The show’s guest in this episode is Gül Sönmez. She is an Intuitive Healer & Transformational Coach and Mindfulness Trainer, internationally renowned for her ability to find and heal people’s past traumas and buried memories, so they can overcome anxieties, self-doubt, stress and procrastination in order to live aligned, purposeful lives. With 15 years of experience working in big multinationals (including P&G, Coca-Cola, Amazon), She has transformed her working life by learning deep healing techniques and finding alternative solutions to her own struggles. Since then, she has used her incredible gifts, to not only radically change her own life, but the lives of hundreds of others through her 1:1 program, group courses and mindfulness workshops.

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Healing and Transformation: Unveiling the Power Within with Gul Sonmez

Hello, it’s great to be here with you on the Experimental Leader Podcast. I’m Melanie Parish.

Hi, I’m Mel Rutherford.

And we’re your co hosts. And I’ve been I’ve been thinking about my leadership today. And really, all this week, I’ve been thinking, Gosh, I’m kind of tired, I have some super exciting projects I’m working on that are just like taking every second of my free time. And so I I haven’t been taking the self care time that I usually take. And, and it’s taking a toll on me. So we have a little bunkie at a camp north of here, and I’m gonna go there today. And I’ve noticed that my family is feeling difficult, but I’m pretty sure I just need a good sleep. So I my leadership journey today is to go take care of myself and to walk in the woods and sleep and swim in a pond and do the things that fill me up. Because I’ve I think I’ve gone too far in the other direction, just because I got so darn excited about what I was doing. But I’m I’ve burned the candle at both ends and don’t have much left in the tank. Wow, that was a lot of metaphors in there all jumbled up together. What about you?

Well, one of the things I’ve been thinking about in my leadership today is how to make task assignments and committee assignments more equitable. And I think the solution to the problem is actually going to be record keeping. So knowing in you know, in the past, who’s served on which committees are taken, which tasks and also projecting into the future, because then you’ve got a much broader snapshot of what you’re doing. And you can quantify it. We know that in in sometimes women get asked to do service work more than men, sometimes people of color get asked to do service work. And so you can if you get a sort of a little bit broader data data snapshot, you can do some analyses and make sure you’re not over assigning some people work and make sure the work assignments are equitable across your group.

That is such a cool idea. And I think that the idea that record keeping is the answer is really interesting. And will you make it transparent? Yeah,

For sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Wow. Wow. I love I love the way you think. That’s super cool. I’m also really excited about our guests today. Are you excited about our guest today? Yeah. Well, our guest today is Gul Sonmez. And she is exciting. She’s an intuitive healer and transformational coach. She’s a mindfulness trainer. I could use some of that today. And an internationally renowned expert in uncovering and healing past traumas. With 15 years of experience in multinational corporations, and a remarkable ability to transform lives. Gul will guide us on a journey of self discovery sharing her wisdom on overcoming anxiety, self doubt, stress and procrastination. Welcome to the show.

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Welcome.

Hello. Hi, everyone. I’m so excited to be here. As you say. Thanks for having me.

It’s great to have you and you know, we started we’re talking about our leadership, what are you thinking about in your leadership? Right now?

Say great question actually right now because you know, we change as the life has seasons, I think is the Mother Nature has seasons. We also have our own seasons. I’m somewhere between what you said actually I am right now in my leadership, balancing really my feminine side which wants to you know, being to to meditate, rest and create with my masculine side, because it’s kind of hard where I am it’s very They’re hot right now it’s kind of hard to get into action. You want to just eat more ice cream and lie on the beach. But at the same time, just sue and do nothing. So I’m gonna kind of imbalance model my leadership, okay. And it is feminine side of me to kick in and create the summer is perfect time to create because you have the sun, you have the sea for those who can actually make it. But if you have nothing, you have the power of the sun. So Mother Nature is amazing. But at the same time, it’s a bit hard. There’s more procrastination. So my leadership is just Okay, bring both masculine and feminine into balance.

I love that. And I’m going to tell everyone today when I go off to my camp that I talked to a mindfulness coach who said I should eat more ice cream?

I agree on that one.

I wonder if I wonder if you can start by telling us what mindfulness is.

