Day 340: Victoria Vetere
“For me, the key is to realize that we’re not separate, that nothing is separate, that to be able to see everything as some sacred extension of one’s own heart and soul really releases the fear and anxiety in life and opens a gateway for us to experience what I would call heaven on earth, which is a portal to see that anything is possible.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Victoria, for agreeing to be part of the Project today, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Victoria Vetere: Well thank you, and first I want to thank you very much for the opportunity to participate today, and for the amazing Project that you’ve created.
Toni: Thank you.
Victoria: You are most welcome. I’m a life coach, a facilitator, a teacher, a writer, a speaker, and I mostly call myself an enlightenment instigator. I’m also a student of life, and I love to learn, and any opportunity I have to expand myself, I’m very, very there.
Before this, I was a psychotherapist for a long time, and at one point I realized that I had spiritually outgrown in my way of thinking my profession, and therefore I shifted into using my coaching credentials and focus now more on life enhancement.
This year I cofounded an enlightenment community. We’re a heart-centered tribe, and we’re called Enlightened Life Lovers, so that’s been a lot of fun. In October, I’ll launch a new company called Lotus Health and Longevity, and we write customized health and longevity programs for our members. So that’s what I’m up to.
Toni: Well thank you so much, Victoria.
Victoria: You’re welcome.
Toni: When you think of the word inspiration, who do you inspire, and how does that happen?
Victoria: Well, you know, I really feel that I inspire those who are open and searching. I think it’s really a matter of synchronicity who comes to us and how we find each other. And interestingly, actually since all relationships are really mirrors, people inspire themselves through me. I try to stay out of the way and become a vehicle for them to reach themselves. I give voice to their questions and their yearnings at times, and I used to be interested in the answers, and now I realize as I do this work that it’s the questions that are the juicy part. And to ask with the wonder and the openness of a child expands us, so that’s where I go with people.
Toni: Can you tell me how you might help others to explore their potential and give an example of that?
Victoria: Well, you know, I invite people to a place of discovery and authenticity and intimacy within themselves. We come from so many, you know, places where we’re told what to do and how to do it that there’s so many coverings and layers that are blocking us from really tapping deeply into who we really are. I try to help people to connect the dots and to see the bigger picture. I teach my clients and my students energetic principles that reveal how they’re creating their world, and how they can create more consciously that which they really desire and that which brings them more joy in life.
For me, the key is to realize that we’re not separate, that nothing is separate, that to be able to see everything as some sacred extension of one’s own heart and soul really releases the fear and anxiety in life and opens a gateway for us to experience what I would call heaven on earth, which is a portal to see that anything is possible. So that’s … I mostly teach people how to open that sense in themselves.
Toni: Victoria, when you talk about your work with people around the energetic principles, for those of us that may not know what they are, can you give us an example of that?
Victoria: Yeah. You know, I study Eastern and Western science, and it’s really beautiful, because now we’re at a point in human evolution where we understand that science and spirituality are really reconnecting and overlapping.
The principles I talk about are principles that are more along the lines of quantum physics that, you know … I don’t teach people academic courses in quantum physics, but we look at these principles – and many, many writers have done a very, very good job of explaining these to us. Two that come to mind are Greg Braden and Deepak Chopra … and to explain these things to people in a way that they understand that there’s an energetic fabric, that things are very, very real before we can actually see them. In fact, 96% of what is is not perceptible by our five senses; only 4% is. So we’re working with a very, very small slice if we’re just looking at what is.
So I help people to expand their consciousness to understand that what they can’t see yet is really where the creative juices are and where their unbelievable potential lies.
Toni: Do they get there?
Victoria: Oh, absolutely. Well we already are there. It’s already within the realm of … we create on the physical no matter whether it’s money or jobs or relationships or health from the order of nonperceivable layers of energy, which is our thoughts and our feelings. So those two are really driving the train.
And when we see something manifest, we don’t realize how it got there. So I help people to understand how they’ve created what they’ve created and to honor all of that, whether they like it or not, so that then they can shift their point of creating the next chapter from resistance to compassion and expansion.
