The Chakra Code: Rewriting the Energy Story of Your Life (Lauri Stern) - Episode 203, S2

We come with instructions. But through life and experience, our presets shift—and it’s our job to get curious and reprogram our settings for the modern bodies we have now. - Lauri Stern

Ever wondered what your chakras really are—or how to tap into their energy to feel more balanced, vibrant, and YOU?

We’re diving into one of the most colorful (and misunderstood!) parts of energy work with Lauri Stern, certified chakra healer, Reiki practitioner, yoga teacher, and creator of Custom Designed Wellness. Lauri’s on a mission to help you understand yourself from the inside out and step into your own vitality, wholeness, and joy.

You don’t have to be a guru or yogi to work with your chakras. Lauri brings this ancient wisdom into our modern world—making it totally doable (and dare we say... fun!).

Together, we explore:

• What chakras really are and why they matter
• How your energy centers can help you understand your emotional and physical well-being
• Simple ways to balance and activate your chakras in daily life
• How to listen to what your body and spirit are telling you
• Why it’s time to reframe “energy work” as self-awareness—not “woo-woo”

Whether you’re chakra-curious or already fluent in your energy centers, this conversation will help you reconnect to your body’s natural wisdom and remember that your energy holds the instructions for your best, most aligned life.

MORE FROM LAURI STERN
Website: Visit customdesignedwellness.com to find out more about working with Lauri.
Podcast: The Real and The Woo with Lauri Stern

Visit seekingcentercommunity.com for more with Robyn + Karen and many of the guides on Seeking Center: The Podcast. You'll get access to live weekly sessions, intuitive guidance, daily inspiration, and a space to share your journey with like-minded people who just get it.

You can also follow Seeking Center on Instagram @theseekingcenter.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:39 The Chakra Code: Rewriting the Energy Story of Your Life

Transcript

Robyn: [00:00:00] I'm Robyn Miller Brecker and I'm Karen Loenser. Welcome to Seeking Center, the podcast. Join us each week as we have the conversations and we, through the spiritual and holistic clutter for you, we'll boil it down to what you need to know now, we're all about total wellness, which to us needs building a healthy life.

Karen: On a physical, mental, and spiritual level, we'll talk to the trailblazers who'll introduce you to the practices, products, and experiences that may be just what you need to hear about to transform your life. If you're listening to this, it's no accident. Think of this as your seeking center and your place to seek your center.

Robyn: And for the best wellness and spiritual practitioners, experts, products, experiences, and inspo, visit theseekingcenter. com. 

. Today we're unlocking one of the most colorful and mysterious aspects of energy work your chakras. If you've ever wondered what chakras really are or how to tap into that energy in your daily routines, you're in the right place.

Our guest, Lauri [00:01:00] Stern, is a certified chakra healer. Reiki practitioner, yoga teacher and creator of custom designed wellness. Her mission is all about helping you understand yourself from the inside out, empowering you to step into your own vitality, wholeness and joy. Lauri has a knack for making these ancient teachings feel totally doable.

And dare we say fun because you don't need to be a guru or a yogi to use this energy. We're going to talk about the real language of your chakras, how to listen to what your body and spirit are telling you, and most importantly, how you can actually use this wisdom in your daily life to feel more balanced, vibrant, and you.

So whether you're a chakra newbie a wellness enthusiast, or just chakra curious, let's get into it. Hi, Lauri 

Karen: Hi. So glad to see you today. 

Lauri: I'm just thrilled, 

Karen: we love this conversation because we do talk about chakras a lot, but I think many people have different perceptions of what [00:02:00] chakras are. Some people even pronounce it in many different ways.

Yeah. can we just start at the very beginning and break down for us how you define chakras and why should we even care about them? 

Lauri: Yeah, so first of all. It's potato. Potato to me. Some people pronounce it chakra. Some people say chakra. When I went through training, I remember hearing it as chakra, and it's like anything else we do with energy.

if the intention behind it is respect, reverence, and knowledge, then it shouldn't matter how you say it. So I try not to get stuck in the vernacular because this is stuff we feel. And in the work I'm doing to try to bring this ancient wisdom into modern day, I'm actually not using the word that much because it turns some people off from saying that's too woo, or I don't need to understand that.

