Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
[Music] [Music] so [Music] and I am so happy that your relationship with your daughter has improved [Music] good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are in the world. It’s Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman with Relationship Matters. I hope everyone is doing fine on this glorious, glorious day. Well, you know I’m getting ready to step back up on my soapbox and you know why. What is that word? Omicron. Oh my crime, here we go again. Now I thought we were kind of getting over the hump or just getting almost back to normal but it seems as though we are going backwards. We’re going backwards and why? Because so many of you out there are not vaccinated. Now I’ve heard all kinds of things, well you know, uh, people who have their vaccine, have their shots, they’re still getting cold but they’re not dying. They’re not dying plus the fact, think about it, you don’t want to give it to anyone else. You don’t want to get it and even if the symptoms are mild, who wants to be sick? You don’t want to give it to your children, you don’t want to give it to a relative, you don’t want to give it to friends, you don’t want to give it to anyone. Get vaccinated. Now the good part of the good thing that I heard is that because they have this new variant, vaccinations are on the rise. So get your vaccination. I want to get out, I want to hug people again, I want to shake hands again. You know, I, I, I’m sick and tired of the mask. Sometimes it’s like I can’t breathe but even though I’ve had both of my shots and the booster, I still play it safe. I still wear my mask. So audience, get your vaccination. Okay, I guess I’ll step down off my soapbox. So now some of you know, no, I’m going to say this later. No, first I’m going to bring in my guest and then I’m going to say this that later. I have a wonderful young lady who I met and I just thought, you know what, she has to be on my show because she has so much value to give. Her name is Gwen, I hope I pronounce it right, Lefthart, L-E-P-A-R-D. She’ll correct me if that’s not right. Gwen shines the way to empower entrepreneurs to evolve beyond their limitations. She has triumphed over narcissistic, narcissistic and energy bully abuse. So what she does, she elevates intuitive entrepreneurs to overcome their relationship baggage and not just entrepreneurs but just regular people. She helps them to optimize their self-love and own their personal power. She’s as co-authored five books. When I grow up, I want to be just like her, including the award-winning international bestseller, Navigating the Clickety Clack Volume 2 with Joe Vitale and Marie Diamond from the hit movie, The Secret. She has appeared on CBS News, ABC, Fox, and numerous telesummits and podcasts about science, you know, scientific healing radio shows. And now she’s with me on Relationship Matters and she is the creator of the Leopard Method Certification Program. We’re going to talk about that. It’s, uh, and she’s a Baggage Be Gone facilitator, speaker, and she has a tool shed of healing modalities and processes including energy medicine, which I want to know more about, hypnotherapy, decrease NLP, which I don’t know what that is, quantum jumping, you know, I want to know about that, and many more. And when she’s not helping release relationship residue for people and removing energetic shackles and clearing emotional baggage, you can find her dancing. Gotta find out, I’m a dancer too. We gotta find out what kind of dancing she does, walking in the mountains or by the ocean and creating healthy gluten-free, dairy-free, oh my god, girl, we gotta talk, plant-based whole foods and treats. And something else is special about her. Let me bring her on. Hey, Gwen.

Gwen Lefthart
Hey there, Dr. Jan.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So let me, let me tell people what else is special about you. Your birthday [Laughter] is the day, it’s the day after my birthday.

Gwen Lefthart
It’s the day after your birthday, yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So we are both a year older. So happy belated birthday, Gwen.

Gwen Lefthart
Happy belated birthday, Dr. Jan. We’re like birthday twins.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yes, we are. You know, and I’m reading your bio and I’m like, oh wow, you know, dairy-free, oh my goodness, gluten-free. Okay, yeah. Let me ask you this question before we get into this. Do you believe in astrology?

Gwen Lefthart
I do.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay.

Gwen Lefthart
I do, yes. The moon affects the tides, we’re affected by the movement of the planets, absolutely.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, okay. So we’re like, absolutely. I love it. So let’s talk about where you are now, the value that you bring to people, the service that you give. How did you start on this particular journey of helping people actually with the relationship with themselves?

Gwen Lefthart
So it’s July 31st, 2009, and after years of verbally whipping me, my former husband finally does it for real. This was because I did another stupid thing and what I had done was put laundry in the wash. And because I put laundry in the wash, he threw his coffee on me and as I was cleaning it up, he whipped me with a pair of wet pants. The zipper came around and hit me in the corner of the eye and then he screamed at me, “I’m going to keep coming down on you harder and harder until you stop doing stupid things.” Well, the stupid thing I did was put laundry in the washer, which was my job. I didn’t know what was going to trigger him next or what the next stupid thing I might do. So I fled down into the gully. I lived in Montana at the time, that’s where I’m from. I love it there, I want to go back. And I’m in the gully and I’m huddled, I’m smelling that stale coffee and I’m still wet from the coffee and I’m shaking and I have my phone and I look at my phone and there’s no one I can call because over the time I’ve been with my husband, I’ve allowed him to isolate me from everyone in my family, everyone. My friends had all fallen away. There was no one I even felt safe to call, including my dad who was two miles away. I decided I needed to call somebody. The very first number on there was a cousin who’s going through a horrific divorce. She’s an attorney, she never answers her phone, answered it on the first ring. He goes, “I’m worried about you, you need to make a plan.” Like, I don’t make a plan, I go today. And that was the day that I began my journey back to myself and to my self-love and to learning all of these tools in my tool shed so I could help others.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow, wow. Was he abusive, did you know that about him before you married him? Was he like that or did you see signs?

