Podcast appearances and mentions of brandon handley

Welcome back, spiritual dope! It's been a while since our last episode, but I'm here, Brandon Handley, ready to dive into some thought-provoking content just for you. But first, let's set the record straight - your well-being is our top priority. Spiritual Dope is still going strong, hosting a treasure trove of interviews and discussions with individuals who have embarked on their spiritual journeys. What makes our podcast unique is that we approach spirituality through the lens of integrating it into our daily lives. Trust me, you won't find another podcast quite like this.  Today, we're exploring the idea of awakening to yourself - growing into your spiritual being and realizing the vastness of your spiritual body beyond just your physical form. It's about creating a new model for living and doing so intentionally. Many people wait until they hit rock bottom before making this shift, but why not choose to awaken sooner? It's like proactive wellness - focusing on mental health and well-being to prevent falling apart down the road. We've been taught to hold it all together, to suppress and repress our emotions, but that's not the path to true happiness. What if you could learn to find joy and contentment in your current circumstances? That's the shift we're discussing today. We'll delve into the misconception that happiness has to look a certain way, driven by media and marketing. The truth is, happiness already exists within us, waiting to be realized. And hey, even an old beat-up car can bring just as much happiness as a shiny new one! Join me as I share personal stories and insights, discussing how embracing our true selves and acknowledging our experiences can lead to genuine happiness. We'll explore the interconnectedness of all living beings and the energy that binds us together. Get ready for an episode that will uplift your spirits and challenge your perception of happiness. So sit back, relax, and let's dive into this spiritual dope together!

Welcome to another episode of Spiritual Dope, where we explore all things spiritual and delve into the creation process. I'm your host, Brandon Handley. In today's episode, we'll discuss the concept of trusting the creation process and the power of intentional creation. From cooking a delicious meal to trying out new recipes, we'll explore how focusing on the desired outcome and aligning our intentions can lead to a fulfilling creation experience. Join me as we uncover the beauty in chaos and the importance of designing and organizing our creations. Let's dive in and discover the magic of the creation process. Stay tuned for an enlightening conversation that will inspire you on your own creative journey. Welcome to Spiritual Dope: The Creation Process.

On this episode of Spiritual Dope, host Brandon Handley welcomes guest Jahan Khamsehzadeh to explore the transformative power of psychedelics and their role in spirituality and personal growth. They delve into the cultural changes of the 1960s that brought about the use of psychedelics and discuss how these substances have been used in tribal ceremonies for centuries and are now being integrated into Western psychotherapy and recreational settings. The episode emphasizes the importance of having the right container to navigate these expansive states of consciousness safely, as well as the necessity of education and strategic planning for safe psychedelic use. Jahan shares their personal journey from a former atheist to experiencing a profound shift in consciousness through psychedelics, leading to a complete transformation in their perspective and the trajectory of their life. They also touch upon the challenges and rewards of working with psychedelics in therapeutic settings, including the processing of past trauma and the potential for healing and overcoming harmful behaviors. The episode highlights the need for set and setting and emphasizes the importance of having someone present to support individuals experiencing disorienting effects. Jahan and Brandon also explore the deep history of psychedelic use worldwide and the ongoing movement to decriminalize these substances. The episode concludes with a discussion on the therapeutic benefits of psilocybin mushrooms and the potential role they played in the evolution of human consciousness. Drawing from various psychological models and the work of pioneers like Stanislav Grof, they explore the different stages of the psychedelic experience and how understanding these stages can aid individuals in navigating challenging experiences and embracing personal growth and transformation. Tune in to this episode of Spiritual Dope to deepen your understanding of psychedelics' role in spirituality, healing, and human evolution.   Connect with Jahan: https://psychedelicevolution.org/

On this episode of Spiritual Dope, host Brandon Handley is joined by guest Nicole Kerr, who shares her incredible near-death experiences and the profound spiritual insights she gained from them. Nicole begins by recounting the emergency surgery she underwent after a car crash, which led to multiple near-death experiences due to fluid in her lungs. She vividly describes feeling suffocated and believing her oxygen was being taken away. Thankfully, a diuretic was administered as a last resort, saving her from suffocating to death. Nicole woke up with a ventilator after one of the surgeries, deeply realizing that there is no pain at the moment of death. Nicole shares her belief in a dimension where angels and deceased loved ones exist on the other side. She encourages listeners to ask for help from these angels and develop a relationship with them. As a self-proclaimed recovering people pleaser, Nicole delves into the fear-based roots of people pleasing and how it was exacerbated by her time at the Air Force Academy, where she faced constant hazing and harassment. Nicole opens up about a traumatic car accident where she was pronounced dead at the scene but revived, leading to her struggle with an eating disorder and self-blame. She speaks about her strained relationship with her father, who blamed her for the accident and has not forgiven her. However, Nicole also shares a powerful incident where an angel saved her after another car accident, referring to the angel as "Casper the Ghost." In her soul form, she overheard a conversation between angels, who emphasized the importance of asking for help and promised that help would come. Describing her near-death experience, Nicole explains being engulfed in a white light that exuded love, comfort, beauty, and unconditional love, struggling to find words to fully convey the experience. She advises listeners to find what works for them, whether it's prayer, talking to their guardian angel, or journaling to reflect and connect with their soul. Nicole emphasizes the need to expand emotional literacy and express emotions instead of suppressing them. Nicole's personal experience of abuse at the United States Air Force Academy deeply influenced her focus on the spiritual dimension of health and her desire to change society's negative perception of death. She believes that death is often associated with doom, gloom, and negativity, and urges listeners to address their fear of death, as preparation is essential. Furthermore, Nicole highlights the importance of both spiritual and physical preparation for death and mentions how belief systems shape our relationship with death. She shares a poignant story about a six-year-old girl who had a negative concept of God due to fear of hell, underscoring the need to examine and change beliefs that no longer serve us. The episode touches on the speaker's reunion with a former roommate after 39 years, the blame they both carry surrounding the crash, and the importance of communication and rebuilding relationships. Nicole also details her struggles with soul loss after the crash and the subsequent physical and emotional issues she faced, including compulsive behaviors and chronic health conditions. She advocates for soul retrieval as a healing tool, especially for veterans struggling with soul loss, as it is often absent from their treatment. With her profound near-death experiences and spiritual insights, Nicole Kerr delivers a captivating episode full of hope, healing, and a deep understanding of the spiritual dimensions of life and death. Tune in to this enlightening episode of Spiritual Dope to explore the transformative power of near-death experiences and the importance of connecting with our souls.   www.nicolekerr.com   - Introduction to Nicole Kerr and her near-death experiences - The speaker's experience of emergency surgery and multiple near-death experiences - The speaker's belief in a dimension with angels and deceased loved ones - Encouragement to ask for help from angels and develop a relationship with them - The speaker's journey as a recovering people pleaser and the fear-based nature of people-pleasing - Recollection of the speaker's time at the Air Force Academy and experiences of hazing and harassment - The speaker's panic attack and struggle with fear of failure and shame - The traumatic car accident and the speaker being pronounced dead at the scene and revived - The speaker's fear of God and punishment due to religious upbringing - Overcoming fear of death through near-death experience - The speaker's eating disorder and self-blame for the accident - Strained relationship with the father and his lack of forgiveness - Experience of an angel saving the speaker after a car accident - Soul form and conversation between angels emphasizing the importance of asking for help - Description of near-death experience as being in a white light and the struggle to define it - Suggestions for connecting with guardian angels through prayer, dialogue, and journaling - Reflecting on the soul and understanding its communication through the non-dominant hand technique - Historical context of diseases brought by missionaries to Hawaii - Importance of breathing for regulating panic and anxiety attacks - The four domains of health: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual - Importance of healthy eating and proactive stress management - The need for emotional expression and expanding emotional literacy - Personal experience of abuse at the Air Force Academy and its impact on spiritual health - Changing society's negative perception of death and the importance of preparing for it - The impact of lack of preparation and communication on families and relationships - The need for spiritual and physical preparation for death - How beliefs about God shape one's relationship with death - Experience working with a child with a negative concept of God - Sabotaging goals and unhealthy behaviors due to belief systems that no longer serve us - Personal story of reuniting with a roommate after many years and working on their relationship - Attempts to leave the hospital and the speaker's growth from the experience - Experience of soul loss after the crash and its symptoms - The speaker's struggle with soul loss and chronic health conditions - Soul retrieval as a healing tool and its relevance for veterans and preventing suicide.

Martin Theis stumbled into shamanism by chance when his best friend attended a workshop at the urging of his girlfriend. Intrigued by the concept of finding one's spirit animal through a totem animal journey, Martin embarked on his own spiritual journey. Prior to this, he had no involvement with spirituality and felt disconnected from the world. Martin specializes in drum-based shamanism, without the use of medicinal plants. He recognizes that there are various approaches and traditions within shamanism, such as plant or medicine-based practices. His mentor, who practices Southern American shamanism from the Peruvian Andes, introduced him to a different interpretation of the medicine wheel. Despite the variations, Martin found resonance in the teachings from the Lakota and chose to remain with that lineage. After returning to Germany, Martin continued to learn and grow under the guidance of his original mentor, who he has been with for over ten years. https://www.lighttrails.co/webinar-series/   On this episode of Spiritual Dope, host Brandon Handley welcomes guest Martin Theis to discuss their unique approach to life coaching through shamanic journeys. Martin explains how these journeys connect with the subconscious, higher self, and guidance, allowing clients to receive answers, guidance, and healing. Unlike traditional coaching, Martin emphasizes that they do not give instructions but instead focus on the client's stated intention. They believe strongly in this transformative work, as it helps individuals find their own solutions, tapping into the answers they already possess. Martin shares their own spiritual journey, highlighting the struggles and disconnection they experienced before discovering shamanism. They delve into the different approaches to shamanism, including plant-based or medicine-based journeys and the use of a drum. Martin's specific teachings come from Southern American shamanism from the Peruvian Andes, which incorporates unique power and transformational processes. They also touch on the importance of self-care for empathetic individuals and how to hold space for others without losing energy. Martin discusses the significance of shamanism in reconnecting with nature and spirituality, especially in Western cultures where spirituality has been lost. They emphasize the importance of breathing techniques in dealing with negative events and sensations in the body. Martin also shares their webinar offering, the 16-week system they use to work with individuals on specific intentions and shamanic journeys. Through their personal story of struggle and self-doubt, Martin highlights how shamanic journeys have the potential to help individuals in profound ways. Join Brandon and Martin as they dive deep into the transformative power of shamanic journeys on this episode of Spiritual Dope.  

Unveiling the Power of Oneness: Stuart Adam Discusses Plant Medicine and Personal Transformation Hosted by Brandon Handley, featuring guest Stuart Adam In this episode of Spiritual Dope, Brandon Handley interviews Stuart Adam, an explorer of plant medicine and spirituality for 15 years. They delve into the importance of finding spiritual harmony in a chaotic world. Stuart emphasizes the significance of intuition, oneness, and understanding the duality of the shadow and the light. He opens up about his personal journey, including struggles with drug addiction and a lack of understanding in how to treat women properly. Stuart has since found solace in his engagement to a supportive partner who has helped him confront his own darkness. The key takeaway is the necessity of working through personal darkness to ultimately discover the light. Discovering Oneness through Plant Medicine Stuart's experiences with plant medicine have revealed the interconnectedness of his shadow and light aspects. He passionately embraces the concept of oneness, emphasizing that we are all connected and part of a divine existence. Verbal explanations fall short; true understanding comes through experiencing this profound connection. Stuart's spiritual practices involve working with powerful plants like ayahuasca, fire, and water, building relationships based on gratitude and respect. He engages in daily prayer, receiving guidance from these sacred entities. The focus is on being present and transcending mental obstacles, creating a meditative and experiential practice. Prayer: Balancing Masculine and Feminine Energies The conversation explores prayer as a blend of masculine and feminine energies. The masculine aspect involves taking action, asking, and doing, while the feminine aspect centers around receiving, being present, and surrendering without striving for specific outcomes. Trust and letting go are essential elements. Stuart acknowledges the challenges faced by white males in the spiritual realm, but encourages rising above negativity. Surrender and the power of feminine energy, symbolized by yin, are further discussed. The conversation also touches on religion and Kabbalah, highlighting the pursuit of an individual spiritual path, navigating the ethereal realms, and surrendering to the infinite. Healing Ancestral Burdens and Finding Oneness The podcast acknowledges the speakers' Jewish lineage and their struggle to feel connected to it. They delve into the complexities of Kabbalah and how it has contributed to many Jews feeling disconnected from their bodies. The importance of personal healing, releasing ancestral burdens, and finding individual paths to oneness is emphasized. While recognizing the potential benefits of plant medicine, it is stressed that integration and inner work are necessary to fully experience its transformative effects. The discussion also addresses concerns about unqualified individuals serving plant medicine, underscoring the importance of finding a trustworthy spiritual teacher. Embracing Personal Sovereignty and the Power of Prayer Stuart highlights the need to stop relinquishing power to others and start trusting oneself. Connecting with personal sovereignty is essential to becoming one's own navigational system. Prayer is presented as a tool to cultivate trust and create a container for self-discovery. Stuart offers an eight-week journey, guiding individuals on how to pray and trust themselves. The focus is on living one's prayer and witnessing its manifestations in everyday life. The ultimate goal is to develop a profound sense of personal power and sovereignty. Throughout the conversation, the hosts pose various questions to Stuart, including inquiries about his preferred dishes to cook for friends and who should reach out to him. Stuart mentions his garden and growing tobacco for spiritual addiction clearing. Listeners are directed to visit his website, TheAlchemyOfPrayer.com, to embark on a personal spiritual growth journey. The conversation maintains a relaxed tone while offering thought-provoking insights.

Transformational Coach Brandon Handley initially developed his coaching career by pursuing three life coaching certifications along with certifications from Champlain College in Appreciative Inquiry and in-depth studies of Motivational Inquiry as certifications in NLP & Cognitive Behavior Therapy, all in order to deliver his clients powerful, transformational experiences. Concurrent with serving clients, he had an awakening experience, which drastically shifted his focus from being a life coach to becoming a Transformational Coach. He now guides people to prepare for their own awakening experience and convert their experience into purpose, meaning and ultimately vision. Through his platform, Spiritual Dope, Brandon shares practical applications, theories and stories as they relate to spirituality, the law of attraction and coaching tools, so that his listeners are empowered to take action. https://spiritualdope.co/

In this podcast episode, Brandon Handley from Spiritual Dope reveals how Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) can transform your life in more ways than one. You will learn how BJJ can help you develop resilience, humility, and curiosity by exposing yourself to different challenges and situations. You will also discover how BJJ can improve your mind, body, and spirit by enhancing your discipline, focus, energy, community, and spirituality. You will also find out how BJJ relates to other practices such as spiritual coaching and breathwork that aim to improve your well-being and awareness. This is a valuable podcast for anyone who wants to grow beyond their current limitations and potential through BJJ.

  Welcome to another exciting episode of our podcast, where we explore spirituality and personal growth with industry experts. In today's episode, we are thrilled to have an enlightening conversation with Brandon Handley and Joshua Bloom. They discuss the importance of embracing one's spiritual identity, integrating spirituality into everyday life, and understanding quantum energy healing. Joshua Bloom is a renowned expert in the field of spirituality and quantum healing. With his vast experience, he has helped countless individuals unlock their potential and achieve personal growth through spirituality. You can find Joshua online through his website at https://www.quantumenergycenter.tv/ and on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Join us for this insightful conversation and embark on a journey to deepen your spiritual growth and discover new ways to overcome life's challenges. Listen in and let us know your thoughts in the comments below! Summary Introduction of the episode. 0:00 What does quantum energy transformation mean? 0:43 Being the giver and the giver. 7:51 Finding a location for furniture. 12:37 Turning over a new leaf. 19:10 What is the power of choice? 24:06 How do you know what you need to change? 29:54 The bell curve of love energy. 34:16 What is the quantum energy scale? 38:43 What are we also afraid of? 43:16 Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited in their thought process? Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the questions you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another head of spiritual day with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:43 One Hey, there's spiritual dope I'm on here today with number one best selling author Joshua bloom, he's the author of the ultimate answer is inside. Creator of quantum energy transformation, mastery of the quantum shift and founder of quantum energy center LLC, as the internationally acclaimed trusted authority on quantum transformation number one best selling author and the executive producer of the ultimate answer is inside movie with upcoming companion book. And the creator of quantum energy transformation. Josas sold Joshua's sole purpose and passion is to empower and pass and Intuit is to unlock and own their authentic power and turn their potential into lasting paradigm shifts. Josh was so great to have you on as we were just talking before we got going here with this has been there's been in motion for a while. So so glad we can finally get together in person. Joshua Bloom 1:37 Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited. Absolutely. So Josh, Brandon Handley 1:41 I usually like to start these with the whole idea, right? That, look, you and I were like universal conduits for just like the energy, right? It's just flows through us. And the people listening to our conversation, right? They're gonna hear something that you and I aren't even finally even talking about, right? You and I will have our conversation, and somebody tuning in is going to hear something else entirely. There's gonna be a message that's coming through you being delivered by the universe right now to that person's tune. And what's that message person today, Josh? Joshua? Joshua Bloom 2:16 Well, that anything is possible that we have the ability to create change at the quantum level, to allow ourselves to, in a sense, upgrade or up level ourselves to a new possibility that maybe we haven't even discovered yet or thought about yet. And allowing ourselves to reach potentials that we never thought we'd be able to do during our lifetime. Brandon Handley 2:43 I love that. I love that. And I think that those people who go through certain shifts, they find that for themselves. And my guess is that you've you've kind of got you've got a process and how we get there, and how can people reach that in a systematic way? When you say Quantum? So what do you mean, because I think a lot of people hear quantum and they don't know what to do with it. Joshua Bloom 3:06 I totally agree with you. People use the word Quantum. And they actually use it in a way that doesn't actually mean what quantum means. I'm glad you asked the question, because a lot of people are putting the word quantum on to things because it either sounds cool, or it's gonna make the money. But the truth of the matter is that quantum means cellular. So that means when you're talking about quantum healing, or what I call quantum energy transformation, that means we are making a shift making a change at the cellular level of the body. And we're doing so at the smallest part of us, that has consciousness. And when you make that shift, when you make a change, at that level, it upgrades or up levels, your identity. So when I work with a client, for example, they might come in as one person and leave at the next level of who they get to be. Yeah, Brandon Handley 4:01 yeah, that sounds great. I would like that machine or that capability, right? Like, let's walk in. Let's walk in here. I'm gonna need a 2.0. As I walk out the door, the better improved version of myself, as we were talking a little bit to, you know, your best selling author, congratulations. I mean, it's it's no small feat to put a good book together. I think anybody can put a book together and just slam it out there. Right. It's another thing to get, you know, be well received and actually help people with it. You mentioned too, that you did some work with us, Bruce Lipton had endorsed your book is, is he a part of your story on how you got to where you are today? Give me a little insight there. Joshua Bloom 4:46 Well, he's definitely part of my story in the sense that I was having a lot of anxiety, so much so that most people would have been on medication for like years. I was having so much anxiety that I would, it would be fearful for me to even like walk outside and walk around my house outside. At times, it was like, you know, 21 years ago. And when I was in this place, it was it was really difficult to determine how was I going to get out of this place? Is this going to be the way that I was gonna live my life for the rest of my life? Or was this going to be something that I could shift and change should actually never believe that I was going to be able to change this, I thought, actually, this was it, this was the way that I was going to be. And I was gonna either have to deal with it, or try to get help. So I worked on learning, that was my main mode for moving myself forward, I learned so much, I learned about 20 different healing modalities, most of which I became certified in. And still I couldn't shift my issues. And it was very, very difficult, until I started to work at a Hypnosis Center. And I Well, the reason I went to the Hypnosis Center in the first place was for them to help me but I had learned so much that I had surpassed what they were doing in the hypnosis session with me that I realized they were not going to be able to help me at all. But I thought, well, maybe I can help them. So I started to work for the Hypnosis Center. And I started to do sessions. And I was getting these really amazing changes in people that I was seeing right before my eyes. So somebody would come in with anxiety, and all of a sudden, their anxiety would be gone. I'd go home with mine, but they would leave without theirs. And I'm like, wow, I must know something because I mean, something is happening. And I would see people that would come in with things like fibromyalgia, migraine, headaches, pain, all sorts of things like this. And they would be leaving without their issues. And of course, it was really difficult for me, because I was going home with my issues every night, saying, I must, this must be a disconnect here. I'm obviously getting it for other people, but I'm not getting it for me. So after a while, I started to realize I could use the same understanding the same quantum understanding that that I learned from Bruce Lipton, because that's one of the that's one of the learnings I got was with Bruce Lipton taught me so many powerful things that led me to understand how to make those changes with those people. And I understood the science behind it all, I never would have been able to create a quantum energy transformation or create the changes that I've helped people do so profoundly. Yeah, I think the biggest one was me. I mean, I was my most definitely my most difficult client. Brandon Handley 7:51 So it's interesting, right? I always make this line about the being the giver and the gifts, the gift and the giver type of thing. And so you were able to give this gift to everybody else, but you weren't able to give it to yourself or like I'm just thinking like, again, we talked about being conduits of energy for like everybody else, you were able to receive it and deliver it for others. But you didn't have an awareness of how do I apply this to myself? Yeah, Joshua Bloom 8:22 well, I was able to help them shift the energy at the cellular level of the body to create that change. And I taught them exactly how to do it. And they were able to do it. But when I did it for myself, I was too disconnected. So So here's the thing, Dr. Bruce Lipton says that if you are in growth, you can transform and heal. And if you're in, if you're in protection, you can't. Brandon Handley 8:50 So the anxiety was asking as a barrier, the anxiety, Joshua Bloom 8:53 he put me in protection, like 24/7. Even now, when I work with other people, I was able to help them get into growth, not the problem. But getting myself into growth, I needed another Joshua to Brandon Handley 9:09 kind of like tickling yourself, right? Like you can't, it's really hard to tickle yourself. There's no Joshua, like, I got you. Joshua Bloom 9:16 But I finally did, I finally learned how to get into my body, how to connect with myself, how to move that energy at the cellular level of the body for myself, which was much harder than helping other people by the way. I did it. And I released all of those things. But I definitely say that Bruce Lipton helped me understand the science behind the cellular transformation. So that it let me create such amazing shifts for people. Brandon Handley 9:46 Not as powerful and I think that I think that's really important. There's always the it's almost always easier to help others with their problems and what they're going through and because you're Though you're, you're not attached to their shit, right? You don't have their emotional, you don't have their baggage, right? So you can be like, Look, I actually see you as you actually are. And here's the reflection of who you actually are like, Oh, well, thank you so much. I can go now I'm good, I think right? And but looking at yourself in a mirror, you see the same thing like all the time you never really see the truth of who you are. Joshua Bloom 10:24 Yeah, when we get in our own way, really easy. Brandon Handley 10:27 Yeah. So you, you're just anxious character. You finally figure out like how to heal yourself. And you're taking the show on the road? Right? Where's where's the I guess transition where you said, Alright. I can roll out of this Hypnosis Center. We've helped each other out well enough from here. I'm good to strike out on my own. Tell a little bit about that story. Yeah, Joshua Bloom 10:55 well, I was working for hypnosis. And I was making lots of money. I was helping people tremendously. I was still holding on to a lot of my issues. I had made it a little bit better, but not really at that time. And so that I that I had this argument with the lady that owned the center. I mean, never had an argument before. But she got into this energy that I didn't like, and I didn't think she was being fair. And I look at it now as the universe was saying, Joshua, you need to get out of this place needed to open up your own center. Sure. So but I didn't see it. At that exact moment. I thought, you know, this lady is just being unfair to me what's going on? And then, when I decided to leave, which was after that argument, I didn't have anywhere to go, I went home. Brandon Handley 11:49 It was gonna take my thing and leave now. Joshua Bloom 11:52 Yeah, exactly. So I took my stuff with me. And I had a lot of stuff there. And I took my, you know, modality they created with me to take everything with me. And I went home. And I looked for a place in which I could rent to see if I could rent some space. But I had no luck with that I couldn't I couldn't find a place in which I could rent that I could afford. I mean, I didn't have a whole lot of money. Because I was living on the money that I was that I was I was getting. And I was living in an expensive area. So it was costing a bit of much money at the time. So what ended up happening was one of my clients called me, and I see wanted to see me and I said, Well, I can't see you there because I just left. So I don't know what we're going to do. I don't really have a location to see the one. And I said, I've been looking for one for the last couple of days, and I couldn't find a location at all for anything. They're all too expensive. She says, I'll call you back in 20 minutes and hung up the phone. And I'm like, What is she talking about? So she called me back in 20 minutes. And she says, I want you to meet me at this address. And I'm like, what, why? And she says just made me there. I said, Okay, so I get in my car. And you know, now I'm anxious. Because my client for I don't know why. Brandon Handley 13:14 She picked out right, yeah. And we Joshua Bloom 13:17 get out of the car at at this location. And she says they have they have three rooms for rent for a price you can afford. And I'm like, really? So I went in and I spoke to the owner, and of the building. And he said, Yeah, we have three rooms for rent and a waiting room. They had like an office. And then they had a room where I could do classes. This is like crazy. Because I've called everybody searched everywhere did everything. And all of a sudden, here it was Brandon Handley 13:45 what you know, I mean, I know that you'd mentioned to, you know, studying a lot of things that turned out to be BS, right? What I found in this space, law of attraction, energy work, whatever. All this effort that we put out tends to get in our way. It's like, hey, universe, I don't trust you, even though you've done the rest out there to handle my shit here. So I'm just gonna go ahead and do it without you because you're not helping me. And then as soon as like, we're doing it. We're frantic, right? We don't know what I can't find a place. What am I gonna do? I can't afford where I'm at, right? This is you right? You're in a scenario. You're like, you know what universe? I fucking I give up right? Like, what I'm not gonna deal with it right now. Client now we can't get together. It couldn't possibly happen. Right? Couldn't couldn't possibly, and she's like, it's happening. And the University says, Why don't you trust me? Joshua Bloom 14:45 Yeah, and the universe provides so I took that I took that place and I didn't know who was gonna pay the next month but I figured I was just going to be able to just do this thing. I put the deposit down and I paid for it. And then I needed furniture. So I didn't have any purchase, I thought I could rent furniture that that was like, oh, yeah, I just rent it no big deal. So, I don't know if you've ever rented furniture, but it's really, really expensive. And you think, Oh, it was gonna be like $10 a month, isn't it like hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month. And so I got really stuck. And I went to a meeting to help somebody else that was going to actually meet with a weight loss clinic, who asked me to come and give them advice about their clinic and what I could help them with their with their business. So I went over there, and I walked in, and all of a sudden, I got this intuition that I should ask them if they have any furniture, which I thought was really a weird question to ask somebody, because Hi, do you have any Berger, you know? Sure. I did. And she said, I can help you with that. And then I'm looking to see behind me to see that she's talking to somebody, like, like, that was a real answer. And she said, Yeah, I can help you with that. So I came with a van to her house, and had all the furniture I needed for my, from my from, from my office. And so I got, you know, a bunch of friends. And we, we loaded up the truck. And I said, Well, what do I owe you? She says nothing. Like, if I unlocked my legs, you know, sure, Brandon Handley 16:16 ya know, Joshua Bloom 16:17 you've you came to help me that day. And then I've helped you. So Brandon Handley 16:22 I love it. And I would have an interpretation of it. But I'd love to hear kind of like, you know, as you've looked back, what, what are you feeling? What is what's the universe telling you at this point? Oh, well, everything Joshua Bloom 16:32 was falling into alignment. So it was, it was, you know, the universe had me have this argument with this woman, and who owned the Hypnosis Center. And I left for that reason. And then, you know, I mean, I don't have anything negative against this woman that at the center, we never had an argument before that, that moment, but it got me it got me to take action. So I knew it was, you know, a spirit in the universe, saying, This is what you need to do. And then everything fell into place. I got all the furniture I needed. I got the clients just came, everything just started to happen automatically. For me. I didn't have to work very hard. When we are in alignment. That's how it looks. Brandon Handley 17:13 Yeah, it is, right. I mean, I got, you know, little little tingles and goosebumps because it's so true. And it's so it's so hard to impart that was somebody that's not even looking down that alley. Right? So somebody's not looking down that alley at all, Joshua, like, what do you start? Where do you start to direct them? Joshua Bloom 17:36 Well, I direct them inward, we tend to look outside of ourselves to find our answers. And of course, my book is called the ultimate answer is inside. Instead of instead of us looking inside, we tend to look at, you know, reach searching for someone for help, or we tend to look outside of us for an answer. And truthfully, the answers are all inside of us. So when we point the arrow back at ourselves, and we say, Okay, I'm gonna now look and see what's inside here, and connect with ourselves, we start to have situations where we become in alignment like I did, where everything just start to happen, and all this goodness start to happen without a lot of effort on my part, I'm gonna walk in, again, intuition here. Do you have furniture kind of questions? Sure this happens automatically. These are the kinds of things that happen when we're in alignment. So how do you get into alignment? Well, first, you got to be connected to yourself when you're disconnected from yourself. We have all sorts of issues. First of all, anxiety like I had, some people may have depression, some people have both. Some people might have the experience of being scattered or, or not really knowing what's going on in their life. And they feel disconnected. No add today is an epidemic that is really not necessary, because we've all been taught to be out of body. So if you are out of body or in your head, you are running at fast energy. Anybody would be scattered for and from that position of energy. Sure. So it's interesting because I grew up all of my life thinking that I had Add Error. The actually, I'm a little bit older than that. So they didn't have add as a as a as a diagnosis when I was growing up in third grade. When I was diagnosed. When I was diagnosed, they they came they came at me and said you have a neurological impairment. Yeah. What's that today? That's called ADD? Sure. So that was pretty, pretty crazy to realize. I have this thing called add. And so I looked at add as a problem. And also, I had what they call dyslexia, so Difficulty and reading, which I have neither those things today. But when I had them in third grade, and fourth grade and fifth grade, until I got into high school, I was, you know, the broken kid, I was the kid who sure couldn't do anything. I was the kid who was having all this trouble until my. So what was my junior year, which became my senior year, I decided that I wasn't going to live that way anymore. And I call that turning over a new leaf. It took me several times of turning that leaf before the prep really turned, but in my in my junior year, and I became very, very organized. And I became so organized that I helped other students become organized also. And if there was a valedictorian kind of thing in my school, which there wasn't, I would have been that because they did ask me to speak at my graduation. And I went to two graduations, I went to the one my junior here, which was was, you know, I wasn't a senior yet, but I was going to college at that point. And then in my senior year, which I would put I didn't spend at school, I went to I was in college, they had they come back and speak again, also there. So that was that was a really amazing experience to realize that I could shift it all. Knowing that I don't have to live what people tell me who I am, I could decide who I choose to be. Brandon Handley 21:27 That Listen, that's a powerful story. And I think to discover that at such a young age. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's a that's a multiplayer, right there. You know, I don't think listen for myself, I don't think I started, you know, going back and looking at my stories, and started to retell them to myself in a way that was actually supportive of who I am. Right. And my life 40. Right. So what could I have done with that other 20 years? Look, I had fun during that 20 years, I'm not gonna lie. Like, what would it have been like, if I actually supported myself internally, right, with a marvelous internal scaffolding to bring to the world? Joshua Bloom 22:11 Yeah, that's the really, when I was 25, around that, that age, I learned that I didn't have to have these disabilities, the Add, and the dyslexia. I remember I was in a class, because remember, I took all these classes and stuff. I was in a class, and one of the students questioned me having a disability at all. And I was I was like, you know, so trying to prove it? No, no, you don't understand, you know, I had all this trouble. And I'm Brandon Handley 22:49 arguing for your limitations, right? Yeah. Joshua Bloom 22:51 I'm fighting for this, you know, it's really fighting for it. And as I was fighting for it, she was looking at me and says, You thing, but what have you been able to do, that other people can't do. And so I started to list them. I learned how to ski in two weeks and became an instructor, I taught myself how to play the keyboard, and I created albums for kids and, and adults and played my own music and, and produce my own music and did all this without any training at all. And then there are several other things that I've done, including creating quantum energy transformation and, and other things like this. And so she's she opened up the door there for me to look at myself, and to say, well, that doesn't sound like a learning disability. Sounds like more of an ability. And it just depends on how you choose to look at it. And she changed my life. And I realized in that moment, that I was going to do the same thing for other people that I was going to help them change their life. And using quantum energy transformation, I was able to shift all of this, I no longer experience migraine headaches, which I used to have, I don't have anxiety like I did before, I don't have the Deficit Disorder, or the or the dyslexia. So all of that's gone. And the power of that is we do get to choose who we who we get today. Brandon Handley 24:15 So let's talk about the power of choice, right? Like a lot of people think that that's like a dinner thing, right? Like, Oh, I get steak and potatoes, you get chicken, that's the choice I make in life. That's, you know, I choose to do this thing in life. Like, you know, recognizing a conscious choice, right? Let's talk just to talk a little bit about the power of choice and somebody's life and, and what you mean by that. Joshua Bloom 24:40 So when we think about choice, it's what we choose to do. However, the way that I like to look at choices at the identity level, who do I choose to be? So it's a little bit different. So I can choose choices like you were saying like a menu, or I can choose was to become someone greater than I am today. And how that looks, you know, when we look at you look at quantum quantum as the science of possibility. So when we look at the possibility of who I choose to be, can can look many different ways. You know, even in my experience of helping people today, I evolve all the time I evolve every day, from day to day, I am no longer the identity I was the day before I shift consciously and unconsciously, to become more and more of who, who I am. And I'm very authentic with my, with my students and with my clients, and I share, you know, all my stories where I fell on my face several times, and, and also how I overcame falling on my face several times as well, you know, the power of choice is really about who you choose to become. And when we take that into the quantum field, it really becomes amplified. So we tend to look at who we don't like that we are. Sure, we tend to look at that. And then whatever you focus on is what you get. So if you keep looking at yourself, and you keep looking and seeing that you don't like what you see or don't like what you feel or don't like what's going on in your life, and you feel stuck? Well, that's because our focus is hyper focused on being stuck. So in the quantum field, what we do is we get into the body, and we feel that stuck, we release that stuck, and then we focus, and we focus on a new possibility. Who else could I be instead of this anxious person that I used to be with attention deficit disorder, with anxiety and so forth? Right? Sure. Brandon Handley 26:51 Yeah. Let's, I think people might get tripped up on, you know, being greater than I am today. Right, the word greater seems to trigger people for greatness, right? What do you know who, you know, who might be great, right? Joshua Bloom 27:07 Huh? Yeah, I can do that be triggering. Brandon Handley 27:11 So, you know, what do you mean by like, you know, be greater than I am today. And I, you know, I think I was stressed too, like, when we think of the quantum field, anything is possible. And that's actually been shown, you know, scientifically, right, you know, you the possibilities, all the possibilities exist at once. Yeah, which one? Do you choose? To call forth? Kind of thing? Yeah, exactly. Right. You know, what are some of like, again, like, what is a first day student gonna learn from you? Joshua Bloom 27:50 A first day student is going to learn how to reconnect with themselves, how to get into their body, and how to stay there. Because we have habits of whoever we are at that moment. So most of us are in our head. And we're thinking, we're overthinking we're hyper focusing on the wrong things all the time. And then we get stuck in those patterns. And then someone comes along and says, Hey, you know, you shouldn't do that. And it's like, yeah, but I've been doing it for like, for so many years. And how do you stop doing that? Brandon Handley 28:23 I'm really good at this. Joshua Bloom 28:26 Exactly. So how we stop our habits, and the things that plague us, is by reconnecting with ourselves, and moving the energy at the cellular level of the body to create a quantum shift, that now no longer includes that as being me. And now I can choose something else. But we have to connect to ourselves to do that. We tend to connect to, to, like, the universe, but we tend to be like out of body looking outside of us to find the answers. The answers aren't outside of us, even though we're that's where we're looking. We have to look inside. So when you ask me, you know, what is the person going to learn, like in a first session, they're going to really learn that anything is possible, because we're going to have a release in that very first time that we meet, and you're going to experience because until you experience it is different than talking about it right. Once you experience it, you're like, oh, that's what he's talking about, that I could actually let that crap go. And I don't have to live like this anymore. Yeah, you can let it go. And yes, it is. It can be difficult for some people to do that. But when I work with you, is it there's a difference because I hold that energy, I hold that possibility for you when you can't hold it. And that's the difference. So when I'm holding all that for you, it's easy at that point to remove these energies and create a new way of living a new way of life a new way of being. Brandon Handley 29:54 Yeah, no, that's That's powerful. Definitely appreciate that. And again, you You know, you hit the nail on the head when somebody experiences it when you experience actually saw this guy for a little bit, its energy worker, and he had the best question and he says, you know, how do you know that? Um, if you're, you know, if you're a fish, how do you know that like water is what you need? All right? Have you heard this one before? No, I have not. You take them out of the water. Right? You know, because you're in it all the time. And it's not until you're separated from what you're, you've always been a part of that you, you know, you recognize that this is where you're supposed to be. Right? So you get back into the water, you're like, oh, shit, that's what I needed my entire all this time. So real similar to what you're talking about in that? Okay? Okay, we go back to that. This is how I've always been, these are my these are all my patterns, this is my life pattern is never going to change. I'm going to be anxious and all the rest for the rest of my life. You could never possibly help me. Right? You help them? And then they see just for a moment that they've been living out of the water. Right? Yeah, I should have been, I'm supposed to go back in the water. That's a reconnection to yourself feel like? Right. I'm where I'm supposed to be. And it was always available. Right? So how does it you know, how does that I think I'd even jump back a little bit to, you know, it's really tough, I think for you have to be open to the possibility in order for the shift to happen, or am I wrong? Right? Have you met somebody who's like, not open to it, and it works. Joshua Bloom 31:43 So I think there's a distinction that's really important here, which is, most people believe that you must believe in order for it to work. And I don't buy into that, that game, you do not need to believe that it will work for it to work. Actually, most people who I work with, including myself, never really believed in the first place, that it was gonna work. We hope we're hopeful. We just want it to work. But do we believe it's gonna work? No, we really don't, we don't believe anything's gonna work, really. And so you don't need to believe what's really key, though, is to be open to the possibility that this could work. You don't have to believe that it will work, but just be open to the possibility. So those people that are not open, and there are those people that are not open? Yeah, they're going to have a more difficult time, because they're not even open to considering the possibility. So then, in a sense, they're collapsing their possibilities before we even get started. So some people need some hand holding beforehand, they need need to work with them, just to get them ready. Whenever we're not even talking about making the change yet, we're talking about, let's just prepare to make the change shirt, you can just consider the possibility of being open to it. And many people who take that road with me, we we really have an amazing transformation, because they started out closed, and they end up open and moving in a direction that they never even thought they could do it themselves. Brandon Handley 33:10 Yeah. Yeah. I mean, going from I think, again, just using your own story, being this guy, you know, tied up with anxiety to where you are today. Right? I mean, I think that too, a lot of times people just they again, they look at where they're at, and they feel like that's forever. Right? Yes, true. One thing that I think is a challenge in this space is maintaining that high frequency that high vibrations, that continuous connection, you know, how do you assist people to do that? Joshua Bloom 33:45 Oh, that is a really great question. So I've been working with people for many years on how to raise your energy frequency, and that we have many different ways of doing this. You know, raising your energy frequency can be as simple as taking a shower, going for a walk barefoot, can be using tuning forks, singing bowls, toning things, things can do it. The biggest problem with this, though, is that it works like a bell curve does. So it starts at the bottom you, you let's say we use singing bowls, and the singing bowls bring you to a point where you hit a peak and now you're at the top and it's like, well, I feel really great. And then you start playing the singing bowl. Well, then that doesn't really work very well, because then it starts to go down and down and down and down and down. And then now your energy frequency has plummeted. It a really great example for that as Yoga people go into yoga for an hour and a half, and they really enjoy it and they're feeling really good. And then they stopped doing yoga and of course, same thing happens. It goes up in the peaks and then all of a sudden, you know, half an hour an hour later. You're like I wish I could do yoga again. Well, I don't have the patience for that to be honest with you. You know I and I've done yoga plenty of times, I, you know, whenever, whatever I need to do, I did. And so, you know, doing something like yoga is really great. But if you're just gonna go up and come right back down, that's not really useful. And it takes too long if I got to do 45 minutes to an hour and a half of that, just to be able to feel okay, which one time in my life, that was how it was, it's kind of it gets a rough game, because you're, you're feeling better only during the time, you're really in the yoga. And then after you get out all the anxiety comes back in. So that was a real rough game. For me. Today, what we do is we, we have very fast and very powerful energy transformations that we create by by releasing in the moment, and by raising our energy frequency. And so when we do that, we actually can raise our energy frequency to very, very high level that that instead of it going down, like I was saying the bell curve, you actually keep a good percentage of that. And now that becomes more your new energy level that you've that you've raised up to. And now we have something even even more amazing is that I've created a pendant that I use. Now, that helps us get there. And it helps us stay there and maintain high frequencies of well over 1000 hertz, which is, which is amazing to be able to get get up there. So when you're using, you know, love is like 500 hertz. So 1000 hertz is well beyond the love energy. And we in my classes, we're going up to 10,000, and energy frequency and higher. It's amazing what we can do. And we have tools that actually work to do that. And then today's class that I was in, I was just in the class before coming on to this interview. And in today's class, we were like really going, we weren't even trying to raise our energy frequency. But all of us together in the group were just raising and raising and raising and raising and we're like sitting in this energy thing. Wow, isn't this cool? That's great to be able to connect at this level. Brandon Handley 37:05 Joshua, you've made an energy battery. I mean, what is it? Right? I mean, it's basically right, you're like, Hey, we gotta recharge this thing. So we can just take it on the road with us? You know, I think that that's just been a little tongue in cheek, but it sounds right. Like you've created something that can store the energy frequency that you create, that you can take with you right and have exactly that. How is the frequency being measured? Like you know, it, I think it's one thing to talk about, and there's people that are gonna be like, Well, that sounds like some hippie shit, Joshua, I'm going to need to see like, at least a thermometer for some death. Right? Joshua Bloom 37:48 Yeah. So we do test for the energy frequency in the class, we use energy testing to be able to see what level we've actually reached in and using our intuition. That's our, that's how I do it. Other people may use other tools and stuff. But I find that intuition brought me to where I am today. And intuition can also calibrate and be able to tell you exactly where you are. So I can tell when a student gets to a certain level of energy frequency, and whether they maintain it or not, I can tell them exactly where they are at any point in time. That's, I guess, a gift that I have. So the power of that is that I can when I work with people, I can let them know where they are, and where they need to get to. And I can help them with the pendant and, you know, also using the pendant in certain ways to create permanent energy frequency so that you're not living at multiple limit, like to 250 energy frequency. Brandon Handley 38:43 Are you referring to like the Hawkins scale? Joshua Bloom 38:46 Yeah, I don't use that scale, particularly. Yeah, no, I'm just I'm just trying to know the scale you're talking about. It only goes up to 1000. But yeah, which is telling me that energy frequencies can go up to 55,000 and higher. And I don't understand the difference in the scale, but according to my intuition, that's there. It's much greater than 1000. Brandon Handley 39:08 Yeah, I forget. I'm not really math dropped out. Right. Quite literally. You said it's like a logarithmic scale, which I think is actually in tune with what's you're saying? Right? So if you were to say, all right, 1000 is actually your or 55,000? I think, and again, I don't I don't math very well, so I'm okay with that. But, um, when you say that most people are living at like 250 and 200. Yes. I would agree with you based off of his scale. Right, exactly. So that's awesome. Joshua Bloom 39:41 To be honest, I mean, I live there to for many, many, many, many, many years. And so that my students, but that's the fear. That's the fear that's right down there. It doesn't, but the moment and 200 200 Brandon Handley 39:52 is the tipping point, right? 200 And again, using his scale, just as a topic of conversation is Like 200 is where courage is. And once you start to take courage and step into your greatness, you start to realize you're not alone. You're working with the quantum field, you're working in the space. It's like, all powerful, always available, never off. Right? What's what is possible? Right? So speaking of what's possible, like, where should we where would somebody direct? You know, where would we direct somebody who wants to get to know more about who would read a book, go to your site? What's the first thing? Somebody listen to this podcast? What's their next step? Well, the Joshua Bloom 40:34 best thing to do is to go to Bing, quantum.com Bing, quantum.com. And when you go there, you'll be able to discover more about what I do, and, and so forth. But I also have a free gift to give you. And I believe that's at iqet.com forward slash Brandon, Brandon Handley 40:57 nice. People have gifts, man, people Yeah, like stuff. Yeah. What are they gonna find there? Is it a surprise? Or can we give a little little information on what they might find there? Joshua Bloom 41:07 Yeah, so it's on manifestation. And it's actually includes Dr. Bruce Lipton talks on it, I speak on it, Donna Eaton does and other other well known people do as well. And we're all talking about health, and manifestation together and how you can manifest your best health through all of what we're saying, and all of what we're offering. And we're all saying the same thing. But we come from different experiences of, of the quantum right. So everybody has a different perspective. And everybody gets to the right. So it's amazing what you can what you learn from, from moving forward. When we think about the idea of manifestation, we tend to think about doing things, this is a different than that. This is allowing it to fall in your lap, like I was talking about before, where you're in alignment, and everything's just happening, manifestation can be that way for you, too. And so when you get this gift, it will really help you understand them. That's Brandon Handley 42:05 awesome. Because like, like you, you'd mentioned on on a couple of your pages that there's a lot of stuff out there. That's BS, right? It's a lot of stuff out there that causes more struggle. And what you're offering helps to remove that struggle and shows you how you can be in alignment with this quantum field, and work with less effort. Joshua Bloom 42:28 Absolutely, everything I do is simple. And I think that's really important. You know, I've been in places where I didn't have any energy to do anything more than I could just just to get through the day. And so I needed to create something that was very simple that anybody can do. Even if you're exhausted and have exhausted all of your energy, you still can do what I when I teach, it's very easy and very, very powerful. Brandon Handley 42:51 I love that. Joshua, I do a little thing here, right? Where I look at this as kind of like, spiritual speed dating, right? So I'm gonna ask a couple questions that come from like, I need new questions. These are like the 20 questions for every spiritual seeker. I'm just gonna pick a couple out of here. Didn't any better questions are still refer to the list? So you good for that? Sure. All right. All right. Dears, spiritual. Bachelor number one, what are we also afraid of? Joshua Bloom 43:30 Well, I think we're afraid of ourselves. And we're afraid of being so powerful. I think that in and I'm sure that was for me as well. You know, we want to be amazing. But we've been squished down like a bug by so many people from such a small child, all the way until we as whoever however we are, however old we are today. And we try to you know, come out of that. But we have so many rules and so many things that say we can't be great. We can't be awesome. We can't be amazing. We're not allowed to do those things. And so I say, although that we're being we're scared to jump out and be amazing that I dare you to do it anyway. Brandon Handley 44:15 Sure. That's great. You're You're right, right. What would happen if I were amazing? Joshua Bloom 44:20 Yeah, what would happen I wonder what would happen Brandon Handley 44:24 to to do? Do your spiritual Bachelor Number one, what is your one wish for the world? Joshua Bloom 44:33 Oh, wow. I wish that everybody would love each other. You know, there's so much hate and there's so much politics and upset and all sorts of things that really make us crazy. I mean, TV is, you know, we watch the news. I don't even watch the news. It's just so so negatively energetic in a sense. So you know, I just would love everybody Love each other, we all are one, we are all we all are together, we're all in this boat together, so to speak, regardless of where we live or who we are. And we should just love each other. Perfect now, thank Brandon Handley 45:11 you for that. What, um, anything that we didn't hit on today that you wanted to share with the group? Joshua Bloom 45:16 Well, we hit on it before, which was, anything is possible. And I know that you don't, or may not believe that anything is possible. If you're listening to this, you know, I didn't necessarily believe that either. So instead of believing it, allow yourself to consider the possibility that anything could be possible. And if it was possible, who would you be, then? What would you create? Where would you go? What would you do? What would be possible for you, if you just considered the possibility that anything was possible? Brandon Handley 45:48 Outside of Bruce Lipton, who would you say? Were some of the biggest influences on the work that you do? Joshua Bloom 45:57 Oh, wow. Donna Eaton, I think was a huge influence for me. Because he taught me that energy moves in different ways, and that you can direct it in certain ways, doing certain things. So that brought me to many understandings of how can that work in a quantum field? You know, if I were to take that understanding that I can move energy, you know, she stuck it, she looks at it, from, you know, sort of that will recall that, I guess, that's that, that I guess Chinese medicine kind of point of view. And, and not only that, but generally that, generally speaking, that area, and I was taking that and sticking that into a Quantum Experience a quantum box? And in that box, what would be different? How could we do it? So it's very interesting. You know, it helped me develop a lot of quantum energy transformation differently. Because it let me see things from a different point of view that she was sharing. I thought that was really cool. Brandon Handley 47:03 Awesome. Now, thanks for sharing that. So it's always interesting to hear, you know, who helped you to get to where you are today. Right. And I think we've all got, you mentioned, you know, most of us are saying similar things. Everybody gets to be right. It just reminded me of like, you know, I don't think it's funny to even think about a radio station anymore. But like the FM dial, right, like you could, you could pick anything along that and like that, that could be your station, right? So I want to say thanks for being on here today had a blast. I'm sure we probably could have gone on and on and on. But we only get so much time to do this. So thanks again for being on. One more time with the website. Joshua Bloom 47:44 Yes, being quantum.com Brandon Handley 47:47 Joshua, thank you. Thank you so much. I Intro Guy 47:49 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dough podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual dough, and Instagram and spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to your zone and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Welcome to the show, I'm excited to introduce Dave Florence, the man who was driven by a bang to the head to search for better psychological and physiological health. After years of research and practice, much of which was chronicled on his YouTube channel, 'Evolution of Dave', he has created practices and protocols that have improved his mind and body and those of his clients. He is here to talk about how you can add these same methods to your daily life for more energy, a clearer and more efficient mind, a stronger body and a life experience that is in flow. Connect with Dave here: https://www.daveflorence.com/     Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited to this thought process? Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the questions you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another shade of spiritual dub with your host, Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 One, there's spiritual stuff. We this is the first podcast I've recorded in the New Year. Welcome. I'm not sure when it's gonna be out there. But David and I have been trying to connect here for a bit now had to push off a little bit in December. But I've got David Florence, who I found through YouTubing and looking for 20 minute breathwork sessions, because that's all I wanted. That's all I could really tolerate in my daily day, day to day. Turns out David, you know, had some great sessions. I listened to him today, like, so it's been like six months, David, I've been listening to your stuff. So thank you for putting it out there. And he's also a Soma breath practitioner Wim Hof breath practitioner. Evolution of Dave is is your YouTube channel. And you know, you've got some really great content that's so helpful, practical, applicable to us in our current state of the world. So thanks for being on David. Hey, there's spiritual dope. Today, we change the format here just a little bit. Dave, and I got done with our conversation and some other stuff came up. And I was like, You know what, this, let's just go ahead and put this in the beginning. So it really gives you an introduction of who Dave was. Before he is who he is today, super pertinent to the listener, super pertinent to me, him the journey. And to anyone in this space, take a listen, weave it in, and then we'll jump into the regular beginnings. Right, you're saying Did you drink where you were pretty heavy drinker before doing all this stuff? And that world upside down? Vaca Dave? So you found so let me let me just I want to read this in there somewhere. So vaca Dave, and again, it's the similarities are so striking. And because when we say I used to live in a really nice neighborhood, and we owe them a nice neighborhood now, but like where I used to live, you know, nice community, we all hung out with each other all the time, we all drank and partied with each other all the time. And I used to make my own beer and my own wine, whatever. And nine times out of 10, you would see me with a beer in my hand. Right? It didn't really matter what kind of time it was or whatever. And it was. I had a water in my hand one morning, Saturday morning, neighbors like, what are you doing? Are you drinking water? I was like, Yeah, drink of water. And I was like that that was a point for me where I was like, I don't want to be known as the dad that's drinking beer all the time. Yes. You know. Right, as like, that's not that's not not what I'm about, like, so what needs to change here again. So, again, so let's just, I want to rewind a little bit there. So tell me a little bit date about bought vaca? Dave? Dave Florence 3:40 Hmm, what could Dave if I talk about him in the third person? Because that's how people would talk about actually so especially when I was living in London, people would, let's say there was a party, or some kind of event people would come up to me and say is vodka Dave coming? I go, Yeah, of course. And this is this is the thing, you know, I think people considered me boring unless I wasn't. So unless I was vodka, Dave. And I had attached that appreciation to my own psychology to a point where if it was a party or some kind of event, I could only be vodka, Dave because that was the mask that I needed in order to feel comfortable. Now luckily by today was a very fun character. He was always happy never got into any negative trouble only positive trouble. So you know, Brandon Handley 4:44 there is a certain describe positive trouble to me, Dave. Dave Florence 4:47 Well, there is a certain posh club in London that did have a very large chandelier hanging And they probably have a replacement chandelier. But at one point I was swinging from it. So it definitely was not at what you wouldn't do that anywhere anyway, let's face it, but yeah, that was my do. Yes. Yes. Yes. So yeah, I think cycle. Brandon Handley 5:25 Do you know the bank that I had? Was this a vaca? Dave incident? Dave Florence 5:31 Yes, I think it was if I know it was, but I don't know how it happened. I don't know if I was beaten up. I don't know if I fell down some steps. I have no idea. And if that five hours the night are totally lost to me. I don't know what happened during that period. Brandon Handley 5:47 Yeah, well, it again, just goes to show I think how you know, you hit on spirituality, you hit on like, you know, who we are now. Right? You and I, who we are now isn't who we've always been. There is a pathway there that not everybody wants to take. Right? You don't have to take you know, Baca days route, you don't have to take, you know, you know, Brandon, you know, drinking beer all the time route. There's a path to to this space without having to go there. But a lot of times we've been that person, we've gone through that space. And we come out we're like, and we're here now. Yes, we're very evangelical about breath, work, exercise, read, learn all you can ah, but at one point, we were gargling, you know, in the morning with Vaca, or Jim Beam or something else. And so I put that out there. Because if vaca Dave can do it, if I can do it. And I'm not saying you have to go out and stop drinking or stop from continuing doing what you're doing. But just know that that's not the end product. Right? That? Yeah, that's right. Dave Florence 7:05 I know. And also, I think, you know, there's a reason why you're doing it, you're doing it because you're unhappy with who you are. You're not You're not you haven't accepted who you are, and you're willing to present who you are to other people, there's something that needs fixing. So if you can be a drunk, and be totally happy with who you are, then maybe that's your journey, maybe that's your path. Most of the time we do this, because we don't want to be the other person. Because the other person is either too boring, or maybe hasn't got anything to say isn't fun. So yeah, that's all it really, isn't it? I think it just comes down to who do I want to be? And am I happy with this person? Do I know who this person is? Because that's what the work does. That's what the pressure. Thank you. I appreciate being here. I'm very grateful. Thank you. And thanks for your kind words. Brandon Handley 7:56 For sure, and the other the other piece I'll share with everybody before we get on David also has a Scott, a space on Facebook's got a 90 day YouTube challenge that I took and went through 90 days, I think that they've suggested that they be consecutive mine, we're not all the same. It was a great space and a great experience to be in there with Dave, as he, you know, encouraged me and many others along through the 90 Day Challenge. So David, I'd also like to thank you for that while we're here. Dave Florence 8:29 No problem. It's an interesting experience, isn't it? So for those listening? Yeah, it's I think it's actually good for anybody to do the whole idea, the premise of it was to see if we can get more people interested in putting their work out there breath work out on YouTube. But when you think about the practice itself, of committing to uploading and creating, or going live in a video every day for 90 days, the commitment itself is the crucial bit that has a knock on effect with your psychology in that you, you start to develop the real authentic, you're in front of the camera. And this is what I learned when I did the same exercise that went in front of a camera I think we all have a tendency of wearing the mask, you know, the actors masks the presenters mask. And by committing to doing this video every day, you eventually become the real authentic genuine you. But I think also what people's some people find with doing this. This exercise is yes, they start to hopefully create ideas for their content. But sometimes also people start to get a better understanding of themselves. Because once you get to a point where you no longer care, what you say, and what you look like. Often then The spilling out in this stream of consciousness flow of rambling chit chat is that you start to reveal to yourself some of the inner work, you know, you start rambling away and then it veers off in in a direction because you don't care anymore. You're not thinking about the listener and whether they find you interesting you do, you're just flowing with it. And so I think that's great. If you are creating a YouTube channel, but it's great, I think, from a psychological perspective as well, I think it can be, you know, a sort of a healing tool, if you want it to be. Brandon Handley 10:37 Sure, sure. And I love it. Everything that you're saying there resonates with me, I think one of the things that I think of when you're saying that is Bob Proctor has rip Bob Proctor. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. But um, you know, he had this exercise, that he would say, hey, the, the problems that I have right now, I like to get them all out of my head and onto this piece of paper. Right? And so he would say, all right, are all my problems in my head? Or are they on this piece of paper? And he would, he would do this exercise until all of his problems are on like this piece of paper he gotten everything kind of dumped out in there. And and I think that I think that's that's really similar process with this, right? Like, here's, here's how I want to communicate, here's what I want to say. You've been on you. Listen to me ramble plenty of times people on this podcast have listened to me ramble plenty of times, you've got Dave Florence 11:27 beautiful rambling. Brandon Handley 11:31 I appreciate it. I appreciate it. But you find that like, there's this other tangent, like, Oh, but wait, there's just one more piece that will help make this whole. And similar to kind of what you're saying there. Right? You, you get this opportunity to to let things out that have been contained for so long. And you're like, wow, hold on a second. Not only that sounds good. Wait, did they hear what I got to say next, right, or, here's, here's who I actually am. And it's all it's all unfolding right here. So again, appreciate you creating that space and making that a possibility had had a blast. I literally just finished it at the end of the new year, as promised. So, David, let's just jump into it a little bit, right. You've got a breathwork practice. You've been doing it for quite some time. I've got a breathwork practice. I'm fairly new to it. You've got some stories I'd love to dig into. Let me just ask you. Where did you first find breathwork for yourself? And you know, what made it something that you wanted to know more about? Hmm. Dave Florence 12:35 So I had a dramatic entrance into the breathwork world. In the in 2017, I had a bang to the head. It was quite literally a bang, you know, literal Bang to the head. During a drunken night out, I lost about five hours in the night I was found by the side of the road taken hospital. It wasn't that bad, but it was enough of a bang. The next day, I wanted to do something to optimize my mind and my body. I had this, this thought of hang on a minute. I'm a father of a young child, I'm a husband, this is not how one acts, you know, and it was I was berating myself and I you know if I often say to people, you know, if I was a Catholic back in the, you know, in the Middle Ages, I would be there with my flail whipping myself, you know, it was that kind of psychology I wanted. And luckily at the time, although he wasn't that popular at the time, Wim Hof was putting out videos on cold therapy, and I thought, that's what I need. It was December it was minus 10 outside. So I went in the garden, grabbed the garden hose, poured cold water over me, was naked as well. And that's exactly what I needed. And I'm sure my neighbors did do for amusement. So, along with the cold therapy, obviously with the Wim Hof Method, they do promote breathwork and that's when I got into it. So late 2017 After two months of doing the Wim Hof Method breathwork I was hooked. So hooked, I was going through the highs that you all go through when you start doing this practice with commitment and discipline. And I was screaming from the rooftops I was telling all my friends about it. None of them would listen, obviously, I was being very evangelical. And that's when I created my YouTube channel because I wanted to tell people I was you know, I was in such a great state. I think everybody should do this is amazing. So that's when I created evolution of Dave because I saw this as being a catalyst to change. You know, I saw this as being this is me putting a stake in the ground. And I'm now going to optimize my mind and my body. Initially it was with breathwork and then a whole load of practices after that, but that was really my entrance into breathwork you know, this thing that I'm now able to look back and think that happened for a reason. You know, that was one of life's messages I needed that in order to be this. So I'm grateful for it now. Brandon Handley 15:06 I get it real similar kind of line in the sand I guess, in terms of enemas timeline of stepping into these practices myself similar, I did not fall down with a bang that ahead, but I drank enough. And I was like, Is this really? Is this really who I want my children to see? Is this really the like, I've got two boys I was like, and if they are going to use me as their model, that is just a model that I should have in front of them. And it was it was really around 2017 It's funny. But I said, you know, what? Time, you know, how can I? What changes do I want to make so that I can be a better model? If not, you know, I'm not the best. Right? But how can I be a better model offer for my children? And that was a starting point for me. So let's talk about the highs that you mentioned. What do you mean by that? Like, you know, the highs from breathwork? Or some of the other stuff? Dave Florence 16:11 Yeah, so akin to the kind of highs I would have experienced when I was a raver back in the day, you know, we're talking early 90s. You know, I would, I would do all the things without putting it into words, I would do all the things that you did when you would spend 20 hours dancing. Brandon Handley 16:37 I'm super familiar. Dave Florence 16:40 There's a lot of us out there. And so whilst they weren't necessarily the same intensity, some of the highs that I was getting, were this very elated feeling. Sort of, you know, when I was saying, you know, shouting from the rooftops, that's what I felt like doing, you know, I wanted to get outside the front of the house and go, everybody, you should do this amazing, you know, I was in that state, I didn't care what percent. But also, obviously, when I've started to push the rounds into four or five round territory by then I was doing so my breath, which I preferred, because I, you know, it was the music, the isochronic tones that enhance that experience. And I love the music because of course, that still took me back to the days of raving as well. Not that it's all like that, but you know what I mean? Some of it is with a very specific rhythm. And when you start doing the four or five rounds, you do then get these out of altered state experiences. So, you know, as you describe it like a high that that is quite a good descriptive, I suppose to that experience. You know, you're left afterwards going okay, yeah, you know, you're in a beautiful floaty state, you've had some visions, or at least visuals, albeit light, you know, during the sort of fourth and fifth round maybe. And you've you come out of it almost as if you've just been given some insight sometimes as well. Not always. But you know, sometimes you think Ah, okay, yeah, I figured something out, I think. So. Brandon Handley 18:20 You've got you've got you've got a really nice you've, I forget which one of your summer breath works that you do. But you talk about, you know, whatever is coming to you, in this moment, use this for today, what do you want this day to look like? And, you know, there are visualizations that come through, or a lot of people like to call them downloads, but these insights that they kind of come when we've been so we've been putting so much effort into life, right? And then when we sit down and we do these breathwork moments, or these breathwork, meditations, and then something comes to us, and it's so easy and effortless for like, like you said, it's like, why isn't everybody doing this? Why aren't we all talking about it? I share this breathwork with a group of guys at a sober house. i One of the things I talk to them about is say, say well imagine, you know, like you talked about going to the party doing the rave all night dance for 2020 hours or whatever. Imagine you kind of get a super similar feeling to that. But then you can get back up and go back to work. Right? Yeah. For four to eight hours, right? Like, you know, so. So I always make that joke with those guys. And like you said, these altered states of experiences. When we talk about that, and you and I've been in this rave scene, I always liken it to like, yeah, it's an altered state, but some was better, right? Because it's hyper clean. We just created it within ourselves. We are Chemical Dave Florence 20:00 factory unit pharmacy. Yeah. Brandon Handley 20:04 Yeah. And so being able to be able to do that and kind of come out of it. It's amazing. I love being able to do it, when the How are you using this to, you know, optimize your own life? What are some of the what are some of the benefits that you've received after you found it? Dave Florence 20:22 Well, interestingly, I would say three months in, of doing this kind of intense breath work every day, I realized I was beginning to develop this insatiable appetite for learning. And also, it felt like my memory had improved. At the time, I thought that was something to do with the bank to the head, you know, I genuinely thought I've had one of those, I think they call them the sort of idiot several moments where, you know, you have a bang to the head, and all of a sudden, you become this incredible artists. So I was thinking, Oh, maybe that's what's happened, something's been knocked in my right hemisphere. You know, the creative bit. But then after obviously doing more research, and that's what my journey has been about since 2017. It's you know, it's it's learning practices research, playing with it, that's crucial, from my perspective, is what I teach others, you know, it's really play with this stuff, explore experiment, and then you won't ever give up. And what I was discovering was that I was, not only did I have this insatiable appetite for learning, so I was, you know, getting book after book, but I had a capacity for remembering it as well. And this was never, I hadn't experienced this before. And then when I looked at the research, that there's various bits of research that indicate that things like spatial memory improves through doing this kind of breathwork. So I realized, okay, right, so it's down to the breath work. And that's why the breath work has been as just run like a clean vein, day after day for the last five and a bit years. Because I've always known the power of it. And then obviously, when you start exploring lots of other forms of breathwork, you realize that you can get a breath work for creating energy, you can use breath work for preparing your mind for a presentation, you can use breath work to calm the nervous system, you know, there's a whole load of different practices that you can learn that a really good for different kinds of situations. So not only did I get that sort of cognitive benefit, but then I realized I could add these into my, my imaginary toolbox. So I've got this box of tricks that I can actually return to, under given situations. But all of that, I have to say, when I'm teaching people on a one to one, quite often, what I'm saying to them is, it's all very well me teaching you this stuff. But you've got to retain it, you've got to remember it. And I think the problem that we find now in today's society is that we are awash with potential practices and ideas and methods that could optimize us that could heal us. And we pick up a book and we read it, we go, wow, that was amazing. I'm going to use that technique. And we do so for a month, and then we forget it because we've picked up another one. And we see the next shiny object. The crucial thing is when you realize and recognize that breathwork is so powerful, you got to say to yourself, right? How do I therefore make that a part of who I am? So not that I see it like a chore. In other words, I should do this, I must do this, you know that kind of psychology before then doing the breath work, you've got to figure out how do I make this a part of who I am, and how I flow through life. And that's what I realized early on that I've got to find ways of making this stuff stick. Because I want to keep this the intention was this is now me, and this is how I flow and move through life with these techniques. So I think a lot of people listening will have tried breathwork. But I would imagine there'll be lots that have probably stopped. And this this conversation will go Oh, yeah, I forgot I was doing that. Brandon Handley 24:09 Oh, sure. Sure. And I love what you're saying there too, right? We, you get to the certain point. I never, I never got to a point myself where my memory got suit a lot better. But I got to this point where people are breathwork is this insatiable desire to like learn and pull in. Pull in an amazing amount of content, right? And then one shiny object to another Oh, this will make me amazing. I'll go do this. This will make me amazing. I'll go do that. This is an you know. So that is a real challenge. How were you know, how have you been able to implement it like you're saying as a part of who you are integrated into the whole of who you are, and maintain it, like stick with it? Dave Florence 24:53 Yeah. So apologies for dying in the background. Now. I've got I've got your room. I've got a little tickle on my throat earlier today. So I decided to make myself a warm drink with honey, organic thyme, and lemon. But the cup is full of thyme seeds, and I think they went away. So anyway, they'll save you or kill you. Exactly, exactly. So how do I make this stick? Well, let me tell you what I teach others. First of all, it is this whole, looking at the intention behind it asking yourself, Why am I doing this? You know, am I doing it because it's the latest fad Am I doing it because somebody else has suggested it, am I doing it because all I just tried that experience has given me a really good high. Because if those are the reasons, you've got to look at your intention behind it, that you hear so many stories of people doing the Wim Hof Method or Soma breath three months in, they give up because their neurochemical changes have altered, their body has adapted, and they're not getting the same highs as they were before. And so therefore they give up. And of course, that tells me that their only reason for doing it was because of the highs because of these amazing feelings, when really you should look at the intention deeper. And look at the spiritual benefits the inner work that you can get from doing this practice. So when you that will be tip number one, look at breathwork as a means of developing a better understanding of yourself of knowing that these practices will have a huge physiological benefit, you know, improving your immunity, improving your circulatory system, improving your your ability to sense others and sense things. Your ability to to tap into a meditative state without meditating. You know, there's, there's so many benefits. So you need to tune into that and understand those. So that when you're doing it, you know that this any at no point? Does it feel like a chore? You know? Because again, if you start to say these words to yourself, have you've just woken up, I should do this, I ought to do this. Well, that's the wrong terminology. That's the wrong language. And that will lead you to giving up because already, you said yourself. I'm doing this for other reasons, not because it resonates not because it feels good. And then the other thing is Brandon Handley 27:31 my wake up. I wake up in the morning, and I find myself saying, oh, I should do this, I should do that. What should I be saying myself instead? Dave Florence 27:41 Well, this is where you need to, first of all understand why you're doing it. So understand the intention. And this is this is the thing you need to look at, first of all, because that's the key to have the language that you use. So Brandon Handley 28:02 what like what would be an example, then it's I guess, if my intention for the breath work is to become better in sports? What language would I use? And Dave Florence 28:13 yeah, so Well, let me tell you the language that I use. So when I wake up in the morning, I say to myself, I intend to move, breathe, flow through this day, using all the tools that I have that make me feel good or something along those lines, you know. So I know instinctively through the practice, that there are many benefits to why I do the breathwork physiological and psychological. So therefore, I at no point do I say I should do this, I ought to do it. Because I've got to a point now where my body and mind has accepted this practice. So it's, you don't even have to use the word breathwork. When you look at your intention setting in the morning, you know, I intend to flow through this day making use of all the practices I know that will enable me to do so you know, when you look at it from that external perspective of wanting to flow, reaching flow states or wanting to flow through the day, then you already know if you've been practicing it that breathwork will be one of those tools. So we'll exercise so we'll movement flow, so we'll ritual so we'll, you know, a whole load of other things. You don't need to label them all. You just need to say to yourself, I intend to flow through this day, knowing that by the end of it, I can end the day with a smile on my face knowing that I've achieved knowing that I've done the things I want to do. So you know, don't be specific about it because your body knows. If you've already connected and resonated with the breath work, then you know that that is who you are. That's what you do. You don't think before the action that is that is just who you are. So for example, when I roll Brandon Handley 29:53 out of bed Dave Florence 29:55 I roll onto the floor and I do a very easy flowing fight. Have Tibetan rites yoga routine, it's the simplest of all yoga, easy to do, and it wakes the whole body up, there's no significant stretches for you don't want to stretch too hard in the morning when you wake up anyway. And then because you breathe through that exercise that really leads me then into the breathwork. You know, at the end of the last Tibetan rites, I'm on my back, I've been breathing through every move. So I then seamlessly move from that yoga into starting off with a four, eight breathing pattern, sometimes listening to music, sometimes I don't know, just do it, you know, without any kind of influence or stimuli, I just do it. Before I then move into the cold shower and do all the other lovely things that I do. Brandon Handley 30:49 Now. I like that. So you've got you've got a basically a mantra, you wake up an intention setting for the day, that is all inclusive of like, if you say, Hey, I intend to move and breathe and flow through the day, you've already created that your mind already says, hey, that's attached to breathwork that's attached to the shower that's attached to the yoga. And if he sees himself, you know, doing this other line, right, I intend to breathe flow. And you see yourself ending that day, that way, you've created the visualization, that system mind already in action first thing of the day. Dave Florence 31:29 Exactly. So I also used initially another hat, another tool called habit stacking, I don't know if you've come across that. Brandon Handley 31:39 That's the beginning of my journey as well. It's kind of it's very funny. That was the very beginning, trying to think of the article, because I still remember the article doesn't exist anymore. But the article talks about habit stacking. And that's when I hadn't read books and like, decades, right? Like, well, if you just read like 20 pages a day, you know, get the hat, you know, and do this and do that ain't do this habit stacking. I'll let you share a little bit more about what it is. But that was that was became my journey. Have a second share more about that. David? I haven't shared it too much on this podcast at all. Dave Florence 32:16 Yeah, I mean, it's the simplest of tools, but probably one of the most powerful for getting you to do the stuff you really want to do. So all it does is taps into a mind state in which you are in a state of acceptance. In doing that one task that you're doing at the time, and really what you're doing is you are hack hacking the mind, you might say. So let's say everybody has at least one thing they do every day without fail that they know will serve them from a health perspective. Let's say brushing your teeth, for example, everybody does it. And when they do it, they don't think before they do it, they don't think oh, I've got to brush my teeth. I mean, they might do when they're a child, and they might need prodding, but when they're a child, or when they're an adult, you just do it, don't you? You don't think before you do it, you don't think whilst you're doing it, your body and mind have totally accepted that that is a good thing to do. Because it's healthy, it's good for your oral health, etc, etc. So all you do is when you're brushing your teeth, bearing in mind that at that point, your mind is in this wonderful state of acceptance. Oh, yeah, I'm just doing it doesn't you're not even thinking about it. So all you do whilst you're brushing your teeth is you say, After I brush my teeth, I will dot dot dot whatever this thing is that you want to build into your life that you know, would be good for you. That would be healthy. So let's say for example, it might be a cold shower, it could be breathwork, depending on when you brush your teeth. And so you are making use of the brain state of this acceptance brain state. And you're being aware you're tricking it because you're, you're you're saying to yourself, oh, well, whilst I'm at it, I might as well do this. You know, you're obviously in the right state at the moment, I won't tell you that I'm trying to trick you in any way. But once you're in that state, well, let's just slip a cold shower in afterwards, or let's do some breath work. So it's almost like the brain is going yeah, cool, man, you know, whatever you say, because I'm in the state of acceptance. And then you do that a few times. And that seems dialed in. Your brain doesn't then question it after a while. So and then of course, it's called habit stacking because what you then do is you go okay, let me see if I can slip another one in after this. And so you say after I brush my teeth, and after I've had my cold shower, I will dot dot dot and you add the next thing that you want to build into your life. So simple. Yeah, Brandon Handley 34:52 I think I think that what did we add in like we weren't my wife and I weren't great at making the bed. Right? I added that and and of course, you know, the admiral, whatever his name is to make your bed story. You know, I was like, Well, if I make my bed, like one of the easiest things I can do in the day, that's a win. Like, if I just start my day by winning like that, come on now. Right? So it became a game, it became part of the habit stack. So I love that. Love that you're using that now. You were able to, throughout your practices throughout all the benefits as you're optimizing yourself and your learning and your habit stacking. I don't know exactly how you came across it, but I did hear that you were able to, and I've read plenty of it, who taiko method and others to cure your asthma. Can you share a little bit about, you know, kind of how that worked out? Dave Florence 35:53 Yeah, it was, it was really cool, actually. Because when I was a child, I had a little bit of it, I definitely had a lot of things like hay fever. I became very allergic to horses, so I had to stop riding horses. And then it kind of dissipated. And I was fine as an adult until I moved to a town or city rather called bath, which is it sits in a bowl, it's surrounded by hills. And it collects all this dirty air. And whilst out running, I began to develop this exercise induced asthma. And it was getting worse and worse. And then I was given the medication and told that you know, I'm going to have to continue using that for life etc, etc. With the breath work wet, the more I delved into the breath work. One of the the books that I read early on was called the oxygen advantage by Patrick McEwan. There's loads of good breathwork books out there now. And that is an amazing book, but it's a bit dry. For a beginner, you know, you want to read breath by James Nestor, because that's such an easy flowing read. Patrick McCune book is full of information. And in that book, he touched on boot taiko and the boot Aiko method. A Russian that had created this method of which one of its benefits is to heal or cure asthma. Now, what's wonderful in this country, and I say this with an element of sarcasm is that most GPS general practitioners, medical doctors, really still are relying on pharmaceuticals to aid anybody's health. And they don't really understand or want to understand anything that might be alternative. So through the use, and I don't know how many months it took me three or four months. Through the use of big taiko a lot of the and also the Wim Hof Method, I think is part reason for healing myself. The reason why those types of breath work work for asthma is all to do with breath holds. And it's all to do with gaining a tolerance to carbon dioxide. Which by the way, is interesting because if you develop a tolerance for higher levels of carbon dioxide that correlates with your tolerance to deal with high levels of stress. So you know, you learn you learn breathwork develop a tolerance to higher levels of carbon dioxide in the body. And you will hopefully find that you are better able to deal with stress. But anyway, the when you do certain breath work, not only are you playing with oxygen and carbon dioxide, but also nitrous oxide, nitric oxide, sorry, nitric oxide, not nitrous is not the stuff that makes you high nitric oxide, which also has this vasodilatory effect opens up the blood vessels again, making it easier for you to breathe. So these breathwork practices eventually optimize my my ability to breathe. And when I went back to the doctor and I said, Look, I don't think I need this medication anymore. And she said this is silly. And she's okay. Well, we'll run some tests. She said Mr. Florence, you're right. I don't know how you've done it. But you're right. You don't need this medication unless it can you give me a letter that says that. You did. And obviously I proudly then presented this letter. Brandon Handley 39:39 You're certified healthy. What is talk a little bit about what the blue taiko method is if somebody's not familiar with it. Like what what does that practice look like? Dave Florence 39:53 Yeah, so a lot of it is to do with breath hold as I say. You've got various different practices. such as walking and holding your nose. There's just various methods of holding your breath whilst either moving. There's also various different techniques where, in fact, they teach this with Soma breath as well, where you are deliberately clenching your nose and moving your head around. So it's overall, it's all about increasing your awareness of your breath, but also improving your ability to ventilate. And be I suppose that's probably the I mean boutique would probably give you a much better description, but I suppose that's the right way of describing it. Brandon Handley 41:01 For sure, for sure. Thanks for Thanks for sharing that. Because it's interesting, like you said, you get so excited about everything that can be done with the breath work, do you like Oh, tell me what your problems are. And we can probably cure that with breath work, we can probably get you started down the right path with some Have you tried breathwork have you. So when you get down and you get get down to it, there's not a lot of our everyday maladies that can't be improved in some way or another, by the way that we breathe. Dave Florence 41:38 Yeah, especially because you've got inhale, breath holds, and you've got exhale, breath holds. And one of the things that bootmaker breathing does is makes use of the exhale breath hold. It's not quite as intense as say, the Wim Hof Method or so McGrath, where you're doing lots of hyperventilating first, with the bootmaker method, for example. You just simply breathe normally three or four times, and then you do a relaxed exhale, and then you hold your breath. And the key to it is when you get that first urge to breathe, you then inhale through your nose. If at that first surge, you breathe through the nose, and you find it really difficult, and you have to breathe through the mouth, then you've helped you've held your breath for too longer. So you've held your breath for too long rather. So we've taken the actual method itself is quite simple. But like I said, it is all to do with breath holds. And you're right. It's interesting how you can just through the process of holding your breath, either on an inhale breath hold or an exhale, breath hold or deliberately hyperventilating, which for a lot of people sounds like it's counterintuitive, counterproductive, but actually, that can super enhance the benefits of breathwork. And you start to experience and play with levels of hypoxia reducing the oxygen in your body for brief, brief periods. And in fact, a friend of mine who I've gotten to know have not met in the real world only online. A lovely lady, I've appeared on her channel a couple of times called AJ, she's doing some research at the moment, where the breathwork the you and I know and that is Wim Hof Soma breath where you are effectively causing or deliberately experiencing hypoxic or hypoxic environment. She's doing some research to see whether the results of that could be the equivalent to doing high altitude training. So you know, most athletes will do high altitude training, as we know what what she's trying to ascertain is do they need to do that? Could they achieve the same results through learning? Hypoxia based breathwork? Brandon Handley 43:48 Yeah. What are your thoughts? What have you found so far? Dave Florence 43:52 I would say yes, I My opinion is I think she will probably discover as I think she believes already anyway, that the you can achieve the same results. Because really, when you think about it, high altitude training, you're working in a low oxygen environment. When you're practicing intermittent hypoxia, you are doing exactly the same thing. So I suspect the results will be similar. Brandon Handley 44:20 Nice, nice. So I mean, look, that'd be great if you don't have to climb a mountain that kind of training. Yeah, well, that can be which is always cool, right? Yeah, absolutely. I'm not saying you don't want to but you know, maybe you don't have the time today to go do that. So you also offer you know, corporate wellness with breath work. And you know, one on ones. What's, what's the reception been like for the corporate wellness breathwork and how are you going about approaching people and sharing it to offer use in that space? Dave Florence 44:53 Yeah, so two ways either going out there and banging on doors, which I don't like doing but you Do you have to do that, don't you? Or I've made use of other well being businesses to get me in the door. And in terms of the response breathwork has now reached a point where most people have heard of it. They don't all know what it is no, have they tried it, but most people have heard of it. And they're beginning to hear about some of the benefits. And when you think about the corporate space, both in your country and mine, it is bereft with high stress, anxiety. People are worried about their jobs, whether they're going to lose their jobs, people are worried about overworking people are experiencing burnout. I think right now, most people are open to anything that will ease the pressure of their job, and their work experience. So I had a really interesting corporate workshop not too long ago with Exxon, Exxon Mobil, and a whole load of these techies, who were lovely folk. But before the workshop, I had been told that I really need to be on my game. Because these people are going to want scientific evidence, they're going to, you know, for every bit of woowoo, fluffy stuff that I'm going to teach them, they'll, they're going to question it. So on the car journey, which took me two hours to get there, I deliberately armed, so I thought for two hours, inhale, or long exhale on sounds just did that the whole journey. By the time I got there, I was floating on air. And I knew nothing could have taken me out of that state. The good thing was, these people were nothing like that was described to me, they were totally open, and already a bit do some of these practices anywhere is amazing. And they were all from different parts of the world as well, they'd all been brought into this one group to experience this two hour workshop. So I was having them, you know, I was teaching them other stuff. And I'd teach flow, state practice, clinical hypnotherapeutic, Positive Intelligence, a whole lot of different things. And, but by the end of it, I was having them moving doing something called the Zen swing, I was having them on the floor breathing, even doing arm sounds, you know, they were doing the whole works. And they were totally open to it, and loved it. So yeah, I think the corporate space needs us, they need us to come in there. It shouldn't be too much of a sell job to get us in there. And maybe we need to just do more promotional work via YouTube, in podcasts to help get the message out there so that we don't need to bang down doors. Brandon Handley 47:48 Not for sure I get it. And that's great. It's great that you're getting that kind of response, it's good that you're reaching out and sharing that work. And in that space. Where can somebody find out more information about your like kind of one on one work, and if they were interested, and your corporate information work, and they work together, they get that Dave Florence 48:11 all on my website, Dave florence.com. So da ve florence.com. If you want to get a feel for the stuff that I do, then check out my YouTube channel. And you're going to see lots of me on there talking about a whole load of different stuff, but you'll get a feel for the stuff that I teach. But yeah, my website, Dave, Florence has everything you need. My 10 Day Program, which starts on the 23rd of January is in there. You can book one to one sessions with me, you can book my corporate stuff as well, all on that one website. Brandon Handley 48:47 We'll do as I said at the beginning here, I love the YouTube content that you've put out there, I use it myself all the time. Great that we're wouldn't lose. I had to laugh when when I saw that you were in some of the Facebook groups. I was like it was frickin Dave is here. I was like, This is awesome. This is it was it was amazing. It was pretty exciting. So that's just kind of I think how the space works as well, like you find somebody that you can relate to. You're very relatable you give very professional, but I think approachable. And I appreciate the work that you've been putting out there. Thank you for showing up today, Dave. Dave Florence 49:26 Well, thank you. Like I said at the beginning, I'm very grateful. I really appreciate it. I love the stuff you're putting out there too. So we are connected. I Intro Guy 49:36 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook spiritual though, and Instagram at spiritual underscore dope. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email there Brandon at spiritual dough.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date until next time be kind to yourself and trust your intuition Transcribed by https://otter.ai

I had the opportunity to meet with Brandon at one of his homes in Wilmington and ever since then he has been open with me (everyone) about his work and he agreed to do a quick sit down for this interview. Find out more about his work at https://brandonnovak.com/   Summary Brandon's introduction. 0:00 What it's like to not have cell phones. 1:09 Skateboarding as a drug addiction. 4:56 Praying to god to end my addiction. 9:12 Being accountable for your actions. 14:14 How to get out of your own way. 18:26 The Novak House and how it started. 23:22 The place where the misfits fit in. 27:39 Do you ever think about spiritual practice? 31:45 Dealing with death and loss. 36:25 Transcript by otter.ai   Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited in their thought process? Rest assured, you are not alone, the world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world, the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't claim to have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual Joe with your host, Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 Right now, when you come to mind, I did a series that was called like, sinners in the saints. Right? And I can't think of a better person, really that, you know, is that a sinner? Like missing the mark on life? Kind of right, you know, and that now you've turned it around and into something else. But let's share your journey. And for the people that don't do my kids don't even know what MTV is. First of all, right? Like, how mind boggling is that? Brandon Novak 1:09 Yeah, yeah, it's it's literally two different worlds, you know, their kids will, will grow up not even knowing or couldn't even imagine what it's like to not have a cell phone, right? Like we went for that. That juxtaposition from no cell phones, like nothing, you know, wireless internet, to literally anything in the blink of an eye at the touch of our fingertips. So it's this, there's quite a transition. That's crazy. But I think we're blessed to have experienced both of those worlds. Brandon Handley 1:47 Well, yeah, I love it. I love where we are, right, having had not had all this technology and stuff where we can just reach out to what we're doing right now to having it like, because we I would say we appreciate it that much more. Right? Brandon Novak 2:01 Absolutely. And you know, we have the ability to shut things off and slow things down, because we remember what it was like to not have these resources so readily available that the 1314 1618 year old kid today couldn't even fathom not living without. That's right. That's right. Well, Brandon Handley 2:24 let's uh, let's jump into it. Man, let's jump into like, I just kind of the addiction part, right, like jumping straight into there. Like, when did you kind of first get involved with any drugs? And when did you realize that you had a problem? Or when did it start taking over your life? Brandon Novak 2:48 I believe I was my story is my story. And we all have our own stories and our own journeys. And although the specifics may vary of each person's story, I think the endings remain the same. And my story is that my mother is not an addict or an alcoholic, my brother or sister who from our by a different man are not an addict or an alcoholic. But my father was an addict. His father was an addict. So I believed that I was genetically predisposed. I didn't really have much of a say so in the matter. And my story I don't think is much different than any others to be honest with you. I was groomed I was raised in the world of a fast life. My father never held a job a day in his life, he taught me one thing if and when I go to prison, how to conduct myself or the Hells Angels, he was a rather unsavory kind of fellow, he is no longer with us. He was diagnosed with a disease of addiction and and ran with it untreated for many years until, you know, I always talk to people when I say this, the issue will be addressed like the issue 100% will be addressed and either you choose to address the issue, you go to treatment, get your life back things that you have no idea that exists in life, or the issue addresses you and I get a phone call from your people saying thanks for trying to help him. But he didn't make it. And my father's issue was addressed, but not on his terms. And he's dead and he's no longer with us. But my mother was very successful. She was a nuclear physicist on the board of Mercy Hospital. My brother's an attorney in the White House practices, benefits. You know, so that's where I believe my, you know, I was groomed I was raised for that world. My father and his biker buddies would come to the house and grow a lot of herbs, smoke, a lot of drugs, sell a lot of drugs, fast play fast women. You know, I kind of absorb that coming up Brandon Handley 4:59 with Yeah, well, I mean, you're a product of your environment. Right? All right. It's really hard to escape that. Being a father and just seeing how much of an impact what I do rubs off on my children. It's like it's mind blowing just the small things that you don't think that their pickup they're picking up every detail all of it. And so, yeah, being being caught up in that and seeing that as you're growing up. That's that's pretty, pretty insane. Do you think? Like, you know, parlaying some of that nuclear physicist some of that success? Like was that like, your skateboarding success? Do you think? Like, Brandon Novak 5:38 Well, I think, you know, thank God for skateboarding, skateboarding raised me and skateboarding made me who I am today, all year in all areas of my life, including recovery? I have because I know then that I know now is that skateboarding weeds out the quitters? Or is that really the kind of guys that will, will go dry, try a trick. And if they don't make it, just say, I didn't really want it anyways. Right? Like, I will try a trick for for hours for days for weeks for months, occasionally years if need be until that one, you know, stroke of, of ingenious alignment, and everything makes sense. And I make the trek and that instant gratification. I'm on to the next. For sure. For sure. And that's where my recovery came from. You know, I refuse to accept failure, no is not an option. And so I was just I believe we all have these God given talents. You the best ping pong player in the world, but God might not see fit to put a paddle in your hand. I was blessed with the ability to have a skateboard, put my hand at the age of seven. And then that boards has my hand. I knew I was going to be a professional skateboarder. Alright, that's awesome. Brandon Handley 6:53 Yeah. That's awesome. I'm still trying to figure out how to get a kickflip to land Brandon. After all these years actually, my son wanted to pick up skateboard. And so we went out and got a board and we went out to the local park. So love that story. You're right, like your you'll never quit that. You know, trying to get that trick and then just keep going for it. And you never quit trying to get sober. Right? Like 13 tries. Brandon Novak 7:21 Yeah, right away many more tries, but 13 attempts at checking myself until facility. But I remember, like, during the era of filming, Viva la bam, right? Like we'd be filming all day. And after we were wrapped the cast and the crew would go to the bar in town and pour I'd go meet them at the pub, I would go to an AAA meeting. And I would end up meeting them at the bar to get fucking annihilated by the band was like, What is wrong with you, you go to these meetings and then you come get loaded with us. Like it makes no sense. But to me, it made a lot of sense because I knew that one day it was going to end one of two ways. Either I was gonna get sober, or I was gonna die in the process of trying. But I was never the kind of guy that that accepted the the outcome to be a forever thing of my addiction that I like, fuck that. Brandon Handley 8:17 What do you mean by that? Like, Brandon Novak 8:19 like, I never was the guy that was like, I'm gonna die with a needle in my arm I inactive addiction. Just leave me be this. All that I want. Brandon Handley 8:28 Yeah, yeah. You always see yourself getting beyond it or getting, that wasn't going to be your story. Brandon Novak 8:36 I didn't know what my story was going to be. I will my story was going to end one of two ways. Either I got sober or I died in the process of trying. Right? Brandon Handley 8:46 And, you know, your journey wasn't like you know, just kind of a backyard addiction. Like I mean, you are you breaking the houses stealing stuff getting caught. I was listening to a podcast earlier about like, people literally putting hits out on you. Right. It's been pretty crazy. What was like, share a story or two about the, you know, your addicted life. Something that gives a glimpse into the seediness of it. Brandon Novak 9:17 Yeah, well, my mother, you know, in the beginning of my alcoholism, she used to pray to god please God, don't let tonight be that night that I received that call that my son has sir came to his addiction and he's no longer with us. She used to pray not to get that call to the end of my addiction praying to God, please let tonight be the night that I find Steve that call just so I can know he's safe once and for all. You know that's kind of depravity in the depth that my addiction took me to my mother who is my number one supporter and would do anything for me the job was to die went from praying to please never receive a call that I had died to at the end. Praying to God pleased Let me get this call already, you know that that I think sums it up in itself man, like, that's the nature of my disease. The progression is fast. It's rapid. And it's very drastic. Brandon Handley 10:15 Would you say like, was that the end her misery or yours? Brandon Novak 10:19 Fuck both. Yeah, as in, you know, after, you know, 22 years of active addiction 13 inpatient treatment centers, lost count of our patients in detox, as my mother had already bought me a plot. People were taking life insurance policies out on me, okay, you have to be in a life support for seven days, at the same hospital on mother's a nuclear physicist at, she sold three homes to pay for two different treatment centers. I was kind of that guy that was deemed unhelpful and uncaring incapable of ever getting sober. Right. Right. So I'm sure both my misery and hers. Brandon Handley 10:54 Oh, no doubt, no doubt, you know, I was able to join you with your sober house and how to say hello to her for a quick moment. And she just mentioned that right now. She's just so happy that you're able to be around for the holidays, right? That you're actually a welcome guest for the holidays. And I thought that that was a pretty cool thing to hear. Brandon Novak 11:19 Give me one second my my iPad was about to charge and Ubers. Well, yeah, that's the end as the funny thing about sobriety is that like, and I tell all the guys that live in Novak's house, and anyone else does early in sobriety for that matter. Be careful what you ask for, cuz sometimes you just might get it. For sure. And now I'm a sober guy, and I'm Coming up on eight years, and that I have a lot of responsibilities. And a lot of people depend and rely on me and, and, and some of those people are my family members. So my mother, God bless her soul is my favorite person in this world. She probably calls me 10 times a day. Here, and, you know, that's, it's a blessing. And sometimes I can perceive it to be a curse. Or sir, but that's, that's all I ever wanted, in the beginning was like to just feel humanized and normalized again. Like a member of society, not an outcast, not a not, you know, not something or someone to be discarded because I had a, I had a deeper seated issue. Because before for a lot of years, when people saw me they would like cross the street, and that they didn't see me or walk the other way, rightfully so. Or if, because if you told me you love me, then I had you. If you told me, you love me, then I equated that to $10. So people had to love me from a distance. So now it's, it's it's really a beautiful thing to be part of my family's life. You know, I wasn't for a long time. And nothing to do with them. It was all me. Right? And I had even when I was around physically, mentally, I had been checked out for so many years. So, you know, it's it's nice, man. It's, I could go on for hours. But Brandon Handley 13:35 yeah, no doubt. Right. Well, let's, let's hop into the one part that I think is a little key to the Novak house and you doing what you're doing right now, let's just tell a quick story of the 13th check in, right, I guess we'll call it when you when you, you know, you go in pocket tripped out, you tell the story. Brandon Novak 13:57 Oh, well, you know, I may 25 2015, I found myself in a position where for the first time in my life, the pain had become so unbearable that I was willing to do anything in order to finally get myself out of the position I had created for myself, right. So all of a sudden I started becoming accountable for my actions, and realizing that my very best thing in place me here, and that I am the common denominator in my problems. And if I get the fuck out of my way, everything was i i And I can no longer deny the severity of my disease, the depravity that it takes me to and every attempt at every one of those 13 facilities prior to or 12 prior to they didn't tell me anything different than the other one missed out on, you know, like 13 was no different than 1211 10 98765432. The only difference was The pain had become so great that I was willing to finally become open minded just long enough to ask for help, and and more importantly, be able to follow through with the suggestions that people like yourself and others gave me and you know. So my thoughts are always ingrained in me and I'm very, I'm not the one people call for sympathy or a lighter, softer way. Because my sponsor always told me you never get between an alcoholic and their bottom. And I don't. And I will not, I believe there has to be repercussions from our actions. By the repercussions from my actions became great enough that again, I was willing to do anything that was suggested I went to that facility number 13. And, and literally, as a sponge absorbed anything that anyone told me to do, you know, I was tired, I was just hired, I was tired, I was bored. All these seeds had been planted unbeknownst to me it each one of those attempts at each facility and, and facility number 13. It's like the skies parted and I walked across the sea and everything just made sense from all previous attempts. You know, not to say things won't change. But to this point today, coming up on a year sober, my sobriety has been fairly simple. Because I've stuck to the basics, they told me the basics, you never have to go back to the basics. Yes, I've had heart aches, I've had deaths, I've had troubled times. But knowing where I came from, and the pain that I felt as a direct result of active addiction, like there's, to me, the allure and the illusion of a drink or a drug being a great time has wore off so fucking long ago. And I adhere to, to the suggestions that my mentors and my sponsors and, and the 12 steps and Alcoholics Anonymous have given to me, you know, and I can honestly say today right now, it is it is physically impossible for me to have a drink. Now, Brandon Handley 17:22 somebody put a drink in front of you just couldn't do it. Brandon Novak 17:24 Oh, it's impossible for me to even put up a ball of heroin in my hand right now. And my very first thought would be like, I need to flush this before my cats get to it. Because I've had that psychic change. Yeah, let's talk about that. Right? Like the definition of a spiritual experience is simply a psychic change. Meaning I've read no back today no longer think how I thought walking into treatment center number 13. Eight years almost. You're able to see things differently. Now. I'm a completely different man. I'm rewired. Yeah, and that but that's because you know I'm not people might listen to this and be like oh that egotistical Fuck no, I have a very very very healthy respect for my disease is I'm well armed with the facts I finally understand the opponent that I'm up against. And and most importantly, I suffer with a disease called alcoholism. Not alcohol wasn't meeting so well yesterday sobriety? Sure. Brandon Handley 18:27 I love that. I love that. Um, so you know, you go in to 13th Place your hot mess. You finally get flipped around. I think what's kind of funny about your story too. You didn't share it here but like I've listened to listen to it plenty of times so like where you go in and they tell you you gotta get a job even though you've got like money coming in right in one way or another. You've got to go you're bussing tables waiting tables here you are Brandon Novak guys got, you know, celebrity. He's got endorsements and all that all this good stick on for him. And you're in there bussing tables and waiting, waiting on tables to make your money. pay your own way out of your pocket. And this was the path that kind of opened up for you. And since you found a way that worked for you, you decided to find a way to share almost that exact same path with others sued Novak house right? Absolutely. Brandon Novak 19:23 You know, it's funny. Yeah, totally. But the funny thing is, is I didn't understand any of the any of the journey that I was on, I never realized along that journey that I was discovering these paths that were on lead to a much broader fucking scope or a grand scheme, you know, or big picture. I simply was just beaten so bad that I got out of my way follow suggestions of people that actually knew what they were talking about. And I always say this thing works when I don't work it right as long as I stay out of it mentally sure your suggestions fit physically, you know, if you continue to bring the body, the mind will follow. Right? If I found myself in a position where the pain was so great that I was just willing to do anything. It's physically it defies logic that I can use that very same brain that thought me into that terrible place to then think me out of it. If I could have done that I wouldn't be in a fucking 12 Step Program wouldn't have ended up in AAA, that's not my lifelong dream or goal, believe it or not. But so I'm a firm believer now because again, I was beaten so bad, I knew that my way no longer worked. I got out of my way, had some great mentors followed their suggestions. They said, Go, I said, Sure. They said, when I said what time, you know. And I just brought the body I brought the body, I brought the body and one day, the mind just followed Brandon Handley 20:51 some of that, would you? Was there ever, like a light clicking on for you a moment that like, I don't know, kind of like when you're first riding a bike, or like, oh, look, I'm doing it. Brandon Novak 21:00 Yeah, like put, but everything I've learned in my life is all in retrospect, my life is it forward and learn backwards. So the very first moment that that took place, when I was in my treatment center for my 90 days, and I had in 90 days, I had made it to my eight step, and not one step made any difference, or any more or less sense than the last one to two, two to three, three to four, four to five, five to six, six to 778. Nothing, I felt nothing, I had no clue what was going on. But I just again, follow suggestions, bringing the body mind will follow. Right. All of a sudden, I have my parole officer who promised to violate me if I lied to him, then as the truth and I lied again, because he just told me violate me while I'm in treatment, I knew things are different. And I, he asked for some evidence about this lie that I had presented. And, and it was impossible to gather evidence about this lie. And I call my sponsor, he said, Well, you've you've worked, you've experienced the third step, right? And I said, yeah, it was the first step for people that don't know, came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand it. And, and I said, Yeah, and he goes, Well, here you go, God is everything or is nothing. And he said, Look at it this way. Let's say he does violate you. That means that you're simply meant to take the message inside the walls to someone who can't get out to hear from you directly. For some reason, I just believed him and I got on the phone I called and I let it was, it was on a Friday at like 3:30pm and I left a message on his voicemail admitting that I had lied. And that that was not true. What I told him I had to wait until Tuesday for him to call me back. I meant like 86 days sober, right by and usually would be racing. Sure, I'm going to get violated. I'm going back to prison. After I left that message, I went back down to my my room, and I fell asleep and I slept like a baby. It was a craziest thing ever. And it was right there that I accepted my fate. And, and in telling the truth there. It was like, one through eight hit me like a ton of bricks, like a blink of an eye. It all made sense. It was crazy. And I didn't get violated. School led me you know, like, he promised me that he violate me. And he was a guy that was very serious about that. Brandon Handley 23:34 I've yet to meet a parole officer that's not serious about their job. Brandon Novak 23:38 Well, my other ones, he was my probation officer Michelle ward. God bless her soul, Chester County. She was the one that like, saved my life. nearly enough when she should have violated me by every sense of the word. Unknown Speaker 23:52 Yeah. Brandon Novak 23:54 What happened there? I went in there and she was supposed to violate me. She was. She said, I don't know why I'm not going to violate you. But I'm going to give you one more chance and she sent me back to the rehab that actually works. She called and got them on the phone. Brandon Handley 24:10 Okay. Okay. That's crazy. So, you're taking you're taking this right. And, again, I'm not a stepper Brandon. And this is this. This program isn't about, you know, spiritual dopes kind of its own thing, but it follows. Oddly enough, the 12 step pattern, right, where you get to the 12 step and the 12 step is what for the people that don't know Brandon. Brandon Novak 24:39 Oh, fuck, you make me Brandon Handley 24:42 look there's another there's gonna be a test. Brandon Novak 24:45 He carries a message to addict or alcoholic who still suffers. Brandon Handley 24:48 Right, but you carry the message forward, right? Yeah, yeah. So that's what you're doing right with this with the Novak house. Let's talk about, you know, so let's talk about the Nova Cows, what it is that you're doing, how long it's been an action and what's going on there? Brandon Novak 25:04 Well, I so as I completed that 90 day treatment center, from there, I went to a sober living house, where I live for one year. And the reason why I went there because my sponsor at the time who had 11 years suggested that I go, because he did, and still stayed sober. Right. I wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel here, I knew that my way no longer works in my best thinking place me here, I was getting out of my way. Bringing the body just bringing the body mind has no idea but the body's showing up. And I found a suggestion. Oddly enough, I too, am Coming up on eight years. So like weird, not really. But while I was in that house, me and my best friend George, who is also still sober to this day, we had literally some of the best times of our life in this house. And I've had some amazing times in my life, and I've done really rad shit. I kidding you. I think my favorite Christmas ever was in that house. And we understood the importance and the effect that it had on us. And we always talked and we said that one day when we were in a position that we were financially capable, we were going to recreate that very same house. And also you people from the sober community kept telling me in order for me to keep what I have, I have to give it away. So five years into my journey and his Well, we decided we were going to replicate that Sober Living house. And we did we opened up our very first Novak's house in Wilmington, Delaware with 10 beds, and unfortunately, there was quite a need for those services. And I wish there wasn't in my houses didn't exist, but there are and they do and and we started with one house with 10 beds and today we have four houses with 40 beds. And I run around the nation like an insane maniac. Raising funds charitable donations to provide scholarships for any man seeking a sober living home. What I've found out that my why one of my why's today is I refuse to let funds be a deterrent as to why someone can't find a safe, adequate home to continue their journey and upon completion of a treatment center. Brandon Handley 27:38 I think that's awesome. Right? I think when you give your speech you're taking like at your event you took the this is the place where the misfits fit in right you're taking the people and Brandon Novak 27:53 we take the bottom of the barrel right like our place is not the place that like you come because you want just a weekend getaway now there are beautiful homes, they're amazing, but they're the people that have burned the resources and and kind of the discard it, you know, as I once was for sure. Brandon Handley 28:15 What was it? You know about that house? Can you can you pinpoint anything about that place that you guys wanted to replicate? Just the process? Brandon Novak 28:25 It was the process did you know right that there's a million treatment centers out there there's a million sober houses out there. I'm a firm believer the perfect treatment center or the perfect sober house that you guys sober it is the perfect treatment center is the one that you got sober in, right whichever one that is. I know that what we are intent on doing is creating an environment and to to make it a home not a house and we pride and attention into the homes that we create. Because we want the individuals that reside in them to take pride in their home and where they reside a little bit more than they might find a drink or a drug appealing kind of hoping that the ends justify the means Brandon Handley 29:15 for sure. I was talking who's your carpenter um if you want give him a shout out we Yeah, Brandon Novak 29:21 well we have where I was. Brandon Handley 29:23 So here's the dread hair guy that I met there he did yeah Brandon Novak 29:31 he's the painter Brandon Handley 29:32 is so so so he said you know and i Your sober house is the only one I've ever stopped and right. He said though that your houses are like no. So nice. Yeah, compared to some other places. Do you think that that gives these guys like kind of a feeling of hope as well being like, wow, I can have something like this for my life if I just keep my shit together. Brandon Novak 29:56 That's our hopes. Right? Like there's a lot of different little layers to it. But that's one of them. And it absolutely is it you know that paired with accountability paired with structure? Paired with cleanliness, like it all plays a part. Sure. Kind of like a, you know, one strand isn't more or less important than the other. Brandon Handley 30:18 That's right. That's right. The and one of the things I think we talked in brief at your event, but you'd mentioned like that there is structure, but it's not overly structured. So that gives them enough freedom and space to, I think, be themselves and do what they've got to do without feeling like they're on lockdown. Brandon Novak 30:37 Yeah, because they're not and my house is, aren't that they're not one of which, where, you know, you lose your freedom. Quite the contrary, actually. But the good thing is we do a really good process with assessments. And by beings so blessed with that. We don't run into people coming there and getting high smoke so much as we run into people coming there and don't want to follow all the rules. So we really let people know. Like, if you're not serious about staying sober, this isn't the house for you. You can't get lost in it. There's cheaper houses you can go with with less rules, right? Like, we'll give you an address. So it's Brandon Handley 31:21 a no, has anybody ever take you up on that? Brandon? Does anybody be like, You know what, thanks for that. And they roll down the street? Brandon Novak 31:27 Maybe they won't tell us? You know what I mean? Do maybe they don't? Everyone's process is their process, and we're all entitled to our process. If somebody would have robbed me of my process along my way, I wouldn't be here today. So like, I'm a big fan of that. Brandon Handley 31:45 Do you ever this crosses my mind, given everything that I've consumed to put in my body over the years, which is, I'm gonna guess less than you. But you know, I'll be like, I got to a point where, like, you know, what, I put so much shit in my bio does so many things that, like, if I'm still alive, right now, there's gotta be a reason for and like, leaning into that, right? Like, and just being like, discover the purpose. Like, like, I get down to your place and, and do the breath work with the guys that feel like that's a piece of something I'm able to do. Does that ever occur to you? Or are you just driving with the headlights? Oh, Brandon Novak 32:23 no. Yeah, I I mean, in the first couple years. I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual. And I didn't really think much about it. The first couple years of my sobriety, I just continued to bring the body or the body. And then around two and a half years, it totally transitioned to, to completely spiritual and everything is, is of a much bigger, broader plan that I'm clearly a grain of sand in. And I play no part of. So it's like, I'm, I don't I don't I don't take credit for any of this. None of this is by my doing. I'm simply just playing the part that I was assigned today. And now everything is spiritual, you know, like everything, maybe too much. So sometimes, I just kind of give up to the unit. Brandon Handley 33:26 Well, yeah, so tell me a little bit about that. I love that right? Obviously so spiritual dope came from you know, just recognizing like this connection with source and like having that high from like, whatever you call that right connection to God source universe. What's that story look like for you? Now? I hear you talk a lot about synchronicities. I think there was a I caught like a man I caught like an Instagram review tote and some crystals around. You know, what's that look like? You know, you've got this work that you're doing right now, I'm sure that that's part of your spirituality. But what does your own spiritual practice look like? Well, you Brandon Novak 34:03 know, I, every day I start my day on my knees, and every day I end my day on my knees, and I know that without a constant contact and have a very healthy connection with my higher power, none of this is possible. None of this and I never get that confused or think that I, I created this. I'm very big with that. I just try to remain as useful as I can to my God's children, which are my brothers and sisters. And you know, the more I do for others, the better my life is. Brandon Handley 34:44 Do you feel like the more that you're able to do for others, the more that kind of flows through you? Brandon Novak 34:50 Well, with what flows Brandon Handley 34:52 like, you know, just like I would say, You know what, I'm here what I feel like you're saying is like you're an instrument of God, right and like divine source flows. through you and you're able to, you know, connect with others. I don't really think Brandon Novak 35:05 of it like that. I don't think what flows through me. I just think like, uh, you know, because again, I am too smart for my own fucking good. Now I'll, I'll twist this narrative to make me think that I've done this. So I sure I tried out the, you know, I just, I just kind of tricky slope, right? Yeah, I just kind of it works when I don't work it. You know, it's crazy. But I don't think much about a lot of the stuff that I do. Just because I'm so busy with so many projects that I don't really have time to sit back and connect the dots of like, Oh, I did this for this person. And this person achieved this. And now they're here with them. And the fact you know, I don't even I just get so caught up in the day to day. Yeah, this is probably for the best, Brandon Handley 35:53 sir, sir. So he's just staying out of your own way. