Shannon D Martin: 0:00

Hello, beautiful welcome to today's conversation with our special guest, risten Layne. Kristen is a feminine embodiment coach, holistic hairstylist and advocate for women's empowerment, with over 20 years of experience helping women reclaim their sensuality, emotional intelligence and feminine allure. Through her signature Femme Allure mythology, kristen guides high-achieving women to heal from trauma, break free from toxic hustle culture and embrace their cyclical nature, enabling them to step into self-trust, sovereignty and radiance. She is also the founder of Femme Allure Society, a community focused on shadow work, emotional mastery and embodied confidence. Beyond her coaching, kristen is a homeschooling mom of three, entrepreneur and visionary, committed to a world led by love, connection and feminine wisdom.

Shannon D Martin: 0:59

I am your host, hannon Martin, and welcome to today's episode of this Thing Called Wellness. Now let's listen in All right. Today, my guest is Kristen Lane of Semantic Feminine Embodiment Coach. I have known Kristin for a very long time. We met years ago, networking. I can't believe it's been what like nine, ten years now that I've known you and I've and I have watched you grow and do some amazing things in a holistic area. So, um, today I wanted to talk about the new things that you're doing. So, um, welcome, welcome thank you.

Krisin Layne: 1:38

Thank you for having me you're so welcome.

Shannon D Martin: 1:42

Um, so I wanted to talk about what inspired you to start incorporating somatic work into your coaching and hairstyling practice.

Krisin Layne: 1:51

Yeah, so my journey into somatic work started from a deeply personal space. For years I was kind of burning the candle at both ends, trying to do it all as a mother, the business owner and the woman who felt like she had to do it all, you know, and just feeling the pressure of trying to keep everything perfect and that burnout was kind of my wake up call I didn't have the time for myself and it was constant doing and there wasn't enough self-care, there wasn't enough me time and really the space to take care of my mental health, emotional health, well-being.

Krisin Layne: 2:40

And then came a loss of a pregnancy, which shattered me in 2019, but also opened the door to such a profound healing journey. And it was through that grief that I found my way to a priestess path and began exploring embodiment as a way to reconnect with myself, with my body, and I learned to slow down, I learned to honor my body's wisdom and to listen and to embrace rest and pleasure as being sacred. And then, as I healed, I realized how disconnected we, as women, often are from our bodies, from our cycles and our inner rhythms, and so I just knew that I wanted to empower other women to reconnect with their cyclical nature and listening to their bodies and reclaiming their feminine wisdom and reclaiming their feminine wisdom. So integrating somatic work into my coaching and salon practices became a way of helping women to feel seen and felt and heard and whole, and not just from an outward perspective, but also deep inward experience.

Shannon D Martin: 4:02

Right, because we, as women, we do take on a lot and we have that superwoman syndrome where we have to have the cape on, because I definitely know what it's like to have to have everything together and trying to keep everything together, especially when you're, you know, a mother and you're working and an entrepreneur and all the good things. So that's really, really tough. So can you explain some of the practices that you put into place to kind of get yourself to that quiet space?

Krisin Layne: 4:31

Yeah, so somatic practices are all about embodiment and it's fully living in and experiencing the body. So it's not like traditional mind-body approaches where we often focus on managing our thoughts or practicing mindfulness from a cognitive space perspective, somatic work is a little bit deeper into the body's experience. It's all about noticing sensation, tuning into your emotions that are stored in the body and then letting the body lead you through your healing process. So, if you can think of it as going beyond thinking about change to actually feeling and living it, it's more of a beingness instead of a knowingness. And so the body holds so much wisdom our, our joys, our traumas and everything in between and these somatic practices help us to tap into that wisdom, into our body's intelligence, um, in a way that words and mindset work just can't quite touch okay, so what are um like, what are are some of the approaches that you talked about?

Krisin Layne: 5:51

So I use a lot of techniques with breath work and sound, movement and touch. Okay.

Shannon D Martin: 6:03

So it's kind of like grounding a bit like when you're in a space, or is it deeper than grounding?

Krisin Layne: 6:09

So it is because we need to be grounded, or at least I don't like the word centered, but balancing and centered is kind of like an iffy right but um, but when we can get ourselves in the present moment. So when I think of grounding I think of more of like that present moment space, and when we're able to be present, then we can feel into what's really going on, because sometimes, you know, maybe you've been asked the question of like how are you?

Krisin Layne: 6:50

how are you today? And you know, oh, I'm fine, and nine times out of 10, we are not fine. There's something else going on.

