Today we’d like to introduce you to Lauren Vanvajra.
Hi Lauren, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My path into this work began over a decade ago, when I overcame nearly ten years of heroin addiction. That experience became the first initiation that taught me how to turn pain into power. From there I trained as a massage therapist and Reiki Master, learning to work with energy and the body. Eventually I was called to deeper layers of transformation and attended one of the most comprehensive hypnotherapy schools in the country, where I learned how to guide people into releasing deeply rooted patterns through the subconscious mind.
Along the way I experienced a kundalini awakening, transformative relationships, and healing through somatic practices and entheogenic sacraments. Each of these experiences gave me a direct understanding of how the mind, body, and energy field work together, and inspired me to create my own signature modalities that facilitate deep, lasting transformation.
Today I am the creator of The Temple of Sophia Grace, an online shadow alchemy dojo, and I teach Crucible, a heated somatic alchemy ritual I hold monthly at Rare Body Studio in St. Pete. Both are spaces where people can release what no longer serves them and awaken to their deeper truth.
And always by my side is Merlin, my Aussiedoodle, who has become an unexpected part of this journey. He brings grounding and joy into my work and even shares his own teachings through his Instagram, @merlin.the.mystic.doodle.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road. My path has included initiations that reshaped me at the deepest level. I’ve spoken before about overcoming nearly a decade of addiction, so I will only say that it was a crucible that taught me how to transform pain into power.
The most profound struggle of my life came more recently, when the man I love died tragically. That loss brought me into a direct initiation with grief and with death itself. I had always understood, on an intellectual and spiritual level, that death is a form of transmutation. But walking through the reality of his passing dropped that knowing into my body as lived gnosis. It revealed death as a transformation, not an ending, and in that recognition I also met the places where I had been holding back from living unapologetically.
That gnosis is now inseparable from my work. Crucible, my heated somatic alchemy ritual, carries the imprint of grief and the way it can move through the body and shape us into someone with more clarity, depth, and wisdom. The Temple of Sophia Grace was created as a ceremonial way of calling in our future daughter, Sophia Grace. Very shortly after I created it, he passed. What began as a prayer became a living dojo for shadow alchemy and remembrance. His greatest dream was to help people heal and save lives, and through me, he continues to do that. Every transformation that happens inside the spaces I create is part of the alchemy of our love.
The road has been anything but smooth, but each struggle has refined me into a clearer vessel. My work is not built on theory. It is born of lived experience, addiction, loss, grief, love, and the long path of learning how to let each one transmute me into deeper truth.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
What I love most is creating containers that don’t look like anything else. I’m always refining and listening to what truly works on a somatic, energetic, and subconscious level. Each offering I create is designed to meet people in a way that dissolves performance and brings them into direct contact with their own truth.
I am currently becoming a Gene Keys Guide and will be offering an 11-session journey that moves through your unique Gene Keys profile. This offering is a synthesis of hypnosis and contemplative practice, guiding people past surface-level understanding into embodied insight about their design and life path.
I also refined the way I work with regression. Traditional past life regressions often keep people identified with “their” stories, and I found that attachment to an ego identity limited how deep the transformation could go. From this observation, I created the Multidimensional Lifestream Experience, which bypasses identity and opens a field where any lifestream connected to a pattern can arise. This allows people to access and resolve material far beyond the confines of personal biography, leading to profound release and integration.
What sets me apart is that every modality I offer has been born from lived experience. I do not simply apply techniques; I create practices and spaces that mirror my own initiations with death, grief, love, and rebirth. I am most proud of the originality and integrity of these containers, and of witnessing how they move people into real change rather than temporary inspiration.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up I was curious about everything. I asked questions constantly and I was always creating. I loved putting on shows and concerts for my parents and their friends. Expression felt natural to me and creativity has always been the thread that carried me through.
At the same time I started experiencing bullying as early as kindergarten and it followed me through all of my school years. That cut deep, especially as an only child. It left me with wounds around trust and self worth. People pretended to be my friends when they weren’t and those betrayals stayed with me. Later I came to see that it gave me the ability to hold projection and to turn pain into depth, but as a child it hurt.
My parents were young when they had me. They both worked hard and they really tried to make Christmas magical and provide for me in the best way they could. Emotional presence was something I wished for though. I often wished I had parents who were more available and that I had grown up somewhere bigger than a small North Florida town. Over time I came to see that even those longings and unmet needs shaped me into who I am now.
I had a pattern of diving into things and then letting them go. Ballet was one of them. I started at 15 but did not stay with it for long. That pattern became something I had to alchemize later in life. Movement though never left me. Dance has always been part of how I express myself. I especially loved modern dance and I carried it with me into every season of my life as a way to move what I could not always speak.
The struggles of childhood, the loneliness, the bullying, the wishing life had been different, all became part of what sets me apart. I would not change any of it now. Those experiences gave me creativity and resilience. They also shaped why I create the spaces I do now. My containers are built to be what I never had as a child. They are places where people are met fully, where nothing has to be hidden, and where the very things that once felt unbearable can be transmuted into deeper truth and expression. And yes, a part of me still fantasizes about walking into a high school reunion now, knowing I would be the most unique and interesting person in the room, because I turned everything I went through into compassion, wisdom and true power
Pricing:
- Temple of Sophia Grace $33/per month
- Crucible $55
- Multidimensional Lifestream Experience $397
- Somatic Hypnotherapy $797 (intro 4 session package)
- Unveiled: an 11-session hypnotic journey through your unique Gene Keys $1111 (intro offer first 11 to sign up)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://laurenvanvajra.com/my-sojourn/
- Instagram: @lauren_van_vajra
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1NmtCEjpcX/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-vandergrift-2b661a180?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@laurenvanvajra?si=DbjNAAXO4qNfSXdn
Image Credits
Tiffany Feger
Joe Kalos
Jenna Lake
Brittany Moore
