Today we’d like to introduce you to Laura Sanders.
Hi Laura, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I started Supernatural Recovery as a solution to a void I saw within the recovery community. My story of addiction recovery is closely linked to trauma which is not addressed in the traditional 12 steps. When I was sixteen, I was kidnapped and held in captivity for three years. Upon finding freedom and autonomy, I began experiencing severe PTSD and drinking heavily. I remained addicted to alcohol for twenty years and got sober in 2019. Western medicine was unable to help me with pharmaceuticals and a 12-step program. It became clear when I finally stopped drinking that I had to be my own medicine. So I wrote and published Supernatural Recovery to offer a 12-step alternative. My process includes nervous system regulation, energetic transmutation, and forgiveness and self-compassion. I have online classes for each of these, I teach meditation classes, and I have started having in-person meetings for other people looking for a 12-step alternative. I work one on one with people as an intuitive, offering guidance and energy work. I will complete my master’s degree in counseling in 2023.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I think the biggest roadblock for me has just been getting in my own way. Perfectionism and trying to feel like I’m good enough to create something of this magnitude have gotten in the way. I know there will be people who are die-hard 12 steppers who will fight with me about creating something that challenges the status quo and trying to be ok with that has been hard. People pleasing is a trauma response after all. Just finding the courage to believe in myself is hard after so much trauma. But as I heal myself, I become more equipped to heal others, and I really believe in what I’m doing and I think it is very needed. I’m hoping it can grow all over Austin and into other cities, where people who are spiritually minded, or sensitive, or just don’t want to mess with the traditional concepts of powerlessness and shame that the 12 steps keep alive can find an alternative. So believing in something new and small to grow it into something big is its own challenge.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I am such a multi-hyphenate, as a highly creative and ambitious person, I’m usually thinking about all of the possibilities instead of focusing on what is ahead of me. I’m teaching classes and workshops and taking one on one clients. I have online classes and my book. And we just started the in-person support group. All of this helps people with nervous system regulation and offers new perspectives on trauma and addiction recovery.
We all need help moving stress and trauma out of our bodies. With 15 years of experience as a bodyworker and energy healer, I understand the ways energy gets stuck and how to help people move through challenges by teaching them to be their own medicine. It’s about empowering people to make their own shifts in their own time. I think my work balances the physical and metaphysical.
I am an intuitive so working with people for me just means helping them shift their energies and find what modalities best support them. I get visions when I’m working with people. Sometimes I get messages like I’m channeling. I know that’s pretty esoteric and out there for some people. When it first started happening I sort of ignored it but then I started sharing what I was receiving with clients and it totally shifted how I work with people.
Moving into the group healing space has been amazing because I can work with so many more people. As I continue to regulate my own nervous system, opportunities arise for me to collaborate for retreats and other types of workshops. That’s been so cool to see how the mind and the body work together when you combine meditation and movement. There is so much healing to be done just within our own bodies, with our breath, our words, our movement, etc.
And for what I’m most proud of, I want to say my book because I write so much; I’m constantly writing music and poetry and musings… but to actually get my shit together and get something physical and tangible that I can share with people; that’s amazing and I’m very proud to have had the means to execute that. I’m also just super proud of my own sobriety journey. Alcoholism had its claws in me in a serious way. The PTSD from what I went through was wrecking me. To be three years sober and starting a movement to help other people find their way out of that is still pretty surreal.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
The most important lesson I have learned is that emotional responses are human and don’t have to be vilified or pathologized. Modern psychology wants to tell us all that we are broken and label us with ADHD, alcoholism, depression, and personality disorders. The truth is humans are complex and psychology is fascinating, vast, and nuanced. Our society shames us for having ordinary responses to traumatic stimuli, when acting “crazy” or out of control is a very normal thing to do with things around you are going completely wrong.
Educating people about nervous system recovery and how it relates to mental illness and addiction is probably the most important thing I will ever do.
Pricing:
- $59 per online class
- $75 body collective membership with promo code LSanders
- $150 hourly private session
- Book available on amazon
- Thursday night recovery meeting FREE
Contact Info:
- Website: www.supernaturalrecovery.org
- Instagram: supernaturalrecovery
- Facebook: supernatural recovery
- Youtube: supernatural recovery
- Other: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/peaceful-recovery-happy-hearts-tickets-415292128937?aff=ebdssbdestsearch
