ZuluOne: Heal the Wounds You Didn't Know You Carried

Why We Resist Healing Trauma | Breathwork & Family Patterns | Vanja Vujovic | Ep16

• ZuluOne • Episode 16

Share episode

Send us a text

In this episode of the Zulu One Podcast, I sit down with Vanja Vujovic, a breathwork teacher, facilitator, and somatic guide whose work blends nervous system regulation, trauma-informed practices, and consciousness exploration to help people reconnect with their bodies and inner intelligence.

We explore why healing trauma often feels unsafe, how suppressed emotions like anger get stored in the body, and why resistance shows up the moment we begin to change. Vanja shares her personal journey through psychotherapy, breathwork, meditation, and family constellations, and how intergenerational trauma shaped her emotional patterns, identity, and survival responses.

We talk about loyalty to pain, fear of exclusion from the family system, and why healing can feel like betrayal to a broken system. Vanja explains how breathwork and somatic practices create space for deep emotional release, access altered states of consciousness, and support real embodied transformation rather than endless self-fixing.

This conversation connects breathwork, meditation, somatic healing, and family constellations, offering insight into why healing is often resisted and how true change begins when we take responsibility for creating a new way of being.

Disclaimer: What you hear here is for reflection and learning—listen, take what helps, and seek professional support if needed

Support the ZuluOne Podcast: https://www.buzzsprout.com/892585/support

Find more from us:

Website: https://www.zuluone.org/

Substack: https://johnacosta.substack.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zuluonepodcast/?hl=en

X: https://x.com/jaykaboomboom

Find more from Vanja:
Instagram:vanjavujovic___
Website: www.vanjavujovic.com

Support the show

SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to the Zulon Podcast. Today we're joined by Vanya Vujovish, a breath work teacher, facilitator, and somatic guide who work blends nervous system regulation, trauma-informed practices, and consciousness exploration to help people reconnect with their bodies and their interintelligence. Today we'll explore her journey and the work she's doing through breath and awareness. Let's begin. Okay. Um yeah, taking that, um, you know, they they went in with a military intervention and they extracted the Venezuelan president. So my dad's there now, and it's yeah, it's I saw um, you know, my ancestry from my Venezuelan side coming in, and I get to oh man, this makes me emotional. I wasn't able to be at my grandparents' funeral. Now I can visit, you know.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Sylvania, welcome. Sorry for starting this way, um, you know, with uh calling, right? But you know, this work we've all witnessed each other really bearing our souls in this process, and that's what healing is is the ability to be vulnerable in front of another person and have that vulnerability. And I know you've certainly been my Sherpa in that process and breath work, and I'm really grateful for guiding us so expertly in that in that process. You know, I I just I'm I love how you combine consolation work with breath work. And tell me a little bit about how how you started this and how you got into this world.

SPEAKER_00:

So how I started was back in a few years back, I can't remember, like 2017, 18. Um I actually, my family, which is um, you know, weirdly enough. Um when I first came to the United States, so I was here by myself for like a year. And then when my family came here, which was my twin sister, and you met her as well, um, she was like, oh my God, like you changed so much. Like, you know, you're so angry, and there's so much like like of your personality that is not like um regular me, right? And she was like, I really think you should like go to therapy because I don't think like, you know, our relationship is gonna be good enough if we continue this way. But yes, I had a lot of like suppressed anger, a lot of like, yeah, just my whole personality shifted into like a survival state. And uh yeah, then I started going to therapy, which was like mental therapy, you know, like talking and um approaching healing from that perspective, which I think is amazing. But yeah, then after a while it was clear that, you know, uh there's some um trauma work that needed to be done and like processing. Um, so yeah, then I went into somatic therapy, that's how I found breath work, family constellations as well, where I could have really like allowed myself to process those emotions and go through that. And yeah, then after that I was like, because I'm also big into meditation and like um not just like a calming, peaceful one, but like, you know, transcendental meditation where you like get to really explore. Um, and I just started getting these visions of me facilitating breath work, working with people, and it was just from this place of heart, you know. Um, yeah, it wasn't something that I did with like my thinking mind. It was more like, oh my god, like if I can feel this way, can you imagine like how many people's lives can be changed by, you know, um by this work? But yeah, it all just came from the heart. And um, and yeah, I just went in straight away as soon as I saw that vision, I was like, okay, like I'm going, I'm going for it. Um, and yeah, that's that's how I got into breath work specifically. Yeah, yeah. Uh, and it's been a wonderful journey, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

What a gift that your sister gave gave you, right?

