The Healing Cocoon Podcast

From acting and coaching to production companies and a deeply impressive love of learning, Zoe has a knack for setting and achieving goals, constantly striving to better herself, stemming from the ultimate desire of helping others navigate their awakening journey. From addiction and codependent, drug-fueled relationships, to divorce, birth trauma, and finally facing her own awakening and subsequent healing journey, Zoe’s passion for service was ignited. As she puts it, “Part of my life’s work is to have been there. When I hold space for people, they can tell that I have been there. In doing so, I have traversed the threshold many times. I didn’t see them as the wake-up calls.”

Zoe has massively channeled these life experiences into guiding others by creating Kaftan Mama, Eagle Rose Productions, co-writing, directing and producing an internationally award-winning documentary called, “Birth Time”, and so many more outlets that you seriously wonder when she sleeps. Prior to her awakening and healing journey, the pursuit and attaining of external success, countless awards, credentials and accolades was the force that drove her, the apex of a successful life. But she remembers, “I still didn’t feel that real sense of homeness within myself…I didn’t have embodied self-worth; I had externalized self-worth.” She was a skilled overachiever and accolades accumulator, but not living in her own peace.

The Final Rock Bottom

In 2010, Zoe’s career in the entertainment business was booming, but her first marriage had crumbled. This ending turned out to become a pivot point for her—it was her awakening. The divorce itself was painful, but it was what came afterward that was her catalyst for change. She realized that her behavior did not change once she pulled away from who she had previously considered the conduit of her behaviors. This led to the thought that if it wasn’t a person that was causing her behaviors, then her behaviors weren’t simply reduced to being influenced by external factors…maybe it was also something within herself.

And, really, that’s all it took to kickstart Zoe’s journey—a thought that led to another thought, that culminated in a divine awakening that she could and needed to play an active role in changing her own life. She was ready to make some big changes. When things began to change for her, she recalls them happening quickly and very robustly. As long as she was open to the next step towards healing, she found that the next step was always awaiting her.

The Former and the Latter

There is no doubt in Zoe’s mind that our family origin experience and our genetic code shapes who we are. Referring to her need for success to feel validated, she can see the struggle of perfectionism woven throughout that drive. Even further, she says, with brutal honesty, her eldest daughter has some struggles that are absolutely at the hand of her own struggles. But being able to say she failed and could have done better is something she believes is crucial to the process, to healing—we have to take full responsibility.

Her journey has taken the full gamut of her experiences and moved them on towards acceptance, love and forgiveness. As she shows up and does this healing work, she is showing up for the healing of five generations back and five generations forward, including her daughter.

Headed Up

When Zoe met her current partner, Aaron Jeffery, he was a few steps ahead of her in his own healing journey. He encouraged her towards therapy and a 12-step program, which she initially resisted, but once she relented, things began unfolding and didn’t stop. Initially, the internal battles Zoe was contending with put a strain on her relationship with Aaron, but as the healing continued, it was actually what drew them back together again.

“Dis-ease”, the likening of living in a place of internal unrest as similar to a medical disease, really revealed itself once she began to remove the satisfaction of the external drivers. It’s easy to hide behind the external pleasures of accomplishments and awards and become numb. So she realized that as she found peace on her journey it became a marker that indicated she wasn’t striving for the external part so hard anymore. With her peace she also found joy…and more fun!

The Practice

Currently, Zoe finds herself in the process of observing her behaviors, leaning into meditation as a tool to create space to contemplate her actions and thoughts. She quips that it’s easy to go on retreats to the Himalayas and take in the breathtaking surroundings and observe your behaviors, but doing the work with two kids and little sleep and money worries…that’s the practice. That’s the work. She still feels far from being the integrated “ohm”, but she is showing up for the job. Getting glimpses of the unraveling from the conditioning, she says, is better than any drug, sex, or ice cream. But to maintain it—that’s tricky. The triggers happen from the moment you wake up.

In Between

The second you step on the path, you can’t unstep. And once you have a small sliver of awakening, your soul is like, “That’s it!” You can never go back to being unconscious. It’s actually painful at times because that process of living unconsciously and then becoming conscious, but still performing the unconscious habits and watching yourself do them is often excruciating—that period “in between” as you observe yourself until you finally get to the place where you are integrated and you are conscious, no longer doing the unconscious habits.

Zoe is a wellness mentor through her company, Kaftan Mama. She offers her services as a doula, coach and mentor. Currently, she is completing her second master’s degree in art therapy at Western Sydney University. She has also completed her 200-hour yoga teacher training, her Gene Keys study, courses in sacred feminine power, Ayurvedic kitchen sadhana, shamanic womancraft training and permaculture. She’s passionate about her family roles of partner to actor Aaron Jeffery and mama to Sophia and Beau.

Learn more about Zoe and her story at https://kaftanmama.com or https://www.birthtime.world, and on Instagram @kaftanmama or @birthtimeworld.

For the full interview with Zoe, listen via the link on this page, https://anchor.fm/thehealingcocoon, or find us on Instagram @thehealingcocoonpodcast.