Shannon D Martin: 6:57

Right, right, and we have totally checked out. And you're sitting there trying to think about, like, what is going on, because I also, too, I think about what you just said about, um, sensing your pain or sensing that you have to really go deep within and just kind of, and because I just did a training and it really kind of made you think about where is your pain and you have to really sit still and be quiet and listen to, like, what is going on inside of your body.

Krisin Layne: 7:27

So it's something similar to that. Yes, and it's really being in tune with what's happening right now, in the present moment, versus what happened before I got on this call or what happens tomorrow when I go to this event. Or it's really focusing on what's here and what's present right now. What?

Krisin Layne: 7:48

do I need right now, right and are. It's just amazing what the body can tell you. There's all these different signals and feelings, and especially in our nervous system, that can keep us safe, but also let us know when there's something going on that we need to know about. It will signal us, it'll teach us, it will signal us It'll teach us and so it's really important with these practices that we connect with the body in that way so that we can listen to those signals much more clearly without overriding ourselves.

Shannon D Martin: 8:34

Right, so I know you just mentioned a nervous system.

Krisin Layne: 8:35

What role does that play in regulating the overall well-being? So the nervous system is the foundation for everything in somatic work. So when we're stuck in fight and flight or freeze, our bodies are in constant survival mode and it's impossible to access joy and pleasure or even connection when we're stuck in survival mode. So somatic practices help to regulate the nervous system by creating safety in the body, and so this might look like grounding through breath or gentle touch or connecting with nature, or even just taking some breaths and releasing sound. There's a lot going on with our vagus nerve, with women.

Krisin Layne: 9:20

The vagus nerve is connected all the way down to our womb space, the pelvis, and all the way up into our throat, and so, as women, we tend to shut off our sound in many different situations. Women, we tend to shut off our sound in many different situations, and so when we can activate that sound, it really allows our nervous system to just really come back online. So the nervous system is calm, it helps us to be more resilient and so when things happen, we can pendulate from one side to the other, so that we're not.

Krisin Layne: 9:56

It's, in a way, balancing but, it's not so that we can forget what we need either. It's so that we know how to recognize when we are in threat, when we are in fight or flight, so that we know how to regulate ourselves and bring ourselves back to center, you know, in a way. So for me, learning about nervous system was like a game changer because during my healing journey it allowed me to, during the grieving process, to just slow down and grieve and allow myself that space and then it also allowed me to after my last pregnancy two years ago.

Krisin Layne: 10:31

It allowed me to after my last pregnancy two years ago. It allowed me to reconnect with myself in a different way and allow myself to be more gentle, as my hormones regulated from having a baby in my late 30s so that I could feel more nourished and safe.

Shannon D Martin: 10:51

Okay, safe and.

Krisin Layne: 10:53

I just I feel like it's such a big missing piece in a lot of the wellness world and healing for women in all stages.

Shannon D Martin: 11:04

That's a big missing piece, cause I've never, I've never heard that before. I'm missing our voices, and I have. I do know that when we're doing our breath work that it is, you do have to go deep within, like I say, into your pelvis, into your stomach, and coming out with the breath work, and that really helps me ease my anxiety when I'm having that issue, and it's amazing that it will calm your nervous system down so that you can be calm and come back to the grounding part and saying, okay, what am I hearing, what am I paying attention to? But I never heard about the voice. Can you explain a little bit more about the voice, because that's something new to me.

Krisin Layne: 11:42

Yeah, so the, if you've ever seen a diagram of your vocal cords are very similar to the pelvic floor muscles as well. And so there's this, it's this nerve that's not always stimulated, and so when we can release, sound, it just I don't even know how to explain it sometimes, because it's it's just so powerful and the best way I can explain. It is for my son, for example, um he has a really intense stutter that we've been um working on with speech therapy for several years.

Krisin Layne: 12:31

And we got to a point where, um his speech, therapist said you know there's nothing else we can do. You're going to have to see a specialist. And so kind of put us in a weird spot because, you know, I thought we were kind of heading in the right direction. So I actually started to look at some of the tools that she had given him already.

Krisin Layne: 12:51

And we were still, you know, using those and implementing those every day with him. And then, as I was learning the somatic practices and things and using sound to regulate the nervous system, I was recognizing where my son was a little bit anxious, kind of anxious when certain questions were being asked or if he was responding to someone. There would be this tenseness of his body and he wasn't relaxed when he would speak and so the stutter would get really intense.

Krisin Layne: 13:27

So, I started doing a practice called booing with him, where you it's an inhale and then you exhale and doing that releasing that sound and even playing with several different sounds okay that really relaxed that net, that vagus nerve in his throat, and it allowed his whole body to just kind of drop and just come into a more relaxed state, to where he could slow down and he could get his words out really clearly. So I'm finding that just that in itself has been huge for him.