Gwen Lefthart
I saw signs, but you don’t, you know, you know when you’re in love, you know, I felt his heart. It’s like, okay, so he’s angry. You make excuses, especially when you’re an empath and you’re with a narcissist. It’s like there’s this dance, you know, you’re trying to make everything good, you want to, you want to heal them, you want to fix them.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, wow. So how long were you married, uh, and, and, and when did this real like physical abuse happen in your marriage? Was it right away or was it?

Gwen Lefthart
No, the verbal abuse was actually happening even before our marriage and I didn’t understand that verbal abuse is actually abuse. It took until about 2008 where he told me that I needed to go see somebody because nobody should take the kind of crap I was taking from him in one of his remorse phases. And, um, you know, something must be wrong with me, right? Well, yeah, with both of us, with both of us, I, I allowed it, I absolutely get that. And so the, the question is, was it there? It’s like when I told, um, I worked for a radio station and I’m in a little town in Montana called Helena, the capital of Montana, and I told the, the receptionist at the, the radio station I worked for that I had met this guy and, and one of my, my cousins said the good thing about a small town is that, you know, if you meet somebody, people will know them and so we’ll know about them. And the first thing out of her mouth was, “Oh, he’s so arrogant.” And I’m like, “Well, he’s very confident.” Immediately I’m already defending him. It’s like I hadn’t even dated him for like more than a few weeks and I was already defending him. Red flag, red flag.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, but like you say, when, when you’re in love, you know, you ignore the red flags.

Gwen Lefthart
You do. It’s like they were all there, you know, you look back and it’s like, oh yeah, all those flags were there and all, you know, it was all there. I mean, he’d hang up on, on me, he’d express rage and I was making excuses because I felt his heart.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow, wow, wow. So, um, Gwen, did you think that there was something amiss in you or wrong with you that you, that you felt the need to, to always kind of justify his, his, when he treated you?

Gwen Lefthart
In hindsight, absolutely.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Is that part of your journey to where you are now?

Gwen Lefthart
Absolutely. I mean, even after it ended, it’s like, oh, you know, he’s a good person and, you know, when I allowed it, I took the responsibility for, you know, for being in that type of relationship. And yet I didn’t realize that he, even though I’d been told he was a narcissist, I didn’t realize that he was until 2019. So 10 years later when I’m, I’m studying to be part of a tele summit, I come across gaslighting and it was like click, tick, tick, tick, tick, all nine of them, he had done him. I’m like, he really was a narcissist. And God rest his soul, he, he passed early in 2020 before, before COVID became on the scene. I didn’t find out until a month later, but it, there was a sense of freedom knowing that he’s gone from the planet and, you know, his, his lifestyle and the amount of weight that he carried, it’s not surprising that he, he left from a heart attack.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh yeah, wow. So you started on a new journey. So you had to fix yourself first.

Gwen Lefthart
Of course, of course, there was lots wrong with me. We, we are the very worst. Yeah, I mean, we’re meaner to others else than will ever be to anybody else, even if it’s unconscious, even if it’s, you know, the me, these all these millions and thousands of thoughts that we have a day that are repeating, those, those thoughts are really mean.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So did you, so did you have to go to counseling first?

Gwen Lefthart
I did, I did briefly and I didn’t, I didn’t, um, it wasn’t what I needed. And then I, I, I was at a woman, a women’s meeting and there was this young man there speaking and I didn’t know what it was that he had, but I knew I wanted it. And so, um, I signed up for whatever it, it was that he had and it was like a month later and I discovered that it was.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And you said you didn’t know what this was.

Gwen Lefthart
So it was NLP, which is neuro-linguistic programming, hypnotherapy, um, EFT, coaching strategy, all kinds, this whole bundle that, you know, you can learn all this stuff so you can help others, right? I couldn’t give it to myself, right? I couldn’t just fix myself. I had to, I, I wasn’t willing to pay to fix myself, you know, but to get tools so that I could help others that fixed me, I could do that. We couldn’t just give it to myself, had to be a reason, you know, help others.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So do you think it’s important to fix yourself first before you try to fix others?

