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Azul Leguizamon experienced trauma and disfunction in her childhood, which led her on a path of healing as an adult. She trained in several fields, but still believed she was irreparably broken and damaged by her past experiences.

However, when she came across the Three Principles and began to explore them she discovered that her true nature is one of innate wellness, peace, and wisdom, as it is with everyone. She came home to her infinite wholeness and now shares this with others via coaching, webinars and other training.

You can find Azul Leguizamon at CoachingJourneyWithAzul.com and on Facebook.

You can listen above, on your favorite podcast app, or watch on YouTube. Notes, links, resources and a full transcript are below. 

Show Notes

• Searching for healing after childhood trauma
• Noticing how our state of mind affects our reactions to events
• Seeing the innocence in everyone’s behaviour
• The powerful recognition that we are all whole, always
• On the healthy creation of boundaries
• The healing power of deep listening
• Unlearning the habit of being unkind to ourselves

Resources Mentioned in this Episode

• Mark Howard and the Three Principles Institute
• Mavis Karn

Transcript of Interview with Azul Leguizamon

Alexandra: Azul Leguizamon, welcome to Unbroken.

Azul: Thanks so much for having me. I’m so happy to be with you here.

Alexandra: Did I pronounce your last name correctly?

Azul: Perfect. Yeah.

Alexandra: Oh, good. Okay.

Tell us a little bit about your background and how you got interested in the three principles.

Azul: My background is mixed. I’m a former primary school teacher, but I’m also a former Reiki master teacher, meditation teacher, Bach Flower practitioner, all of that. You can name it, and I have been there. So that’s the background.

I actually found the principles when I was reading a book, as a teacher. It’s a book called Positive Discipline. The title sounds kind of hard, Positive Discipline, but it was really interesting because it was pointing children in direction of really connecting to their well-being and how to behave, and like circles of trust, and lot of wonderful things.

And in between what the author was sharing, she says, “Everything changed for me after I found out about the three principles.” She mentions George Pransky, and I was like, what’s that? So I started looking for information in the internet, and I found so many webinars in the 3PGC YouTube channel. And then you get to get in touch and start like joining Zoom calls, and then you’re just there.

And that was for me amazing because I wasn’t looking for anything. I think it was the first time I wasn’t looking for something to grow. It was really out of pure interest. I was very happy in where I was at that moment thinking that that was enough. You couldn’t like really experience well-being all the time. So that’s how I found the principles.

Alexandra: And so, before that, you mentioned being a Reiki teacher and Bach Flower remedies and other things.

When you were investigating those things and learning about them and teaching them and that kind of thing, were you searching for something?

Azul: Yes, absolutely. I have been through a lot of different traumatic experiences and I developed a deep connection with people and I really wanted to help people, really, really wanted. So I was looking for just tools, techniques, and I was shifting from one thing, to the next thing, to the next thing.

Everything was really working out, but I still felt something is missing here, because my thinking was like, “Okay, perfect. Bach Flower remedies, they work. Reiki, it works. But there’s something that is missing because how come a human being needs to find something specific and find a practitioner in order to restore their well-being?”

I don’t believe God or the Universe or the divine intelligence of this, sustaining all life created that need. How come we can’t be complete, whole, and in well-being if we don’t find the right technique for us? It’s didn’t make any sense at all.

So, I was using all of that and, like, for example, I was seeing in Reiki, okay, you teach this program and you support people learning the technique and it really works. But when we look at children, small children, 3, 4 years old, when they fall, they quickly put their hands there, they know what to do.

They’re adding energy to that place, so they already know it, so they already got it. So they don’t need a Reiki ceremony to open their energy channels. Everything is already there.

I’m not diminishing at all the power of Reiki. I understand that we have been having a lot of thinking and conditioning, and we need something extra when we are in that path to open up our energy channels.

But when you find these three principles and understand how everything works, everything gets easier and easier. These days sometimes when I feel like offering a Reiki session, I still do it, but it’s about pleasure and it’s about sharing and it’s about expanding the whole being. It’s not about needing that to happen in order that I heal. So that’s a huge difference for me.

Alexandra: Yes. As opposed to, for me too personally in the past, learning other healing techniques, where you’re coming from a place of, “I’m broken and I need to use this method or whatever it is to fix the brokenness about me.” Very different.

It’s such a simple thing, and yet it’s so profound that idea that we are already whole, already well.

