Nov. 18, 2025

Healing from Within: Natalie Bedard's Path to Emotional Sobriety

Healing from Within: Natalie Bedard's Path to Emotional Sobriety

Send us a text In this transformative episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we sit down with Natalie Bedard, affectionately known as Nat, an emotional healer and nervous system guide. As the founder of Lift Oneself, Nat shares her remarkable journey from facing a life-threatening health crisis to discovering the healing powers of meditation and emotional sobriety. She explains the significance of regulating the nervous system and how her insights can help others on their path to emotion...

Send us a text

In this transformative episode of Living the Dream with Curveball, we sit down with Natalie Bedard, affectionately known as Nat, an emotional healer and nervous system guide. As the founder of Lift Oneself, Nat shares her remarkable journey from facing a life-threatening health crisis to discovering the healing powers of meditation and emotional sobriety. She explains the significance of regulating the nervous system and how her insights can help others on their path to emotional wellness. Nat guides us through a mindful moment, demonstrating the power of breathwork in reconnecting with our inner selves. We delve into the concept of emotional sobriety, discussing the importance of feeling emotions without judgment and learning to process them healthily. With her upcoming book titled "The Gift Wrapped in Sandpaper," Nat offers a glimpse into her mission to foster community and support in the healing journey. Tune in for an enlightening conversation filled with wisdom, vulnerability, and practical tips for nurturing your emotional health and well-being!

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Welcome to the Living the Dream podcast with Curveball. if you believe you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate and inspire. Today I am joined by Natalie Bedard, better known as Nat. Nat. Nat. Nat is an emotional healer and she is a nervous system guide. She is the founder of Lift Oneself, and through her Trauma Informed Healing and trauma competence, she helps individuals on the way to emotional sobriety and to regulate their nervous system. So we're going to be talking to her about everything that she's up to and why she does what she does and what she's going to be up to and going to be talking to her about lift oneself. So, Natalie, thank you so much for joining me today.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Thank you so much for a beautiful introduction.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>And your voice is so soothing. I'm sure you've heard that many, a times that you have a radio V.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>So I'm looking forward to this conversation.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Yes, I have, and I appreciate it every time.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Well, I am half a century, so I have a little bit of, you know, wisdom and experience. And I, almost died about 11, years ago. I had lesions in my brain stem and in my cerebellum. And I was told I was only going to live for about three or six months. And if I did live, that I would be crippled and needing devices and whatnot. And I spent almost like 37, almost 40 days in the hospital. And, they did a battery of biopsies and tests and they came up with only atypical. They couldn't find a diagnosis. They couldn't find a reason for those lesions. So I was released. And without a diagnosis, that means you don't have a plan. So I was out in the wilderness. I am a solo parent to three boys. The twins were four at the time, and my eldest was 18. And so I had to make a choice to go within myself and find the ways that I could strengthen my body again, that I could learn how to process thoughts and, you know, be around high energy boys. The twins were very rambunctious, very curious, so slow and steady. I started to do that path on the inside of me, in my inner world, in my nervous system. And thankfully, about a year after that, I discovered meditation, which allowed me to go more in depth into my nervous system and release a lot of emotional charges and have a better relationship with the emotions that were coming up and being able to listen to myself inside and Validate. And while I was doing that, my system and my body was coming back online. And the neurologists and the neurosurgeons and the endocrinologists were all like, I don't know what you're doing yet. Just keep doing what you're doing. It sounds like some mindfulness. And so I continued, and then with one of my meditations, that's where I heard the name lift oneself. And to bring what I learned out into the world and help others understand their biology, understand the nervous system, system, understand what emotions are. And so that was in 2019. I launched it, and we are here now. And I just finished writing a book. I'm shopping for an editor right now so that it can get polished and hopefully it'll get published that I wanted it this year. Yet there were a lot of things that transpired this summer. So hopefully by the beginning of 2026, that little, ah, baby will be birthed, which is called the gift wrapped in sandpaper.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Okay, well, explain to the listeners what a nervous system guide is, and what they do.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Would you join me in a mindful moment right now so I can bring the listeners to see what they have access to?

