How to Feel Safe Being Authentic Online with Somatic Healer Maddalena Rodolfi [The Sacred Style Podcast - Ep. 1]
What we cover:
✔️Maddalena's journey as an empath and healer that allowed her to feel safer in creating a brand and becoming more visible online
✔️Maddalena's transformative DIY branding journey (using one of our website templates) and how it helped her deeply connect with herself and her clients
✔️The personal process of learning to build a solid inner foundation to better navigate the world and stay grounded as an intuitive and sensitive person
✔️The difference between knowing about emotions and actually embodying them
✔️The transformative impact of listening to and reconnecting with the body
✔️Advice for anyone who's feeling stuck right now and how to move forward by tuning into the body
Daniela:
Hey there and welcome to the Sacred Style Podcast! This is a safe space for empaths, intuitives, healers, and artists, where we explore the intersection of spiritual entrepreneurship, online branding, self-expression, and the fine art and journey of authentically being human.
I'm your host—Daniela West, artist, designer, coach, and founder of The Humanista Co. Creative where we transform spiritual brands into spiritual magnets to amplify your purpose impact and abundance.
In today's episode, we're going to be diving into the powerful topic of how to truly feel safe to be seen as our authentic selves. So I wanted to bring in a very special guest expert for you all today to share more on this.
Today I'm speaking with Maddalena Rodolfi, a London-based heart-centered somatic body therapist, healer, and dancer whose mission is to help others connect with their body and soul to unlock their creativity and become their very own healers.
(She also invested in a Goddess website template of ours to kickstart her personal brand journey 😉)
So, I'm so excited to have you here today thank you so much for joining us how are you?
Maddalena:
Hi Daniela I'm so happy to be here. I'm actually super excited.
Daniela:
Me too, me too, I'm so excited to have you just because we've known each other for a few years at this point and I just know you have so much incredible expertise and perspective to share with us and I'm really excited to dive into this topic.
So now that we have you here today, can you introduce yourself a little bit more to our audience and kind of walk us through your work and how we even got connected in the first place?
Maddalena:
Yeah with pleasure. So I'm a somatic body therapist and my journey started with a massage training that I took almost 14 years ago in Italy and I you know one of those thing that just happen to you you're not even sure what you're doing and while doing it and it was just for me to get to know myself better to go through a life crisis I just discovered how I love the body, how I love to touch the body and I discovered something that I didn't know about myself—that I was incredibly intuitive and I could feel in my body what the other people were feeling and sensing.
And so for me, that was just like a window opening into a new world. Then ever since, I did other courses, I learned more and more about the body and it just became my life passion. It became my work because before, I was doing something totally different, I was a teacher, and it just became my way to express myself in the world.
And funnily enough, when I discovered you, when I discovered your website and DIY templates I was searching for a way to express and communicate what I was doing because it was so intuitive for me to do it and so you know, when you just do something becomes so natural and it's even hard for you to explain it because it's just so normal for you to do it. For me it was really hard to explain to people how I work with the body and my client would just come through referrals through friends of friends because I was living in a small rural area in at the time.
Check out our Goddess Collection of DIY Squarespace website templates for spiritual entrepreneurs
So it was just like on a personal person-to-person level so I didn't need to explain it or I have a website I didn't even have Instagram. I had nothing, absolutely nothing, it was just like a friend of a friend and a family and you know neatly how it is, it's all about connections right? And then I moved to London and then everything changed.
And then I was like how do I explain this? How do I explain? How, when I see a person I don't just see them, I feel them, I can see things. I can see the energy of the body. I can see certain parts that are dark and I see certain parts that are moving and I see colors and I can feel them. I can feel in my body what they are feeling in physical sensation, where they're contracting, which emotion they're feeling. There is so much information that I get from a person when I see them. And when I touch them, even more. I was like, how do I explain this?
—Maddalena
Daniela:
Yeah, it's like what you're describing to me is like this intuitive superpower you have, like X-ray vision which I've never heard anyone say before.
Maddalena:
It's really an incredible gift, yeah, and I remember I was like, oh I need someone to help me explain this so I was searching and funny enough, I put in Google, "web designer London" and I wrote something like "soulful entrepreneur" something like that. So I knew I needed someone that I can connect with on branding, but also that has a connection with the soul, and your website came up and I remember I didn't even look at like who you were, where you were, I didn't look. I was just like she gets me, she knows, she is the right person to help me, and I remember seeing it and was like oh this woman she really knows how to help women that have a soul-based business, honestly.
