Episode 100: Tune Into Your Creative Energy with Sofia Adler of SWA Wellness
Podcast
Episode 100: Tune Into Your Creative Energy with Sofia Adler of SWA Wellness
“The universe is alive and modern living has made us forget that we are a part of something bigger.” — Sofia Adler
We made it to episode 100! I am so grateful for you tuning in and listening to this podcast whether it’s your first episode or 100th. I’m celebrating this milestone with a special repeat guest who will remind you that you are part of something larger.
I’m joined by Sofia Adler, an energy worker and certified mindful meditation teacher. Sofia works with a variety of energetic modalities that help you connect back to yourself, the land, and the universe.
Tune in as Sofia and I explore the many ways that energy can support you, your creativity, and your life force. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify. Get the full show notes & transcript here.
What’s in This Episode:
Sofia Adler defines creativity as connecting to the universal life force and remaining open to the infinite possibilities of what can be created. When approaching creativity with the belief that anything can be created, our capacity for abundance expands.
Sofia blends a variety of energetic modalities to help people heal and reconnect with themselves, others, and the universe. She shares examples of how she uses this energy inside of her own business too, to spark ideas and channel language that helps her connect to her ideal clients.
Sofia tells us how she nourishes her creativity by doing nothing, stepping back, and journaling. When she gives the creative process space, she can listen to where the energy wants to go next.
Sofia believes in dissolving creative blocks by removing old emotions and energies that are no longer serving us so that we can keep moving forward, growing, and evolving – rather than being held back by past experiences.
Topics Covered:
Believing in and interacting with energy and the unseen world
The wisdom of our bodies and our ability to feel energy and read the room
The art of remembering we are part of something bigger
Having a playful and curious approach to the creative process
The impact of squashing the creative process by fixating on how we think it’s supposed to go
What it’s like utilizing a variety of energy modalities like astrology, mindfulness meditation, the Emotion Code, Integrative Energy Mapping, and more to support clients
Nourishing creativity by taking a step back and doing nothing, exploring what emerges in the absence
Dissolving creative blocks by removing old emotions that are holding us back
Moving forward, growing, evolving and intentionally choosing to live from the present moment free from old patterns
What is your current relationship with your energy? Tag us on IG @chefcarlacontreras & @sofiaadler_ to let us know how you reconnect with yourself and your creativity!
PS: Dreaming of starting your own Substack? Listen to this podcast about building your new digital home on Substack here
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Disclaimer: Always seek the counsel of a qualified medical practitioner or other healthcare provider for an individual consultation before making any significant changes to your health, lifestyle, or to answer questions about specific medical conditions. This podcast is for entertainment and information purposes only.
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About Sofia Adler
Sofia Adler, founder of Sofia Adler Wellness, offers guidance from the universe for the ambitious and practical, yet spiritually curious. Through an array of energy modalities including the Emotion Code, Reiki, Integrative Energy Mapping, and Astrology, combined with her Masters Degree in Psychology from Columbia University, Sofia helps you reconnect to spirit both around and within.
Find + Work With Sofia:
Full Transcript:
Carla (00:01):
Welcome to Nourishing Creativity. The cycle of the last few years has left you and me feeling mentally, physically, emotionally, and creatively drained, nourish your very full life through interviews with creatives and entrepreneurs about how they create and move through their creative blocks. If you don't know me, I'm Chef Carla Contreras, a food stylist and content strategist. You can find me, chef Carla Contreras, across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes, episode 100. I am so grateful to have you here, whether this is your first episode or your 100th, thank you for tuning in. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing this podcast. Thank you for leaving reviews. You have made this podcast a top 5% podcast in the world, and I am so honored that you spend your time with me and creatives and entrepreneurs sharing their stories and how they move through creative blocks in their creative process. Today's episode is a special treat with a repeat guest. I can't wait to hear what you think. Sophia, welcome to the podcast. You are on show up fully. My previous podcast, it's actually a top podcast, and I'm so grateful to have you here on Nourishing Creativity. Can you share with us who you are and how you serve your community?