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Absolutely.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Okay. And as many of you listen to a podcast, you need your visual of driving or, you know, running or walking or whatever you're doing. So when I ask Curtis and myself and the other listeners to close your eyes, please, safety first, don't do so if you need your visual. If you don't, then join us yet. All the other prompts you're able to do with, your eyes open or closed. So, Curtis, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating. And if it's safe to do so, we're going to gently close our eyes or soften our gaze, and we're going to bring our awareness to watching our breath. We're not going to try and control our breath. We're just going to be aware of its rhythm. And if it's comfortable to do so, only breathe in and out through your nose, keeping that awareness of watching that breath go in and out, allowing it to guide you into your body. There may be some sensations or feelings coming up. That's okay.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>You're safe to feel, you're safe to let go.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be, be with your breath. Drop deeper into your body. Now, there may be some thoughts or to do lists that have popped up in your mind, and that's okay. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath. Creating space between that awareness and the thoughts and dropping deeper into the body, into the stillness, into the presence, into being again, more thoughts may have popped up gently begin again. Bringing your awareness to your breath and creating even more space between the awareness and the thoughts.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>And completely surrendering into the body, into being, into presence, just keeping that awareness on that breath. You may have noticed that the rhythm has changed. Now in your inhale, you're going to take one big inhale all the way down to your belly and you're going to hold it. And when you exhale it's going to be out through your mouth and you're going to let it all go. Another deep breath in, hold it and let it all go. Now coming back to a normal rhythm of your breath at your own time and at your own pace, you're going to gently open your eyes while staying with your breath.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Yeah, that was pretty good. I wonder what the listeners felt when they did that.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Some people, it might be their first experience with it and they got to engage with their nervous system, they got to engage with putting space between the thoughts and realizing that they're not their thoughts, even though when they get charged up it certainly feels like it is. And sometimes we don't think we have any control over where we put our awareness or allowing things to pass through us and not getting caught up in it.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>However, the more that we create that space and be in that presence, the more that we become empowered of our actions and our choices and how we can help to recalibrate ourselves. Like I just went and got pizza for my twins for supper and one of them went in there and when he came back out he was like, oh, the man was so like weird. He was just irritated and frustrated and just mumbling and didn't want to talk. And it was like, oh. And I was like to my son, I was like, well you have to learn just to shake it off and not internalize that where you know, our moods and anxiety especially is very contagious. And it's our responsibility to not match those energies to stay open, to create a space of lightness and you know, when we are feeling that way, allowing ourselves to have a process of context. Because unfortunately people have the wrong definition of mental health and they think it's always positive and high vibe where it's like no life is going to life and there's going to be ebbs and flows. It's that when, you know, chaos comes. Are you able to be resilient? Are you able to allow contacts Are you able to process and articulate what is going on internally so that you can find the things, spaces and tools to move forward? You know, the biggest one is grief. When we experience grief, it, there's a, time that is needed and it sucks to be in that space. I've been in that space several times in this past year and it does not feel well.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>And with all of the tools and the practices I have, there's still a space where I have to honor my nervous system of processing what is no longer here and accepting the as is of reality, which a lot of times we are, we suffer because we don't want the as is of reality. We want it to be something different. Yet the reason most times we want it something different is because we don't feel safe. We don't feel a sense of appreciation of what's here. We are very caught up in the negative bias and in the lack. And don't get us.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Don't get yourself wrong. You know, all these social medias and media platforms on want you in that state so they can bombard you with a bunch of solutions that they have the remedy to get you out of that. And that's why, you know, capitalism and consumerism can be so high because they activate this part of that nervous system of looking for safety. And if you don't understand it, then you're always trying to fill this void, not recognizing it's that you have to be within yourself and stop abandoning yourself.