Azul: Absolutely. Like one different world. Because even if you go to have the sessions like myself as a patient or myself as the teacher, like there’s an imbalanced relationship because if you come to me because you think I am able to fix you, then I have certain power over you, which is not true at all.

But when you come to have a Reiki session because you enjoy it, and you know that you really don’t need it, but you would love to have the experience, then that’s a different journey and you can see more.

Alexandra: That’s such a good point. I love hearing that.

You mentioned that you had had some trauma in your past, and you recently gave a talk, for the 3PGC about letting go of trauma. Could you share a little bit about that with us?

Azul: Yes, of course. I was raised in a family that used to have lot of violence, and there was some addictions going on. So since I was, I don’t know, I think 5 years old, I had a clear idea of, okay, this is hell. I need to grow up and just move out as soon as I can.

So I have been through a lot of psychological abuse, physical abuse, a lot of different experiences, and it was really difficult because I left my home when I was 18 years old. And you are not really an adult. So you just start doing the things you learn, like having like toxic relationships and finding yourself in the world and getting a job and keeping the job, and like paying your bills, and blah, blah, blah.

And I would say that there was a lot of suffering in my early years, and there was a lot of suffering that I kind of created for myself, unknowingly, innocently.

I’m located in Argentina, and in Argentina, we all go to therapy, for some reason, like in Buenos Aires at least. And I have like lot of therapy, psychoanalysis, gestalt, like whatever, since 18 to, I don’t know, many, many, many years with different people. All of that was helpful, helpful if the expected result was that I was able to fit in in society and function, like, okay, I’m broken, but I can function in different ways so I’m not having more issues.

Every time my mind was fluctuating between, okay, I’m not enough. If I was a better daughter, a better human being, then maybe they would have behaved differently, or they are terrible parents, they are the ones to blame and I’m just a poor, innocent thing.

None of those positions was healthy or they really complete. When I found the principles…not exactly when I found it. When I found it, I started like exploring, listening, trying to understand.

You know how it is at the beginning, you kind of not really understand, but something inside of you tells you, yeah, it’s there.

And then, I had an experience with my daughter. It was challenging for me to become a mom because I had a lot of thinking about what if, I don’t know, something in my mind goes crazy and after acting crazy, and I were like, oof. But with the help of the therapist that I had at the time, he helped me to see that that was just a fantasy. That I was able to like be a mom.

But when Amber, my daughter was around 2 years, something like that, one day she misbehaved. I don’t remember exactly what she did, but I got really angry, you know, I got really angry. So, like, I started saying to her, “Hey, you shouldn’t do this, this, and that.”

I had to stop myself because I could see how after each word, there was a terrible word after that, it was like a road of violence, not physical violence. But everything I heard just came there and I was going to just unload it on her, and I stop at myself. But I saw it was like seeing a dark tunnel, like taking me or calling me, and I just saw that and dropped it.

And then a few days after that, she created a mess. This one I remember, a mess in the bathroom. Like she used some towels, and blocked some parts of the bathroom. And she opened the running water. And then she came and said, “Mommy, there’s water everywhere.” The bathroom was completely flooded and water was like everywhere.

I was in a very good mood at the moment. And I was like, “Okay, honey, don’t worry. You shouldn’t do that. Let’s clean everything up.” And we were laughing and she was looking at me like, this was like to be in trouble. Like, why aren’t you angry at me? But she didn’t say a thing.

And then a few hours after that, during the night, I think that was my first deep insight.

I saw that the experience I had the first time I got angry at her was like seeing a train of thought that was just waiting for me and where that train was going to take me.

And I decided not to jump in, but I saw, oh my God, this is what’s happening with my family. Now my mother has been very worked up in her thinking in this certain train of thought that is really not healthy. She doesn’t have a clue. She’s worked up in this train of thought. She’s not open to see a little bit more. She can’t help it.

I know that sounds very obvious, but for me, it was the first time I saw, oh, wait, so all the experiences I had, they are not related to my value as a human being, like any other child in my circumstances would have been through the same experiences. It wasn’t never about me. And it’s not about her. Her true nature is love as we all are. But she’s very worked up in her thinking.

She couldn’t do anything better with the thinking that she had at that moment.

As easy as it sounds, that changed everything.

I didn’t know it at that moment. I didn’t have any idea of how that will unfold, but then suddenly I saw myself, oh, I’m complete, I’m not broken, I have never been broken. I was like believing the fantasy of the damaged child. And the truth was that I was whole, I was complete, I was able to be a mom.