Gwen Lefthart
So here’s, here’s what I call myself and this is what I tell the people that I, that I teach that are in my, in the students in the Leopard Method Certification Program. You’re a guide by the side. And when I heard that it was so freeing because there’s, there’s different kinds of leaderships, you know, you have the gurus on the mountaintop, you know, and they, and that fix themselves and they’re still fixing themselves, but they’re, you know, they’re saying, you know, here’s the shining example of what’s possible. And as a luminary, there is some of that and being a guide by the side, you just have to be a few steps ahead of, and, and then, you know, who your target, you know, who your, your ideal client is. It’s you a few steps back because we, you know, we go through all that process trying to find out who’s our ideal client and our ideal client is us a few steps back, you know, on, on a very similar journey and they, they need the same things that have worked for us. So that was really freeing knowing that yes, I started out, you know, working on myself and then immediately started bringing people along. It’s like, okay, well, I’m here and they’re here, I can help them. I don’t have to be up there on the mountaintop to help somebody. I will have forgotten, you know, why, why I’m doing it in the first place. I, my mom’s cardiologist is, is a world renowned researcher and he takes a few clients a month to remind him why he does the research. And my mom got lucky enough to be one of those, of those, those patients. So even gurus need to remember why they’re doing what they’re doing. So you have the leadership style of the guide by the side, just a few steps ahead and then saying, hey, come, let’s, you know, this works. You have the scout that goes out a little bit further, which, so I feel like I’m kind of combining the scout and the, yeah, and well, actually I probably comply in all of the leadership styles now, but the scout, you go a little ahead and go, hey, this look works. And they go back and say, let, hold them by the hand, say, let’s go. Here’s, here’s, you know, how we can get, we can get better. We can have the life that we want to live. Does that make sense? Did I answer your question?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah, thank. So my next question, do you feel that you were healed?

Gwen Lefthart
I’m in the process. There will always be more layers of the onion, always. I don’t, I don’t think that you get off of this planet without, um, continuing your journey. That’s, that’s, that’s, that’s the way that I feel about it.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, so what is the Leopard Method?

Gwen Lefthart
So the Leopard Method is the combination of my tool shed. So over 35 years of different trainings, life experience, um, I, I studied as a massage therapist and there were modalities that, that lend themselves to remote, like, um, you might be familiar with cranial sacral therapy and one that most people are not.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay.

Gwen Lefthart
So that actually works with the cerebral spinal fluid that bathes your, your spinal cord between the sacrum, the back, the bottom of your spine and your cranium. So cranium, sacrum, cranial sacral therapy. And that system, when it was discovered by Dr. Upledger, he was assisting in a surgery and they asked him to hold this piece of, um, body and he was trying to hold it and it just kept moving. And he’s like, well, what is this? And we actually have a pump that assists gravity to get the cerebral spinal fluid up to our brain and then gravity pulls it down and there’s this flow. And it, I mean, people that have had auto injuries and, um, I’ve, I’ve used it with paraplegics and it, it’s just amazing what it does to help when you clear that, that channel, what it does to help heal the body and the mind. And it’s, it’s people feel things that they haven’t felt for a very long time because that, um, opens up that channel. So that, that was one of the, one of the healing techniques that I learned and a lot of that works with, with the cranium and all of the bones in your, your, your skull. And so that it’s a very soft scent, gentle technique. So I turned it to remote that you could do it remotely.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really?

Gwen Lefthart
Yes, really, really, absolutely.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So when you were speaking of it, I thought it was maybe like a form of manipulation where you had to have your hands on the people.

Gwen Lefthart
So when I studied it, absolutely, we were hands-on, but the amount of pressure that you used was the, the weight of a nickel. So you know how light a nickel is, right? I mean, we don’t have many of them in circulation anymore, but yeah, the weight of a nickel. So it’s very gentle work.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And you said you wanted to know more about energy medicine. Well, energy medicine is working with the frequency that’s all, all around us. It’s pretty well known that we are all energy. We just happen to vibrate a little heavier, a little denser to create our form and all the forms around us, but everything’s energy. So if you’re able to tap into the frequencies of a specific person, I have clients that are in Australia, in India, in, in the Netherlands, Ireland, England, the States.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I mean, this is really amazing to me because even if, if it’s the weight of a nickel and you’re not putting your hands on someone, then I would assume that you were, you’re using psychology in a sense.

Gwen Lefthart
Visualization.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Visualization.

Gwen Lefthart
Visualization, yeah. So I’m, I’m, because I’ve studied massage and, and, and anatomy and physiology, I know what the body’s like and, and I can tap into their energy field. And all of us with talking about energy medicine, every single one of us, including mice, that they’ve done scientific studies on this, we are born with, um, even as an embryo, we have our complete blueprint for, for our adult being at the age 24 in ideal, vibrant wellness, complete health. And, and that comes with our embryo. So we are this blueprint and we can, so I can tap into their blueprint and remind the body on, you know, on what, what it, what is possible and what it is actually supposed to be when it’s gotten out of sync and, and is not working, functioning in, in the manner that we would like.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And this affects our relationship with ourselves. And I know it affects the relationship with our bodies. So it’s physical.

Gwen Lefthart
Oh yeah.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
But it also affects our relationship psychologically, emotionally, and so on.

Gwen Lefthart
Yes, with others as well as our relationship with ourselves.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, all right. Okay, a question came in. If you could go back to the beginning of your abusive relationship, what would you do differently?