Daniela:
Wow. Wait a minute, wait a minute. that's so incredible. Like, I was a total stranger and also the fact that you were looking for someone in London but I popped up all the way out in Phoenix, Arizona, which is kind of funny. I mean it's almost like our energy just aligned like through the cyber webs, you know? Like a magnet almost. That's what it sounds like.
Maddalena:
Yeah, it was magnetic.
Daniela:
I’m curious, when you got to my website, what was it that made you feel like this woman gets me like as a total stranger?
Maddalena:
I remember the sentences that you were writing. Like, I remember it was a lot about not like you were not trying to sell yourself, but you were seeing. I felt seen and I felt very safe like this woman can see me and can help me see how I can show myself while I still feel that I am respecting my needs.
Because I'm a private person and I don't like to share too much of myself and I don't like to be seen, you know, to a lot of people. I like to handpick the people I surround myself with and I need to trust them. So when you become public like through a website or social media you cannot hand pick and that would make me feel very exposed and unsafe.
And so I was like what do I share of myself and of my work, because my work is me, so that I can still feel safe but at the same time, help people understand who am so they understand that they can trust me to work with me. Does it make sense?
Daniela:
It makes complete sense, yeah. Basically, how do you portray yourself online in a way that feels authentically you, without revealing too much that you might feel unsafe or uncomfortable, but still wanting people to feel your essence, right? Wanting people to connect with you on a deeper level to the point where they know you're the right person to help them, even when they can't meet you in person.
Maddalena:
Yeah, exactly that.
Daniela:
Yeah. So that's how we got connected, isn't it? You literally just found me from a random Google search and then the journey started. So can you walk us through a little bit more about your work and what was this process of sort of creating a brand for yourself, creating a website. Would love to hear a little bit more about your story in terms of what was it that allowed you to feel safer in creating a brand? In being seen, being more visible online to total strangers? I'd love to hear a little more about that journey for you.
Maddalena:
It's an interesting story, it's really interesting because it seems like a mixture of opposites. So, I was really sure about my talent. I knew I had a gift and I, you know, when you just feel it and then people always confirm it to you like oh my God, like the way you can read my body and see things that no one can see and you tell me those things that are on.
Or sometimes, I have clients who say, "Oh my God, what you told me two years ago, you were totally right at the time." I couldn't understand them but now I do and I and was I'm like what did I tell you two years ago? Yeah, I don't remember. But they remember every single word and then they were like oh yes I remember and they go like oh and you were right I just couldn't understand it or I wasn't ready or it was too much or and then but they were like but it was working in me it was like you planted a seed.
And it's funny because most of the time, I don't remember because when I say those things, it's not me. They just come like messages and then of course I tell them and I see them but I forgot them I forgot them straight away because they are pieces of information that are not important for me to retain but they are important for them so I'm just like a facilitator that they need to hear. And because they are still not yet in tune with themselves, I'm like a translator from their body back to them.
Daniela:
Wow. So I'm basically hearing you say you are a channel for the messages that someone needs to hear for their growth. That's powerful.
Maddalena:
Yeah, and I see them through their body. It's like their body is like a screen and I see that.
Daniela:
Wow. I wish I could see that. Like what's that like? That's amazing!
Maddalena:
It comes with a lot of responsibility and sometimes it's really hard to handle. Like it takes a lot of work to see so much because sometimes the amount of information that I get is so much that it gets overwhelming. So much so, that at some point I got burned out and I needed to completely change the way I worked and become incredibly centered. I had to work for years on becoming as centered as an oak tree.
Daniela:
Yeah that makes complete sense especially as an intuitive, as an empath, you're always picking up on signals from other people. You see it, you feel it even before they can in many cases it sounds like. I'm actually really curious to hear more about that process of what did it take specifically for you to learn how to be more solid in your inner foundation? How does somebody turn into this kind of oak tree as a healer or empath? I'd love to hear more about that process.
Maddalena:
Yeah, I can tell you how was the process for me, I don't know if it's the same for all the empaths, right? Since you’re so easily overwhelmed and so sensitive.