So I've really reframed it to help people consider we come with [00:03:00] instructions 

and 

those instructions. Are how we come into the world, We come in with these pre settings and then through our upbringing and our environment and our life experiences, those defaults change or get altered. And so we are allowed and meant to, get curious about.

Listen to and figure out how to reprogram our settings for the modern bodies we have now, especially as women in leadership at the kitchen table to the conference room table. 

Karen: There's so much in what you just said. 

Lauri: Yeah. 

Karen: I never really thought about this idea of coming with some presets that's really cool.

Robyn: Yeah. When did you become aware of these energy centers in your own life? 

Lauri: When I went through yoga teacher training back in 2012, and then I started studying with Ramaa

And she's become a good friend and, She herself. And I also agree, like it's easy to put someone like her [00:04:00] on a pedestal and call her a guru, but she's just reminds everyone, we are just human beings. We're all bozos on the same bus, right? Having this human experience, but in that way, without her, and she knows this, I wouldn't be doing the work that I'm doing and.

Just how you echoed back to me, all the amazing things that I forget. She herself said honey, you're just ready to fly. Like you're taking what I've taught you and you're making it your own, which is really what we do. And so she empowered me and I pay that forward. So it was really back in 2012 and then taking.

Several years of classes with her. She's are you sure you wanna take this chakra ladder class again? think I took it three times. 'cause each time I took it, I just had a different lens and it really spoke to me. And then The secret sauce I developed from that was I would sit there in her circle as one of her lotus pedals and I'd be like, I gotta get up and move.

I gotta feel this stuff in my body. [00:05:00] So it really helped me marry the yoga with the learning, and that's what I do, is I help people embody how to feel these energy centers in their bodies. 

Robyn: So I just wanted to make sure that we know who the Rama you're talking about that we love so much. Rama Krishnan, who wrote the book, the Yoga of Self-Love. She also started Full Bloom. Lotus, which is in the Chicago area. And so I love what you said 'cause she does teach. The chakras in a very specific way. That's her interpretation of them, and I know many people who have taken the class that you talked about and it has been very transformative for them and and I love that you took it and made it your own.

Lauri: . And actually working with her too also taught me that no matter what else we would be doing, because it wasn't all chakra letter stuff and I took a year of learning the Gita with her, for example and any other book we did, her lens always came [00:06:00] back to this ancient system.

And so it was like, wow, it really does inform. How we behave outwardly. It definitely allows us to tap into how we feel internally and then our experiences and how we see those experiences through a perspective is all about these instructions that we come with. And so I just help people sort of weed through and sift out and listen to the messages coming up from our bodies because we are our own best truth barometer.

And in the work we do and the experiences I know we each have, I use my body as a barometer, like a pendulum. And I wish more people would learn and just trust themselves to do that. 'cause our bodies really tell us what we need to know. If we're just quiet enough or curious enough to listen.

Karen: Can you talk a little bit more about that. How do you tune into to those messages? 

Lauri: So I don't [00:07:00] always have the ability to stand in grass, but I do have a grounding pad. But it's all about intention. So you can be anywhere in the middle of an office building. You can stand up when you're listening to this right now and just get quiet.

I stand in Tadasana with my feet a little bit wider, my hands down long by my sides, and I just start breathing and then I ask simple questions. My name is Lauri And then your body will move in a way that is your Yes. And for every body it, might be different. My name is George. My body gives me a no.

And so I ask a few questions that lead up to the big one I might be asking, and that helps me get an answer And 

Robyn: It works. I love the way you described the pendulum. Karen and I use it all the time. Yeah. And so if you haven't heard about that and you're watching or listening to this.

Absolutely try it because as Lauri's saying, we have all of these answers and [00:08:00] guidance within us, and that is one way to use your body and your knowing and your energy as a resource for everything. Because you know best, don't give that power away. . it's free. And it's free.

I love that. 

Lauri: Exactly. It's free. Isn't that incredible?

Karen: how do you teach yourself to do that, Lori? Like how do you learn to trust yourself? 

Robyn: And can I just even add to that, which is what are our chakras? What are the different chakras 

Lauri: so the chakras are built upon one another, right? So if we just quickly go through the system, I like to remind people, I think about a role of lifesavers, it's Roy g biv.

