Meet Lisa Trope.

This was a time when I was so deep into my depression that my brain would scream, "if you move from this bed, it is going to hurt." I knew this was irrational, I knew it didn’t make sense, but my depression had gotten that bad there were days where moving a muscle felt almost impossible. Pulling myself out of bed, swallowing food, let alone having a conversation, or getting dressed for work was beyond daunting.

This is when I started going to a therapist weekly and got on an antidepressant. 

Slowly some of the fog lifted. I could eat and speak and socialize, I felt like a new person, and I was. I was working as a community organizer, building power to fight the powers that be, and organizing to hold our elected officials accountable to us. I loved my work, I loved my friends, and loved socializing-- holding women’s circles, group hikes, brunches. You name it, I hosted it. This was such a huge shift from just months prior.

I told friends, “I probably will be on an antidepressant for the rest of my life, and I am OK with that.”

As the years passed I was diagnosed with adult ADD (women are highly under-diagnosed with ADD because they don’t always exhibit the ‘usual’ symptoms). I got on yet another antidepressant to help with my emotional reactivity and my struggle with concentrating.  The only resources I knew to support myself were talk therapy and medication; I am deeply grateful for both and they are important resources for me at the time, yet part of me knew there had to be more to support myself. Part of me knew I was masking a lot of pain and avoiding connecting deeper with myself.

Fast forward to 2018 and in an intense and beautiful experience at a Yoga Teacher Training in the Volcanic hills outside of Quito, Ecuador I vowed to my classmates,

"Tomorrow I am getting off my anti-depressants."

This was not planned and I was as shocked as my classmates. But something inside me decided it was time to take the leap and see what was possible off of medication. 

This led into the next many years of a lot of trying, sometimes finding relief, and A LOT of clumsily and messily falling flat on my face.

I dove more deeply into yoga, learning different breathworks, experimenting with embodied movement, learning about mindset work, mantra meditation, emotional freedom technique (EFT), working on my gut health, my hormones, finding more faith in higher source, and spending lots and lots of time deep it nature. If I thought it may help, I would try it. I would try almost anything to not feel the way I did. Over the years, I found that many of these modalities were supportive, but I still was regularly overwhelmed, not able to access my emotions, and not knowing how to process daily life. My nervous system was on HIGH alert. Life was still hard, confusing, and disorienting most days and everything just felt not quite right…

This is when I found Somatic Experiencing and Dynamic Attachment Re-Patterning Technique (DARE) and the overwhelm, the disconnect from my body and emotions, the severe stress I felt being around my friends and people I loved, slowly started shifting.

I spent years deeply struggling and not knowing what direction to turn. I can’t make up for lost time, but I can share what I have learned along the arduous and weirdly beautiful journey further and further away from depression and anxiety and towards more contentment, joy, and wholeness.

We shouldn’t have to suffer through figuring out HOW to feel better in our bodies and minds. We shouldn’t have to spend years guessing…

I share some of my journey in the hopes that if you are on a similar one, we can help you move forward with more grace and ease and less guessing and frustration.

If you struggle with anxiety or depression, simply feel like there is more for you with life, feel like your mind makes decisions that often are at odds with how you truly feel, feel stuck regularly, or just don’t feel best in your body...then you have come to the right place. 

I went from taking two antidepressants a day and masking deep pain to being able to feel into the ebbs and flows of my days; allowing for peace, joy, grief, anger to be a part of my experience. I went from feeling regularly overwhelmed by my job, by even being out in the world and socializing, to day to day being able to balance many competing energies and priorities.

This doesn’t mean I don’t have hard days, or I don’t still struggle with triggers. It means that I am finally noticing when I am activated and when I need space, it means being able to feel emotions such as love and gratitude for the first time in my life and seeing how wonderful they feel in my body, it means noticing the sunshine on my face or a slight breeze and feeling a sense of calm. I had no idea that experiences like this were possible with the highly overwhelmed, highly sensitive, body I was living in and experiencing them has brought deep connection and beauty to my life.

The goal of embodiment is to not always feel peace and joy, but to be able to embrace life in all its complexities. This embracing changes the way we are able to show up in the world— more compassionate, more loving, more grounded in reality.

You don’t have to be someone who has struggled with your mental health to be here. Many of us are looking for something more in the way we live our lives and the work we do and Your Embodied Truth allows for just this.

I look forward to working with you to continue to move towards our truest nature. Be sure to join our newsletter for updates on classes, workshops, 1-1 openings, and everything to do with our bodies wisdom.