Unlimited rEvolutionaries Podcast (Brad Moyneaux – Interview with Jeri Tourand)
https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/unlimited-revolutionaries/the-unlimited-revolutionaries/e/50264968
Transcript:
Jeri Tourand is a self- love and forgiveness coach. Having studied with a Zen Buddhist Master for 5 years, she is also a Zen Trilotherapy practitioner and trainer, helping people balance the head and the heart (mind and emotion) to find inner peace and live a life free of suffering. Life is Beautiful and meant to be fun! In addition to creating powerful change on this planet, Jeri enjoys raising her 3 daughters, downhill skiing, reading and writing.
1. Outside of my workshops, coaching and retreats, I love going for long mindful walks, really soaking in the beauty of nature. I love to go on coffee dates, try out new and wonderful restaurants, have a glas of wine with my friends and talk about life and things that matter. I really enjoy skiing in the mountains and spending time with my 3 daughters. I also LOVE to read a good book and write my insights and reflections.
2. The biggest PROBLEM in the world today is that people don’t love themselves….in other words, they’ve forgotten who they really are and identify themselves through the filter of their shame and guilt and their ‘stories’ about what’s “wrong” with them. This is what I do. I am a self- love and forgiveness coach. Guilt and resentments toward ourselves and others are the biggest block to really knowing and loving ourselves. I help people remember who they are, by first helping them see more clearly who they are NOT. I use Trilotherapy, Ho’oponopono and deep presence to activate on a cellular level the truth of who they are.
3. My WHY is that I have ALWAYS had a deep knowing that things did not have to be this way; meaning the way of competition, greed and lack. That people are no different at their core and are not separate. When we hurt someone else we hurt ourselves, every time. And I’ve held to my vision and really “gotten” that LOVE is always the answer. Be the change you wish to see is really what I stand for – be the parent you wish your kids and future generations to become, be the spouse…the boss, the human that CHOOSES LOVE and not fear.
4. My organization is mostly just me but I am training some others currently to join my team….“Living from Heart Center.” What we do is coaching, workshops and retreats, centering around the themes of Self-love (releasing the blocks to knowing yourself AS LOVE) and Awakening (remembering and embodying LOVE – the truth of who you are and EXPRESSING yourself authentically in the world!) It really is all about authentic expression and if you are not loving and making decisions from that place of love and joyful presence vs. avoidance of pain (fear) then you are not being authentic. IF who you are at your core IS LOVE, then forgiveness becomes easy and natural…it’s a given because we begin to understand that we are all SOULS on a journey of growth and evolution and can have compassion and acceptance for wherever anyone is at on their journey.
5. From childhood I was identified in my family as “the sensitive one” and so I think it was me that my parents worried about most…being highly emotional,which now I know is highly empathic, so a lot of the emotion and overwhelm that was pretty much a constant state for me, was not even mine, but picking up on everyone around me…including the whole field of humanity! I always felt intense compassion for the underdog and never understood how people could be so mean. Any kind of bullying behaviour hurt my heart DEEPLY. My sister was bullied relentlessly in school for being a tomboy and ‘different’. Then when I had my own kids I was truly afraid to bring them into this world and put them in school because of all the crazy rules and cruelty. I watched my daughter’s spirit completely drop half way through kindergarten as she was told NO, stop, sit down, be quiet….so disheartening.
6. I came to my current path: I really believe that a lot of the time, if not every time, we find our purpose through our pain. The Pain pushes and pushes on us until our purpose pulls us out of it.
I had a breakdown/ breakthrough…my marriage was ending, my kids were affected, I was fighting an internal battle between my head and my heart, having anxiety attacks, and eventually was told I had mitral valve prolapse and lupus. It took over 3 years of meditation and very conscious focus on wellness and love, but I healed myself through forgiveness, meditation on perfect health, self-compassion and love. Then I studied with a Zen Master for 5 years, learning Trilotherapy and really gaining a deep understanding of the inner battle we each fight and the human condition of suffering; learning incredible tools to overcome and heal the rift between our mind and emotion and awaken to a life of purpose, meaning and love.
7. My biggest challenge was my breakdown and feeling like a failure as a wife and mother. It was truly devastating, and an incredible gift, showing me why I was here and getting me focused on what REALLY MATTERS!! The matter doesn’t matter that much – we are 99% energy and the space between the cells, yet we have become dense, heavy and serious with life. All it takes is a shift in perspective and our willingness to feel, heal and see the truth.
