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Today, I’m talking with Efia Sulter, a Manifestation & Mindset Mentor and NLP Practitioner based in Australia, about going from overcoming adversity and mindfully manifesting. She’ll share with us how she came to this work, going back to childhood from being a child of the system and being adopted only to be orphaned by age 14, to growing her confidence through solo travel in her twenties. She’s pulling back the curtain on the anxiety, depression, and grief that have shaped her into the person she is today and the blessings these experiences gave her. We’re talking all about authenticity, inclusivity, living your truth, and feeling comfortable and confident with yourself.
What to Listen For:
- How Efia came to this work
- Being adopted at 3
- The anxiety started at 10 when her mom became very ill
- Carrying a desire for a more typical life from age 10
- Working hard to break out of that pattern and to choose and decide for herself what she really wants
- Losing her mom at 14
“The day that I found out my mom passed away, I never took any time off school. I even went to school that day because I was like, I can’t fall behind. I can’t fall behind in school because then what’s going to happen?
With a parent passing away when you’re already adopted as like, okay, well, am I going to go back into the system? Or how is my life going to play out now? So I really felt that while at the same time, I wanted to have the same as everyone else. I also had this innate knowing that I was going to have to work harder than everyone else to get to the same place.“
- Living with a family friend until leaving for university
- Pushing herself extra hard to do well in school, work, and volunteering to get a small amount of praise that she desperately needed
- Not giving herself time to be or to connect with who she truly is
- Asking her doctor about solutions for insomnia and realizing this was a side effect of depression
“I remember when I was younger, going to the doctor and being like, I have really bad insomnia, so could you just give me some medication so I can sleep? And she was like, okay.
She was then asking me how this is manifesting for me and what other symptoms are coming up. And she’s like, I don’t think it’s just insomnia, I think this is a side effect of depression. I was like, depression? Like, what’s depression?“
- Thinking that everyone experienced life in this way for a long time
- Realizing she’s not supposed to be feeling this way, but having trouble getting help
- Spiraling into a deeper depression when she felt no one was taking her seriously
- Growing unease in her last year of university
“It was just an overarching feeling, especially in my master’s year of university. When I went back to uni, I knew from the first month or so, I knew that I didn’t really want to be continuing with that course. And I had just done that course because I wasn’t really sure what to do next.
And I had a lot of fear and anxiety around finishing uni and being out in the world on my own. Because if you are in the care system, you have support workers, and they support you from the age that you’re no longer a minor while you’re still in here.
But after you finished university, like that’s it, no more emails, no calls, no more support, nothing.“
- Feeling at war with herself while forcing herself to do something that didn’t feel right for her
- Realizing she needed to make some changes in her life and diving deep into her journey
- Setting out a vision for what she wanted the next year of her life to look like
- Understanding that she needed to get comfortable with herself before those things could happen
“People often see moving abroad as like an escape or a solution or a fix to their problem. But I knew that if I didn’t address everything that was going on first, it wouldn’t make any difference. I would get there, and I was still feeling miserable and anxious and depressed. And there just wouldn’t be any point in that.
So having that to look forward to was great, but I knew that to actually be able to go on the trip, I would need to feel comfortable in myself.“
- How her relationship with Buddhism introduced her to the concepts of mindfulness and mediation
- How she started to grow her connection to consciously manifesting
- The first personal development book she ever read and why she loved it so much
- The book that gave her permission to step into a leadership role
- Learning to love and accept herself where she currently was in life while working towards where she wanted to be
- The importance of surrounding herself with people who inspired her to dream bigger
“I think just having those inspiring people around me that I saw doing amazing things made me feel like, okay, maybe I could do something amazing too.”
- Learning to walk alongside her grief when she understood it never really goes away
“There will be moments, and you think, Oh, it’s completely gone, and then there’ll be a memory. Or, for me, especially things like Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, I’m just like, Oh, again, we thought that this had gone to bed.
