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Welcome back to Wellness and Well.
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This episode was recorded during a different season of my life, but I believe it still carries deep value, especially for women who do too much and pause too little.
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You'll hear a conversation about labyrinth walking, not as a spiritual trend, but as a grounded, gentle way to return to yourself.
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It's short, simple and powerful, just like this moment.
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Let's get into it.
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Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Wellness and Wealth.
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My name is Wendy Manganiello and I am your host Today.
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The topic is walking labyrinths as a contemplative practice, and I am with Natasha Morisawa.
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Natasha is a licensed marriage and family therapist who sees clients in private practice.
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In addition, she's a current executive director of the Palace within Southern California, a nonprofit community mental health center in Monrovia, california.
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Her specialties include working with families and individuals exploring the impact of individual and generational trauma in their lives.
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She utilizes somatic and mindfulness orientations, as well as ecotherapy and eco-spirituality.
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As Ayurveda trained lab with facilitator Natasha introduces curious individuals to the historical and everyday use of the ancient archetype of the labyrinth as a tool for contemplative practice and healing.
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Welcome, natasha.
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Thanks for being on the show with me today.
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Thank you for having me.
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I'm so glad that you wanted to talk about this topic.
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Yeah, and actually you're the first person I've had on the show about this and I'm excited because I've done it once and it was completely by accident and so I'm curious because I had no idea there was so much more.
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So, for those who don't know what is labyrinth walking?
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Sure, let me start a little bit with what the labyrinth is.
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A lot of people actually stumble upon labyrinths, just like you did.
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There's a saying in the labyrinth community did the labyrinth find you or did you find the labyrinth?
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And I think it's a fun way of introducing people to what it is, because I think so many of us have seen labyrinths around, maybe in our neighborhoods, or have seen them in drawings and just didn't know the difference.
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There's a difference between a maze and a labyrinth.
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A maze is meant to be a puzzle where you could get lost and have wrong turns and there may be many directions to fool you.
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But a labyrinth is designed so that there is only one way in to the center and one way back out again.
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And you might find them in gardens or in hospitals or universities.
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And they're a way to have a contemplative experience by not having to think too much, to just allow yourself to kind of step into the labyrinth and let the path take you where it may.
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For a lot of people they find that it's a very calming experience to the mind and a way for maybe the things that are a little bit quieter in our intuition to come up, anything that comes up sometimes in the labyrinth.
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We talk about it being a part of metaphor, just like a dream state, almost as well.
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I love that and, to your point, my mother was on a retreat.
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I took her and the grounds that we were on you could walk down and I saw some of the women walking it and I guess it was those who had gone every year.
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That was the thing.
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They went to a certain part of the grounds and there was a labyrinth there and in my mind, labyrinth I don't know why, I guess because of the whole maze thing is like there's hedges near you, but this was just simple stones that you just walked along and it came back around and it was a neat thing and so everybody would quietly just walk the stones and it was very neat, it was very nice and a very beautiful place.
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So, in your experience, how has labyrinth walking helped you?
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I think in a couple ways I think I've had individual experiences with it I came into labyrinths more heavily.
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I was always drawn to the design of labyrinths.
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The design of labyrinths use sacred geometry, which is geometry that's taken from nature, and I think it just speaks to a lot of people the basic design of different kinds of labyrinths.
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There's mystery around it too.
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We don't really know why labyrinths are around or why people started making them in the first place.
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So that draws me in as well.
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But what really had me use them as a practitioner is when my dad was going through a diagnosis and a dying process, and my mindfulness practice that I had a meditation practice that I had just wasn't working for me anymore.
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I needed to be more in my body and it took me back to labyrinths and walking and just being able to be outside.
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There are a few local labyrinths around where I am and could just be in something bigger than myself in those moments, and I think that's what really kind of drew me to this work.
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We then went and purchased a portable labyrinth, one that is on a canvas that you can roll out, and it's a replica of the labyrinth in the chartreuse cathedral in france and we can now take that and do workshops and what I found doing workshops and doing this with other people is some amazing things start to happen when you start walking with other people in a labyrinth and just the community aspect of it and again, the metaphor of walking paths together but also separate.
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It's just a great experience, I think, for everybody who is involved.
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Yeah, and actually I think when we were done walking, we all met up afterwards and shared our experiences, which was neat too, because we were all very quiet but still walking together.
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For those who are female entrepreneurs, who haven't really experienced this, what would you say is some of the benefits that they could get from labyrinth walking?
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And as somebody who's in business yourself, I'm sure you may know some of those benefits.
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Labyrinths tend to be associated with the sacred feminine.
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I know that sometimes you talk about on this podcast anything from the concreteness to the woo-woo right.
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I think this falls somewhere in between.