Now the chakras spin clockwise when they're healthy. And sometimes we are meant to dial them down if they're a little too inflated. Think about our bodies as car. So one of my taglines for a business is when you understand how your wheels turn, you can drive the [00:09:00] vehicle of your body anywhere, and that counts as individual bodies.

That counts as corporate bodies and everything in between. So sometimes if our tires are too inflated, that adjusts and alters. The efficiency of your fuel, your engine, your car, how it operates. If you've got a flat tire, you can't get anywhere. Okay? So if you look at our chakra centers, which they are wheels, we wanna make sure that they're balanced and healthy so that we our ride is the best one that we can have in any moment, in any age, in any stage.

So if you think about that and also think about. A building. The root that we begin with, the chakra, the root chakra, the color is red. And each chakra has symbols. Each chakra has mudras. Each chakra has breath work associated with it. There's so many layers, it's our base. When you think about when you wanna build a building or a home, you have.

A solid foundation. So it's our sense of security, our right to own the bodies we're [00:10:00] in our right to exist on the planet. In our family dynamic, it is about money structures, it's about everything that you think about that provides us safety and security. So there's balances on either side of that, and I'm happy to talk about those if you want to now or later.

 And if we move up the chain, the next one is our sacral chakra. The colors orange. It's our seat of passion, emotions, our ability or inability to express those emotions, sensuality, sexuality. Each chakra also has years associated with it. So the root is birth to seven. The sacral is seven to 14, which is no accident because our sacral chakra is where our sex organs are.

And so seven to 14 is when you often go through puberty, for example. so it's about every seven years. I don't have to do the math for people. But then you move up to the solar plexus, which is yellow, and it's our power center, it's the sun. I call it the Freddie [00:11:00] Krueger fireplace, right?

So it can be a little scary in there if we abuse our power or underutilize it. So it's just like food. We cook. If we have too much fire, we burn. If we don't have enough, it's not cooked enough. So it's where we make decisions. It's our confidence. It is our joy and it's just our, it's our power center, right?

And then you move up to the heart, which is the most important because it's the bridge, it's the connector. And the symbol of the heart chakra is two intersecting triangles, which if you're Jewish, it looks like the star of David, but it is purposefully designed to bridge the lower three and the upper three together at the heart, and we can tell people when they have constrictions around the heart, what creates those constrictions. Your heart actually gets broken. It's all about relationships to ourself, to others holding of grudges, grief, and sorrow. But it's [00:12:00] also love, When people are sitting like this and they're constricted, think about when you're sad You're here.

When you're happy you're here. So again, that's that body wisdom that tells us and shows us, what might be needing our attention. And then you move up to the throat chakra, which is also our sense of expressing anything we do with our mouth, our ears, how we listen, how we interpret the words, and what we say.

So this is a huge one in each chakra also connects to each other. So if you recall when I said in the sacral chakra, our second chakra, that associates with the fifth chakra. So how do we express, for example, our emotions? And what we say and what we write and how we speak, but it's also how we hear.

So if we've got imbalances in other areas, people can say the nicest things to us, but we won't hear them that way. If we don't value that, we have a right to be here. we weren't raised to [00:13:00] value our emotions. We can't make decisions. We don't have confidence, we don't love ourselves.

So people can say the nicest things to you and you won't hear it that way. that's how they kind of layer. And then the next one is our third eye, our seat of intuition. It's what we see and what we interpret our visions, our dreams were we allowed to have dreams. There's also physical things that happen with these imbalances.

So actual headaches, Mental issues, and of course. Please seek medical treatment if you're having medical problems. In addition, energetic wellness can maybe alleviate and help some of those problems, but for sure, please go see your doctor if you're having any physical symptoms. About what you're concerned.

Just have to say that. And then moving up to the crown, it is our experience of not being alone on the planet. It is, are we connected to a sense of spirit? And people wake out because they're like you're talking about religion. And yes and no, but it's just our experience of [00:14:00] tapping into. A sense of something we cannot see.

So if you're too stuck in the mud, you're too rooted, you're inflexible, that's a big ask for a lot of people. so we all have friends they're up here, they're super smart they're really spiritual, but they can't pay their bills. And then we have those people that don't ever leave the house and can't believe in what they can't see with their own eyes or taste with their own mouth, right?