Yeah, it’s a great question sector. It comes out in my all my workshops, I do mindfulness training, with corporates and with some national teams. And corporate people are more close to the idea. But especially the sport players, the athletes, when I talk about mindfulness, it’s a bit dark for them. So for me, mindfulness is actually a set of tools and systems which can help you in order to navigate this busy, hectic, chaotic life to make it a bit more aligned. Especially when the life hits you. When you’re tired. We have anxiety when you have real issues. You can use mindfulness because a big umbrella in order to actually navigate life with a bit more ease and peace. So this is what mindfulness is for me. But because there’s so much things out on the internet, people are really confused. So I always say mindfulness is not a religion, because most people are confused. Because in mindfulness, you do meditation, one of the tools isn’t meditation. And meditation is of course, coming from a Buddhist philosophy. So it’s not a religion. It is not a one time fix, okay, I did long meditation, I’m awakened. It’s a journey. And it’s not one method. There’s so many different things under mindfulness.

So if meditation is one of the tools, are there other tools you want to talk about?

Yeah, the guided meditation that is some kind of self healing journey meditation, it takes 30 to 40 minutes, where you meet your inner child or ancestors, there is also practical activity, or, for example, focused meditations with the with the football players. So it’s a big umbrella day. But another thing that I love the most, is actually writing kind of guided journaling, which with some questions, which helps you to dig deeper, dig deeper, dig deeper. So by the third page, actually realize your issue is not this your issue somewhere here. So this guided journaling is another technique we use, I think Melanie mentioned today, she’s gonna go for mother nature to for a walk. This is another thing actually sitting in the nature grounding yourself and letting all this negativity, all this energy forms to shift, it’s also proven by science, it’s called the greenery effect. So the more you’re in nature, the more you’re close to green, actually, your anxiety, your stress levels goes down. So from top of my mind, I can say this three is some of the techniques, there’s also the breathing, which works, so tough to use your breath. Because there are other different techniques.

And I’m curious about, you know, as you’re helping people make sense of meditation. So I have, I’m not a meditator, I, you know, as a coach, I end up on calls where people take me through guided meditation, and I can, I can handle that. But I’m not, I’m not a meditator. And I’ve actually kind of come to grips with that, because I’m a swimmer. And we may swim, it’s silent. And it’s very much like meditation for me. And so I just allowed that that’s okay. That’s how I get and I noticed that if I don’t swim, I don’t get exercise, and I don’t get that meditative time where I’m really silent. And when I swim, I count. So it’s a really repetitive and it keeps any thoughts out of my, you know, keeps me from having, you know, thoughts, the counting sort of removes that. So what do you do with people who aren’t like, good at meditating? Like just don’t like it?

The first time they come to work with me, all my clients come to reference, right? So they have an idea of what I do. They trust their friends, but they don’t trust me in the beginning, because they find it okay, like, how this is gonna work because usually their corporate people, their leaders, or their athletes, right, and so they’re not into this world. for them is a bit too Fufu. For them, they will be into psychosis, I work with a lot of coaches, I was trained in CO active coaching as well. And my coaches that really, really inspired me to do this as a spiritual coach, they became my clients actually. And they were the ones who say, like, the world is changing, you need to combine these two worlds. But it was very hard for me to explain it. So all my clients come with, I don’t know how to meditate. I’m not like you, I don’t know this angel things. I’m not sure if it’s for me. But I see my friend, and I don’t know how he or she does it, I want to try. So am I a good fit. And I tell to all of them, don’t worry, like, you don’t need to meditate immediately. With 100% concentration. If you say it, you’re probably lying, nobody does that we’re all human. So your mind needs to go to the shopping list is to go to the to do list. If you’re not feeling comfortable, your mind goes to oh my god, back pain is my neck hurt thing. We’re all the same. But the journey is to take you to somewhere where you start to do the meditation, which is aligned with you. Because we’re so different. Some people are aligned with mantra meditations, right they it worked for them. But for some people, it doesn’t make anything, they cannot make the connection, they cannot empty their mind. So for them, sometimes the guided meditation, or sometimes the silence meditation, there are so many different types of meditation. So I first explained this, there is no one type of meditation. Second, it takes time. It’s like anything, any hobby, any activity you do, it takes time, their first meditation. And after one month is totally different. After first everybody says oh, I cannot focus that day, I always say when you realize you’re somewhere else during the meditation, take a deep breath, breath actually brings the spirit back to body. So it brings your attention back to your body, take a deep breath and just continue with the meditation. The wind is not to not to go anywhere. And the win is to not learn how to come back when your mind is going somewhere else. And it takes some time. And the third one, why would you do meditation, right? You because people come to me, they’re either stuck, they’re all sick. Or they’re high achievers, they have a target, they want to achieve something. So I always say start from what is more, it’s more important to you. For example, if you are trying to get pregnant to meditation, of course you need to do is just visualize yourself visualize your body healthy, fertile you with the kid and etc. But if you’re an athlete, of course, the meditation, which will inspire you is to visualize yourself scoring the game and etc. Relaxing there connecting with your teammates. If you’re a leader, probably are they so busy. The meditation unit is just balancing and grounding. So we’re all different. I think we should try some meditations for you.