I didn’t need to be in fear of what kind of reaction can I have. And it wasn’t about me. And knowing that, really knowing that, you are not the one to blame for a traumatic experience, and that the other person is not the one to blame either, just leaving blame out of the equation changes everything, everything. And it’s always available.

Recently when I offered that webinar for the 3PGC, somebody, I think his name is Neo, I mean, his user is Neo. But somebody commented on YouTube, saying something that they heard something they’d never heard before. So I ask him, but what did you hear? Because I always loved that.

He expressed this same thing in such a beautiful way. He said that he just realized it now that he has been trying to fix like a cup of tea that he broke in a dream, and he was spending his awake hours trying to fix something that he was working in a dream.

I think it’s the coolest thing I have ever heard. It’s so brilliant. I see more and more than having insights. It’s just waking up from daydreaming, a daydreaming that is great suffering and confusion. And so, it’s more about being awake.

Sometimes I get distracted and I get worked in my thinking, we all are, we’re human beings. But knowing that it’s just one thought away, going back to who we really are, is the ultimate freedom, from my perspective.

Alexandra: Wow. So powerful. Thank you for sharing that. It brought tears to my eyes when you said the comment from the fellow about the tea cup, that’s really so beautiful. Just lovely.

Has this awareness impacted your relationship with your family?

Azul: Yes and no. In this sense, with my mother, with my biological family, I don’t have a relationship currently. Because they are still engaged in behaviors that are really unhealthy.

What shifted was that, with them, was that now I’m able to feel lots and lots of love towards them. There is no resentment, there is no pain. Although the circumstances didn’t change in this life or in planet earth, let’s say.

But just to show you something, like in the past, I couldn’t see any picture from my mother. I couldn’t…because as soon as I saw a picture from her, I will like get sad, or angry, or whatever. And after that experience, one day I was putting things in order at home, and then, suddenly, I saw one picture of her and I hear myself saying, “Oh my God, she’s so beautiful.”

I was able to see that and to feel all this love coming to her. If at any moment, they approach me from a place of wanting to have a healthy connection, I’m 100% open. But I also learned that boundaries sometimes are needed.

Because that’s a common misunderstanding in this community. Because you experience life through your thinking. So the story I tell myself about something that happened is the way I’m going to experience it, which is true. So I can have somebody abusing me and I can create extra suffering about that.

Or I can address the situation, establish boundaries, and stop creating more suffering for me and stopping the accusations towards them.

Now, what shifted a lot is the relationship with my family, with my daughter, with my husband. Because in the past, it was like I was present but half present because there was still like a gray cloud, poor me, my story, this and that. And now it’s like I’m fully, myself with them. So we have a deeper, richer connection where there is no fear involved.

There is no neediness also. You can be needy towards a daughter also, like you can be extremely attached to your daughter because that’s a family that you have and you don’t have it. And now, I feel she’s my greatest teacher, in any case. But it’s really having a chance of enjoying the experience and feeling like I’m full, I’m complete, and I want to share all of my world with you.

With my husband, with my daughter, it’s not that I need them to complete me, which I felt before. I felt complete because I have them in my life. And now, like, I can just share the love that I feel, and receive the love also, not changing.

Alexandra: What a nice shift generationally that you’re not passing on the trauma to your daughter, which when we’re not aware that we’re caught up in our thinking, we can so innocently do.

Azul: Yes. Sometimes we try to not do that, doing the opposite. And then we create terrible experiences too, but in the opposite side. So this is like moment by moment. But shifted in a big, big, big way after that insight is the way I show up into the world.

Before seeing that about myself and about my family, I would never have the courage of being with you today in a podcast, in a recording. I was living a life where I was working as a school teacher, happy, and that was it. There was no future, because I felt like there was no place for me in the world.

I haven’t been loved or wanted as a child. And I felt I’m just here by mistake. At some point somebody will find out that I’m alive. It was that kind of thinking. So, I was just…instead of having desires and creating stuff, I was just accepting what was coming to me.

That was it, there was a big line that I couldn’t cross, and that shifted. It didn’t shift, like from one day to the next day, it was gradually, gradually when I was able to show up and be myself and support people, because that’s what I love, supporting people.

Alexandra: Do you work with people who have experienced trauma?