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, explain to listeners what emotional sobriety is and why that's so important right now. Because I think that ties into what you just said.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Many people, if they look, there's always this messaging that you know, get rid of pain and be away from pain. And pain is a teacher. And therefore emotions are information. And some of our emotions, when we were young, we weren't allowed to feel them, to uncharge from them, or more importantly to process them. I think many of your listeners will be familiar with I'll give you something to cry for, or what are you ungrateful for? Or why are you angry? I'll give you something. And so we were always told that the emotion that we were feeling wasn't the right emotion. So then your nervous system that has one function, don't die, created a script to suppress those feelings from coming up. And so with the emotional sobriety is, as we know, sobriety means not taking something to numb yourself. And many of us numb when our emotions are coming up, myself included. I still go into my patterns in Certain ways. Yet I am much more versed than I was at one point. And it's being able to feel the tsunami of feelings and energy and also be able to listen and witness yourself, to bring, a presence to that.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>That inner dialog that's going on that your body's trying to communicate. And just because emotions are coming up, it doesn't mean they're the truth.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>They're simply information. And so it's being able to hold this space of being able to finally validate and listen to yourself, not make meaning of what's going on, just allow there to be a, processing and allow context to come in to understand why is your body signaling this? And sometimes it's something that you're not even able. Gonna be able to control. It's just a reaction that your body goes through because it's experienced a significant amount of pain.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Therefore, it gets startled very easily. It gets irritated very easily. And your work is to come back and acknowledge that and allow a transmutation and allow an integration of that to let your body know, oh, you're feeling scared.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Okay, I get that. I'll hold the presence for it.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Many people don't even know how to acknowledge that they're feeling fear because we're told not to feel fear and that it's garbage where there's healthy fear. You know, if you're about to get hit by a car, you want your body to alert you that there's danger around, that your senses are activated so that you can run or jump out. Yet, as I said, with social media and different medias, they activate that constantly. So we are in, always a fight or flight, fawn or freeze, which are different states of the nervous system. And we get depleted. And some of it we create with our mind and our thoughts, which is called psychosomatic. And then it loops our body that we feel like we're in danger, rather than just being able to acknowledge I'm feeling afraid and meeting that fear, befriending that fear and asking what it's afraid of, and also recognizing that you know what you're worth being intimate with yourself.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>And that's what emotions can bring you into a deeper intimacy within yourself so that you can be intimate with others. Unfortunately, many of us go seeking that intimacy outside of ourselves and wonder why the void is never being filled. It's because intimacy comes from within and it's shared from the inside out.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, let's talk about, you're saying coming home to yourself. Explain what that means and what that looks like. In real life.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>So as we did with the mindful moment, it was coming back to the breath. And the breath is the portal to come back into your body. Many, especially those that have had significant complex trauma, they don't even know how to feel the body cues, they don't even know how to it feels to be in their body. Therefore we don't know how to hear what the body's communicating to us. So coming home means being able to feel safe in your body.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>And for some, that viscerally feels so uncomfortable and it feels like a significant threat because it feels safer to be up in the mind. That feels like you're having a sense of control, yet when we look at it, there's really not much control that we have. And that can feel very daunting for many to be in that unknown state. So being able to come home is coming into the body. And if listeners were able to be in that portal of that breath and get these little glimmers of just releasing, you know, the to do lists or the panic of the roles and the responsibilities and just be in the breath and an openness, that's what we all long to be in and that's what we always keep seeking for. So that's what I teach people in guiding them to come back home into their biology rather than seeking for that safety on the outside of them.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>How is it possible for a person to feel without falling apart?