Oh, my goodness. I think I’m gonna just go I think I think that I find the thing that you’re talking about, and I find it in different ways. Like I think mine is all about water.

Yeah, it’s all correct.

headache man sitting on bench in the park.

It’s a different way of of of clearing. Yeah. I’m curious about your work around trauma. Yeah. And what you know, kind of what your path is to clearing trauma thinking about trauma what people can do. Yeah, rest their own traumas.

Yeah, yeah, beautiful question. So actually. So what I do right now, I’m a certified coach and etc. I learned different healing modalities, but I’m also very psychic. My niche is being very psychic. So when I tune in them, I can read their trauma. But when I say it immediately I’m hearing that at five years old this happened to you that it is just like a fortune telling. So people don’t own their healing people don’t own theirs don’t own their healing journey because nobody can heal you. If I was able to do it. My Sessions would be 1 million euro I’m not there yet. I don’t know how to do it. So they need to heal themselves. So when I start to hear or channel because the body never lies first I do the reading. And I see where the blocks then I start to ask they say the voices that I’m talking or whatever you call them about okay, I’m hearing seeing here what is it then I started to hear out okay, it’s shame is a shame. Where is it coming from childhood what age? They say six were in school, okay, is a teacher teacher. Okay. Then I go back to my client, but they know they signed my agreement. They know that is a different type of coaching modality because I hear and I tell them, then I take them gently to their by asking them questions, because if I tell them immediately, it’s just what So when I start because what I can see or hear is what they read. They don’t show me what they’re not ready. This is why sometimes in our sessions, the biggest trauma, like rape, for example, is a very heavy one. It comes in our sixth session, instead of the first one, why we don’t know. Maybe they need to trust me, we need to be aligned on the journey. So when they’re ready, when I see the big trauma, I’m talking about very big major life trauma. It’s not like my boyfriend broke up with me, they really have it once. Then we go to that memory together. And then we bring it into this memory, they absorb this memory, they talk to their younger self, they talk to the people who are there were they’re hurt, they’re resentful. So then we do the healing. And we understand the lessons. Yeah, okay, it’s happened. But why did it help you? How did it help you? Well, they’re learning from this experience. So we can let it go. Because forgiveness is not understanding and making peace with it, actually, especially with it’s a nice word in Instagram. Like, let’s forgive, and let’s leave everything. But I can forgive my colleague, maybe who didn’t promote me, was very hard to forgive someone who raised me, right. They’re not the same energies, there’s something very different in this to trauma. So we did that type of forgiveness work is to understanding how this incident, make you who you are, how this incident helped you to become who you are, and letting it go. Not forgetting it, just letting the effects from you to let them go one by one.

I’m curious about if an organization has experienced a collective trauma? Yeah. How do you work with that?

