From Victim Stories To Self-Trust: Practical Reframing With Jamie Lerner

What if the day you’re dreading is only a lens you can swap out? We sit down with integrative well-being therapist Jamie Lerner to unpack the art of reframing—using deliberate thought and feeling to change how your day unfolds without changing the facts. From turning your commute into free time to anticipating positive interactions at work, Jamie shows how pre-paving creates momentum and how small mental shifts produce real-world ease.

We also explore the practice of allowing: dropping judgement, focusing on your own alignment, and letting others make their choices without turning their path into your project. Jamie shares how early life shaped her fierce self-connection, why self-responsibility clears resentment, and how trusting intuition becomes a reliable guide. The conversation moves into story work—how outdated, attention-grabbing victim scripts keep us stuck, why 80% of many personal narratives are no longer true, and how to edit them so they reflect who you are now.

Along the way, you’ll hear about Jamie’s book The Ever Loving Essence of You, written in a creative flow that felt channeled, and the practical services she offers, including a texting-based option called The Quickie that helps clients see they knew their answers all along. Expect clear steps: identify the story you repeat, notice how it feels, soften the language, fact-check the details, and test a five-day experiment of reframing your mornings. If you’re ready to trade drama for agency and dread for choice, this is your map to a lighter, more authentic day.

Subscribe for more conversations on mindset, energy, and practical tools for well-being, share this episode with a friend who needs a reframe, and leave a review to tell us your biggest takeaway.

www.jamie-lerner.com

Jamie Lerner - Integrative Well-Being Therapist

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My new novel The Red Magus has recently been published in conjunction with the Unbound Press.  An entralling mystical adventure set across time and space, where past and current lives converge.  Find it on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

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Chapters

• 4:58 Meet Jamie Lerner And Natasha
• 5:53 Reframing Thoughts To Shape Your Day
• 7:58 Pre-Paving Mornings And Commutes
• 10:18 Allowing Without Judgement
• 12:03 Jamie’s Early Life And Self-Connection
• 14:01 Writing The Ever Loving Essence Of You
• 18:04 Change Your Storyline, Change Your Life
• 20:43 Valuing Yourself After Hard Times
• 23:57 Daily Practice And Trusting Intuition
• 27:11 Offerings: Sessions, The Quickie, Resources
• 28:51 Closing And How To Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 2:30

Welcome everybody to another episode of Bind to the Soul podcast. And today we have a new guest, and her name is Jamie Lerner, and she's an integrative well-being therapist who resides in the Southern California area. So welcome, Jamie. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining me. Um and for those who haven't listened before, my name is Natasha Troy Price. I'm your host. I'm a lawyer, I'm an author, I'm a podcaster, and I'm an energy therapist as well. Um we're going to talk first of all, um, if that's the right for you to change, but talk to me about reframing because I was really interested um to read about how you work with clients to help them reframe um their thoughts and therefore their feelings and therefore, you know, what they the life that they create, because we do create everything through our the energy of our thoughts, don't we? Or we influence it, certainly.

SPEAKER_00: 3:36

Well, we really do, and it's amazing because when we um understand that and take responsibility for our thoughts that we're choosing and the feelings that we're choosing, then we really have tremendous power over our life. And reframing is such a lovely way to um understand what it is that we are um creating. So for most people, it's not about the situation, it's about how they're feeling about the situation. And the example that I love to use is that you know, most of us are getting in our car and going to work or public transportation or whatever, but no matter how we feel about it, we're going. So we can choose to create a scenario for ourselves where we feel really good about going to work, or we can create the scenario where we're dreading it, anticipating the traffic, anticipating how much time it's going to take, anticipating all the negative things that are gonna happen to us once we get to work and throughout our day. Yeah. But it's a choice because either way we're going.

SPEAKER_01: 4:53

So a lot of this don't have a choice, Story. We have to earn some money and pay the mortgage. So, yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_00: 5:02

We have to we have to go. So we may as well go feeling really good about it. And how do we do that? We kind of pre-pave our day by thinking about all the time we are sitting in our car in traffic or on public transportation. And how could we really use that time as free time because it actually is free time? So could we be listening to music? Could we be returning phone calls? Could we listening to a great podcast? Could we be daydreaming? But could we really see this as an opportunity to have free time because it is? And then once we get there, can we anticipate positive things that are going to happen, like positive interactions with our, you know, people that we work with and our clients and management and really take ourselves through the day in such a way that it's almost something we're looking forward to. And people really think that that's ridiculous. So I asked them to try it just for like five days and see what happens. And it's really amazing how we what we are anticipating happen actually does happen.