So it's just having that faith over fear or just faith in general. and they go each way, So you can feel it really great. Your heart is open, everything's working, and then you take a hit to your vision. Somebody said that's a stupid dream. And now you're like, what? Did that answer your question?

Robyn: Yes. I love the way that you were able to express what each chakra represents in a way that I feel like is very easy for people to understand 

Karen: the role of lifesavers I'll [00:15:00] never. Yeah. Yeah. That was really helpful. 

Lauri: I use all kinds of imagery when I'm teaching and talking. It's like a stack of records on a spindle, but people are like, what are records?

Robyn: Oh my goodness. 

Karen: And it's also helpful too, to remind us, 'cause for many of us, we're thinking it does feel a little woo, right? Because you can't go to your doctor and have 'em look at your chakras, Necessarily. But you can feel the symptoms sometimes If your throat, you're constantly clearing your throat. I know that happens to me a lot. It could also mean that maybe that chakra is being impacted in some way. Yeah. Or if you're feeling like your abdominal area is always in pain, that it could also be symptomatic of that particular chakra.

So it's helpful to remind everybody that, even though the chakras are maybe not seen with the human eye, that it can manifest itself in physical symptoms in your body as well. 

Lauri: If I may just that's a great example. So women CEOs, women in business, anywhere at all. You're sitting around a table.

 And [00:16:00] there's a meeting going on, and now your shoulders start to tense, your jaw starts to tighten, or your throat starts to constrict. That's a really good indicator. Something is happening where you're either wanting to speak and you're not feeling like you can or should, or what is being said is really triggering you.

So right there, that's a check-in. Why am I feeling this way? And then there's multiple answers in terms of like our internal instructions, because some of these instructions you guys we came in with aren't even ours, and that's a whole other conversation. But sometimes one of the first questions I get my clients to ask themselves is when they're having a cringe or a charge of any kind, whose is this anyway?

That's a great question to ask because it's not always ours. It doesn't mean it's an excuse,, especially if you're empathetic at all and there's energy in that room, And you haven't surrounded and grounded yourself or whatever ritual you do before you go into that room, you're taking in and taking on a lot of other [00:17:00] people's stuff.

And so just ask yourself, is this mine? And if it is, then that's just a note to take. Like I really didn't say what I meant to say that day or in that moment. And give yourself grace and just try better next time.

Robyn: If someone's listening. We're watching and they've never really done a check-in with themselves in terms of their chakras.

How do they start to even have a baseline so that they can know when something's out of balance? 

Lauri: Yeah. The first place to start is where they might be feeling a little off, So the start there, like, why do I feel so constricted? Why am I slouching? Why can't I take deep breaths today? And then if they're checking in with their heart center, what might have happened?

That's a place to start. But what I encourage people to do, and this is. Easy. You take a journal and you take seven years of your life, go back to birth to seven, go back to seven to 14, do that. [00:18:00] Check-in. Where were you in your life? Did you move around a lot as a child? Military families?

Are you adopted? Did you have abusive or addicted parents? Was your home life unstable? Did you feel insecure? Were you valued? Just in general. And then were you allowed to express your emotions, your sensuality? Did you look at your sex parts? Did you talk about your period? That's where shame is too.

That's our inner child is there as well. So those checking in of. At those ages and stages where you were within those power centers, that will give you a really good roadmap for where you might have some work to do, or the living and beliefs have come up there, or things were placed upon you based on how you were raised that don't align with you anymore.

And that's part of the discomfort that we feel is we're moving into this age of Aquarius, this heart-centered leadership, this female guided leadership, thank [00:19:00] goodness, but we're raised in this old model of the male paradigm. You gotta do it, Just power through it versus feel through it.

And so that shift that we're all being asked to make now is bringing up a lot of, and I think that's good. A lot of discomfort. So where you're in discomfort is your body saying, Hey let's pay attention to this and work with it. 

Lauri: I love 

Robyn: this seven year check-in. 

Karen: I'm doing it in my head.

I can't wait.

Spin. my question, I think though is what if something did happen at some stage of your life? Does that mean that chakra stays perpetually out of whack and that or does it change over time? So if there are things that are positive in your root chakra for example.