For me, it was a very long process and I think that the first bit was accepting that I was very sensitive, and that it was not a curse, but it was just a quality that I had which was coming with a lot of challenges. And one of those was to stay centered. And then, what really helped me was to work on the body because in order to survive this overload, my way of coping was to disconnect from the body.
So I was either freezing or just checking out. So I was not there. My body was here, I was not here and so it was a long process of starting to become acquainted and becoming friends with my body again. So through breath work, movement, bio energetics, lots and lots of meditation, like the base of it all for me was meditation. And then a lot of work on the body, but work on the body not necessarily of making it stronger or more flexible, yes, but it was the attention. When I was using the body, being present with it constantly, being present with it through the breathing, through paying attention to the movement.
So for me, it was combining the attention that you start bringing into yourself when you learn to meditate, so calming the mind, and just learning to observe yourself and learning to observe yourself while you're moving. So that was, for me, learning to observe yourself while you're moving.
Daniela:
That's interesting. What is the benefit of learning to observe yourself while you're actually moving? Because that's not something I've ever thought of before. I love to practice self-awareness and I'm constantly you know introspecting in terms of what am I thinking at this time, how am I being triggered in certain situations, but I never really thought about that in terms of motion. I'd love to hear more about that.
Maddalena:
So what I discovered, because I like to move, I love to dance, I love to run, to jump, I'm very active, but I became aware when I started working on myself that I was using movement also as a way to escape. So keeping my body busy in order not to feel because what I was feeling was too much. And it was, at the same time, it was useful because it was helping me release the excess, but at the same time, because I was not bringing in my presence, I was escaping. And then I was like lost in the loop.
So I needed constantly to move in order to release and I kept avoiding being present and then when I started working so deeply on myself and bringing in so much meditation and awareness. And especially connecting with the body in a way of this poor body of mine has been coping with everything that has happened so far and it's holding still so much trauma and pain that the only way I can be present in it is for me to make space so that I can feel that pain. And feel safe to feel it and let it go and allow myself to process it.
So it was like peeling an onion, layer by layer by layer, and it took a while. And then the more I did it, the more I felt lighter, and the more I felt I could contain that pain, which doesn't mean repress it, but contain it in the sense that it's a container for it. But an open container. So I could have, because I started putting boundaries around me, so I didn't need to shut down myself. And then with those boundaries, which were soft, which kept like moving and changing, then I could contain the emotion instead of spilling them out or let them explode.
And by doing that, what happened was my body became softer and then and lighter and then I could just bring in this awareness while I was moving. Because then I could be dancing and be totally ME and feel oh this is moving, oh wow this movement makes me feel this emotion, but because those emotions were not scary anymore or overwhelming, I could just play along with them and give them space while moving. And the same, while I was cooking or walking or massaging or, you know, doing a workshop, I could be in the movement.
So be in the action of doing things, and at the same time, be present with myself while I'm doing it.
Daniela:
That's beautiful. That's such a beautiful process of—it sounds to me that it's really a matter of learning to just be present with our emotions instead of constantly distracting, you know, through busy work or running around here and there and doing all these errands because we're too afraid to sit and actually recognize what emotions are we are carrying in our bodies at any time.
And it sounds to me like a process of practicing self-compassion first of all and realizing, yeah, okay, I do have these difficult emotions running around in my body that are making me act maybe frantically or rushing around all the time and maybe if I can learn to just sit with them and tell myself it's okay to have these emotions in the first place, and maybe send love to these emotions, and find an activity that allows you to physically allow them to flow through the body so that they can be experienced in a safe way and also released by you being that safe container for them. That sounds very transformative. It sounds very freeing, actually, what you're describing.
Maddalena:
Yes, yeah, that's the right word. I was actually thinking, now while you were talking about that, one of my clients just recently told me that one of the biggest things that he learned that that was the most useful for him through the work that we did together was—he said that he learned how to allow a momentary discomfort in order to let the pain, the fear, the trauma to be held while it's being transformed.
And he told me, "You gave me this safe and loving container where I could lean into while I was feeling all this discomfort and not run away from it. And by being there in the emotion, I transformed and changed it." Just by being there, just being present in the container, in the body.