SPEAKER_02:

To say to have the courage to say, hey, uh, something's going on. So um, you know, you may want to look at that, right? And it's more than your twin sister to be able to have the confidence to say that is, or have the courage to say that, you know, is is is a gift. And your your family's originally from Montenegro, right? And tell me a little bit about, you know, for people that don't necessarily know the history, I have been to Montenegro in my previous life. So very interesting that that we have that connection. But tell me, tell me a little bit about that backstory.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, Montenegro is kind of like a very, very small teeny tiny country. We have like less than one million, uh, that's the population. Um, and yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful country, beautiful nature, very like amazing people. And it's kind of everything is rooted in, you know, community. And when we talk about family and stuff, it's all rooted in family and in that connection, you know. But from that, it can also be like very uh, you know, patterns can arise where it's like the whole like Montenegrin or Balkan culture, if you will, um, has specific set of like traumas that we repeat. Um, most of them rooted in like poverty. There was a lot of wars going on, uh, even in the, and I'm young, so I'm not sure that I'm uh saying this accurately. But yeah, there were there were wars even in like 1995, 1999. So it's like very uh relatively recent. Um, and we can still like see the effects, you know, on how, even maybe not consciously, but you can see it in people's like behaviors and emotional patterns of how that affected, you know, Montenegro as a whole and the whole Balkan. Um, because Montenegro was a part of Yugoslavia, then they like separated. But yeah, there was a lot of like disturbance, a lot of poverty, a lot of survival. Um, and you can still feel, even though like people are very connected and very coming from the heart, there is still that deep survival um that the whole country is kind of still living in. Um, especially, you know, the uh older generations, my parents' generations, it's still like that kind of like, oh, we gotta, you know, struggle to survive. And um, you know, you can do what you love or you can be your authentic self because the priority is survival rather than you know what it will, you know, what could life look like? Um so that's kind of the background of of um yeah, of Montenegro.

SPEAKER_02:

So how did um how did you evolve in your in your journey to you start looking at, hey, where's this anger coming from? How did you uncover that piece?

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah, it was I mean, it was anger from like even previous generations, honestly, right? Yes. I did a lot of family constellations, so yes. But yeah, it was also from previous generations, which I found through um constellations work, but it was also like all the anger that was suppressed throughout the years that you know you didn't have the permission to basically uh express that anger in any kind of way. In Montenegro, um, for us women, it was the way the culture would raise you was, you know, you should not express your anger, you should not express your emotions, you should not be too sensitive, you know, you should again fight and be in survival rather than expressing any of those emotions. So, what, you know, what would we do usually is like, oh, I need to be less and I need to shrink myself, I need to shrink my emotions. And then again, that all gets stuck from the you know, trauma perspective and breath work perspective, all of that gets stuck within, right? And it it doesn't have any kind of outlet. It, you know, it can't be out on the surface or be processed. And as it accumulated, um, it went from probably a little anger to like, you know, this situation happens, that other trauma happens. Uh, and then like year by year, that anger got accumulated. Again, for myself, I honestly was not aware that that was like from trauma because um, as I already said, it's very like suppressing emotionally way of culture. So, you know, I was not aware that anger was affecting me in that way at all until I started doing the the work. And um, I was able to, yeah, become aware of those patterns and be like, oh my God, like this anger is not because I was angry on a highway on a per, you know, because a person was cutting me off in the line, or, you know, because someone said something to me, it was because I I just, yeah, it was all of the anger that was within, basically exploding in any other way while I was avoiding everything that was going on within, right? And um, yeah, I would say um breath work really did help me with uh with that, you know, because I was able to really tune into those emotions to really express that anger. And here I am. And um it's funny, like if you saw a picture of me from like eight years, uh eight years ago, I was like redhead, I was like all makeup, I was all in that like survival, like you know, I'm like a very strong woman and I can do it everything by myself, and no one can, you know, like approach me where there was no gentleness at all. And again, once I worked through the anger, like I feel my whole like, yeah, you're just being you're coming back to your authentic self. Um, yeah, rather than being stuck in those yeah, personality patterns. But yeah, that was that was the story with anger, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

How have you seen, and I I really love this combination because I've done some of your workshops, you know, the the the breath work workshops, and I love how visceral breath work is and how much it releases that the trauma that's stored in the body. And you know, Rob, our producer, just put up a book as um The Body Keeps the Score, you know. Uh was it Bessel and quote quirks the book, the The Body Keeps the Score. And it's like, yeah, the you know, the body literally you store that trauma in your DNA. And and I think it was like Kellerman and did a 2015 study of the heritability of trauma from survivors of the Holocaust. And it was uh Kellerman and Yehuda did uh did a study on it, and they found the intergenerational transmission of trauma. So stuff that we've been talking about in breath work and talking about in family constellations, that that's a constant. It it just happens, right? And especially, you know, people that come from cultures that have a lot of pain, that's very obvious, right? You know, just regarding the meditation on on things that are going in Venezuela and then you know things that have happened in the Balkans. Yeah. That we store that, we have that in our in our memory in some way. How did you approach the constellation world? How did you find out about it?

SPEAKER_00:

Constellation World, I was again funny enough in Montenegro. Okay. Um, yes. So you know, I don't know if you have this, I'm sure you do it. This experience where you're like on a healing journey, and then you're specifically focusing on something or a specific modality, and you feel like, oh, it's working out, da-da-da-da-da and everything's amazing. And then uh there's like signs from the universe, if you will, or synchronicities where something constantly gets in your radar, and you're like, what is going on, right? Like, I need to look up into this because like this is really like screaming at me. And so that was the case with family constellations, and um, there was a book. Uh I can't repeat it, is it Mark something?