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Woo, woo right.
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I think this falls somewhere in between Because I work medically.
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In my practice.
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There's a lot of evidence that our bodies respond to certain aspects of this practice and research that's been done.
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And then there's also the ties back to sacred feminine and spirituality.
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That, I think, speaks to women and gives us a place to put that so in terms of entrepreneurs and female entrepreneurs.
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Just because we can multitask well and just because we make a lot of decisions, I think, on an everyday basis, we do need to have those places and spaces where we can just calm our mind and help our bodies calm themselves in order to tap back into our own intuition and our own wisdom, in order to make the decisions for ourselves and to feel our own sense of self in the world.
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Yeah, I agree with that, because there's something very different about semi-purposely walking, but not purposely walking, where you're in a space with less noise.
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That really has a lot to do with it is being able to find those spaces with less noise around you, which I think is really important for female entrepreneurs, because I think that sometimes a lot comes at us and it all feels like noise.
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So I have a follow-up question, because you said that you have a portable labyrinth, which is amazing, so you're really able to set up that space anywhere, which is a really neat thing, and I don't think people think of that because to me which kind of leads to the next question I don't know if I ran into a labyrinth, since I was on that retreat house, so I don't know how easy or not easy they are to actually find in the US, but I think that's so neat that you can have a portable labyrinth and make those sanctuary spaces.
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I think there's a real importance about where labyrinths are located and the feeling of safety.
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I think that's another thing too for women.
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Walking is really helpful for us, but sometimes when you're walking out on the streets or in public, our guard is still up, and so in these more private spaces where you tend to find labyrinths, there's what we call that container for walking a labyrinth, and it's a safer space to be able to hold what's going on physically around us, but also on the inside a little bit more.
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Where to find them, there's actually a labyrinthlocatorcom is a great place to start.
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It's a worldwide labyrinth locator and people in the labyrinth community will post their labyrinths up there.
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There are portable labyrinths that you can actually rent Veritas that you mentioned earlier, veritasorg.
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They have portable labyrinths that people can rent for events or for rituals or for ceremonies.
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You can also do handheld labyrinths.
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Veritas, I believe, has a printable like an eight and a half by 11 sheet of labyrinth that you can do like a finger labyrinth walk and it's been shown doing finger labyrinths have the same effect as walking a labyrinth itself.
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There's also an app out there and I will come up with the name of that app as we go through this, but there's an app that you can use for that as well.
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That's really interesting that you said the finger one.
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It goes back to that idea.
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When we think of things like abundance or quiet, our brain believes what we feed it, and so I could see where the finger one would work, because it's the same idea of taking the space to be quiet and feel safe and your brain going yes, I kind of feed off of that, which is awesome.
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Yeah, the app is called Labyrinth Journey and as you go through the app, it'll actually light up the path as you go through.
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A lot of these are designed.
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The labyrinths are designed with the same number of right turns and left turns.
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The brain actually goes back and forth between the two hemispheres, allowing that switch to happen, and it's all about flexibility and being able to move back and forth in those spaces as well.
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That's incredible.
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So I have one last follow-up question Do you suggest for those who have never done that but think that sounds like something interesting times they're printed on dish towels or it's in a framed picture that you got from somebody's aunt and so they might just be around.
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We just don't know that you could actually use them.
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You could actually use them so you could start there.
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But if there is a labyrinth in your neighborhood, I would say go check it out and know that when you walk in a labyrinth there are no rules other than not to disrupt your fellow walkers on the path.
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Allow yourself to be in the space and be present.
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Use all of your senses to just be as present as possible and see what comes up for you.
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You might want to take a journal to write down what came up for you in those spaces.
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We'll look back at it later.
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Well, this has been fascinating.
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Thank you so much.
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I really love talking about doing things like this because I really do think in our world today, the more ways that we can care for ourselves and find out what works for us is just better to be able to do that.
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So, thank you so much.
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Because this is new to me.
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I'm going to go get the app and the locator because now I'm curious because I love to go take.
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I usually take pictures and do paths.
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We have drivable paths through the Pine Barrens here and I usually get out and stop, so I just love to go find somewhere else that's quiet, be able to just walk, so I encourage other people to.
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Also, if other people have questions, how can they get in touch with you?
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Absolutely.
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My website is mindfulmftcom.
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You can find me there and I am also on Instagram at NatashaMFT underscore.
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Thank you so much for sharing with us today.
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We really appreciate it.
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Thank you, wendy.
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Thank you for supporting our women entrepreneurs we really need this and all the community around it.
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So thank you for your listeners also, who are out there doing business and creating new ways of being together.
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Thank you, if you like what you heard today, please leave a review and, in the meantime, subscribe to get more self-care tips.
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Have an abundant and blessed week.