Yeah. That things can, naturally balance themselves out, or is this something that will consistently, it's like you go back to the car analogy. Yeah. Is that tire like out of alignment for your whole [00:20:00] life? 

Lauri: Yes and no. So in my experience and what I've learned is the reality is, so you were raised you plopped into the planet here in this situation.

And if that was a situation that created a lot of instability, lack of security, lack of safety, then for a while that's gonna impact and inform a lot of how you behave. A lot of the life choices you make in terms of relationships. 

if you weren't raised with security, probably gonna seek a partner that's very secure.

 When we start to do this work ourselves and fill those holes, A without judgment, B, with compassion. And the biggest one is without blame and feeling like a victim. A lot of people get stuck there, and that's just maybe their role also on the planet. So we can remedy, we can rewrite. We can forgive and we can move on.

It doesn't mean stick your head in the sand [00:21:00] and put a bandaid on it. It means, wow, this has made me who I am. Let's honor with love and gratitude. It's like any other energetic cleanse we do. When you're cutting cords, what are we told? Cut the cords, but seal those holes with love and gratitude. Which is a really big ask for a lot of people who've been raised and not so kind or. Wonderful environments. But the more we can repair with gratitude for the lesson that brought us to where we are to do this work, then hopefully we don't get stuck. In those holes. And what you're describing also is a blind spot and we all have 'em.

And again, it's like we're great, we're balanced, we're having a great day. And it's like whoosh outta nowhere. It's I thought I cleared that. I've got some more work to do there. And we could go down a hole and say, I suck. I thought I did this, blah blah. Or just wow, that's really interesting.

And have a little humor [00:22:00] about it and just. Do some breathing, do some visualizations. Imagine the repair, inflate or deflate the tire. Whatever works. It can be that quick and that simple. It doesn't have to be this lifelong I'm gonna do all this work now for the rest of my life in this one area, 

Robyn: Yeah. I have a question too. I was just thinking of both the root chakra and then the crown chakra. So if we're talking about the root chakra and it's something that potentially is unstable for somebody and is not rooted or grounded, would that show up in a way where somebody keeps dropping things or can't seem to start something like how would you.

Characterize that in someone's every day . And then my other question for going to the top of your crown chakra and helping somebody potentially see that there's something bigger than them and that they are connected to something bigger.

What are [00:23:00] examples of. How someone can start to do that. 

Lauri: Here's a classic real world example of believing in something you cannot see who has a phone. Can we see the internet? Can we see the 5G?

Can we see what we're connecting to? No, we trust and we have faith that we're gonna look at that phone and it's gonna connect to something to each other. And to whatever grid. Okay, so that's crown chakra right there. So for the people who say, oh, this is too woo, or I don't believe in this kind of stuff, you're already believing in it whether you believe it or not.

So if we can start there and say, wow, that's really easy. Okay, I'm connected to something I can't see. like this information. I'm gonna maybe think about this crown chakra thing in that same way. If the root is, so think about raising kids, We wouldn't give them what roots to come home to and wings to fly if we ourselves are insecure.

If we only live vicariously through our kids, and a lot of people just [00:24:00] sent their kids to school for the first, second, third, fourth time, each time that child walks out the door, if we lose ourselves. That's work to do in your root chakra and several other chakras, So again, standing firmly in your right to be the human you are for all of our ridiculousness and all of our craziness, but not keep siphoning off and losing those parts of ourselves just when someone leaves the door, leaves, the relationship, goes to school.

That's one way to also check in with your root chakra, in my opinion, if that answered your question. Yeah, it does. 

Robyn: , I just wanted to give some real world examples for people to understand how this is so much a part of who we are on a daily basis. And then I guess the next question I'd ask is how do you integrate practices like yoga or reiki?

Into understanding and utilizing your chakras. 

Karen: Yeah, because one of the things I think we've been taught in the past is to do these visualizations, of all of the chakras working together. And so as you're talking, I'm [00:25:00] thinking, is that really beneficial if one of my chakras is outta whack?

How does that visualization of them working together benefit me in some way? Yeah. And back to what Robyn was saying too, is like how do we learn to focus on that and try to rebalance that? Obviously doing the work that we need to acknowledge where we have, our work to do, our soul work to do, but then also to visualize how we can work with the chakras so that they work better for us.