SPEAKER_02:

Mark Wallin, it didn't start with you.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes, yes, yes. And then uh so yes, that book would constantly come somehow into my like awareness, uh, whether it was a friend saying, like, oh my god, you should read this book, or my therapist, or you know, I'm opening uh my social media and again it's there, and I was like, okay, like, you know, cool, but uh, you know, like I'm gonna look into it when I have the time, but it would you it would just keep coming up around that time as well. People around me started talking about family constellations, and I was like, okay, what is it? You know, um how how does it work, all of the things. And then, of course, the um one of my friends was like, Well, if you really wanna like learn about it, you should really look into the TV show. Uh, which um honestly I watched it like two, three times with friends because I was like, that's the easiest way for me to explain family constellations. I don't know if it does the justice. I don't know if it does. Yeah. Um, but at the same time, you know, it's kind of like the easiest way to like, because how would I explain, you know, what the family constellations are?

SPEAKER_02:

So one of my friends was like for the audience, the TV show is another self on Netflix, right?

SPEAKER_00:

On Netflix, yes. And it's a fun one, honestly. I like the fun fun parts of it, so it's not like too heavy. But yes, so they were like, okay, you should watch this TV show, and I watched the TV show. And when I tell you, I was like, that was still kind of like the middle of my healing journey. So I was like, if this these things exist, I'm like, how is this even possible? You know, I just I had such a curiosity because it was like, oh my God, this is really out there for my perception at the time. This is really out there. So how like is this even real? That you know, someone can represent my mom or my dad in this kind of way. Um, and just like basically, yeah, show me what's going on. And I was like, oh my God, like if this really like I honestly did not believe it was like working in that way, you know, like that the field was working in that way. Like that was just like outside of my box of thinking at the time, right? But I was like, okay, once the opportunity shows up again, I didn't know you or Alicia at the time or Eric, like I didn't know anyone. So I didn't know like who's, you know, who's a good facilitator or nothing. Um when I um I would then I started reading the book in my plane to Montenegro. Uh, and that same week I go, you it's it was all the synchronicities, honestly. I go to the workshop of yoga, and the whole group, there was like 10 Montenegro Montenegrin women, and they were all talking about family constellations. And I'm like, this is just this is just nuts. Like, can you guys please tell me where to go? Like, just tell me. There's a workshop in two weeks. Um, and if you want to come, just come, you know. So my first experience with family constellations was actually in Montenegro, which I honestly really love because it was on my native language, it was all with my people, it was with the working with the traumas of Balkan people, which I think I I'm not sure you can correct me if I if I'm wrong, but I feel like every culture has a specific um kind of like uh not a circle, but kind of like a specific set, if you will, of uh beliefs, traumas, and things. Of course, things overlap throughout the whole world, but again, Balkan has a specific um, if you want a blueprint in the field, right? So, like working with my people, my first family constellations on uh Montenegrin language, it was just mind-blowing. And when I set to like um do my work, right? Um, and this lady was like, okay, you know, uh tell us why you're here, da-da-da-da. And I um I honestly can't remember what was my first work about because it fully shifted into something that I didn't expect. But when I uh took out my mom, my dad, it was um the way those people behaved in the field was exactly the same as my like that lady would say the same words as my mom. And I was like, oh my God, this is actually real. You know, it was such a profound experience for me uh that I just fell in love within with the whole technique. Um, I went to uh family constellations retreats again in the Balkans. It was just so much deep raw in our work. And what I love about family constellations is, you know, that because again, right, our human mind can be so limited. Um, and again, from the trauma perspective, we do suppress a lot of things, so we might not be aware of certain of a lot of things, right? Um, and with family constellations, it really shows you, like it just widens your perspective on like, hey, like this is what's actually going on, this is where the problem was. Like you can really work through it. And from this raw perspective, right? From not hiding, um, I feel at least on the workshops that I've been onto, like people are so open because your whole personality and your whole life comes out into this into the field, and like no one's you're like, there's no there's no sense for me to hide any part of myself, you know, and everyone comes from that place, which I think is like yeah, the beauty. But yeah, in in short, that was my um that was my uh beginnings with with family constellations. And yeah, I still do it. Um, yeah, it's it's always fun.