Gwen Lefthart
Boy, that’s a good question. If I could go back knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t change anything because it got me to here because I wouldn’t be able to help as many people as I’m able to help had I not had that experience. Now, if I didn’t know what I know now, I probably would have passed on that particular individual because I was, I was ready to settle down and it, it, and it’s interesting to me that every time that I’ve been ready to settle down, I’m given two, uh, um, two options. And there was another option on the table who was fitter and younger and more active, but he felt abusive to me because I didn’t feel his heart. And so instead I felt this, this man who had rage and that was obese, I felt his heart. And so I went with that person who was actually like the reverse of, of, you know, what I really would want, somebody that could dance with me and ski with me and be, be active. And the other person was all of those things, but he scared me. And maybe that was because I, um, you know, maybe he was an abuser, but maybe he was actually really spectacular and I didn’t have the self-worth to say I can, I can go there. But there were some red flags there too. Yeah, it was like it wasn’t okay. The clothes I was wearing weren’t okay. He, he, he had, he had his red flags too. I listened to those red flags. Yeah, I think I would have waited longer for, you know, someone that was a better fit.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, so, so thank you a listener for that question.

Gwen Lefthart
Oh, I, I thank the listener for the question.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, uh, yeah, it came on another, another, a different platform. And, and so what do you say to people who seem to be stuck in an abusive relationship?

Gwen Lefthart
So we’re all where our souls have agreed to be. And, and that sometimes is tough to hear. I mean, I had a, this crisis of conscience as a healer is like, I’m recognizing that perhaps what somebody is experiencing is exactly what their soul brought them here to experience. And who am I to interrupt that? And I finally had a wise person say to me after I stepped away for a while, and then I was being pulled back into healing. And they said, Gwen, you are part of their journey. If they’ve raised their hand and stepped up and said, yes, I want you to help me, you are part of their journey, the journey out of it. If, if somebody’s still really, really angry, like they’ve, I’ve attended some narcissist recovery groups and there’s so much anger. And as long as you’re still hanging on to all that anger, you’re not ready to move on because that anger will pull you down and it lowers your vibration so much. And you just, yeah, what they did was wrong, but keeping, staying angry keeps you a victim. So I, you know, if somebody comes from that, that place and they’re ready to hear it, it’s like, just let the anger go, start that, start forgiving. And for me, it was easier to forgive others than forgive myself. And that’s, I think that’s, you know, there’s always that journey. I forgive myself for.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And you know what, uh, that was something that I was going to ask you with, you led right into it. Is part of forgiveness of ourselves important in, in the relationship with others?

Gwen Lefthart
100%, absolutely. Forgiving ourselves, sometimes you don’t even have to forgive somebody else because you’ve forgiven yourself. And you’ve, one of, one of the decrees is I forgive myself for choosing a father that did this to me. I forgive myself for having a mother who didn’t know how to stand up for herself. I forgive myself for choosing a husband who had, who was a, a rager and a narcissist. I forgive myself for, so you’re forgiving yourself for these people without, you know, without having to say I forgive them. Because sometimes like they’re having the anger, so they’re not ready to forgive. So if you can do the forgiveness work for yourself, which for some people it’s easier to forgive themselves than, than the other. For me, it’s the other way around. Right. And, and being able to say things like that, I forgive myself for choosing this situation. So I would never choose that. It’s like, well, yeah, your personality, your spirit probably would never choose that. I mean, who would want to be, you know, choked, strangled, or abused for years verbally and emotionally and financially? Who would want that? No one, no one thinking would choose that. But your soul, your soul said, yeah, let’s, uh, let’s, let’s have this dance together when we’re on the planet Earth together. So that’s, that’s how those things happen is you have, you have that dance that you agree to as souls to have together.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow. I’m thinking about, you know, why your soul would put you through that. And, and I’m thinking about, this has been quite some time ago when I was a kid and, uh, there was a lady who lived down the street and her husband was physically abusive and, uh, he would knock her down and like almost throw her down the stairs. It was like a two-story house and throw her outside with no clothes on. And I remember my mom and her friend would have to go and get her, you know, and put clothes on her, but she kept going back, kept going back, kept going back. And when they would say to her, if he keeps this up, he’s going to kill you. And she said, well, then I guess that’s the way I’m going to die. And it, to me, that’s so hard to understand. And if you’re saying that this is your, the soul that put you on this journey, why? And that’s the question.

Gwen Lefthart
Yeah, exactly. Who, and who knows? That’s why is one of those questions that in the work that I do is, is best, um, there are people that having that understanding why something happened, that helps them on their journey. For me, when I’ve discovered that I didn’t need to know why to heal or to help heal others, it got me out of the victim, the victim role. Because the why, why did this happen? Why would my soul choose this? It, it, you’re never going to get an answer. And, and if you do, it may be an answer you don’t like. And the work that I do can stop that, you know, statistically women that are even physically abused where you have broken bones and the bruises and, and, and all of that will go back a minimum of seven times.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Really?