Um, so with organizations collective trauma, I never worked with an organization on collective trauma. But when there is a big major earthquake happened happened in Turkey this year, it was massive, it was very big. And people were seeing lots of things on the news. Everybody was traumatized, right, everybody, nobody was sleeping at night or was crying all the time, people were really traumatized. And in that time, I let couple of group meditation and clearing sessions to tune into the collective and griefing with the collective accepting there is this reason for the collective and sending love and light to the people who are low sending love and light and each people asking them questions, what can you do? Is you as good, what can I do for it? What is my and everybody has different answers, there is no one right solution. So the only collective work we did, they’re actually about trauma. But I also work with a national team. We’re also doing collective meditations together as a team, how they can function on the field, but not on the trauma. It’s more on creating and focusing. So Trump, I like to work one to one because everybody because what they say in the real issue is always different. You need to dig, dig, dig, dig, dig, dig to go to the real issue. And it’s very hard to dig with many people.

Do this work in person? Or do you also work online and virtually?

I just work virtually, and I never gonna come in.

Today? You never go on camera?

I never go on camera, because I’m very psychic. I did both. And I realized it was one of my coactive coaches actually, who told me why don’t you just come on, just tell them who you really are. And I realize because when I’m in a session when I’m channeling because the my niche is more coming through that area, right? I close my eyes, I talk towards the sphere, and I talk here then I try to feel on my buddy, if they have pain, let’s say on the neck, I immediately touch my neck and start to ask. And then I say well, we have neck pain. How do you know? Alright, so you have something on your knee? You get a surgery? Oh, how do you know but that time I’m actually bending my knee. Or I’m listening to this side. And when I shut down completely, but I don’t care how you see me if you see me if I’m good on camera, I perform better. It’s like when I shut down one sense. The other senses are more in tune so I help them and serve them better. Unless there’s a specific issue where I need to show because sometimes I’m not. I’m a non native speaker right? Sometimes I cannot remember the name of the organ.
Like there’s a problem in this organ in English. When I hit the shoulder, it’s just here you know behind this thing. Like there’s a problem in this organ in English. When I hit the shoulder, it’s just here you know behind this thing.

That’s funny. I am I have a similar thing that happened has happened. Not Not as many things has happened for you but I coached on the phone I’ve been a coach. I also have a co active background. I’m and but I’ve coached for 23 years, and I coached many years on the phone, it was just 20 I guess it was like 2018 that I went full zoom. And, and I always knew my clients were crying because I would feel tears. And and it happened yesterday to me I but I was in person. And it was so interesting because they didn’t have tears, but I kept. I like had tears. And I was like, What’s going on somebody, I was in a purse, a two person coaching coaching a couple. And I said somebody has like, you’ve, you clearly have a lot of emotion because I have tears. And they were like, oh, yeah, I really appreciate you saying that. Because yes, this is very emotional for me. But there were no tears that I could see. So it was really interesting. To actually, yeah, like it. So I’ve done that my whole career, and I don’t talk about it very much. I guess now I do on a podcast. But, you know…

I was very lucky. Because when I was doing my coaching training, I couldn’t shut down the psychic part, right. And at some point, when I don’t tell it, I cannot do in breed sometimes, and I had to take it out. I was just telling. And then the kid coaches who are giving training, they were so open minded, because they were like, Well, it’s true. For example, I was telling to a guy, for example, maybe your father died and you couldn’t cry. And he was not saying anything. But if after they were giving the feedback session, you know, he was like, my father really died. And I never cried in his funeral. I’m so amazed, like, you keep telling me that. That thing I was like, I know, because I see your father behind you. I was trying to come to that point, so that you can talk to him, and he can go back to life and etc. And the coaches there, although their leadership coaches, they’re working with big companies, and etc. They’re like, you know, what the world is changing. The world is gonna change in five years, and you will be able to combine and that time I was working at Amazon. Like if I say that, I thought they would just tell them crazy. So I was hiding that side of me. But then I had clarity, disease. And when I realized why I have thyroid disease, I realize I’m not talking my truth, then as an action, I started to share my truth. And the more I shared, my levels change, I don’t have thyroid disease now. Sometimes holding our truth is even making us sick. Because

I do think that from a like, I mean, this is fairly high level coaching part. But I do think it’s interesting to think about who holds the truth in a coaching session? Like is it you or is it the client? And the client? Yes, and that with the this, I mean, it’s the same with assessments that like, if they do the assessment, then you are the holder of the assessment, and you get to tell them about them. And so the psychic piece is similar to that. And I guess I’m curious how you grapple with when it’s best for them to tell you, you know, what they know about themselves? And when you think of what you see, yeah, yeah, so Allen’s that as a as a coach, yeah.