Sofia (01:45):
Yes. Hi, I'm so happy to be back. My name is Sophia. I am an energy worker and I'm based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And the work that I do, what I'm really passionate about is helping people heal through connection, connection back to themselves, connections with each other, connections to the earth, the land, and of course to the universe to reconnect to the truth, which is there's something going on here, right? The universe is alive and modern living has made us forget that we are a part of something bigger. So through a myriad of different energy modalities. I also formerly was an astrologer, so I use astrology as an energy modality. I have a master's in psychology from Columbia University, and I'm also a certified mindfulness meditation teacher. So I have a really rich and diverse background that allows me to hone in on supporting specifically the people who are practical and ambitious and hard workers, and they like to understand the way things work, but they're also spiritually curious.
(02:43)
They're drawn to more. They are either well-versed in an energetic way of living, a spiritual way of living and being and want continued support and someone who understands the full spectrum of who they are or people who are new to the whole spirituality, energy work thing and are curious about a new way of living and a new way of understanding the world that they live in and themselves. Because I really believe at the end of the day, every single energy modality, the value in it among many things. But I think a really great way to understand what energy work is and how it can benefit us is that it provides another language and another framework for understanding our lives and ourselves, which is important because a lot of the times, the very mental driven, logical, linear way of being that we've been taught is the quote right way falls incredibly short for navigating the human experience.
Carla (03:43):
And I heard this, I feel like it was yesterday, that communication 3% is our words and the rest of it is everything else. And I wonder what your take is on that in terms of energy.
Sofia (03:58):
That's such a good question. Yeah, I remember that statistic. I think it's like a wild number. I think it's 60 to 80% of communication is with with something that goes beyond the mind. And our bodies are so much wiser than we give them credit for. Our bodies are tuned into the energetic frequency of everything, and so of course it makes sense that we read body language. We read the energy in the room, right? There are sayings of like, oh, I didn't like that person's energy, or I didn't like their vibe, or the energy in the room threw me off, or God, it's such a good vibe in here, this restaurant, it's so cool and vibey and chic, we don't give ourselves enough credit for how energetically tuned in we are. And I think we've actually been taught to turn it off. I've recently gotten really into grounding, and that is an extension of quantum biology, which I won't go on a tangent about that, but I have learned in learning about grounding that our bodies are so charged that just by putting a fingertip to the earth or to the leaf of a tree that's in the earth, we then are receiving the electromagnetic force of the earth, which we need in order to be healthy, to heal instantaneously.
(05:15)
When you ground your parasympathetic nervous system turns on, your muscles relax, like your blood starts flowing better. So for people with blood clots, it's really wild to me how not only is everything energy, but the more that we reconnect to that energetic connection between all things, that's the root of our capacity to heal.
Carla (05:35):
Fascinating.
Sofia (05:37):
Yeah. Five.
Carla (05:38):
Sophia, can you share with us your last meal? I'm a trained chef, so I'm always curious.
Sofia (05:43):
Yeah, my last meal was breakfast and I had leftovers from last night, which was like a chickpea onion, kale saute, and I folded it into three eggs with some jalapeno hummus and some corn chips. It wasn't fancy, but it got the job done.
Carla (06:00):
It sounds delicious.
Sofia (06:02):
I love a kitchen sink meal and you throw it all in a bowl and call it a day. Those are some of my favorite.
Carla (06:08):
I actually am the same way with my food. I'm really, really excited to ask this question. How do you define creativity?
Sofia (06:16):
I'm smiling because traditionally I would've told you that I'm not a creative person in the sense that I'm not necessarily a great painter, great drawer, but to me, creativity is connecting to that universal life force, being open to the capacity for abundance. I think what I really mean by abundance in this case is this idea of anything is possible, anything can be creative. We look to the earth, right? We move through four seasons in most places, and that is such a creative process of creating, again, creating a new. And what comes to mind to me as well as I speak this out loud, is I think I would define creativity also as encompassing an alchemical process or a life and death process. Because in order for something to be created, it has to break down first. We have to make room for the new. And so the more that we can be in flow, the more that we can honor our true existence as cyclical beings instead of the need or the pressure to be on all the time. That to me is creativity.
Carla (07:23):
You always blow my mind. What is your current relationship with creativity?
Sofia (07:29):
For me, the stage that I'm at in my life, creativity is not directly synonymous, but really overlaps with this idea of play. So not taking things so seriously when I can, I'm a real human. That's easier said than done for me. Don't get me wrong when you listen to this. And also a stage of life that I'm in is throwing a lot at the wall and seeing what sticks, trying things out. Just being in the creative process of, well, what about this? And what about that? And I think creativity is really squashed as soon as we have a finite idea of how it's supposed to go or what it's supposed to look like. So curiosity is key for creativity, and I know we'll get to this, but I've really been using energy lately as a spark for creativity. I look to the energy to tell me what direction I should go in, and then I use it as inspiration for my next steps in moving forward.