SPEAKER_01: 6:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:19

So we could do that with any scenario, even the worst case possible scenario, because what is gonna happen is gonna happen, no matter how we feel about it. And the only choice we have is how do we want to feel about it? Yeah. That's tremendously tremendously powerful.

SPEAKER_01: 6:38

Yeah, it's a great you just have to switch your thinking, don't you?

SPEAKER_00: 6:43

I must you don't have to, but you can. And I think the option is so intriguing to people because most people feel like they have absolutely zero control, you know, over they're a victim of their own life. And that's absolutely not true. No.

SPEAKER_01: 7:00

Um I I love that you talk about that because I actually do exactly that. I I use that time in the past to um, you know, do my affirmations and think about, you know, what I want to achieve. I always send Reiki into my day as well, which is another another thing that you can do. But it's just it does set you up. And like you say, you know, it's I bet people are fascinated to try it because well let well let's see what the difference is.

SPEAKER_00: 7:31

Yes, I mean, and you know, either it could work for you or not work for you, but it won't get any worse than you've already made it, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 7:38

No, no, and it might just work and it might just be amazing, so it's worth a try, isn't it? I like that, and then you also talk about um allowing, don't you? So it's about not entering into the drama of things, you know, just allowing allowing life really without judgment and is that right?

SPEAKER_00: 8:03

Yes, but it's tricky. It I think it's like it's a practice. Um, and the only way that we can get there is when we're really clear about ourselves, when we really have um clear ideas about who we are and where we are, and then we can extend that same courtesy to other people because when we are judging other people, we're really judging ourselves and we're projecting. But when we get to a place where we feel really good about the decisions that we're making for ourselves, then we tend to allow others to make decisions that they want to make for themselves without having a point of view about it. And that's really a nice way to move through our relationships and also about the world, because we're always judging what people are wearing, what people are doing, and literally it's none of our business. Like, you know, and yet most of us don't even have a clear idea for ourselves the decisions that we're making. So it but once again, when we focus on ourselves and really are not putting our attention onto what other people are doing, then we really can um I think get a very good and clear sense of the choices that we're making for ourselves and honor those choices. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:30

And how did you, Jamie, come to this? How did you come to these realizations yourself?

SPEAKER_00: 9:37

So I was born with a knowing, but I think we all are. And I had a very um difficult time with my mom because we did not connect. I had no emotional connection to her. So I knew that I needed to really stay very connected to myself because that was my lifeline. I really didn't have my mom to look towards to guide me and assist me. And so my own connection to myself has really been my superpower because it has allowed me to hear my inner voice at all times.

SPEAKER_01: 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:19

Um, and kind of block out everyone else's opinions and thoughts. And um, and it's served me, it's has served me very well.

SPEAKER_01: 10:28

So it's sort of how what you learned as you navigated difficult situations, how you know, how best to cope with those and how best to get the best outcome.

SPEAKER_00: 10:41

Right. But I always knew that was only for me. Like I never had like an opinion like this would be the way for someone else to do it.

SPEAKER_02: 10:50

No.

SPEAKER_00: 10:50

So in in some ways, it was such a blessing to grow up in our household with my parents because you know they were amazing people, but they really allowed us, probably unconsciously, because they weren't available, they allowed all five of us to really um make decisions without feeling like there were consequences. There were only outcomes. So if something happened and we didn't like the outcome, then we just try something else. So there was not a lot of restriction and there was a lot of encouragement just to kind of be free and wing it.

SPEAKER_01: 11:28

So um yeah, so that sounds amazing. So um, you're also co-author of the book, The Ever Loving Essence of You. Um, so how did that come about?

SPEAKER_00: 12:39

So it took me half my life to really understand why my mom and I were not connected. And what I came to understand is that she was never connected to herself. So she couldn't emotionally connect with us. She spent most of her life and she was amazing. She was like an amazing force of nature. She fit 48 hours into every 24-hour day. And um, but it was an avoidance of addressing herself. So ultimately, she sidestepped the most important relationship, which is the relationship that she was not having with herself. Um, and when she was sick and in a coma, I sat with her and really felt all the love for from her into me and felt like, oh, this is the beginning of our mother and daughter relationship because she was on a breathing tube and she was so present. It was like, it was just amazing. And then she transitioned. So um we, my friend who knew me growing up and knew my family, um, we wrote this book together in a weekend. It just poured through me and it it was like it's amazing because the book is all about creating and reconnect recreating the most important connection, and that is a connection with yourself. Yeah, definitely. That is the foundation for every other relationship you go on to have. Or not.