SPEAKER_02:

It's such a power powerful modality and technique, and that's in and you're you're totally right. Every country has its own flavor, uh, every culture has its own flavor of trauma, right? That it's very specific to that system. And that's you know, I'm I'm talking to a friend of mine, and we're writing this book on leadership and really understanding how systems work. And it's like it's systems upon systems upon systems upon systems upon systems, and the farther you get away from the epicenter, the more I think it dilutes. That's why it's so powerful when you're speaking your mother tongue in constellations and you say the words in your in your in your language, right? It's because that speaks really to the the language of your heart, right? It's like it's it's really beautiful to put it in that way. And it's so beautiful to see that you know, and we saw this in Romania and we've seen it in countries that have high conflict, right? That they're leading the way in healing. It's it's wild that you say, like in in in constellations like Montenegro uh is is leading the charge and they have these groups of women and doing the stuff. And here in the US, it's not really known. Um a lot of people are like, I've never what are you talking about, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Just very and honest, yeah. Yeah, honestly, I was really surprised of how much family constellations are like everyone knows about family constellations in Europe, at least around the countries that I know. And it's a very like uh um if you're not going to psychotherapy, right? It's one of the things that people are gonna talk about, like, oh, you should try this modality, you know. And again, we're not a big country, so you know it maybe it makes sense, but not really. Um, and I also have some friends from like Turkey, which again, if you're not familiar with you are, but yeah, of uh Montenegro is like right next to Greece, right next to Turkey, across Italy, so all of those countries. And yeah, like in Turkey they're so popular. I actually just met a friend like a few months ago at uh Joe Dispenzer retreat, and uh she was like, Yeah, I've done so many family constellations, she's from Turkey. And I was like, Oh, like what family constellations? She's like, it's so popular that there's so many facilitators. And she actually did some constellations with Eric too. And I was like, Oh, come on, man. So random. Yeah, yeah. But they are very like spread, at least I have an impression, more in um Europe um and that kind of area rather than in uh United States, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So tell me, you know, I know the the podcast is about family constellations and breath work and modalities that are all aligned with it. And and I keep hearing, and I don't know much about Joe Dispenza, but I've heard that he's incredible. Can you and I know that you're involved with that community? Tell what are the similarities, what are the things that are that where does it I know this about all of this stuff meets in the middle, like I say. Um, but what what's your experience with that? How has it been?

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, I could talk for three hours about this.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my god. Uh let me see. Okay, so a backtrack. One of my big like healing, you know, modalities that really helped me on a journey were again family constellations, psychotherapy, to some degree, somatic work, breath work, and um Dr. Joe's work, specifically his meditations. What I love about uh his work is that again, he doesn't focus so much or yeah, not so much on like, oh, you need to release your trauma or you need to fix this about yourself. You know, there's something, you know. I feel like sometimes us as and I've been there like so many times in the past, like, okay, what is the next thing that I need to fix? Oh, like, I don't know, like my business is not working out, so maybe I need to like release some kind, there's still some kind of trauma that I still didn't release, or kind of going into this loop. I think there is a tendency, um, and again, this is just my personal opinion, but I think there is a tendency uh that we are on this journey constantly trying to fix something about ourselves, right? Um, and go deeper and dig deeper and deeper and deeper. And again, I've did I've done so much uh breath work, so much family constellation, like a lot of trauma work, right? That in one point it becomes like a an unconscious habit, like, okay, what is the next thing that needs to be resolved? And with Dr. Joe's work, it's more about okay, like if you could be aware of like what are your um he kind of talks about it like your emotions, your behaviors, your attitudes, um, your belief systems, all of that is creating your like personal reality. So whatever you think, whatever you feel, however you behave is creating this world around you, right? And again, I think, yes, um, you know, our past traumas, every everything that that we inherit, that also affects us if we don't work through those things. But there's also a component of like, okay, like now that you worked through these things, and I talk about this a lot in my breathwork workshops as well, that I don't believe that it should be only about trauma work. It should be like if I'm living on this planet, right? If I'm living this beautiful human experience with all the pain and all the joy, how can I live this life as true, as authentic as I can to myself, you know, to my experience? And this is like the perspective that I really got from his work because it's more on this side of like, yes, I'm looking into my behaviors, I'm looking into my patterns, but how can I change them on a regular basis every day and basically become a new personality? And so through his meditations, and there's like a bunch of them, every single one is good, honestly. Um, but yeah, through his meditations, you can really reprogram your mind, um, which again, from this other perspective, like the mind is also important, right? We shouldn't ignore the mind either into the um, I think it it sometimes gets a bad reputation in somatic work, but you know, we should not ignore the mind and the way it functions because it's serving us a great purpose. And so his work is a lot about that, you know, if you could actually realize that you uh are the creator of your life and the way that you think, behave, and act, uh, and the emotions that you feel are creating your reality, how would you live your life? How would you behave in every certain, you know, in everyday uh situations? How would you um let's say approach any any area of your life where you kind of feel stuck, let's say, like how what new belief can you believe? What new emotions can you experience? And you're actively working through that in meditations and basically reprogramming your mind. That's kind of like the basics of it. But then there's a whole talk about, um, and I'm not gonna go into depth with it, but this is what I learned from him is when you go deep into a trance, into a deep meditation, again, through breath work as well, you get into these altered states of consciousness. So you get into these altered states of consciousness where your thinking brain um is not as active, you're not overthinking, you're not overanalyzing. And sometimes again, it takes time for us to get used to it because we're we tend to overthink, right? So it's like once you kind of shut down that prefrontal cortex, you can actually access this, what he calls the quantum field. Um, and in its basis, um I'm I'm again not gonna go into depth with it because it's a large topic. Um, but once you access this, it's basically all potential, it's all frequency, it's all vibration. And again, I think we can also correlate that in a way with family constellations because you are again entering a specific kind of a field. This is, I was really contemplating on like how do I connect all these modalities and find sense, you know, of them all and where they like interconnect. And I was really thinking about this pens on family constellations at one point. But yes, I came to a conclusion like there's a field, right, in family constellations as well, and everything is frequency and everything is vibration from this Dr. Joe's work, right? Everything is frequency, everything's vibration. You're every thought, every emotion, everything that you have within has a specific frequency, a specific vibration, right? A emotion of joy has a specific vibration and you can feel it even throughout your body. Frequency of anger again has a specific frequency, and you can again feel this within your body when you're feeling anger. And so with family constellations, how I see it is that um there's a field, right, that we that kind of is opened when you do family constellations. And I feel like all those representatives, uh, the family history, everything comes out through a uh represent, like who represents my mom, let's say it represents the frequency, right? So it just comes out. That's how I kind of connected. And what I love about um family constellations and this kind of work where I found that like kind of connection was that he is teaching you, okay, like once you're in this quantum field, you can actually change the patterns. Like what is going on? Like, how are you feeling? You have a belief that you're not worthy enough, that you can't ever be abandoned. I'm just throwing stuff out, right? You can actually change frequency just by thought alone, and you're basically changing that field in family constellations. You're essentially doing the same thing, right? You're changing the patterns in your own family system field, right? I mean, that yeah, that's kind of what I where I got a call correlation there. And I just think it's beautiful because, right, this is how change happens, not by just us thinking about it. And again, I think it's very important for people to talk about, you know, um, and have that kind of like if we talk about talk therapy, that's very relevant to get the awareness, right? But in these modalities, it's about how do I change this energy, this frequency, these places where I've been stuck. And it's such a beautiful, um, beautiful thing to witness both in his work and in family constellations of how change happens when you change those patterns in the field. Um, so yeah, um yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