Carla (08:28):
Let's get into that. How do you nourish your creativity? What's your creative process?
Sofia (08:34):
Something that I've learned the hard way, I'll just be really honest, is that part of nourishing my creative process is doing nothing and taking a step back and not doing anything that I quote should, but instead giving myself space to see what comes up. I'm an Aries. I'm a born and bred New Yorker. I live in the us. That has been a real conscious unlearning for me of, oh, to nourish my creativity, to even feel creative whatsoever, I have to do less and pull back instead of do more. And journaling is a big nourishment of creativity for me. And with the energy specifically, it's twofold, modalities that we've worked with together. The emotion code, I will use a practice like the emotion code to help remove potential blockers to my creativity, if that feels like the right way to nourish it in the place I'm in.
(09:27)
I also use an energy modality called integrative energy mapping. And it's this really cool synthesis of many different healing traditions and modalities, and basically you talk to the energy through that modality, you get answers from the energy of where to go. So I'll give a direct example. I'm in the process of promoting a certain package in my business, and I will go into the compass of integrative energy mapping and I will run a sequence of energy on my ideal client. What do they want to know? What do they want to hear, what's going to be the thing that draws them in? And then the information that comes through energetically. I synthesize that and then I write marketing content based on that.
Carla (10:13):
Tell me more.
Sofia (10:14):
Okay. So something that came up in an energy session that I did was a certain type of energy, an energy frequency called Elohim. And my relationship to that energy, what came through was that it was alchemizing, so looking at something and breaking it down so it could create something new. And then the next thing that came through was my college experience. And when I sat with that and what that meant to me, because of course it's personal, and I think the main thing that I've taken for myself that I find so nourishing back to your question is that this is my interpretation. This is a way for me to be creative. This isn't right or wrong, hard and fast life or death. This is a way that I get to create and see what happens and put stuff out there. So when I looked back on, okay, I'm this frequency of Elohim as it relates to my college experience, what I took from that, what came through when I sat with that was I'm breaking down and creating a new around what I learn around what's significant for me to learn.
(11:24)
And so I actually just wrote a whole post about this for my email and I'll share it on social kind of re-envisioning what I wish I had learned during my primary schooling years. I've been really privileged and really lucky to have a great to education in my life. And I look back and I wonder what would life have been like if I hadn't learned trigonometry, which I use none of in my life today? Or what if alongside trigonometry I had been taught that the universe is alive, that I had been taught that the earth can hear me, that the way I treat the earth is an extension of how I treat myself and others. What if I had been taught that I'm a creator of my reality? I really wonder if what my life would, all of our lives would be like if that had been part of what we were learning in our really performative and impressionable years. What dreams would kids have for their lives? What would they create? So that was a huge creative spark for me and was a way for me to express, instead of which I'm sure a lot of people who listened to this can relate, versus sitting at my computer and being like, what should I say today?
(12:36)
I find what can be a killer of my creativity is when I'm trying to figure out the right thing to do or say or post because it's not creative, it's just I'm trying to recreate a cookie cutter meal is the word that comes to mind.
Carla (12:51):
I love this, and I also love that I'm a parent and I get to say from the other side that this is the way that I am, I want to say co-creating with my children that they get to learn these energetic practices. And my daughter the other day wrote something and created an author bio, and among other things, she wrote Ella, creator of things, and I was like, wow, this is really powerful. So what you're saying really resonates deeply with me because I'm here and we work together and we work on energy and the emotion code and different modalities, and also I get to translate that to tiny humans. Humans,
Sofia (13:45):
Totally. I love it. For whatever reason, this nugget of info keeps coming to mind for me. There's been a lot of research done on the capacity of water and that if you speak poorly to water or you are angry around water, negative around water, the structure of water changes and it can even start to form mold and rot and get black and ugly. But on the flip side, if you talk to water and you say, I love you, you're beautiful, you're amazing. I'm here for you. Wow, you are really loving and caring and benevolent towards that water from looking into a microscope. You see the molecules of water shift, and they all look like snowflakes. They become these gorgeous crystalline images. It is to the point of having tiny humans. It's like our water hears the impact of how we relate to it. Our water is conductive and serves as a channel for our thoughts, our words, and God, the capacity to do that to a child or a teen or a tween or what have you.