SPEAKER_01: 14:07

Yes, absolutely. So when you say thing it, you know, you wrote it in a weekend. Do you think when people do that, do you think you almost challenge channel it?

SPEAKER_00: 14:17

Yes, I think it just poured through me. It was just it was the easiest thing, and that's why I think we all have a book in us. People get so intimidated by the idea of writing a book, but I think we all have that opportunity if we're open to it, to receiving whatever the information is kind of coming through us, and um yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 14:40

Yeah, I I very much believe that my book, the second book certainly. Um I started off with a scene in the middle, but it just it just appeared somehow, and I'm sure that that was channeled. It's a very strange experience because when you read it back, you think you don't almost don't recognize it, and you think, gosh, did I write that?

SPEAKER_00: 15:04

Well, I I think that we all have that ability though to allow genius to pour through us if we're open to receiving the information. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 15:17

Um so also you have uh part of your work is change your storyline, change your life. So again, that's about reframing, isn't it? How changing how we feel about things, getting a different perspective. But you come from it, if you're not happy with something in your life, you can, you know, um, is it working well for me? And you can you can change it.

SPEAKER_00: 15:47

Yes, but I think that most people don't even know their story, that they're you know, just incessantly reciting over and over and over again. And so, you know, when people pause and they begin to really understand how they feel about this very outdated and 80% untrue story that they've been telling, but it's given them a lot of attention, then I think that they're open to maybe updating their story or editing their story that really reflects where they are in there now. Because so many people just drag so many things from childhood or earlier times in their life without even fact-checking if it's true.

SPEAKER_02: 16:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:39

And then once they can do that, they can really begin to structure and create and imagine the life that they are living and that they want to live.

SPEAKER_01: 16:51

Yeah. And so what can they do? Like what is something that they can do to start doing that? Because we can all think, you know what, I'd love to be a millionaire. I'd love to, you know, have a Ferrari or whatever it is you want to want to have. But presumably there are steps that you need to start taking, or uh you know, you have to change your out positivity like you were talking about, or what what is it that we don't think at first up?

SPEAKER_00: 17:21

We have to identify the story that we've been telling because I don't I don't think we're really aware, and then we have to identify the feeling. How do we feel when we keep telling the story, even though we're getting so much attention? Usually, if we're a victim, we get a lot of attention, but how does it feel to continue to present your life in the you know, as a victim? And that just doesn't feel good. So um and then once you understand that, then you can just begin to soften some of the dialogue and really begin to understand like, is this true? And 80% of it is not, it's just been embellished over time because we get so much attention for drama and for trauma and for being a victim. Yeah. And I think it's a trap that a lot of people fall into, but it really doesn't have anything to do with who they are now today or what they want for themselves. No.

SPEAKER_01: 18:22

And do you think a couple of questions from that? Do you think that feeling valued is a major step, uh, you know, hurdle that a lot of people have in the way that they move through life? You know, maybe they've had a troubled childhood, maybe they've had a bad marriage, and they they they internalize that and have that thought that actually we're not really worth much.

SPEAKER_00: 18:48

Well, it's interesting because I really do believe that everything that has happened to us, and it doesn't matter why or how or who did it or what that we can really begin to understand that as one of our greatest strengths. Because so many people that have had difficult childhoods really are so strong and have so much power and so much fortitude. And there's really so much to um share with others, but in a in a positive way.

SPEAKER_01: 19:25

Yeah, yeah, and I suppose people who have had traumatic events happen in a way are forced to then look at them and try and work their way through them, aren't they? So in a way, perhaps that does become a strength. They have more insight, if you like.

SPEAKER_00: 19:44

Yes, and so for people to begin to understand that story differently with fresh eyes. I mean, you're not small anymore, you're not vulnerable, but from your right here adult perspective, without really identifying the people that were involved, because it doesn't matter. No, it has no relevance to what is happening with you in your here and now. It's always helped you get here, even if it was very negative.

SPEAKER_01: 20:12

Yeah, and that's that's getting a different perspective as well, isn't it? Lots of people have had such traumas. Yes, you've got to switch it, you've got to um find positive, don't you?