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Brandon Novak 36:00 That's what I've learned is, the longer I stay sober, the less that I know, because I see how amazing my spirituality is, and how powerful it is. So like, I've never be so arrogant. Personally, this is just me, I would never be so arrogant to think that I understand what my God's will is. That's, that's completely insane. Because it's so fucking big and vast. And, Brandon Handley 36:25 but no, I'm with you. Right. Like, if I think I know what to do, and I can do it all by myself. And your point, like I wouldn't be in this situation I'm in now. Right? Oh, one of the things that I was actually touched by, and it was a bit of a challenge, and I'm curious to hear how you deal with it. You're one of your residents. He was probably one of the first guys I connected with coming down to the Novak house. Tim Wright recently passed, and you know, his passing impacted me in a way that most don't, you know, it's all over on TV, and I haven't been close to somebody pass on for for quite some time. How does that impact you? Like, what do you you know, Brandon Novak 37:11 I wish I could say it impact me more, but I've kind of become numb to it. Brandon Handley 37:17 Well, I mean, you know, is that because it's you're surrounded by and you're only doing what you can do you No, no, let go and let God type of thing or, Brandon Novak 37:28 well, I believe that everyone has a message to carry, right, I believe maybe the I believe, I believe my God is everything I don't believe God is, is what I think he should or shouldn't be. I believe God is everything. And I might get scolded for this. But I believe God is heroin, I believe God is crack, I believe God fucking out of all because without those substances, it would not have brought me to the child of God that I am today. But that's just me not imposing my will on anything or anyone else. But I believe that, unfortunately, some have to die for others to live. Brandon Handley 38:09 I get it right. That's the example. And you've got a bunch of people that are close to that. And they see what can happen if they think that they can go back Brandon Novak 38:19 and it didn't need it doesn't have to be that way. Brandon Handley 38:24 But yeah, so what if I'm in the Novak house, what are some of the things I got to do? What's some of the structure Brandon Novak 38:34 so you have to have a job, you have to have a sponsor, you have to be working the steps you have to go to five meetings a week you have to make curfews, you have to pass random your analysis you have to go continue and successfully complete IOP and then there's a gradual step down pace to that will tie up intensive outpatient so it's just a continuum of your aftercare of whatever program you came to Brandon Handley 39:01 from. Got it. Got it. What's the long term vision or where do you see where do you see this going for for you the the Novak house? Brandon Novak 39:12 When will this air? Brandon Handley 39:14 Probably not to like next year? Brandon Novak 39:16 Okay, so Brandon Handley 39:18 2020 23 Brandon Novak 39:20 Well, by the time that you beautiful ladies and gentlemen are watching this, you'll see that were my goals and dreams had taken me to because the day that we aired this was Thursday, November 17 2022, or that we filmed this. I'm opening a rehab, I'm opening a center that treatment center opened by the time your viewers see this. Wow. And it's going to be called redemption Addiction Treatment Center in Wilmington, Delaware. Brandon Handley 39:52 Oh, wow. Congratulations, man. That's my end game that at least I think who knows. Okay. That's your next step in the process. Right. Brandon Novak 40:00 So I always wanted my end game to be. And through the grace of God, it's happening. And then we're hoping to projected opening is mid January no later than February. Brandon Handley 40:15 Awesome, man. Congratulations. Is that in association with? I know you've done a lot of work with a companion and some others is that in association with them or is this on your own? Brandon Novak 40:25 This is all my own This is my own adventure. Wow okay yeah parted ways with Banyan amazing program. But I think simultaneously we just outgrew each other. And I didn't get sober to just get stagnant, I believe sobriety and tells us the life of choices and options. And I Why would I not take advantage of it? Brandon Handley 40:51 Makes sense? What do you how do you feel like yours will be different from any others? Or how will be the same as others curious on how that's Brandon Novak 40:59 gonna? Same as my house is right? Like the personal connection. And honestly, bread and Novak will not be at the other 10,000 50,000 treatment centers that exist out there. That will be at redemption, where I'll be working with clients day in and day out. You know, Brandon Handley 41:23 focus energy there. Yeah, that's awesome. You're gonna be a skatepark? They said no. Brandon Novak 41:34 To which I will absolutely take the clients to 100% but I don't think so. Got it. Brandon Handley 41:40 Got it. Got it. Well, Brandon, Look, man, I just wanted to have you on share your story centers in the saints, man, I really think that it's important. One of the things that you've definitely said before is like, you know, who you were isn't who you have to be going forward and what the work that you're doing now illustrates that, right? He, the guy that was robbing everybody, you know, years ago, is now out here, you know, basically getting money to give to other people to so they can achieve sobriety and live a decent life. Brandon Novak 42:14 I'm grateful man. And I'd like to end this kind of alluding to the point you just made if anyone out there needs help getting into treatment, they can call me directly, personally, at 610-314-6747 Thanks, Brian. Love you, brother. Thanks so much. Intro Guy 42:35 And I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove Dotco. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual dough, and Instagram at spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email through Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Darren Prince, International Best Selling author of his memoir Aiming High, is a prominent sports and celebrity agent and global advocate for addiction/mental health recovery. Through his agency, Prince Marketing Group, he represents icons Magic Johnson, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Jerry West, Dominique Wilkins, Chevy Chase, Charlie Sheen, Denise Richards, Carmen Electra, and many others as well as having worked with the late Smokin' Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali and Evel Knievel. As a leading authority in this space, Prince's insights have been featured in WSJ, NYT, USA Today, CNN, Fox and Friends, Chris Cuomo, Tucker Carlson, “On Purpose” podcast with Jay Shetty, Extra TV, Dr. OZ and many other top media outlets. Darren has experienced what life is like in the celebrity world but also seen the dark reality of addiction through his own personal struggle with opiates. With over 14 years of sobriety, it's now Darren's mission to help others avoid and break free from addiction and mental health struggles. He had a God awakening on July 2, 2008, and believes in a spiritual higher power and that anyone can turn their bottom into a new beginning. Connect with Darren here: https://officialdarrenprince.com/ Summary Introduction to today's episode. 0:42 How did you end up with addictions? 1:36 The turning point in his life. 6:39 It's better now than it was then. 12:24 Where's the drugs when the drugs wear off? 16:32 The miracle of calling out to god. 21:03 The power of choice. 25:09 Finding your purpose in life. 29:05 The importance of taking care of your health. 35:44 Getting a call from the White House. 39:01 Darren's message 45:22 Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited in this thought process? Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask. But you the answers to questions about you this world the people in it most importantly, how do I proceed now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers but we sure do love living in the Question Time for another decade of spiritual dub with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 One Hey there Spiritual Dope I'm on here today with Darren prince. He is an international best selling author of his best of his memoir. Aiming High is a prominent sports and celebrity agent and global advocate for Addiction and Mental Health Recovery. There was agency Prints marketing group who represents icons Magic Johnson, Hulk Hogan, Ric Flair, Jerry, West, Dominique Wilkins, Chevy Chase, all these guys are greats. Right? And, you know, I didn't meet him getting autographs or anything like that. Darren, I met recently at an event with Brandon Novak and Novak house. And I think that's somebody that you're fairly close with, through addiction and recovery. So I said, You know what, I don't want to miss this opportunity to chat with somebody and share your story about all that you're doing. It's so great out there in the space. So Darren, Thanks for Thanks for coming on today. Darren Prince 1:36 Thanks for having me. Brandon Handley 1:38 Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, let's let's just kind of dive right into it. You know, you You're, you're well known you've done. You've worked with all these greats. But you've started like, with an addiction at a pretty young age, right? You started with an addiction at a pretty young age, and it caused a lot of havoc in your life. And now you've kind of translated that and transmute it into something good let's start at the beginning man like how did you end up with with some addictions Darren Prince 2:09 I you know, I grew up you would have thought just a normal childhood which I'd say for the most part i i had great loving mother and father and sister but I was always verbally to use for things so called Special Ed and small classrooms and back then, which probably more add whatever I was interested in, I gravitated to them most of the stuff I didn't. And I think just that did a number of my psyche and my self confidence, my self esteem. So at 14 When I was in sleepaway camp, and I had terrible stomach pains one night, the nurse gave me the scream liquid and having no idea what it was for the pain I took it and walking back to the bunk within a minute I felt like Superman like all those feelings of inadequacies and low self worth and self esteem. I knew I felt just as good as everybody else just as popular just as smart and went to bed then I think nothing of it. But I did all the activities that camp that next day, and I remember just lying in the bunk bed next night obsessing on that feeling and I wanted more of and I did that for a couple of weeks until mom and dad came up with visitation day and found that I was taking liquid Demerol. Yeah, I don't know what is Demerol and emeralds in OBS general problem most likely something that gives you a hospital like more but heavier opiate and back then the opiate epidemic wasn't anywhere near but you know, it was today. And you know, I had a way about me to assist innocent kid that was just in a lot of pain. And you know, she was probably just trying to come a relief every night or I was getting his bed stomach cramps and just, you know, played it to the hill just like I did when I had my wisdom teeth removed a few months later and my mom gave me these white pills that were called extra sent by cannons and that same feeling came back and you know, when I saw the bottle had two pills left I put on the crocodile tears fry it and said I've got to go back to the dentist have a bad infection. I know it's something's wrong and you know, panicked as a loving mother took me back and gave her another dozen bills, whatever it was. Brandon Handley 4:15 Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy to us and it's such a young age. Right. And those are like those are some that was your thing, right? Like kind of like Demerol and opiates and Darren Prince 4:27 cocaine, ecstasy, you name it. Sure. And I he became an age and opiates were the ones that taught me up and it took me straight to the bottom. Brandon Handley 4:37 Sure, sure. Let's let's walk our way into the agents. Phase two. Right. So here you are. Age 14, you're kind of you're already like, you know, a script chaser. Right. But you've also got some cool things going on. You may mention that you're you were in like these quote unquote special ed classes. You know, you need a little bit extra attention to get through teaching you how to chip on your shoulder. But that actually led you on to something kind of cool. Right? Talk a little bit about that. Darren Prince 5:06 Yeah. So I started a mail order baseball card company long before the internet boom, and became nationally recognized, doing trade shows all over the country. First person, I think in the state of New Jersey, I have a cell phone, it was called Bell Atlantic, it was in a big leather carrying case with a battery pack, the phone cost me about $3,500. That's how tough we were to get about $3 a minute to use the phone. And the dumb idiot that wasn't going to go anywhere in between class was going into his locker room dealing with stockbrokers and a bunch of guys from ESPN. Were buying from me some of the big commentators that were big collectors and I would just broker deals of it. I had an incredible network database of dealers around the country, I was advertising because trade shows I would go to the best convention to get the best location. So I was spending 1000s a week on advertising myself, I became a very well known figure in the baseball card hobby and the boom of the 80s. So for any collectors that are listening now, it actually started in the 80s, which is why there's an industry there is today and by Tom, I'm 16 years old man, I'm probably making a quarter of $1,300,000 Ask us globally mean anything to me, you know, I came home from school. And it was about, you know, the hustle of laying out my ads for the next week and filling orders and hiring. You know, some of the so called friends that were were calling me, idiot and dumb. They were now calling me boss at 16 and 17 years old. And you know, and then from there, eventually I sold that company in 19. I dropped out of college, my freshman year of Bridgeport and went full steam ahead into the memorabilia business. So it's booking autograph signings from Muhammad Ali magic chevy chase to Frazier. Pamela Anderson. And by the time I was 24, built, built that business had some legal issues. And it was kind of at this turning point in my life where first time I ever had some financial difficulties and magics dip on my side and said, Hey, I know about making mistakes he had he was coming up with his HIV announcement, the anniversary of that was November 7 on Monday. And what do you want to do now? And because of my dad giving me the inspiration of explaining that to you know, like, not what you know, we work with the most iconic people in the world. You know, go speak to magic, you supported you and first client for my agency. Brandon Handley 7:33 That's pretty that's pretty awesome. I love that. Well, give me a moment here. Like how did we translate from, you know, in first of all, like, I'll just in my mind, I'm thinking like, mail order catalog. I thought you were just I thought you were just going in and setting up setting up the tables doing the shows you were. Darren Prince 7:51 Yeah, but we had a big Yeah, I have people taking orders. We're going on clothing and buy the stuff on the weekend, sell it during the week and knew exactly what I needed to find on a weekend to follow orders, mark it up and make a profit and get it out next week. Brandon Handley 8:05 That's awesome. And you were making what you're making? This is a what is the 80s? Is that right? Like mid 86. So I mean, I'm just gonna I told my son right now he's 10. And he's already feels like he's done with school. And I told him like, you know, when he makes his first million, feel free to drop out, right? Like, you know, go ahead. So, so you go from you go from this card business bit, and it's working out really well for you, you sell it how do you make the translation over into, you know, signatures like what? Darren Prince 8:34 What happened, and it's funny because one of my agents here Matilda was telling her the story older I think the sexiness and the coolness of being around like some of the biggest stars that were doing these autograph signings at conventions, it drew me to it. And, you know, again, that insecurity brokenness, like no cards are cool and making money but the cards, and I kind of just more or less went into the autograph signing thing, because I was like, wow, I've an opportunity to book my first autograph signing with Muhammad Ali, the most recognized human being on Earth. And, you know, for somebody with low self esteem and you know, was always high and to be around that environment. It was just unbelievable. And then I just think my appetite grew. From there it was same sort of thing. Well, autograph signings are kind of cool and hanging out with them but I won't be this autograph fucker for shinies I want to do big things. I want to do endorsements commercials, you know, when that's how that evolved. Brandon Handley 9:28 You wanted to level up and this whole time you know, you're you're you're popping pills, right? You're you're doing whatever. Darren Prince 9:35 You're on the autograph signing era, which the company was called prints of cards. That was the same name as the the big card company. You always partying whatever it was you name it, I did it. But when I became an agent, I learned real fast with magic when a morality clauses when the lawyers put together an agreement I was like, Alright, I gotta play this straight. Sciatica had anxiety and hey, like any good drug out If you junkie, I played it to the hell, you know how easy it was to get any script that I needed when I'd get them on the phone with Joe Frazier or bring him a Magic Johnson signed jersey or go like this guy's got it all together and a lot of pain, go get an MRI, go get an x ray, let's see how we can fix you. Let's do medication management. And for the first five, six years, man of my ancient life, you know, it worked really did. I became a rock star with networking. But I also say like this, like what was once living to us turned out to using to live. Yeah, and I just don't know when it turned. And I do remember that night I lost my superpower. So I remember when the oxycottons didn't work at an example, Joe Frazier in Dallas, Texas, and probably for a good six or seven years. I was trying to chase that high after that. Yeah. Brandon Handley 10:52 And you talk a little bit about this insecurity and brokenness, right. Like where do you feel like that stemmed from a little bit that was encouraging. Darren Prince 11:00 Like, I can't blame my mom and dad for it. And my mom and I came from a family with a lot of love. You know, my dad had tough love bugs. That was my biggest supporter. My mom gave me way too much. I think some people could understand that because that cause anxiety, it'll leave the house and I'll be around them all the time. And you know, those two were on there's too much and she was she overwhelming. With love were a kind of, you know, like I said, causing excess amount of anxiety with the over coddling knowing that I was special ed and need special attention. And I think it just can be very uncomfortable and how to deal with life. If I was in, you know, attached to her at home with her and my dad, and we get homesick a lot if I'd sleep over at friend's houses or birthday parties or weekend getaways. I remember it just a horrible feeling in my stomach just not being comfortable being away from mom and dad. And you know, you take all that into the real world with the verbal teasing and you don't speak up about those words a dumb an idiot I think using the word that begins with our from mentally challenged, I heard all these things. And when you absorb that, and those developmental years, guess what, you start believing it especially now put it out. And I didn't have the courage to speak up. Brandon Handley 12:14 Yeah, and the 80s You know, I grew up in a suit. Like they weren't kind. They were not. They like yeah, now I think so it's, you know, gratefully for my children a lot. It's better, right as different than than what it was then. But there was there was very few teachers really stopping that from happening to right. Oh, hell, it could be the teachers. Darren Prince 12:37 Back then, like I had a teacher. I won't mention her name, which she's not even alive anymore. US history. 60 kids in the class. I remember like yesterday, and you know, it's a level of psychological trauma, nothing that you know, it's something I've been healed from but you remember it. And she bought the first 90% of the class their test. And I'm in the bath with for six kids. My friend John Angelo gave squirrel joy. I'll never forget my crew, Carmen. And we called ourselves the our only group. People can figure out what word I mean. joking around about it. But again, I'm actually taking this in Stoke, right? Handed everybody else their tests. She's shouts in front of the entire class, I'll get to you guys in the back row with your test in a minute. Let me just take care of everybody else first. And even the tone was speaking to us in a way that we're less than we're not as smart or not as good. And you remember that? Yeah. Here we are. 40 something hours later, and I'll never forget it. Brandon Handley 13:43 For sure. So when you're when you're, you know, drugging when your pill pop and when you're drinking. You're trying to forget that piece of who you are. Darren Prince 13:54 I'm trying to forget that piece of who you are. But I'm also there's a great revelation on Jay Shetty. He's a dear friend of mine. I was at his place on Sunday that I made it to the top. But I'm looking backwards at all the people that said I wasn't going to make it. Usually when you get to the top or somebody to fake top there's a lot of smoke and mirrors still it I didn't feel worthy of being at the top of the industry around the biggest stars in the world. And so my thing was always look backwards. Look at me look at the dumb ugly one to one no doubt that I'm Swanee one that wasn't going to make it look, I mean, I look at it, you know, and it was that way when I was 16. I remember when I would just go to bed at night laughing because my dad was like, you're making more money than most of your friends fathers that are that are lawyers that have real crown like the bed like, you know, celebrating this and Brandon Handley 14:53 what kid wouldn't right at that age for sure. That makes sense. Darren Prince 14:57 And that was all that deep rooted. insecurity that that verbal teasing and just that feeling of less than and, you know, my mom thought it was funny sometimes when she would hear me on the phone like buy and sell this person backwards and forwards and she thought it was hilarious, but it came from a deep place of insecurity and resentment. And I was like, How funny is that this guy is going to go to college mom for the next four years paying off loans for the next 10 years when he gets out, and already have more millions put away and she'd be like, I'm so proud. It wasn't like a corrective thing. I was just, you know, so I think all of that though, when I looked back, it was just such a deep level of brokenness and inadequacy that I just always had approved. And then now here I am at the top of the industry with magic and you know, Ali and Frazier and you know, Pam, Pamela Anderson and Chevy Chase and smokin Joe Frazier. So it's a recipe for disaster, man, you know, and the luck started coming. And I started developing and working out and the girls start comping left and right. I'm just frickin doing whatever the heck I gotta frickin do to uphold this image that my entire class is like, holy shit. Darren prince made it bigger than every single one of us is this world famous agent that's on the sideline of the Superbowl and, you know, backstage passes and walk in the red carpet at the MTV VMAs and all these big award shows, and I just ate it all up. I thought that's what what my calling was meant to be. And, you know, I need I needed a lot of driving force. I needed the expensive sports cars to be driving an Acura NSX, souped up at 21 years old that cost me $200,000 First person to buy a house and you know, the jewelry and the diamond Rolex is and now I look now and this is me. I could go on buy a new Rolex tomorrow. It's not what makes me happy. Brandon Handley 17:00 Sure. For sure. Sure. Well, let's get there. Right, like so where where's the drugs wear off? Right? You realize you'd lost your superpowers on one night, right? You go to pop the oxys and they're not doing what you need them to be doing? What happens then you panic. I mean, what where's it all got panicked. Darren Prince 17:21 I went down to this corporate event in the conference room this ballroom and I couldn't figure out for the life of me what was going on. And the next day the same thing happened and I'm in Florida by myself two days later, and I found a different way to ingest it. That gave me a little bit of a buds I started snorting my oxys my Percocet and my bike and it's, you know, I kind of mostly live that way. For another four or five years had an overdose and Las Vegas came back after that overdose finally in New Jersey, and called an addiction psychiatrist told me I was an opiate addict put me on Suboxone, but never go to a therapist and lie to him like I did because he didn't hit a nail. I was taking Xanax and Valium and mood stabilizers and antidepressants and anxiety. Every anxiety pill that I can get my hands on and snorting Ambien the frog went to bed at night and still drinking a couple of days a week and Mike Mike died awakening came on July 1 As you heard that I yeah, my Uncle Steve made the rest in peace in his own girlfriend Andrea. I was just sick and tired of being sick and tired at the jumping off point. My ego was too big. I'm too important to go to rehab I can't lock myself up for 30 days and she just came into my condo at the time I never met her and it was a godsend. She's like, I've never met you but are you okay? And I told her I told her everything I never had such an honest conversation but the human in my life and I just felt drawn to her. And she looked at me and said devalue an advocate below so manage by see that she could be related to you are powerless and said yes. And she because all this started looking at all the photos on the walls with all the celebrities and awards and different things that I've gotten because none of this means anything because you don't mean anything to yourself. Do you realize that the disease of addiction does not discriminate it doesn't matter for from Park Avenue or park bench or if you've gone to Yale or jail and that broke my soul. And here I am the so called Big Time super agent broke down and cried and she goes it's okay on each because I just celebrated five years sober last week. pulls out a five year coin at her pocket. And she goes Do you want to get sober he wanted to anything that takes us at anything she because you have to put this before everything in your life and occur what it is if you lose the business, you don't want to lose your life but you can do this and I can show you the SOP period so right and was beautiful life. And yeah, she put me on a 36 hour detox plan and that next night was seven o'clock on a Sunday night July 2 I came back from the gym I was living at the Caroline building. I was married man and I came back from the gym. It's my third workout at the gym clinic do everything I can to get the dopamine going and the endorphins and came up I called them I said I can't frickin do this. I'm going to call the doctor I gotta get whatever we got to get my ankle struck Yellin on the other end and said, It's the goddamn disease talking of time, kick the crap out of it. You've been doing this since you were 14 years old. He was in recovery as well. He was back in recovery. He struggled for years until he passed and I said I can't frickin do this because you have to get yourself to a damn meeting, put your hands up and tell these people who are sick and suffering you need help and I hung up the phone ran in the bathroom, I shut the door I'm going from medicine cab and looking for Klonopin or some other non narcotic anxiety meds, take the craving away and out came to Vikings. I don't want to pull bottles, which was just shocking because Simona and on my axe, we spent hours going through other medicine cabinets two days before mine 36 hours before when Andrea said you got to get them all out of the house. You know, I'm weaning them off Suboxone. And I thought it was the gap that that is exactly what I need a man that bloods that God moment in that split second just when I needed. And the miracle happened because I thought on my knees for the first time in my life. I never called up to God like this before. And I've never done it since I pray every single night to him now. And I said God, take the money, take the notoriety of the business, I don't care, I need a single day of freedom to feel like little Darren when I was a young kid again, I'll do whatever it takes. If you take me out of hell. I will spend one day at a time the rest of my life using my platform take another jet with the exact words that I said. And it was like a lightning bolt. Because their shoulder was literally felt like somebody had a blowtorch on it. And I heard in this year as a voice. Say I'd got you and you're ready. And I stood up. And this hand opens and I flushed the opiates left in the living room on to computer there's no Uber back then. And I searched 12 step meetings near me and I found a church. So little ways away in the upper 80s Because it was late at night on Sunday had had an 8pm meeting and jumped right in a taxi cab and I looked up on this gorgeous summer, July 2 2008. I said to myself, Oh my God, for the first time of my life, I wanted to stay sober. More than 100 Get Hired What the heck just happened and I walked into a church basement 150 to 200 addicts, alcoholics that were at once to a hopeless state of mind and later send anybody new coming back sick and suffering or struggling and Sam went right up. And I know, he lifted it. And I came playing in front of a roomful of strangers. And it just came out. I said, I'm sick, I'm suffering. I'm suicide. Amazing life. And I didn't know why I'm doing this myself. But I need you guys help. And, you know, in that moment, I had to get to desperation. And I was crying out to get the power of choice back in my life and these people but it doesn't spiritual brothers and sisters, right after I said that, which was so key, came over to me and started kind of talking to me intimately in a soft tone voice not to disrupt the meeting. And they said, You're in the right place. We've been where you've been. Keep coming. You know, if you aren't what we have, do what we do. Take the car out of yours, put it in her mouth. We will love you before you ever learn how to love yourself. And then the one that was just magical, they said, keep coming to AAA. And don't worry about if you get it, because if you keep showing up. It's gonna get you nice. And that was that I felt in that room during that hour man. A connection that I never felt in my life. Ever Brandon, it was just I've heard things like I do that. Oh my God, that's my oh my god. And it was like, it was like just to add a body experience where no therapist, no drug. I literally felt it was almost like the dark side of me clearing out of my body. Yeah, immersed and obsessed with me and nothing can be for my in person meetings. I did the 99 date. I eventually got my sponsor Steve Delaval who just celebrated 35 years. You know, and once I hit that, probably six month mark because, you know, you're doing pretty good. He goes, I just got to tell you. You want to keep this gift, right? I said yeah, he goes over doing stuff. We're gonna wrap up the steps probably by the end of the first year. I'm not rushing, you throw it because your drug addiction wants to rush, your substitute, Rush. But once we get there, you want to keep this gift that I'm giving you. You better be prepared to give it away. I'd others. And once I started doing that, after that one year more hope and recovery began to heal on the Cleon. Brandon Handley 25:09 I love this and like, I think that, you know, if I looked at this through, you know, part parts of this to just general spirituality, you that part where you, you flushed down the pills, right? You opened yourself up to receive, you know, the higher power, right? You let it come and through and through you, you surrendered, like, you're like I can't do like, I'm not doing this life anymore. And you recognize this like power of choice, I love that you bring up the power of choice, you realize that? Maybe you that had been taken away from you for a moment, were because of your addiction. Right? So being able to say like, I want that back in my life. Yeah. Tell me a little bit about your what? You know, for somebody that's not familiar with step work. Tell me Tell tell the group a little bit about it. Because I think that one part of it, and I'm not a stepper there. And so I just happen to be familiar with the space. And I've gone through the steps without doing the steps, right. So it's really cool to see, like, oh, wow, what I did is in alignment with this thing. So tell the audience a little bit about it. If they're not familiar, Darren Prince 26:30 you have the 12 steps. I actually emailed my girlfriend, Nicolette them a couple of weeks ago. She's young and like anyone at any age, really, but especially young is working on our own clearing and healing and stuff. And my whole point to her was everybody can use these every single day. Yeah, alcohol is only mentioned in the first step for a reason to reason over 212 Step organizations around the globe with an adapted from a built up even talked about created on June 10, in 1935. You know, it's about meeting a powerless, that life has become unmanageable, whatever error that might be. It's about kind of coming to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore you to sanity. It's about taking your own personal inventory. It's about making amends to the people that you've harmed along the way. But also in a way that you don't farm them or others, it's about continuously taking your personal inventory. And when you're wrong, promptly admitted, no matter what area of recovery, you might be in or healing. You have to be vigilant every single day. And then, you know, it's about maintaining that constant contact and whatever that area of recovery or healing that you've attained and achieved giving it somebody else. Yeah. That is the magic. That's what has given me the self esteem. Yeah, that adult due respect I love them to death their dear family friends at this point, magical Ric Flair. Charlie Sheen, Chevy Chase criminal electorate, that young, beautiful people, they never gave it to me. I got it from my spiritual brothers and sisters. And I get it every time I give this away to somebody because I have a God given gift. And I've kept my word. Anybody that works with me sees it. There's not a single day that goes by I still might not get to in person meetings as much as I used to. I'm doing that more I'm still doing zoom meetings, but there's not a single day that I'm not doing something connect with somebody in recovery. You know, I'm on the board of Banyan treatment centers I do whatever I can to scholarship people there. I've gotten people to oaks recover. I've gotten people to know facts house using funds that I've raised from my aiming high foundation, but the greatest thing in the world because I'm not just giving them an opportunity to get a new life I'm helping every single human in their life. The benefit of this person getting their life back. And it's the greatest feeling in the world. I could lose all the money tomorrow and lose the business tomorrow. We don't live in this beautiful place in Brentwood, but I found me found me and the heartbreaking part about all that I've ever lost like I said, it's everybody that's so near and dear to me that I do what I can to take care of and make their lives better financially. I might not have that but Darren Prince could have be all good. I mean, you're gonna speak and at the same Darren friends that was paying found his purpose. Right Brandon Handley 29:33 now. I love that and kind of what you're talking about. There's your, your scene like that image where, you know, one one match strikes and lights and other right. That's what you're doing is helping others to light themselves up and see kind of the truth of who they are the power, the connection that they've got. Darren Prince 29:53 But that when that just one gets finished. I've had so many that have been just mine Long when I see the lights come on in somebody's eyes. Yeah. Brandon Handley 30:08 I mean, that's, that's me. That's when you realize kind of what your purpose is right? Darren Prince 30:11 Obviously with my dear friend Jen Cohen last night just a huge podcast habits and hustle one of the top 10 Business podcasts in the world. There's Mark Cuban, I just know, helped her out. She got him and she said Gary Vee and Eric Thomas and she did a podcast that was out in the Middle East. These guys reached out to Scott Bo Hopkins, for me and her oddly, we had no idea I went to first she went the second I had the entire crew, including the whole, in tears multiple times to the interview, because he had something similar not to drugs in the alcohol, but he understood the brokenness, he understood the looking back, Spencer, the host, and she goes, You have no idea when I got there. I was like, why am I here? While they're talking about is Darren's don't like he had every single one of us in tears. Like, he took us to a different level of accountability and recognizing either flaws or what we've been through, because I think that's what God wants, wants me to do. You know, I'm not afraid to tell people at all mistakes I've made and continue to make, and my character flaws and my character defects because it's a free feeling. Yeah, liberation for 99% of this world. I think it's smoke and mirrors, and everybody's got something out there trying to cover up. You know, me my background Brandon Handley 31:33 right here. I'm trying to cover up my background right now. Darren Prince 31:39 I'm like, Man, I don't know if you put on a little bit of weight to try to buy, just to just to be able to have that for the first time of my life and this type of being made and said, I stomach. I'm not perfect, better quality mistakes lashed out. And this mouth can get me in trouble or texting or emailing. But I'm way better than I've ever been. I tell people try to say what you mean mean what you say don't say we try to scam people, instead of you being understood. I think in the heat of an argument for anybody listening, and you're about to open up your big fat mouth. Don't engage. And it's better to feel alright. And right. If you're 100%, right. The strength is keeping your mouth shut. Don't send that text don't send that email. Because in five or 10 minutes, whatever you're about to explode about forgotten like that. And that's how you build your spiritual relevancy built discipline that to yell at change of character defects to staying in alignment to manifest to your higher self. And I've gotten so good at that again, not perfect. Yeah. But filthy her will hurt me with my mom a handful of times. It's not easy. Sure. My girlfriend, I'll tell you but I am so much better than I've ever been. I'm aware of it. I'm vigilant. I have to weigh out. Take a deep breath. Which is why I'm looking forward to working with you. Be fun battered i Yeah, it could be Brett. Is this worth it was also in recovery. We say we're not doormats. Occasionally. My sponsor stabbed a laptop, my it things have to come out a certain way. Get out. But y'all know if you're right and wrong when you're in recovery. If you have that emotional hangover, there has been times I've had to put people in their place. I'll hang up the phone, go on with my day, not even think twice about it. Sure. Oh, my gosh, I know that it was something that had to be done. So people can understand the way I expect things to be done. Brandon Handley 33:43 For sure. Right. Yeah. I mean, I like that. Not being a doormat part, I think, um, could you help, maybe see, to be of service but not a servant. Right? Because I think a lot of us, especially when we find that we want to be of service, right and go out there. We contend to let ourselves be taken advantage of but again, become more of a servant than off service. Explain a little bit of that, that difference there. Darren Prince 34:11 I think there's a huge difference when I say you got to become selfish, to be selfless. And the truth is, again, we're all trying to better ourselves. We're trying to feel better about ourselves, not externally, internally. So if you allow yourself to not be of service, but be assertive, and you're still not in a place to live in your higher self, you're you're a yes person and you're being told what to do. You're not living the life that you want to live, you're not standing your ground and you know, living the purpose for life, and you have to speak up. You know, sometimes people say, Oh, I'm not motivated by fear. Now that fear is a great motivator. And if you're in a place where uncomfortable, speak up, because the more you express yourself, that's where the growth comes in. But if you allow help people to keep shitting on you and mistreating you, if it's your girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, sister, co worker, what's not gonna do, you're gonna frickin go home and just feel like crap, that's gonna just blow out your self esteem. You know, if the situation's not right, or Hodgson, I'll sit down and talk about it, go to therapy, do whatever you got to do, don't turn a blind eye to it. If you're in a relationship, same thing, if there's a co worker, that that you're not getting along with that, that's just bringing out that bad energy every time you see them, to pull them aside and say something, you know, it's Life's too short. People don't realize at any age, that history teacher that I had, it can happen in your 30s, in your 40s, or 50s. And it's a lot harder to get rid of when you get older. You know, our lives get so busy and so crazy that if you if you take it in, and you don't do something about it, at our age is man, health issues, mental health issues, physical, emotional, spiritual, not worth it. Brandon Handley 36:05 You're all torn up, we're all torn up. This time you say you listen, so you wrote a book called aiming high, you put you put a lot of this information in there. And you've also taken that book and the AMI high notion and you've created a foundation out of that, you want to share a little bit about that, you know, again, kind of going from, you know, this, this center into St. You're, and you know, for those of you that don't know to step 12, is what we taught what you brought up right, Darren Prince 36:34 giving it a spiritual awakening as a result of the six steps. Yeah, we've tried to carry this message to other alcoholics and people that are sick and suffering to practice and all their principles all their affairs. Brandon Handley 36:45 Sure. And so you're doing this now, in part through your aiming high foundation, you will share a little bit about what that group does Darren Prince 36:55 for the foundation combat when I wrote my book in October of 2018, aiming high, which Anna David was my publisher, Chris McGinnis, my brilliant writer, I gotta give her all the glory, even though she gives it to me. She's the one that wrote the masterpiece, within a week and a half became an international bestseller in England, Canada, Australia, and the US. And, you know, we got like the Amazon award and all these great accolades that came from it. But number it was ego driven. I mean, I just knew this was God. You know, given my purpose, and my dad passed you earlier, I told him my in the hospital, I was blessed that he added me back for eight and a half years sober. And I said, if I'm going to touch the world, I'm like this experience of what I had to deal with the past 32 days. And of course, it was 32 days, the last step after we went into the hospital, and our algorithm was Magic Johnson shirts, a number from the Lakers, and so urban like one by Israel, and I thought that was beautiful. And I just looked at him and I was like, you know, I never felt so comfortable during the most uncomfortable time in my life. Like, above up there with Joe and Muhammad, grandma, grandpa, Uncle Joe uncle, and I see you're gonna look down as the daddy, I'm going to touch the world. Not only with this experience, but with this gift, because I need people to understand that you can get food the roughest times in life and not have to drink not after drug not after. And it just took my spirituality to a whole nother level, for sure. And to be able to hold his hand say goodbye. And just He's crazy. I call them GMCs my friend Bruce are that passed away was so near and dear to me, my spiritual brother, couple of years ago used to call them GMCs got managed coincidences. But then two weeks, I got a call that I was going to be honored at New Jersey's largest drug and alcohol rehab center. I invested a ton of money and time into being a professional speaker. I knew this was just going to be a big moment. Not just for me, but to really carry the message to the general public and try to help people and then I went so fantastic. literally the next day to rehab got a call because the extreme that on Facebook from Dr. Oz's executive producer that they want on Dr. Oz The next day was Charles Schwab area when city went on Dr. Oz talked about recovery with Darryl and do an incredible job themselves. And literally right after Dr. Oz I got a call from Roanoke. Perhaps it was Donald Trump's executive assistant forever I think she's still got them Donald Trump is a dear friend from Celebrity Apprentice from having Dennis Rodman on their brand new Roderick a bunch of clients. I did a bunch of work with them. I got to see a different side zone because it was a sweetheart loyal always do an ad to the rehab center gal is that and they want to me at the White House. Wow. Frickin things for him to sign this $8 billion opiate epidemic Bill, you know, to start talking to teens around the country and I'd say you know, this is unbelievable. And then my dad always wants me to write a book Brandon and I just I didn't Feel comfortable writing about the HMI. I always take a lot of my stories out there between me and my my loved ones that I foster my clients myself and I met Anna David on Instagram one day, a few months after that. And I guess she saw something about, you know, a hashtag recovery and the White House and opiate epidemic. And somehow we linked up and I saw her that December of 2017, which was probably about eight or nine months after my dad passed and talking or just checking in with you, because your story is unbelievable, because you know, I'm in recovery. I was like, I had no idea. Because I've been in recovery, I read a couple of best selling books, I think it's time you write one. Because I have the angle. I know you said your dad always wants to do right when she goes take people on a fly on the wall journey of what it's like to be the agents most iconic stars of all time, like you went deep into health care side. And we looked at each other with tears. I said, That's it. That's powerful. That's hot. And so anyway, when the book came out, and I did so many speaking engagements, and I noticed that there was opportunities, very limited. And that short window of people that actually had such a deep connection with there was high school kids Did someone come over to me put their hands up during the q&a, where I knew I had an opportunity right then and there to help. There was adult audience, Gallows corporations, where people were just, they had that moment of clarity. And I'm like, I need to start a foundation. And because if I can grab somebody, and their lights come on in that moment, and they can afford it, and I could say, I could help you, right? Go home, pack your bag of a car company get you, it's gonna take you treatment center tonight, to check your work to get the life you deserve. And that's how even high Foundation came about. Brandon Handley 41:52 That's awesome. That's awesome. So I mean, you you you've gone from, you know, this kind of this broken, scared person, even though you had massive success came crumbling all down. And now you know, you've rebuilt yourself. And I always always look at spirituality is you recognize the truth of who you are personally, right? Like, I mean, you see the core of who you are. And you're looking now to help others to find that in themselves through AAA and through your foundation through the work. Darren Prince 42:23 And my friend Jen and I were laughing last night, I would say I didn't, I didn't get sober writing, you hide and make money. I didn't do it to build my brand, which I think just by default, you know, business is better than ever. I am a consultant with Ben and I help people, you know, get a, you know, get in there when I can't afford it. i I'm part of a it's an incredible group now bridge therapeutics that has this revolutionary 100 time better suboxone that hits the system, and 10 seconds when suboxone when I was on, it took 15 minutes. And I'm a voice for them. And I know it's gonna, you know, get people off methadone. And like, all these blessings that I've been a part of, because, you know, I've had that I've had the foundation in my business. But, you know, like Jay Shetty, and I was talking about now I had no idea that a byproduct was just the agency life. God knew all along the values ready. You know, Hong Kong, and he says an expression, he came into testimony for the back of my book that was so powerful and said, you know, July 2 2008, brother us God for the blessing. And he said, you've come to me correct. Now it's time to make your blessing to others. Brandon Handley 43:43 Yeah. Love it, man. And it's like, just like you said, you know, I was looking at, you know, the universe provides before you need the things right. So the universe kind of Gates gave you this agency and this platform so that like, when you got to this space, now you're able to leverage that to do what it is that you're doing right now. Exactly. That's awesome. There. Now what's next for you, man? What do you you know, where are you headed? What's going on? Darren Prince 44:12 I'm low on the travel for the next three weeks. Thanks, God me, my girl, her mom and my mom. Both of our moms are flying out for Thanksgiving just laying low. We have so much great business stuff going on. But you know, for me the stuff that really gets me excited is recovery. Get back out there and speak and again and you know, write my next book, which should be next year, raising whatever money I came from our foundation like I said bridge therapeutics, you know, I just can't wait to get this thing out to all the treatment centers and people that are suffering and you know, Banyan would probably have another you know, gala coming up for Banyan next year fundraiser. I just that's the stuff that really gets me excited. I mean, I got my dog on a personal override and I still up on my life. It's football season. Hopefully my Los Angeles chargers can turn Turn it around their records, okay, but they stink, they're all banged up and injured. So I do what I can to get my own personal enjoyment of time to check out and you know, with my girl and her dog and, you know, work out five days a week, still taking care of myself and nice. That's it. But I think, you know, it all comes into alignment when I put this first and when I help people. Brandon Handley 45:22 Yeah, I love that too, you know, that this is first for you. And I think that that's very profound. And hopefully that's something that some others take away as well. Man, I appreciate you coming in here. Like I said, we kind of bumped into each other Novak's house. And I you know, wanted to have you on Bill to share this story with some other people. I appreciate you being on World Darren Prince 45:44 Cup on Saturday. What's that? We're gonna wake up on Saturday. Brandon Handley 45:49 That's right. 100% Yeah, man, I'm looking forward to it. I you know, I think it'd be even. That's exciting. That's exciting for me that you're interested and the work that that I've been doing over there has been just kind of so makes me feel good, right? Kind of like the way it's what you're talking about. You can go there and get some people to see and connect with themselves and put some type of gap in between this anxiety that are feeling right and let go everything around them and just being able to do that for a moment, especially as they're making this transition from off the street. Some of these guys. I mean, these Darren Prince 46:29 are fresh. Exactly. Brandon Handley 46:31 Give them that for a moment. Man. This last one was super powerful, very excited. But again, man looking forward to us this coming week and we can and this has been a lot of fun. Darren so thank you. Thanks for where's that some people to find out more about you? How can they contribute? How where can people go to Darren Prince 46:48 follow me on Instagram at agent underscore DEP. The Foundation website is aiming high foundation dot work. Got my own personal site Official Darren prince.com. And for people that are intrigued by the agent life and whatnot, the business side is print marketing group.com Awesome. Thanks, Dan. All right. You got it. Excellent. I Intro Guy 47:15 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dough podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual dough, and Instagram and spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brandon Handley 0:00 What is going on spiritual dope, we are where we at. We're on the West Coast, some call it the best coast and we're getting ready to travel back home to the east coast from hasn't been super sunny, hasn't been super warm as this area of California is not apt to be. And I'm getting ready to go home. But I've been away for about a week and, you know, doing what I can to make sure I get stuff posted to the interwebs. And getting back into the swing of things getting back into my regular daily habits that fallen off a little bit. Such as doing the breath work, such as getting the meditations and such as taking the time to read and do my gratitudes in the morning. Really what a difference they make. And those are ones that when I think about this guy, Tom, that I was seeing that did the energy work that he sat down with me and we were talking and he goes Brandon, how does a fish know? That it needs to been living in water that it needs needs water. And that's what gives it its life. And I was like Tom Tom, I don't know. And, and he goes, you take it out of the water, right? And then we put it back in it realizes Oh shit, this is this is what I need. This is this is the life this is this is this is my breath. This is my oxygen. This is this is what's necessary. And I think that that's what I'm when I think about the wakening process. And when I think about awakening and getting connected truly to your spirituality, and for me, has been my experience. But again, as I relate and review what so many others have encountered and shared, this is what I believe the experience to be, right. Your mileage may vary YMMV. When you're when you can't breathe, right? What's, what's the other one? You know, how do you how do you know, you know, if you really want to be successful, and I think there's the story of somebody being held on your water. And when you want it as much as you want to breathe. That's the same thing with like spirituality, when you get connected with source when you get connected with this ultimate. You stop worrying, right? It's not that you don't care that you are care less, and that you care less. So that you understand, Dan, that you are not alone. You will never be alone again. And there's a there is a salvation. And I think you know the word I was thinking of it, there's a salve. There's the South because you've been hurting, and you didn't even know it. There's, you know, there's I guess there's, you know, everybody suffers, you've been suffering. And you weren't aware of it. So I liken that to the obviously the awakening experience. And then with the breath work, that's another spot and you get the opportunity to not suffer for a moment. And to tap into that for a moment. And to realize that is possible. It's possible not to be anxious, it's possible to let your guard down and not get killed, murdered and maimed. And if that's possible for 10 seconds, it's possible for 20 if it's possible for 20 It's possible 30. If it's possible for that length of time, you can extend that and we have extended periods of feeling safe. Wherever you are. You become aware of your opportunities, you become aware of what's possible, you become aware of the fact that the limitations have begun to erode and I'm thinking visually of chains that are beginning to just dissolve and it happens effortlessly. It happens in a way that you wouldn't believe. If I told you what I'm telling you right now, but you have to experience this for yourself. Amen to sales cycle this year right now. And what's funny is what I sell does exactly that. But there's so many people that have sold snake oil Over the past that you have to, you have to, unfortunately, you have to, you have to be honest. And you have to let others experience it for themselves. You can't tell them what they're going to experience. You can't can I'm doing it right now. But they won't understand You won't understand unless you've experienced it for yourself. And when you experience it for yourself, and this is this is not a stepper. To that that is the 12 steps. But I understand that the 12 step is that when you experience this for yourself, you're going to run out and you're going to extol these virtues as these virtues which are strengths, you're going to extol these things to everybody going to share, you're going to shout from mountaintops, people gonna look at you like you're a fucking maniac. But you know, and that is the knowing. That is the knowing and that is the living your truth. And people are like, Meg, Meg, ping me the other day, somebody said, you know, you can't live your truth. There's only the truth and you know, don't be an asshole. Don't be an asshole about it. What you what you think, you know, may not be so right. That's the the who's a tom sawyer writer. All right, Mark Twain. Who who wrote that? You know, it's not what I think it's not what I know. For sure. Because you don't you don't know anything for sure. You know, what you've experienced? And then you look for ways to share that and then I think that that's where the quibbles come in. I had a conversation. Well, she's so she's, you know, she saw something that said that just pissed her off. Just because this person doesn't know you can't tell us to my truth, the truth. And you can't and it's rude to do that. It's it's it's a well, it's not rude, right? You just don't know any better. And I go with I side with my Angelou on this one, Maya Angelou, whatever. Do do do your best until you know better. So I said to her, I said, You know what it's not it's not so much that the person's be be grateful for the Sangha, which is the community that you're in. Or, again, I would say, for me right now be from this place of knowing from that place of experience. So be grateful for those that are on their way. Somebody would make a post saying, you can't experience your truth, you can only experience the truth type of thing. Yeah, that's maybe somebody's on their way to that community. Maybe they're on the way to this community. And this is the this is the line where we're all just walking each other home, like rom das said, so a lot packed in there. But it's eye opening. When you experience returning home, people often talk about the awakening or awakening rebirth, whatever, as returning home. Right? Like, I've just, I've come back to the place that I've, it's always been available, right? It's always been here, just like the fish out a fish out of water. When you get thrown back in. It's always you always been there you just you haven't been aware that that's exactly what you needed. And, you know, I often write in my journal as I got back then getting back into my practice. You know, I'm grateful to be in the perfect place. It's the perfect time to become I'm grateful to have what I have to say I've got my wonderful family loving wife and healthy children with grace and ease an imperfect ways. And I hope that you know, wherever you are in your journey, maybe you have gone through an awakening yourself. And maybe you are recognizing some of these truths for yourself. And you're curious what that journey is like for others and that you've tuned in and you found alright, I'm not fucking losing my mind. Alright, I found somebody else. Here's another person because we need this validation because nobody's talking about especially in the Western civilization. That we you know, because historically, historically, you you got burned at the stake historically. You were heretic, you were tortured, right? Historically, in western civilization, you shared that you felt this this way. You It wasn't much longer for you. And now what we need to be grateful for now is that we live in a civilization Times have changed and that the more that this awareness spreads to and through others, and it's safe to share. The more that you're able to lean into it and really feel it. It's an expansion of that awareness and it's a beautiful thing. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Kaluwa is an Intuitive Healer, Transformation & Empowerment Guide, and Executive Consultant. She has become a queen of transformation. After years of believing that a joyful, abundant life is for other people and falling into depletion from people-pleasing, she began a journey of self-discovery, upgraded worthiness, mindset shifts, and a connection to the divine feminine. She empowered herself to create a life she loves, make the money she desires, and receive unconditional joy. Stepping further and further into her power, she is bringing others with her that feel there's more to life than suffering in toxic relationships or environments and living on auto-pilot.   Find out more over at https://imperfectlyamazing.com/   Summary: In this discussion, Kaluwa provides valuable insights for spiritual aspirants. She talks about the journey of discovering one's self-worth and spiritual connection, trusting intuition, and breaking free from negative generational patterns. Kaluwa shares her personal experience of homeschooling her daughter and how it has allowed her to live a more vibrant and energetic life. The discussion also covers the importance of investing in oneself and finding joy in the journey, as well as the healing process using EFT tapping. Overall, the conversation emphasizes the importance of embracing one's differences and finding gratitude in all aspects of life, while encouraging spiritual aspirants to prioritize their own growth and make themselves a priority. Outline Intro to this episode. 0:00 Why is there poverty in the world today? 2:27 How to start a conversation about love? 7:07 What made you finally decide to take the leap? 13:06 From teaching abundance to feeling it to embodying it. 20:23 Do you believe in right and wrong? 28:10 The importance of knowing you're worthy. 33:47 It's a journey and a process. 41:49 The importance of investing in yourself. 45:40 Brandon Handley 0:00 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with Kaluwa did I say that right? Kaluwa 0:07 Mostly Kaluwa Ruit Ghalikar Brandon Handley 0:08 Damn it. Well, I know it's gonna mess it up and you know that there you go. But I did but one of the things I always felt not always I often fail to do was try to clear up the name before I messed it up. So this time I cleared it up and messed it up. But all good clue has become a queen of transformation after years of believing that a joyful abundant life is for other people and falling into depletion from people pleasing she began a journey of self discovery, upgraded worthiness mindset shift and a spiritual connection to the divine feminine. She empowered yourself to create a life she loves make money, she desires and receive unconditional joy, which is her birthright. Being the change maker she is she's inspiring others to step into their desires to kalua. So funny. You and I were talking at the beginning of this clue and I have at least exchanged email for the better part of five years. I'd have to check Google for that. Kaluwa 1:05 Probably more, Brandon Handley 1:06 I think. Yeah. closer to six. Yeah. And, you know, through through a variety of different ways. And then, as we went along, you were on a good friend of mines podcast. Jeremy. She's blanking right now. As pas Jeremy talks, Kaluwa 1:24 podcast. Yeah, Brandon Handley 1:25 as Assad pauses. And Jeremy was my very first guest on my very first podcast and what a shit show clue up by the way. Oh my god, Kaluwa 1:35 entertaining though, knowing the two of you that had to steal have been a good show, no matter how bad it was. Brandon Handley 1:41 It wasn't so bad as the conversation. It was like, how do we do this? Like, you know, we were like, literally like it was it was it was like, to technology that you and I experienced like doing this today? Yeah, it was like 100% improvement. And so so the thing is the clue and I we never really talked. And it wasn't until like I heard the podcast where you were on with Jeremy as well. And turns out clue is in the spiritual space, my sis bass, positive affirmations face abundance face like and pretty much the same space without being in my place. Space. Space. So, so glad that you're on today. Kaluwa 2:27 Thank you so much. I'm so thrilled to be here with you. Brandon Handley 2:30 Yeah. So I usually say this question for the very end. So let's do let's we're gonna flip we're gonna flip something around today. You know, I look at this podcast. It's kind of like a spiritual speed dating podcast, right? You know, so I've got actually had to pull this off right now wasn't ready to do at the very beginning. But so I have like this list of top 20 questions. Plus top 20 questions, spiritual questions, right. I don't think they're amazing. But they you know, they're the top it says the 20 questions for every spiritual seeker, right. So I want to pick one or two out of there. And, and then, you know, maybe there's somebody that's listening today, that's going to be like, she's my spiritual Bachelorette. So, I'm spiritual. Bachelorette number one, since you're talking about abundance or anything like that today? Why is there poverty and suffering in the world? Kaluwa 3:22 Hmm. You know, I feel like the same poverty and suffering is relative. I think a lot of times we create a definition of it, we look at a third world country and say, Oh, that's poverty that's suffering. And yes, of course, there is, you know, people not getting enough food, you know. But then there's also a lot of community, there's a lot of togetherness, there's a lot of tradition and culture. And so maybe sometimes we trade for, I don't think that any one is completely impoverished. As long as we're always finding gratitude. Brandon Handley 4:08 Yeah, no, listen, I like that answer. You know, there's always no, to talk about finding indigenous tribes that have never seen, you know, television or radio or even, Kaluwa 4:19 they're not missing it. And they're happy. Yeah, Brandon Handley 4:22 they're laughing. They're smiling. They're healthy. Kaluwa 4:25 Yeah. Okay. And I will never, you know, minimize anybody's pain or struggles. But at the same time, I think that most everybody knows that everything is happening for you, not to you, and we can always find something that makes us abundant. Brandon Handley 4:43 Yeah, I mean, it Well, I think that you found that for yourself. At a certain point in time, there would have been, you know, an inflection point. Right. That's certainly something we want to talk to about today. And we'll spiritual Bachelorette. Let's get one more in here. Right now. Um, let's see. We'll make it an easy one. Describe god. Kaluwa 5:13 Okay, nice and easy. I mean, as much as I know, right, because, you know, so here's my take on the whole spiritual realm, right, we have the higher self of us. And it's like this inverted pyramid. So here we are at the tip of that upside down pyramid. Okay. And so we just know that little bit, and then we have our higher self, that knows maybe all of the lifetimes of experience, or all of you know, the, the, what's happening in the spiritual realm, and all of this information that maybe we can't handle all at once, so we get it as needed. So then there's that, but then there's also the whole realm of, you know, love and lights, and all of that. I mean, I guess it's just infinite, as far as I'm concerned, and it's all connected and, and this realm and that irrelevant. It's, I don't think neat or clean. I just think it's like one big lump of love, I guess. Brandon Handley 6:22 So God has one big lump of love. big lump Kaluwa 6:24 of law. Fair enough. Fair enough. We're all part of that. Brandon Handley 6:27 Sure. Sure. Sure. No, I appreciate that, as well. You know, trying to be we are not separate from anything out there. And God is a part of that. And so we are part of it. And if it is one big lump of love, and that's what we're all working with today. Kaluwa 6:47 I mean, you know, as far as animals and the planet, and you know, the atmosphere, the you know, all of it the solar system, right, all of it. It's just, there's all connections. Yeah. Yeah. Brandon Handley 7:01 Love it. Okay, well, cool. We, we pyramid, the podcast right now. And a couple of different ways there. And then so the other way, I usually like to start this as well, is that, you know, we're also conduits for just love that you're talking about universal energy, and that there's always somebody tuning in listening to the podcast is gonna get a totally different conversation than the one you and I are having you and I are talking, we're like, talking talking. They're gonna come at it from their own level of understanding and perception. And wherever they are today. They're gonna hear something different, to help them that can only be delivered through you today through universal energy, what is it? What do they need to hear? Kaluwa 7:50 believe in you. What we mean by that, is that no matter where you are, in your life in your journey, but no matter what your experiences have been, no matter if you think differently than the masses, no matter if you know, your desires are different, if anything about you is different. If your experiences have been different, trust yourself, and know that there's a reason for your differences. And those are your gifts. Brandon Handley 8:28 All right, trust yourself. And you're here, you're you're exploring the spiritual space. But I mean, that wasn't always like your background. If I recall, and doing a little bit of research, like you were going to like medical school for a little bit, right. Like, Kaluwa 8:45 I had an interest in med. Yeah, I had a pre med major than I ever had. Yeah. And it was funny, originally, I was going for physical therapy. And I remember, you know, volunteering as you should. And the people coming down in the hospital to the physical therapy room and asking, asking us to let them die. And I was just like, Yeah, I don't know if this is my jam or not. And I found myself moving into, honestly, human services for a long time just through again, there are no accidents, right? So I got a job outside of school, working in a group home for people with developmental disabilities, and loved it. And so then when I graduated, I moved into more management positions, and I just continued to work through that field. And so working with people supporting people to their highest level has always been a passion of mine. Sure. And yeah, so I think that was where, where things really began and then after so long in Human Services, I found myself craving to be more in a spot of proactive help than me Active? Brandon Handley 10:02 Yeah. Well, what's that look like for you now? Because I feel like that's kind of where you are right now with the with the coaching that you deliver, you've got holistic coaching, you've got products you've got, you know, this way of looking at it. Kaluwa 10:13 It's funny. Yeah, it has been, you know, and that's the other thing, like, just trust yourself trust the journey, because I feel like, oh, my gosh, is this confusing for people because really, you know, I had this long history of dance, I was a dancer, I, you know, was on the dance team in school. And when I got to a certain point, I started teaching holistic movement, right, it was kind of like dancy movements and very mind body spirit. And then that led into health coaching, and then that led into more of the mindset and lifestyle coaching, and then that started to lead to where the spiritual coaching has continued to snowball. And again, just like that, that whole idea of everything is connected. I don't like to leave any of it out. Because it's all connected where, you know, we don't compartmentalize, truly. Brandon Handley 11:08 No, I think that I think that, that if we do, I think you talked a little bit about your father and the illness that he had. And when when you go to kind of take, you know, the acute problem and make that like the whole body's problem. It's, I always think about it like a wheel, when you put the balance on the wheel, right? Like you put the balance on one side, and the whole thing's off. Right? You gotta keep you got that next thing. You know, you're putting balances all over the wheel. And you're never really kind of addressing like, maybe it's a bedroom. Kaluwa 11:43 Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly. But you're Brandon Handley 11:47 never really kind of, by that. I mean, you're not addressing the whole you're adjusting like these kind of like, Oh, you got a toothache let's you know, take out your tooth. And like, Kaluwa 11:55 yeah, you're hitting the symptoms instead of the root. Yeah. Right. Brandon Handley 11:59 So. So, you know, to your point, right, you're, that's not separate, like, they all kind of play roll with each other. So you know, look, you're on you're on this, like crazy, I wouldn't say crazy. You're you're on this journey, Kaluwa 12:14 sometimes. Brandon Handley 12:18 And you will know the reason that kind of re pull that back. Because like, we don't want to call like, wherever you are crazy. We don't want to close wherever you are. If we believe if we trust the process is exactly where you're supposed to be. So that you receive whatever it is you need. So you can move forward. That's right. So when when we started talking today to let's talk about, like, you know, some of your first YouTube videos and the journey that you've Kaluwa 12:51 thanks for going back and looking at those. Brandon Handley 12:54 It's perfect, because because it's that whole iceberg thing. Right? So the whole iceberg, people see the tip. Yeah. But like, there's a whole lot that went into it, right? Like, I didn't know, you'd been doing this stuff, like pretty well in depth for well over five years. Right. Okay. And so let's talk about like, what made you finally say, Hey, I got to put the camera on, I got to put myself out there, and I gotta move this thing forward. Kaluwa 13:26 You know, I think that's probably the reason I did is probably the energy difference you feel between those and what I do now. Those were, that's what I should be doing. And I just had this sense of, Well, this is what I should be doing to get myself out there. And okay, let me do it. And yeah, I wasn't super confident about it. But you know, I was like, well, I'll just, you know, show up, and I'm going to do it, and at least I did it. Hey, that's perfect, right? That is that is all anybody can do. especially starting out and, and not putting expectations on themselves. So, you know, sometimes I just jump and see where I land. Brandon Handley 14:08 For sure. Sure. And I and what I love about that is that, you know, our stories are so parallel, right? When I first started it was like, This is what you're supposed to do, go do this, go do that go to this. I'm like, I'm doing this. I'm doing that I'm doing this. But I think that one of the key differences and I love that you hit on that is the expectations. I had expectations. Right. I was like this is gotta have this is how it's supposed to have this is what the manual says. The copy says that this will happen. Yes. Kaluwa 14:41 Five simple yes. And it's funny. I just did this whole thing last week about you know, you need to being a trigger for me. Everybody tells you what you need to do to be successful to lose weight to get a mate. Whatever it is you need to write, don't tell people what they need to do. because only they know it's within them. Right? It's inside of them. Brandon Handley 15:05 Yeah. So you're doing all the things that you're supposed to do, right? You should be doing. You're creating programs, you're putting yourself on YouTube. You know, where do you where do you and you're? Are you feeling hollow at that point? Are you feeling like you're just going through the motions? Do you feel like there's a passion in it where, you know, let's talk about it. Because again, I think this, it's a real good journey. Kaluwa 15:33 Yeah, it's a good question. For sure. The passion always right. The passion is always there. Because again, that's what I, I love. I love to help people move along. But yeah, there's maybe a disappointment, I think, because I would have this expectation, oh, if I do this, and I'm consistent, then it's gonna lead to and then it does. And I'm like, What the heck, man? Brandon Handley 16:00 You're like, where are my million followers, bro? Yeah, Kaluwa 16:03 thank you. Come on now. Brandon Handley 16:08 I paid $200 for this. I'm pissed. Exactly. So you're, you know, again, and I don't think it's wrong. As a matter of fact, that kind of love. I love that there was like this bubble of that. And there's this kind of rush into that space, right? Because I think it was needed. Yeah, I really, I really do think that it was needed. Now the question is, is so much that you it's not like, it's not like you have to be consistent for three months, or six years or any of this, you just have to be consistent. There's a Bob Proctor has this. One, he talks about certain indigenous tribe, and he goes, You know what? They do a rain dance. And he'd ask them, How long do they dance for? Did they dance for a couple of days or whatever? And they go, No, we dance until it rains. Right? So Kaluwa 17:07 it's been a big lesson for me lately, too, is that Divine Feminine timing into something that Brandon Handley 17:14 sounds sounds like, you know, maybe what you were you had jumped into. And again, you know, you jumped into it with the right intentions. But the work that you were doing just wasn't aligned with who you were in that moment. And it just wasn't a good fit at the moment. And you continue to work through it. Kaluwa 17:35 I was doing more of the here's what you should be laying out for people. This really helps people this helped me right. So I'm still doing it. Yeah, for those right reasons. But I still wasn't fully in my alignment. And just this now I find myself when I'm connecting with people, when I'm guiding people, it's more of a Here's what's coming up like this is the more aligned right, it doesn't have to be this fancy thing. This, you know, Tony Robbins thing that everybody's doing? It just gets to be like, Wait, this is what is best. Now, how does this fit is simple? Yeah. Brandon Handley 18:22 Where do you feel like somebody inflection points where Kaluwa 18:31 the alignment and the the allowing, I would say more. So allowing the guidance to flow, allowing it to come through allowing it to just be in alignment. Brandon Handley 18:54 So for somebody that's not in alignment, what's that kind of feel like? Kaluwa 18:59 Well, usually it's tension, it's stress, you'll feel it in the body, and I'm a big, big person on the body. Like we're spiritual beings in the human body. Because we chose to be here to have a human experience. That is how we learn this is how we grow this is how we experience and so first of all, no beating yourself up for being human because that's why you're here. But secondly, embracing being in this body like this is like the foundation level is being in this body and we're so taught to disconnect from it or ignore the you know, the little cues until they become major problems for me, you know what happens if you ignore the clicking in the car $5,000 Later. Same thing with your body listening to it, connecting to it and when you're out of alignment. For me specifically, I noticed that it tends to be in my chest it can feel like tight like just because sprinting, it's constricting. But then when you're in alignment, like everything just feels like it opens up. And you might have like the butterflies in the belly. Right? And when the, like little bit of nerves, that's excitement, that's okay. But when it feels like clench or or or those are very scientific terms, by the way. Brandon Handley 20:23 Yes, no doubt. Well, when did you know? So? When do you feel like you felt this alignment? Start clicking for you? When do you? When do you? When did you go from, you know, teaching abundance to actually feeling it and embodying it. Kaluwa 20:43 So what's interesting is, I have always had a really good sense of intuition. I've always been really good about that. But then I also always made myself wrong for it. You know, like, we do live in a patriarchal society. And so we value masculine properties, logic reason, why would you make that decision based on your gut? That makes no sense, right? I would make myself wrong for it. And I remember being on the phone with my aunt one day, she had made this comment about like, yeah, you know, you had a really crazy childhood, but somehow, like you ended up like, so on your feet. And it's like, you've just always had this really good inner guidance. And unlike Yes, I have. It was hearing somebody else say it. Maybe own it a little bit like, yeah, yeah. Bad thing. Are you kidding me? That's like, gotten me here. Brandon Handley 21:45 Sure. Yeah. And if you've made it like this far, with all your lands, and most your teas and those things, and, you know, I think you're doing all right. And to your point, it's not that you need the validation. But when you get it, it's kind of like, I'm not the only one that feels good about how I feel, or the things that I feel right, having that good inner guidance. You know, the person that, that we met through a lease, you know, such a great coach, even, I say back in the day, because it's been like a while now, right? I know, I know. And that keeps getting better. And it for me, it was like that support and encouragement. It's not like I got my wife, I got it home. But I was like this third party, you know, encouragement to just, I still remember when I told her I want to do the fatherhood for the rest of this podcast. And I was in her sales coaching. I fully expected her to be like, well, that's, Kaluwa 22:46 yeah, you need to focus your efforts on Yeah, Brandon Handley 22:50 you shouldn't be this is what you should be doing right. Yeah. She goes, How can I help? And I was like, Yeah, something like, lifted like, I mean, it was like, all the way it was gone. I Kaluwa 23:00 was like, is it like, just hearing you say that? I felt that expansion. Yeah. Right. I Brandon Handley 23:04 was like, I was like, we could do this. Yeah. Yeah. And so where was that? That's what I'm looking forward for you like Where was that? Like, everything lifted? And you're like, you're like kicking in doors break into walls? Like you're the Kool Aid guy. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Kaluwa 23:23 We just dated ourselves. Brandon Handley 23:28 That's my demographic. People go through shit. Kaluwa 23:35 Yes. And I have to say, I feel like it's actually been fairly recently. So you know, because it's been continuous. And especially last year, I decided, like I had gotten to this point, I was like, I'd gotten my financials where I wanted them. I love my home. Like, I just loved life. I love life. But at the same time, I wasn't really reaching people with what I was doing. And I knew it was because I was hiding. And so then I went on a whole journey. And I collaborated with Elise right, so I took my turn with a lease and yeah, and I started to do all this Well, I tell you what it kick started this whole healing process that I went through, it was like generational stuff, and, and all of these things, and I remember getting something in the mail. It was actually so an uncle of mine passed a few years ago. And when my aunt moved, she found this paperwork that he had gotten of my father's from when my father passed, and it was a file of stuff from when I was a kid. And she was like, Oh, I was gonna send that to you. So she mails it to me and I received it and I and it's funny because again, like I'm always saying trust, right, so all these messages and the day the more Learning or like, early, early morning, my cat knocked a music box off my shelf. And she never like she's never broken anything ever. And it was this particular music box that was given to me by the parent. And on that day that mail arrived. And what was funny is I just had this really weird sense that I didn't want to open it at all. And I didn't open it for a good couple days. And when I finally did, I found like this old report card, that was like the most traumatic report card I had ever had in my entire life like I, I mean, I'll just be real, because, you know, we come from back in the day where parents were a little more hands on. So I got the beating of my life. Like, today. And I'm looking at this report card, and unlike, you know, WTF, I'm passing all the subjects, right, as a first grade, let's put that first grade. I'm passing all the subjects the teacher didn't much care for me. And that's okay. I may be an acquired taste for some and that's okay. Brandon Handley 26:14 There's two of you first grade bitch. Kaluwa 26:18 This is the woman she would call my home every night at dinner, to complain about me to my parents. Right. So I mean, that's like a little bit excessive. All I did was talk too much in glass. Sure. So Brandon Handley 26:32 you're a kid. Kaluwa 26:34 And I was born out of my mind, like that transition from kindergarten to first grade was hell, like we could play in kindergarten, first grade, it was sit down, shut up, don't move. And I was like, I'm dying. Yeah, and so I taught, I talked and I'd get sent to the hall and I talked to the people walk by in the hall and and I get centered or civil. And the only thing that was bad on the report card said, Well, if she continues this show, she'll be held back, which is a plus teaching, I would have to say, considering I was passing everything. But I didn't know what that report card said until like this 40 some odd years later. I had no idea. And I remember saying like, what does it say? What does it say? It doesn't matter what it says you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing? Wow. And I had created in my head. This story about the things I do are wrong. Yeah. And environment Brandon Handley 27:36 didn't sound super supportive. Kaluwa 27:38 No. And so you know, everything I do is wrong. And so I think differently than a lot of people in that must be wrong. And I believe things differently. And that must be wrong. And I desire things differently. I have different desires than people. And that must be wrong. Like I always made myself wrong. And there didn't have to be reason, because I didn't know, I didn't know the reason. And this receiving that and seeing that and being like, Are you kidding me? I wasn't wrong. Brandon Handley 28:10 Yeah, you Kaluwa 28:13 don't really believe in right or wrong so much anymore? Sure. If I was Brandon Handley 28:18 that was wrong. Just put it out there. It's really interesting to think where we are you and I, you know, how old are your kids? Kaluwa 28:29 I've got a gap. I've got one who's just turned 18 and one who's 918. Brandon Handley 28:34 So Gelson gonna go out on a limb like you've raised your children a little bit differently. Yeah. Right. And that, when they? I wouldn't say that probably, you thought differently. I think most kids seem to have like this innate, like gift of like, a you're energetic because you're a kid. And if you don't, if you don't have energy, and you do sit in your seat all day long, I'm gonna start to question that, right? And then, like, flick this innate curiosity and just kind of like be alive and light and bright. Mm hmm. Should we value right? So? Yeah, you know, my guess is that you encourage your children to be, you know, bright and vibrant versus Sure. Right. Kaluwa 29:27 You know, my daughter was such a natural learner, and she loves school. But she, for her it was second grade that the teacher was my first grade teacher and she would come home. And it was such an interesting thing because she was so exhausted, but wired at the same time. Sure, because she wasn't getting the physical activity and she was just like, having to just sit there and listen and you know, and she was anxious like it was almost like at the age of seven she was becoming anxious At the end of that year, I pulled her out and we started homeschooling. Wow. And I mean, again, she was brilliant. She ended up graduating a year early and headed off to school and yeah, so she did great. And then my son came along. It's just a ball of fire. And I was like, There's no way I'm even trying to stay at home with me. Brandon Handley 30:21 Good for you. Good for you. Right? Because, because, again, like, we were going through something super similar. First of all me too, right? In terms of like, hey, you've got to lighten you. Let's squish it somehow. I remember my first grade teacher my handwriting. I was like, Well, it hasn't improved. Thank you, Mrs. Ankle. Yeah, it's your fault. Like, there's like the end and like, look at adults and people now, right? Like you if you don't go exercise today, or tomorrow, within a couple of days, you're gonna your tightly wound, right? If you don't let this energy out. Kids are nothing but energy. Yeah, right to reason back behind there. So let's go back here. Sorry. We took we went on a tangent. Kaluwa 31:08 Yeah, that's those are always mess though. Brandon Handley 31:10 But so you're able to, you know, somewhat rewrite this story right of yours and do some of this healing. You're like, you know what you're like, what, like, Kaluwa 31:19 you know, it's funny. So like, the stuff like that, where I was, like, I knew within me that this was the best decision for my child. And so I did it. And I acted on it. And I was confident, but at the same time, I would hide, like, Let's be quiet, let's not rattle a lot of windows, like, let's not make a lot of noise, right? And let's just stay under the radar. So we don't alert all the people, all the haters like everybody. Brandon Handley 31:49 Let's look at how you were brought up to like, you made noise. And I mean, I don't know what it was. I didn't I didn't have that type of childhood. Right. But I know that if I know that if I bring home a bad report card, I'm gonna get my ass kicked. Damn right. I'm not gonna I'm not I'm not trying to be seen. Kaluwa 32:05 Like, that was my main job was good report cards. Yeah. And yeah, that's it. That was. Brandon Handley 32:13 But so So you go through this process. And it's interesting. You say, though, this past year, right. Because, again, I went through and and checked out the clue catalog. And, and the podcasts again, like when you started that, you're fired off. There's a different intensity about you. There's a whole different like, I think he talked about like your chakra a lot. But like, that was an earlier one. But there's a there's a whole new core that I hear in you going back a year from the five years before. So where's the healing clicked? Do you have any like specific guidance? Again, you and I were talking before we got this started to is like your journey has been such a cool one such as again, it's been, it's been captured. Right? Yeah, we can go back and see, you're basically talking to somebody it's in where you were five years ago, what is something you can do that you would share with them and exercise to help them accelerate their journey? Kaluwa 33:17 Well, for me, specifically, it was about recognizing patterns that I didn't like, and in my particular case, I found myself in a toxic relationship. And, you know, I don't like to speak ill of the person because it's not a bad person. But yet somehow we ended up in this toxic situation. But then when I looked back at the person before, totally different person, but boy, the relationship seemed really similar. And then the one before Yeah. Oh, and I'm like, okay, yeah, a common denominator is me. Yeah. Which is a bit of a bitter pill. Sure, but that's how you make a change. And so, I mean, I really feel like I just, like, stripped down, just raw, that's at the heart of you know, working on my worthiness, which is probably not surprising considering report cards. Brandon Handley 34:17 So yeah, talk about that too. Like I mean, you know, in especially when you're working to sell these programs, right and working on acquiring clients, there's got to be you have to know that you're worthy. Yeah, to a certain degree and if you've got this thing that's kind of like you've got this weight and really and and you're telling people they're worthy, but like you've got the shackle like wow, I don't even know if I'm worthy, right like so. Yeah. Yeah. Talk about breaking the chain Kaluwa 34:54 I gotta tell you for sure. The, the biggest kickstart for me with that was EFT tapping, I love that you're familiar. I'm familiar. Yep. Yeah. Okay, um, I just found that that was a really simple way to kickstart it, you know, to catch yourself out of fight or flight even thinking about, right and, and just upgrading it and, and you know, it just becomes this this step by step by step by step it doesn't have to be all at once we don't have to know everything. We don't have to fix everything now. Because truly you won't, you know, you're going to hit the next level and probably do it all over again, on a different dimension. Yes, Brandon Handley 35:38 it's a it's like owning a mansion. And there's a dirty room on every floor. Exactly. Kaluwa 35:43 Exactly. I'm gonna start all over. It's like I thought I just kind of is or like having the kids come into the room that you just clean new, like, if you start again. Brandon Handley 35:54 So I am familiar with the app t talk to me, like, what does it stand for? Where you know, we're using it? What does it look like at home versus maybe? And in front of my supervisor setting? Kaluwa 36:09 Yeah, well, it's emotional freedom technique. And essentially, it's essentially like acupuncture or acupressure meets psychology, I guess, in a way, it's, you know, you tap on meridians and, and you just like, you know, tap real gentle, easy. And yeah, tap on the face. Now, there's a few spots are along, right. So the face the by the clavicle of the side of the ribs, and the top of the head. And as you go through, you usually start with the negative statements, which is something I really appreciate about that. And I think that's really powerful, is owning the negative. So often we want, like, what's that? Yeah, what's Brandon Handley 36:53 up? Yeah, Kaluwa 36:54 um, you know, just starting, you know, you might say, I'm not feeling very worthy, but I love and forgive myself, right. And you just, I'm not feeling worthy today. And then you just go through the thing, and you just say all the things about like, maybe I don't feel worthy, maybe these things have happened that have shown me I'm not worthy. But then on the other hands, you know, I'm this child of God. And of course, just being here makes me want it right, and you just start to then move into the positive. And then I don't even need proof. It's just me being here. And then when you get done, it's like, well, and you can even do it where like, in your mind, you rate your level of worthiness on a scale of one to 10. And maybe it was a three to begin with. And then it's a 10 at the end, or the opposite if you're trying to reduce a feeling. But sure, yeah. And so I really, really resonate with that. And then of course, I mean, there were so many other things I did meditation, learning how to protect my energy as an empath, you know, Brandon Handley 38:01 clue one question on the EFT, right? If I'm if let's say I'm with my, you know, my boss, my leader, team, leader, whatever, I'm starting to feel panic. He's talking. She's talking, I started doing this. Well, you can just Kaluwa 38:15 tap on the side of your hands. Okay. Yeah, that's a really good. As a matter of fact, I used to do a yoga class for preschoolers. And there was this one little boy who had horrible behavior problems through sweet kid, but, you know, there was just something going on. And, and he, you know, you could see him starting to go down like that, Oh, my God, it's about to be a meltdown. Just grab him, sit him down and just start tapping on his hand. And he felt like butter. Brandon Handley 38:45 Yeah, I think it works to just kind of distract the executive. Mind. Right? Yeah. Like, you've got all these balls shoved down. But if you can, if you can start to focus on this thing, what's it feel like? What am I doing? opposed shit, I've got control of at least these two pieces of everything that I might have control of more than just that. Kaluwa 39:05 It really takes you out of fight or flight is the great part of it. So whether it be like a panic thing happening, a stress thing happening, you know, block that you're working through, as soon as you think about it, like the heart starts to raise, you know, like you, you even if it's just a small reaction, you go into that fight or flight. And so you come that and then you're calming it while you're saying those negative statements. So it's like, you're sort of relieving it, and then you add in the positive ones. And now your body gets to believe it. Brandon Handley 39:38 Nice. Now, you're reassociate in the emotional energy from the negative to the positive. Kaluwa 39:45 Yeah, it's just a recalibration basically. Yeah. Brandon Handley 39:48 I like it. I like it. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about what's going on over at imperfectly amazing right now. This is you and what's going on? Kaluwa 40:00 I'm fixing amazing. So I have a few different things I have Brandon Handley 40:04 a website you gave me damn, yes, yes. Kaluwa 40:08 Like, I have a few things within there, I have a group where it's, you know, really just, you know, I come on live once a week I, here's the energy of the week I'm gonna let's do this healing, sometimes I tap sometimes I'll do energy healing, sometimes I'll do a guided visualization. And you know, whatever is suited for the moment, and and Brandon Handley 40:31 you ask the group kind of like what's going on with them? Hey, where's everybody at today? What could you use type of thing? What's that look like? Kaluwa 40:37 I don't I tap into the energy before I get there. And I say, Okay, here's what's going on. This might be what you're feeling this is, you know, this is a great way and I do guide around it before I even get into the healing stuff. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. Yeah. And then I have a course, that is called 30 Day feminine power. And so that one is helping people step more into their feminine power. So again, like I said, we are really well versed in the masculine, because it's what has been taught. Sure. But the masculine alone, like I talked about, you know, if you're just on the masculine, that's like saying, I want to see the country and jumping in a bullet train, like you're not gonna see it, it's like, take action go. Whereas, but if you're just in the feminine, you'd probably just go in circles and not get anywhere. So we want to marry and blend those. And so, yes, so that, that course is about helping you tap into that feminine, a little bit more. And then so that you can and really, that idea of stepping into your power, so that you know, five years down the line, your podcast sound better. Brandon Handley 41:49 It's a journey, it is a process. And what's important in that illustration, right, the five years ago it's like, you know, the whole, you know, Zig Ziglar line, you don't gotta You don't got to be great to start, but you got to start to be great. Yeah, you got to start, you got it. You got to put one foot out there, you got to start along, and not quit on yourself, because you haven't quit on yourself, which is fantastic, right? Like you're like, Alright, maybe not this in this way in this space. Here's the twist. Here's the pivot. Here's his new thing I've learned. I'm bringing this with me, I believe in that. And I'm making the adjustments as you move forward as you continue to serve. And your audience and as I think you resonate with the truth of who you are, as you're doing now, like I said, I believe when I picked up Listen, again, to the difference, like the core of who you are right now is like, Oh, I forgot to do this too. Right? It's, it's a solid tone resonance versus a kind of soft. You know, you said you were hiding, right? It sounded like you were hiding. Yeah, right. And now you're like, Here I am, which is on the Kool Aid guy. Kaluwa 43:10 That's gonna be my new thing. The Kool Aid guy. Right. Oh, yeah. And then is the the last part to even for me, what the coming out of hiding was owning the spiritual a lot more. Yeah. And so I hid from that, because, you know, of course, I came from people who would be like, that's, that's blue. That's kooky. What kind of flighty flag Are you? And so owning that, you know, especially coming from that science background, where, you know, everything was research driven, I had to prove there. And in the beginning, I would even say, Well, you know, there is now technology that is seeing the chakra energy. There is some proof. Yeah, like, move it, Brandon Handley 43:51 it gives it gives me Listen, it does give the person who needs some type of authority to believe it, right? Yeah, yes, you know, and that's okay. Right, like, not everybody's gonna not everybody's gonna be like, shockers. Kaluwa 44:11 But at the same time, I'm now at a point where I'm like, you don't have to believe me and that's okay. That is okay. Yeah, awesome. But and that's where you know, now going into So, you know, my, my big program, this is where I'd like basically scoop everyone up and like, hold them to my bosom. This is my program, the desire Academy and that's just all about I talk about healing the gap because there's where you are now and there's where you want to be, right you're where you desire to be. And then in the center is that gap and we want to rush through it again that bullet train. And but once we get to where we desire, well, then new desires come and we create a new gap. So and this really came from my time in human services. I remember doing vocational evaluations and people just grinding and pushing themselves. I'll be happy when I retire. And then you don't make it to retirement because you've destroyed yourself. Your mental, your physical. You didn't even make it. Was it worth it? Yeah, no, it wasn't. And so we have to love the gap, we have to have that joy in the gap. And so that's a big part of it. And it's also a heal to heal programs. So it's one of those things where you're learning to heal yourself. But when you leave it, you will be a healer as well. You'll be a Reiki person, you'll be you know, you'll know the energetics of the seasons, you'll know for all of the good stuff Brandon Handley 45:40 we're coming up on winter was the energetic of the season. Kaluwa 45:44 So winter is water, and big time for reflection. So those bitter pills, this is why I believe so many people get down in the winter. I believe that people don't like the winter because it is a time of inward reflection. And we don't like to do that. But I tell you what, it's so important when you do that that spring. Sure you get those sprouts. Brandon Handley 46:12 That's right. That's right. Well, that's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. Right. And I know that we can probably we get on so many different avenues. It sounds like you know, we've got a lot of intersections. But again, I love the fact again, that we emailed back and forth, and yours. Right and, and kind of gone along a real similar journey, no one and talking some of the similar people. And what I also like about this, too, is like, you know, this is it really fits you and I and just about everybody else out there, the hero's journey, right? This is I mean, the storyline is pretty much the same. Yeah. Fortunately, and unfortunately, right, like, Oh, you're gonna have to go through some shit. Well, I don't want to go through shit. You're going through it anyways. It's part of what's gonna happen. Yeah. navigate it, here's your ship, paddle and your ship. Kaluwa 47:09 We'll help you put the joy in the ship. Brandon Handley 47:13 But like, you know, having people that have gone through it, navigated it and come out the other side, like, know, better for it, right? Like you have Kaluwa 47:25 just something about having someone to just hold your hand and see you as you go through it. Because that was really helpful for me, like, yeah, I remember last year, and it was in the winter during that deep reflection, and I really was dealing with some, like I said, some generational things. And I mean, it was like, my heart hurt. Yeah. And it took a while to heal him. It was so helpful to have the people I could talk to, to just be there and to hold that space for me. Brandon Handley 47:58 I love that, right? It's certainly as necessary, kind of unconditional. Anything doesn't have to be unconditional love, but just kind of like, acceptance for who you are, what you're going through, you don't have to be better than you are. You don't have to be worse than you are. You are who you are right now in this moment. And that's fine. Right? One other question for you, too. You know, you've invested in yourself. Right? And to me, that's kind of like, an indicator of worthiness, right? Like you're not investing in yourself to you because you have options. You can spend your money on chocolate or yourself. Right. And, or anything really, Kaluwa 48:36 okay, well, maybe I do the chocolate too, because I'm wearing a chocolate. Brandon Handley 48:39 Right, right, right. Bad example. But you know, you can spend your money on a lot of things, right? It takes a while, for some of us took a while for me to invest in myself to say, You know what, like, who I am worth it, right? It took me a podcast, I ended up listening to where, you know, how was that for you to start investing in yourself? And what would you say some of the return has been? Kaluwa 49:10 Well, you know, having worked most half my life in the Human Services arena. Finances was not the biggest thing. And so I really wanted to make a positive impact on my my abundance, my financial abundance. And I definitely had some money baggage from my parents even though like, really, when I think about it, it's like, they never had it that but they would stress and they would have the you know, the reactions that were taught to have to money. Yeah, and I remember it was like a course, you know, and it was like $900 That was really big deal for me. Yeah. And my daughter was pretty young still. And I was just like, You know what? I'm doing this because I'm not going to pay son my money crap to her. Brandon Handley 50:02 Nice. Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. And I think that's super important right to to be able to say to make that transition from I can't afford it This isn't for me to I'm worth it. This is an investment. Right? How can I afford it? Right? What, what what needs to happen so that this can happen? Right? So thanks for sharing if you desire it, it's meant for you. Yeah, listen, listen, go for it right? You only get one shot at this. And you don't want to be the person you listen to, you know, the top, whatever XYZ Regrets of the Dying, right? There's the everybody's like, I wish I would have done more with my life. Nobody ever says I wish I would have spent more time in the office. Nobody ever says I wish I would have spent less time with my family. Yeah, there's always like, there's all these regrets. And there's all these things that people are like, well, I did this for so long. So you got to put yourself first a little bit, right? You got to at least make yourself important to yourself, because you're the first thing you spend the most time with. Kaluwa 51:12 Well, that's it when you're doing for everyone and not doing for you. You're running on E. So you're not doing for you. And then truly you're not doing for them either. Because you're on depletion. Brandon Handley 51:21 Yeah, for sure. For sure. Clue was so glad we were able to connect them. Where should we send people to find out more about you? Kaluwa 51:31 How about imperfectly amazing.com. Okay, yeah, all of this stuff is there and yeah, yeah. And of course, you can always find me on social media, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn. Brandon Handley 51:42 Awesome. Cool. Thank you so much. Thank you. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Today we cover stuff like how AI can help with things like meditation and prayer, as well as providing support for religious and spiritual groups. It can also help with things like creating outlines for podcasts or articles. There are some potential concerns with AI are that it may replace human interaction or that it could possibly promote certain beliefs over others.  Outline: OpenAI's Chat GPT program. 2:08 How I've been using VBA to write copy for marketing. 4:36 How to plan out your week using Google's API. 6:52 Can you put grocery list into order by department? And it does. 8:47 Am I contributing to something that may be our eventual downfall? 10:53 Personal story of how AI played a huge role in my spiritual journey. 13:01 How can AI help you to eliminate some of the effort you're putting into your life? 15:09 Be willing to take a leap and check it out for yourself. 17:44 Brandon Handley 0:00 What is going on spiritual dope, I'm in here right now, in the studio voice of a generation has been a minute since I've shouted that out voice of a generation here in 2001, e three. I was gonna swear there for a second. And then I was reminded by Finn, that if you swear, within the first eight seconds on YouTube video, or something like that, I'll post this to YouTube as well. That you will, you'll get in trouble. Right? So just kind of like, class, I guess as soon as you walk into class, wait little while before you start swearing anyways. Or don't do it at all, ever. Not how I roll. So today's today's gonna be kind of a fun topic, I think. You know, I'll give you a little bit of a couple things. I know that towards the end of 2022. I took a little bit of a little bit some downtime. And I gave myself some time off from from always doing doing doing doing doing doing so much doing that. I was like this, I need a break, man, I need a pause for a second, sit back reflect why are we doing what we're doing. And then then we get right back at it. So I did that. And while I was doing that I was also listening to I listen to a podcast called Success podcasts hadn't listened to it for a while, like yours, actually. The guy that was on there was doing was doing a podcast about a book that he just released. about YouTube. And some of the stuff kind of hit home, right? Some of the stuff hit home about all the content that we create, and kind of how we just we just kind of get on and we just, we just we don't put as much maybe not as much thought into it. I don't know, I was like, You know what I could, I could do better. I haven't done some of the things that I've wanted to do. And I could do better with what it is. And I'm doing it so I'm sitting there I'm grinding it might mean you know, like my head's grind and basically without oil in there to gear no gear oil. And and that's okay man, like you just kind of start to wonder what what can you can do differently? And how would you do it better and all this other stuff and, and then maybe within like literally the past week. Now this happened, I think in November, where open AI opened up this program called Chat GPT, which allows you to go and, and, you know, use AI, right? And allows you to use AI in some pretty cool, pretty, pretty amazing ways. And we think about AI and I think about artificial intelligence. And if we think about maybe some places that you might have already seen it will shit I'm using it right now with my camera and another program called Nvidia broadcast. And this program is able to pull apart my background and separate me from my background. And blur out my background because nobody wants to see my messy as garage slash awesome studio. It's able to filter out hopefully the fan noise from my computer, it's able to do so many other things, right? That's just a super simple one. What else is Ai do? Siri for lack of better terminology, I think AI we're just we're just at the beginning of it right AI can can do some things that you want it to do that will help you through the ease of technology primarily driven by of course, compute power. So I stumbled into this, stumbled into it and I forget why Oh, because of Dolly if you haven't checked out Dolly, that's another program that is by open AI. We go and give it some prompts and it will spit out some type of image for you very cool stuff. Very interesting. So of course my feed started showing me some more stuff by open AI and along came chat GPT and it's real cool. I'll tell you a couple things. I've only been messing with it for a week I've been losing sleep with it over not over it but with it this past week because of like all the things that it can do and I'm just you know, beginning and figuring out how to use it. I use a here's some other places that are using it to write copy to do marketing to geez, there's so many there's writing tools if you've ever used I used Grammarly and some of these other writing tools that that can help you along. I'm just trying to think of like other stuff. It is so many so many neat things. I use it this week. And a couple of different ways I'll illustrate with you. One was to help me with an Excel macro at work. It just wasn't working. And I was trying to find a string within a whole bunch of text. And it would work sometimes, but not all the time. And I said, Hey, chat, GPT. Can you create some VBA that will help me find this string starts with this starts with 002. And it's eight characters long. And oh, by the way, it needs to be numeric. And it's been awesome code. wasn't right. Spit out some was like, that's not right. And I said, this is this is what's happening. And it spit out it goes, Okay, let me try again. And it spit out some code. I was like, Yeah, okay, so I plug that into my VBA. And lo and behold, it works. It's like, wow, this is awesome. I needed it to do. Another thing was I saw a lot of his spreadsheet related. And this just helped me with my administrative tasks at work. I said, Well, I have to copy the spreadsheet into a workbook inside of Google. How do I make that happen? A lot of people will be like, we'll just do it all and Google bro. I'm like, well, that's not how I get it. And that's not how it works, right? So I get a spreadsheet, I've got to copy and paste it into, you know, my TPS report. And it just, it just takes time and I don't want to do it. Or I don't want to, I don't want to spend my life copying and pasting and posting. Maybe I do, but I don't. And so you know, it spit out a program for me to do that using Google's API's. And it's just, you know, that that's just like the tip of the iceberg. I'll give you one more thing that I used it for this week that I thought was like, super cool. I'm not I'm not the best planner. Not the best at planning out my week. So we, we had been using, like Blue Apron style meals. And they're super great, because they will send you enough food for three meals, they'll give you the recipes, they'll give you the ingredients. And you're like, Okay, I know what I'm eating this week. It's like, Alright, give it no thought I don't want to have to think about you know, oh, shit. It's three o'clock on a Monday. What are we having for dinner tonight? Well, it's not a lot, but it's something that tasks the mind with? Why why do that to yourself? So I went to chat GPT. And I said, Hey, give me three family friendly recipes. One of them including tortillas because Meg wanted to have a case study is that week. And, you know, give me three family friendly recipes gave me three family friendly recipes. One included tortillas, which did have a case of D, F. and D. Then there was a fish recipe. I was like, make that last one not fish because not everybody in the house likes fish. And it gave me another recipe that I forget what it was. And I said, You know what, make it with ground beef. And so it gave me the third recipe. And then I said, Okay, now how many recipes, you know, give me my recipe list. And it did spit out all three that it had selected. For me. That means that it just just disregarded the the two in between. And then I said, Hey, give me a grocery list for this. Oh, and by the way, can you put this into order by departments? And it does and you know, with the amounts and all this other stuff. So just super simple stuff. And I'm working on it to do some other things, I will use it. I'll use it for this podcast, I'll say hey, select, select a headline from here, select a tweet from here, so and it can do so much right. So we're just barely touching on the surface of what it can do. And that's what I mean, when we talk about AI and some of the capabilities. Now, you're like, hey, dawg, why are we why are we talking about this on a spiritual podcast? And, you know, I literally said, I went and I use it for an outline. And I've already like I've uploaded the outline away. But I said, Hey, give me an outline for podcasts on how AI can help bring you closer to God. Well, it spit out some good stuff. Like, here's here's one of the role of AI and spiritual hunting religion. You know, here's how it can help enhance spiritual and religious practices through you got meditation apps, oh my god, where would we be without calm and headspace? Where would we be without, you know, having some virtual groups online without being able to connect through technology to our support groups? Now, I bring that up because it's true, it's helped me so often. Look at look, it's helping us right now with spiritual dope. You know? So here's another piece, the outline ethical considerations, potential concerns and criticisms about using it replacing human interaction, and the possibility of AI promoting certain beliefs over others. Yeah, that's possible. The AI has already noticed biases, open AI anyways, has already noticed biases within it. There's other things too, like, Hey, what is this? is by using this AI. And this actually came up in a conversation that I was having with somebody I interviewed this week. Do Florence, if you're out there, I thought was a good concern, you know, am I contributing to something that may be our eventual downfall? That's a real fucking great question. Chances are, we don't know. We don't know where we're at with it yet. But I can tell you this, can tell you this, if we can, if we use it, you know, ethically, right? If we use it, for beneficial reasons, think about all of the things that you don't have to do anymore. Like, what do you do really, I look, I love my spreadsheets, I love being able to create reports, I love doing all this other stuff. What if I could do it, I can give the I have the idea. Still gonna have to create and make sure and land the code for isn't enough to have the idea and then be able to execute that idea. And take away the barriers to all that. Think about it? How will you What would you do? And how much like, you know, how much easier Could your life be? If I don't know that I think about like you're writing a book. Think about somebody else, a friend of mine talked about creating a business, a business plan using this technology. It's all pretty powerful. And if you're using it to further benefit humanity. How powerful is that, that we can finally leverage, you're already doing it anyways. You're using Google using your smartphone. And unless you're out in the fucking woods, spinning like a string and stick together, you're already using this stuff. And oh, by the way, if you're not using it, your competition is alright. So it's pretty powerful stuff. I just recommend checking it out saying how can I help you I'd actually love to talk to you about it if you want. But also, let's talk about here. So here's the other part of the outline personal story. So some hands some people have experienced the benefits using AI and their spiritual journey, such as feeling more connected to God or finding new ways to practice their faith. I will tell you, that the beginning of my journey of actually even I highly I would have to say that it played a huge role in you know, my awakening process. And you know, I don't know what else to call it. And that when I was I was going through this kind of like I wanted to know more I wanted to be more connected spirituality well. And so I started watching video after video after video. And you know, YouTube's very good about, you know, where do most people go after watching this video kind of what's the journey look like? So the trail had already been kind of blazed for people that were similar to me, it's a look, it's content that they would like keep kind of feeding off right? So you follow this fucking rabbit hole because it's just there's so a there's so many branches to go but the trail have already been pleased for somebody else who's listening to audio, watch some videos and doing what I was doing on this part of my journey in on a, you know, my spiritual journey. And, without having, I wouldn't have found Alan Watts myself by googling it, it was a recommendation. And it was because of Alan Watts. And his trust in the universe speech, you know, just the universe as though it's another. It's because of neville goddard that I was, you know, again, being led to him through you know, just searches an AI that I fell upon Neville Goddard and had my mind blown on how you can look at God and the Bible in such a different way without these artificial intelligence. Again, just kind of putting putting these pieces together for me. I don't know, who knows if I would have gotten there doesn't really matter, because here I am, right? And so how can it help you? How can it help you to eliminate some of the effort that you're putting into your life that you're putting that you're trying so hard and right? Because I think about it like this. If you have to put a lot of energy out to do something, if you are putting a lot of energy out to do something. And it seems kind of fruitless write, something doesn't seem like it's happening, then maybe you're putting too much energy out there. Maybe you're giving it in this in this instance, you're putting too much thought and effort into it. So what happens if you give it no thought, because you know, that there's a way that that maybe AI can help you. And this is a it's not too far off off the lines of how I was just talking about your subconscious, right? This think of it as like training wheels, on how to better use your subconscious, and spirituality and your connection. I know that sounds a little goofy. But if you've been around me long enough and had these conversations, sometimes it's tough, just like training wheels, somebody talked to me the other day about this stuff. And I said, you know, when I was walking Sophie, and given her walk, and I'm just just barely beginning to wrap my mind around the possibility of this AI like what I can do with it, what you can do it what can be done with it as like, it's kind of like, here's the Akashic records, right? We're supposed to have this Akashic record this, this a fairmile field where we can all step into and think about and see and believe in, that holds the records to everything. Yet, so few of us are capable of accessing it on our own. So what if this is like training wheels for that? You play with it any way that you want, but I will tell you this, if you're putting a lot of thought into things, then you're not letting some thoughts and right. So when I say give it no thought, say what if things were easier, not easier? What if What if you didn't have to think about something, then you would have more time, think about? How can I meditate more, or you eliminate some of the stress that's constricting your ability to express the truth of who you are? I know it sounds like a leap. It doesn't really matter. Just you know, be willing to make a leap and take a look at some of this stuff. Check it out for yourself. You know, AI does provide a lot of capabilities. It provides a lot of, you know, different applications and different ways that it can help you we talked about headspace and we talked about the meditation apps. What about sound generators? Right? You've got that you do have some ethical considerations. Can this be used for ill? Absolutely any tool in the wrong hands can be used for ILL shit, guys, you use a hammer to hammer a nail or cross somebody's skull. And I know that that's not very spiritual. But look, any tool can be used for the incorrect and poor poor ways this terrible grammar was a I could fix that for me. And then, you know, look, I've, I've experienced it helping me. It's gone through it's helped me in ways that you know, I didn't think about until shit. This outline was laid out for me and just said, Hey, let's connect these dots. Let's put it together. What does that look like? And I've always found that when you're prompted if I asked you a question that you probably hadn't been asked before, you're able to come up with like this really cool answer. And sometimes this right, right, like it's just super powerful. Something comes through for you that you've been looking for. And as we ask more questions to the universe, through AI or any other way more things start to come through. Just imagine what it could do for you as you go through your own life and apply it to any of your practices. But how could it how can AI help bring you closer to God? Alright guys, take it easy.  