Azul: Yes. I have one-on-one clients but they have different range of traumatic experiences, but also with teenagers. And some clients that I have that they are teenagers, it’s kind of different because the traumatic experiences are still happening. It’s not like a grownup that just created a new life. It’s just, she’s still there in the same place.

Sometimes I’m hired by grandmothers or aunts. And I have to work with the whole family. That’s one reason why I’m thankful for my experiences, because I get it the way I could feel.

Alexandra: I’m curious, when someone isn’t aware of the principles, like if they haven’t had any kind of introduction to it, how do you introduce that to them when they’re talking about trauma? Because it could come across like, your trauma doesn’t matter because it’s in your thinking.

How do you address that?

Azul: I had experience of sharing my story with certain coaches or teachers and hearing that, it’s just your thinking. And that feels terrible because it is true that we create our experiences with our thinking, but the human experience is true too.

I am a strong believer in deep listening. When I’m with a client, first I listen, I need to understand their world through their eyes. And while I’m listening, when I’m not distracted, when I’m not paying too much attention to every word, when I’m leaving my thinking to the side, when I’m creating a connection, heart to heart, what usually happens is that…I mean, usually, all the time, is that the other person relaxes and starts reconnecting with their own wisdom, and they start having insights.

And when they see something, then I point them in the direction of seeing more about that and trying to understand how we really work. I just start where they are, because I’m not teaching something that they don’t know. I’m just reminding them something that they know.

With one particular client, she’s 15 years old. She has gone through very traumatic experiences, and she tried to die by suicide. And after that, I was hired. She was sharing many challenging experiences, and I was listening, I’m connected and pointing her in that direction.

And one day she said, “You know what? I noticed that I kind of keep myself depressed.” Like, “Okay, tell me more.” And she was like, “Yeah, because you know, I’m at school and then a thought shows up about what’s happening at home, and instantly I just drop my attention from the class, and I just start thinking about that. And then I play some sad music, and then I run home and watch some sad movies, and that doesn’t help. I have a very hard time. I should stop doing that.”

So, from that, we started having like a full conversation about, “So what are you seeing?” You’re creating the experience, things are happening.

For me, being a coach is more like being a witness of how the other person reconnects with their own wisdom.

I heard Mark Howard recently saying something so clear, he was offering a class for coaching training, and he was asking all of us to remember that when we’re having a conversation with the client, we are sharing what Mind wants us to share, what wisdom wants us to share, God, the universe.

But the client is also sharing from mind and wisdom. It’s an equal relationship. So, my client will guide me to what they need. I will learn lots from my clients, and we will like look in that direction together. It’s just that.

Alexandra: As you said, what an empowering way to work with people.

There’s no power dynamic in play, when you approach it like that.

Azul: And it sometimes happens that certain clients, and I was doing the same in the past, like, oh, my teacher, my coach, they know a lot, you know, like when…that doesn’t really help, because if I encourage that, then the other person thinks, oh, it’s Azul, you know, it’s what she says.

No, it’s you. My work is that you don’t need me. As soon as you can, you know, so you can like keep…or we can work together to create stuff, but not because you need me.

Alexandra: Yeah.

Azul: In my conversations with Mavis Karn, she’s my mentor. I would say, oh my God, Mavis, I didn’t see that, this, and this, and that. And she will always putting back like, it’s you, what you’re seeing, it’s your true nature. It’s nothing about me. And I was like, yeah, yeah.

And then I started seeing that connection with my own wisdom. And of course, it’s extremely helpful that somebody else points you in that direction because we all get caught up. And if we can do it together, why wouldn’t we do it together? Like we don’t need to do it alone.

Alexandra: Exactly.

Speaking of wisdom, you had a post on Facebook that was about leveling up the volume of wisdom. Could you share a little bit about that for us?

Azul: Yes. The way I see it now, is that instead of leveling up the volume of wisdom is more about what we stop doing. It’s more about wisdom is always there, letting us know stuff, small stuff. You’re cold, get a jacket. You’re hungry, get food. This way, not that way.

But where our attention goes defines everything. So, if I have a lot in my mind and I allow my attention to go there, then I’m not really paying attention to what wisdom is sharing with me. So, as soon as I stop paying attention to my thinking, then it feels like wisdom has leveled up.

I think Michael Neill shared one day, one metaphor that I really loved about what happens when you go into, let’s say, a bar and there is a TV, and you are there with some friend that really needs a conversation. And like, oh, it’s true. Like your attention can go to the TV, but very easily, you just forget that the TV’s there and you focus on your friend.