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>I think the definition of falling apart is the vulnerability. And people don't know how to be vulnerable. And vulnerability sometimes is going to bring you into a messy part. And we want to be polished and perfect where it's. It's okay to be vulnerable. It's okay to have a sensitivity. It's safe in, you know, you have to. I'm very mindful when I say these things. You have to be aware of what your situation is. Not everywhere is it safe to be vulnerable. Not everywhere is it safe to be sensitive. Yet when you can take your moments to honor it for yourself, there becomes a significant power that you can access that you don't even think you have yet you have to be able to cultivate those spaces for yourself. Like we just did this breathing exercise. You can be in a crowded room and nobody needs to know that you're doing that with yourself. So it's being able to bring that inner world with your outer world and join them together, not deny what's going on in the inside. It's allowing that inner world to be accessing with that outer world. And it is possible yet it takes a willingness and it takes a practice. This isn't about perfection. It's about being able to be committed to always remembering when I run away from home, remind myself to come back home. There isn't an abyss or a utopia of always being in that state. If that were so, you wouldn't have a very healthy nervous system. The nervous system needs to dysregulate and regulate.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>It's like driving a car. If you were always on the gas, you crash into something. If your foot's always on the brake, you wouldn't go anywhere. And if you're on m both of them all the time, it's depleting you. So it's gas, break, gas break. And being able to navigate how that system looks like.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Yet you have to understand your biology and be able to honor it. And that's going to take a space of honesty. So the falling apart that many speak about is the depths of vulnerability and feeling the helplessness and actually starting to feel those big emotions that they weren't ever able to feel before.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Give us some best practice tips on how to support, healing without bypassing the hard parts of healing.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Well, as we did, the breath is a significant portal. Journaling is another, modality to use to be honest with yourself, to really just put all of what you're feeling, what you're thinking and, you know, how you perceive things onto paper so that you can see it differently. Another one is, is bringing touch to yourself, allowing there to be a sensitivity of, you know, rubbing your hand against your arm or putting your hand on your chest so that you can start grounding yourself in your body and allowing it to see that there is safety and that you're here with yourself. I also have workshops and I have a podcast and I offer the one on sessions, to help people with this work, because I call it warrior work. It's the work that many long to get, yet we're, you know, shown the quick fixes or getting through it through the mind, and that works to a certain level. Yet when you want to be able to have depth and be able to be with your emotions yet not get ruled by them, there's a significant power in that.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Well, talk about your podcast. Tell the listeners what they can expect when they listen to it and where they can listen to it.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>My podcast is called Lift Oneself and it's. I have guests from all around the world, that share their experiences. I have guests that are experts, that are, people that are sharing their own personal stories, people that have gone through the trenches and what it looks like. I wanted a podcast where it wasn't, quote unquote, all experts telling you theory. I wanted people to share what it was to be human so other people could get glimpses of themselves in the story and that they could see that although it's warrior work to do that inner work, there is a tremendous benefit that nobody could rob you from. And also I also have monologue episodes where I share some insights on all of my podcasts. Up to a year now, I have this mindful moment with guests or with myself where I, you know, instead of telling people to meditate it, I wanted to actually bring it in and have us do it all together so that we could create a change in the world and we could take these moments for ourselves and transition, you know, take responsibility for the energy that we're bringing into conversations and how we're connecting with people. So it's, it's, you know, the main thing that I have for the podcast was to remove the stigmas around mental health and create a community where people can feel seen and get a glimpse of themselves and, and feel that they could find different modalities that they maybe never heard of that could possibly bring them into more healing of going within and being in their body.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>So besides your upcoming book, tell us about any other upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>I have the emotional sobriety workshop that is always constant and out and I will be having my raw healing, course that's going to be, a four week intense course of really understanding the biology, really getting into those emotions, that nervous system, and really understanding, you know, the power of intention, the power of choices and, and the power of being committed with your willingness. I also want to create this community because we're not to heal alone. And, you know, we draw from strength that when I'm in a space that I can't see my light, that I can call on somebody and they'll remind me and they'll hold the space of witnessing and listening so that I can remember where my home is. And, you know, being able to create that community where there is sensitivity, there is vulnerability, and that you're not chastised about it, you're not judged about it, and that we can grow in that way, that we can start building those villages back up again because we've been seduced in being independent and going on our own, which, you know, we do walk the path on our own, yet we are all walking each other home. So it doesn't mean that we all can't be there to support one another. And that is my, goal. And what is my North Star guiding me. And I'm hoping in for my 55th birthday I'll have a destination retreat where I'll bring all kinds of different modalities that people can really engage in what this healing looks like and that they have tools that are functional in their everyday life.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Because once you we access something, we're not able to argue our way out of it. If I were to tell you something, you could argue it because you didn't live the experience. Once we live an experience, sure we can talk ourselves out of it.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Yet if we really anchor in it, it's like you can't argue what really happened. So once we experience more glimmer, more openness, we see what is possible when we engage in loving ourselves and supporting ourselves and better understanding what our biology needs and how we can really create our own life story and remembering that time is created inside us. Because time is a tool, it's not a toy.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>We'll throw out your contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>So they can find me on liftone self.com that's L I F T O N E s e l f.com where they can find the podcast, my workshops, my upcoming book, get on the newsletter, and find me on the podcast where it's on Spotify, Apple, anywhere where you can find your podcast, social media, the same handle liftone Self, but everything is on lift oneself and you'll find everything there.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>I want the listeners to know by, you know, engaging in these kind of podcasts and just having the thought of wanting change, that means you're growing, even though it may not feel like you are growing. So to always come back and bring a, ah, grace and a compassion, it's radical compassion.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Because once we start doing this inner work, we become aware of certain things that we've been blind of seeing parts of our character. And so it takes accountability of having to see how we may have harmed other people or dismissed other people or gaslit or even the way that we treated ourselves. That's the most hurtful part that we have to acknowledge and see. Yet once we're committed to being able to go through that fire, that's where we grow in our untamed power. Of strength and being able to have that radical compassion, empathy and being able to move in this world in such a fierce truth because you are no longer leaving or abandoning yourself. You're being with you. So anybody that is listening right now, I want to extend and remind you to please remember to be kind to yourself and if anything resonated reach out to me booking a discovery call and let's see if we can work together or follow me on any of the social medias. I've really appreciated being here with you, Curtis and the listeners.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>Absolutely. Ladies and gentlemen, liftoneself m.com please visit the website, purchase the book when it comes out. Check out the podcast Keep up with everything that Nat Nat's up to Follow Rate Review Share this episode to as many people as possible. Follow us on your favorite podcast platform and for more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball podcast, please visit www.craveball337.com and share the website to all of your friends. Thank you for listening and supporting the show and net net. Thank you for all that you do and thank you for joining me.

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> Natalie Bedard>> Natalie Bedard>Thank you. It's been an honor.

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> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>> Curtis Jackson (also known as DJ Curveball)>For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.craveball337.com until next time, keep Living the Dream.