  Why you need to remember why you do what you do. 0:00 The man who took his own life over the holiday. 1:41 Why I do what I do and what I found. 3:05 How a belief in a higher power can help you. 4:41 Imagine you are a power greater than yourself. 6:14 Letting go and surrendering. 8:29 What does it mean to breathe properly? –. 10:13 The power of the Sangha. 12:41 If you've got a friend or somebody that could use some extra support. 15:06 People love to help. 16:42 Brandon Handley 0:00 Hey, what's up spiritual dope and Happy New Year, I have a topic for you today that is a little. It's a little bit heavy, a little bit heavy, heavy way to kind of start the year. That being said, when, when I think about why I do what it is I do when I think about spiritual dope, I also think about when I did fatherhood for the rest of us, when I did fatherhood, for the rest of us, it was to start a business it was to start coaching it was to do all these things that, you know, monetize this monetize that. And I remember Larry haggard at some point, in his group had mentioned the idea of like, why why you do what you do, you know, remember what you're here for, because I was getting tired, getting tired then of kind of what I was doing and didn't feel like I was having the results that I wanted, and that kind of thing. And, and he's like, and he's when he said, you remember why you're doing what you're doing. I was like, Well, I'm just, I'm just trying to make a buck bro. Like, I'm just trying to make some money, maybe help people or whatever, right. But I have more to do with making money than it did with helping people and they're in probably lead the problem. Since then, I've come along quite a ways. You know, a couple different podcasts and sand and doing spiritual dope. And landing on kind of why I do what it is I do talk about mental health. But I'm prompted today I'll start there. I'm prompted today by a fella that took his own life this over the holiday, it was a it was on New Year's Eve. And it was at 9am and we heard a couple bangs happen in around us at the house. And we thought that it might just be like somebody we thought that it might be somebody just know shooting off fireworks or something like that we're like, or hunters right? Turns out later in day we found out that it was this gentleman that had taken his life and it was a father Father two younger children probably living the same life most of us who live in where get the daily grind, you've got your job, you've got the responsibilities and and you feel like you're doing it all by yourself. Maybe somebody didn't at the at the house didn't feel like they're having the best holidays. Also, maybe they're the coupling like maybe not the best holidays and feeling like you're doing it all on your own. Couple that with inflation, where we're at right now, and how damaging that can be. I'll share a little excerpt on that for you as well. Why I do what it is that I do and what I found because it was more more about what I found about what it is that I do. And that I share why it is that I do what I do and how that can be helpful possibly for you know because listen, can we can oftentimes feel like we're alone. In doing this and especially as a Western civilization men are taught to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You can do it you don't eat how you know we get that from being kids right? We get that from being kids and young and can't you get that yourself you know, you're a big boy now pull up pants to go potty. Do the things um The thing is, is we're terrible and asking for help. That might be because we've been trained to be that way it might be for like other reasons. We're gonna be seen as weak and that kind of thing. And I don't know this person. I don't know what his life was like I did I was able to talk somebody jujitsu about it, I he had seen this guy in passing. And it just made me think you know again about why why why I do what it is, I do. So first of all, spirituality first spirituality kind of showed of my life on unwelcome even. And it showed me how a belief in a higher power could help me and in my mental state a number of different ways. I'll give a, I guess, the best kind of examples I can give would be like, when it first started noticing. house seemed like at least that there was something outside of me that was helping something larger than myself. And I was, you know, I started here I started with like, first of all, you got to realize that you're one in 400 children. Those are the odds of being born on this planet. I don't even know about this time, I think that's just the odds of you being born. Period. So what are the odds of you being born on this planet during this time, where we've got the ability to reach out and you know, where's my camera touch someone where we can reach out where we can send these podcasts out. And we can have, we're in a period of time where we can ask for help now. And that's seen as a strength. So when I say that, you know, imagine you and your children, if you're a parent, most of the people listening to this are Imagine that you are a power greater than your own children. It would seem at least you would do anything to make sure that they had what they needed, in order to be successful, to be happy, to be filled with joy and those kinds of things to to better themselves. So when you try to imagine that there's a greater power like that for you, being one in 400 trillion, you got to say to yourself, wow, you know what, holy shit. Okay, there's a power greater than myself that wants nothing but the best for me, what is the this is like, where you finally get the opportunity to say, hey, I want something because most of us been told not to want even be grateful for what you have. How dare you want for more, I've given you all I've got cotton, right? We've heard it from maybe our parents or something like that. So we've also got this, this desire to be happy with what we got grateful for what we've gotten. And, you know, don't want me don't want for more. But that's not it. Right? If we can come to this, this idea that I mean, again, if there's a power in the universe is graded on us to help us to get to where we are today, one 400 trillion chance. Wow, pretty impressive. Gonna imagine that it's similar to myself as a father, and would do like anything to make sure that my children are having the best life possible. So that started to open up for me. You know, trusting the universe is another and Alan Watts talk really great talk. Where you're starting to have like ideas I'm like, Okay, well, if I start to believe that then this is what might like to see my life and then like, the things that would happen for me provided by the universe or whatever, right? Like you can call it whatever you want. I choose that route and the weight that it takes off right if we say to ourselves let go and let God the weight that it takes off or surrender he did there's a large number of ways go about that until but the weight that came off of me because of that was like just ridiculous. Okay, ridiculous. It was like, you know, life was life was at a trick on it turned into a downpour. So that was like kind of the first the first part. Alright, so the spirituality and helping you with your mental health and how it can help you with your mental health, just in just in accepting that there's a higher power and surrendering to it. Not unlike the 12 step program, which I'm not I haven't ever done in a formal manner, but if I can go back and as Steve Jobs talked about, connect the dots going backwards. And then I can certainly say that, um, you know, probably I probably did the steps without doing the steps. Because it's kind of like a natural unfolding process that just happens. So we did the steps. We did speak visuality so what about like, now there's the breath work, right? There's these other tools. So what about the breath? Work, the breath work? And how much that can help? And why that's healthy and helpful? Well, it's helpful because not over 90% of us don't breathe properly. And what does it mean to breathe properly, I haven't gone too deep into that, what I do know is that if I breathe in this suggested manner, and a couple, couple minutes a day, 510 20 minutes a day. Then the effects that has on my physiology and mental state, physical well being it's it's, um, wow, it's it's born on meditation, similar very well, mindfulness, really similar, just to this practice, and these don't even have to be. These don't even have to be related to spirituality. These are just tools to help you with their mental health. This is the journey that I've been on. And I have dove in head first, because it's such great stuff. And the more that I learn about it, the more that I can share about it. And you know, maybe maybe somebody says, I have people reach out all the time, actually, you know. And it's, it's awesome to hear how it's helping them to helping to get them unstuck. It's helping to get them put into a different place, it's helping to separate themselves from anxiety and overwhelm just for a moment. And when you can separate yourself from the problem from the situation. How powerful is that? How powerful is that, when you can separate yourself from the situation, take a step back. Maybe it's something you don't feel like you can manage in this moment, it's so overwhelming. And maybe you can say to yourself, alright, I need to I can breathe through this right, I can use my body to put me into a better mental state that I'm currently in right now I can use my body and my breath work to separate me from my problem, even if it's just for a moment. If it's this avalanche. The only thing that I share with people too is you'll find yourself a group is not just, it's not just about spirituality. Another Alan Watts line, but I believe it's comes from Buddhism. And it's the power of the Sangha, right, the saga is the community. And one of the three noble, maybe it's for noble, I don't know, it's noble. And as part of Buddhism, the deal is, Sangha is the group in the community. And then there's gonna be people that are along the way. So be grateful for your community, the one that you've got right now. And if you don't have one, establish one. And then be grateful for the people who are on their way. We've got a couple different groups of men, that I can reach out to a couple of singular men as well. That I can have a just really honest one on one conversations with it's not, you know, your people talking about you want unvarnished truth, and all of a sudden, they don't. Sometimes you just you just want to be able to talk and have some reasonable conversations. The important thing, I think, is to have them in a non judgmental way, you're there to support each other, not beat each other up, drag each other down, and not lie to each other. about what's going on. I think that that's more important than somebody telling you, you're fucking up, right? We know when we're fucking up. We're preclear. Most of us, most of us, and it's not, that'll be that'll be brought quickly to our attention at some point. So why I do what I do and how I do what I do right now is significantly different. And it's all pointed to encouraging my own best mental health and state again, connecting the dots going backwards, and it's really hard to see this. When you're in the soup. It's really hard to see it when you're in the thick of it. And I don't think that there's going to be too many people tuning in that are going to be in a place who are most of the people that turn into a spiritual podcast and this one tend to be beyond the state of overwhelm most So most of the people, and they tend to be better at dealing with their shit. Because they have some of these practices. That being said, if you know somebody that that could use the help, that maybe they're not as far along, you know, beyond survival mode, as you maybe that maybe they could use a helping hand. Like, it's always so great when somebody reaches out to me like, Hey, man, Howard, thanks. That's it. Right? Doesn't doesn't nobody reaches out like, it's, it's, it's not great. I mean, it is, it's us, it's just how are you write a check in a pulse. So if you've got a friend, or somebody that could use some extra support, you know, be that person. And if you know somebody that could use some of these tools, right? To get past that. Always happy to help, you know, direct them to breath, work, direct them to find a community, direct them to anything, that can be helpful. Sometimes it's helpful to just vent and let it all out. Because then they can just hear it in the moment. And sometimes, when you do that, you can hear yourself saying it and understand that you're making yourself vulnerable. And when you're making yourself vulnerable, there's actually the opportunity to become powerful in that moment. You become powerful in that moment, when you become vulnerable. And you've got people around you, supporting you and not judging you. Because then you you've stepped into courage, you've become courageous enough to share what you believe is a weakness. And ask for help. And I promise you, I promise you people are dying, people love to help people love to be the hero. People out there that want to help you. And I can also promise you, the kind of no matter what is going on out there. No matter what is going on out there, we're more likely that we want you here than anywhere else. So while it might be challenging, and you might be going through some tough times. There are plenty of good ones ahead. There is a force out there that wants nothing but the best for you at all times. And sometimes the best seems like a steaming pile of shit. We're super tough challenge. But that challenge is meant for you to grow into the person that you need to become sometimes and again, that's not something that who wants to fucking hear that it's easy, but it's not easy, right guys and gals? Again, if you've got somebody out there that needs to hear this, share with them if you've got somebody out there that you know, maybe you haven't talked to for a long time, maybe they're fine. Maybe on the ATM, everything seems fine. Reach out to him and say hello anyways, they Hey, man, how things haven't talked to you like a fucking year because I'm a guy and that's how we are. Right? So Happy New Year, understand that spirituality is more than just a bunch of beads and bullshit it's a it's a pathway forward to releasing some of the pressure off of yourself. And allowing yourself to become the saint allowing yourself to become allowing yourself to recognize the truth of who you already are like all these things are things that are always available already available to you knows all times. And it cost like nothing to like get engaged with it. And you'll start to see some amazing benefits. So that's why I do what I do. That's why the other thing that just been kind of struggling with just just share, how do I share this best, right? Oh, I also mentioned sorry, to dry this out a little bit longer. I had mentioned the bit about inflation. And that came from a study I just wanted to let people know, now's a really fucking tough time for people to be a pee round. So in 1932, there was a study done by the Macmillan commission that they were discussing money and credit regulation. I'm gonna pull this over here. The chart graph the rise and fall of interest rates from the feet of Napoleon in 1812 to the date of the Commission in 1932. And on the same scale, the rise and fall of the suicide rate in that 120 year period. This blew my mind. The two curves were virtually identical. Every time the interest rate went up, so did the suicide rate when interest rate went down suicide. This can hardly be coincidence. It's when interest rate rises, a certain number of businessmen go bankrupt, a certain number of workers are thrown out of their jobs and everyone's everyone's and everybody's bio survival anxiety generally increases. We're in that period right now. So now more than ever, people need something they can rely on. It's that faith is it breathwork is a spiritual practice. I don't know. What I do know is expensive stuff that's worked for me. The spent stuff that's worked for 1000s millions, hundreds of millions throughout a long period of time. And it may be something that could work for you. And it may be something that could work for a friend of yours. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  What is happiness? What is spiritual? 0:00 Who can I talk to? –. 2:10 Breathwork for me as more than a practitioner. 4:05 Sitting down and shooting the shit. 5:39 What's coming up for you in 2019? 7:22 Where are you at in this journey? 8:49 If you know somebody who would make a great fit for this podcast, reach out to me! Brandon Handley 0:00 Hey, what is happiness? Spiritual dope, Happy New Year. Merry Christmas Happy Holidays. Get the fuck out of here. 2022 right, y'all. Look, I'm sure. For a lot of people. It was, it was a fine year, I think it was like a recovery year. You know, I'm saying like, let's get let's get over, let's get over the pandemic year. And I think I don't know about you, for me, it went by pretty quick. was fairly uneventful. And, you know, wasn't the worst. Just one of the greatest? No, I'm saying, maybe, maybe, you know, what do I know? Right? What do I know? I will tell you this, though. I want to say thank you to the listeners out there. Thank you to my guests this year. Thanks for hanging out everybody. We started this podcast off with the whole idea and intention that you know, what's it look like to integrate a spiritual awakening and do it in a way that successful that is still keyed into, like everybody else, right, because there's a, there's all kinds of people that that experience, these awakenings that connect with spirituality, but then they cut everything else off. Everything else is cut off, and it's nothing but it's nothing but like their spiritual life. And I think that what happens there is that you end up missing out on a on a pre cool opportunity, right? You end up missing out on the ability to integrate spirit, body and mind, if all that you're doing is is saying, Hey, this is a spiritual bit anyways. So that's how the podcast started off. It was like, hey, well, who can I talk to? I needed to know I had had, you know, an awakening and gone through this spiritual reconnection to the self called whatever, call it whatever you need to, I really don't care what you guys call it. That's what I was calling it. And I'm still calling it that. And throughout my many of these conversations, I think they've all been pretty cool. Pretty good. And there's been some really awesome ones. And I've got some great feedback where there's been lots of help for you the listener. And did this year did not listen this year did not go the way that I'd like to say as well as I would have didn't go the way that I had wanted it to. Part of that's on me. Right? Well, it's all on me. Right? It's my podcast. I'm the one doing it, but it went pretty well. And, you know, we had we had our conversations this year around, you know, psychedelics and spirituality. We had energy work, we had breathwork we had shamanism. I forget what else we had. I'm sure we had a couple other ones that were amazing. It but I got to the end of the year, and I realized I hadn't taken or given myself any breaks. I hadn't kind of step back and let, I don't know we'll call it like, let the universe help out. Whatever. It's like, when you're planting a seed of corn, you don't go out there and keep ripping it out of the ground and see how it's doing. Sometimes you leave and you come back and you're like God, isn't he hi in July. So thank you to those who have been a part of this journey. And there's a number of you out there, spend some repeat guests. Some amazing guests this year. We saw some really cool stuff. Sreekumar Rao I think bookended it for us actually came on I think it was it was it this year. Well, anyways, I ended up I ended the interviews with St. Kumar, Ralph, and his book already ready to succeed in his course, creative personal mastery online. I contributed a lot to my journey thus far. So really excited that I was able to talk to him and have him on. I was able to have you know, Bill Gladstone, Master Shaw, New York Times bestsellers. Geez, who else that I have on that was just you know, that some people that like I wouldn't have thought would say yes to being on the podcast. And to that end, it's just been, it's been really cool. You never know who's gonna say yes, and kind of what's going to happen as you come along. This year also saw breathwork for me as a as a more than a practitioner, right as a teacher and being able to go out and teach it to people, everyday people, right? Who could use breathwork to just improve their lives, there's so many benefits, I'm not going to dig into it. for that. There was the breath work at the Novak house and working with the guys at the Novak house with these people and the gentleman going through recovery. And do so all that's been super powerful. It's been a hell of a year, certainly nothing to complain about. And it was started off kind of lukewarm. warmed up to it. I'll throw out another thing for you, too. You know, I haven't done I haven't done one of these. And, man, I don't know when the last time it's been been a while since I've done a solo podcast is sitting down and shooting the shit with you. And it's fine. I got the same old a little bit of fear a little bit of butterflies before maybe anxiety, anxiousness. I don't know if all those words fit anyways, look, but I have a year. Podcast didn't go exactly the way I wanted it to. But we did have the buckets I was looking for. And we did I think a nice job here. Next year, we'll be looking at you know, they'll still be some. Listen, people reach out all the time to be on the podcast. And sometimes I think it's a good fit, and it's worth having a conversation, I'll toss them in no bucket unnecessary. The other side of that is I'm going to be looking for and there's plenty of them out there, saints plus sinners and the saints, right, like, look, if I had to tell you like my late teen years into my 20s and 30s, I was a jerk asshole even like an even even mid to late 30s I wasn't the best person I wasn't, I wasn't a terrible person. But then this change kind of came about and into my life. And there's like a whole new realm of who I could and would and should be and who it is I'm becoming all while being grateful for the asshole that I was at one point in time, right accepting your shadow. Because that's simply a part of part of it part of the journey. So you'll you're I've got, I've got a couple of lines up already, Brandon Novak is going to be one of the first guests next year. I've got his guy that he knows very well in the same space Darren prince who he is PR agent for some of the top talent in the world. Really excited to have him on. And I'll be looking for others to have and share their stories. And then I'll also be teaching more breathwork next year doing wellness, just general health and wellness. I'm looking to be doing it in the sports, and I'll be looking to do it and oh geez, where else were we looking at doing that? Maybe corporate, we'll see. And recovery. So those are gonna be the areas that I'll be working on for spiritual dope, podcast as well as kind of in real life as it relates to continuing with the breath work. So be on the lookout for that stuff. Next year. If you haven't shot me any messages to say, hey, feel free to do so. Hit me up at spiritual things spiritual underscore dope. at Instagram, you can hit me up at Brandon at spiritual dope.co Let me know what's going on with you. Like, where did you join in on this journey? Where are you at in this journey? I don't even know where guy I am. All I know is that I'm on the journey. And, you know, Steve Jobs has has, I think it was a speech that we can only connect the dots looking backwards. And, and so that's really interesting to be able to do you kind of take a look and see where you are now. And you can tell almost like this linear story. But really, you couldn't have forecasted that story if that makes sense. So being able to look backwards and you can connect the dots. There'll be some stuff coming out about that. What else we have in store for for you? In 23 I look it's just gonna be a continuation. We're gonna keep doing it. We're gonna keep moving forward and keep doing spiritual dope. We're gonna keep doing body mind spirit, continue to do Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. I'll continue to do my day job. And I'll continue to reach out and connect with people who I think that will make for for good conversation. And I think that's what I'm saying. I'm about to, you know, the other piece of this year that's been really great. It's just having some just amazing people surrounding spiritual dope community, in person and in the ether. So for those of you out there, you know, thanks for the doughnuts thanks for I forget the name of the doll right off top my head. But one of the commitment to the commitment doll that you color in one eye, and then once you reach a commitment, you'll be coloring in the other eye. So I'm really excited for that. There's a number of online, Facebook friends that have been friends now for several years. And, you know, it's been great to cultivate those relationships and continue those relationships and they continue to grow. I like I said, if you and I, if you and I have not connected, reach out to me, we should connect me and let me know again, like, How'd you find the podcast? What do you like about the podcast? What would you like to hear about on the podcast? Your spiritual journey is similar to mine is a different? What's your dark night of the soul? And like, I'm always interested in hearing these things. And if you know somebody, if you know, somebody who you think would make a great fit for sinners in the saints, connects me it doesn't have to be like, this person's doing anything. They don't. Look, you don't gotta be famous to be on this podcast. I think I think that much has been shown throughout the years. But it's a good story. And then you know, this person has been, you know, has like a good story. I'd love to have them on interview them and show Hey, you know, we may not have all of what seemed like the these great, virtuous qualities all throughout all the time. But who we've been in the past does not necessarily make us who we're going to be in the future. And those are the people that I want to talk to you. Alright, y'all. Happy New Year. Happy holidays. Let's jump right into 2023 Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Greg Wieting is a healer who helps leaders and entrepreneurs heal the anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and trauma they can't think or talk their way out of. He is the founder of PRISMA – a framework overlaying trauma, neuroscience, and energy medicine with somatic and mindfulness-based practices. He developed this while healing his own anxiety, depression, and chronic pain rooted in trauma. This included unraveling a severe spinal curvature and standing three inches taller today! Over the last two decades, Greg has helped thousands heal through his one-on-one practice and has certified hundreds of healthcare professionals in his methodology. His new online course and community now make healing practical and accessible to all. www.gregwieting.com Introduction to this episode. 0:00 Introduction to Greg Whiting. 0:43 How the word “healing crisis” is often used to describe mental illness. 8:53 Mapping un-met needs. 13:10 When symptoms start to creep up, it's time to start paying attention. 19:25 Who am I? -. 23:25 The course is accessible to anyone that wants to commit to healing. 29:58 The process of mainstreaming healing in society. 33:54 The seven lessons of chaos and healing. 40:20 What does it mean to live in the present moment? 46:22 Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general, you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual dub with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:43 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with Greg Wieting. He is a healer who helps leaders and entrepreneurs heal the anxiety, depression, chronic pain and trauma they can't think or talk their way out of. He is the founder of Prisma a framework overlaying trauma, neuroscience and energy medicine with somatic and mindfulness based principles. He developed this while healing his own anxiety, depression and chronic pain rooted in trauma. This included unraveling a severe spinal curvature and standing three inches taller today. Over the last two decades, Greg has helped 1000s Heal through his one on one practice and AS certified hundreds of healthcare professionals in his method methodology, his new online course and community now make healing practical and accessible to all Greg, thanks for being on today. Greg Wieting 1:32 Hey, Brad, good to be here. Brandon Handley 1:35 Absolutely. So, you know, which Greg and I were talking a little bit he's out in San Francisco for those that have tuned into the podcast. That's that's why that's, that's where I was born. Right. So it's always it's always fun to talk to people in San Francisco. Greg, when you drove into San Francisco, like how cool is like that scene like when you see like all the houses up on the hills are all like different colors. It's just like an interesting, really, how fun was that? Greg Wieting 2:01 Yeah, my first trip to San Francisco was probably back in 99 2000. I was living in Seattle at the time and magical coming over the Golden Gate Bridge. It's nice before you even get into the city coming over the bridge, the way the city's lit up at the late afternoon. It almost looks all white kind of like flushed in the late day sun and it's so just looks like this like glowing city. And then yeah, once you get into the neighborhoods, you see all the vibrant colors. And yeah, just lots of character. Lots of charm. So much Brandon Handley 2:31 fun, so much fun. Well, Greg, I usually like to start this off with the whole idea that you and I are simply conduits for universal life energy, and it's expressing itself through us, hopefully, in this podcast for somebody's greatest and highest good. And it can only be expressed right now on this podcast in this moment, what's common through you today that you feel like you should be sharing? Greg Wieting 2:56 Yeah, well, I think, you know, I reached out because that's, that's the essence of how I work with my clients. And that's the essence, the foundation of just my own healing practice, really getting out of the getting out of our way, right, letting go fixed attachment to outcome, letting go of rigid agendas that are coming from kind of the limitations of the mind opening up to something more universal. I think that's where, you know, as much as I try to demystify healing, and make it really practical and grounded, you know, and we open up to that universal connection. That's where the magic happens. Brandon Handley 3:33 That's really cool. I love the idea, right? Have these rigid agendas, right, kind of letting go and letting it happen? Talk to me a little bit about that. Because that's the first time I've heard it pronounced that way. But as I kind of walk through and try it, and I struggle, sometimes talking with people, like, you know, you got to let go of like, the linearity and just kind of let it happen. And they're like, What do you mean by that? Like, I don't know, but that's how it works. So like, you know, the way you pronounce it, the way you announce it, though, rigid agenda is like, what's a rigid agenda? And how can we let go of that? Greg Wieting 4:08 Yeah. You know, and it's, it's a tricky, nuanced thing, because I think we probably come to healing because we want something right, we probably come to healing because we have some pain point that we want to resolve, or we have some question that we want answered. You know, and so there's there is this idea that perhaps there's something that needs to be fixed or resolved. So I want to honor that we, you know, sometimes that tendency to have a fixed rigid agenda is actually what gets us to a healing path in the first place. And it's also going to be what gets in the way. I guess I can just share, you know, in terms of, you know, the curve and my spine. You know, I don't actually practice yoga as much as I used to I've kind of do other things physically. We right now. But, you know, when I used to get on my yoga mat, and I felt like, Oh, I just want to get in like a deep back bends, because you know, I'm just really feeling the tension around the curve of my spine, you know, so if I had this fixed agenda to actually get into a deeper backbend to open my sign to unravel my, you know, that curve, you know, it was like me coming out my body for kind of a violent place, because I actually wasn't accepting my body where it was. So, you know, the core of how I work. And you know, what I try to impart to those I work with is just a deep acceptance of what is and then that deep acceptance of what is, is when things can actually start to change, but not necessarily according to the plan that we have made up in our minds. Because healing is pretty nonlinear. It's not a direct, it's not a direct shot. Brandon Handley 5:52 Yeah. So I mean, I love that idea to write coming out coming out, you're coming out yourself, like almost in a violent way. And it's like, you will obey everything I throw at you invited, like, Well, maybe not today. Right? And not in the way that you think that it's going to. And as we as we talk about, like, I guess, linearity and and, and healing, right, so Greg, if I come to you, and I'm in pain, and something's going on, and like, you don't heal me, in that, like moment, then how, like, you know, what is the linearity aspect of it? Because that's how, like, you know, we see things on a timeline most most of us, right? And we don't see this kind of everything that goes this holistic kind of 360 view. So what does that look like? Greg Wieting 6:42 Yeah, well, for me, before I actually would bring anyone on to work with, I'd have a conversation, to manage expectations, and to let folks know that that's just not how I work, although many of my clients and students are going to see some shifts that are pretty tangible, you know, from the get go pretty upfront. That's not That's not how it works for everyone. Right? And, you know, actually, I kind of look at my work as actually helping people be with their pain, because how much of our life we've been running from our pain, have we been suppressing our pain? You know, and so we may suppress the emotional pain that that comes out as physical pain, right? So, for me, managing expectations, and you know, the, Brandon Handley 7:29 what's it look like? If I come into by coming to you for an appointment? Right? You know, what's that? What's that call? Or even that appointment gonna look like? Greg Wieting 7:36 Yeah, well, the first call is letting folks know, I mean, for me, when right now, when I'm working with clients, it's a nine or 12 month arc of transformation, not to say it takes nine or 12 months to get out of pain. But the deeper work that I'm committed, helping my clients get at, you know, we're looking at kind of resolving, you know, the wounding of, you know, early attachment wounds, and, you know, trauma patterns that have kind of calcified in the body, right, the subconscious unconscious mind, take up residence in the body, and it takes time to kind of understand how that has imprinted upon us in our beliefs and our behaviors. And so, kind of reverse engineering that is a process. So that initial conversation is, you know, saying, Hey, this is gonna be a process. And we may not, you know, surface any major breakthroughs. You know, in the first few sessions, it may take time there, you know, I found myself on kind of a trauma informed approach, which is, you know, slow and steady, you know, and safe and sustainable. Because I look at a lot of, you know, I think in this world, I've heard the word like, healing crisis. And I kind of look at that more as healthcare mismanagement where people are trying to force things to move and shift and heal too fast too soon. But Brandon Handley 8:53 yeah, Greg, I mean, we're not we're not we're not ones that like to wait around, right? Like, we want it. We want it. You know, we want it like our Netflix, right? We want it like our gigabit gigabit download speeds, right. So yeah, I love I love that kind of healing, healthcare mismanagement. So he says, Greg Wieting 9:10 Yeah, I mean, I used to hear that word healing crisis tossed around a bunch. And, you know, it's like, well, what's happened is that we've overtaxed the system in trying to heal it and trying to change it, which has then yeah, created this crisis, which I think I've seen people use that word healing crisis as if it's a good thing. And it's like, no, that's fair mismanagement that's lacking a trauma informed lens, where you're trying to move the system through a process that it's not ready to move through. So, you know, I think when it comes to healing trauma, trauma is usually the effect of something that was too much too soon, too fast that overwhelmed the system so we didn't have the capacity or the resources to be with it and metabolize it. So healing It lowing all of that down. Brandon Handley 10:02 Right. So been studying a lot of breathwork, recently, this past year, and one of the things they talk about is, I guess, in the animal kingdom, that animals, they kind of they watch them to go through something, they shake it off, right, they get rid of that energy, they there's like an energetic release of, of whatever it was that they just went through. And humans don't necessarily do that. Right. So as you were talking about, right, like this, this, this trauma, it gets stuck in us. And I love that saying, you know, the calcified aspect of it gets stuck in us and we don't release it, we don't address it, and it kind of builds up, right. is, you know, is that is that kind of how you're seeing it too. Real similar to that? Is that along the right lines, of how trauma kind of gets trapped inside of us. And, you know, just as as we're talking about that, right, is there you know, what can we do to address trauma, like, sooner? Right? How can we recognize that we just had a traumatic moment? And what can we do in those moments to heal so that it's not calcifying? Greg Wieting 11:20 Yeah. And I love that I used that imagery shoe I saw, you know, on one of the nature shows that Gizelle being chased by a cheetah, and the moment that Gazelle realized it was no longer in danger, it just does this ritual shaking, and then instantaneously goes back to just eating grass and just, you know, without engineering, right, right. We don't do that. So learning how to do that, but really just normalizing because what if a lot of our trauma response, our stress response, which then turns into the anxiety and the depression, what if it's actually a healthy response to a pretty unhealthy world, right? I want to remove the stigma out of mental health. I don't even like the word mental illness, because mental illness is often treated as a condition without actually noticing the trauma beneath it. So if you just support and heal the trauma, then, you know, these conditions tend to kind of fade away. Or, you know, the trouble with mental illness, you know, diagnosis is then creating an identity around the illness. And we're not our illness, just like we're not our trauma. And so, yeah, I think removing the stigma and normalizing it. And I think conversations like this helping us realize that Wait, what if we can slow down to kind of feel the impact that life has had on us, you know, just rushing over experience? That's all we're doing is rushing from one experience to another? So how do we just build that in, you know, still, a lot of my friends are creatives and just like, how do we just even build in a day of space for nothing? Right, right, like, just just creating space for nothing, so then we can kind of tap back into that creative impulse or that universal impulse. So I think, you know, making that a practice carving out time, you know, I think, self care, you know, I think there's, I think there's some idea of self care, you know, like going to the movies, getting a pedicure or self care is like self inquiry, right? Self Care, you know, doing this deeper, emotional attunement to our unmet needs, right? And mapping that and acknowledging what's Brandon Handley 13:37 an exercise like that Great, that sounds great. Like, I mean, how can I do that? Like, what's that look like? Greg Wieting 13:43 You know, I I wish I could reverse engineer to like, have like, three bullet points, right. And I'm trying to do bullet points. Now I have a whole module in my course around mapping unmet needs, right? Because so often we normalize our unmet needs. And then when we feel the impact of having unmet needs, we then think that it's something's wrong with us, right. And then we start to feel pathological and these unmet needs. And then we believe that we're not even worthy of having needs much less being supported or asking to ask you for what we want. So, you know, really, I talked about grieving the loss of what never was. So in early development, if we didn't have, you know, reliable, consistent care and support, you know, trauma isn't just like, you know, violence and abuse, it's also neglect, right? And so that that comes at a cost. And when that's, especially in early development, we normalize that and then we assume that we're not getting what we need because something's wrong with us. So recognizing that maybe nothing's wrong with me. I didn't get what I needed that had an impact on me understanding what that impact is. And then, and then working through that emotional impacts processing that, which then makes us more available to, you know, take care of our own needs, but then also get our needs met relationally. Brandon Handley 15:17 Right. And fine. And Greg, let's, let's talk a little bit about how you found yourself in this space, if I understand correctly, like you found your way into this space through like Reiki and energy work. Right. And that kind of opened up, open. Open up the healing space for you. Was that right? And my tracking there? Greg Wieting 15:34 Yeah, I, you know, with the curve of my spine, I used to live in severe chronic pain, anxiety, depression, and I had a friend who was a massage therapist, she offered me a massage, physical touch at the time was painful. I turned down a massage from a friend. And she said, Well, what about Reiki which I had never heard of, but I have great trust in her. And she said, You know, I don't even have to touch her can be very light touch. And I realized I found something I didn't even know I was looking for, you know, I could just feel you know, and I didn't even know what the nervous system was at that time. Sure, sure. You know, my whole body, just take an exhale and just soften. Brandon Handley 16:13 So you reacted, you reacted. You responded very well, to the Reiki. Greg Wieting 16:18 Yeah. So that first session, and we were living two and a half hours apart, this was when I was living in Montana at the time, but I had down to Missoula pretty often. So you know, have some sessions, but within a year, I'd moved to Seattle. And that's when I started to study Reiki and, you know, really commit to the practice. And then that kind of led me to the mindfulness and the meditation and just kind of building that led to kind of trauma and neuroscience and kind of connecting all these pieces that, you know, I felt were the pieces that helped me heal without having to, like, think or talk my way through it. Because, again, just tapping into a deeper current of my body's wisdom and letting that organizational intelligence, you know, that consciousness repattern you know, we can do that through kind of an expanded field of awareness. Not with like, the limitation of, you know, the mind. Brandon Handley 17:17 Right, I'm a fan. I'm not a Hawkins, Dr. Hawk, you know, it was a David Hawkins, right, who talks about talks about that, right, you know, I guess, you know, kind of getting responses from your body as like, you know, yes, no, right kind of questions be like, hey, was, you know, your body's gonna respond to certain things. And, and it will be right. And that's really kind of your subconscious guiding you through like a, you know, tapping into a field that you just normally don't feel like you're tapped into, but you're tapped into it at all times. Is that, is that right? Is that kind of? Greg Wieting 17:55 Yeah, you know, if like, if we get a paper cut, there is a healing mechanism that sends platelets and proteins and orchestrates all these biochemical transmissions right, like, we're not, not we're not thinking our way through that there's, you know, a deep wisdom in chiropractic, they call that innate wisdom, right? I practice energy medicine called Body Talk, which was developed by an osteopath and chiropractor. And so were consulting with the body's innate wisdom, to guide us to kind of Yeah, what is the priority to restore internal communication? So because of trauma or stress, you know, where's the nervous system short circuited wherever these breakdowns in communication, you know, occurred that need to be restored. And so we can actually consult the body's innate wisdom to repair these pathways that communication. You know, I love the imagery of the body being a symphony orchestra. And so if every issue and cell and bone and memory and belief and hormone, and neurotransmitter are all just players in that Symphony Orchestra, you know, we're expressing health, there's this musicality of being, you know, we're in this harmonic resonance. But over time, yes, stress, trauma, overwhelm, environmental toxins, toxins in our food, intergenerational patterns just start to accumulate short circuit that communication. So then, yeah, we're starting to make more noise than music. And so then that's when the symptoms start to creep up. And so that's the other piece, we can start to look at our symptoms as the body's, you know, the body's cry for help. And if we start to pay attention to the systems before they're screaming, but they're just like gentle whispers, we can usually stay on top of them before it becomes you know, too much. Brandon Handley 19:47 Right, right now, I love that. I mean, what's the example that you you would say to somebody? Like, you know, when you're talking about the symphony, and I always think about like, yeah, maybe they actually My kids just were did a band rehearsal, I was watching a band rehearsal, and my youngest one, like he hit the cymbal too soon, right? And you could tell like it was just off, right? So when can you when as the body's going, right? How can you tell like somebody's hit your cymbal, you're you're hitting a symbol to send something is off, not aligned that you should pay attention to? Greg Wieting 20:25 I might not answer. You know, because I how I work is non diagnostic and non prescriptive. So I'm done thoroughly determining what's off so much as my work is to actually see the doorway of possibility. So I think that's a big shift in healing, too. I think in healing, we're so organized around the pain or the problem. And so I train my mind to focus on the possibility. So I'm not as concerned with what's out a tune, I'm just looking for what's what's the input of energy that can then support just the recovery and the new expression of harmony to come online? Brandon Handley 21:10 Is that kind of how you work through your, your, your curvature? Greg Wieting 21:15 Yeah, so the first you know, and that curve unraveled, you know, over many years, but I'd say the first time I felt a significant shift, probably of almost an inch within one healing session, I was receiving Body Talk and Reiki which is all energy medicine. And, you know, the practitioner was balancing some hormones, just some beliefs from early childhood, to I don't even remember what else but you know, an example and body Takus, we may balance a certain memory to a certain belief tied into a certain muscle tied into a certain hormone. And it's like, once we've identified these different vibrations, that wants to come into a new harmonic resonance, that's going to have ripple effects on the entire energy matrix of the whole body, right, because if my entire body is the consciousness, and we start to create new harmonic resonance within different parts, then the whole system is going to kind of refresh and update to a new harmonic understanding of itself. And so instead of treating the curve of my spine, we harmonize emotions, beliefs, and memories. And then the curve in my sign, got to have a new understanding of itself, you know, and I look at the connective tissue, and the fascia is what really holds the muscles and the bones together, and the connective tissue and fascia is also where we store memories, and traumas and beliefs. So like, as we help the system start to metabolize that, and then the identities right, because if we're carrying a trauma around, and then we're carrying this victim consciousness in our body, it's gonna, you know, that's gonna affect our posture, right? If you see, you know, and you can just see different people walking down the street that some people maybe are carrying, like a very relaxed and empowered posture. Others, you know, are kind of, you know, guarded and hunched over and protection or fear, you know, so it's like the body, you know, we're carrying these costumes and masks that we can start to repattern through, you know, all of these tools, you know, mindfulness, just helping to reorient. So it's like, oh, I'm actually not the victim that my trauma might otherwise believe me to be right. So well, then who am I that, and I think healing affords us the space to kind of explore that, and then live into that. Brandon Handley 23:42 Right? So rather than coming in and telling me that I've got some serious issues, right, you're like, alright, Brandon, we're gonna work through, you know, you're you are however you are right now. Right? How would you kind of like to be? Or is, you know, here's a vision or a possibility for you and your life? Would you like to work towards that? Right? Is that is that kind of how it works out? And then you, you know, you do your modalities? Right, but I gotta assumes I've got to be open to it for it to work. Greg Wieting 24:18 Sure. I mean, yes or no, yeah. So my initial call clients, I do I want to get to, I want to get to have an understanding of what their goals are with the vision they hold for their future. And I want to hold that vision. And I think mapping our desires very powerful. I think there's a lot of people from desire, that I think trauma can actually suffocate or mute. So we want to, you know, name that and then I want to hold the vision of helping, you know, the body's innate wisdom live in the fulfilment of that. And, and yet, each session, I say, well, all right, I see what your vision is. But now let's just see where your body is. And let's meet The body, mind and spirit where they are. And then let's see what new possibility wants to emerge from where you are now. So we're not forcing you to this destination, we're just supporting your system to kind of find the the most harmonic resonance that's optimal for it in this moment to lead it on that trajectory. And yes, and no, in terms of having to have a belief in the work. I mean, yeah, most people need to be open to some sort of alternative to explore my type of work. And a lot of folks, I mean, when they're at the end of their rope, you know, I had a client who came and they were $100,000 in medical debt, and couldn't get out of bed for two years. So they're finally willing to give something else to try. So I kind of worked with a lot of mystery illness as well, because it's like, you know, and I have a team and naturopaths, and a psychiatrist that refer patients to me where it's like that we've done the treatments, we've done the medications, nothing's working, because actually, the trauma is, you know, stagnating the system. So it's not responding to these treatments. So, like, come in and work with the trauma. But I've had a few skeptics over the years, you know, I had a client when I lived back there. And he said, You know, I think what you're, what you do is bullshit. But, you know, I, you know, my wife has just been asking me to come for, you know, for months or years, however long it was. So here I am, finally. And then he became, you know, a really close, committed client, because, you know, and I throw up when I'm teaching this work that, you know, don't believe in anything I share or teach. It's like, have your own experience. Right. So I don't, I don't believe in energy medicine, I have an experience of energy medicine. Brandon Handley 26:47 Sure, not. Yep, that's enough. Yeah. Sure. Sure. There's a knowing, right. The different a different sense. And that 100%. And, yeah, I love that. Well, let's talk a little bit about this, what you have created Prisma. Let's talk a little bit about that. Greg Wieting 27:06 Yeah. So, you know, my path was not a direct path that wasn't linear, it wasn't easy. I found that a lot of traditional approaches to therapy, which I'm not knocking, therapy therapy has been a huge piece of my journey, which has been great. But I have found a lot of approaches to therapy, were ill equipped to address the impacts of trauma that were stored in my body physically, right. So as much as therapy helped me develop a really good intellectual framework and shift a lot of my intellectual framework around my wounding, that kind of wasn't able to uncover and resolve what was happening, you know, physically in terms of the chronic pain, and still then the residue that was still creating the anxiety and depression in my body. So, you know, that left me on this search. And so yeah, prisma is kind of a fusion of all the tools that I found to be most relevant on my on my path. And so the course itself is an eight week course that I consider like a roadmap for healing. And then the seven prisoner pillars, which I found are kind of like the essential drop pins on that map. So, you know, because I think we can go to healers or therapists for years, but kind of still feel blindfolded. Like, we don't really know where we're going. And not that not that we're all going to the same place. But I think there are some universal themes and the path of healing. And so I think those dropped hints really guide people through kind of an arc of transforming pain into purpose, because I think that deriving a sense of place and purpose is really imperative to just having a deeper sense of self, in this world, especially as the world becomes increasingly, you know, uncertain. You know, we be certain of our place in an uncertain world. And I think that, that is really valuable. So that's like the trauma and neuroscience in that map. And then I offer somatic and mindfulness based practices, which are kind of embedded in the map, but then I offer guided meditations to help us put into practice. So that's the mind training that, again, is helping us shift our identity from pain to, you know, the truth of who we are, and shifting from pain to possibility. And then the energy medicine component is Self Care Foundation training. So that's like, you know, even the map to drop pins to the meditations are kind of the GPS and then I look at the energy medicine as the vehicle so then you have the the right type of vehicle that you need for a lifetime of healing. So it's, you know, the combination of all the tools I have kind of, you know, accumulated over the years and how I've kind of pieced them all together in a meaningful way that now I can kind of impart that to others. Brandon Handley 29:58 That's awesome. So I mean, you know, Um, throughout your journey, you've, you've found these things that that have worked for you and with your clients. And you've, as a kind of a holistic practice and manner, put this together in a way that's, you know, practical and applicable for would you say this is open to like a layperson? Or does somebody need to have some experience before they did tap into this course? What What's the Who's this? Who's this directed to? Greg Wieting 30:24 Yeah, I mean, the course is accessible to anyone that wants to commit to healing. Yeah, I, I do you know, the later the, the more advanced trainings are for folks that want to practice energy medicine in a more professional context, but even they people can, you know, take that path. But yeah, this is an introductory course that makes energy medicine, you know, Cymatics, and mindfulness, all very practical from the get go. It's just really giving you have a robust set of tools, and that are complementary to other practices, or tools or treatments that you may be, you know, going through. So just helping you feel well supported along the way while equipped. Brandon Handley 31:08 And I love it right? You know, here's, here's, one of the things I'm just going to call out is like a burst of healers, and, you know, traumatic healers, and all these other people have come onto the scene, especially through COVID. Right? But um, you know, you didn't just get started in this over the past few years, can you and I bring that up, just because I want to make sure that people understand that you, you're well versed, you don't just teach this, like out of a basement to like, you know, a bunch of people smoking weed, and whatnot, like you go and you know, you're, you're hanging out, you're teaching this to healthcare professionals, right, what's the response been from health care professionals. Greg Wieting 31:56 So I find that healthcare professionals are coming to me for a couple of reasons, either to become more well versed in trauma informed care, they can better support their patients, their clients with trauma, you know, because, you know, if they don't have tools to work with trauma, then they may feel kind of ill equipped to really support, you know, their patients or clients the way that they would like to. Or the other piece of that is, you know, caregiver fatigue, or secondary trauma where healthcare professionals are taking on their patients trauma, and so they're both related, because if you know how to hold space and support other people in their trauma, you're less likely to take it on. And so, yeah, and I think as caregivers, you know, I think the work too, I came to this work 20 years ago, just to heal myself, you know, I had my I was working a whole nother world in the nonprofit world. And, you know, this was not my plan. So when people come to this work, just to heal themselves and be one of my students last night, it was like, wow, I can, I can really see myself sharing this with other people in the future. So but yeah, I always had it, but it is interesting, because I have had some students who've, you know, started training with me, and before the training has even started, they have the agenda to become the healer. And I, I always take pause with that. And it's like, not, that's an agenda. Like, that's an agenda. So if you're, if you're in it for that, like you're, you're many steps ahead, right? There. So I find that most people who are coming in all sincerity to support their themselves and to heal themselves, usually become the greatest valuable resources to support others in their healing because they've taken the time to do the work for themselves. Brandon Handley 33:54 Right. Right. Then they've, they've had the actual, you know, they've gone through it and know what it feels like to go through the process. Right. Greg Wieting 34:04 I mean, and that's so jump in. Yeah, go ahead. Well, I, I think there there's a beautiful thing about having healing, so accessible. But you know, I've heard stories I've seen it, you know, someone comes back from, you know, South America after having a plant medicine ceremony and either had this like life altering experience, and then now they're here to change everyone else's lives. And it's like, well, you know, you've gotten a glimpse of let's say, God, if that's your context, you've gotten a glimpse of consciousness or spirit or oneness, whatever that is for you. But it's like now that now it takes years and years to like let that become seeped into each and every cell to become seeped into like a deeper synthesis and understanding of self. So I think that's that's an important process that I think many skip you know, we Brandon Handley 34:59 well, you know, Look, I mean, the, the awakening? Yeah, so some of those, some of those experiences, you know, and especially if you are, you're having those for the first time, you know, they're mind blowing, right? Like, everybody wants to go shout from the top of them out and write about it, but what you're talking about is, you know, kind of the integration piece, right, embodying that and really, really let that come in and do become it. Right versus, you know, after the novelty wears off, right, like, where are you then? Are you still in it? Is that still how you feel? Is that still true for you? And how have you integrated that into your life? It's, it's funny, right? Like, for me, it's funny, because I just, you know, seeing so much of it now. And you know, 20 years ago, it was, nobody's really talking about it. Right? And everybody's like, don't talk about it. Right? Are people gonna give you crazy eye looks? And like, you know, you shouldn't, you shouldn't be talking about that. And everybody's out there talking about it now. And I think that's great. But learn more about it. And like you're saying embody it and become it. You know, Greg helped me out here write something and trauma, like, everywhere now. Is it is is everything trauma? Can anything be trauma? Is the word being overused? Where are you at? With that? Greg Wieting 36:33 Yes, I'd say yes. And no, I mean, I just like, I think as much as there may be so many people who are moving into the healing space after just one awakening before there's integration. That's also part of maybe the process of mainstreaming this work in this consciousness, so it becomes, you know, more of the fabric of society. And so, yeah, with that, is there some, can some of that be problematic and troublesome? Sure. And yet, I think that's just part of how we have a growing awareness. Right. And, and then I think, over time, there does need to be a refinement of that awareness and a nuance and, and a deeper understanding as opposed to just a buzzword. Because yeah, I mean, it's definitely become a buzzword now. And. And so, yeah, I think we need to look at that. And I think it's important to then set out, you know, who we're doing this type of work with, you know, having trusted companions along the way. Brandon Handley 37:40 I mean, to your point, right, like, I mean, I'd rather, you know, people talk about it, then continue to repress it right, and not express it in some way. Right. So that there is an openness around. Trauma, period. Right. Greg Wieting 37:57 And I think, you know, I think with, let's say, the me to movement, and just a lot of you know, if we bridge it out into, like, the political in this larger social cultural world, we're just, we're just seeing a lot more of the woundedness of the world, right, it's hard to not see it, where I think, you know, a few decades ago, you know, that was less the case, it was still kind of Hush, hush, don't talk about that put on, put on, you know, your best face, you know, your best Sunday dress and, and so, I think the gift in that is that when we can see the wound, we can begin to heal it. And so, Brandon Handley 38:43 yeah, that's what do you think's allowing for that, Greg? Greg Wieting 38:50 I mean, I can only speak from my own experience, I just think as time evolves, I just think, you know, there have been so many social political movements where, you know, people are finding that they can take up more residence and who they are, and own, you know, their lived experience and their identity and the impact that the larger world has had on, you know, the individual. And so, and, I think, finding a sense of community in that. So I think, you know, I think the lie of trauma is that we can't, and that we're isolated, and that we're alone, and I think the truth of healing is that we can, and were connected. And, and that's a powerful force. But I think that the more that that, that more that people have, you know, I think there's been a wave, you know, since the 60s and 70s, of like, you know, healing and consciousness, you know, happening. And so I think that's been happening kind of on the periphery, and I think enough of that has happened now that it's creating a consciousness that anything that's not matching that is just bubbling to the surface I just think it's hard to deny, you know, what is at the stage and our, our evolution, if you will? Brandon Handley 40:10 Yeah, no, I love it. I was just gonna kind of curious what how you saw saw that, right? Because I think again, we can all we see a little bit differently. And I appreciate that perception of it right. Greg Wieting 40:26 And you know, there's days where, you know, I look at the news and it's like, oh my gosh, the world is just coming to an end. And, and yeah, it's like if I kind of Mac, you know, one book I have my students read is the seven lessons of chaos, I'm forgetting the names of the authors. But, you know, it's like, out of tremendous chaos comes new order. So if I look at, like, every chaotic incident in my own life, and in my own healing path, you know, as I gathered more tools and resources and support those breakdowns turned into breakthroughs, which yielded a whole new organizational intelligence within my body, my mind and my spirit, you know, a whole new vibrational intelligence more aligned to like my connection to Source, universal energy, whatever that is for each of us. So you have Brandon Handley 41:17 a Do you remember, like, what one of those scenarios might be or an example of that. Greg Wieting 41:23 I mean, for me, I'm just the hero of like, just a break up, I went through that, you know, at the time felt earth shattering, but it's like, you know, the life I live. Now, after that, you know, 10 years later, is remarkably different, and probably wouldn't be possible in that old paradigm I was living, but prior to that, I couldn't have imagined anything different, right. So that's what brings us to our knees, it's gonna bring us to our center, and like, Colin Monroe is self. And so that's, you know, so, I mean, there's been many other iterations of that, you know, micro macro and my own journey. But, you know, if I'm just then just just to map the fact that I no longer live with chronic pain, anxiety, depression, you know, I'm three inches taller today than I was 25 years ago. That's crazy. It's like, I know that we can mind the goal of unresolved trauma, and there's like, so much wisdom, and just so much, there's just such a gift that we can glean from the deepest pain. So I'm holding the vision that that's what, you know, we're, we're sorting through on a much more collective level. And I think, you know, there are no guarantees from seven life lessons to chaos, right? Chaos, can spit out a new organizational intelligence, or it can make a big mess of things. And I think, and I think healing, you know, there are no guarantees in life, right. And so even the thought of healing can feel risky, you know, I was having this conversation with students last night, because, you know, we've we've learned how to survive by often keeping so much suppressed and bottled up inside, and it could feel really life or death, if we start to, you know, let some of that out until we realize that we have the resource, the tools and the capacity to kind of let that wave flow through us and then kind of return back to ourselves. Brandon Handley 43:21 So sure, not all of that imagery to what, um, you know, you said, you've got your kind of referral network where people come through to you what's not like an example of someone who was not able to get healed, but has had through success through what you offer. Greg Wieting 43:39 Yeah, um, let's see. Well, I mean, that one woman that I mentioned, I mean, for her, it was a bunch of autoimmune stuff, which was then tied into chronic pain, which was tied into fibromyalgia, which was turned into some neuropathy. Also tied into insomnia and brain fog, you know, so digestive issues, gut health, all of this stuff that you know, she was going to all these different specialists to treat everything as if it's separate. And this like, actually, why don't we just clear up the trauma that's been creating the residue that's not allowing your lifeforce energy to flow. And as we do that, then, you know, the connective tissue, which was storing all of your trauma, when we were as clear the trauma that the connective tissue really is functioning as like an information superhighway. So information can communicate to each and every cell or all the tissue tissues. And so, she's a great example of someone who was at the end of a rope, you know, literally in terms of her health and financially hadn't been able to get out of bed for two years. She's a perfect example. Brandon Handley 44:55 So kind of mentioned, you know, she's up and running now. Right? Is that what you're saying? You know, she was able to clear clear all that out how she was able to to restore, I guess her bodily network? Is that how you would kind of say it? Yeah, Greg Wieting 45:09 I like that imagery. Yeah, I think that, you know, again, our emotions or thoughts or muscles or tissues or cells, you know, the physiology, the anatomy, the consciousness, this should be a unified field of information that are, you know, completely in, in constant communication, and the trauma kind of short circuits, those communication pathways, so then nothing's functioning in relationship to anything else. And that's a big look at it. relationally with trauma, there's usually a break where we no longer feel safe in relationship to others, that we no longer feel safe in relationship to ourselves. So then that starts to get replicated within our bodies, where it's like, you know, our liver and our hearts and our liver and our gallbladder should be in communication with one another, they should know what the other is doing at all times, and why. And, you know, the traumas, like these different body parts and start to turn their backs on each other. Right, still doing their job, but they've lost an awareness that they're on the same team. So I start be working in contradiction to one another. Brandon Handley 46:22 Gotcha. Gotcha. Well, no, it's all it's all awesome, right? And I love it. So you, you, again, you provide a course where people can learn a lot of this information for themselves and try to apply it for their own well being. So I think that that's, I mean, that's fantastic. And my guess is, you know, they can go deeper on this with you as well. If they're so inclined. Is that true? Absolutely. Awesome. Well, Greg, I I've little spot here that, um, you know, I look at this podcast is kind of like spiritual speed dating, right? Somebody's gonna tune in, and they're gonna be like, You know what, I've had enough of Brandon and I'm ready to move on. Right. And so I got a couple of questions I'd like to ask you is you could be somebody's next spiritual speed date. All right, let's do it. You go for it. Okay, once that was up on you, good. Okay. Well, let's see spiritual Bachelor Number one, what does it mean to live in the present moment? Greg Wieting 47:24 I love the idea of totality, like putting my total energy, with what with what is. And so you know, being here with you, right. But I also like the idea of choiceless awareness. So like, I'm here with you, but you know, what, there's a lot of noise out on the street. So I'm also here with that. So I'm not trying to block that out. Because that's also part of my experience. So I'm just being here in the totality of my time with you the noise on the street. And so just Yeah, being with a total total energy with what is Brandon Handley 48:01 got it, not trying to push any one thing away, it's just allowing for it all to be. Greg Wieting 48:09 Yeah, cuz if I were to try to push that noise on the street away, which I can't do, but if I were to try to do that, that would imply force, effort and tension, which really be, you know, the antithesis of kind of a relaxed alert awareness. And I think relaxed, alert awareness is what yields presence. Brandon Handley 48:32 I like it. Question number two, how would God the universe, whatever you want to call it, want us to respond to aggression and terrorism? Greg Wieting 48:46 I mean, I think first and foremost, try to get people to a place of safety. So if you're in the moment of a, you know, an immediate threat, try to get everyone to safety. I think, you know, understanding, I think this is where we look at like the perpetuation of wounds, you know, the intergenerational patterns that hurt people, hurt people. So we know, I think we need to take a step back and like, kind of understand why this harm is being perpetuated, and kind of, you know, not get caught in cycles of perpetrator and victim and, you know, like, stepping back from all of that, because I think in some respects, we all play our part in those roles based on the the messiness of our own lived experience. Sure, and if we can take a step back from you know, from that there's a lot more space for understanding. Brandon Handley 49:51 Got it, not appreciate it. Appreciate. Great, who would you say is like kind of like your ideal client like who should be reaching out to you Greg Wieting 50:00 I mean, I, in my heart of hearts, I'm just here to help anyone that's in pain. Anyone that, you know, that mostly looks like is anxiety, depression, chronic pain. I can help people with autoimmune stuff. But anxiety, depression, chronic pain are my main wheelhouse. With that said, I do work with a lot of leaders. I'm really committed to you know, helping leaders not lead from a trauma response and perpetuate more cycles of harm. So, I look at, you know, an opportunity that as leaders, we can become vessels of healing. And so that there's something about that intersection of leadership and healing that really speaks to me to kind of create kind of a new, a new evolutionary leader that's leading from heart leading from courage leading from consciousness, you know, a place of deeper consciousness. Brandon Handley 50:55 Awesome. Now, thank you for that. Where should we send people to connect with you? Greg Wieting 51:01 Prisma method.com is where folks can jump right into the course. Greg whiting which is WIET ing.com You know, people can find my one on one work and access to the course. I'm also on Instagram, Greg underscore Whiting. So, yeah. Brandon Handley 51:21 Thanks for being on here with us. They really appreciate you coming on and definitely appreciate the work that you're doing. Greg Wieting 51:27 Thanks, Brandon. My pleasure. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Amanda Kate is a Kinesiologist, Mentor, Mother, and more. Author of 'Divine. Messy. Human. A Spiritual Guide to Prioritising Internal Truth over External Influence', she released the book with the information, tips, and practices that have helped her move from self-loathing to self-acceptance, self-love and self-empowerment. A recovering people-pleaser and self-flagellator, she walks the path straddling the Divine and Messy daily. Always growing, developing, and learning new ways of being to, hopefully, one day leave the Earth better than she found it. Amanda Kate helps people to regain their vitality, smashing through their internal glass ceiling and limitations to find new levels of health, vitality, and abundance. She also works with business owners to increase their vibration and attract greater wealth and prosperity. Amanda Kate lives in Melbourne, Australia with her twin flame, her children, his children, and a dog named Zeus. Website: www.amandakate.com.au   Amanda's journey. 0:00 Today's breath is for you. 1:28 What is your interpretation of the truth? Is it valid? 6:41 Tapping into people's inner child. 14:20 The body as a holistic thing -. 17:53 How to deal with chronic fatigue and depression. 23:37 There's a huge rabbit hole when it comes to this stuff, especially when it has had the impact that it has. 29:42 Selflessness does what it says on the tin. It makes less and less of ourselves because we are giving and giving from resources. 35:21 When we're in anxiety we breathe in through the top part of our lungs, but our lungs start around the second and third rib space 40:33 More to do, more to do. 45:34 What is the relationship between science and religion? 49:13 How to connect to the body. 53:48 AI Transcription that hasn't been reviewed for accuracy: Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 Hey, there's spiritual dope. I'm on here today with Amanda cage. She is an author the author of divine messy human a spiritual guide to prioritizing internal truth over external influence. Kinesiology, this mentor, our Seipel life coach, mother and more. A recovering people pleaser and self flagellating, she walks the past channeling through the mind and messy daily, always growing, developing and learning new ways to be of being to hopefully one day leave the earth better than she found it. She lives in Melbourne, Australia with her twin flame, her children, his children and a dog named Zeus I gotta be honest with you, I may be most interested in the dog named Zeus. Amanda Kate 1:28 I know Do you know how many times I have had mentioned by all of them? I didn't mention any of their names but I gave the dog name Brandon Handley 1:37 you know let's you know there's the family there were there but here's the dog Zeus I don't know if you saw we just watched we just thought the kids and I just watched for Thor. Oh yeah, the new Marvel movie Thor and Zeus was in it very, very entertaining. So before we before we even fully take off I felt I feel like my day was like energetically disrupted right like I mean just a disrupted day. So let's I've got I've got a Tibetan Buddha you know, singing bowl that I don't use as often as I should let's just get it to get ourselves started let's let's do it. Let's do it man. So I like to start these off with the whole idea that you and I are like you know we're divine spiritual creatures. We are conduits for universal energy life source, right whatever's coming through us right now is for somebody's highest and best good can only come through us in this moment in this time and space. We're not you and I aren't even going to hear like but what's that message for somebody else? Today that's coming through right now Amanda Kate 2:48 to breathe. I know that sounds crazy but and maybe it is because you mentioned that you know your day has been a bit crazy and all over the place and I think sometimes when we're feeling that way, we forget the really simple things. Breeds go feel the sun on the face go get some fresh air have a glass of water and sometimes this simple things really bring us back into our beingness rather than you know flitting around all over the place. Brandon Handley 3:18 Yeah 100% those external things they are exactly that they're they're their external disruptors. I love that you bring up to just breathe and these simple things I also teach breathwork Right? to a group of people, several people but yeah, and today I'm I don't have the book with me I'm going through cheese I remember the guy's name who's me one of the one of the one of the breathwork coaches 21 Day damper lay that's what I'm doing damn relays and today's today's breath is like you know, find a breath and just feel it right like what is the emotional charge with that breath and how can you make that breath express that without using your words so that was one of the things that I had to do for myself I didn't have to I got to do it today for myself and remember to do that and then he also talked about you know, get out in the sun go to some simple things and you know what I've been doing recently instead of going to an office all the time we have we have we have these phones right we have 5g We can go anywhere and like work and so I just go to places a 5g found a nice park today with the willow tree and worked under that for a little while today so I can totally appreciate where you're coming from and I agree right go find some of those simple things. Look, let's talk about being divine and messy. I think I think you know if we as we grow up you and I and Western civilization on a spent some time in London so I'm sure there was a lot of proper going on right and and really Religion and Spirituality, I don't think there's a too different, but it's been taught like, like Catholicism would probably come to mind when you think of the mind. Right? And you think, super clean, right? If it's divine, and it's clean and not messy, you know, where's where does it come up? Like, where? Where do you? Where do you land with that? Amanda Kate 5:23 I see the divine and the mercy and everything, pretty much, you know, we're doing the best we can, even those people who are completely indoctrinated in religion, I think are doing the best they can, you know, even with, you know, I guess some of those elements of guilt and shame and fire and brimstone and all of that sort of stuff, people are still doing the best they can. And, and that's the bit that I guess I tap into, I wouldn't necessarily call myself religious. But I do consider myself spiritual. My interactions with God and my connection to God, the goddess is my experience. And it's my lived experience. And it's my own, I guess, communication and relationship, rather than looking at the organization of religion, the dogma and doctrine within religion. And sometimes I feel the cherry picking of lessons that I don't know how we get very human element to them. And again, some of that stuff is extremely messy. You know, we've had some good examples of that coming out of, you know, the states in the last couple of weeks, you know, where religion is trying to get involved in certain things? And you're like, does it really say all that stuff in the Bible? Or is it just, you know, an interpretation? And I think that's where I find it really fascinating is looking at, okay, what is your interpretation of the truth? What is your interpretation of what you're reading? And that is where your valid truth comes from? And it's no less valid than my truth or anybody else's truth? It's just a different perspective to look at it from. Brandon Handley 7:08 No, absolutely. I mean, I think the other part of this, right, is that even if you're reading materials, and and you're deeply immersed in, in the doctrine and dogma that you are challenged to, you can only come to that from your own level of understanding. Absolutely. So until like your there's like multi layers, right? Like, you can read the document many, many times over read the same thing over and over and over and over and over again. And then like, the next time you read it, it's like, it's like, somehow the words on the page changed. Right? You're like, I've been reading this my entire life. Whoa, what has happened here? Amanda Kate 7:58 100%. Right, 100%. Brandon Handley 8:01 So you're now able to, though, from if I'm hearing you correctly, that you've had some of these kind of almost calm awakening experiences, experiences where, you know, for certain, you've connected with source of some type, you've had experiences, you've got an inner lived experience, and you've got your own way of kind of expressing that. And that, even if you look at this dogma, and this other doctrine, you're seeing it through your own eyes lived experiences, and a totally different understanding. Amanda Kate 8:36 Yep, exactly. And there's no more right or wrong than anybody else's experience. And I think that's, that's what I'm starting to learn and love is that, you know, I guess early on, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this, you do go through this? Well, my way it's the right way. Or, you know, this is the this is the way that we need to look at things or perhaps this is the only interpretation that could be the truth. And yet, I think this is why I love having so many conversations about it is because every single time, I get another view, another perspective of the truth. You know, I don't know if you remember those filament labs where there's a ball in the middle and all these little shiny filaments. And I look at every interaction as putting elements into that ball, so that hopefully, eventually we get to 360 degrees, you have each of those different issues and things. And so every conversation I have, I look at adding filaments to my understanding of the world from a completely different perspective. And so I actually don't mind having conversations with people who completely disagree with me or, you know, are on a completely different tangent because I will always learn something from them. Brandon Handley 9:50 Yeah. You at least understand their filter. Like what's their filter and like, kind of what's that? What's what's coming out of there? Is it's funny because you bring up the truth, right? And I think that there's a truth. There's your truth. There's their truth. And then there's like, the truth, whatever that is, right. And we as humans, love it, I would have to say, it's gonna be real tough for us to ever experience the the truth, because we're subjective. This is a subjective experience. Right? Yeah. So I think that that's interesting. To go through that. Well, let's, let's also just let's tell people will read about you. Right, Liam, kind of what are you into? You've got your book. You do the Kinesiology is what does the Kinesiology I mean, tell me all about it. Amanda Kate 10:44 So kinesiology in Australia is a bit different from what you guys consider in over in the States. So we often, I think you guys call it applied Kinesiology. So it's much more about energy work. And we combine that Eastern wisdom with Western science. So it started with, you know, I guess through that chiropractic arm of things where we started realizing that the spinal nerves talk to different parts of the body. But the way that Kinesiology is put together is about, I guess, reading into the subconscious mind, and we do that through manual muscle testing. So if your muscle hold sperm, there's no stress, if I think of something stressful, I can't hold my arm up. And so we're looking at almost that subconscious stress, creating an electrical imbalance in the body. And that's what I am reading for the client or with the client and, and helping them sort of, I guess, see the physical nature. While they might say one thing that they in their conscious mind would go, this is 100% true, yet I can I can muscle test them and OB, that's actually not true to you, because of that subconscious programming. And that can be stuff that we've picked up from our families, from friends from society, from school, from religious leaders from whomever it is who's had an influence on our life. And so then we sort of take them back to those stressful times. And we find the emotional resonance, why it's sticking in the body, why that is creating that disturbance in the field. And then we clear it through vibrational means so I use a lot of sound donor, you've got the Tibetan sound bowl out, first, I will use sound, I will use vibrational essences or essential oils, so plant medicine, and bringing in those different vibrations to change that vibrational structure. So it's part of the somatic therapies where we're actually shifting out what's stuck in the body, and allowing people to move into new states of being from that with the conscious awareness of what their subconscious is trying to do to keep them safe. Because let's face it, our bodies aren't trying to do anything other than keep us alive and keep us safe. So every behavior pattern, every idea that we have, every behavior that we have, is actually about us staying alive and staying safe and staying safe within, you know, our tribe as we would have been born in, you know, ages ago, and obviously, some, some people are still in that community. But it's about being accepted by the community. And so we learn from very early on how we need to behave to be accepted within that community. And some people have great lessons, and some people have less than great lessons. But either way, we will create behaviors and patterns around that. And so what I do is work with people, I look at it as rewiring the nervous system to a new level of knowing what safety is for them. And yeah, so we do a lot of subconscious work, a lot of clearing, a lot of tapping into the body, where are you feeling this stuff, and then also resourcing their inner children. So getting them to parent, their own inner child and their own inner teenager to become more resourceful. And the more that we can parent, those inner children and in our team, the less we end up in those same reactionary pattern. Brandon Handley 14:20 You get to take them like out of timeout. Yeah, exactly. Taken. taken your inner child out of timeout. Yeah, let it come back out to play. Yeah. So is this I gotta imagine, you know, with the work that you're doing, and just a brief exploration of what you're about. You've come across David Hawkins, right. This is you know, kind of his space. Who else is really well known in this area for these these responses and are you know, when you're doing this kind of these He's tests to find the like the emotional resonance. Is it tied to like just this, this type of tapping? Is it to go to a space on the body and say, I'm feeling it here and walk us through kind of that experience of, you know, locating, you know, I say I'm having a good day like Tiger walkers, or like, No, I love broccoli or whatever. No, you don't, you know, it's just kind of walk us through what a scenario is like that? And what type of kind of muscle testing you can do and, you know, throw all kinds of ads in there for you. Over keeping track because I lost track. All right. Is this something that can be is it something that we can do? Through a zoom? Call? Amanda Kate 15:51 Yes, look, I can I certainly do work online now. And it is it is that I tap into people perhaps not the way I was taught. In terms of Kinesiology, I tap More in by the way I was taught when I did some mediumship and psychic mentorship. So if you imagine, even now, you're vibrating at a certain frequency. So even when we're interacting, I am tuning in to the Brandon Handley radio station, I am finding your frequency. And you are tapping into the amount of Cait frequency because we're having this conversation and we want our energy fields to merge. So in addition to that, when I work online, I imagined my auric field as a massive blanket that I'm going to throw over you to encapsulate your auric field so that I can read that information without me taking it on. Because I don't really I don't want to get you know, my shit confused with yours. Because we want to keep Brandon Handley 16:51 we need to table that one. Right like that not taking on other people's emotions. How? Yeah, I think that that's yeah, so we'll bring that one back up. Go ahead. Yeah. Amanda Kate 17:02 So especially and let's face it, you know, I've had some pretty traumatic things that happen, you don't tend to move into this work without, you know, relatively rough rows. And so I want to make sure when I am working with a client that we are keeping it there stuff, we don't want to be clearing my stuff in there session, that's not what they pay me for. And that's not what I want to be doing. So what we do, it really depends on the session as to how things pan out. But if I touch certain points on the body, so we use a lot of their traditional Chinese medicine points, we'll use actually you can see some of the charts up behind me there with with those points on and we use the meridians structures, we also use the chakra systems, we talk about the auric field. So we are looking at the body as a holistic thing. So quantum physicists have proven the universe is 4% physical matter. And we look at you as a being as 100%. So when you think about taking the physical out, most people look at the physical as most of the picture. Whereas we understand that tapping into that we also have our mental self, our emotional selves, our energetic selves, our spiritual self, our psychological selves, our metaphysical self, transformational, relational, financial, all these different aspects of ourselves, tap into this thing that is us. And most people think that our subconscious is in the brain, it's between our ears. But our subconscious is in every cell of the body it is in our auric field, it is through every tiny piece of us that exists is the record of who we ever have been in the past who we are now and who we ever will be. It's all in this field. Now, I don't tend to look into the future because again, you have freewill choice, you can choose one path or not. I look at, you know, where you want to head to what your next step is to get there. And anything in between that I see as noise because that's our what is that's our daydreaming that's wishful thinking that, you know, nothing really concrete. But where are we heading? And let's get a really clear picture of that. Let's get a really good vibrational feel of what it will feel like when I get to that view. And then let's look down what's my next step to get there. And then we glance over our shoulder to see what's holding us back from getting there. A lot of people in healing will stand basically looking back at what's stopping them from moving forward, but they're not getting a picture on the end result of what they're looking to achieve when there are Brandon Handley 19:46 a bunch of baggage around a ship to carry around with this. This is Amanda Kate 19:51 Yeah, yeah. So again, we work through all of that kind of stuff. And what we do is, I mean, I can pretty much muscle test, you know any muscle that that's, you know, in your body, either by using that particular muscle, or by using what we call a surrogate. And if you think of sorry to say it's a different muscle, then you know, basically reading the energy of another muscle. And so, realistically, we can go through any of each of the 14 main meridians has, you know, a number of muscles associated with it. So we don't tend to test the ones that are easiest for the clients. A lot of them will be the bigger arm and leg muscles, because it's more comfortable. You know, we don't want you sitting in all sorts of contorted position so that we can you know, muscle test awkward muscles, but it's almost like, and probably the easiest one that most people can do. And if I don't know how easy it is for you to stand up, but if you stand up, and you think it's something that you love, and I'll stand side over, I know this isn't fully out, everybody. I just dropped my microphone. So if I turn around, and I go, Okay, think of something I love. My body naturally moves forward. If I think it's something I dislike, I'm naturally going to move away from it. Right, right. So that is actually a really easy, I guess, way. Sorry, my microphone kept falling over, then I'm not apologies, everybody. Brandon Handley 21:27 Like so where, where? Where would I apply this? Right? Like, I love that one. I've never, you know, here's, here's the challenge, too, right? We get like all of these different modalities, but we forget to use them. Right? I really liked that. I really, I think one of the simplest ones is like what you just described there, you know, leaning forward and leaning backwards? Where's where should I use this? Amanda Kate 21:50 A really great one to do is if you're buying a present for someone that you don't know that well, I've used it before for that and it has worked every time, okay, you walk into a store and you go okay, is the ideal present for that person and you get a picture of them in your mind on the left hand side of the store notes on the right hand side of the store. Okay? You know, you are simple. Yes. No answers. Okay. And, and it's amazing. Or if you put, say an apple and an orange in each hand, you know, one on one hand with an apple and one hand with an orange. And you feel Okay, which one would my body benefit most from right now? Your body will lean towards which one feels more right for you? Brandon Handley 22:36 I think that would be super fun to do with like an organic apple and like a non organic apple. Yeah, right. Like, that would be great. Amanda Kate 22:44 Yeah. I have my hands. And I can tell you in other movies Brandon Handley 22:53 like this glass? Amanda Kate 22:55 Yeah, always guys. No, you do not want that. And I'm like, Yes, I really do. Brandon Handley 23:02 Subconscious in every cell of my body, I'll tell you what, I get it. Um, so. Okay. So you know, we do this. We kind of we connect we do we go through some Kinesiology? I think one of the things you talk about a lot, too was your own experience wants to share that with you know, how did you get here? Right? Like, okay, great. You're here but like, I don't know, is it just like, you know, hey, I decided one day I saw an ad for Udemy and I'm like, Kinesiology is for me, or something else happened? Amanda Kate 23:37 Well, I I had had some pretty rough times in, in my marriage. I had a life on paper that most people would absolutely kill for. You know, I had a rich, successful husband. I had two beautiful children. We traveled around the world. I'd lived in the UK 11 years. We then moved back to Melbourne, and I started getting really sick. So I ended up having chronic fatigue. I was needing three hour naps in the afternoon. And I was usually pretty self motivated. You know, pretty focused on on what I wanted. And first started sort of seeing a naturopath and started getting an idea outside of, I guess traditional medicine because traditional medicine my GP kept saying you're the healthiest sick person I've seen, like, all your blood tests are fine, you'll be alright. They tried to put me on antidepressants and just in my heart and soul. I went, it's not depression, like it doesn't. It's bigger than that. It's and I'm not saying that. Like for me, it wasn't able to be contained within that. Yes, there were probably elements of depression there. But that wasn't the problem. And I guess I knew that at a deep level. And so I kept sort of trying different things and getting rid of gluten getting At a dairy sort of helped a bit, but there still was so much else going on. Anyway, I had a family holiday, which ended up being quite traumatic. And so I, when I got back, I saw my GP and got a mental health care plan, so that I could go and see a psychologist. And I rang this particular psychologist, because I knew that she did mindfulness courses, I knew she did assertiveness courses. And so I signed up for her next mindfulness course, I signed in for a session with her. And the receptionist said, it's another six weeks away. You sound pretty stressed, you know? She said, what's going on for you? And I said, you know, we've just emigrated to Australia and my husband's working in a, in a job he doesn't like he's, you know, stressed. He's moved away from his family, because his family were in the UK, you know, my son's been bullied at school, my daughter is, you know, an absolute handful. And, you know, I'm holding it all together. And she said, who's got your back? And that was it. I just, I just broke into pieces. I was sobbing, I couldn't even answer her because I'm like, nobody. I have nobody to lean on. And, and I didn't, you know, I hadn't really made too many good close friends. By that point. I hadn't. You know, I was on my own. And I had been for a very long time, having lived in the UK had children over there was not supported within my marriage was not supported, you know, terribly well, I did have some incredible friends over there. But I still just didn't have that support that I needed. Anyways, so she said, Well, we've got a kinesiologist here, would you be willing to try it and I'm like, never heard of that. But you know what, I'm desperate. I need to fix myself. And I remember my first session with my kinesiology assess where she saw dollar signs and went to cheating on like, the perfect client, because I went, I need to fix myself enough to fix my marriage, because I'm broken. That was the end, she still laughs at me about it, because she ended up being one of my teachers when I was studying. And towards the end of my degree, she's like, Oh, my God, I don't even recognize you as that woman who walked into my clinic like, crazy. And yes, she did. She said to me, in that first session, you don't realize how emotionally abused you are, do you? And I saw it in a lot of relationships in my life. But it took a long time to find that biggest abuser. And it was just the changing of everything. For me, within those first couple of months, I started getting a sense of me again, some of the chronic fatigue symptoms started to dissipate. I just started to feel more whole. And I was finding bits of me that I had completely suppressed, ignored, repressed, cut off through, you know, shame, or humiliation, or whatever. And I was finding all these aspects to myself that were just it was like coming home. And so within six months of that first session, I was studying kinesiology because I thought if I can just help one person, the way this has helped me, I'll have made a difference in the world and it'll be a life worth worth living. And I did, I just loved it. Every time I went into class, it was like I was remembering stuff that I knew from, you know, whether it be past lives, or whatever. It felt like it's really soul deep remembering. And it was it was amazing. I ended up starting my Advanced Diploma before I even finished my diploma. I overlapped them by about six months, I did all of the extras the college offered. So I did quantum neurology, which is like anxiety and depression on that quantum level. Looking at Advanced hormones and glands balances, looking at all of these different advanced techniques, as well as doing total body modification, which is like looking at all the systems of the body and how they interact with different energy points, and things like that. So it's been phenomenal. Like I did about six years worth of study in four years, because I just kept finding more stuff that I just wanted to know about. And the more I learned, the more I realized I didn't know and I just wanted to know more stuff and I think I'm still in that state the more I know that the more I realize I don't know. Brandon Handley 29:42 For sure, right there's there's a huge rabbit hole when when it comes to this stuff. Especially especially when it's had the impact that it has had on you, right and you're like, I gotta go shout this from the mountaintops. Right, everybody You gotta come try this out. Right? And then like you're you're always exploring on how to improve that how to grow in this thing. And like you said, Oh, I didn't know that about that. And you know, maybe you find another person that is similar, but just like just a slight sliver different and like, you chase that rabbit hole, like, like, but it all kind of comes together, right? To the point where you are, right? It's, it's all what you need to be doing what it is that you're doing. You know, so when you went to the nature path, I guess you'd already gone through like the traditional path, right? And you'd said, Alright, look, I've tried this, this, this and this? The answer is I'm getting the answers. But they just, it doesn't feel right. Yeah, Amanda Kate 30:45 I wasn't actually getting answers. They were just, they were just trying to chuck stuff at me. I don't know, if they were hoping I'd go away, or if they just didn't know what to do. You know, I was suffering for, say 13 days a month with my cycle. And it was all emotional based, you know, but they didn't pick that up, they were just trying to put me on the antidepressants. And that was literally the only answer they seem to have for me was antidepressant. So I'm going, but that's not quite right. Like, that doesn't feel right for me. And so. And in the end, it was the best thing that could have ever happened. Because it did lead me down this path. And it did lead me to a place whereby I've found exactly where I need to be. And what I needed to learn to get myself to a level of health and wellness that a few years back, I would never have thought possible. Brandon Handley 31:40 Enough for sure. And you you mentioned, you know, where you started off, and six months later, how great of a distance or a just how much difference can occur within six months if you put in the work, right, if you you know, kind of follow some of these other ways of being. I mean, you mentioned that to like your dietary changes. Well, it had a difference if it wasn't it, right. But it's the kind of holistic practice that that brought it all together for you. Amanda Kate 32:14 Yeah, it was it was really doing a lot of their deep emotional clearing and the psychological work. So basically, I never felt safe. And so I was constantly on edge. I was, you know, I was I was always reactive, because my nervous system didn't feel safe ever. So I had long bouts of insomnia. And I still occasionally get them. That's usually when I know that my body's going out of whack again, is that the insomnia returns and I'm like, right, I'm gonna go back and do some different work. Because you're not supposed to sleep deeply if you've got to bear outside your cave, you know? Yeah. And so when my nervous system was Prime's Brandon Handley 32:57 though it's funny bring that off as literally like kind of taken a snooze in the in the woods the other day, and there's kind of a brief one. And it's right across like a path where my son and I like seeing like, what may have been a bear Princess, like, you know what every noise is, like Herky jerky, all round. So you're right. You don't sleep well, when there's a bear out and about. You know, I think the other thing too, is like, you talk a little bit too about like the mindfulness and the assertiveness. Where, you know, where did that show up for you? Kind of like, I still remember taking a communication course where Western women in general if you're being assertive, you're being perceived as like a bitch, right? Oh, yeah. So I'm sure that there was a lot of that there are two sounds like you were in a relationship that wasn't amazing. And like, you know, to assert yourself, you probably felt like you were out of line. So how, you know, I mean, talk a little bit about, you know, getting through that as well. Amanda Kate 34:05 Yeah. Look, I think this is, this is that spectrum that we live on. We are taught that if we do anything for ourselves, that we are harming other people, generally as women, men don't seem to have the same messaging to the same extent. We are taught that the best thing we can be as women is selfless. And that if we are not selfless, we're being selfish. And the selfishness hurts other people, it damages them. It goes as far as damaging them and not just damaging them but taking away what is good in their life. If we decide to take what we need for our life, that's the way you know those ingrained messages go. Now, it's really interesting. I've changed my idea on selfishness over the years one I used to think it was doing something to hurt somebody else. But when I heard abraham hicks talking about it, they said If you think about who is calling you selfish, selfishness actually doesn't exist. Because most of the time the person calling you selfish is wanting something from you that you're not willing to do or willing to give or can't give. But they're wanting it from you. So actually, is the person calling you selfish that is tending to display their selfish qualities. And I'm like, Oh my god. Mind blown. Brandon Handley 35:24 Yeah, that's such a lightbulb moment with that with that. I've definitely heard her go through that as well. Yeah, definitely. Like, she like, Oh, my God. She's penny dropped. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like, mind blown. 100%. Here's a space on this for a second. Oh, god, god. Amanda Kate 35:42 Yeah. And I was just gonna say that selflessness does what it says on the tin, it makes less and less and less and less and less of ourselves. Because we are giving and giving and giving and giving and giving from resources we don't have. Brandon Handley 35:56 Yeah, yeah. Somebody somebody said something to me, that kind of resonated, and I'm still trying to figure it out. 100%. But she's like, if you had to sacrifice something that wasn't yours to begin with? Yeah. Yeah. Right, which I thought was a pretty powerful line. Yeah. And I think that's in line with what you're saying there. Right? There's the sand that you kind of completely diminishes and eradicate all of who you are. Yeah. Without replenishment. Amanda Kate 36:22 Absolutely. But in the middle of the two, is actually being so full, and making ourselves a priority to fill ourselves up. And then we can give to other people from that overflow. And so in the middle of that selfishness, or selflessness, I don't see either of those as being a place to stand it is standing in the middle. And that is part of that assertiveness, it is part of that no, this is the space I'm going to take off. I am going to allow myself to be in this space, I'm going to trust that I deserve to stand here. I am also going to not just give and give and give. I'm going to allow myself to receive. And then everybody else. Yes, absolutely want Brandon Handley 37:05 to write had some conversations with the guy who brought that to light, too. We want to give one a good one a good one to give. I'm such a good giver. But are you good at receiving? Right? And you kind of? Well, you if you don't receive you don't have anything to gift? Yeah, yeah. Amanda Kate 37:27 If we think about the basics of that, we're doing one part of the equation through giving. So if you you know, when I talk about the masculine and feminine principles that has nothing to do with gender, it has nothing to do with sexual identity, it is just purely, you know, I guess the binary way that it is able to be described. But if you think about the mass, the male sex organs, they are out there, they're projective, they are giving, they can be easily seen. That's the masculine aspect of ourselves. So the outbreath, because it is going outward, it is the masculine breath, everything internal, the in breath, this female sex organs, it's receptive, it's hidden, it's mysterious, the motive, it's all about feeling. That's that feminine aspect. So if we're just giving, all we're doing is our masculine side, and we all have this inside us, we just have different percentages and different, you know, ways that we express it. But even you know, the most masculine of all the people who identify as highly masculine still have feminine aspects to them. And those people who just, you know, identify as very feminine also have masculine aspects to them. Because if we just had the feminine, we would never do anything. And if he just had the masculine, we'd run ourselves into the ground, because we've never actually stopped and just be for a bit. And so the receptivity is actually really, really important for us to balance out that feminine aspect and to replenish ourselves. So that we have enough to give, because if I'm giving and giving, you know, if you look at all the different hats that we wear, you know, I'm a mother, I'm a partner, I'm a business owner, I'm a you know, I'm a facilitator in in this healing space, I've got all of these different things that I do. Now, if I am only giving say to my business, then I'm actually taking energy from other areas of my life to constantly be giving to that. So I need to be giving and receiving and all of these different areas of my life, but without the receptivity part. I am purely giving from a finite resource. And that's when we end up running run down. Brandon Handley 39:34 Now to present makes sense, makes sense. You brought in I talked with kind of a go back to the bear in the woods and sleep and insomnia and not being able to kind of release your your state of what is it the sympathetic mode, right being kind of stuck in fight or flight? You share it you share it on one of your I think YouTube's A breath work or just kind of a type of breathing that you can do to release and reset the autonomic nervous system, I would love it if you just shared that here on this podcast. You know, even if I teach stuff and share stuff, nobody listens to me. So you can share it as many times as you want. But just getting another perspective. And again, this could be, you know, that person on the other end today that maybe they just can't hear that from me, but they can hear from you. So yeah, absolutely. Amanda Kate 40:34 So often, when we're in anxiety we breathe in through the top part of our lungs, but our lungs actually start around the second and third rib space. So if we're only breathing in the top part, the main bit of our lung with all of the alveoli in isn't actually getting the oxygen, because that comes down into these, you know, into the lobes at the very base of our lungs. So what we need to be doing is pushing that breath much, much deeper. And that's what people talk about in terms of belly breathing, and things like that, of course, your belly doesn't actually breathe, you know, there are no lungs in our belly, but we want to be pushing it down. What happens when we stay in anxiety breathing is our diaphragm actually gets caught and tightened, because it's not being exercised with that breath, it's not being pushed down. So we end up with quite a tight diaphragm, which is why a lot of people who are in long term stress feel that they can't breathe fully, all the time, because their diaphragm is actually caught up and stuck. So what we want to do is actually deep breathe in, and we and it works well, if you put a hand on your chest. So you can actually feel that your chest isn't moving until the very end of the breath. And you just push the air down deep into your belly as you can and really feel that expanding without the chest moving. And the chest full move at the end, of course, because eventually, that's where the air will end up in the top part of the lungs. Then as we let it out, and we only need to do three or four of those deep, deep breaths. So I tend to sort of breathe in for 1234. And then I'll hold for one or two. So I do quite slow breaths. I mean, look, you can count to 10, if you really want to, but I sensitive, countless less and lots like slower. So just breathe in really deeply. Hold it for a second or two, and then let it out. And I tend to make my outbreath slightly longer than my in breath. I don't know why I just do no right or wrong, you do what feels good for you. But breathing really deep into those into those lobes of the lungs imagining that air be pushed right down into the deepest alveoli, so then your oxygen and your blood can do that transfer so much easier. Because you're trying to do it where there's the bulk of that, that transferability. And I get people to practice things like when they're stuck at the traffic lights, you know, you're gonna get a minute or two. So you know what, every time you pull up at lights, practice two or three big deep breaths. And then you know, and the other thing I try and get them to do is actually notice what's going on. You know, whose turn is that next? Oh, look, there's a mother with a baby in a pram over there. There's a red car here, you know, just coming really into that present moment. So one of the things that I want to do, because I'm trying to reduce stress in people's lives, the tools that I give them are there to reduce stress in their lives. If I tell you to, you know, you've got to deep breathe 10 times a day. Oh, shit, there's another thing for my to do list and five, how am I going to fit that in? I'm already busy enough Holy crap. And now it feels like a chore. And when it feels like a chore, we're not going to do it. And that's why I try and get people to do it in those kinds of situations where they're already there. Oh look, there's a minute or two because I have to stop because all the traffic stopped. Okay, what can I do in this moment? Let's bring myself back let's become really present. Let's listen to the words in the song on the radio. Let's do some really deep breathing Let's become really hyper focused on this minute right now. And then off we go again. And so it's about trying to knit some of those practices in to the every day and that's how I found my changes happened was because I would knit them in and then they would just become seamless. And you know so every morning for example when I have a shower I imagine that that water is just washing away anyone else's stuff that's attached to me anything that doesn't belong to me any you know hooks called seeds attachments in Wow, you know, anything that water, rinses it away, sends it back to Mother Earth for her to transmute into something beautiful. And then I'm not just cleaning, you know, my body, I'm also cleaning my energy field. And so it's ways to knit those practices in, whether it be deep breathing, or energy clearing, or whatever it is. So that it feels seamless in your day, and you're not just doing Oh, here's another thing I've got to do. And here's another thing I've got to do, and here's, you know, we don't, we don't need more stress, we got enough of that. Brandon Handley 45:34 More shit to do, which is kind of fun. Especially especially when you first get started in this space. That if you're not already, like in personal development, or you have these spiritual practices, you're like, alright, you need to do this, this this and like, you have this huge list of all the shit that's just posted on the day, like, this is stressing me out, like how am I supposed to like gain enlightenment, like, and I've got this list of shit to do. I don't know, if I'm gonna get to like, you know, four or five of them. And I got like, 12 Yeah, I'm never going to Nirvana. So, I love I love the concept too, in the idea of like, knitting it in, right? Like, I just thought about, like, you know, the fabric of your life naked and to like, you know, the fabric of your life so that it becomes seamless, it's there. It's not like, you know, a stop, and you don't have to stop your entire day. Pull out like your meditation blanket. And you know, wait for the do and humidity to be like, 67%. Before you can, you know, breathe easily, right? Yeah. There's no specific time and or space that you have to do it. Yeah, you make a conscious choice to like, pause. Or take it all in. And, and, and, you know, self fullness. Amanda Kate 46:48 Yeah. Yeah. And it's doing it throughout the day, because let's face it, I mean, I walk my dog for an hour and a half to two hours every morning. I'm then trying to fit in a workout to also run a business Plus, I've got a family to look after, you know, my time is pretty precious right now. And okay, I could walk my dog for less, but it's also my exercise. And you know, there's a whole heap of things. I guess I could sacrifice a little bit more. But you know, my poor walk with the dog is, you know, I'm on the beach every morning. Rain, hail or shine, you name it. I'm there. It was three degrees this morning. I think when I was out there walking, you know, I'm also doing cold water swimming now. So I go down into the bay. I think it's about nine degrees at the moment. I do about 20 minutes in the bay. Brandon Handley 47:33 So suits are Fahrenheit. Celsius. I got Yeah, I gotta imagine Celsius. Right. Amanda Kate 47:38 Yeah. Not nine Fahrenheit. Brandon Handley 47:41 So cold. Sounds like, it doesn't stop. Amanda Kate 47:44 Yeah, it's not. But you know, I've got those little practices that I do. And they are my meditative times, when I'm walking the dog at the beach, you know, it's pick up the ball, throw the ball, pick up the ball, throw the ball, you know, and walk, I think I do about 7k, or roughly, maybe a bit more. And then you know, it's the same when I'm in the water, I have to breathe well, cuz in that cold water, it takes your breath away. I practice my breathing. And I get into this place where after about, it's about six or seven minutes, it stops hurting. And then it gets into this really calm, bearish. And that's why it feels like that. Not quite, I haven't gotten there yet. Thank God. Brandon Handley 48:33 Man. I mean, I totally appreciate you being on I know. Yeah. So I got at least one book. What do you have more than one book? Because I didn't I didn't go that deep on it. But I have Amanda Kate 48:42 one book. But there's also a secret book club title. So it was the same book, but I really wanted it printed under the working title as well. The the actual book itself is called Divine Mercy human. And the secret book club title is called Don't let that can't steal your bricks. Brandon Handley 49:04 It's great. I think that I think I think you know, at the very least when I saw the I think I might have seen that somewhere too. And just trying to fall over. Yeah. But I really liked the divine messy house. Yeah. Right. It's very thick on this podcast. And what we do here is try to be approachable space, there's way too many motherfuckers who are like, like, again, who who put themselves at like, you know, at a level that you're like, Listen, I'm just trying to have a conversation. Yeah. I don't know that we need to get that deep into it. All right, sometimes. Sometimes surface level conversations are real cool. Amanda Kate 49:45 Oh, absolutely. I think the other thing is, it's about being relatable. And it's about doing stuff that's actually going to work like we as you said, you know, if we did all the spiritual practices that we got taught, we'd be spending 24 hours a day In our spiritual practices, we're not timeframes. No time for anything else, but we live life. So yeah, I'm so with you. Brandon Handley 50:08 Right? Right, right. I mean, I think and look, if we look at Hinduism they've got they've got pretty Dagny Listen, I know that I know, it gets romanticize but like, you know, there's, there's the greenhouse, right? That's it, there's a householder, there's like, that's what you're doing. That's your life. And then there's the spiritual aspirant who goes and meditates in a cave. Those are your two choices. You can either live your life with your family, or go live in a cave. Yeah, right, there's really, it's really hard to kind of get the in between is trying to make it approachable. And I think that you know, what you've got here is like, super approachable. And I appreciate that. So, appreciate you being on I have a couple questions for you, if you don't mind. So, I really do look at this as kind of like a spiritual speed dating, right? Like, so somebody's going to come on today. They're gonna be like, You know what, Brandon, this isn't working out anymore. I'm ready for my next dating partner. And that could be you. So, let's see here. Spiritual Bachelorette number one, what is the relationship between science and religion? Amanda Kate 51:13 At the moment, I see them as a little bit one on the same, they can both be very doctrine ated and dogma filled, or they can be done with heart and soul. And I tend to resonate more with the heart and soul in both aspects. Brandon Handley 51:29 Just seems like, I like that right. It seems like there are these fine lines to follow, right? I'm not sure how deep you've gotten into the breath work. Who's Who's the Russian who Gamez name is escaping me right now. But the you know, who came up with all this? Work? The guy who did the math to set up like the the breathing? And radio? Yeah, to go into space, right? Yep. People trashed his work. Because it was going to interfere with other people's like studies that there's a fear that everything you've learned is wrong. Yep. Yeah. Right. And you don't want people to find that out? Amanda Kate 52:14 Yeah. And what is true science and true religion about for me, it's about curiosity and asking questions and knowing that there is no finite yes or no, that is 100%. Right are 100% Wrong. And so the best science for me keeps asking questions and is actually prepared to be wrong. And for me, it's the same about spirituality and religion, the number of times I have racked up and I've been wrong, you know what I'm getting better and better at owning it and being responsible for my own shit. And, and I see that within, you know, it was like the whole thing that we've had fed into us over in Australia the last few years trust the science or the fact that you're even saying there's the science. For me that doesn't sit right because science is all about asking questions, and being prepared for different answers that don't fit with your paradigm and your you know, your desired outcome. And, and that's the exciting bit for me is is science and religion that go and keep asking questions and keep their curiosity alive and keep in touch with that childlike innocence. Brandon Handley 53:19 No, I love it. I love it. Coup de doo doo doo doo doo doo. Let's go with what prevents people from living to their full potential. Amanda Kate 53:33 I think it's pretty much you know, what I was writing about in my book is it's trusting external influences over your internal truth. And our internal truth is valid. And the way we experience the world and interact with the world is such an important thing. And so often we defer our inner knowing to other people's suppose it expertise, but they don't know us, they don't know our life path. They don't know our spiritual purpose. You know, they're coming with their own baggage and their own filters and their own ideas about life. And you know, what we need to learn to trust what's in here, our own heart and soul, and our breath work. breathwork connects us to the body and the more connected we are to the body, the more we can actually read what the body's trying to tell us and what our soul is trying to tell us. Brandon Handley 54:24 You so let's explore that just for a second to like, when you say connect to the body, what are you saying? Amanda Kate 54:30 Feel into it? So you know, when we're building up in our head, we tend to be in I call it either the wounded feminine or the wounded masculine. We're trying to, you know, over give over control, overthink, over, over, over, over analyze. And what happens is if you imagine a cardboard cutout of yourself as your energy field, our self point moves from this place on our chest, there's like a little whereas the little divot here. It's on our on our sternum, it's just under the knotch. There, there's like a little divot, that's also fine for a lot of clients at the moment who are in overthinking that they'll point is up around here, up around the top of their forehead, that means that energetically they are literally in their head. But also, their feet are not touching the ground, the more our feet touch the ground, and the more grounded we are, and the more in our body we are, the higher we can actually reach people seem to think that if they want to meditate, they need to just go up and they can, you know, go up like a helium balloon. But the more we tether ourselves to the ground, the higher we actually get in that aspect. And so that's what I mean about being in our body is being firmly anchored into the 3d reality that we've chosen to be present in right now. And from that 3d reality, if we are anchored into it, we can then lift higher, and we can go into a more divine aspect of thinking, where we acknowledge our emotional self, we acknowledge our logical self. And we are able to go then above that and get our out of the box thinking happening, our intuition. Brandon Handley 56:12 So I need to use my body to get to my brain and connect it to source me. So the thing I think about to write is like, I think about the idea of, you know, lightning, if lightning strikes, and I'm not grounded, there's no where that energy to flow. So in order for energy to flow, there's got to be some type of grounding. Yeah, yeah, fair. That's the way of what you're saying here. Amanda Kate 56:41 Imagine, imagine when you're the one I used with clients is, you know, when your batteries aren't quite in your TV remote, and it does nothing. You can't have a TV, you need both ends to be battery connected to actually do it. And so, you know, the way I look is, is one of our terminals is connected to the earth, and the other terminal above our head is connected to the heavens. If we are connected in like that we are so much more useful. And I think that's why they call it M body meant it's about being in the body. Because so many of us if you think about the language we use, or she's beside herself right now, energetically, often I will then find myself point, literally beside themselves because energetically that their energy system is not quite in their body properly. When we are fully embodied, we are feeling what we need to feel in this moment, we are getting the insights and intuition we need in this moment. To make more empowered, more discerning choices that are more self loving. Brandon Handley 57:47 We think about the idea of being in alignment, right energetically being in alignment and we would think about like our body being this place over here. You kind of all need to be working together as kind of one. Okay, awesome. Awesome. Amanda Kate. Such a blast. I know we could have taken this in so many different ways. I appreciate you. You know having this conversation with me how to blasts where can people go find out more about you connect with you? Amanda Kate 58:14 Yeah, the easiest place to start probably my website www dot Amanda kake.com.au. My book is on there and all sorts of things. I am on Facebook at Amanda Kate transformation. I am on Instagram at Amanda underscore underscore Kate and I've just joined Tik Tok and having heaps of fun on there at divinely messy. Brandon Handley 58:37 Nice. Thank you so much for being Amanda Kate 58:39 here. Thank you so much brand has been so good and keep bringing your work into the world because it's so needed. Intro Guy 58:45 Thank you. I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram at spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  Giten Tonkov The creator of the Biodynamic Breathwork and Trauma Release System BBTRS. Co-founder of the Integral Body Institute and the director of the Energy of Breath Institute (http://www.energyofbreath.com) in New York. Giten was born in the Ukraine, and has been living in New York since 1988, though his many travels make him a citizen of the world. His path to “self-knowledge” began in the early 1990s. Giten has extensive experience in therapy focused on bodywork and breath work. Since 1994 he has been a licensed massage therapist (Swedish Institute of Massage and Therapy in New York) and since 2001 a certified Breath Therapist (Osho Multiversity, Pune, India). He has worked as a therapist at the Osho Multiversity (Osho International Meditation Resort in Pune, India) where he ran a group “Your Body – Your Emotions”. Giten is a Sannyasin (a student of the Indian mystic Osho). He is an experienced leader, running workshops and training courses all over the world. After over 20 years of searching, studying, experiencing and working with multiple clients, both individually and in groups, he created the method of Biodynamic Breath work and Trauma Release System BBTRS. He also created a unique therapy Breath Work on the Ball™. Currently, Giten leads “Biodynamic Breath work and Trauma Release” training courses in the United States, India, Taiwan, China, Russia, Ukraine, Colombia, Costa Rica, Greece and other countries. Thanks to IBI he is also in Poland. https://www.biodynamicbreath.com/ https://www.gofundme.com/f/ukraine-traumaresilience-project     Introduction to today's episode. 0:00 The six elements of biodynamic breathwork. 1:53 Breathwork is a body-oriented therapy. 6:50 What is a natural release system in the body? 13:58 An example of an external resource. 21:21 What's it like to be able to provide a modality for people to work through their trauma. 28:07 The training is divided into two parts. Part of it is online and part is in-person. 