And I think you just have to have this like a deep sense of self-compassion around knowing that this is just part of your journey and part of your story. And a blessing to come out of it is that I have such a sense of empathy for other people who are experiencing something similar.”
- The gift that came from her grief
- Learning to connect with her intuition and her higher self
- Moving plans that changed three weeks before she was set to leave
“I had a lot of fear around doing that trip by myself. And also, before we even got to Australia, there was meant to be a period of seven weeks where we were traveling through Southeast Asia. And while moving to Australia is something that everyone did, traveling around by myself in Asia was definitely something that really scared me, but I did it.
I managed to get on the plane. I remember crying eyes out on the plane. Like what have I done? And then getting off the plane is like a click. And it’s like, wow, this is incredible. And actually having those seven weeks of traveling alone was so important for building my confidence.“
- Finally becoming confident in who she is
- Finding joy in solo travel
- Evolving her blog through her travels
- Evolving herself as she wrote an ebook on solo travel, wanting to highlight the things that had nothing to do with the trip itself
- Starting a business that she wasn’t passionate about for the sake of starting a business
- Setting business goals and feeling exhausted
- A discussion with her mentor that changed her course
- The gradual process of living her purpose
- Her goal to create more inclusivity in the spiritual space
“I want it to be another example for black women and, you know, my work isn’t specifically only for black people, but something that I found was that I found it really difficult to see other black women in spirituality spaces. And when you don’t see people that look like you, you wonder, am I invited to the table?
And all of the podcasts that I would see all of the top tens and all of the coaches that people would recommend and all of the people that would be invited to guest coaches were all white people. And it’s like, okay, if we are making this so the spirituality space is so open and welcoming and you can get so many incredible things from it, but it’s not welcoming enough to everyone in that space.
And this isn’t just black people; it’s disabled people, this is trans people, you know, LGBTQ people. And I just didn’t feel that there was enough inclusivity that I was seeing. And I was like, okay, if I’m not seeing enough, then I’m going to create it myself.“
- The roles her coach and her accountability partner played in her transition
- Reaching the point she knew it was time to start living her truth
“I remember I did have such resistance for a long time on my Instagram of sharing things. And I was like, do people actually want to hear about this? It’s important to me, but is it going to be important to other people?
And finally, what it came down to was I just had to start living my truth truly all the time. And I could see the points in my life where things had not gone as planned and not gone how I expected because I hadn’t been living my truth.
I’d been living someone else’s truth. I was living the truth I thought I should be living. The road ahead for me has to be lined with total truth and authenticity. And if I don’t share what’s on my heart, then I’m not living in alignment with who I truly am.“
- How a week-long commitment to morning meditation has turned into 600 days and counting
- Journaling to connect with herself and her truth
- Honoring every part of her journey
- Avoiding words like “healed”
- Not worrying about what others will think when she shares something about herself
- Understanding that what she’s been through helps make her a better coach
- The advice she would give her younger self
“Build your resilience and relationship to change because things are always going to be changing. And there’s nothing that you can do about it. All that you can do is control how you react, how you show up, and who you let in.“
About Efia Sulter:
Efia is a Manifestation & Mindset Mentor and certified NLP Practitioner.
Through 1:1 coaching, digital courses, ebooks, and workbooks, Efia is on a mission to help ambitious millennial women overcome limiting beliefs and gain clarity on their soul’s purpose so that they can manifest an EXTRAORDINARY life.
She believes in teaching manifestation from a grounded and inclusive perspective that combines spirituality, strategy, and science. She has empowered women worldwide to fully embrace and embody their power to live not only their dream lives but also something much greater.
Website and social media links:
effytalkslife.com
instagram.com/efiasulter_
anchor.fm/themanifestedit
clubhouse: efiasulter
facebook.com/groups/thehighvibesoultribe
Resources:
Access our free 8-part Journey Mapping™ sampler program and begin uncovering the purpose of your path at www.TalesFromTheJourney.tv/Free/.
Read my memoir, Unravel: Rising Up and Coming Back from a Season of Living that Damn Near Killed Me at www.TheUnravelBook.com.