Shannon D Martin: 14:04

That's huge. In real time, you know yeah exactly yeah, because my son had a stutter too, so I was really knowing that back then. That's amazing, Kristin, so I love that, because I've heard about the vagus nerve and I'm still researching and learning about that as well, so I love that.

Krisin Layne: 14:23

And you mentioned, there's a lot of research on the vagus nerve where it helps your whole body. Just come back into regulation, where it helps your digestive system. It can help your migraines, and I mean it's a whole key to us being anxious and or even on the opposite end, where there's like the hypo and the hyper, you know, depression, and so it can kind of balance you in that in that way.

Shannon D Martin: 14:54

Yes, that's what I was looking to it for, because I really want to balance my depression out, and I kept hearing about the vagus nerves. I was like, oh OK, so it is really in depth as to how many layers it is to what's going on with you internally and it's amazing. So you mentioned your shadow shadow work, so tell us a little bit about that he said what I love shadow work.

Krisin Layne: 15:28

I really do. So the shadow work is such a beautiful exploration I feel. I feel like when I first came into the personal development world, it was out of being like this little Dora the Explorer of just looking for things and putting things together and trying to figure out who I am and why am I here and what am I supposed to do in the world, and how can I help people?

Krisin Layne: 16:00

you know and I think I had gotten, so, you know, used to doing my day-to-day job as a hairstylist that I needed something to occupy me, and so there was this need for more personal development. And so the first time I ever really heard about shadow work even though I've been doing shadow work for a long time, just didn't know it One of my friends had me read a book called the Light. You know the Dark Side of the Light Chasers.

Shannon D Martin: 16:35

OK.

Krisin Layne: 16:37

Debbie Ford is the author, and that book I think I read it in like a day because I just could get enough of it. Okay and it was. It was just so interesting to me how we we take the things as we're growing up as what is safe and what's not safe, what's allowed and what's not allowed and that becomes part of who we are and those things that weren't allowed we might shove into the back, closet the basement and we don't even realize how much potential is laying in that dark space.

Shannon D Martin: 17:20

Right.

Krisin Layne: 17:20

In the shadows.

Shannon D Martin: 17:21

Right.

Krisin Layne: 17:21

So the shadow work, it's not anything bad, it's actually super good and it's it's just really about peeling back the layers of who you are and being able to be honest with yourself. That's the biggest piece I think with somatic, with somatics and with shadow work is just the ability to start being really really honest with yourself being honest about what you want, what you desire, what you need, and what I'm finding is that a lot of women don't know what they even need.

Shannon D Martin: 17:56

Absolutely not, I don't either I'm on that journey now, trying to figure it out. It's really a thing because we're so, we're nurturing other people and we're not nurturing ourselves and, like you said, you're pushing it into that closet and by the time you figure it out, you're like I'm 50 years old and I'm trying to decide on what I want with my life. So, and then you have to say, and being honest with yourself and real with yourself, that's challenging, and that's challenging, that's challenging.

Krisin Layne: 18:29

That's challenging no-transcript. Just to be able to peel back the layers of. Who would I be without all the layers or labels that have been put on me through the years, all of the titles? Who am I underneath being a mother and a business owner? Or who is really Kristen? Who is really Shannon? You know?

Shannon D Martin: 19:15

Right.

Krisin Layne: 19:15

So it's very, it's, it's just very deep and getting to the truth of who we are and to be and to be honest with ourselves is it's a really interesting place is.

Shannon D Martin: 19:28

It's a really interesting place.

Krisin Layne: 19:31

It is a very interesting place.

Shannon D Martin: 19:33

It is really freeing and once you get there you're like why did it take me so long to get here? But the road to it is so needed and it is a great journey for you to go on. I love that. And you talked earlier about many women. We struggle with our body image and you talked earlier about many women. We struggle with our body image and we just talked about disconnection from our physical self. So you know, we go through all our life transitions and things like that. So I guess just somatic work and the shadow work would definitely fall into place with that Right.

Krisin Layne: 20:45

Yeah, absolutely't win in this you know right, it's what we deal with as women and that's so encoded in our bodies and so somatic work helps us rewrite those narratives to where it's felt in the body and not in our bodies. From ancient, from centuries and decades of, you know, programming, um, and then even tradition or uh, transitioning from menopause into menopause, from being a mother into menopause. Those are actually really beautiful invitations to connect with your wise woman and your sovereignty, beyond what we've ever been told. And a really key piece, I think, came with this for myself this year. I turned 40 this year and I just remember growing up thinking that 40 just seemed like a really powerful place in a woman's life right, because she either she either left her husband or she started a new career, or she did something, or she moved out of country.