Gwen Lefthart
Yes. Yeah. And maybe it’s an average of seven times, but yes, seven times. I mean, before, before that they’ll actually leave. So I got out, I, I didn’t leave. There were a couple of other times. Well, there’s one other time that he did hit me and gave me a black eye and I blamed it because he had just started taking Prozac. So I blamed it on the drug, you know, I made excuses, you know, and that’s, that’s one thing that, you know, if you’re making excuses for somebody from the get-go, there’s a big red flag flying. And, and yeah, if you feel like, yeah, and of course my family was like, what are you doing with this person? I felt like I had to defend him. When you’re in that position, it’s, it’s not a healthy relationship, but your family doesn’t know that by putting you in that position that you’re going to defend them and it makes you even stay there longer. And that’s part of that pattern. It’s like that person is like, you know, if you stay, he’s going to kill you. She, she has to defend him. Oh, but he loves me. And, and, and to stand up for him and make excuses for him. So there is a dance, there is a dance and some people don’t break, you know, some people do end up dying that way. And some people get really angry and end up killing the other person, which, you know, neither is, is ideal, obviously. I mean, I, I am so grateful that my cousin answered the phone and said, I’m worried about you. You got to make a plan. And I’m like, I’m gone today because I, I left. I, and that was the first time that I left and I never went back. And thanks, thanks in part to, um, a couple that actually put me up for a couple of weeks. And it’s like, I was leaning toward going back.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
And I was gonna ask you that.

Gwen Lefthart
I was leaning, I was leaving, think about going back. He was doing everything he could to get me back. He, you know, it’s like, we, this will be our story. We’ll be able to write books about relationship and, and, and have coaching programs and, you know, we overcame this. And I’m like, oh no. And then I’m leaning, I’m leaning. I was like, and, and the couple I was staying with, the, the husband, so you really like those sandwiches, huh? Oh, can I say that on this one? Oh, wait, I hope you didn’t put me in Facebook jail because, because one of my guests put me in Facebook jail.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh no.

Gwen Lefthart
Um, he’s only serving up, um, caca sandwiches because he said that’s all he’s serving, you know, you must like those if that, if you’re gonna go back for that. And it was like, and it really got me to stop and think. And I’m like, okay, no more leaning into going back. And, and the piece that actually, it, it’s so interesting because oftentimes somebody that’s with a narcissist will, or, you know, will go no contact. That, that’s the only way that they can get away from the, the dance that, that causes them to give all of their energy and their life force to the narcissist.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow. Well, we had a question from Maxine Walker. She wants to know, were you ever fearful?

Gwen Lefthart
I was so full of anxiety. It was crazy. In fact, I probably would have left way sooner if I hadn’t, if my, um, chiropractor hadn’t turned me on to EFT, which is emotional freedom techniques. So I was doing, I was doing all the tapping for anxiety and for fear and certainty and doubt. But, and, and so I just kept staying because it, I had something that calmed me down. I, it was, I didn’t sleep. My hair was falling out. I was going through menopause and I got, I got the B word, you know, and, and I was, you know, just the happy joy, joy, joy girl. And then I, I be, I’m literally ripping my clothes off from the hot flashes. They were wet flashes. So my clothes would be soaked in a matter of seconds. And it was all because I was under so much pressure. And so I wasn’t just fearful. I was, I was stressed out beyond, beyond, beyond. And, and then the, the, the symptoms of menopause came in on top of that. And it was, it was just ugly. It was, it was really ugly. I was overweight. I was not exercising. I was, I was not happy.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, what is this, uh, Sandy Barnes Innocent that you said seven times is the charm?