It’s the same thing; my mind will try to distract me with lots of stuff, and I can go there or I can stay here. And the way I can know what I’m doing is the way I feel. Do I feel calm with clarity, or do I feel something else? And how do I want to feel? And then I go back to who I really am. It’s like daydreaming or being awake, same thing.

Alexandra: I talk about it often, that feedback system that we have built into us automatically, and this is something I learned from Mavis, that how we feel is always telling us the state of our thinking in that moment, or what we’re paying attention to.

It’s so natural and built in, and there’s nothing we need to do to make it happen. It’s just always there letting us know.

Azul: For me, that was really impactful, knowing that I can get lost in my thinking, but I will know that because the feeling is going to be not really nice at all. So the feeling is letting me know, this is what you’re doing with you’re thinking, follow me and I’ll take you home.

And just by letting me know this is what you’re doing with your thinking, that’s more than enough. But other times, you can be very caught up and the feeling is strong, but if you just follow that sensation in your body then you’re back, because it’s so easy that it was really…it was challenging for me to really understand it, because it was so easy that all the time I thought, no, it can’t be so easy. Like, it should be more, I don’t know, maybe I need a couple of years to get it or deepening my grounding, and it’s just a way of living really.

Alexandra: Yes. Yeah. So great.

Is there anything that we haven’t touched on that you’d like to share today?

Azul: I can share about what I’m seeing more these days. I’m seeing more about how important it is to include ourselves in our kindness. We are offering a program with Mavis now about that.

It’s so interesting, every time a program is created is because we have been seeing something about that. I have a master degree on being unkind to myself. I’m being very kind with everybody. And I started seeing that it’s not that I have to learn to be loving with myself, it’s just that we have certain habits of thinking.

Something happens and the habit is, oh my God, you’re the problem. They won’t like you, or you’re going to screw it up. And I could easily go there because it’s a habit.

But when I noticed that and I stopped like doing that, engaging that old behavior, then it was a wonderful experience of realizing, oh my God, like all this kindness to myself. It was always present. I can just allow it to be. I can unlearn. I can really close the gap between how would I treat others and how I treat myself.

So I can really unlearn these old habits just by noticing, there’s no effort, it’s just noticing what you do. I think that’s a huge part of being who we really are. There are no babies, there are no small children that are unkind to themselves. Nobody had that experience, because it’s built in us. And that’s connected with our sense of self-esteem, our sense of well-being, our creativity in the world. I’m feeling these days, like it’s kind of the root for everything when we start with ourselves.

Alexandra: Such a good point. I love that you said that about babies and children.

They have to learn how to be unkind to themselves and to others as well, so then if we have to learn it, we can unlearn it as well.

Azul: Yes. And that’s something that in this inside out community, we innocently, I think we all have the experience of, I get caught up again, oh my God, I’m a terrible mess. I will never learn. Or when my grounding is deep enough, then at that moment I will be… And then we stop at like fixing our outside circumstances, and now we’re trying to like fix our grounding.

The truth is that you wouldn’t say that to a friend. Oh my God, you get caught up in your thinking again, oh, you’re terrible, you will never learn. Or when you’re grounding, you will never treat somebody like that at all. You will be loving. You will be kind.

So the invitation for everybody that is listening to this episode is to explore that possibility. Notice how you’re treating yourself and decide to drop that habit and it will show up again and again, and again and again. But the more you stop doing that to yourself, the less it starts appearing and you start feeling more confidence, and you get more comfortable with being who you really are in any situation instead of trying to fit in.

And that releases a huge amount of energy because we really waste a lot of energy trying to be somebody lovable, or somebody that doesn’t screw it up, or somebody that really got the principles. It’s that attitude. So we can really drop it.

Alexandra: Yes. Lovely.

Azul, this has been amazing. Why don’t you let our listeners know where they can find out more about you and your work?

Azul: You can find me at CoachingJourneyWithAzul.com, or also on Facebook as Azul Leguizamon.

Alexandra: Okay.

Azul: This has been a pleasure, Alexandra. Thanks so much for having me here.

Alexandra: Oh, you’re so welcome. So, it’s Coaching Journey with azul.com. And, I’ll put a link in the show notes to that, so people can find you.

Azul: Thank you.

Alexandra: Thank you so much for being here.

Featured image photo by Jaime Dantas on Unsplash