Krisin Layne: 21:57

She did something right.

Shannon D Martin: 21:58

She did something powerful. It was something amazing. She did that for me.

Krisin Layne: 22:05

The light bulb came on it's like she just said you know what, enough of this, enough of this, I'm doing me. Yeah, and it's like something just finally clicks, you know, and I feel like it's really through, even if it's unconscious. It is that shadow work that we can kind of come face to face with our fears and the shame that's tied to aging and being able to embrace the power and the timing of what comes in that transformation of moving from the mother to the menopause crone, archetype per se.

Shannon D Martin: 22:50

Right, because when I heard about menopause, you thought that was the end of it. Menopause was horrible. It was something that I'm learning now, as I'm going through the phase. No one really talked about it. So when you went through that phase, you thought that, oh, you're old and you're useless and you're all these things. And now I'm realizing, no,

Shannon D Martin: 23:12

that is a, you're transitioning to something beautiful. It's like a transition, and so, as I'm really researching about it and really learning about it, I'm like this is just another phase of being a woman and it should not be something that's that's just um looked at as a bad phase but, like you said, something that we conditioned to look at. Now you're in your 50s or, however, you're going into your 60s and this is a bad thing, but it's really not. It's another beautiful phase of you being a woman and transitioning, so absolutely love it. You know it's not good, it's not fun, but you know, is that part. So now, what advice would you give women who are interested in, you know, exploring somatic practices but don't know where to start?

Krisin Layne: 23:56

So start with curiosity and self-compassion. Your body already knows the way. You just need to start listening. One of the simplest ways to tune into your breath is by placing your hands on your lower belly. I also call this the womb space, and just take some deeptouch, giving yourself a hold like a hug and some squeezes. It's this simple. There's such a lack of connection in the world right now.

Krisin Layne: 24:44

And if we could start to just bring in more of that for ourselves, I just think we would be a lot better for it, you know. And then journaling I love to give journal prompts and movement exercises to just help women to rediscover their own sense of reverence and for their bodies, and then being able to reclaim their body as their temple. This is. It's something that's always being. You know, our kids borrow it for nine months and we tend to do all these things, you know, for our, our, our husband, or we do these things. You know it's always about everybody else, right, but we tend to not tend to our bodies for ourselves or remember that this is our body and so movement is a really beautiful entry point.

Krisin Layne: 25:50

to just put on a song, let yourself dance and just look at yourself in the mirror without judgment and just really connect with who you are. And you know, it's not about being perfectly choreographed or you know, doing the right thing. It's really just being and inhabiting your whole body. And then, if you want more guidance, of course working with a somatic practitioner can help you go deeper to develop the safety.

Krisin Layne: 26:21

So you're really supported, and that's what I do, and then so, but truly the most important step is just giving yourself permission to explore, without needing to figure it all out, without needing to have all the answers.

Shannon D Martin: 26:35

I love that.

Krisin Layne: 26:37

Yeah, just being open and curious.

Shannon D Martin: 26:40

That's a big step. That's the big step, yeah. So what is in store for Kristen coming up next? What's in store for you next?

Krisin Layne: 26:52

So right now I am working with clients one on one and I'm putting together a group program that will be launching in January called Embodied Radiance, called embodied radiance, and so you can look out for that very soon. And I'm also getting ready to put together a women's circle and that will be um in marietta, georgia, here, okay, um, just to bring back the connection and support of having a woman tribe and being able to have these conversations, the conversations that aren't talked about, like the three M's of menstruation, miscarriage and menopause. Those are like the three taboos that no one's talking about and why, you wouldn't be talking about it, you know.

Shannon D Martin: 27:44

Right.

Krisin Layne: 27:45

But to be able to open up the space for women, to have a safe space to where they can come and talk about these things and be witnessed in their experience.

Shannon D Martin: 27:56

I love that, ok, and I will make sure to put all your information inside of the show notes so that everyone can contact you, and we're looking forward to your work because I'm here in Georgia, so we will look forward to that, and you need to be writing a book girl. That's some good information, so I'm loving forward to your work because I'm here in Georgia, so we will look forward to that, and you need to be writing a book girl. You have some good information, so I'm loving all of it and thank you so much for coming on today. I really enjoyed our conversation and we'll continue it later on.

Krisin Layne: 28:21

Okay, I appreciate you bringing me on. Thank you so much. You're so welcome. Talk to you soon.

Shannon D Martin: 28:24

Bye-bye. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye, If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen in. It really helps new listeners find us and join our wellness community. Disclaimer I am not a licensed mental health professional. The information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered a substitute for professional mental health advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you need help, please consult a qualified mental health professional.