Because it's like—this is the metaphor that I always use—imagine that you have a kitten that has been beaten up or abandoned. So it has suffered, maybe like cold and hunger, maybe someone has beaten up the kitten. So what does the kitten do? It hides in a corner. It doesn't come out from under the bed and if you come closer it just tries to attack you, bite you, and what do you do? You cannot talk them out from saying I am safe don't worry you can come here you're going to be warm from now on you're going to be fed I'm not going to hurt you… it's going to think no, I don't trust you, I don't trust anyone, I've been beaten up, I've suffered no no no no. And maybe it doesn't even come out to eat even if that's what he wants, even if food is there, because it doesn't feel safe.
And what changes that you constantly show up, you constantly show up, and you constantly show the kitten that the food is there and there's fresh food every day and there's water every day and it can take all the time that he wants and it's going to be warm?
So basically, we do the same with ourselves. We constantly show up, and we stay with this uncomfortable emotion, with this uncomfortable sensation, and we breathe in it, and we stay in it, and we try to soften up, and we constantly show up, until at some point that part that is so scared starts going, okay I can trust this guy, I can trust this person.
Then at some point, you just can feel it. So maybe the tension that you always felt in the chest starts softening up and at some point you just feel that you can take a deep breath or maybe that pain that you are constantly having in the neck, at some point, it's not there all the time. It's just there when you're very, very stressed, but most of the time it's not there anymore.
While before, it was just like constant and you just can see the changes or maybe at some point you just realize, oh my God, look at my face, I'm so beautiful today. All of a sudden you just notice something changing or like oh, wow, my hair.
Daniela:
That's beautiful. It's like through this process of learning to be present with your emotions and understanding that your body can be that safe container to feel the emotions, to let them flow through, you let them be released in your own time, in your own way. And through doing that, it sounds like it's helping someone to feel safer to actually be seen as their true selves is what I'm hearing.
I'd love to hear, for you specifically too, how has the work that you do allowed you to feel safer to be seen in the in the online space? Especially because I know that was a big struggle for you when we first met, also.
Maddalena:
Yeah, well there was a lot of thinking like I need to meditate before I post this or oh my God I need to do this part of the website, what am I going to write, and it was really funny because I was using the somatic practices—the breath work, the meditation, that I would offer my clients as tools to navigate through their life challenges—for this challenge of mine.
So okay, I need to sit here and I really need to fill in this part, I need to talk about this, just like okay let's do it like five minutes practice. Before then, I'm gonna sit and then I could feel my body like tensing up and telling me no what are you writing, who do you think you are, that's a fraud, you don't know this stuff, and I would tell myself that's okay, just breathe, we can just write it down, and then we can go over it constantly you know.
So I would use very kind self-talk and then whenever either the procrastination would kick in or the harsh judgement would kick in, then I would go into the physical practices. So maybe I would dance a little bit in the house I would do some breath work and then I would bring myself back to the computer and start writing and I just kept doing it alternating, yeah.
Daniela:
Amazing, yeah that's such a powerful process—the idea of really bringing the body into the act of branding yourself, into the act of creating an online presence. It's almost like through the body you've been able to find ways to coach yourself through the process of letting yourself be seen and overcoming impostor syndrome. It's actually a very powerful process. I'm impressed to hear about it because I'd never thought of that approach in terms of really bringing the body into my own self-empowerment journey to help me overcome resistance that comes up in the body when I am doing things outside of my comfort zone.
Things that relate to being seen, showing up in this new way, like maybe doing a podcast or a live workshop, things that do require us to step up more as leaders, step into the spotlight more. I really love this idea of bringing the body in to release that kind of tension and resistance and just be like it's okay, you've got this girl, I love you, just flow through it. Yeah, so that's what it sounds like this journey has been for you so far.
Maddalena:
Yeah, definitely. It's been like a journey of opposites because the body was such a place of pain and fear for me and now it has become like my greatest ally, so it's just like it's been like a twist. It was really funny because I was having so many symptoms and ailment due to my sensitivity, and the fact that no one ever navigated me through those so I constantly felt like I'm overreacting, I'm hysterical, I'm angry, you know lots of judgment or I'm too much of this and I shouldn't and blah blah blah.
And then when I started realizing I'm not. That there's nothing wrong with me and maybe I just don't know how to interpret all the feelings that I have and realizing oh but then not everyone feels all the things, not everyone sees all that I see, and then somehow when I started to navigate that. I was like oh this poor body, because I was very angry with my body, oh why do I have these constant migraines and stomach pain and why can't I sleep at night, why am I constantly having panic attacks.
