Today we’d like to introduce you to Barrett Freibert.
Hi Barrett, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
At age 26, I had just mustered the courage to leave a marketing research job that was unaligned with my values—completely burnt out from work and from running away from my unhealed wounds and traumas. I still hadn’t dealt with my parents’ divorce when she was 11, my father’s sudden death when I was 14, and other traumas. My coping addiction was to escape this exquisite pain through busyness. I lusted for the experience of being alive and had no interest in feeling anything else—so I got high off pushing myself through overworking, over-exercising, over-cleaning, partying, multitasking, reading, succeeding, socializing, and staying busy constantly. Rest and digest was not in my vocabulary. Even after I left my full-time job, the universe saw I had no intention of stopping and forced me to a screeching stop to her “overdoing” with chronic insomnia, Lyme disease, adrenal fatigue, and a host of other mystery illnesses.
Being sick was my biggest blessing in disguise. During that time, I realized that until I processed, released, and healed my traumas (as well as the limiting belief that “I am not enough”) they would control my life. To take ownership that her running away, “busyness,” and unresolved trauma had created my illness was excruciating, yet it was the most empowering moment of my life. If I co-created my illness, depression, and exhaustion, then I could un-create it. This realization was the impetus to complete healing and wholeness. When I began to process and do release work around my traumas, I healed my Lyme and sleep began to visit me again. Not only did trauma release work help heal my physical body, it put me on the path of my true purpose—which is coaching, teaching, and writing.
I have healed myself from past traumas and illnesses including; chronic insomnia, Lyme disease, disorderly eating, depression, anxiety, abuse, and grief. And you can too!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been a smooth road and I am grateful for the uneven rocky road, because it lead me to where I am today. I get to wake up every day and be in service to myself, to others, and to God. I coach full-time, teach yoga part-time, lead yoga retreats, and write about my life. And I love every minute of it. But getting here (and I am still getting here), is another story.
My biggest struggle was my battle with insomnia…
For years, I practiced yoga on and off. Practicing diligently at Yoga Works in NYC, Ashtanga at Yoga East in Louisville, Sanctuary in Nashville. During August of 2015, insomnia barged into my life and refused to leave. It took me a couple of months to figure out I had Lyme (and a host of other bizarre illnesses I had never heard of).
My whole body bloated up like a balloon, my chiseled bone structure turned into chipmunk cheeks, 20 hours a day it felt like someone was stabbing me with a pocketknife in both shoulder blades, most nights I smoked myself into a stupor to alleviate the chronic pain and if I was lucky if I slept for 2 – 4 hours. My body was wet cement. On most days, ordinary tasks such as paying bills, washing dishes, doing laundry, answering phone calls, grocery shopping felt like a triathlon.
In 2016, I decided to pursue healing by making yoga a lifestyle. I moved home to Louisville, KY from Nashville, TN, quit my job, and made my full-time job healing my body, mind, and spirit. I moved into our quaint log cabin built of salvaged wood and stone nestled in the woods. One of the few things that gave me solace during this maddening time in my life was laying in bed upstairs in the loft bedroom watching as the sun made its flamboyant entrance and dawn light seeped through the tiny window that was too high to have a shade. Carolina Wrens and Cardinals sang the morning choir. When I walked downstairs, my mom always asked me if I had slept and 6 days a week the answer was “No” that year.
By 2017, my sleep had improved a tiny little bit. That January I began my 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training in Nashville after having been a student for 10 years. We learned the Baron Baptiste sequence, which is usually taught without music. With the only sounds of breath and the teacher’s cue, inhale mountain, exhale forward fold, inhale halfway lift, exhale chaturanga, I found flow.
In that flow, I forgot about insomnia, pain, and put all my focus in the present moment, sensing my abdominals pulling me from up to dog down. Every time my mind wandered off the mat, I compassionately escorted my mind back to the present. In this practice, I saw how sure I was in pain, but that I was choosing to suffer by constantly obsessing about how I slept the night before, about my shoulder pain, about my fatigue, etc. I was living in a story that wasn’t necessarily true. The more I thought about my pain, the more energy I was giving this unwanted circumstance. The notion of surrender, or in yoga and Sanksrit we call it Ishvara Prandihana, was foreign to a recovering control freak like me.
Eventually, I began to see the space surrender created in my body, mind, and spirit. That God’s got it. Although I began yoga because I wanted a beautiful body, I stayed because it gave me a beautiful mind, that no matter what was happening to or around me, I could choose how I reacted. And surrender.
As I continue to heal and get healthier, life continues to throw me curve balls. But I know that when I am solid in my yoga and meditation practice, I can be present with whatever the present moment sends my way. We can’t always choose what happens and we can control how we react to what happens.
I owe my so much of my healing and deep unshakeable contentment from my yoga and meditation practice. And my practice now extends far beyond the mat and the movement. I am practicing when I hit every red light, when someone says something that triggers me, when my heart breaks, when I help a coaching client release their trauma, when I really see the dusk light dancing through lush Kentucky trees as I ride my bike through the park with the wind in my face. I am beyond grateful to simply be so alive!
The lessons of Yoga are simple and powerful.
We always have a choice, on and off the mat. And it is the choices we make that lead us into our future.
Yoga and meditation saved my life. And that is why it plays such an important role in the work I do with others.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
In the coaching portion of my practice, I guide clients to release trauma and self-sabotage that is blocking them from achieving their deepest desires in work, love, and health. I use scientifically proven techniques to identify and release trauma, emotional blockages, limiting beliefs, unwanted thought patterns, or behaviors that create self-sabotage. Then, we work together to create new empowering beliefs, mindsets, and neural pathways that support their goals and create last results.
I empower clients to accomplish their goals using the Enneagram, NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), embodiment practices, meditation, yoga, reiki, energy work, and more. I am a certified Master Practitioner, Coach, & Trainer of NLP, Enneagram teacher, Reiki Master, and a certified yoga teacher currently working toward 500 hours. Although I attribute most of my success as a coach and teacher from direct life experience…
I also do professional development trainings using the Enneagram and NLP. The Enneagram is less a personality assessment and more a path back to your divine essence. The Enneagram saved my life, because it showed me the pattern I run (over-doing, trying to control instead of allow, etc). When we can notice our patterns we can change them to ones that support our goals and align with our true nature. I teach businesses these skills, because when they are at their best personally, they are also at their best professionally. Knowing and living the Enneagram in a work environment creates closer teams, loyalty, more and better aligned sales, just to name a few.
I also teach yoga part time and lead spiritual yoga retreats, in which I incorporate all the above.
You can learn more about my offerings at my website www.barrettfreibert.com or @barrettafreibert on Instagram.
Any big plans?
My plans for the future are to create a coaching program online for those that can’t afford individual coaching and still need support, create an online yoga class membership, and lead yoga and coaching trainings.
I am also currently working on writing my memoir, which is something I’ve known I would do since I was a little girl!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.barrettfreibert.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barrettafreibert/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/barrett.alizabeth/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpPz5wiC_HUqRHSp7u_rEUw/featured
Image Credits
McCall Besten (two pictures, white dress & blue handstand)
Eric J Keller (one picture, portrait)