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

You don't have to, it's a choice. No, it is a choice, and I think that you'll have a smaller audience, but you'll feel so much better about yourself and your life because it'll feel so much more authentic. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: 20:42

So um, Jenny, do you do you practice energy therapy? So is there anything that you do in your life that you love you you love doing?

SPEAKER_00: 20:54

Um, I'm very conscious and I take a hundred percent personal responsibility for every single solitary thing that I do or every interaction I have. As a matter of fact, it really uh it drives my adult children crazy because I let everyone else off the hook. And the only person I hold accountable is myself. And I think that in many ways, that frees me up from a lot of emotions that other people are drowning in, like resentment and um guilt and the things that we kind of move into when we feel we were wronged.

SPEAKER_01: 21:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 21:41

So I practice what I preach, I walk my talk, which I feel that helping professionals that's their only job. Yeah, um, and they fall short a lot of the time. Yeah, I don't think that words really teach.

SPEAKER_01: 21:56

No, you have to, yeah, you have to live.

SPEAKER_00: 22:00

Yeah, but I just find that if we can feel good about ourselves, then we can be present with others, and that is such an authentic way to be with people.

SPEAKER_01: 22:13

Yeah, yeah, that's lovely. And is there anything that you do every day? Is there anything spiritual that you do?

SPEAKER_00: 22:20

Like do you do meditation, do you do affirmations, or do you just you're just I I sit with myself quietly first thing in the morning, and I feel like from wherever it comes from, and I do not even question it anymore. I just feel like there is so much downloading and receiving from I don't even know where, but I trust it and I trust myself. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:44

So I guess sorry, and that's another thing that you know it's really important for people to connect to, isn't it? Their intuition when they're navigating through life, through patuma, or just through everyday life. What's my next step? Where do I, you know, they can gain that from their own intuition, can't they?

SPEAKER_00: 23:05

Yes, I really believe we are our own greatest resource, and we always know what's best for ourselves, even though we don't know how or why. So I ask people to remember times when they intuitively knew something, but they didn't listen to it, and that's fine, but at least acknowledge that you knew. Like I knew not to turn left, but I I did it anyway. And so I experienced something. Well, maybe I wouldn't have if I did listen to myself, but it's the acknowledgement that intuitive knowing is innate. I mean, it's within all of us, and we really can trust ourselves to know for ourselves, not for others, but for ourselves.

SPEAKER_01: 23:50

I think um a lot of people have intuition and get nudges, but their conscious mind, the mind, take and take over and they do the opposite, and then you know, things happen like you say. But actually, if we relaxed into that intuition, I think we'd maybe find an easier route, maybe.

SPEAKER_00: 24:10

Well, I've never heard anyone say I should not have listened to myself. And I hear people all day long say I should have listened to myself. So yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01: 24:22

So um if people want to get in touch with you, um Jamie, what what obviously I'll put up your website um underneath the episode, but what do you offer? How can people come to you? What what do you what are your offerings?

SPEAKER_00: 24:38

So I I work with people either on the phone or Zoom, and I also have a a texting service which is called the Quickie, a lovely texting option, which I really like. And people just buy a block of time and they text with me, and I text back with them. And the reason I like it so much is when they go back and read what they wrote me and what I wrote them, they realize they knew all along for themselves. And I'm just the conduit. And I think that that's really helpful for people. So yeah, excellent.

SPEAKER_01: 25:10

And you have a reframing offer, don't you, as well? So that you can is that your texting? Is that your text?

SPEAKER_00: 25:19

Yes, that it's yeah, but otherwise, my website is fantastic. I have tons of podcasts. This one will be on there, lots of free information, and um it's the book is available on Amazon. And excellent.

SPEAKER_01: 25:34

Just I will put the name up as well, the ever-loving essence of you. So um, which is lovely. It's a lovely name. Thank you. Well, thank you, Jamie. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. It's been it's been lovely to talk to you. We had a few issues connecting, but we have made it.

SPEAKER_00: 25:55

Yes. And thank you so much for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01: 25:59

Oh no, it's been it's been a real pleasure. Um, like I said, I'll put all Jamie's um details and her contact details on her website underneath the episode. So if you would like to contact her, you'll be able to do so. Um, and thank you for listening. And if you've enjoyed our conversation, then please like or share. You can support the podcast. If you want to hear more, you can subscribe to the podcast, and you can always contact me if you have any questions. So thank you all for listening, and uh thank you, Jamie, again, very much for coming on and asked you.