No, and and man, you bring up such a good point. And I think I'm thinking of it the same way in in like really how do you because we're all accessing this phenomenon, right? It's this phenomenological place, call it the quantum field, call it the Holy Spirit, call it, you know, Mickey Mouse, Disneyland, whatever you want to call it. There's a a a thing out there that we all connect to, and it has information and that we can interact with it, and that it has an influence in our life, and it has an influence our on our the people that came before and the people that will come after us, and and that there's like a systemic momentum to it. And that's like the framework that I've always used is systems. And I'm like, you know, it's like I'm a quantum systems explorer, you know, like I like like just kind of thinking of things like how do I put how do I put this in a place where I can make it make sense in my logical brain so I can chew through, you know, what this what this looks like. And you know, I I I'm just attracted to this Joe Dispenza thing. I've had a couple people talk about it, and you know, and it seems like he he shifts from to the thriving part of life, right? That it's like, no, you're the captain of this systemic vessel that's going through the phenomenological ether of the quantum non-here, right? And that you actually can take the steering wheel and drive it to certain places through these techniques and modalities. And I was like, Oh, that's that's really interesting because you're you're right. There are some people that are like, I need to do a constellation, I need to do a constellation, I need to do a constellation, and then they just kind of find the next constellation thing to do rather than being like, I've gotten to this level, I've dealt, you know, constellation was a tool that got me, you know, maybe maybe you were in crisis and you had to take medication, and that was one tool, right? And then you went to another place and you had to go to talk therapy, and that's that was another tool. And then you might have found breath work or family constellations or you know, vispassana guided meditation, or whatever the thing gets to, and that gets you to another level. And then Joe Dispenser gets you to another level, and then you may go to a Tony Robbins thing, or you may go to another, whatever modality you find that we're exploring through this that takes you to a certain place to say, all right, I'm I'm navigating this field. There's things that I can't see that have influence on it. However, I heal that and detach myself through it, and then now I have agency free of those things to create what my destiny is gonna look like and move forward. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, and it's such a beautiful thing, right? Because, and I honestly I think also a big point there is also that sometimes we get so again, I was in that space as well, we get so reliant on the technique, right? It's like, oh, the technique is going to save me, right? It's yeah, I mean, it gets we all got stuck at one point in that spot, right? Um, and it's like, how can I realize that I am my own hero, I am my own master, I am my own, yes, I am my own healer, like I can do this, right? And it's like taking, yes, what you said, the wheel in your hands. Like if you could realize that you actually can change your life in this specific way, and that you are the one who's doing it. Sometimes maybe we shy away from that because again, we were thought like you should always listen to other people, we're getting so programmed, all of the things, right? So it's like we actually forgot that we can create our lives and that we are in charge, like you, this is your body, this is your mind, this is your field, if you will. How do you want to live your life? And that's what I really, really love about his work is that it really shows you this other perspective of how can you live without, yeah, just coming into this victim mode, into this like survival state, which yes, all of us have been there. But once you're aware of it, like, you know, if you're aware and you don't do anything with that information, it just doesn't do anything right. But if I'm aware, and the same goes with family constellations, right? You get so much awareness, and then it's like, what do I do with this information afterwards? Am I gonna do anything different than my ancestors if if we're looking at it from that perspective, you know, with with their blessings, with their honor? How am I gonna live this life? You know, can I appreciate all of the things that they maybe they couldn't do, you know, instead of like judging what my mom did, what my father, you know, what my mom, what my dad did? What if I can actually appreciate all of the gifts, even if it's just your life, which is like, wow, what a blessing. I mean, people can really like think about it. It's like a really big thing. Um, can I actually appreciate all of the things that they did for me, however they looked like, you know, take uh, you know, a turn and go and you know, see how my life can look like, you know. Can I do anything better? You know, can I take their gifts as well with me and into this beautiful life? Like, how do I how can I create this this beautiful life for me? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And you mentioned the victim, right? Like that victim to victor transition. And the problem, and not the problem, but the the pattern that I've seen that emerges is like when I'm in the victim position, I at least have my folk, my attention on something. You're like, that's what's hurting me, that's the bad thing, that's the pain, and I'm, you know, I'm I'm uh g receiving the oppression from this thing. And I, whether that's a relationship, your parents, your family, whatever, you know, like the country that can't, whatever those things are, you at least have a focus at a north, and you're like, I'm here because of that. And that gives there's a lot of autopilot in that, right? And as when you heal and you let go of that, you suddenly you spend some time kind of wandering the darkness, the forest of like, what do I do now? It's now it's not now it's my responsibility. And I think that that's what you're talking about. It's like, oh, well, I can go over there, or I could go over there and I can drive my little my little boat in the you know quantum cosmic space of reality, right? That's gonna say, I'm gonna, and now, but if you if you drive yourself off of a cliff, it's your responsibility. And that's tough for a lot of people to to yeah, that's tough for people to say, now it's my problem. Now it's not somebody else's problem that I had this oppressor, victim, victor, you know, this whole thing going on that I can say now. I'm okay. I'm gonna choot shoot and I'm gonna go in my little tugboat and I'm gonna navigate to wherever I'm gonna go. But you're in control and you gotta figure out what the the next next step is, right?

