heather [00:35:12]:

Thank you. That means a great deal to both of us. So thank you.

Christopher [00:35:19]:

It's poignant, as you say, and it is on point that you are outdoors doing this conversation with us. There's blue skies and beautiful white clouds behind you. It is as it should be. You are, as I said from the beginning, you are a remarkable, remarkable woman.

Tara Sheahan [00:35:40]:

It has been such an honor and I'm going to receive that. I'm going to take it in. I'm going to nourish myself with those beautiful words. Chris and Heather, thank you.

Christopher [00:35:49]:

Thank you. And you have been listening to the.

Heather [00:35:53]:

Virgin, the beauty and the bitch.

Christopher [00:35:56]:

Find us like us, share us, please let us know what you think of this conversation and come on back. Bring your friends because this is what we do, and we encourage anyone to join us and be part of this. So thank you. To become a partner in the VBB community, we invite you to find us@virginbeautybitch.com. Like us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and share us with people who are Defiantly Different like you. Until next time, thanks for listening.