Lauri: There's lots of images coming to me. One of the images I use actually in this piece I'm writing this book is imagine we are a table with seven legs. Can we survive without one of 'em? Yeah. 'cause the other six will hold the table, right? But it's like Jenga. If we start to lop off an imbalance, so if some of those legs are too short or some of those legs are too tall, the table's gonna be wobbly, So at any given moment, those legs can. Life adjusts them. it alters them. We're humans having this [00:26:00] experience. So how we set about rebalancing, reconnecting is through a variety of ways, one of which is yoga, because there are specific yoga poses that lock in and honor, rebalance and open each specific energy center.

 In the same way when I'm working with clients in Reiki, the most amazing, wonderful thing that's been happening is I literally see colors through my hands. So anybody out there who'd like to have a session with me, it's really fun. And like sometimes I catch myself. Does anybody else seeing what's happening here?

Are we witnessing this? And then I get a little giggle from spirit. Yeah, we see you. So I see colors through my hands. And let's say I'm at someone's stomach. And I'm seeing blue, I get an intuitive hit that there's something going on with their confidence or personal power in the way they're communicating or not.

Because blue is the throat chakra, So that's one of the ways, and then I use my body as a pendulum [00:27:00] sometimes. Do I need to increase or decrease the energy So that's how I apply my reiki practice. With that lens of chakras and that really just happened. And of course, as you guys know, we've all heard spirit speaks in language we can understand.

So they ss at me, they joke with me, but they give me colors through my hands because my lens is this system. So there's mudras with your hand gestures. If you've ever taken yoga, angel mudra, it just means that's a gesture with your hands. so there's mudras for each chakra. Like I said, there's breath work, there's sound healing, there is movement practices, and there's just straight discussion and learning.

So depending on what kind of learning body you have, I learn by doing more than just by sitting and reading. But other people can just read and absorb. So I always tell people like, throw those noodles. And see which one sticks. Because today it [00:28:00] might just be mudras Today, it might be going to take a walk in visualizing Today it might be yoga practice.

Might be putting on songs in the key of c, which is for the root chakra, for example. So each chakra has key notes. It's just layers and layers and cool stuff. So 

Robyn: , It just made me think of when you were talking about this, wearing certain colors. Yep. to, inspire yourself and or balance a specific chakra.

Is that something 

Lauri: I've even heard? Eating certain colored food? I was just gonna say, yep. Eating food. So when I go through the chakras, I teach in January. I go through the chakras in January, and often after the end of a chakra class, I'll have little treats or sweets that go with that chakra. So strawberries, cinnamon root vegetables, those kinds of things are for the root chakra and so on and so forth.

And there's foods and. 

Robyn: I love that. I think that's such a simple way to feed your chakra, Yep. 

Karen: And this goes back to I think what you were saying at the beginning, because I was curious about what is it about chakras that really drew you to this work? And now as you talk, you [00:29:00] can see all of those layers.

 Of learning that you can do, you can dive deeper in so many ways. And it goes back to, we come with these instructions like who knew how color could impact our chakras and how we feel. Who knew that these physical symptoms that we have can actually be clues to what is going on within our chakras?

That music and all these things that you're talking about could. Really all be interconnected in some way. And that's what Robyn and I love this because of that. Totally are, 

Lauri: It's like sacred geometry, you guys there's nothing that isn't connected to something else. And that's what I love about the system so much is you don't have to be into yoga or into anything.

You could just be into cooking and learn about which foods and spices and flavors. Connect with each of those centers and that's enough. that's why the work I do give me chefs, give me, teachers give me, entrepreneurs give me any sort of group at [00:30:00] all, and I can speak their language.

That's something else too. In the modern day when people hear us talking about wanting to balance our energy centers and they turn us off. Again, I would say, who's got a phone? What happens? You get the phone, there's a text, it's time to upgrade.

 You don't even think about it. You upgrade. Why is it so hard for us to hit upgrade for ourselves as easily as we hit upgrade for our computers and our devices? That's the world I'm imagining, and I'm sorry, I just got a little charged up about it, but it's like you guys. We take for granted everything at our fingertips.