SPEAKER_00:

Next step is, yeah, yeah, big time. And you know, I think um, yeah, I think this work can be hard, right? I mean, we all know it, it can be challenging, and that's the reality of it. But I think the big question there is like, do you do you still want to live your life in um in this sense of like, oh, big I feel like victimized? Um, which again I was there too, right? All of us were, it's not a, you know, it's like a pattern that we go, yeah. I mean, it's just a pattern that we go into like throughout life. Um, like, oh, poor little me. Um and then it's like, do you actually enjoy being in that when you really look into this um, you know, victim side of you? Like, do you really enjoy not having any, not not having any like agency for your life? Not again, and I again come from this space of like, if you could really know how life can be like when you let go of this personality of that victim state and you really take the wheel in your hands, like if you actually knew how amazing life could be like, you would put the effort in, right? And there's the belief there that comes in, like, oh yes, I I believe it can happen for other people, but I I'm not sure if this can happen to me, you know. And this is like this uncertainty and like a level of self-self-trust that we developed throughout the years. The more you do the work, the more you focus on those things, like, oh, how do I want my life to look like? You build that self-trust, you build that self-agency, you know. And again, it takes time to be from, oh, I can't, I'm I'm not the creator of my life and I can't do anything to this, like, oh my God, I actually am doing these things and I am responsible. Again, I think it is hard at times. Um, it can be very challenging. And I had those experiences, right, so so many times. And I just want to come back to your um point about that. What is hard about it is that, and I talk about this in breath work as well. I tell them, like, there is going to be a point in your breath work journey when you breathe and you release those emotions, they uh f fall away, right? There there was grief that was stuck within you. You let them go, you let it go. And then there's going to be this period of when there's basically nothing. You're just breathing, and there is nothing. What do we tend to do with this? It's like, oh my God, I was feeling all of these emotions, all of these things inside of me. Now when they're gone, I don't know who I am. Like, and that's the hard part, like, right? I feel so who am I if I am not this personality? Yeah. Like, and what am I supposed to do now, right? There's no guidance, there's no navigation, there's no one to tell you, like, hey, this is what you should do. Um, so you feel like you're wondering a little bit, you're lost. Like, oh my God, what do I do now? How do I create this new new thing that I'm trying to become? And for example, for me, I I at that time when this specific thing was going on, I didn't actually have like a mentor or a guide who would be like, Hey, like, when you feel this, like you can actually create these things. I kind of had to figure out, figure it out by myself and like read the books and be like, oh my God, I can do this, you know, and kind of like found a way. And it was, it was, it turned out very good. Um, but I think it's also very nice when you have someone to say, like, hey, you're not, you're not going crazy. It's okay, you know, like you are reinventing yourself, you're reinventing your personality. This is what you can do. And again, I think um in my breath work sessions, I guide people towards that kind of like that path where it's like, okay, like once you feel this nothingness, allow yourself to be there. It's an empty space where you get to create from. Like, if you're not this anymore, what do you want to be in your life? And then they start. There's um parts where we really go into that kind of like a creation mode, I call it. It's like, what emotions do you want to feel? How do you want to live your life? And it's like you can see people's faces, everything like changing as they breathe, because it's like, okay, I actually get to choose, you know. And again, it takes time, it takes it takes work. But I feel, yeah, it's like as if you're studying or you know, um doing anything in life, it takes work. But once you like really feel like, oh my god, I actually know how to do this, life gets really, really exciting. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, that's you know, what what comes up before is the loyalty to the pain. You know, it's like if I'm not in pain, then who am I? And that that hit like a ton of bricks. It's like, you know, so many people, their identity is tied to this their suffering. That they're it's like in order for me to belong to this family, I have to suffer. Or I have to carry, I have to get divorced, or I have to, you know, have abandonment, or I have to marry an abusive spouse, or I have to be the abuser, or I have to, and and you have these things, this loyalty is like, man, how strong, and this keeps coming up for me, is like how strong the force of loyalty is in the family system. And healing feels like betrayal to a broken system.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, it does, yeah. Um, and you know, I feel like why wouldn't it make sense? You know, us as humans, um, there's like studies done on this, like connection is our main thing. It's like the thing that keeps us alive, you know. There's like studies that show like if you don't have connection, if you're lonely, all of the things, like you actually your uh lifespan goes shorter. So it's like we need connection, we need that sense of belonging. We are like we're not individualists, at least that's what I believe in, you know, that we are actually people of connection, of community, of like how can I be a part of something? And once that's like threatened, then I'm like, oh my god, like I'm I'm just like, yeah, like what am I supposed to do now? I'm like outside excluded. So how how am I you're gonna navigate this world? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you know where that comes from?