So this is why I don’t take anyone as a client. First, we talk for good like two hours, because I tell this is not for everyone. Because I’m very psychic. If I don’t use that side of me, you don’t need to pay me, you can work with anyone. You need to hire me for that side of me because this is my truth. Because when I tried to shut it down, at one point, my company when I was working at a corporate company, they asked me to do coaching for internal. And of course, they cannot say these things. And I really suffered, I was just I was terrible decisions are terrible for me and for them. And I realized that it’s just like, it’s a nice journey. And it’s not my journey. And now I have many people coming to me for for example, leadership coaching on their career, then I refer to them to my clients who are coaches instead of me, because that type of coaching requires an expertise on a different area. So I don’t think as coaches or healers, we need to work with everyone. We’re not the only solution. It only depends what they want from you. What is their need, and it’s not the need of everyone. Some people don’t want to go there and it’s okay. It’s too direct for them. Or some people wants to, they tried everything and they cannot heal. And this issue creates physical problems because I also started when I had physical problems. I didn’t start because I wanted to be a healer. I was sick myself and I didn’t want to get surgery. So I was looking for an alternative to help me get out of this issue without any operation. This is how I started and in the beginning, I didn’t believe in of these things, but because I didn’t want to get the surgery. I have nothing to lose. I said okay. Let me just try what she says. Because they don’t want to take another surgery for a disease which now Doctors cannot explain me why I have it. I think this is also very important. Not every method is working for everyone. We’re all different. And there’s so many beautiful techniques out there. You just need to find what is working for you.

Mel, do you have any more questions?No, I don’t.

I don’t either. Except where can people find you?

Yeah. So people can find me two ways. One on social media platforms, I’m only using Instagram. So they can find me my name. I know, it’s a bit hard to get some nice. They type us unless they find me. But my website is purposeful wipes that calm. They can find me there as well. Because on my website, I have free meditations. I have podcasts, all this free resources. And they can also join my newsletter is where I share meditations where I share books where I share healing journeys, the things that I do for myself, because I’m obsessed with self healing. Whenever I learn a new technique, I share it with the community, they can also find me there.

Thank you so much for being on our show today. It’s just been such a pleasure, and so interesting to have you.

Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for being so open minded and having me.

I think it’s really interesting. And by the way, I’ll just say this, I think that you are dealing really ethically with your psychic peace and your ICF certification. So I you know, I’ll just give you that endorsement, that the way that you talked about that, you know, I do lots of mentor coaching and things. And so I think you’ve considered carefully how to do that. And so I’ll I’ll announce that on my butt that I think you’re doing.

Thank you so much.

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It was great being here with you today. And I loved how Gul talked about meditation. But she has a very experimental mindset about that. We’ll just try it. And a month from now. It’ll be different. And then you’ll try something new. So it’s almost as if she’s running an adhoc Kata to see how she might, how her clients might add meditation to their lives. If you want a copy of our Kata card. Feel free to email melanie@experimentalleader.com It’ll walk you through the Kata questions for how to do continuous improvement in your own life. And, Gul seems to be doing a really interesting coaching practice. I love innovation in coaching, as well as everywhere else. It’s been great being here with you today. Go experiment!

Important Links: 

Gul Sonmez

 

Gül Sönmez is an Intuitive Healer & Transformational Coach and Mindfulness Trainer, internationally renowned for her ability to find and heal people’s past traumas andburied memories, so they can overcome anxieties, self-doubt, stress and procrastination in order to live aligned, purposeful lives. With 15 years of experience working in big multinationals (including P&G, Coca-Cola, Amazon), Gül has transformed her working life by learning deep healing techniques and finding alternative solutions to her own struggles. Since then, she has used her incredible gifts, to not only radically change her own life, but the lives of hundreds of others through her 1:1 program, group courses and mindfulness workshops.

In her own words… “Only YOU can heal yourself by using the right modalities and putting theory into practice. When you do the inner work, the outside world shifts for better, always.”

 

 

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