That's so simple because we make it more complicated because we say, that's too woo, or that's too complicated. Life is so simple and we just need to just hit upgrade. Maybe not 

Robyn: all the time, but once in a while. And I think you know what you're saying too. Which Karen and I have talked about, which is we are basically computers.

and the fact that like the way that [00:31:00] you're even putting, we came with these instructions and we came with programs too, right? In order to play out and achieve certain goals in this lifetime. And so if you can think about what you just said in terms of like hitting upgrade and.

Understanding what we're talking about and how simple it can be. it is the same thing. It is that easy. And I wanna also bring up, 'cause a question that Karen and I had for you, but you answered it without us asking is, what is a misconception around chakras?

I feel like a lot of people think that you have to either learn reiki or do yoga or receive reiki in order to be participating with your chakras. 

And so I feel like your point in saying that you don't is a big one.

Lauri: It's the same with our car. A light will come on and you take it to the shop.

So anytime you feel a glitch in your operating system. There's ways to take your body to a [00:32:00] shop, and there's lots of different shops because everybody's got different bodies, and some of those shops are gonna be yoga, some of them are gonna be eating different foods that day, or wearing different colors that day, So there's just so many accessible ways for us to feel our best, most aligned and truest versions. Of ourselves we just need to say yes and hit upgrade. 

Robyn: And I just think this idea of separating, yes, they are part of yoga. Yes, they're part of reiki, but they are also just as is you came with them.

You don't have to participate in that if that's not calling to you. 

Lauri: we can all 

Robyn: attest though, they all help. They're all wonderful practices, so we love them. However, if that's too much for you at the moment or it's something that you're not interested in, that's okay.

You still have your chakras.

Lauri: If you've got a body, 

Robyn: There you go. I love, that's the line. If you've got a body, you've got a chakra. 

Lauri: And I always say in my classes, I'll be like I have a chakra for that. If you're dealing with dah, I'm like, oh, I got [00:33:00] a chakra for that. 

Karen: Can you talk for a minute just about your own journey and your practice when was the first time that you actually saw the colors? when was the first time that you were like, oh, I can do this. 

Lauri: the last couple of years it started out when I first got attuned, it would be like I had two flashlights.

 And that was cool. I kept saying, Nu, if you're Jewish, it's like, it would've been enough if I had just seen the flashlights and then it was like, oh, we've got more for you. And then it just started happening and I just wanna caution people too, 'cause this has happened to me. I'm sure it's happened to you.

Sometimes I get nothing. 

and this happened like about a month ago with all of my clients, I got no colors. I got no intuitive hits, I got nothing. And I thought I was in fear. I'm human. I'm like, oh my God, did I lose it? Did I do something wrong? And oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. And then Spirit came in, thankfully, and the message I got was something is nothing.

Something or nothing is everything, right? [00:34:00] We get so stuck in the doing and the false belief that is getting us somewhere when really the most profound things we can do for ourselves is to just do nothing or less, And yeah, so the colors have been happening more, but sometimes they don't happen at all.

So gotta be honest. 

Robyn: I know for myself, what I'm always surprised by is that a lot of times in my meditations if I'm just listening to meditation, music. I will start to see colors.

And for me, that has become something I've understood as my chakra's talking to me and understanding that to pay more attention to what you were talking about that would tie to that specific color. And so it's become a language for me. That's not for everybody. And not everybody when they meditate, sees colors.

However, if you have. Pay attention to it, and now you can have a better understanding and almost a little dictionary of what your chakras may be talking to you [00:35:00] about. 

Lauri: And back to simplicity too. It can be as simple as in yoga I say a lot, what you like the least.

You often need the most. And that applies to off the mat as well. But just think about your favorite colors or your least favorite colors. Why don't you like those colors? Or why do you love those colors? I just also love to say we're not broken when we recognize we've got these imbalances.

 But if you always resonate to one color group and always avoid another color group, you might wanna get curious about why. Without judgment and just notice were you raised to hate that color or dislike that color, or maybe you're just a little too inflated in these color schemes and let's bring in some other ones to balance that out.

The color wheel, if you remember back to grade school, like blue and orange or complement colors, right? So I love blue, don't love orange so much, but I like it more and more. But, so you can even look at the opposite color on a color wheel and just. Maybe pay a little attention that day to the subtle, the [00:36:00] quiet.

it give it a voice. 