Gwen Lefthart
Um, I didn’t say seven times the charm. What I said is the stats are that on average, someone will stay in an abusive relationship, even one that puts you in the hospital, an average of seven times before they’ll leave. And yeah, and sometimes, and I don’t know whether it’s the average or the minimum, but, but yeah, um, for me, it was first times the charm because one, the first time I left, thanks to having good support and these people didn’t really know me. I mean, we’d met online, really. We’d met online and then, um, we, we had, we had lunch together. And at the time I was staying with my sister and then, um, things were getting, you know, kind of tense there. And, and so, um, they said, hey, we’ll, you know, come couchsurf for a few weeks. And so I did. And it was during that time, um, I ended up helping her with her newsletter and, and doing some tech things for her. And, um, and they let me stay there and, and they protected me because they, they knew what was going on and they, they saw my lack of self-worth and the, I, I completely lost myself. I was, I was under a fog. So it took me a year and a half before I met that young man. It was, well, yeah, like almost a year and a half before I met him. So I was under this heavy fog for a very long time. And it was during that time that I met, you know, that I met them in person. I’d already met them online, um, and through actually, um, through our business that my former husband and my business that we were online and, and I met the, the woman and, um, and she was writing a book and she’s got that out now. And they were just, you know, they, they were just so helpful to have that kind of support because I didn’t, sometimes you don’t trust your family because then with your family, you have to defend them. These are people that didn’t know him and, and just having that, um, Facebook police word in, in my face was, I mean, it was, it was like somebody throwing a glass of water on you. It broke my state and it was like, okay, which bro break your state is an NLP term. So when somebody gets stuck, stuck in something, um, I, that my trainer actually once took a glass of his glass of water and threw it on a woman in the audience to get her to stop her story. So they can’t let it break state because the state, so with somebody’s really angry or they’re so stuck in their story, it’s like, but he loves me and I have to go back and we have children and I can’t afford to leave and, and all of that stuff, you know, it’s like throw, throw, throw a glass of water on them. Um, for me, no children were involved, Maxine. Thank you so much. Yes. For, for both of us. In fact, he had no children from his former marriage. He did. And this, oh, thank you, Sandy. This actually leads into what I was going to talk about, but I’m going to take a sip of water first. Water’s so important. So how I was talking about no contact, going no contact. Now for me, he’s the one that actually went no contact. And it was because we were still sharing our bills. I, I came into relationship with a little house on the hill, a trip, you know, an A plus AAA credit rating, a job that I loved. And I actually went to him because he was a radio producer. And I thought I need some extra money because I just bought this house on the hill and, you know, radio doesn’t pay so well. And especially not in Montana. Um, I remember doing a, a story, reading a news story about the average income. And I said, oh, to be average. And I had all these people call in and my neighbor was like, oh, I heard that so much. I wish I was average too, because we were all under average. And, um, so I was, I, I went to his radio production studio to get some work and we ended up becoming involved and getting romantic and falling in love and getting married and all of that stuff. So where was I going with that? Oh yes. So the no contact. So we were paying our bills together every other month. We were paying the bills and my mother and the NLP had got me to the point where I felt I could, I could go bankrupt. So my mom was saying, you need to go bankrupt because you’ve got half a million in the house that’s yours and 77,000 in debt. And it’s like, I don’t see how you’re going to pay this. You know, there’s, you know, you’re doing massage for a living. That’s it’s yeah. And, and I, and I don’t want to pay this off for you, you know, because most of this was to build his dreams of being, um, doing music. And, and I, I got one of his albums on the Grammy ballot in four categories. Yeah. But I, yeah, through lots of fear, sweat and phone calls and, and all of that. And so I told him when he asked, are you going to continue paying the bills? I said, I don’t have the money to pay the bill. He goes, are you going to go bankrupt? And I said, I’m three quarters of the way done with the paperwork. He never called me again. My brain rubs you the freedom it gave me was I never had to talk to him again. And I know that he did call the day that my dad died, that his, um, I wasn’t there, but there was somebody in the house and they saw his name come across the, the caller ID and he didn’t leave a message. But from that day forward, I never spoke to him again and he never reached out. And like I said, I did, I didn’t even find out he had died until over a month after he had, because I wasn’t in contact with anybody anymore. And there was no reason for me to know.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Wow. I mean, your journey, but you know what, like you said, your soul had to go on that journey and that journey that you went on is helped. It, it was a purpose. It has a purpose. It had a purpose. And, and that purpose is for you to help other people who are going through that same thing.

Gwen Lefthart
Absolutely. Yeah. And actually.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Go ahead, finish.

Gwen Lefthart
No, no, go ahead.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
No, you go ahead.

Gwen Lefthart
Well, you’d, you’d ask me about the soul and the why, and actually an answer just dropped in for you. So our souls, I got to meet my soul or see my soul recently through this amazing woman’s work. And our souls are so incredibly massive. They are so big. The fact that they actually, um, shrink themselves to fit in our tiny human bodies is astonishing to me. And with all of their experiences, they grow bigger. So my soul is pretty old and pretty big. And I was so humbled when I met the soul. So only a few souls actually choose to come and inhabit human bodies and all the other souls are, they’re, they’re like, um, it’s like reality TV and they are cheering each soul on. It’s like in the journey and they’re just like giving out, it’s like, go, we know you can do this. And you look at you, you’re, you’ve become this human and you’re going through all these trials and tribulations. And this actually brings you back when you return as a soul, just even more massive and, and more understanding. And, and it’s, it’s, it’s part of our soul’s journey as is my understanding of it.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay. Usually I, usually I go to commercial about halfway through, but.

Gwen Lefthart
Why don’t you go to commercial? I’ll drink some more water.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah. Well, I mean, I am, you know, I mean, you’re just opening this up, you know, because, and this is just so different. I never thought of souls in that manner. I thought all of us, we, all of us have a soul that is inhabited in our bodies. Uh, I was on a, well, listening to a podcast this morning and they were talking about the soul and the difference between, you know, the guy asked them, the host asked what was the difference between the soul and the spirit. And then they had this, you know, but, uh, a conversation about that. But one thing I did comment on was that I said, our soul was here before we came. And when we, then, then when we were formed, you know, in the body, that’s when the soul inhabited the body. And, and so I didn’t think of souls just hanging around.