Toni: I love that. So what inspires you?
Victoria: Well, I love that question, and I had to think about it a little bit. I need space and silence and peace and calm in order to really get to a layer of me that I feel is where my inspiration lies. I need to be in love rather than in fear as a state of being.
And being in nature or with my cats, with animals, helps me a great deal. Often I’ll get a revelation of some sort while I’m doing a yoga pose or in the shower. Water inspires me. Animals I feel are incredible sages. My friends keep me on my toes and they also ground me. And my mom, who is 90, she inspires me a tremendous amount with her love and courage, and she’s still an extremely very playful person. So those are the things I think in my personal life that really, really touch me and inspire me.
Toni: When you were moving into the type of work that you are doing, when … let me just back up here a second. With the Get Inspired! Project … I have said this many times in the last couple of interviews. The unintended outcome of this Project has been people talking about what they’re passionate about and what their purpose is, and not everybody … really, probably less people know what that is than those who do. So you’ve moved into this path and you do this type of work; was that something you always felt you were meant to do?
Victoria: You know, it’s interesting. I tell people who are struggling with “What do I want to be when I grow up?” … and you know, many, many people are looking at that now, which I think is amazing and wonderful. You know, I have been the person that I am in terms of my quest for knowledge, my sense of really wanting to understand how things work and having an openness to sort of the spiritual or the nonphysical realm ever since I was very little, although I’ve had several career paths along the way. I did writing. I was a producer on television, a sports writer for a television news station. I taught tennis for 13 years.
So I mean, along the way I did other things. But if I go back and I look at the thread in all of them, it always had to do with, you know, somehow expression, helping people find their potential, somehow understanding that there’s more than what we see right now. So there’s been a thread through all of it, and as I look back, I’m the same person I was when I was a little kid.
Toni: Right, and it’s really what you’ve done. Well, maybe not purposefully, but what it’s turned into and tapping into that common thread sounds … that’s what you’re doing now.
Victoria: It is, and I tell people, you know, don’t get hung up on trying to find the exact niche or role that’s going to be the thing that’s going to float your boat. There will probably be a lot of them. Let’s look at the colors and flavors of who you are. There are many things that most people could do and be absolutely enchanted by. That’s the issue – not what hat do I wear or what do I write on my nametag.
Toni: I so agree with you. So, Victoria, what are you doing now to explore your own potential?
Victoria: Well, you mean at the moment, or …
Toni: At the moment, ongoing …
Victoria: Well, what I do to explore my potential is, you know, I’m always looking to believe in myself more and more and more and to follow my heart. Right now, I’m creating a new group semester where we’re going to be doing seven group classes on heart-centered living. So we’ll be doing some expansion into meditation, yoga, mindfulness, and helping people to really kind of get below the thinking. It helps me to surround myself with a lot of heart-centered people who are open and authentic and supportive, and I find that I keep wanting to expand my community to find more folks like that.
You know, it’s also been interesting at the hard knocks and the forks in the road of my life have also been helpful to me. It’s amazing what you can find in yourself, you know, when you’re on your knees. And so there are times when I see obstacles or challenges, you know, as I understand the spiritual teachers that they are as well, so I’ve become a little softer with those in terms of exploring my own potential.
Toni: What a great way to describe how you explore your own potential and how those times that you’re on your knees can be the great teaching moments, and it’s so true. I mean … and we don’t realize it at the time.
Victoria: No. That’s what … I tell my clients, you know, faith is just a word in the dictionary, until you really need it. When the rubber meets the road, that word takes on a whole new dimension and it has meaning then.
Toni: Victoria, thank you so much for what you have provided today in this interview, and we look forward to learning a little bit more about you as well. I know we will include links at the bottom of the transcript, but thank you so much for taking time out of your day to be part of this Get Inspired! Project.
Victoria: Thank you very much, and I send my best wishes.
Toni: Thank you. Take care.
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For more information about Victoria Vetere: www.EnlightenedLifeCoaching.com, www.DoYouLotus.com, www.ZenCatGallery.com
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