SPEAKER_00:

Tell me.

SPEAKER_02:

So we have a biological uh hard coding that if we get excluded, we die.

SPEAKER_00:

We die, exactly.

SPEAKER_02:

Such a need to belong. And so if you take a serial killer, a psychopath, there the worst punishment that you can do to somebody in prison is to put them in exclusion. They have zero contact with it. That's how painful it is to people, like how ingrained it is into us as human beings that we our need to connect with other people, even if the connection is whatever, then you can do that with people that are in prison. You can say, I'm gonna further exclude you, I'm gonna put you in the in the hole or whatever they call it, in the exclusion. Like, and they all they don't talk to anybody, they're just alone. And it's like the worst thing that's the worst suffering that you can you can inflict on a human being. And the anti exclusion is healing, connection, and connecting to your ancestry.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. And um, I I have a f interesting family cousin. Constellation story with that because like once when I first started doing the work, right? Everyone in my family thought I was like, you know, like, what oh my god, what is going on with her? You know, like she's she's gone on a sidetrack, whatever. And no one was into the work, like no one. Um, and I had uh I've done like family constellations around that time, you know, like where I felt like still angry with my parents. I still felt like um, oh, you did this to me, you did that to me, like this is your fault, and once I did a few family constellations on those topics, and I came into this sense of acceptance, you know, even if I choose this path, you know, on a deep, I don't know how to describe it, you know. Um even if with your eyes open you maybe do not fully approve of what I'm doing, I still feel like I belong, even though I'm choosing another path, you know, I'm still a part of this system. I I don't know how to better explain it, but yeah, that that's like this sensation. And I was setting up my boundaries right when they were needed. And, you know, I I would feel a pushback and it would, you know, get like heated. But then after a time, I feel maybe that's the understanding like that's missing. I feel that after a time the family like the family unit, the system changes as well because you're changing the pieces are starting to move on a deeper level. Just because you actually stayed in this new, again, new personality that you are, the family system also starts to change. And then I had this um again, I started doing the work, then my sister came in, my brother, like everyone came on board, right? And we had this period. Again, my father, um, I have so much love for him, and I'm so like grateful for family constellations because man, it's just it's just wild. Like how much you can change um, you know, the family systems and relationships. But when I was growing up, my relationship with my dad was not that good. You know, he was um again Montenegrin man. Uh, it's like, oh, I gotta be the strong one, provide for the family. There's no emotions whatsoever, no emotional intelligence, everything is suppressed. So I I never had like a good, not a good relationship, just like no relationship with my dad. You know, it was just like, okay, like he's there, then he's not there, and then like, you know, he's traveling for work, and that was it. And when we started growing up, we started developing a relationship, but it was more of like, you know, he would be like, oh, like you should, let's say you're an immigrant in the United States, you should buy a house, you should, you know, again comes from the wars and all of the things, like you should have a security, you shouldn't, you know, chase your dreams or take a risk. You should keep with that job that's like paying you so well, even though you're not like super happy about it. So it was like that kind of like, you know, kind of criticizing. Now, from my understanding, that's criticizing because he wants the best for you, right? And I think it's important for us to get to those realizations. But there was still a boundary that needed to happen, right? And with my siblings, we were like, dude, like if you continue to call us and just be like, oh, you should do this, you should do that, and then criticize. Like, we're just not gonna talk to you, and that's it, you know. And again, this is a big thing in the family system. It's like, oh, like someone is actually setting a firm boundary, you know? And he was like, you know, like, yeah, bye-bye. We did not, we really set the boundary. We were like, we do we didn't call him for a full month, and I'm not joking, it was a full-on boundary. And then he calls and he's like, hey, like, like what's going on? My kids are not calling me, you know, like like what's happening? And we were like, Dad, we told you we were not going to call you if you continue behaving in this way. And this is the moment where it finally clicked in his head. Oh my god, like, should I change to have a relationship with better relationship with my children? You know, so this is my point of this example, is just to show. And like, since then we have, I just can't describe to you like our relationship. Like, I know about my dad's past. Uh, I go to Montenegro, we go on these like road trips, we can actually connect. He's opening up, we're hugging, like it developed so much, you know. But was this other thing needed that wasn't uh easy for us as well, where we were the ones in the family, like setting a full-on boundary. And you know, he it possibly could have went uh another way, I don't know. But you know, because we changed in the family system, then he also, you know, he had the opportunity to change and he chose to do so. And now the whole family system changed, right? The behaviors, the patterns, the emotions, you know. So I think that's the power of this work is that it's not always, you know, easy, but yeah, like it's so rewarding, you know. Like, yeah, I'm just telling you, like the our whole relationship with our entire family, everything's just so, so different, you know.