Gwen Lefthart
[Laughter] It was new to me too, but boy, it was not spectacular. It was spectacular. I’ve heard that from a couple of different sources and it was like a really life-changing experience. I went from not even being able to stand classical music to wanting to play it all the time to not really enjoying comedy to going, hey, this stuff is, there’s a lot of value in comedy. There is a lot of value. And I was like, it was like, seriously, because it was like, I really connected with my soul instead of just, you know, having a soul, you know, being a body with a soul, with a body having an experience of being in a body. It’s a real connection, a real soul connection with my connection and its purpose, which is to have this journey as a human and my purpose. And for me, the difference between the soul and the spirit, the spirit is your personality. So one of, one of the tools that I have is as the energy elevator. And the first part, we clear all of the, the energy that’s attached to you, all of the chords and attachments and things that other people have attached to you and that you’ve sent out to others. Because as energy beings, we’re just constantly bumping around and reaching out for connection. That’s what we do. And then we bring in our boundaries and expand those out. And then we bring your spirit back into your body because our spirits get knocked out of our body all the time. You hear things coming out of left field, people stabbing you in the back, you know, your spirit goes forward, somebody’s yelling at you, your spirit goes behind you. If something comes out of left field, you’re over here on the right. And you know, our spirit is the driver of the car. The soul is the engine. Our body is the car. The soul’s the, the engine. And then the spirit is the driver, our personality. So as spirit and personality, there’s a lot of things we wouldn’t choose that our soul is the engine knows that we need, it needs in order to live this life and take the juice back to being a soul without a body.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
All right. One thing I wanted to ask you, uh, in your bio, you say you support empaths.

Gwen Lefthart
Yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So, and I, I, you know, I just wanted to the definition and I know it’s a person with a, with the paranormal ability to apprehend the mental or emotional state of another person. So if you’re an empath, are you an empath?

Gwen Lefthart
Yes, I am an empath, yes.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
So if you’re an empath, how can you apprehend the emotional state of another person and not you yourself?

Gwen Lefthart
Oh, that’s a good question. So through feeling, so empaths are feelers. So we sense energy, we sense other people’s, um, emotions. And so we pick up on, on what people are feeling. We can pick up on their diseases and actually feel that in our bodies. So our body becomes like a lightning rod for other people’s, uh, emotions and, and conditions. So that tends to make empaths known as, you know, super sensitive and, um, under this weight and overwhelmed. So I’m an empowered empath, which is what I teach other empaths is to become empowered so that you have the awareness and you have the tools like the energy elevator that I just mentioned. So bring, and the, the last piece was bringing the spirit down into the body. And so as, as an empath, we’re just like sponges and everything around us, we, we feel if you’re disempowered and you have no boundaries. So as empaths, we need boundaries more than anything else. And the boundaries help us know what is ours and what is other. And so we do know once we know that we know what is ours, but so often empaths are don’t even know that they’re an empath and they’re constantly feeling anxiety and it’s not even their anxiety or they’re feeling fear and they don’t even know that it’s fear. So I see a question.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Yeah. How long, how long did you know that you were an empath? Were you an empath when you were with your, your husband?

Gwen Lefthart
Yes, I’ve always been an empath. I just didn’t know I was, I didn’t have that term for it until the, um, a, a very dear friend who introduced me to all the telesummits and, and her radio show is the Light Warrior Radio Show. So I was on her radio show and she was doing tests of, you know, what people were, were they highly sensitive, were they starseeds, were they empaths, uh, were they earth angels. And so she, she tested me and she goes, I thought there’d be more than one, but you’re an empath. I was like, I know that there’s more than one, but right now I’m hiding. So right now I’m just an empath.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay. Well, we have a, I want to jump to Sandy’s question here. She says, so can we jump from soul to soul just in case we don’t like the first one we inhabited?

Gwen Lefthart
So, um, I think you might be saying, can we jump from body to body? Because if you don’t, if you’re jumping soul to soul, that’s a great question. And I don’t know if I can answer that fully. I will answer with what, um, what comes through. So if you’re asking the question, can you jump from body to body, there are souls that decide to leave and then people come in as walk-ins. And that’s another thing that this, this woman was testing for walk-ins. And I’ve met some people that are walk-ins. So it’s a perfectly good body, but the soul is ready to leave and another soul takes, takes it over. They’re called walk-ins. I, I do know a couple of them. Um, and they often come in with a really strong purpose because they, they, um, some know that they’re the ones that I know, know that they’re walk-ins. So they, they don’t have all the programming from before that the other person had. They may have had a super, super abusive childhood, um, and, or they, they might, um, have actually been in a car accident and the body, the soul decides to leave and then a new soul says, well, there’s this work isn’t done in that person’s life because of all the connections they have and the others and another soul will take over the body. So I am not an expert in that. I just have a little bit of knowledge on that. Um, jumping soul to soul, um, souls, what my understanding of souls are, and again, this is not a place of my expertise, is that each soul is its own, um, entity being. Each soul is a soul. And so you wouldn’t be jumping from soul to soul. You could have a relationship with another soul and we can clear the karma between the souls. If you decide that you want to end a relationship and, and that the attachments and the, the, the agreements that you made with, with that so, with that particular soul, we can clean up that kind of karma so that you can move on and, and not, um, not have that relationship shadowing through the rest of your life.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay, uh, this last question, what are some of the main traits of an abuser that people should know?