You start feeling like oh my body's failing me, why can't I just live like the others, so there's a lot of judgment. And then, through the process, I realized wow! Actually my body was doing great considering how much stress it was under and how difficult it was to cope, because I never developed a more serious disease or injury, I could have gotten much worse.
I was like, actually all things considered, it did very well, and it gave me such strong signals that I couldn't ignore, and that I chose not to ignore that. Then it took me on the right path. So somehow it's like my body was screaming and telling me not that way this way and I'm like okay I'm listening now.
Daniela:
Oh my gosh, I've experienced something very similar, that's so funny that you say that. Yeah, I think there's probably a lot of people listening in our audience right now that may also relate to being empathic and very sensitive and maybe easily overwhelmed by their environment or by energies around them. I discovered my sensitivity a few years ago through the hard way—what you're describing— through my body language, through getting sick, through chronic illnesses or chronic pain in the body and getting so frustrated that nothing physical I was doing was really helping.
But I wasn't taking the time to really look at my life from a bird's eye view and recognize like yeah, you're getting headaches because you're staring at the computer screen 12 hours a day, or you're trying to push through and overwork yourself and you're ignoring the signals in your body, or maybe you're putting yourself in a toxic environment or a toxic connection that is draining your energy consistently, and continuing to ignore those signs in your body. So I just think that's a really interesting point about learning how to recognize your own sensitivity as a gift but also something that does require special care and special tools that are personal.
There are many different tools out there to protect that kind of sensitivity or energy but I think it is a powerful point to make in the way that being seen does require learning how to feel safe in the body. Showing up as our true selves really can only happen when we're deeply rooted in the body from a place of safety—of protecting our energy and understanding the unique gifts that we bring to the table.
—Daniela
And I think that's something that meeting you and working with you has actually really helped me discover, to be honest. We've done some body sessions together in the past and it was just incredibly helpful because I knew that I was an empath, I probably discovered this maybe in the last five years, but the way I was approaching navigating the world as an empath was very much from the head from the mental space.
I had a lot of information about being an empath or being intuitive. I had knowledge but I didn't understand how to actually access that sensitivity from within the body. Is this something that you've heard from other people or other clients you've worked with?
Maddalena:
Yeah more than heard, I've seen it. Because maybe they have experienced the same—that because they knew so much about what it means to be an empath or highly sensitive, they thought they thought they had experienced all the nuances of it, but actually, they didn't. They just knew it on a mind level, but they didn't feel it. They didn't go into the depth of it. They didn't really touch the incredible power of their gift, and at the same time, the incredible challenges that it brings.
Because there's so much pain that gets activated when, as empathic, highly sensitive people, we haven't been told what it means when you know life gets at you and you feel everything so much or you feel other people's pain and you don't know how to release it. And you just keep storing it in the body yeah and so at some point you're like, oh I'm highly sensitive, so that's why I feel this and I feel that.
But then you don't allow yourself to really feel it and process it because it's so much and it can feel overwhelming even to do the work to unlock it. So it's really important for you to feel safe, otherwise you don't do it.
Daniela:
That such a good point. That's what I experienced coming to you first for sessions in the past. I came to you from a place of major unsafety. I had just experienced a traumatic event from my physical environment from another person when I came to you. And I think when we started sessions, I was very numb in my own body. It surprised me. You would guide me through certain movements, like even something so simple as like, okay just notice your legs, place your hands on your legs, and I would do that and I wouldn't feel anything at first.
And I started realizing like, oh my God, I don't take the time to actually tune in to specific parts of my body and kind of just check in on them, like are you okay legs? How are you feeling? You know, are we connected right now? And I was really shocked to find that the answer was no. And even more than that, it had probably been years since I even consciously felt connected to my own legs. I had gone years without ever thinking about them as a part of my body, which really surprised me.
So just working with you and learning about this mind-body connection was very new and unfamiliar to me and it helped me realize how I store blockages within my body that are actually really holding me back from experiencing pleasure and joy and more of the positive emotions I think that I numbed myself in different parts of the body for a long time. Because I was afraid to feel those painful feelings.