8. AHA Moment – I went to a course called “Heart of the Samurai” where we did an end of life meditation and came out from it with our “life purpose” – we were given two minutes to capture it in writing! At the time I was embarrassed of mine. It seemed so lofty and unrealistic and silly really: “To be and share unconditional LOVE always and in all ways with everyone in the world, especially our children.” I get it now. That was huge for me and I developed Parenting from HEART right then and there which eventually turned into LIVING from Heart Center – since I realized through my teaching that one cannot parent from a place that they haven’t ever learned to live from – that it starts with ourselves and transfers naturally to our children and our families. Someone has to role model what Unconditional love looks like!
9. My mission and unlimited vision is to tap into the unlimited potential of our true selves – which is LOVE and to be able to give and receive LOVE unconditionally. In the end that’s all that matters; that’s all that’s left. Really the only thing that is real is love. I see it as the purpose of life to find and release the blocks to love so that we can, each and every one of us, express ourselves authentically in the world and lead the change.
The Opening line in “A Course in Miracles” is “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”
Love is what is real. Love is all encompassing. We must release the blocks to what is real and learn to embody who we really are (Love) in order to raise the vibration of consciousness and save ourselves and the planet.
10. About Business and making money doing what I love: When you are on purpose and willing to get out of your own way (meaning relinquish your need for control and idea that things need to look a certain way) It becomes easier. When you wake up, become “conscious” so to speak, then life flows. It is always flowing…like a river with a current, but most of us are clinging to a branch and refusing to TRUST ourselves (our ‘true self’- meaning the ‘Universal, Divine part of us’) enough to let go, or as one of my mentors, Jennifer Hough used to say, “to surrender as the general manager of the Universe.” Everything, without condition, happens FOR us! LIFE happens FOR us not TO us, and when we get aligned: body, mind and spirit – We can literally trust and begin to say “YES” to what presents. This is highly unfamiliar and so our minds will begin to FEAR and worry (that is the ego fighting to stay in ‘control’) It’s a process and journey.
We learn to trust ourselves by trusting ourselves and tapping into the divine support that always has our back!!
I have lots of freebies, like radio shows, interviews and blogs, and offer workshops for very little investment and then my retreats and coaching. I have done radio shows with my girlfriends, Desiree and Carole, FB live events that are always free and filled with incredible tools, insights and deep activations of truth and love. And I lead “Heart to Heart” circles, various workshops – especially forgiveness/ Ho’oponopono, facilitate Trilotherapy group and private coaching and lead Zen retreats and Love retreats. I also help promote other heart centered speakers and entrepreneurs. My Zen Master, Nissim makes occasional visits to Edmonton and that also helps get thee word out about my work. I mostly do attraction marketing – just putting it out there on Facebook, MEETUP.COM, flyers, and word of mouth, offering intro. talks and healing circles, and workshops. That’s it. They come to me.
11. My Greatest inspiration is SOURCE. I plug in through stillness, and meditation, trusting the book that falls into my lap, the people that show up for me and I really get that everyone who shows up in my life has something to teach me. I have also gained inspiration from Zen Master Nissim Amon, Brian Klemmer, my partner Cal, my girlfriends, Des, Charlene and Carole, authors, Wayne Dyerand Matt Kahn!! So many amazing souls to be grateful for!
12. Books: Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment: both by Michael Singer
Matt Kahn’s Whatever Arises LOVE that.
for a while it was Wayne Dyer’s Power of Intention,
Don Miguel Ruiz’s Four Agreements, Eckhart Tolle’s the Power of Now and Robert Holden’s Loveability!! All so good!!
13. Favourite tool: meditation and mindfulness – the answers all reside within…we just need to come home to ourselves and get present to hear them.
14. Favourite mantra: From Zen Master Nissim Amon: “Life is Beautiful. It’s meant to be Fun and Everything is All Right.”
And, of course: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Gandhi
I ask myself a lot: What would love do? If I really loved and trusted myself, what would I do now?
15. Parting words: Ask,”What would love do?” to help shift your choices from fear to love and get aligned with who you really are!
Connect with me and my events/ offerings at Living from Heart Center on meetup.com and on Facebook
Email: jeri@livingfromheartcenter.com
upcoming projects: Zen Retreat this FALL!
Unconditional Love retreat (TBA)
Heart to Heart workshops every second Monday – at Inclusion AB, Edmonton
In person and Skype/Zoom coaching and forgiveness sessions.