Robyn: That's so smart. Is there an example from working with a client that you can share where you saw just a profound shift after helping them work with their chakras? 

Lauri: Yes, it happens all the time. The best example I give a lot is because of on my podcast I have a break in my show called Joy on the Fives.

And that came from working with a client because it was clear that she gave herself no joy throughout her whole day until she got home at the end of the day and did a check-in about what made her happy that day. I'm like, that's way too fucking long to wait till the end of the day to see if you're in Joy.

So I gave her homework and I had her set an alarm on her phone at five minutes to the hour. 'cause that's when we get the news rather in traffic for alarm to go off and see what's bringing her joy in that moment. Whether she had to make it about her eyelash or something, because it's a muscle we need to build like.

Anything else. And it all goes back to the wheels too. [00:37:00] If we were raised to believe that our emotions don't matter and joy is a luxury and life is supposed to be serious we forget that Our birthright is joy, and joy and love are the highest vibrations. Our birthright, our instructions do come with those settings and again, life happens to us.

Life happens for us. Those settings get adjusted. So that's the best example I can come up with because it's really factored and filtered into the work I do. But just anytime I'm with a client, it's a transformative conversation. I can See the aha moment, I can see the light bulb going off. And so to me that's my joy.

That's my passion. That's why I do what I do. 

Robyn: How can people work with you to create a customized wellness plan and take advantage of all of this wisdom and practice it that you have? Thank 

Lauri: you. So I have my website, custom designed wellness.com. I have my podcast, the Real and the Woo podcast with [00:38:00] La and I do a variety of things.

It all with me starts with a conversation, so I have a free, chat, you can call me up, email me, whatever. I need to have a conversation to get my intuition going for the people. And then through that conversation, we really do design the path at work. Some people come to me for yoga only, or Reiki only.

I do workshops, like I said, that in comprise movement or just straight discussion. So you name it, I'll do it. And if I can't do it, I am the first person to admit it. And I've got an arsenal of trusted professionals that I will refer anyone to because I'm not meant to be. Everybody's everything we're in this together and we're all meant to support each other and elevate each other. And so that's why I also did my podcast because I like to connect dots and learn. And if I'm lit up about learning something, I want to share that. that's what I do. 

Karen: [00:39:00] Lauri, you are, for anybody who's watching or listening I think can feel your energy.

It is so lit up and it is inspiring. it inspires us to dig deeper into some of these things that we haven't even thought about and talk about connecting the dots. You're doing a lot of that in your work with the colors, the chakras, everything that you're bringing to your clients and that you've brought to us today.

So thank you for sharing. I feel like I could ask you a million more questions, but I think that's the whole point. I'm wanting us to dive deeper into all of this. I know Lauri, we are so 

Robyn: grateful to have you, first of all, as a part of our Seeking Center collective and community. And I'm fortunate because I live in Chicago, so I get to see Lauri in person and work with her as well.

And you are just a vault of wisdom and knowledge and like us, when you learn, you share. And I think that is so evident and you've created so many easy. Ways for people to better know who they are [00:40:00] because as you said, and we'll reiterate that we come with these instructions and yet we forget them and we.

Need that help to dig back into our own selves to understand why we're here. And so thank you for being that translator and teacher for so many of us, and I'm really excited for everybody listening and watching today because If they didn't know you before, now know how much you can help them and they can listen to your podcast as well.

And and I'm sure we'll be collaborating more in the future. So thank you. 

Lauri: Thank you. I'm so profoundly grateful that you've invited me on your show today. I've been. Super fan, little mini stalker of each of you. And n knows it's like the fact that you said yes to that first meeting.

It was like, oh my God. She said yes. you're both so gracious also and just what you echoed to me. You share [00:41:00] so willingly and graciously, enthusiastically what you know, and that's the whole point. So I'm so grateful to be a part of your seeking center community and the gathering of the troops that you've been amassing in terms of this wonderful collective of like-minded souls who have a lot to share with each other and the planet.

Aw. 

Robyn: Here's to continuing on together amen. Thank you. And now I feel like I have so many little exercises that, that you, I know I need to put into practice thank you, Lauri Thank you so 

Lauri: much.