But in doing that, I was also blocking myself from the opposite spectrum of those feelings. So I just wanted to thank you because, through working together, it really has helped me unlock things that I had no idea were so locked inside of me. And it's an ongoing journey, you know, it's not like a one-and-done thing like I'm completely free and at my Highest Potential now after five minutes. But it is kind of an Awakening process to go on that journey with somebody like you to get more in touch with the body and understand how every piece of ourselves is connected one way or another. Ah, so it's kind of a relief just to say that.
Maddalena:
Yeah. Well, you're very welcome and I have a question actually. How do you feel that, through recognizing how disconnected you were from the body and slowly coming back into feeling again safe into your body, through the practicing and the exercises, how did this have an impact on your work? How did this impact the way you work?
Because I remember when I met you and when I discovered your work, my first impression was like, oh my God she is so tuned in and she can really know what an entrepreneur needs. Especially if it's a woman, especially if there's a lot of sensitivity, or especially if someone is doing the kind of work that is like a soul calling. So I could feel how intuitive you were and I would like to know how the work that you did, that we did together, made you change or improve or where did it bring in your work?
Daniela:
I love that question, that's a great question.
I would say, from the beginning, I've always had the gift of seeing others clearly. I've always been able to, I would say, see other peoples' souls—their true nature, who they are at their fullest potential—I've always had that gift to see others clearly, much clearer than they can see themselves. And I think as a human design projector, I think that's a really big part of having that gift.
But what I couldn't see was myself. That was a really big piece of it. I was so focused on other people—clients I would serve, you know, putting them in the spotlight and empowering them and helping them feel so seen, because that's so natural to me, but in the process I was completely hiding behind that. And I think I wasn't even connected to or willing to see me and my gifts and what I have to offer the world. And it actually held me back a lot because I didn't feel safe to be seen before our work together.
I was so focused on helping others feel safe to be seen but when it came to me for some reason I was like, oh that's not as important, it's all about them. And I think through working together and getting more connected with my own body, it has allowed me to create a container. To realize that my body is a container. It is a place where I can build safety from within without relying on things outside of myself wherever I am in the world or whoever I'm connected with around me, whatever's going on. I can now feel more rooted in myself. I now have so much more self-trust because I can recognize like, okay this feeling is going on in my body, my chest is tightening, or my root chakra is very constricted and it's talking to me. I can literally recognize now when certain body parts or chakras are actually speaking to me through discomfort.
And instead of ignoring that or trying to push through it I've been taking a lot more time to be still and listen to my own body and that's actually been connecting me so much more to my intuition, my inner voice. It's been so much more talkative, actually. In the last year, I've opened up so much more to my inner voice and my inner knowing and I understand when I'm receiving clear messages from my higher self, from my intuition, and it's really been allowing me to navigate the world now with so much more confidence and so much more clarity in who I am and why I'm here, you know what's my purpose, what are the gifts that I have to offer, what makes me different, what makes me uniquely positioned to serve this unique collective of spiritual entrepreneurs. Like, why me?
And it's really empowered me to see myself in a way I was never able to see myself before. Because I was never taught that it's okay to see yourself and validate yourself and trust yourself. Now I know that it's more than okay, it's probably the greatest gift you could ever give to yourself. The greatest gift you could ever learn is how to see yourself. I really believe that. And once that locks in and you really do start to see yourself and look in the mirror and be like, girl you are a superstar, like, who is that, oh my God! I literally say that to myself now like, girl you're a star! Yeah, go out and shine!
And at first I didn't fully believe it, but after doing this for the last year or so, it really does get ingrained. And I can look at myself and I see it now. And it's becoming reflected back to me in what others tell me or how others treat me or respond to me now, and it's amazing.
Maddalena:
Yeah. Did you notice did you notice you changed something in your posture? Because that's something that I always notice in my clients once they start feeling more connected, their posture all of a sudden start changing and they're more open. There's just more an opening. So the body is softer, so they're not constantly in the same position, even if they still go there. Sometimes people tell you, oh you're look taller now, sometimes was like yeah they keep telling me that I'm taller but I'm always the same. It's so amazing. It's such an energetic shift. And then you see the energy changing the actual body or the actual appearance. It really does shift from the inside out through this work.
Daniela:
That's really beautiful. Wow, that's some powerful shifts. What a journey it's been, hasn't it?