(14:52)
It's really powerful. I got into spirituality, energy work because I was at a point in my life where I felt alone and lost and afraid, and I was in yoga, teacher training, and I remember the philosophy part, which I obviously thought I would hate, but ended up being my favorite. I learned, oh, yoga, chiha yoga is a stilling of the mind. And it made me realize, oh, I create my reality. I have a say in how this all goes down. And that is, I think, first of all, I feel like that's the essence of creativity. I get to have a say in how my life goes. My life can be this creative force, this creative act, this creative expression that it is to live. And also though I am a powerful creator, and I just wanted to learn all about that, and I think for children, especially all of us, but kids, it's hard when you feel lost and you have no control and you don't have a say over your future or life feels limited and limiting instead of abundant and rich with creative potential.
Carla (15:57):
With that, I want to get into creative blocks because we've mentioned this and we've mentioned different modalities and ways that you work and ways that we work together through creative blocks or what I may deem as creative blocks, but I'm curious about you because the conversations that we have back and forth are so rich.
Sofia (16:21):
So I primarily turn to the emotion code for creative blocks For people who haven't heard of the emotion code, it is a hyper effective and hyper efficient energy modality that helps to remove old energies in the form of old emotions that you don't need to carry anymore that are holding you back emotionally, physically, mentally, with no guilt, right? All of us, me too, have hundreds of trapped emotions. What happens is when we have an experience in our lives and our sweet bodies and systems get overwhelmed, which is common in the modern world, and the system can't process and release everything in that moment, we hold onto it, right? The body keeps the score, the energy body knows and remembers. And so if I were to explain the emotion code in layman terms, it would be that through this modality, you drop baggage that you just don't need anymore to create space.
(17:21)
And so when I think of an energetic block, I just think of something that's in the way of flow, in the way of movement, in the way of growth and expansion and feeling, as I mentioned earlier, kind of my why prevents a connection to self at our core. And also what I love about the emotion code is that you don't have to talk it out. Trust me, you guys can probably tell I can be chatty. I love to talk something through, but there's a time and a place for that. There's a lot of instances where rehashing something activates it again, which is unnecessary or is re-triggering or traumatizing or brings you back to that place instead of helping you move forward. And so through the emotion code, we're removing emotions that your system is ready to release. Nothing is removed without your body's consent. So removing things without having to go into the story, without having to peg, oh, I see how and why.
(18:18)
Sometimes we feel that connection, right? And we have that story, and it can be so beautiful and nourishing. But I find for people, what the feedback I kind always get is, I love how I don't want to do anything. I love how I just get to show up and receive. Things are removed, and I can move forward without showing up on Zoom or without talking it out all the time. And a phrase that I've been thinking about a lot is this idea of keeping it moving. It's talking about this of a client of mine, just keep it moving. The goal is to move forward. The goal is to grow and evolve, and so much of life is being lived from the past, but we don't realize it, right? Let's say, okay, business owner, you had a flop of a launch however long ago. And so every launch you go into, you're subconsciously going in with the impression of, well, who knows? It's probably going to be a lot flopped. This is what happened last time, blah, blah, blah, because you're carrying trapped emotions. Instead of being able to walk into a situation with curiosity, being open to the capacity to create this new situation and go in with a blank slate. So emotion code helps to return us to a blank slate so that we can create in our lives.
Carla (19:28):
So beautiful, and I'm so grateful that I get to work alongside you. Sophia, can you share with us how we can find you, how we can work with you, how we can support
Sofia (19:39):
You? Yeah. So main places to find me is at my website, sophia adler wellness.com, and I spell my name with an F and also my name on Instagram. My handle is at sophia Adler underscore, and we used to work with me an energy infusion, which is the best way to try out the emotion code. It's five sessions over one week. I also do energy sessions where I integrate energy mapping, like I just talked about reiki and the emotion code to kind of pull all of my energy modalities into one place. I also offer astrology readings, so there's lots of different ways to jump in and try out energy and working with the unseen and what it can unfold for us. And you can always DM me on Instagram, can find links to book on Instagram, my website, of course. Those are kind of the main places.
Carla (20:29):
Thanks so much for tuning in to Nourishing Creativity. You can find me Chef Carla Contreras across all social media platforms and more information in today's show notes. While you have your phone out, please leave a review on iTunes or Spotify. This is how others find this show. I really appreciate your support sending you and yours so much love.