Ep#15 Healing the Shame of Being a Sensual Woman with Charlotte Nguyen

In this episode of Your Story Medicine, I welcome Charlotte Nguyen, Owner of Get Free!, a wellness consultancy and community that helps change makers become more inspired and emotionally healthy through the transformative power of mindfulness. Charlotte is a spiritual and transformational coach continuously asking how to live a life of service that can lovingly overturn the status quo. After the death of her first love in 2007, she began a journey to learn how to be free from suffering. Charlotte has worked with hundreds of people in the field of personal development, helping them cultivate lives full of trust, confidence, intimacy, connection, mindfulness and compassion with themselves and all their relations.

Charlotte speaks to us about healing the shame around being a sensual woman, the importance of community and commitment in the healing process, and how she transitioned in expanding her offerings as a coach while unapologetically charging for her services. She shares insights into how she balances work and rest, as well as how she leverages the polarity of expressed and unexpressed sexual energy in her life and in her business.

How would you describe your medicine?

My purpose here is to hold the frequency of love and freedom. I’m a spiritual and transformational coach and I specialize in healing people of color. My work in the world is my job, my craft, my joy, my purpose, and my heart, traversing the places in the light spectrum that people don’t want to go into. The places that are challenging to go to are my jam, supporting them and holding their hand through to the other side, so that they can make that divine contribution that they came here to make. I do group programs, retreats, and private workshops to explore the places where people want to have abundance, excitement, and radiance, as these are often things that have been taken away from us. 

What is your ancestral lineage and how has that influenced your medicine today?

My family came to the US as refugees via the Vietnam War and so in a lot of ways, that legacy of trauma has given me a lot of commitment and urgency around suffering and how to heal from suffering in the world. My parents always instilled in me stories of hardship, destruction, and survival. I was exposed to images of my people suffering more than my people being happy and thriving. I look forward to creating new ancestral wisdom from that mud… like, what’s next for my people?! When I think about that, I think about a well-rested, abundant, pleasure-filled future generation.

How can you build a six-figure business and prioritize rest and relaxation?

It’s not just making space for rest, it’s making space for all of life… my emotions and being human. I don’t give myself time limits, the first place I go is getting support from my community and making sure I have great people to hold me accountable. It’s important to be with my feelings instead of eating or drinking them. 

I don’t do it all, all day every day. On my to-do list, there’s ‘do now’, ‘do later’, ‘delegate’, ‘don’t do’. Something always needs to be put into those last two sections because everything about me is go go go, so I have to pull it back a bit. 

How did you make the transition beyond being a meditation teacher, expanding into sexual liberation as a part of the spiritual journey?

There’s some background that will help explain this. I grew up in a very traditional Catholic and Buddhist family. In all my years growing up, it was drilled into me that I was a sinner, that homosexuality is bad, that I can’t wear certain things, etc. On the other hand, the Buddhist temple my mother brought me to was much more open and freeing. It was so confusing as a little girl that my blossoming moment of sexuality (teenhood) had to be covered up and suppressed. 

My soul chose these two sides to show me the polarity, which I use a lot in my business. The non-expressed sexual energy and the expressed sexual energy. Both are great and can be used for different areas of growth and service. I love these two parts of myself, the saint and the brazen woman, the woman wearing 8 inch heels on a pole and the woman wearing muted, monastic clothing, head to toe, while serving a tea ceremony. 

How do you navigate and cope with the criticism from others and from your own people, as well as the praise and positive attention you receive?

It’s changed over time. From my spiritual perspective, we attract contrasting or complimentary energies. We attract what we need in order to learn something. When I was younger, I attracted a lot of unwanted male attention. I’m not blaming myself but I didn’t know how to protect myself energetically and I wasn’t claiming a part of my feminine energy, which is the essential, fierce feminine. I was just claiming my sexual and saintly feminine energy. 

I really got to know my fierce feminine, which has been left out in most religions. I show my mama bear energy… sweet, beautiful, and protective, but can rip you to shreds in any moment, if necessary. If you know who you are and if you believe in you, the greatest test to that is everyone else around you not knowing and believing in you. 

How have you created sacred boundaries and discerned who to work with?

When you’re committed to showing up authentically, thoughts of what others are going to think are going to come up. I love to be loved, so if something I’m doing threatens people loving me then it will be difficult for me. It’s rare that that happens these days because I already went through those stages where I cut out the people who don’t love me. I love being seen, I don’t identify much as the self, so I get off on offering up my experiences and myself to others.

How do you charge for your services, your medicine, unapologetically?

People hire you because they want you to deliver the hard truths. I started working at 14 after seeing my parents get home from work so late and spent a lot of time in this life working. There was a time that I shifted from the scarcity mindset after having a tricky relationship with money. I was broke and had to deal with student loans and make peace with money. The moment I decided it was possible for me to receive what I needed, I did. You have to make space for healing and abundance. 

As an entrepreneur and a healer, what are you doing to stay grounded and what have you learned to release?

The problem is the things I need to release are present in the subconscious, so I meditate, journal, and pray every day. Otherwise, the subconscious patterns and programming will run my life. Daily practice and having community, expanding my capacity for support and releasing the need to even be spiritual, is what grounds me. 

What is a ritual or practice you would like to invite people to do?

Find what works for you and what helps you connect with you on a soul level, on a daily basis. Check in with yourself on a soul level and work on finding your tribe. You need to be so committed to your health and wellness, with support, before you dive into the deep transformational work.

If you could envision yourself as a future ancestor, what would you say to young Charlotte?

I would say there are songs that only you can sing. There are only poems that you can write, there are paintings that only you can paint, there are dances that only you can dance. There are specific codes that have only been given to you and if you don’t unlock them, they’re never going to be heard and seen. No one will ever know what that song or poem is, so step up, I want to hear your heart song, I want to see your offering. 

There’s no one on this planet that doesn’t feel fear.

Conclusion: When fear creeps up, that’s an invitation to embody and offer up our medicine. Support and community is everything, especially in the healing process. If you can’t find a community, build one yourself! It may take some time but it’s so worth it at the end of the day. It’s important to feel seen, heard, and felt, while making space for abundance and healing. 

Action Integration: Remain aware of your fears and hesitations. Next time you feel fear, embrace it and lean into it fully, don’t resist it. Breathe and be curious and excited about why this fear is here. See what happens next!

Learn more about Charlotte and her offerings:

Visit her website: www.getfreewithcharlotte.com 

Follow her on Instagram: www.instagram.com/lotusinaseaoffire 

Connect with her on Facebook: www.facebook.com/getfreemeditation