Maddalena:
My God, and I was thinking how beautiful it is to be seen and to find someone that can hold space for you while you show yourself because that's what I had with you while I started this journey on making myself available online.
That was incredibly scary for me and somehow your website template and your suggestions broke it down into pieces that made it available for me and made it safe for me to say, "Okay I can do this step and then I can do this step." And then somehow, every step was doable, and it didn't feel like, oh my God I'm gonna be there on the internet, everyone is gonna watch me, and they're going to see all my flaws and that I'm not doing a great job, and I don't even know how to explain it. And it just felt like, yeah, you just do this, and then it's okay you can always work on it and doesn't have to be perfect.
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Maddalena:
But at the same time, with the attention to detail which I really, really liked for me. It's really important. I like beauty and I like colors and I like things to be done in a certain way. But then at the same time, I get lost because I want it perfect and somehow for you to manage to combine both giving space for the beauty, rather than just needing the website to be efficient and you just need to make it work doesn't matter how it is.
So you brought in this feminine side that, for me, was really important and at the same time, the practical part.
Like, let's just not get lost in the fact that it needs to be perfect and all shiny and beautiful 100%, your approach is that it can be beautiful 70% or 60%, and then we work with the rest bit by bit. That for me was the key. Because I think it took me almost two years to do it.
Daniela:
Oh, the DIY process—I know it's different for everybody.
Maddalena:
Yeah, but it was so transformative because every bit of that just helped me understand my work better. It helped me make it more understandable for my clients. So yes, it took two years, and probably if I paid you to do it for me it would have taken six months or three, but I would have missed the process. Which, for me, was really important because I grew with it. So thank you. That is my way of saying thank you.
Daniela:
Oh you're welcome, you're so welcome. And honestly, for me as a designer and coach, it's been so amazing to see your journey as you've—yeah, you did buy a website template from me, and you went on your DIY journey to really understand who you are at your core, first of all.
I think what I'm hearing is it was a big self-discovery journey for you as you went through every little piece of not just building a website, but discovering who are you as a brand overall. You're not just a freelancer—you know having a client here or there—this is your brand, your personal brand, basically a vehicle through which you get to live out your purpose! Which is such a beautiful thing.
So I'm so glad to hear it's been such a great exploratory self-discovery process for you. Because how are you feeling now that your website's launched?
Maddalena:
Oh my God, so proud! Like a proud mother! That's my baby now. It's becoming a teenager, but I'm so proud.
Daniela:
And I'm so proud, too, I'm feeling like your fairy design witch, or your fairy godmother [laughter]
Maddalena:
I'm so proud too, yeah, you're my fairy web designer godmother [laughter].
Daniela:
I love that, I love that. Oh my gosh, well, this conversation has been so amazing. So many beautiful juicy nuggets of wisdom. And I'm so grateful, I'm so grateful that we got to do this today. I think I just have one more question for you, for any listeners out there right now who are feeling how you and I have felt in the past throughout our own our own evolution in building a brand. You know, there have been moments where, at least for me, I've felt stuck, I've felt impostor syndrome, I felt insecure, terrified to get out of my comfort zone, and let myself be seen in a new expanded way, so for anyone who's maybe feeling stuck, I'm wondering what kind of advice would you offer them to help them move forward?
Maddalena:
That's a very good question. The first thing I would say is take a deep breath and just make a movement with the body—any part of the body—that, while you're breathing, just wants to be moved. And you just let it move. And just do that maybe for 10-15 breaths so with that, with every breath, you allow a part of the body that wants to move and maybe it's like, oh the shoulder, oh and maybe they want to move like this, oh and maybe the neck, and you pay attention to every movement. So you just choose one part of the body, of all those that want to be moved, and you just move one at a time.
And you breathe in it while you do the movement. And this is like the simplest of the practices, but it starts bringing us in the body with the breathing and while moving and you'll see that when you start doing it, all of a sudden, the mind becomes quiet. We start breathing more. We start softening up. And then somehow, the space starts opening up in our brain, in our head, in our body. We breathe more.
And then our comfort zone that we feel safe in, it starts to expand. But it expands from within. It's not broken from the outside where something like forces you out of it. It's just like, you know what, I want to make it a little bit bigger and then when we make it a little bit bigger then there's more space for things to come in because the space is wider.