Gwen Lefthart
So it’s more, um, well, how they make you feel. So if, if you’re feeling disempowered, so if you’re feeling like if somebody’s telling you that, you know, oh, you’re too sensitive or, uh, they’re constantly, um, questioning what you say is real for you. And this is especially for, for empaths because we feel stuff. Oh, well, you’re not, you know, that’s not real. So yeah, for empaths, we hear that a lot. That’s not real. And what it, and we’re feeling is, is real. It’s just not ours. It’s somebody else’s. And so, and you know, stop being so sensitive. Um, the biggest piece is feeling like you have no value except for what that person gives you. And if they don’t give you any value that they’re constantly tearing you down, especially a narcissist will do a lot to tear. And I’m not a narcissist expert. I’m an expert on getting healed up after being a victim of a narcissist or abused by a narcissist. But most narcissists need to tear down somebody else to feel good about themselves because they feel so bad about themselves. And so I, I have empathy for narcissists. Narcissists can’t feel empathy. True narcissists, part of the part of their brain that actually allows you to feel empathy is, is malformed. It’s not properly, um, it didn’t get properly formed in, in the birthing, you know, growing gestation embryo phase. Did I answer that question? Do you feel that I answered that question?

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
I do.

Gwen Lefthart
Okay.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Danny, did I answer your question? So Gwen, how can people get in contact with you to really find out about all what you do, um, if they need your help, if they can get all of the books that you’ve co-authored, you tell me.

Gwen Lefthart
I gotta go under there. You do, yes. My, my website, gwenleopard.com. And it is leopard, um, but you print, you, you did the front, the French pronunciation, which is where it’s from. And it means the leopard. And when my ancestors came through, or my particular family line came through Ellis Island, the person that wrote it down removed the O because it sounded like the card because of the accent, but it’s actually leopard and it means the leopard. And I’m, I’m related to about 90% of the different spellings, including Def Leppard and with the O and with, with an E instead of an A and an O instead of, there’s all different kinds of relatives out there that are leopards. So gwenleopard, like the big cat without the O, dot com. There, there’s a link for, um, for my books that are on Amazon. There are, um, uh, there’s some freebies that you can get just right, right away. Plus there’s a link for other resources. I have a clearing spray that, uh, there’s a video that you listen to. This is part of an ancient healing soul language that I speak and music, and it actually will help clear your environment. You can put a little water and spray bottle, put it in front of the video. There, there are a lot of things at gwenleopard.com. So, um, and, and also you can contact me through, through the site as well.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Oh my goodness. Let me say this to you, Gwen. This is the first time that I’ve done a show without a commercial.

Gwen Lefthart
Oh no. What are, what are the sponsors? I mean, that’s a good thing.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
That’s okay. I didn’t wanna, I didn’t want to break it, you know, I really didn’t want to break it up here, you know, but it’s the first time.

Gwen Lefthart
And you talked to Jan, do you want to run a commercial now? I’m perfectly happy that we, you know, make yourself into the show.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it. But I want to thank you so much for coming and being with us, uh, this evening. Well, it’s the evening here because I’m in Chicago.

Gwen Lefthart
It’s, yeah, it’s evening here too in California.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
Okay. Oh yeah. Okay. And because you have opened up our minds, you have given us so much value and just so much to think about, you know, uh, I want to thank you really, really for being a part of my show. And we have got to stay together because, you know, uh, birthday twins, right?

Gwen Lefthart
Because we’re birthday clubs and for a whole lot of other reasons. So I thank you so much. And we got this last comment. Oh, okay. Carol Jones says, thank you.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
You’re welcome, Carol. Thank you so much for watching. So wonderful to be here with Dr. Jan.

Gwen Lefthart
Yes, yes. Thank you. So everyone, I am keeping that lower third, give you a chance to write it down then. So that’s www.gwenleopard.com. So tune in for next week because next week is my birthday show. My birthday was on the 5th and Gwen’s on the 6th, but I’m having a big celebration on the 12th. And, um, so I’m going to show highlights from, from my birthday show. So make sure that you tune in and remember relationships, there are all kinds of relationships and there are all kinds of relationship matters. So if I, well, I’m going to see you all next week, but still this is a holiday period and I want you to enjoy yourself. I want you to think about releasing toxic relationship with yourself. Forgive yourself for all that junk, crap. Can I say crap?

Gwen Lefthart
I think that one’s okay.

Dr. Janice Hooker Fortman
If you had it in your life, but, um, it’s been, it’s been a pleasure. So I will see all of you next week now. Oh, remember if you would like to be on a guest on my show, then just email me at jan4now125@gmail.com. That’s jan, the number four now, 125@gmail.com. See you all next week. [Music]