SPEAKER_02:

And what you're describing is systemic resistance, you know, it's the system wanting to go back to the old way, right? It's like saying, hey, what's going on? And and you hear I I was uh I took a class on uh and and the guy that was the teacher of the class was um he was a counselor for people that were for addiction, right? And he was like, you know, when when people are healing and and dealing with their with their stuff and in and addiction, it's like the person learns uh to dance to a new song, right? The addict, right? They say the problem is the addict, and then the family is like, really, it's a systemic issue, right? But the the addict is like, I'm not gonna dance, I'm not gonna dance, you know, merenga anymore. I'm gonna start dancing salsa. And the family has to say, I'm either gonna learn how to start dancing salsa or I'm gonna stop dancing. So they have the choice as well to like adapt to the new song and the new dance and the new thing and the new dynamic and so and they'll try to still dance merengue and you know to make like something shifted. I'm I'm trying to like this isn't well, every time I hit this button, I would get this reaction. When I don't hit this button, there's this subconscious loyalty to a broken system, and then they can either stop dancing because they're so loyal to the system, or they can adapt and release that pattern. And that's what healing looks like. That's the beauty of it, is that actually healing looks like when you no longer have those conversations and things slowly shift to a new dynamic and a new paradigm.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, oh my God. Honestly, yes, that's how I feel about it as well, you know. And you know, in some points, you know, people are gonna choose to, you know, not continue dancing in your life, and again, it's like okay, like you know, like it's okay to sometimes and that's okay too, exactly. Yes, yes, that was still more, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's okay too. So, Vanya, you know, I this has been, and I I hope this is one of many conversations that we have. But if people want to get a hold of you, if they want to learn more about breath work, if they want to more learn more about getting, you know, doing healing work, how how do they get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00:

So the primary I would say is either my website, um, which is my namevaniavoyovic.com. All of the information is about events, and we do retreats, which we're doing a retreat with Zulu van one next week, which is sold out. Um, but if you want to hear about any new retreats, workshops, events, yes, my website is the best best spot, or um, I would say Instagram, also a good spot to to be notified about everything. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And my last question will be um, is there anything that we should have covered that we didn't cover, or anything that you think that I should have asked you?

SPEAKER_00:

Um no, no, I think I think we kind of covered a lot of aspects, yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, and I want to deep dive in, do a deep dive in the next one and into Joe Dispenser's work, which seems fascinating as a second phase or an add-on to what we're doing. So I'm that's that's really exciting.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, I told you I could talk about it for a long time. So for hours, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Vanya, thank you so much. This has been awesome. It's great seeing you, and I'm wishing you guys the best on the on the workshop. I know it's gonna be the retreat, but I think it's gonna be really fun. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, it's gonna be amazing. Yeah, yeah. I look forward to seeing you hopefully soon too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, hopefully soon. Hopefully soon. Send my best to your family.

SPEAKER_00:

I will. Thank you, John. Bye. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks for tuning in to the Zula One Podcast. If you found value in today's podcast, please don't forget to like, share, and subscribe. Your support means everything to us. And thank you for being part of this journey.

Head Shot

John Acosta

Host