Daniela:
Thank you for that, that was beautiful. I took a nice deep breath and moved my body while you were describing that and that felt great, thank you. That's really amazing advice. So how can people get in touch with you after this incredible amazing conversation? Where can they find you and do you have any current offerings? Any current services, freebies, anything you'd like to share with the audience?
Maddalena:
Well, through my website of course, www.maddalenarodolfi.com and through my Instagram. And yes, actually I have a couple of offering happening at the moment which I thought precisely for those people that don't know me and that would like to experience working with me. Because at the moment, I mainly work one-on-one through what I call Journeys. So at least six week Journeys where people can really feel the shift through those Journeys.
And then normally people work with me for a longer period of time, like maybe two to three months or longer depending. And then I thought, oh but maybe someone is not yet ready to commit to such a long journey but they still want to try and see how I work and so I've started doing online workshops. They're a couple of hours long.
So there's one coming up actually tomorrow, Wednesday February 5th right yeah at 6:30 p.m. UK time and English, and another one in Italian. And you can find the link on my Instagram on my website and then there's going to be repeated so I'm going to do one each month so whoever misses it you can come in next month or the following one and this is a very nice way to kind of like feel how it goes is an hour and a half long and you get to experience a little bit of all the technique and tools that I use meet other people. Some of them are my long-term clients so they're very familiar with the way I work.
So it's a very relaxed environment and then of course I'm doing in-person workshops in London so if someone is around please join me. There are going to be some new dates coming up soon so they're going to probably be in April and in May 2025.
And then there's going to be the membership, the other new part of the website.
Daniela:
Ooooo tell us about it.
Maddalena:
So this has been my work for the last few months. So this is another part of my of my website story and I just felt that I wanted to create more of a community. Because I have this—honestly probably everyone says so—but I think that my clients are amazing. I honestly I think they are such courageous souls and with each one of them we do doesn't matter how long the journey is, some work with me for three years and some for three months and some for just six weeks, but each one brings so much. And it's just so beautiful to see them changing and then they just stay as long-term family members.
Sometimes people work with me for a little bit then they disappear for two years and then they come back and then maybe they're ready for a longer and deeper journey and so we dive in again and then maybe they go on off again on their journey and then maybe they come back for maybe just a month of session just to kind of like understand where they are and, it's just beautiful. And I feel like a Hostess, you know, like I'm the guest and they come into my house and the website for me now it's like my house. And so people can come in.
And so the membership—I wanted the place where people can feel the connection all the time and especially what was most important for me is that they could meet with other people and are like-minded, soul-minded, and they can create new connections where they can feel that they're not the only one going through this journey. So they can relate to other people that have gone through a similar path.
So there will be one online event per month for an hour and a half, where we're going to do some practices—breath work, meditation, some dance, and then there will be a Q&A part where people can ask me anything. So they can start getting some answers to their questions and then the beauty of that is that maybe my question then answers someone else's question.
And there's a part with somatic practices—it's going to be 10 minutes of somatic practices each month that a person can use to integrate into their everyday life so that they can start building up new tools that then they can see how this 10 minutes a day can really shift a lot, even just 10 minutes a day.
And then there is the last bit of it—one Creative Care Package per month where, again I combine creativity and somatic practices and movement so that the person can explore the creative part of themselves through movement, through art, through meditation, and it's just a suggestion. Like, okay this is the activity of the month, you can do it at any time, you can do it every day and see what part of you it brings up.
Daniela:
Beautiful. And let me just say that one thing I've come to realize about communities is they tend to reflect whoever has created the community itself. So if you are vibing with my dear friend Madda, I can guarantee you'll love this community. So I think it's incredible that you've got this membership now and a place for people to come together and a place for people to feel at home. I think that's so important especially in today's wild, wild world.
So yes, thank you so much. I'm going to drop all your links in the description below so everybody can find you. And thank you so much for this incredible podcast today. Such a great episode. Loved it. Loved every minute.
Maddalena:
Thank you, Daniela, thank you for your space and for holding space so beautifully. And it was really an honor. And I'm still as excited as I was at the beginning. My whole body has got all the good vibes [laughter]. Take care, bye bye.
About Maddalena Rodolfi
Body to Soul Sessions and Workshops designed to help you reconnect to your Body and Soul using everyday tools to keep this connection alive.
Website: https://www.maddalenarodolfi.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maddalenarodolfi/
