From Performance to Presence: Lara Bokovay on Healing, Truth, and Living in Alignment

Welcome back to Positive Vibes.
I’m your host, Nicki Dennis, and this space is for the soul led, the ones who’ve fallen apart and pieced themselves back together with honesty, softness, and sacred truth.

Today, I’m honored to be joined by Lara Bokovay, an intuitive, a guide, and a fearless truth teller who helps women return home to themselves. Not through hustle. Not through performance. Through nervous system healing, inner child integration, and spiritual embodiment.

Her journey hasn’t been polished. It’s been raw and real. She has walked through miscarriage, burnout, heartbreak, divorce, solo motherhood, and physical injury. With each chapter, she chose to go deeper into her truth, her softness, and her alignment.

This is what it really looks like to live in your truth, even when it is messy, even when it shakes up everything you thought you knew.

The Trap of Performance

Lara admits performance always felt out of alignment. Whether it was career, relationships, or something as personal as losing weight, there was always striving and never satisfaction.

“Performance was never enough. I was either chasing more or feeling like I wasn’t good enough. And it didn’t matter what it was: career, motherhood, body image. There was always this subtle pressure to perform, to meet an expectation that wasn’t mine.”

That realization cracked the armor and began the shift from performing to living.

Healing in Layers

Healing is not a one and done event.

“You heal in layers. You will heal for the rest of your life. Each time life knocks you down, you get the chance to choose yourself again. Every cycle brings deeper awareness. Over time, you stop spiraling for weeks and months and start regulating yourself within minutes.”

Life unfolds organically. You cannot rush the lessons or the timing. Sometimes healing means waiting until the holidays to hold a boundary with family. Sometimes it means navigating your child starting school or learning to co parent differently.

From Victimhood to Ownership

After a string of life altering events, from divorce to injury to pandemic upheaval, Lara made a critical shift. She refused to stay in victim mindset.

“The universe gets loud when you’re comfortable. It makes you uncomfortable so you are forced to move. I had to own my role in co creating my reality. Blaming others is easy, but irrelevant. The truth is your life reflects your choices. Heaven or hell are created by you.”

Why Truth Matters

Telling the truth, even when it is messy or inconvenient, became a cornerstone of her healing.

“When you tell the truth, you don’t need to defend yourself. Most people avoid truth because it is scary, triggering, or uncomfortable. But when you practice speaking your truth, even in small ways, you become unshakable. You stop living for other people’s comfort and start living aligned with your own soul.”

This is especially vital for women who are often conditioned to perform, please, and silence themselves.

Nervous System Healing in Real Life

Nervous system regulation is not a buzzword for Lara. It is a lived practice.

She used to be a firefighter, rushing to fix problems instantly. Now she practices pausing. She does not reply to a text right away. She takes a shower. She breathes before reacting.

This shift transformed her communication and her parenting.

“My daughter mirrors my state. When I spiral, she spirals. When I regulate, she regulates. That is the resonance effect. Nervous system healing is not about fancy tools. At its core, it is about getting yourself out of fight or flight and into safety.”

Doing the Work vs Being the Work

Self awareness is trendy. Lara draws a line between knowing and embodying.

“People talk about inner child healing, unconditional love, kindness. How many actually live it? Doing the work is one thing. Being the work is another. Real change happens when you embody the practices, not just talk about them.”

Reclaiming Softness

For years, Lara lived in masculine energy. Hyper independent, over performing, armored up. Everything shifted when she asked what it truly meant to be loved.

“I realized the love I wanted, softness and safety and being cared for, could not happen because I was not that person. I had to soften. I had to surrender. I had to value myself first. Only then could I receive the love I longed for.”

Now, femininity for her is not an aesthetic. It is an energy of flow, creativity, and trust.

A Hard Truth That Set Her Free

One of Lara’s most vulnerable admissions came during the pandemic, when she realized she did not love her daughter unconditionally.

“If we were both drowning, in that moment, I would have saved myself. That truth was devastating. But it shattered the illusion I had been living in and forced me to confront the deeper wounds around love, worth, and value. That truth, as painful as it was, set me free.”

Daily Rituals of Coming Home

Lara grounds herself with simple, consistent practices:

• Journaling to process and witness her truth

• Showers as a cleansing reset for body and mind

• Basic self care eating real meals, keeping order, creating safety in daily life

They are not grand, but they keep her anchored.

You Do Not Have to Be Healed to Lead

For women who feel they must wait until they are “healed enough” to step into leadership, Lara is clear.

“You will always be healing. You will never be ready. What matters is holding a vision for your life, choosing differently each day, and building your worth from within.”

Closing Thoughts

Lara Bokovay reminds us that alignment is not about getting it perfect. It is about getting honest. Healing does not always look pretty, but it can feel like peace. Our softness, sensitivity, and truth are not weaknesses. They are where our power lives.

If you have been performing, protecting, or pretending just to get through, take this as your invitation to exhale. You do not need to be perfect to lead. You do not need to be fully healed to be whole. And you do not need to do it alone.

Positive Vibes will be here the whole way.

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