30:53 How do you experience this resource in your body? 36:27 Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general, you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual dub with your host, Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with Giten Tonkov who is the founder and director of biodynamic breathwork and trauma release Institute. He's a co founder and director of the integral body Institute in Poland and lead facilitator in BV T ri screenings, I came across Gaetan by by way of trying to learn more about breathwork and came across his book, which was feel to heal releasing trauma through body awareness. And I chased them all around the world, asking him to come on to the podcast, Keaton, thank you for being on here today. So, you know, let's talk a little bit about, I think, just your work as it pertains to breathwork. And your work is multiple disciplines involved in it. And I believe you've got what we call six pillars in your that illustrate the modalities, would you mind sharing that with the audience, and we dig a little bit into it from there. Giten Tonkov 1:53 Absolutely. So biodynamic breathwork is a multi modal approach, it brings together the six elements. The first one is deep connected, breathing, conscious, connected breathing. And the way that we use the breath is to activate our sympathetic response, or D activate the sympathetic response that to bring into parasympathetic activation. So breath is used in many different ways in this modality. So when we're beginning to go into a deeper breath, we are activating the system, and then the charge that's stuck in the body has a chance to to complete the interrupted response. So this is the first element, the element of breath, the second element is movement, the movement is kind of ingrained into breath. So when we're fully deeply breathing, there is so much movement already happening in our body of this diaphragm moving, there's lungs expanding, contracting, there is all auxiliary muscles that assist in the breathing are involved. So we take that internal movement that's already happening in our physical body and express it through the outward movement, a lot of it is on the winding of the spine. So this way, we are actually engaging the fascia, the deep core tissues as well to release to support the release of tension that's at the core of the body that's related to past traumatic event. The next element is the element of touch. And touch is used as in a form of body work, as well as in the form of resourcing to assist in the session. So touch can support the release of tension. And touch can bring the person back into the deeper connection with themselves. So there's ways that we use touch in the, in the in person workshops when we do hands on assist, and there's also self touch that's involved in the online setting. So it's very important element is touch. So the next element is sound. So we have breath, movement, touch and sound, the sound is used in the form of our own voice, as well as external sound in the form of music that supports the session that supports and bringing up emotion as well as live instruments that actually impact the body through the sound healing the vibration of the sound when it enters the body. It's of course it impacts ourselves. But the most powerful musical instrument we have is our own voice. So the voice really is reports that layers of release and expression, as well as letting go, as well as the vibration of the sound is healing from the inside out. So if you have the elements of breath, movement type sound, this combination supports the emergence of the next element, which is emotional expression. When we begin to release the tension in our physical body, the emotional charge that lives in that physical tension begins to come up to the surface. So moving those stuck emotions that are related to past unresolved experiences to past traumas, this is the key to creating more freedom in the body, more relaxation in the body. So we are moving through all these different various elements, breath movement, sound, tai chi, emotional expression, to support the emergence of silence, the last element is the element of meditation. So when we are clearing ourselves from past trauma, from busy mind, we are completing interrupted impulses, which trauma is actually in its essence, interrupted impulses that are stuck in the physical body. So we are coming into a place of silence, which is naturally emergent. So this gives us an opportunity to look at ourselves objectively, to allow anything that needs to still complete, to compete in the physical body. So this kind of in a nutshell, the six elements of biodynamic breathwork Brandon Handley 6:49 I love, I love this, because if you take a look at your history, you know, you started with, you know, kind of hands on doing massage therapy, you joined a couple of breathwork sessions if I recall correctly, you would attended an Osho event as a facilitator as a translator for somebody who was Russian there. And that was like one of your first taste to that and then you you figured out ways to incorporate that in other modalities and you put these all together for one complete and cohesive kind of packaging system. So I think that that's that's super interesting one of the things that I really need to go ahead get getting Giten Tonkov 7:54 I was gonna say it's a 20 Brandon Handley 7:55 years. And this is this isn't something that you just came up with either as I believe, right around 20 years of active work on this is that correct system? Giten Tonkov 8:22 Yes, it's around 20 years of working with these modalities and experimenting, seeing what works, what doesn't work, how they support each other. Brandon Handley 8:32 And one of the things that I think that you found was really were was the idea and the concept. Maybe not you but you stumbled on it in one area, it's the seven bands of tension. Right? Could you talk to us a little bit about this seven bands of tension and how they might even aligned to the chakra system? Were was the idea and the concept? Maybe seven bands of 10 Right. Talk about this? Giten Tonkov 9:03 Chakra. Yes. So the seven belts of tension is the whole western body oriented psychology is actually rooted in the concept of Reichian approach which German therapist will Unbreak who was student contemporary of Freud found that the the past traumatic event manglik mainly developmental trauma is distributed in the form of tension in the body in we're in seven bands of tension. And sure enough of these seven Bell bends of tension are more or less in exactly the same areas of the chakra system. But the way that we work in the seven belts of tension, it's actually the biodynamic breathwork is it is a body oriented therapy. So we took that as, as a foundation, the working with the, with the distribution of physical tension in the in the body, and how these bands hold that developmental trauma effects in our physical body. So their ocular belt of tension that is involves the eyes, the forehead, the top of the head. And then we move down into the oral belt of tension with you, which is a jaw and the mouth and the back of the head. And then moving down into cervical, which is our throat expression and creativity also blocking our expression through our throat is very common, then moving down into a thoracic belt, which includes the chest, the heart, the lungs, this, this kind of armoring that we build to protect our heart, from feeling pain, pretty much this is this, all of these belts are in essence have formed for us to feel protected from feeling emotional pain, pretty much. So this in essence, creates this physical armoring that she has right talked about a lot and this physical armoring blocks the flow of energy through our our physical body. So moving down through the through the body, under the thoracic belt of tension is diaphragmatic belt, which includes our diaphragm, our ribcage. And of course, the movement of the diaphragm is very important. The big range of movement of the diaphragm is important because it controls the flow of impulses from the sex to the heart. So as well as how intensely we feel, the more you want to block your feelings, the shallower you will breathe. So that diminishes the movement of the diaphragm and brings the tension around the ribcage, of course. And then moving down into the belly, we have abdominal belt of tension, which includes the abdomen, all the organs, it houses as well as the lower back. And of course, the base is our pelvis, our sex organs, our reproductive organs, and of course, our legs, which is all involved in the in this belt of tension. So the theory behind the Reich's formation of personality structures that the Sexual Energy wants to arise from the pelvis it wants to move up into the belly into the heart and the flow higher turned into expression. But we are conditioned to block these impulses. And because these impulses are blocked, for whatever reason, the physical tension is created. And then after some years, this physical tension is settled in the body in this form. So what we do with biodynamic breath work, we approach working with these belts of tension in very specific order to support the release of tension, the emotion that they this tension holds, as well as supporting the flow of natural impulses through the physical body. In this way we complete the interrupted impulses and heal from developmental trauma as well as any form of trauma. It could be a shock trauma, it could be acute traumas. So this approach works pretty much for a wide variety of Brandon Handley 13:58 offers is great, you've got all the you know what I think is really cool. First of all, I'm thank you for walking through the the belts attention. It's, it aligns so closely to the chakra system, and you know, Eastern medicine and the way they look at the body, that I was pretty shocked to find that and your book. The other thing that I thought that was really neat in your book is that even the very beginning talks about what you're talking about, right? Is this this tension that gets trapped in our bodies, and how animals have a natural release system. And humans, I guess, we tend to do to whatever conditioning, we're kind of blocking and trapping this energy within us. Can you talk a little bit about that? And like what would be Have you found what a natural release system may be for humans if we go through all of this, biodynamic, you know, work and we get the tension releases? What is a natural release for us? Giten Tonkov 15:17 Well, we are in like all mammals are programmed to release the tension in more or less the same way to release the shock to release the trauma and more or less the same way by completing the response that that naturally is released in the term into in time of the traumatic event. But we are as humans are the only ones that learn to interrupt that natural impulse and the impulse is to shake to tremor. So when we work with biodynamic breathwork, we actually support the practitioner, the participants to complete the interrupted response to tremor, a lot of the times the interrupted response comes in tremoring. And other times it comes in the movement in, Brandon Handley 16:15 so we're talking, I lost you like, right around, I guess, you know, some of the tremoring and allowing that movement to complete to run through its motions. And that would be the natural thing. Whereas we typically we've been trained to kind of interrupt that. Giten Tonkov 16:31 So we we somehow, as humans interrupt that natural response for the body to complete the activation. And the key for our work is to support this natural response to complete the activation to come back. Because it's still there, no matter how long the activation has been interrupted in the body, our body looks for chances to complete it. And once our body is given that chance, it will take it. So pretty much what we provide in the session is the chance for our physical body to complete the activation, therefore, move in out of living as a traumatized individual. Brandon Handley 17:24 So releasing all that stored trauma in the body, right, letting that energy dissipate, right, you're allowing for for, it's kind of like coming back, and just, you know, turning the machine back on to allow for it to turn the faucet back on or whatever, it just allows for that energy to flow out. Yeah, Giten Tonkov 17:43 pretty much, pretty much yes, it's the the response. Like I said, no matter how long it's been stuck in the body, it's, it's still there. And it's settled in the form of change, which is pretty much Brahma is interrupted response. If the response is that the moment of the traumatic event, there is no trauma, we move through it. But the fight or flight is, is that's been interrupted, that turns into freeze, which is still has fight or flight running under the freeze. So this is the way to work with with this modality like any other trauma oriented modality. Brandon Handley 18:34 I love it. And then one of the things that you talk about is resourcing in the book and you brought it up today. Let's know a little bit more about that. I think I got a little bit confused, especially like if we're trying to self resource in a breath working space, can you bring it talk us through what resourcing is and what that would look like in a full in person session as well as a you know, at home session. Giten Tonkov 19:02 So, resource is pretty much based on the concept that we use Pendulo ation within the session ventilation meaning that we move between activation, we create the support the activation in the body, that kind of so we have something to work with. And then after sustaining this activation for a certain amount of time, as long as the person is able to be with this activation without feeling overwhelmed. After a while we move the attention back to the place in the body which feels safe and connected which is called internal resource which For this we use the concept of felt sense. So we sense our physicality without attaching much meaning to it. We just look for physical sensations that feel comfortable this as a resource, so we have internal resource which can be located within the physical body. And we have external resource, which is something from outside of ourselves that can be also translated into how it affects us physically. So, in the use of this, of the resources gives an opportunity to feel safe within the session. So we're not going into a place where we feel overcharged or overstimulated, so we can go through the process of releasing without feeling overwhelmed. This is the reason for using a resource. And it's very, it's a very effective way to release trauma because usually, trauma means that we are disconnecting from our physical sensations, it's too much to experience, a lot of the times they're painful. So we disconnect from physicality. So now we're providing an opportunity to come back into feeling our physical bodies in safety. So resource provides that. Could you Brandon Handley 21:21 give me an example of like, what some people might use as an outside resource? Giten Tonkov 21:26 Nature is a fantastic external resource, going into a tree being with the tree, touching a tree, getting your feet, in the sand or on the ground, feeling how that actually feels for you. A memory from the past where you can remember yourself, feeling very good physically. Pat's friends saw their people are amazing, external resources. So anything from the outside that makes you feel safe and connected to your physical body in a positive way? No, thank you. Brandon Handley 22:11 I appreciate that. Because again, you know, like you're saying, if we're going through this trauma, we want to stay connected. I think that you've also mentioned it in the book and some several videos. We don't want to go into a state of catharsis where we disconnect, right? Because then we're not working through that trauma and releasing it. And since it is such a deep is sensation, does processes seeing the trauma, when we connect and have a place of safety to go to that would be what you consider a resourcing. Right, that would be the thing that we can use to help us through that situation. Okay, thank you. Thank you. That's perfect. So there's a couple more pieces I want to get get to here for you. One of the things is, you know, this is a modality that what you what you brought, is something to heal through trauma, and there's trauma and a lot of different ways throughout the world. And one of the things that's happening right now is the War of the Ukraine. And we did not mention the beginning here. I believe that your your Ukrainian descent, and you've recently just come back from there where you've been raising awareness, as well as teaching others in Ukraine, how to leverage this to work through their traumas. Would you like to share a little bit about that? Giten Tonkov 23:30 Yes. Thank you for asking Brandon. Yes, I'm originally from Ukraine. I left Ukraine as a refugee. In fact, when I was 18 years old, and with my parents, we were leaving from my ethnic persecution in Ukraine, and back then it was Soviet Union. And as well as political persecution. So when this conflict started when Ukraine was attacked, completely unprovoked by by Russia, we, I was in Poland and we had already running training for biodynamic breath work and trauma release training, so we to couple of Ukrainian students on scholarship to, for them to bring this work more into the into the field. And once the training is was finished, this was already we were going on to about three weeks of conflicts at that point. And we set up in Warsaw in Poland, a hub for Ukrainian refugees to come and receive the trauma release technique. So we created a very special approach which is geared for acute trauma. which is mostly the trauma that people are experiencing now with this situation. So this, this project is still ongoing, the hub is operational in Warsaw. And now we are in contact with the US State Department, an organism in organization that is subdivision for US State Department, that is actually bringing the work going to bring the work to a Ukrainian aid workers. So we are sending a team going to be sending a team in Warsaw, again, as well as in western Ukraine. And we've so this is a very much needed response. And this is where the modality gets to show up in in actual action, where it's needed most for people that are dealing with a very acute trauma. And as well as the aid workers, they're, they're exposed to, first of all, through vicarious traumatization through through the people that they're helping, as well as being on the territory of Ukraine. It's, it's a very traumatic situation for the entire country for the entire population. Right now, there's over 5 million refugees that left Ukraine, and many of them more than half of them are in Poland. So that's why we set up this hub in Poland, specifically more so. But now, with First of all, we have no idea how long this conflict is going to last. And there are still people are fleeing Ukraine, there are still people that are traumatized, and for sure, we want to, as much as possible avoid for the trauma to continue to build within the country. So it we no matter how you look at it, there will be long lasting consequences from this conflict. And so my organization, biodynamic breathwork, and trauma release Institute, we are fully committed, and we are also started the foundation. Based on this project, we're fully committed to support people who are on the front line, as well as the refugees as well as the people who've been in active combat, to support them to do whatever is possible to release the effects of this horrible events from their physical body. So we don't have to pass it on to future generations. We know how it all ended up after World War Two, and many conflicts that followed. Throughout the world people hold this trauma did becomes generational, and we pass it on to our children and their children's children. This it doesn't go away, just simply with time it gets passed on. Brandon Handley 28:07 Yeah, and so I think that it's great that you're able to get out there and provide a modality like this something that they can do, by themselves, both the refugees and the frontline workers that are out there, and something that, you know, they can do as a community, right. It's a visual, it's something that, you know, shows community and I think that in, given the circumstances, to be accepted into a community like that, and then the work through that, and probably to release that. And that's got to be a moment in their lives that that they end up being eternally grateful. So for for you to do that. I know you've got a I think it's a GoFundMe set up, that I'll be able to share out as long as that's going. And I can share out some links about the ongoing work that you're doing. And I think that that's, it's tremendous that you've been able to find something throughout these years. And as unfortunate as this event is now you're able to go home as it were to provide this incredible resource. Giten Tonkov 29:14 Thank you. Thank you, Brendan. Yes, we have a GoFundMe account, one of the it's for for another week or so until next Friday, so it would be awesome to to receive some donations to support this project. And yes, this is this is real help in action. It's support to the people that really need it. And the it's great that I mentioned community. Community Building is part of what we're doing, bringing people together where they can share in a safe environment where they can share in the environment where they when they speak They are supported in that process. Storytelling is also used as we brought it in as part of one of the tools that are very creative trauma, healing storytelling, where people can tell their stories without feeling. Like they're being re traumatized by telling it. So this is a very specific way that we included in it as well. Wonderful. Brandon Handley 30:31 And so, you know, let's say that I wanted to train in this, I think this modality speaks to me, I've tried other modalities like Wim Hof, you know, getting the heileman supply, but I feel like there's more, you know, and as his work has been great, so is this, talk to me a little bit about, you know, what it would look like to train with you, and how would I go about doing that? Giten Tonkov 30:53 Yes, we have a training running for many years, the training is divided in two parts, part of it is online, and part of it is in person. So it though, in person workshops are happening in Poland, US and Mexico. So pretty much, we're also adding in one in Australia, we had it going in Australia as well. So people pretty much it's accessible from anywhere in the world, whether it's in the in the Americas or in Europe. And so that's an in person part, and there is an online, five months training that just that is part of the practitioner training. Next enrollment, it begins in September. I mean, the enrollment is already happening now. But the next course begins in September. And the training is very flexible to people can go first in person and then continue online or start online and then continue in person. So altogether, it's around 400 hours of training. And it's certified training was certified by Australian breathwork Association as well as international breathwork Foundation. And the it's a registered us continuing education courses by licensing divisions of massage therapy and acupuncture. So this is a very serious training program, especially now when after COVID. So many people left their jobs and looking for a career change and something new in their lives. This is a fantastic way to stay connected to yourself to heal your own body and learn a very valuable modality to support others in their growth. Whether you are already a practitioner of any body oriented modalities or a psychology, this will definitely add to your training that's awesome. Brandon Handley 33:19 Thanks for Thanks for sharing that. One of the use a couple pieces here to left in my mind. One is you've got an exercise, I believe that can help to release like some of the myofascial tissues, right, like and some of the tension. What is that exercise? Would you mind sharing with the audience? Something they could do at home by themselves to try and relieve some of the tension in their body? Giten Tonkov 33:43 Yeah, I absolutely the exercise I can, I can guide the audience for the next five minutes into the exercise and the exercise. It's called tans release, unwind. So there is a certain process happens in our physical body. If we consciously tense the tissues, hold it for 30 seconds, and then release that holding. So the energy that's been held in the body releases and it releases to the deeper tissues as well. So once the release is happening, we take that energy, this bio energy and move it through the body with this unwinding, undulating movement. So this exercise can be done at any time of day. It can be done at any areas in the body. You can start with the face, you can do it the holding your jaw, you can hold your shoulders and then release and then unwind. So the three major step is tensing, holding for 30 seconds, letting go of the holding, releasing, and the final step is to unwind to laugh that movement come up as an expression of the energy that the body is releasing. So let's take a moment you can sit or be standing and take a few deep, full breaths, one after the other. Bring your attention to where the breath is flowing in your physical body. Be aware of the felt sensations that are present in this area. And now let's start by bringing our attention to our shoulder. So I want to ask you to raise your shoulders up to your ears and tense that area and hold that tension. And let's hold it for about 30 seconds. And I'm gonna time it for 30 seconds, and then I'll let you know when to release. And hold it, hold it, hold it. And now let's begin to bring that holding to a peak. Let's hold it tighter. And you have about 10 More seconds left. And 54321 now releasing the tension, letting your shoulders flow down, releasing, relaxing, and let your body softly move, letting that movement come from the inside out. Especially bring in that movement into your spine. So moving your shoulders, moving your head and neck, let this movement come down your spine. Now bringing the breath back, breathing deeply in through the nose, out through the mouth. Deep full breath in through the nose out through the mouth, and let your body softly drop into this movement. There's still this energy that wants to move you if you simply let go of your control, the body will move on its own Yeah, very good. The brain some movement into your neck and head into your lower face into your jaw. Yeah. And take another deep, full breath. Noticing how the when the breath comes in, it fills you up from the inside. It's kind of DISRE rubber ball that expands with the breath. And when you exhale, letting yourself go dropping letting the the gravity work and letting the movement arise. Your body naturally wants to release tension by movement. Yes. And then now the deep full breath. Being aware of your physicality of your whole body as a one unit as a whole. Being aware of your felt sensation, being aware of the place of comfort that we talked earlier about resource How do you experience this resource in your physical body and take a deep full breath and once again, shift your attention to just outside of yourself and whenever you're ready, you can open your eyes even short few minutes of practice already make a difference Brandon Handley 39:44 feel tingly? You know I feel great. Even just even with just short exercise and the reminder to the guidance is always great. The reminder to kind of find the resource is absolutely wonderful and Um, you know, just feeling that kind of release, right, letting that natural movement happen. So that's, that's, that's definitely feels wonderful. So I appreciate you sharing that with me walking me through it myself and, and doing it once like that. So listen, you know, I know we've got a short period of time today's thank you for hopping on today. Hopefully, we recorded and we did everything we're supposed to do it it all works out Where Where should I send some people to connect with you Giten Tonkov 40:31 biodynamic breath.com is our website it has ways to get in touch with our organization, there's contact form at the schedule of all the events. There's links to videos and many resources. It's biodynamic breath.com We'd love to see you at our workshops. We have a weekly class free, free, biodynamic, breathwork session running every Sunday. And you can sign up on our website through it to receive the link and join us every Sunday for free for 490 minutes of breath exploration, myself and our teaching staff running these sessions as they're happening regularly on 10am pacific time on Sunday. Brandon Handley 41:30 So that's very generous of you to offer that and host that thank you so much Keaton and appreciate you taking the time here today and excited to see how this work continues for you. Thank you. Intro Guy 41:46 I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dope podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram at spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email there Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Mind Strength Balance focuses on issues of thought, growth, and identity, and is owned by Lincoln Stoller, PhD, CHt, CCPCPr. Lincoln has experience in science, business, project management, teaching, biofeedback training, and hypnotherapy. PhD: Quantum Many-body Theory, U. of Texas, Austin CHt: Hypnotherapist, Int'l Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Assn. CCPCPr: Clinical Counsellor, Canadian College of Professional Counsellors and Psychotherapists He has expanded our knowledge in quantum physics, astronomy, aeronautics, statistics, computation, education, psychology, education, counselling, and neuroscience. His passions include mountaineering, diving, piloting, writing, building community, making toys, composing music, and creating relationships. Connect with Lincoln here: https://www.mindstrengthbalance.com/contact/ Introduction to this episode. 0:00 Lincoln's Introduction. 0:43 Where do you see the evidence of evolution coming from? 2:31 What is mind expansion? What does it look like? 8:08 How do you get from a diagnosis to fun? 14:05 Shamanic wisdom is not a medicine. 23:43 The shaman is like a Cheshire cat. 29:26 How do you keep from going off the rails when working with other people? 35:30 The shamanic model is not there yet. 40:48 What happens when you go into trance of guided meditation? 46:18 How does one obtain true peace? 51:20 Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual dub with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:43 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with Lincoln Stoller. He is a mind strength, balanced, focused personality who is he's got his PhD ch T. You got a bunch of initials all you know what they all stand for. But he's got experience in science, business project management, teaching biofeedback training, and hypnotherapy. Scott, his PhD in quantum many body theory out of the University of Texas in Austin. If can hypnotherapists international medical and dental hypnotherapy Association and also clinical counselor or the Canadian college of professional counselors and psychotherapist Lincoln, thanks for being on today. I know that you reached out to me just to kind of pop on and have a conversation, I guess around the psychedelic realm. Right? Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah. And look, I mean, it's actually kind of funny. I, one of my, one of my clients was out of the University of Texas in Austin, once upon a time. So small world, small world. So I usually like to start this off with the whole idea that, you know, you and I were just basically conduits for universal energy, right? It is flowing through us at all times. And like we kind of, we were just expressing life energy one way or another. And when we have this conversation, you and I, you and I are talking to each other. We think we know what we're talking about to each other. But the person listening is listening, they're hearing something totally different, right? And there's a message that can only be delivered through you today to that person and listening. What is that message that's coming through today like Lincoln Stoller 2:31 that we're part of an evolving system that's bigger than we are? In your little intro there. I would say I'm also talking or always feel like I'm talking to the culture, a kind of really amorphous being that's made up of all our little minds. And I don't know what it's hearing. I'd like to think it's hearing better, but I'm not sure it is. Brandon Handley 3:00 Not fair enough. I love it when talking to the culture. That's a mind shift right there. Right, just kind of right off the bat. And I really, I appreciate that. And in terms of like, evolving, and, and whatnot, where do you where do you think you'll see evidence for that? Because that's something that's been rattling around in my mind recently, is that every culture, every society thinks at the pinnacle of it. So where do you believe you see the evidence of evolution? Lincoln Stoller 3:37 Well, I think evolution is easier to redefine than define. So I would redefine it as a feedback process where a system tries to optimize itself, I think the best example is a fungus, you know, a fungus or a mold, I think, unfortunately, cultures, humans and otherwise, reach somewhat blindly toward opportunity. And then they get burned. And hopefully, they learned they usually don't, that's the sad part. And as individuals, I think we do much better a total individual focused guy, you know, really like to the point of anarchy, basically, I think individuals contribute the main force of culture. And then, of course, we're immersed in it, you know, it's the soup where we're boiled in. I think, you know, just as I assume, in fact, most of the listeners would agree with me that we're kind of on the edges of culture, or the boundaries if you want to be more, you know, self satisfied about it. The forward boundary, put it that way, and make us all happy. And we might be leading culture, although I'm not even sure leading and trailing is fair. But the psychedelics the, you know, the old Terence McKenna, I don't know he wasn't here. his idea, the, you know, the stoned monkey idea. And also there's the 100th Monkey idea, which I think could both be debunked fairly, literally, but taken figuratively, you know, the more of us who expand our minds, the more the culture will expand. It's whatever it is mind, consciousness, awareness. So I, I think, and this is my whole story about, you know, becoming enlightened and becoming able, it's an uphill battle, because you're gaining, you know, breadth and depth in the context that lacks that. It could be a personal context or cultural, legal, social, you know, all that stuff. So right now, we're expanding, and the listeners are expanding to. I mean, as you said, it was a mind shift. And that's what I'd say, is the most useful mind shift. Whatever problems you're having as an individual, are not entirely yours. And whatever advances you make are not entirely yours, either. They're shared. Brandon Handley 6:13 Just so you know, kind of like this. I love the edges of the culture, but as a culture as what was what was young saying? Lincoln Stoller 6:24 A lot of stuff, what do you Brandon Handley 6:28 call? What he's the, you know, the collective conscious? Yeah, right. Is that? Is that kind of what you're talking to? Lincoln Stoller 6:39 I don't know. I think, you know, Jung was almost 100 years ago, I think we've, I think we have to do better than that. But I think it's collective unconscious, collective conscious. I don't know who speaks for it. I think, you know, sort of like these pseudo pods reach out. You know, I'm teaching my son who's 11 Something about history. And I keep coming back. And we all keep coming back to German fascism. And how insane that was, but it keeps happening. You know, he wasn't the last he wasn't the first. And before he became our enemy, he was our friend. And, you know, he came from a culture that is our culture. And it was less than 100 years ago, and it's scary. So here, we now take psychedelics. And you know, to put it in the most dire framework, we still have a world filled with Hitler's and Stalin's, but now they're called Putin and whatever. And now put those guys on psychedelics. And holy shit. I come a little concerned. Brandon Handley 7:50 I mean, right. It's, I think putting people who have let power kind of already go to their their heads and put them on psychedelics. It's be definitely be an interesting trip, to say the least. But um, let's talk real quick, though to like, I mean, as you're talking about, like edges of culture, leading culture or or trailing it, right? It also just, engines have thrown the words expansion in there, too. It just always makes me think of like the edges of the universe, right. And we're kind of writing we are creating, that we are the edge of the universe, right? We are that edge of the culture that's continually growing and expanding. And to that end is, is that the mind when you talk about mind expansion? I'm just kind of curious even what you mean by mind expansion, right? Like, yeah, I could say What's that look like to you? Lincoln Stoller 8:52 I think it is, has to be seen broadly, that there's a mind body that, you know, a good aspect of who we are stored in our body, in terms of how we think what we think how we react, what we are alert to it stored in our memory, again, in terms of how we react and associate the things. If you put it all together, that makes a mind. I'm not entirely reductionist, though I think I sound that way. But I'm trying to break things into pieces that are that I can swallow. And I fully recognize that some of these pieces don't fully disconnect. So like mind and body, you can't really tell them apart. They're constantly talking to each other and influencing each other. And one of the most effective ways to look at us and mind in general. I mean, there are many, but one that I keep coming back to his intellect versus a motion. Where intellect can be reasonable and rational, deductive inferential kinds of the stuff. And emotion is very different. It's almost always holistic and vague and so forth. And our culture doesn't still doesn't give a lot of respect to emotions. You know, they say, yeah, you can be emotional, a great actor, great presence charismatic, but you've got to translate it into, you know, intellect, logic reason. And that just doesn't work, especially in the realm of psychedelics, and in the realm of dreams and trance. You know, sometimes you can get it, but not always. Brandon Handley 10:44 Yeah, even even in the spiritual space, right? And things spiritual, right? Trying to translate that feeling, the sense of knowing into something that somebody will accept, right, is very challenging. I like the idea of, you know, the intellect versus the emotion. And the other piece where you say, you know, there's some of these things don't connect the body mind. And it makes me think of build disconnect is what makes me think of how other cultures outside of Western cultures, they don't have separate words for body in mind, they don't have separate words for heart and mind. Right? It's when you get to the Western Western culture that we separate that so we've made some type of separation forcibly, through by accident, by our choice of how we speak. Right, right. So trying to reintegrate that is a challenge. How are you seeing that? You know, what are you doing for your clients, I guess, to to help them get connected to or recognize that they are connected? And that it's okay. Lincoln Stoller 11:56 Well, it's a little complicated, because different clients have different barriers, I would say, you know, forgive me for, again, being somewhat reductive, but there are different answers to the question. So, you know, some of the kinds of clients I would characterize, are the confused people who know, they're confused. The conflicted people who don't know whose problem this is, and are trying to figure it out. And then, you know, there are the people who so monetize their problem. And it manifests as a physical ailment. And they're very interesting. And they're also difficult, because unless you're a doctor, which I'm not, I'm dealing with the mind, and I'm trying to get back at the body back to the body. So what I do with people, I mean, I think the first thing you do is to establish some trust, doesn't have to be deep trust doesn't have to be you know, whatever, just whatever it is, there's a level of trust, you work it to some viable point. Maybe it's intellectual, maybe it's emotional, cultural, whatever. And then I basically try to get them out of their heads. Because this whole intellectual approach, pretty much you know, people have reached, we're good at it. We're good at being intellectuals. That's the western model. And if progress has stalled, it's probably not because of lack of intellectualism. It's probably because too much intellectualism, too much, you know, not enough spiritual, emotional, experiential stuff. So I try to get people out of their heads. And you do that by either reminding them of what's important that they're suppressing, or confusing them to the point where they stop trying to, you know, intellectualize anything. Brandon Handley 14:04 That's like a colon. Lincoln Stoller 14:07 Yeah, but more directly as a trance. I mean, that's what hypnotherapy is about. You take them into a realm where the CO on becomes real. You know, so you do try to get away from even language. So not just poetry, closer to music, or rhythm, or emotion, emotion or body feeling. So getting them into that. That's where I find progress. At least for people who are looking for progress. Some people are looking for fun, which is fine. But even if you're looking for fun, I think progress can be fun. You know, I'm not even defining fun is not so easy, either. Brandon Handley 14:50 Right? Right, right. I think that in when you mentioned that there's not enough spiritual, emotional and experiential. Sometimes. I think fun and play are a couple of things that are right are certainly missing and allow for a reconnection to the body get into that flow state. And and when we let loose, right, and quite literally let loose your brain releases releases that tension and whatever else is kind of stored up in there. Yeah, right, you're in a totally different space. Yeah, I can, I can see that for sure. Lincoln Stoller 15:24 So imagine, you get a client, and they have a problem. And they're focused on the problem, or they have a diagnosis, and they're broken the diagnosis. So how do you get from a diagnosis to fun? You know, and I think that's a serious question, because learning doesn't go very far. If it's not fun, right? I mean, if you have to learn and it hurts every time, should you know that's not a great learning environment. So how do you get somebody who has cancer? To get to fun? And you say, that's impossible. That's ridiculous. But it's not exactly if you sort of redefined fun as empowerment, progress, control, hope, you know, things that uplift you. I mean, maybe they don't make you laugh. But, you know, a really empowered person could laugh, even in the worst circumstances. Personal maybe that's kind of hopeful. But Brandon Handley 16:21 the the possibility does exist? I think so. Right? Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, let's talk about like, you know, how did you, you know, how did you get into the psychedelic space of this, this whole thing, right, like, I know that you've got a wide varied past, covers a lot of different ground. But one of the things we're gonna chat about today is, again, the kind of the self psychedelics and this both spiritual and mental health aspects. Lincoln Stoller 16:48 Well, I didn't come as a healer. I came into it as an adventurer, I'd say I came into everything I did as an adventurer. And the thing that differentiates an adventurer is that we are reckless. Because we were looking for adventure. We're not looking for answers. We're not looking for accolades. We're really fed by adventure. So I started as a mountaineer, which is very adventurous. And then I got into physics, which is pretty adventurous, especially if you do it as in a rebellious way, like I did have everybody throw you out of their class, because you asked too many questions. You know, and that that's very sobering. At first you think, oh, you know, they think they think I'm a jerk, do they think I'm wrong, that I can't follow the program. And it takes a long time to realize the benefit of not fitting in, in a field where there's progress to be made. Maybe in some fields, like, I don't want to, these are fields, I don't know anything about dentistry, but welding X, I do know something about welding, you know, structural engineering, maybe those are fields where you don't want to be an explorer, or at least, you don't want to be held accountable for your mistakes. But in most things, you do have to be held accountable for your mistakes, and you have to be able to make mistakes. You know, a good Explorer is careful, but curious. So my initial explorations and psychedelics were as many in the underground are, you know, you I did not do it recklessly as a teenager, I didn't even start doing it in earnest until I was probably close to 40. And I did it through the ceremonial things, you know, mostly Ayahuasca ceremonies and the derivatives of those indigenous things. And some of the spiritual stuff that came out of acelin Like, sensory deprivation and the pasta meditation and stuff like that. So those were explorations. Brandon Handley 19:12 And yeah, you know, so you you didn't, you didn't you didn't come across it to you know, initially for like, spiritual awakening or any of this other stuff. It's just kind of like, Hey, here's this give it a shot. Well, you know, what do you think kind of thing? Oh, well, little. Lincoln Stoller 19:36 No, no, not quite like that. It was more like I want to find out what's over there. It was more curiosity than Brandon Handley 19:43 that. Yeah. What was leading that what were you looking for? Well, that's Lincoln Stoller 19:47 what I didn't know. But like all these people were talking about enlightenment and spiritual cosmic consciousness. And I'm saying, Well, I don't know what that is. I I live in a circumscribed you know, Western world where were the questions are, you know, in the back of the textbook? And now you're telling me that it's, you know, all around me? Well, you know, first thing you you hit you hit on religion, which says, you know, get down on your knees because God is looking at you all the time. And I'm saying, Well, I don't see him or her, or them. And let's go find them. You know, why not? You know, it's like going into the wilderness, all the animals flee. So what if, you know, the Divine is doing that too. They see you coming? And they say, Oh, God, here's another, another, you know, environmentally rapacious, moron. And, and you smile, but the truth is that higher states of consciousness do flee from stupid people, since, you know, they don't they don't get tangled up with your problems. It's like, if you're not ready for it, there aren't any time to waste. Right? You know, they're not going to make the argument that you should behave better, or you should listen more carefully to your heart. You got to be there, and then you'll hear it. Yeah. So this was my attitude. Brandon Handley 21:09 Your attitude was toward the psychedelics. Yeah. To hear us Economics here at Z, you know, and what does it take? Lincoln Stoller 21:17 Mountaineering was helpful, because you get in situations where you really feel like you got to be on top of a situation that's dangerous or out of control, and you got to listen really carefully. And maybe you'll hear something, it's, it's an interesting thing that you will hear, you're not going to hear a voice speaking to the wisdom of the universe, you're going to hear the crackling of the snow, or the blowing of the wind. And that's one source of wisdom. I don't know if it's in the wind, or it's in your acute hearing, more or both. But that was part of it. So for example, you know, I climbed El Cap by a difficult group when I was 17, which was quite young. And, you know, quite an experience you have on the wall for seven days, six days, and you start to become accustomed to a vertical world, and things start to become rote. And, and the sense of twirling around at the end of a rope, like a spider, you know, 4000 feet above the ground, starts to become sort of normal, it's still, it's still, you know, gets your endorphins going, but you got a job to do, and you do it. And then you get off, and you get back into the normal horizontal world. And it's like a, it's like, a crushing load. You know, now you're in society, and you can feel people looking at you. And thinking, you know, they don't know what you've done. They just look at you like a regular person. And you can feel the weight of normality. And it was, in that particular case, somebody gave me up a capsule of mescaline and said, Here, go to a tour around the tourist bus in the valley, Yosemite Valley. And I did and I remember telling somebody, I just claimed that and they said, No, you didn't, you know, they couldn't conceive of it. And I What can I do? But laugh, you know? Yeah, so this was sort of an I say this not to stand out as odd. But I think when you make movements to open your consciousness, you're out of the world, you generally don't have anyone to talk to. And it's probably best that way. Because if you'd like sit down at the feet of some master and say, Tell me what the answer, it's like, you're gonna get some more verbal stuff. That's Brandon Handley 23:43 sure. Well, I mean, I think I think that a lot of the Masters, you know, that we would reference right, you know, any Zen Buddhist, or any of these people, they would all tell you that they have nothing to teach you. Right? That you've already to whatever it is, you're looking at you are you know you in Hinduism, like you are that right? So, you know, they Lincoln Stoller 24:06 they do one thing I don't like, which is they tell you to listen to them. Brandon Handley 24:14 Sure. And suffice to say like, you know, the gist of it is if you go looking for a guru, you'll find right yeah. And you find one then you do then you listen to them, right that's your path. That doesn't have to be your path and they the they'll tell you that just as much right you don't go out as a guru seaching students so much the students come seeking you right. So I think that there's a there's a little bit of a little bit of a thing there and again, I think for the most part most spiritual masters are gonna say you don't need really anything other than what you've already got. Right? And so you know, you're seeking it. it, I guess, in a way, by leveraging some of the psychedelics is that kind of one understand, like, again, you're looking for this thing. Lincoln Stoller 25:08 Right? That's how I started. That's how I started. Okay, then now we're changing sort of the focus in professions and culture and so forth. Can people are coming in? Brandon Handley 25:20 Yeah. How are you seeing it? I guess in your in your professional space? How where's it showing up? I understand it, you know, traditionally, doctors like they shouldn't be taking, you know, what it is that they're prescribing, which kind of puts them at a disadvantage. Where are you at in this space? What are you seeing? And I think we talked a little bit about the beginning that you feel like we're in a rocky state. Yeah. I'd love to hear more about that. Yeah, let's get into it. Lincoln Stoller 25:53 Well, you know, for a coincidence of language, some of these psychedelics were translated as medicinal medicina. But you know, what a medicina is in a shamanic culture is not what a medicine is in ours, in spite of the similarity of the words, so some of these, I'm thinking of the ones that are making the news these days. But if we got ketamine, MDMA, somewhat psilocybin, not so much LSD or by Wasco, are presented as medicines or potentially medicines. And then we've got pharmaceutical companies scrambling for patents and derivatives and, and it's getting a little unseemly, you know, it's starting to sound like money starting to smell like money. And then you're looking at professional practice. And, you know, Western medicine has this paradigm of how the practitioner helps the client. And that's not at all like what the shaman does. The shaman has a different role in the shamanic society than a doctor does in ours. And not a religious role, either kind of, you know, half spiritual or half spirit. It's like I say, a shaman is the kind of guy you would not want your daughter married to. I don't think there's any exception to that rule. So we're not really incorporating shamanic wisdom, which is deep and I think shamanic wisdom is the appropriate wisdom to use to understand psychedelics and Oregon, we're not doing that in the medical incorporation. But we are doing like Brandon Handley 27:50 Lincoln, say that again. So I mean, what does that look like? You know, you believe that we should be doing in the way that a shaman may so expand on how a shaman, may I assist a psychedelic experience? Lincoln Stoller 28:04 Oh, dear. Well, there's many threads to this. And I'll take yours just because you asked me to. It would not be the first one I would go on. I would tend to go on what the medicines are doing, what the medicine what the medicinal people are doing. But the shamanic approach. I think it's a recognition of the value of chaos and destruction in the kind of Hindu sense. disintegration, reintegration, transformation, Transcendence. The shaman in the cultures I'm familiar with, is not particularly welcome, in most cases, because they're not really allied to any material personal agenda. They live in a semi spiritual world, semi numinous. And they do strange things, sometimes good, not necessarily good to each other or to people and they have a strange sense of humor. So they're kind of instruments of chaos. I would say, you know, pretty generally shamans are instruments of chaos. And some of them they, some of them come from an herbal tradition that has healing background or healing agenda. You know, they can do both or something like that. And, you know, if you get involved with a shaman, it's like getting involved with a Cheshire Cat, you know, they can just disappear and be left with nothing but a smile. And you don't know where they are. Because there's basically saying in my understanding that the world is not as we see that there's more to it. And the leading influences are in our material world. So if you're not in the shamanic world, or the transcendence sphere ritual, you know, world of spirits, you can't really make sense others out of the shamans agenda, it's not entirely there or here, somewhere in between, they're sort of a doorman. Not entirely responsible for you, they open the door, you know, they wave their feathers blow their smoke and give you the thing to drink. And then they dance around and sing, and it's, you know, up to you, it's up to the spirits to help you not to them, you know, you have to make contacts, you have to be worthy of your own transcendence. Or, you know, I like that in terms of a model that was like, kind of a mountaineering model, you go out there and either learn, or you get your self slapped down. Right. And those are real lessons, but they're dangerous. And they're hard to appreciate. Because they don't obviously make you money, fame. And, you know, get you adulation. And if they do, you know, watch out, because those are, those are your things, not, you know, their things. So that's the kind of the shamanic model, in my view is transcendent. It's not entirely you can't really fit it into a spiritual box, or religious box, or political box or cultural box, it's out of the material world. And so if you're a spiritual person, it can make sense. Okay. Brandon Handley 31:31 So, I guess if I had to, kind of self self transcendence with like, an assist, right? Yeah. Yeah. I really, I like how you mentioned, you know, they, they're there to kind of help open up the door, they're not responsible for you, basically, after you walk through, right? Like, you're like, hey, I think I've talked some other people that have had done the Ayahuasca journeys, or something that I've ever done, but it's like, you kind of you take the ayahuasca and you kind of hold on to the rails, right? It's like, alright, well, this is the x, here it comes. Right, and it's gonna, it's gonna show you some things that you may or may not be prepared for. But I'd like Lincoln Stoller 32:11 to compare it to, in my own experience, parachute jumping, which I only did at once, but I think once was enough, I mean, I'd love to do it more. But I don't think I'd need nearly as exciting the second time. So the first time you do parachute jumping, you know, you go out the door. And all you have is your belief in how the thing is supposed to work, you know, at some experience and what you're supposed to perform, you know, that assume that assume the position and execute these actions, and then control your, your experience. And that's sort of like what it's supposed to have happen in a psychedelic experience, you go out the door, and you pull the ripcord and, you know, the world will unfold below you. But it can be that you go out the door and the parachute doesn't open in the psychedelic experience. Right, you know, and then what are you going to do? You know, I had one experience mountaineering where things went sideways. And I found myself, you know, hurtling down the side of a mountain, out of control. In a direction I wasn't supposed to be going. And I was spinning around in the air bouncing. And I think it'll probably turn to, you know, be written on my gravestone that the greatest thing I did in my life was I just opened my eyes and enjoyed the experience. Yeah, and I didn't get freaked out. And obviously, I survived. Brandon Handley 33:48 Right. Right. And that's, I think that's a I think that's, that's that's a great approach. But and I think that we hear a bunch of people express that in different ways, too, right. Some people expressed the I just kind of opened my eyes and experienced it. But then literally, that's all that happened, right then did nothing. So what does that look like for you kind of opening your eyes and experiencing life? Lincoln Stoller 34:17 Well, you know. Part of the answer is it depends what your environment is. So if you're in today, Brandon Handley 34:27 like how did you leave Lincoln? Like, what do you do to experience like, kind of open yourself up and experience life today? What did what did today look like for you? Lincoln Stoller 34:35 Well, what I've been doing in the last month has been writing a book so I'd go sort of into the space of communication and expression, which is creative and somewhat disciplined because um, you know, it's got to get into a finished format. And bad ice. I'm with my 11 year old son. So that's interesting. In view of the world that I'm talking about things I don't know, you, we talked about history and other sorts of things that adults assume that adults know and kids don't have, and it wasn't, you know, psychedelic or particularly unexplored. I do have to watch myself because I do tend to go off the rails, I like to be off the rails. Sure, but if you're with other people, they often don't appreciate it. So as a counselor, I have to be careful because other people need to go off the rails, but it's frightening for most people. And part of my job is to help them take off into the rails or out the door, and to apply my, you know, discretion as a guide in their world, to make them feel safer, safe, safer, and exploring their world. So I tend to be I compare myself to the story of Don Quixote. And, you know, his faithful servant, Pancho Sanchez. And I'm Pancho Sanchez, and their donkey Odie, and I'm trying to get them to tilt at windmills. Santa, I'm trying to, you know, get them to see the world like, like Vincent van Gogh, but not cut their hair off? Like he did. Brandon Handley 36:48 Right? Write that down thing, you know, there's certain links I don't think you have to go to, in order to achieve achieve that. So, you know, how's this showing up? I guess, in your practice, right? Are you? Are you working with others? Through psychedelics? Are you? Is it about primarily to assist yourself in the psychedelic realm? Because the other thing that you'd mentioned, too, is like you, I don't know that you said, you hit it hard, harder, at least once you're in your 40s. But like, where? Where's it showing up now for you? And how are you leveraging it in your practice? psychedelics? Lincoln Stoller 37:26 Well, the psychedelics are problematic because they're illegal, and they're unknown by authorities. The reason I think we're heading for trouble, is because there's a standard sort of management, dictum of wisdom, which is that you have to have authority with responsibility, you know, if you have the authority to do something, you've got to be responsible for what you decide. And the unsaid third component is you have to be competent. Because if you're, you know, incompetent, nothing's gonna work out well, even if you do have authority and responsibility. But we do not see those things coming together those three things. So we see government, which has the authority, they're not taking the responsibility of doing therapy. And they're certainly not competent, because they're not therapists. And we have the therapists who are presenting themselves as authorities. And they do not have competence, because no one's knows what this territory means. And they're trying to put the responsibility on the practitioner, you know, the authorities, which is to say, the Medical Teaching, the institutional training, put the responsibility on the therapist, they're trying to teach the therapists how to, well, what does it mean to be responsible? I guess it means, but it means two things, it means your client doesn't hurt themselves. And it means your client doesn't get traumatized, which is to say doesn't feel that they were hurt. But roughly, of course, you'd also like to say that your client makes progress. But that's always kind of a bugaboo in therapy, because progress, it's not yours to define. You can like test them. But that's not really I don't think that's fair. If somebody feels they made progress they did. If they didn't, then they didn't. You can say on some metric, they changed, but I don't really buy that that's kind of legalistic. So, so we don't have these things coming together. And in the everyday we have a new institution offering certification on psychedelic therapy. And it just horrifies me because it's still illegal. And you still can't learn from doing it. Unless you do in the underground, but you're not supposed to do it in the underground. If you're certified, you're supposed to always stay above ground. We can do it in another country. Free, which seems to be the only real way that most of us have done it. As therapists, we go to Costa Rica or something. Or, you know, wherever we go, or we don't talk, we, you know, whatever. But we do it at home. Right? Right. So, you know, that's the rockiness of it in order to gain responsibility and, and competence and knowledge. Somebody's got to start learning what they're doing. Most of the programs that teach therapists and certify them in psychedelic therapy, do not involve ever taking the psychedelic, and how you could gain competence without being there is like being a shaman without ever connecting with the spirits. It's like Brandon Handley 40:48 Lincoln, do you think do you feel like I mean, is that model broken? It sounds Lincoln Stoller 40:53 like it's not there yet. It's not even a model. It's just a proposal. What? Again, Brandon Handley 40:59 are Yeah, the proposal, right authority, government, and, you know, authority, responsibility and competency. Whereas if we go and we take a look at the shamanic model, we say, All right, well, who's got authority and responsibility, and he's competent, but for I think it's the outcomes that I think deviate a little bit here. Right, like you're saying, you know, there's these other things we are, you know, I think you didn't mention on this podcast, but I heard another one of your podcasts, and we talked about having a, a port psychedelic experience, and I've had, I've had plenty of them. But that's also, you know, that set and setting, to I wouldn't say I was traumatized, or theoretically hurt, but I could definitely see somebody looking back at like, if this had been in a clinical situation, I'd be like, well, that person did this to me. Right. Right. Right, without taking responsibility for myself. Now, if we take a look at it, this kind of Shamanic model, like I'm response, this is my mind, right? This is what's happening with me, and I'm responsible, you know, owning that responsibility is, I think, a huge part of it. And, and I would say though, even though I had a poor experience, I felt like those were some of my most progressive experiences, right? Like, I mean, those were the things were, man just like coming out of it just unbelievable, right? Lincoln Stoller 42:23 Well, this this is, this is a, that's a new paradigm. I think that's a new paradigm that the fact that you could feel terrible, and, and feel injured, and at the same time, think this was the best experience of your life. You know, some people who have had cancer say that? Who's, you know, well, here's an example, that's quite pointed, and quite simple. A client can accuse a therapist of anything, anything at all, they can accuse them in public, it can they can publish it in detail, the therapist cannot say anything at all in defense, because it violates client privilege. So that alone should give a therapist some pause, because some people, you know, part of the psychedelic experience, like you said, involves some unpredictable behavior and experience. And how do you fit that in a insurance policy? You know, because you got to think of that. Brandon Handley 43:27 Yeah, it's, it's gonna be really interesting, I think, to see how, you know, it's been it's been interesting right now to see psychedelics and the progress that they've made what they're trying to do with it. But it's going to be very interesting to see how it evolves due to the fact that it's this it's uncontrollable, right? Like, it's, it's basically something you drop it into the mind map mind expansion, you don't know, you have no idea what the outcomes gonna be, you really don't? Lincoln Stoller 43:57 Well, here's I want to jump in and say, here's my idea. I think people should approach psychedelics through mind expansion and find out exactly what is going to happen when they take off the brakes, or they break through the barrier. But you know, sure. So it's like, you know, parachute jumping, first, you jump off a platform onto a mattress, and then you get the feeling, right, you get the feeling or you imagine it right, and you don't freak out. Quite, or if you're gonna freak out, you do it on the mattress. So, you know, there are other ways of trance and if you're serious about doing something like psychedelics, I think this is what I would say. I would say if you're serious about having a positive experience or a healing experience, then I would hold you to exploring altered states of consciousness. Without psychedelics, to see just what you find there, what it looks like how, you know, whether you really like it, or what you know, and whether I can help you or control you, or whatever. And if you don't want to do that, then I'm, I think I wouldn't work with you. Brandon Handley 45:18 Now that makes sense. And that makes sense, right? I think that, again, especially with psychedelics, if somebody's not willing to put in some of that pre work before the actual adventure, right, that's like, you know, keep going back to your, you know, before you do the parachute, and you got to do the parachute practice stuff, right? You got to do the stuff that makes you feel comfortable to pull the cord and know that you're gonna go up there. What is, you know, you mentioned, like altered states of consciousness. What are what are some non psychedelic ways to enter into that state that you found? Lincoln Stoller 45:54 Let's say the simplest is like meditation. You know, how good are you at meditation? You? It's could be very easy. But let's talk about it, you know, that, you know, could you actually sit for an hour? You know? And would you have the patience for that? You know, and what came up. And another is hypnotherapy, right? Go into trance of guided meditation. What happens some people, there's quite a variety of of results, some people can be, go into a light trance, some people go into heavy trance, I had a client who came to me. And given the circumstances, I was offering past life regression. And they thought this was ridiculous, and a fraud. And they were gonna play it, and just show me how stupid it was. So we did the kind of protocol and they brought in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And then they got quite upset because they stopped behaving correctly. And other animals started appearing in their mind that were not part of their Disney narrative. And they didn't behave as the animals. And and I was saying, yeah, exactly, that's all it is. It's just what comes in, you can start any way you want with any prejudice you want. But at some point, you're trying to get beyond it into the area where you don't know how the characters are supposed to behave, and they start behaving on their own. So that's a trance experience. And I've had other people who, you know, they approach what seems to be rape, you know, and then, you know, my, my role is to say, I don't think we're going to go there. But I think, you know, we're just gonna, we're just gonna teleport right beyond that experience. Because I don't know these people, on the other hand, that I've had clients who felt that they had childhood, sexual sexual abuse. And then the question is, well, just how much do we need to explore? And my answer is only as much as you feel comfortable with. So these are things you can do and let's see, you could do well, there's not a lot of in between stuff besides hypnotherapy, which I like, you know, there's exercise diet fasting meditation. Sure. Brandon Handley 48:32 I think that works. So Right. I think that works like and I mean, I just asked him for a couple of ideas there, right? If somebody was like, alright, well, maybe I'm interested, what are some others altered states that I could get into before leveraging or or going all in, right. So I Lincoln Stoller 48:49 also there's, there's lower doses not to write well, Brandon Handley 48:53 you don't start off with a tense drip of acid. Right. Like, I just think that that's probably a bad idea. Right? Lincoln Stoller 48:57 I think so. And setting setting right, you are Brandon Handley 49:02 super important, right? Yeah. Setting setting. Where are you in your headspace? Right. Like, are you really ready is today Good? Did you have if you had a shitty day, I'd say hey, maybe maybe maybe not today. Okay. Lincoln Stoller 49:14 And do you have a container that you trust? And you know, you have a sitter? Or do you, you know, that kind of stuff? And are you being pressured? Or are you really feeling that you're doing this of your own? recognizance, Brandon Handley 49:29 right? You know, how would you describe if you could, you know, the first kind of go round, right? What would somebody how would you explain that somebody's psychedelic experience? Lincoln Stoller 49:44 I think I'd Well, it depends whether you're asking me whether I just have to state it as a story or whether I can engage them because my my inclination would be to talk about dreaming and to try to get them to Recall dreaming experiences, and to get them to be engaged in participating in their dreaming experiences. So I think that, that's actually a difficult thing to do, it's certainly easier to take a pill to become involved in your dreaming means you have to have some control of your sleep. And then you have to learn how your intentions affect your dreams. And then ultimately, to some extent, you may become lucid in a dream. And then I think you have something to talk about, like, the experience, the psychedelic experience can be like a dream experience. But more or less, it can be more or less controlled. But it's the same sort of feeling that this is real, and I am real, but this doesn't make sense. Right? And often, I don't remember either where, who I was, where I was, or what's going on. And, you know, if a monster comes up in that situation, you can be really stressed out. You know, at the same time, if something like an angel comes up, you can be really inspired. Right, but that would be how I talked about it, like, start. Brandon Handley 51:20 I like it, I like it, right? So a little bit a little bit, kind of like, you know, if you can think about lucid dreaming, and being in a dream state, similar similar phases, I would say. And I guess I'm using the word phase and like, you know, kind of material and bodily fees, mind states, okay. Well, hey, we're at a spot Lincoln, where I usually like to ask a couple different questions. If you're good for it. Yeah. Because basically, Look, man, I look at this podcast a little bit like spiritual speed dating, right? You know, you're gonna be on here, somebody else is tuned in and they're like, well, it is called spiritual dove. They're looking for their next hit. They're looking for the next person to follow, be with and learn from for a little bit. And what can it could be you man, could be you. Lincoln Stoller 52:08 Well, like I'm saying, I'm talking to the culture, part of part of me is just sorry for the culture. That's it? Well, let Brandon Handley 52:15 me ask you a couple of questions here. And I'm gonna call you spiritual basketball. Number one. How does one obtain true peace? Lincoln Stoller 52:27 Damn. I think by not looking for it. I don't think it's, it's like, how do you get rich? You know? What do you go out trying to make money? No, you know, you, peace is redefined. Like rich, like wealth is redefined. So I think you look for your power, and you look for your opportunity. And you have a commitment to yourself. And in that combination, you find peace. And if you combine those things, and you don't find peace, then I think you've got a problem of the combination. Not a lack of opportunity, a Brandon Handley 53:07 little bit like baking a cake, you gotta get the ingredients, right, and the mixtures gotta go on, right? And it's kind of gotta gotta go in a certain order. You also said that this is you brought it up earlier to like, if you go chasing it, it becomes elusive. Lincoln Stoller 53:22 It does. But you know, another thing I harp on is, you got to make mistakes. And they've got to be okay. And maybe even as we said before, fun. Yeah, I mean, some of my greatest, most fun experiences have been wind surfing, when I've wiped out, right wipe outs can be really fun. You know, losing control can be hysterical. And, you know, people are adventure seekers, I think people who are taking psychedelics unless they're, they think they've been promised something, which is probably a bad idea. Have to have a sense of adventure and willingness to yours. It's very mythological. Like, if, if you read, like, I'm reading to my son, he's 11. So here, I've got this thing, some of these fantasy books that have monsters and angels and good and bad guys. And you imagine yourself that it's not a fantasy, that's really the dream you're gonna have, you know, demons, guides. Immortality, hell. If you can navigate that, it's probably going to feel real, something like that. It's going to feel real. I forgot what your question was, but that was my answer. Brandon Handley 54:48 And so that's it was a What was the question? How does one obtain true peace, right? So let's see. What is uh, you know, she's, you probably deal with A number of depressed people, I don't know, why are so many people depressed? Well, I Lincoln Stoller 55:06 don't know, I'm the right one to answer. Of course, I'm not the right one to answer any of these things. But I would guess that it's confusion and struggle and change. I would say the culture is undergoing change. And we as agents of it, are lacking in what we're being directed to do what we're being rewarded for doing. change agents. I mean, they say don't shoot the messenger, we always shoot the messenger. And were the messengers. That's the, that's kind of depressing. So I mean, get over it, you know, Brandon Handley 55:44 you signed up to get shot. Well, Lincoln, really appreciate you being on here today. You've got such a vast, vast wealth of knowledge and experiences. I know we've barely touched on it, where can people come and find out a little bit more about what you have to offer? Lincoln Stoller 56:01 Go to my website at mind, strength balanced.com. All you know, no separations all run together mind strength balanced.com. And sign up for the, you know, the blog. And it's free, it's monthly. And if you want it weekly, you pay a small amount, and you get weekly. And then their books and there's new books coming out. And they're linked on the website. And I I'll talk to anybody for half an hour for nothing. B call the number and give them direction. Brandon Handley 56:32 Nice. Bill, fantastic. I think that's a that's a great, great way to be, you know, offering that time you know, it's the peep. Some people aren't willing to offer that kind of time at all. I know that I've reached out to some people and I've had to pay for the time just to have a conversation right just to see if the conversation was worth having. But hey, everybody, everybody dictates how they want to live their own life. And you're you're doing it to be of service. So Lincoln, thank you again for for your time here today, reaching out and Lincoln Stoller 57:02 you're welcome, Brandon. It's been great. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. Intro Guy 57:08 Really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram and spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email there Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  John, is a survivor of severe physical and sexual abuse which was inflicted upon him for years and starting from a very young age. John saw and experienced many things that would haunt him for years to come. This would result in a diagnosis of PTSD, giving him night terrors that would follow him into his early adult life. Later he would be told he had  Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Depression, and a genetic, neurological condition called Tourette Syndrome. John was determined to not let his past or diagnosis define him. He took to Martial Arts, and energy work; this led him on a path that would change his life forever. Connect with John here: https://godswhospeak.com/ John's introduction to this episode. 0:43 Breathing through the eyes and ears. 9:33 The depth and breadth of energy work that's required. 17:59 What kind of people come to you? 23:33 John's experience with sexual abuse as a child. 28:45 What's the process like to become a guardian? 37:21 If you haven't taken the time to get to that level of understanding with medicine, it's going to diminish the experience 43:25 What's preventing people from living to their full potential? Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general, you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual dub with your host, Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:43 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with John Goff. He has alternative views through metaphysics, philosophy and martial arts. He's taking people to uncomfortable places and learning to breathe through it. Clearing trauma, emotions, energy, bringing humanity back to a state of light and wholeness. Remembering what they have only forgotten John, thanks for being on here today, man. They can have me on. All right, cool. So I don't know if you've ever listened to an episode or not. So I like to start these off with the whole idea that you and I are conduits for universal energy, right? We're here as a service to others, not just for ourselves. And when somebody tunes into this podcast, they are. They're gonna hear a message that can only be delivered to them for them. Right now, like that's coming through you? What's that message, John? John Goff 1:38 Living in the present. We're surrounded by technology. And while this technology can be beautiful, it can help us communicate and have moments like this, where we can talk to our friends, we can have videos and people all across the globe. There should be a limit to it. Well, what time do you disconnect? Do you put it down? He's like, Yeah, we're gonna take pictures want to share in everybody? So what about a moment that you're alone? That moment you're you're with somebody, and you're not present. You're so connected to electronics, the forget what's like distill that moment. I don't care if you got a zoo. If you're out in nature, there's a butterfly going by yo, you're trying to catch the butterfly. But you didn't capture the butterfly in motion with your heart. So taking time, Brandon Handley 2:22 yeah, look, man, I've been I've been guilty of this, right. I've been guilty of not capturing the moment so much for myself and being present. But Who Wouldn't this make a great post Ooh, wouldn't just make a great posts or something like that. Right. So I've, I've been guilty. And I absolutely know what that's, you know what you're talking about? And as a matter of fact, I mean, I was thinking today, I was making some dinner a little bit ago. Like, John, I can barely remember life before the internet, let alone like now now with like, kind of social media and all this other stuff, right? Never posted before my life, right? You know, 20 years ago, you never posted. So, you know, we were not being as present as we could, right? We're still like so connected, even at the phones, like kind of like away from us right now. We're like, oh, maybe I should make a post. Or maybe I should do this. And it sounds like what you're suggesting is like, you know, kind of unplug and get reconnected with the present, get reconnected with yourself. And what's actually right there with you. So I'm just saying, John Goff 3:28 Yes, I mean, I know a lot of us, our businesses, our podcasts that, you know, we need this technology, to express our message and to really get out there. But after the message sent out, what's developing for us out, you know, as soon as we put the electronics down, so we have that moment of time, to be that conduit, to build ourselves to be present enough that when it's time to express that message, or to have communication, we're having it with the purest vibration, our hearts are really open. Our minds aren't scattered, all the chatter that we have going on out there, it gets to shut down, because we have a moment for ourselves to be a silence and a breathe. So we actually have a message to give. And is that the highest frequency that we can give it? Because it's not disturbed by everything else around us? Brandon Handley 4:13 Yeah, no. Awesome. Yeah. And look 2.2 Right. We're constantly surrounded by all these, you know, devices, TV, radio, podcasts, you know, any other type of media, there's always some type of like electromagnetic interference, like kind of always passing through us. Even when we're sitting still and nothing's on and we're still sitting next to our phone. That's the receiver. It's our it's something's happening. When we bought our first house, the home inspector walked us by the microwave. And he showed us the EMP wave, right? Like how like when the microwave is on just like the the frequency the pulses that we're kind of like, you know, pushing out and he's like, you know, just just so you're aware They'll stand too close to this, they'll put your head on this and stare at this. So I get that right. And we want to have a clean, clear conduit and vibration, right as we send those signals out there. So John, you know what a couple of the things that I brought you in here for today, I met you through an app called pod match. And something that caught my eye was, you know, you've got 22 years of martial arts and beyond. But like breathwork was something that really caught my eye and what you're working through and doing. Once I'm a little bit about, like maybe your background, what you're into right now and how breathwork is playing into what you do. John Goff 5:39 So let's talk about breath work. I take the term chi or people you'll find the martial arts or just Chinese medicine and of culture, energy, the Japanese call it key the Koreans call it key in Cantonese is, hey, India have prana yet have mana and Hawaii and all these names for the source energy. But the further you go back, and back and back, it's also meaning breath that's in the translation for it. Because if you can breathe it in, you can have a flow through the body. So that's where I started paying attention to one of the strongest power lifters do the ones who aren't on steroids. They know how to breathe, the guy throws the fastest pitch, he knows how to relax your breathing, the person throws the farthest football they know how to breathe, and especially through martial arts, or tai chi, and meditation, there's a link to breathing. Those who know how to control the breath. Whether a slow breathing, rapid breathing, they understand how to use the body, they're more connected as a mind body spirit. Why don't you go spirit body mind, reverse that because we start with the mind, then, you know, if the mind is cluttered, the body isn't cluttered. But if you understand how to fix his body, fill this body understand what's at the cellular level, or this energetic level through the breath, the body is calmer, the minds tend to be calmer, or this vessels energy or we call spirit, it's going to be calmer, leaving no more calmness to the mind. So I focus on that breathing as I've seen the connection between people breaking bricks or doing healing work. Everything's based on you can't be tense. But when you're breathing, whether it's rising tension, just to lower the body down in this state of relaxation, you are now producing something that people say is impossible. But now science backs is all esoteric practices. You breathe, you meditate, you lower your heart rate, you take down the stress, that cortisol goes down. And of cortisol is that stress factor in the body, which is been shown to create disease, you are stopping the dysfunction of the body, you are lessening the chance to disease. So I decided to move towards breathwork even with my training, when people are working martial arts with me privately or doing healing sessions, breathe, and you have an emotion coming up. Let's breathe. What do you mean, breathe out, I am breathing. So I'll teach him how to slowly breathe, whether it's basic square breathing, five breaths and hold it for at least and vibrant breaths hold it like that. There's this constant state of needing learn how to breathe, and what it means actually breathe. So and I have I have Tourette's. Sometimes I Twitch, you know, things happen. I stutter a little bit. But when I take the time to slow down and breathe, it gets less. I've had doctors looking at me like, whoa, like you're not twitching as much. You're calmer, but I take the time to be present. What's happening with John golf right now? What's happening with you right now? As Brandon, what's happened? those around us? The breath? We're getting animated. And we're also what are we breathing it for somebody else? What are we breathing again, as we're eating food, from the media, from what we're reading, every time we breathe, we're pulling something in. And we're visually breathing. We're auditorily breathing. All these factors is what we're breathing in at multiple levels. So learning how to slow down, learning how to breathe. That's the first stages of healing. When that trauma comes up. We're going to break through it. When that pain starts to come up. Are you feeling pain? Let's breathe, the pain might still be there physically. It might be there mentally, emotionally, you might be entangled in pain, but our ability to breathe to honestly have what's happening for us. And now we have a chance to be present and aware. And now the healing begins. Brandon Handley 9:33 Yeah, that's awesome. I was literally just talking with my wife right before this conversation she'd mentioned a friend of hers who was having some, you know, struggles with just kind of detaching emotions right or catching themselves being emotional in certain scenarios. And I kind of chuckled because she's sick of hearing me talk about breath work right now. But um, because I was like, Well, you know, if he just kind of You know, I'm walking the dog. And I think to myself, Well, maybe if you just take a breath in and detach from that emotion just take a second, right? But we are so conditioned to think that it has to be more complicated, right? I need a medicine for that I need, I need a doctor to tell me to do this, I need somebody to tell me. You know, what I'm supposed to do when all you need to do is take a breath, like you're talking about, one of the things that you're saying here to a couple of things that you're saying is like, if you take down that stress level, right, you're lowering the inflammation levels in your body, right, so your body becomes less and less inflamed. As you're lowering those cortisol, like you said, you have less chance of a disease. And it's something that you said that really I've never thought of before is the idea of that you're breathing through the eyes and the ears, you want to explain that a little bit more. John Goff 10:54 And that's it. Seeing something that people might think is harmful or or degrading or evil, or, you know, it's outside of their scope of what they believe morals and ethics to be you why somebody out on the street, they're homeless. And the first reaction is, oh, my God, that makes me sick, that homeless person you don't know the story, you don't know, if they're mentally ill, nobody knows that they're a war veteran, what happened to them and their life that gotten the space that they're in right now that they're homeless, you're seeing and then you know, you're living, your breath changes, your Are you some storms that happen, people can animate it, and this judgment starts coming out. And then you have somebody else on the on different side of the coin, they see them, their heart starts to melt, they feel for them, there's empathy there. Because the way they were taught to breathe, or respond or look at somebody else, or situation is different. So they're literally breathing in it, they're seeing it, and what they're pulling in as if they're breathing. So if I see something and I go, man, that fool that idiot, that that's what I'm breathing. But I breathe in. I see that. Man. No, I wish they were in a better space. You know, I What can I do for them? If I was able to, there's a different level of being able to see and really see, because all reality, it's all perception based. And so how we're breathing at the moment, is also how we're going to see the world. Brandon Handley 12:42 That's, I love that. Right? You're right, our breath is going to color color our vision as it were right on how we're breathing is going to it's going to impact our perspective. 100% 100% So, you know, the other pieces that you one thing that you mentioned to you know, says breathwork and other people you mentioned is doing some energy work, and you'd mentioned that the energy you work is like kind of like next level I forget the exact language that you use, but for lack of better terminology was like a diss on Western, you know, your general run of the mill. Reiki, what would you you know, you know, so what do you mean by you know, I don't know, kind of like your storebrand Reiki and what's the difference in what you're doing? John Goff 13:35 I traditional Reiki is then Mike which is also and Mike Downes did that as well. Okay, so you hear through chi, you hear Reiki and then McCarley Suey, who have the concept of myth behind that he went through a mountain is that like he had these downloads only symbols came into him and then boom, you know a he had Reiki brought back to the earth. Well, I do believe that to an extent people also miss he was already a Buddhist monk is that my he was already a martial arts master he was already a high level Chi master. He trained in mystical schools of energy work. So he was already in a place to receive higher consciousness or a deeper level of energy. Pulling wants to channeling or receiving to meet a lot of semantics. So when when he sighed is that openness cool? So I'm just gonna bypass long story because it take Ohio when we started teaching, there's meditations. That isn't a mic. There was a different hand positions. There was breathwork than then to think of Kiko, which is Japanese form of Qigong. There was a whole system do it, and it took a while to actually learn Reiki as the actual system or the art or the ability to use it energy. The demon work with shock Because originally, I was taught and had the very good opportunity to work with some great grand masters and teachers of how Reiki was originally transferred and taught. So then, and I didn't know how it was taught in America, I had no clue. Even though I learned to hear from some masters, they kept the quiet, it was very hush hush. And I was like, Man, this is really weird. You guys are so secretive about this. And they said, well, what's the difference between secret and sacred? He said, You know, when, like, for us, the word sacred if you slow it down sacred secret, you know, we believe that, that the translations are that the accent of the word just got shifted around. So we want to keep things very, very pure. You have people do these weekend courses, Libya, two or three day period, people are walking around, I'm a Reiki Master. And they don't even understand themselves who they are yet. It took me 10 years to become a Reiki Master. And that's after working on a lot of people. That's that's writing hypothesis on Reiki. That's what what my findings, what are my results? What am I see? What am I feeling? What am I hearing? What are my clients seeing during the session? What are they feeling? What are they hearing? What is the experience? And that's actually I want my business is called the experience. I've asked people Hey, do you do raise you, they look up, they go raise you and like you said, your Reiki master. So over the years, I started asking less questions that are that are more in depth the way I was taught. And I started paying attention to the wording. And a lot of this is this new age just everybody has Reiki or re Reiki has to do with God. Reiki has never had to do anything with God. It because it was silly and ancient mystery schools can talk about other way. I don't know why people want to shift it over to something different than what was originally taught. And the original system. It was a hard system, it was not this easy system where you get an attunement, you little magical systems symbols go over your body and your palms are done. And then who open your eyes now. You're now a Reiki Master. That's something I've really struggled with, with and communities that people doing energy work. As a Reiki has become like a McDonald's man. Or like in martial arts world, every martial arts class everywhere anybody can do it, or McDo Joe, they don't actually understand what's behind it. They have very sugar coated, whitewashed Reiki. And so for me, I usually don't even mention that I do Reiki I'll put it down on my bio or on some of my credentials. Otherwise, we will show up I live another gonna go through and recession for energy work energy healing, or the release has made it facilitator for being a conduit for it. Because people hear Reiki I had a Reiki session done. And then I did a session on them. Whoa, that's why any Reiki I've ever done, or what you do is not Reiki because it's not the way they were taught. Brandon Handley 17:59 Now that look, I get it right, I think that everybody wants to, I'm thinking of an older music song, everybody wants to be a DJ, everybody wants to be able to say that they can do some some energy work, right. And these courses, a lot of people are too busy to go into the depth that's required to do this really well. Right. And so they want to be able to get a taste of it, they might be able to like I don't even know what you could really learn over the course of of a solid weekend. But they they're not getting the depth and breadth. Like maybe they've learned how to do a wrist lock or something like that. I don't know, right? So they learned like one thing. Whereas like, and they don't know any anything about it, other than that they can do it. And that there's like maybe an intention and a purpose and a reason. Where do you use it? When do you use it? What is it? You know? What, what energy is this cleansing or whatever, right? Like, I don't know enough about it. But I mean, so what I'm hearing you say is that they're not getting the depth and breadth that they need to to really do anything other than say, Hey, I spent 500 hours we can learn how to do like these two or three moves. And I got this certificate with my name. Why John Goff 19:19 exactly ma'am. I know it might seem harsh at times and I'm not I'm not trying or attempting to come to a place of judgment. It just it could be very bothersome to watch something within the energetic arts or the healing arts. I hold so true to my heart that it helped me help a lot of people that have had facilitated a lot of great work just just to look at somebody go into my music so your hands a little bit warmer somebody but what's the next step? What's next level? Because originally with the ratio when I was mentioned this people to hear the county silly did transfers of opening up energy centers for people to heal through a thing called ratio, there was no touch. And he's AIMSweb. A lot of people can't actually receive this. So he tried to make a way to get everybody to receive it. And that's where he was able to come up with the attunements through a, we wanna say, divine or celestial inspiration. Because, okay, I cannot lock these things in people. But it still takes time for them to learn. And then the system got Russia. And then system, we got a rush, and now you have k, you get these symbols, you take your things W and boom, you're open up a little bit. So they're legitimately open enough to do a little bit of one to 10. They're doing a one and they think they're doing 100. Brandon Handley 20:45 Yeah, well, they don't like a point five, right. That mean? And, you know, I guess even even what you're saying there, though, too, is like, I guess even a trickle is better than zero. And it's and, and it's opening up a lot of people's eyes, I think, you know, there's the flip side of that. And just my thought process here is we're, as we're talking about this, the more people that kind of access it are getting knowledge about it, and believe in it and share it. You know, I think that's a good thing. One of the things that we're talking about a little bit here is just how widespread a lot of this is becoming. And yeah, there's gonna be people, I think that that don't reach the certain ranks that you do that you are right. And I think that that's maybe what some of these, maybe with some of these weekend sessions are for, right? Like, maybe it's so like, one out of 100 people's like, Alright, I'm actually going to dedicate my life to this. Right. And I think that there's a bonus in that, like maybe one out of 100 does. So maybe that's more or less what those things are for, it's to help separate some of the people or at least get them familiar with it. And so that they begin to, as you said, kind of connect with that source, right, that they never connected with before and been like, wow, there is another sense and a way of energy that I hadn't been aware of before. And now I want to know more. Do you think that's fair? John Goff 22:12 I think it's very fair. And if anybody gets any of the teaching that will help us ship it in the ship, it is entering into the mystery. Exactly what is the mystery? The second, you know, if I would say I always have the mystery. With all my training all my background, I still don't understand the mystery. Because the mystery itself keeps on going when you think you have it. Sure, there's a step more. So it's like back to those same one step one breath, one session, next session, but another session, another session, but also the personal work and the sessions on yourself. Because the mystery is so deep, you're never gonna get it. Brandon Handley 22:50 Yeah, no, it's right. I think that that's the other thing about being in this space, right? Being in the spirituality space and being in like, you know, in the energy workspace and being connected is like, there's, there's really, there's no end and no beginning. Right? It's, it's a it's always around, but you can, you know, I imagine you can get better at it. Right? You can you can reach certain levels where you can do things that you certainly were not possible before. So I mean, if you don't mind my asking, like, what are some of the things that you're healing with the work that you do, if you had to throw one or two things out there? What kind of people visit you, a lot of John Goff 23:36 people come to me, come to me with relationship trauma, due to sexual trauma. being groomed, not actually understanding the scope of what love is and what love isn't. You know, whether or not kids are more PG, whether it's Daddy did something to them, or maybe mom, dad or uncle dad or an extra neighbor did to never understand what it meant to be appropriately touched. They have body autonomy, to actually be able to express the word know, to say yes, to have that control, Terminus can a give and take with their own energetic field, what is boundaries because they didn't have they didn't have boundaries. And law. This for me has also been found with people who are suffering the sexual trauma with religious trauma. And I've taught it, it's, I have to not emotionally tag myself with the client, because it's easy project. So you know, some of the trauma that I went through that I've healed from, but sometimes a client can sort of pull some of that back out, which is good for me to be able to continue any depths of healing that I have to heal for myself, to allow me to continue with my work and have more empathy towards them. But um, it can be a struggle, man, you know, because when you're watching somebody who they're on their second there's a fifth man or they can't maintain a relationship. And then they go to a different facilitator. And I know we're going to get into in a little bit, are they going to plant medicine ceremony, and now everybody's doing ecstatic dance and the foreigner bodies around, and they're told, release your sexual energy, your sexual beings, you're a sexual goddess. And the list of these words go on this jargon just really gets to me. Because the breath isn't about sex, this feeling of energy release isn't about sex. So you've all sexual energy, that there's this ideal of what sexual is, it's not about having an orgasm. It's not about flinging your body everywhere, you know, like twitching on the floor. It is about connecting with your Source Self, and this masculine or feminine energy and learning the duality. As a man? What does it mean to cry? If I cry? I'm weak? No, you're not. That's a softer side of yourself that allows you to heal. If I'm a woman, I guess we got for myself. Yes, you can. So understanding what set with our sexual energy is and what it isn't. And that's something that, you know, sort of drives me crazy a little bit. When I'm watching people come to me, and I hear their stories. Well, I went to this event, I went to this I watched I went to this group, I went to this healer. And, you know, they're worse than when they when they, when they originally came to them. They, you know, they were already heard, never heard any more. Because now the divorced, why are you divorced? Well, I was told to let loose and then, you know, I started, you know, doing this, and I started doing that. And then they take that home with them. Because, you know, they were told it's gonna be healing from to be healthy for them. They were working on body autonomy and expression. But now, they don't know how to express it. They weren't taught to express with the other self with them, or within or with the partner. It became such a high vibe energy, that they weren't given any place to ground. They weren't given any type of integration. So who are you? Okay, I have this feeling I am breathing. And now you might want to Mon, guess what, I'll tell my client, it's okay, soften it. It because it's it might be essential feelings. But it doesn't mean it has to become sexual, like you were taught, you're going to respond, some people are going to say, oh my god, okay, hey, let's breathe through it. Because that's not the transfer you want to have. But it's a transfer people are taught to have that you have to have this big mon this big thing. What about anger? What about screaming? What about crying? Well, all these things have nothing to do with sex. And that's a lot of the root of the trauma, what I'm working with, people don't understand their own sexuality, they just have their body, they don't have the way to think you can't even shake a hand. And I've had women go, Whoa, because there were, a lot of these people have been so groomed, that starting with a handshake is where the trauma was. Starting with the look, I understand the red flags. And this is what I work with. It's a constant, and occasionally get the other person, maybe they're physically abused, or maybe, you know, maybe they went through a lot about emotional instability and household. But a lot of the clients that I've worked with the root cause of a lot I'm dealing with is that they were hurt sexually, they were shamed sexually. And they don't understand the root of sex, when it has nothing to do with the exploitation of another. Brandon Handley 28:45 Right, John, and so one thing we, the the audience is certainly not aware of, because I know we didn't touch on it. I mean, you were abused, in quite some way as a child, both physically and sexually, as I understand it. And so you know, you've done a lot of work on yourself, obviously. And here, you continue to do that work on yourself. And through, you know, all these other modalities to Reiki drives, you do energy work, the breathwork martial arts, you've taken all of this, and you're helping others to use some of these tools and modalities that you've learned yourself, so that they can, you know, maybe face their traumas and work their way through it. So that's why these people are seeking you out. Is that right? Yes. Yeah, we did talk a little bit about so yeah, the flip side of this, you know, John, I when I when I checked out John's bio, and I told him today when we're talking, you know, as we talk a little bit about breath, work and energy work, I also noticed John had some plant medicine in there. And you heard him also already talk a little bit about how you know, this space. While I think it's being idealized and popularized right now and everybody's very excited because there's there's a lot of potential for healing, there's a lot of potential for deep work. There's a lot of potential for a lot of potential. There's also a lot of potential for abuse. And this isn't the first time John and I were talking about admission, this isn't the first time we've seen this. And I think we saw a lot of this in the 60s, right, where it's like, hey, free love baby, after a couple rounds, and I guess it's kind of what I'm hearing is still kind of going on, right? Like people believe that, you know, they go to one or two of these sessions, and that their minds are liberated, their bodies are liberated. What that and what this liberation means is like, I don't know, you know, let's go have sex in the woods. Let's, you know, let's, you know, let's say whatever we think, you know, sounds right at the time and, and write that into law. Like you were talking about people, trauma being triggered by shaking their hands or looking at them. So, you know, what are you hearing out there? And what are your thoughts on in the plant medicine world? John Goff 31:02 I see I still use plant medicine. But I still have a plant medicine called Hot Bay. So I've been mission to serve at tobacco Snop is blowing your nose. It's sometimes it has a purge effect. Some people might want to keep with it. But it has the ability to put you into a meditative state. It can make you a little bit spinny. A little bit woozy at times. You know, so this is what i i personally serve AMI, this hobby of medicine, this tobacco based energy and energy behind it. Or if you are wanting to read more traditional the words, the spirit of the Ruma, which is all about healing tobacco was once a healing medicine. So what so when I serve it, it gives people a chance, you know, to really sit with themselves. And you'll find where's the pain of the body? Where's the emotion to clear and calm down? You know, so whether it's me take people taking people who have been on methods enemies, yeah, different types of drugs. If they don't want, they don't want to relapse again, they don't want to go back. And that's a no this tobacco based medicine, it takes a stress down, it gives a chance to think and be clear. And this is the you know, the few I worked with when the plant medicine is people who are emotionally unstable, they're not grounded. So the hop is used to ground people. So when I hear about the hobbit being used in ceremony, or people go into an Ayahuasca are going to do the frog Venom or frog poison that known as combo, and you're getting these things done. I hear all the other stories with it too. That Hey, I was serving a hot day. But as I was, as I was spinning, and I thought I was in a puke, the facilitator came up behind me and started touching my head, or, or his hand started going up parts of my body that I was uncomfortable with, but they're so linked in the medicine at the lab, like you know, they're spinning, they're buzzing, that next thing you know it, they're being touched. And then he told it's okay, you said Mr. Mike, release the trauma. And then they tried to look very healing, when they were exploiting the person that they were serving, they came to them as, as a client, that, you know, these facilitators are promoting things, while you're under a substance, keep everything very, very pure. You and I might come in so no matter what it is, I hear the stories being told as dogma, these ideals, when you're in a vulnerable state, when the emotions are flowing, or if there's any psychedelic substance use within the medicine that can be very healing. Your their minds are being twisted. They're they're seeing something back to you breathing in through sight, that they're seeing stuff, they're looking around. And whatever the facilitator is doing, or whatever a facilitator is allowed to do, if you're in a group session, part of you starts to go, this is okay. Or starts to question. Is it okay? Because the way I was taught that these things aren't okay. So when when is it truth? When is it trauma? Or what is it more traumatizing? Because some of you seeing is what you went through? And now you don't you don't know what's actually happening at the time you cook out of it. You've been assaulted, something else has happened. You know, am I you know, some form of being taken advantage of is what's happening right now currently, a lot of these circles and these AMI said i Yes, I have 100% indoor plant medicine, when the facility facilitators are up point, when they know what they're doing with their tension is pure. I will applaud and say go all day. But do you know who your facilitator is? And these are some of the stories of hearing why he was with so and so. But now I will just though so, and they go, next person, the next person, these groups keep on falling apart, because he started getting a god complex. I know it all, I am the main facilitator, or I do it better than facilitator. I've met facilitators, just like myself and beyond, they've said, I was got a plan that said 400 times, 1000 times 10,000 times for years, they had the experience and the expertise to guide people to a better space. And some of the people, they stopped that three times, five times, and then they become so called to the medicine. Well, I've been doing for three years now. And all said they're hosting these big groups. Well, who taught you? Well, I wasn't taught, I just took it a lot. They didn't recall what we called Guardian, the medicine. So you have a facilitator, yes, there'll be guarded, where they walk through there on the medicine, but they're walking on the medicine, they're playing songs in the medicine, they're observing on the medicine, so they actually understand the frequency of the medicine. And a lot of these people who are serving the medicine, they were never a guardian, they didn't understand the process of what it means to be a holder of that didn't really carry it, carry in their mind, carry in their heart, and be able to stay in a calm space walk, while while they themselves were on the medicine. So when I serve, like my holiday, did anybody comes to me, I also take it, I'm on the same frequency as them, so that I'm feeling what they're feeling. I'm understanding the process they're going through, because we're both working through it together. So I can help facilitate for them, for them to be their own Shaman. And that's the other thing, you don't get a lot of people's like, I'm the shaman, I'm the healer. So I say I do healing work. Yes, I do healing work. But I will take a step deeper. I only facilitate the healing work. In the end, you have to accept the healing work, because you are your only healer, I can push energy and I can serve the medicine, how you respond to it, and what you decide to take from it. As when you become your own Shaman. And lobbies. groups aren't doing that. And people go to them. And now you have a cult following. And now you have meta we're obsessed with you. And things turn into a spiritual orgy fast. Brandon Handley 37:21 Yeah, and like I said, Doesn't sound too unlike what we've seen in our culture before. If we think of the hippie generation, right, just kind of how, and this is one of the things I think that to me, is what I'm most afraid of, in regard to the RE emergence of psychedelics, right? The propensity to go in a direction that is not beneficial. Right, say, and to your point, which I wasn't aware of before, you know, these people, they're not guardians, they, they there, they, you're saying they've taken it like three to five times, and they feel the call, and that's great, if you feel a calling, right? Maybe if I was feeling the calling of a doctor after you know, I got stitches three or four times, that doesn't mean that I should be out there, you know, given stitches, right. And I think that's pretty weak one, but it's pretty weak analogy. But you know, the gist of it is, is like, just because I've gone through it a couple times. And it doesn't make me a master of it, right. Like even like we're talking beginning of this conversation. Just because I had a Reiki Master Reiki session over the weekend doesn't make me a master by any stretch of the imagination, no matter what that certificate says. So, you know, as a guardian, I imagined that you know, you have been a guardian of the medicine and, and gone through that process, given you know, even your vigilant stance today, what What's that process look like to become a guardian, like let's say, Look, man, maybe I really am called to it. And and I'm done playing games, and I'm ready to become a guardian. What's that process look like? John? John Goff 39:11 Do you understand song? Do you just had a breath and then back to breathing when you got the space of you know, maybe started that five times that the 10 times and then something clicks I don't have to actually purge right now. Not everybody has to be go throw up physically throw up. Sometimes the Purge is you didn't now you didn't you need to go take a poop. Uh, you have to let out a different way. Now the Purge is a cry. Now. Maybe you're sweating. You're starting to learn to work with the medicine you're actually understanding it was like, wow, I I'm directing it. I'm working with it. I might just let it get takeover. To that's where a lot of bad things happen. You just let it take over. And there's so many people in a room Unless you do more private one on ones, then now you're really feeling it. So now that you felt that, and you see how there's different ways to release, and it's gonna say the word purge, now we're saying we're getting well, because you're not purging anything, you are releasing it getting well. So the purge factor gets less. And now you have to do you want to share, okay, now, you take the opportunity to share, because there's times that people have time to share, that's some facilitators will let you share that the know you're ready to share. Are your words healing are your words giving people some form of instruction, or maybe a different point of view that they want to thought about? That allows them to also be in a space of healing? And now, do you play any music? Do you drum at all? I wonder vibrations, can you give that that'll help the visit the facilitation of the medicine? So that, you know, there's a little starting point, and also approaching facilitator, unless you have to travel? If the close to hey, I'd like to work the medicine more. And ask them, what would it take for me to garden the medicine with you? Or have an opportunity to sit with it upfront, sit by the altar? And while you're serving it, you know, can I start with serving the hot day? Because usually hoppy does you always involved in an Ayahuasca or other medicines? Because it can help facilitate deepening the medicine? Okay, no, I'm going to be the facilitator. So no, but you can guardian, by serving the hot day in between rounds, to help people if they need to get more, or the little bit of that release to get well, then the hoppecke helped help them do it. Let's start there. So now you have opportunity to start serving medicine, why might they be the main medicine, your physician to guardian, some that is said to work in conjunction with the main medicine. And now you get a feel for that it might be a year might be two years. And then it comes a time, when they might say hey, we're gonna switch places, do you feel comfortable enough to serve the medicine, and if you do, they will teach you how to boil the medicine, you know how to bring it up, have a blessed it was needed. And the minister was in the process of grinding the medicine, of understanding each each drop each herb that deal that goes in. And now you go through the process of really learning yet, of feeling get of observing it, of observing, and that's basically observing it, if you can observe the medicine and work with the medicine and learn how to actually create it, and put it together. So becomes was supposed to be, you're never, you're never gonna serve it, a lot of people, you'll basic Hey, I did a few times document called do it. They just are already or you're already done. And they serve it. They never take the time to the process to make the medicine and actually feel the spirit of the medicine through creation, to where your energy is going into it. I mean, you take this little cop, you serve it up, to know what it's like to blow your heart into it, that you are blessing it. And now you are ready to actually give to the world. And that's lacking. So there's a short little process ideal of how to become a guardian, and then, you know, steps closer to actually surfing it. Brandon Handley 43:25 Yeah, and I can only imagine just how much that's going to diminish the overall experience. If you haven't taken that kind of time. And gotten to that level of understanding with a medicine, then that's, you know, I don't know, imagine anybody who does something super awesome whenever you go to visit them. And the inferior product, right. And I hate to put it in product terms, but like I mean, that's really what it kind of boils down to, you're getting a you know, a cut rate experience, and maybe it is mind blowing again, and I'm not saying like, you know, a shitty experience. Well, you know, actually should experience would suck, right? Like, I mean, if you're, if you're going to this whole thing turns into like some drug induced orgy. You're not really doing yourself a service, and the people are facilitating something like that. It's really a terrible kind of a hack job. John Goff 44:19 Yes. Brandon Handley 44:23 Yeah. So I mean, you know, I think this conversation has been great though, because, you know, most of the times here we are right now, there's a lot of really good news, John going on about there about, you know, a lot of plant medicine, the exposure, a lot of people getting exposed to it. But I think that it's really important to understand that the people who are going to these, like you had said that they do their research, so you know, what kind of experience can they expect? What is the lineage of their facilitator who taught them you know, what's the you mentioned? Like the integration work, right? You know, what's that integration work gonna look like? You know, Are you even ready for it? Because what if you're already emotionally unstable? What if you're already in a trauma space? There's not going to be any benefit. As a matter of fact, that could make things worse for you, as you've mentioned, if you don't do some of this work up front, and if you're not in the right mental state, and, you know, to top it all off, it's facilitated poorly. Yeah, right. Yeah, so I think those are all like, that. That's all like, you know, that's honestly, like, you know, for the listeners, I think that that's somebody, that's something you should really, you know, check into, for sure, for sure. Well, John, you know, I really appreciate you being on today. Usually, I'd like to ask a couple questions. If you don't, unless you had anything else that you wanted to kind of mention around these couple topics, I had a couple other leftover questions for you. And we can start dialing it down. But John Goff 45:53 I would like to, you know, just to add in, because we're ending with with a partner integration. If a person does side and you've got through a scenario now are going to go to any type of ceremony that's plant medicine based. Please ask them facilitators ahead of time, what integration will look like? Can you get a hold of them? Or is it a one time deal and get the comeback? Because, you know, sometimes it's medicine can be in your system for two days or up to a week, and it's still working through you and you go home, you don't know what to read or not to read? What listened to or not listen to you? Or how to listen to yourself? Can you get a hold of them? Hey, I'm struggling, I this really hard for me? Will they be there for you? Or do they expect you to be there for yourself. And if you've never had these experiences before it can harm you, it can be a scary thing. And I don't want you or anybody else to, to have a mental break. Or to have such a spiritual overwhelm, that you become lost in the medicine. This medicine is beautiful, it can help you it can serve you. But it can also work against you if you don't have the right setting for it to be there for you. So just when it comes to integration, please be very vigilant in asking the right questions. Because this can either save your life and help you move forward in a deeply a girl spirituality, or can be taken to a very dark places darker than what you're already in. Brandon Handley 47:21 That's fair, right? And super fair. And really, that is a great question, right? What is this ongoing support look like? Right, I leave your situation I leave your ceremony. It's been great. I've personally never done Ayahuasca or had an experience like that. So I have no idea what to, you know, what to expect when when I leave a ceremony like that. And if it's going to be in my system, and you know, I'm still feeling the effects of this plant medicine days later. Without knowing that right, I might freak out a little bit. Right. So I need to know that there's going to be some kind of ongoing support for me in that scenario, right? Because I honestly, it's first I've ever heard heard of kind of heard of that, right? So, again, something really important that I think is being left out of a lot of conversations is exactly what you said that this, this could be in your system for days or up to a week later. And you could have some experiences, and you're going to want to know what what that support looks like. And to me, again, if this is if I'm entering into this plant medicine world without an experience like it before, and this support isn't offered, I'd probably run away quite quite honestly. Right. So great, great, great. Great suggestion to point that out. So thank you, John. So, John, I like to I always like to ask a few questions, right? I look at this podcast as a little bit of like a, you know, spiritual speed dating show, right? You know, somebody on the other line is looking for their next. I don't know, spiritual date, right? They're looking for me, the next spiritual mentors is too many people like to hop around, and that's okay. They're seeking, right? So, in that, in that context, I would say, hey, spiritual bachelors, number one. Let's see. Let's see, what does it mean to live in the present moment, John Goff 49:25 to be able to see what's around you to know what's around you. You know, it could be the smile of you know, of your wife. It could be the person sitting at a restaurant with their head down, to notice what it actually means to to be here right now. And in observance, to truly be in a reverence for ourselves and humanity. What's what's encompassing our soul? What are we exposed to? And then what are we exposing ourselves to? To actually be so to be right here right now, to be able to look around and see but see with a true I see if our spiritualize so that we can actually be in a space of being something for ourselves and other people. That's the biggest thing right now be in the president BSU must be in observance. Brandon Handley 50:17 That's great, right? Yeah, look, I agree, you got to, you know, just just try and be there right now with it all relax a little bit and spend some time in that space. Thanks for that answer, John. What else we got here? Well, what would you say is preventing people from living to their full potential John, fear, John Goff 50:37 fear dogma. I want to be a doctor. So maybe due to my cultural, religious upbringing, like, that's out of the books for me. Because, you know, we fall into the trap of Have you become a doctor, that, you know, if you're going to be very scientific, you're going to be very medical. And that goes against everything you believe, spiritually, religiously. That's just a sort of shortlands on that one. Fear of actually, something more than ourselves. Because we were taught that we cannot be something hindered us something, some traumatic moment that we went, Whoa, stop right now. I can't go any further. Because they're also identifying with the story. If I stop living in this story, I'm not responsible, I'm now accountable for everything I do from here on out. So if they're in a story, and they're stuck, and that's gonna be a big one, what happens when I quit identifying with what I believe to be me, and I truly started with a potential of what I really am, or what I can't be the second I here's a work, you're gonna hate. A lot of hate when I say it. Choice. The second you choose for you, hey, I choose and right now I am willing to change, I willing to move forward, I am done. The story is eliminated. No more fear no more this no more of that. And I am present in the now. Whoa, now you're truly starting to wake yourself up. Brandon Handley 52:11 Yeah, hey, look, John 100%. I had a conversation, maybe last week and the guests and I, you know, kind of agreed on exactly what you're saying right? Now, choice is so powerful, it may be one of the most powerful things that that occurs for you in this journey. And when you and I are talking about choice, we're not talking about do you want ketchup with that? We're talking about, you know, a conscious choice that, you know, could, you know, radically alter your life. And it could, it could, it could be a super small choice. But once you and even that super small choice is going to radically alter your life, because it's when you realize the decision that you just made in this moment, was different from any other that you've made in your life. And you did it on purpose and alignment with intention and all that other stuff, right. So I think that's the kind of choice that you're talking about. And that's the type of choice that when you when you make that choice, you will feel it in your body. And you will realize what what we're talking about the power of choice, right? John Goff 53:30 Sort of honorable listeners to understand the aspects of healing, from the physical abuse, to the sexual abuse, to bad relationships that I experienced. And you know that there was a point where I wasn't do healing work anymore. I know, years ago, I didn't teach martial arts. I was hitting a breaking point. And I was popping pills. I was drinking, I was masking my own pain. And I had a talk with one of my old teachers, we reconnected and he's like John said, I'm not trying to give you a big head. You're really good at what you do. The world needs. It was last time you you needed yourself and either Whoa. I do need myself. It was something as simple as Do you remember what it's like to need yourself to be there for yourself? Because nobody's going to be there for you 100% of the time. And when nobody's there, can you show up for yourself? I made the choice. I would cold turkey. Not everybody can do it. I medically and psychologically don't recommend it. I'm just letting people see the power choice. I took on alcohol. I ducked down the drain. I throw the pills away. I made a choice and I never went back. Brandon Handley 54:43 Down now that looks right. That's a I think that that's it to where you realize that just like you said, you need you. You need you for yourself more than anybody else does. And to show up for yourself as again another powerful tool is John. Thank you, man. so much for being on here today. Where can I send people to find out more about you and connect with you? John Goff 55:05 Doctor speak.com You can find me through that social media Facebook, through the experience, and Instagram. I'm also on John golf underscore the experience. And you can also find me at beyond underscore conventional healings on Instagram too. Brandon Handley 55:25 Awesome. John, thanks so much for being on today. I Intro Guy 55:29 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram at spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email to Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition  

Kiersten Parsons Hathcock, author of Little Voices: How Kids in Spirit Helped a Reluctant Medium Escape and Heal from Abuse is an award-winning self-taught carpenter/furniture designer, and founder of Mod Mom Furniture, a kids' furniture company featured on ABC's Shark Tank. She's also a TEDx speaker and an intuitive medium who works for the National Institute for Law and Justice helping detectives and families uncover truth in missing persons and homicide cases. In her previous work life, Kiersten was a staff writer for Northern Arizona University and TV marketing executive for A&E TV Network and The History Channel. An Ohio native, she now resides in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband, Scott, daughters, Natalie and Grace, and pup, Scout. Connect with Kiersten here: https://kierstenhathcock.com Introduction to today's episode. 0:00 The importance of connecting with your intuition. 1:48 What was your husband's reaction to this? 8:54 How to talk about this with your family. 13:35 What happens when deals don't go through after they're announced. 20:25 The cycle of abuse that you get trapped in -. 27:33 When you're in alignment with who you are, everything else will follow. 35:43 What is the National Institute for Law injustice? 40:19 Spiritual Bachelorette #1: Why is there poverty and suffering in the world? 43:53 Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:43 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with Kiersten Parsons Hathcock author of little voices. How kids and Spirit helped a reluctant medium escape and heal from abuse is an award winning self taught carpenter furniture designer and founder of Maude mom furniture, a kid's furniture company found featured on ABC Shark Tank. She's also a TEDx speaker, and intuitive medium who works for the National Institute for Law and Justice helping detectives and families uncover truth in missing persons and homicide cases. In her previous work life Kiersten was a staff writer for Northern Arizona University and TV marketing executive for AMI TV network. And it's your channel. Like I hear scurrying next to my door like somebody's gonna come in. An Ohio native, she now resides in Phoenix, Arizona with her husband, Scott, daughters, Natalie and Grace, and pup, Scout.  Yeah, sure. So how are you? It's been a minute, I think. I think we've been on the schedule for a while now. So so glad that you're on today. Kiersten 1:48 Thank you so much. I'm really happy to be here. And we talked a Brandon Handley 1:51 little bit about, you know, how are we connected? Right. And we just talked about Katie Beecher, who was on the podcast before was in your book, and she said, hey, you know, check out check out spiritual dope, see what's going on? She's fantastic. And somehow I made it past your bullshit filter and hearing. And here we are. Given given the circumstances, that's right, that's right. Well, so you know, look, I like to start these off with the whole idea of and you're obviously open to this is that you and I, we're conduits for like universal energy, right. And also the whole idea that you and I are gonna have a conversation with each other. And we'll, we'll think we're understanding what we're saying to each other. And that'd be pretty cool. But like somebody else is going to be listening in that has like, a totally different take on what we're saying. And it's a totally different understanding. And there's a message coming through you today to that person. What's that message? Kiersten 2:52 It's a, it's a big message. Actually, as you read in the book, it's a big message. So the message firm, that that I, the reason I wanted to write the book, when we just start there is because I really wanted to help skeptics, and also other domestic violence survivors, like myself, kind of learn to maybe open themselves a little bit to intuition. And I know I'm speaking to the choir here with you. But my journey has, it's been strange. It's a stranger than than fiction memoir, that's for sure. I grew up in Ohio, very grounded. I, you know, I built a furniture company, I went on Shark Tank, you know, I did all the stuff that you normally would do, you know, with business and career and family. But then when I was 36, I sort of got hit over the head with intuition, in the form of mediumship. And it changed my life in very big ways. And it also helped save my life, which is why I wrote the book. Brandon Handley 3:51 In Thank you, right, I think that, you know, not only just opening yourself up to intuition, because I think intuition, we all kind of, I would say understand intuition. It's just kind of like, Oh, I've got a gut feeling. Right? Yeah. When you're saying intuition, you're talking to spirits, right? I mean, that's you specifically and the mediumship. And I just want to make sure that, you know, hey, cool, if it's working, awesome. Like, use it. Don't Don't ignore it, right? Like you're hearing something in your mind that's like, Hey, don't go down that alley. And you're like, who are you? And it's like, you know, some other attachments to it. And there's some pieces in the book too, I'd love for us to cover like that led you to go ahead and follow that intuition and kind of where it led you but like, you hear voices, and you listen to them, and you talk with them. And, you know, I think that you'd mentioned you know, you're like am I schizophrenic in the book and schizophrenic. Right. So Kiersten 4:50 I went down every single road, you know, they can go down a psychological standpoint, but yeah, Brandon Handley 4:55 right. Right. Well, because you know, as far as we know, As far as you know, like, that's not right. Right? Well, I suppose there's like, I didn't get a manual that said, you know, in fourth grade, you know, if you be ready for this, Kiersten 5:10 yes. Or at 36, you ready for this? Ya know, I'm from Ohio, I'm, you know, came from a very grounded family, my parents were teachers, I was not even really brought up in an environment where we talked about, you know, trusting gut feelings or anything like that, to be honest with you. So, when I do speak about intuition, it absolutely includes mediumship and hearing things and seeing things. But at the same time, I know, there's also that internal voice, that internal compass, I had to really figure out how to listen to. And thank God, I eventually did. Yeah, well, and I think Brandon Handley 5:45 in both these scenarios are KEARSON justice for the audience to that, when you tune into intuition, or some of these voices, you're connected to source, right, there's different channels for it all. And if it starts coming through, like, I don't know, don't ignore it. Right. You know, pay attention to it. If you feel I think inclined, like you did to go seek out help is to make sure that, hey, double checking, just to make sure we're all cool, we all agree that I'm not crazy. Okay, we're all agreement. Let's keep moving forward. So, you know, let's, let's, let's dive into it, right, like, you know, so. So I'm gonna tell the audience to like, when when I got Carson's book, I thought, you know, I'm jumping into mediumship, I didn't really read the subtitle to well, and just kind of jumping right into it. And again, based off of having a conversation with, with Katie, right, like hers, and I had that conversation with mediumship. And the beginning of your book starts off like that, right, which is great. And I've read somebody else read that it's a page like a binge reader. It really was, I think I almost ripped through like, the first 100 pages really quick, so fun and great read. Just so you know. But let's talk about it. Right? So okay, you're kind of hanging out, you're building furniture, you've got like, you know, your 2.5 Children, you know, husband, and everything's all working out. And you're building furniture, right? Once you start like hearing these voices, what's happening? Like, what, what's the scene? Kiersten 7:14 So it actually started in the garage. So I had already been building furniture in our garage in Burbank, California for about three years, I think, at that point, almost four years. And so my normal routine is take the kids to school, come back, you know, basically belly up to the wood bench and start working. So I think what happened is that I think they're a combination of two things, I learned the healing modality of Reiki. And I did that in order to help our oldest child with anxiety. And I was a skeptic, even, you know, going into that in and even practicing that I was very much a skeptic. However, it did seem to be working. But what I didn't I didn't count on was that it was going to actually change me. And I think the combination of being in the garage and that solitary kind of meditative time, coupled with the Reiki is what really opened me up. And that's when I started to, you know, hear voices and children were saying, Mom, but my kids were at school, or nails were moving off the, you know, on the top of a workbench. So I was definitely seeing things that I could easily dismiss that we would all dismiss, like, oh, that something just moved, there was a truck that came by. But it became so intense that there was no way I could ignore it. And of course, I did question my sanity at that point. But you know, by the time I'm starting to see children walk through my kitchen, who are in spirit, by the time I'm starting to actually have sort of full on conversations with them without saying a word, that's when, you know, that's when I knew there was something to this. And then the validation that I would get on top of that helped a lot. Brandon Handley 8:54 Right, and, you know, so you're hanging out, you're having conversations with spirit. My guess is you're trying to keep the shit together. And eventually, like you, but you bring it up to your husband, right? And what was his reaction to all this? Kiersten 9:12 You know, he he was actually very supportive. I think he was a little bit like, Okay, I'm gonna just kind of keep an eye on her, to be honest with you, but he was he was outwardly supportive. He wasn't saying, Here's, that's crazy. He was saying, you know, I believe in you, and I don't think you're crazy. Now, the fortunate part for me is that he's also highly intuitive. And I remember one night we were laying in bed and there was a child standing at the door. And he saw her I had spoken with her earlier in the day but hadn't said a word. And he said, Do you see the girl standing in a door with a long dark hair? And I you know, I hugged him. Thank you for saying that. Brandon Handley 9:53 I got you. I got chills on that. And here. I'll tell you like my wife sees stuff every once in a while and kind of always has Between us all, I'm in no mood for it. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It's gonna go ahead and trust that it's happening. I don't need, I don't need to verify I'm cool. So, what I think is cool about that. And super important is that having that kind of support because I mean, that takes a lot of it took a lot for you to be like, Hey, I'm seeing things and this is going on, right? Like that could go any direction in the relationship. Right? But like, he'd be like, be like, Listen, I gotta get the kids and go. Good luck with the ghosts. Yeah, I listen to Eddie Murphy. Out. Right, like, Kiersten 10:42 yeah, exactly. I give him a lot of credit, because he didn't fail on that, you know? Brandon Handley 10:47 Right. So I mean, you know, that that that can take a lot, especially, you know, as you're going through it, and it's coming up. So. So yeah, let's talk about validation, right of it. So it's not just validating you got some kind of validation from, you know, your husband and this other stuff. But like, let's talk about where it leads you like next right, I believe, you kind of get let's let's like, walk through the book a little bit, I guess, as Kiersten 11:10 that sounds great. So the next step was, you know, starting to ramp up and I noticed that the more that I was open to it, the more it would ramp up, the more people would be kind of showing up on my doorstep, so to speak. And I remember channeling a boy named Nate and he I described him in the book and his family, and I'm still really close to them to this day, which is awesome. But I didn't know Nate's I didn't know Nate, he died when he was 13. I knew his parents, but I didn't know them very well. We went to high school together. So you can imagine as I'm just scrolling the Facebook feed, and I see a memorial post about Nate's death. And it had been a few years since he had passed. He then shows up on my right side and starts talking to me. And I, you know, I'm kind of freaking out at that point. I'm scared for a number of reasons. Because I A, he's asking me to share information with his parents. And I'm thinking, you know, I don't know, I don't know them. I don't want to hurt them. What if this is correct? What if this isn't real? What if this is all on my mind? So you know, I went through all of the emotions you would go through as a sane person. And then ultimately, I decided, you know, I had to get quiet, you know, I had to kind of put it away for a little bit and then come back to it. And once I came back to it, I had this knowing of you know what, it's time I can do this. And I'm so glad I reached out to them because I was able to share messages and continue to share messages to this day. And Nate is with me quite a bit. He's, you know, pops in and out. He was actually even with me when I was recording the audio book. And he knew that I was really it was getting really hot if you've been an audiobook, and I was also claustrophobic. So he decides he's going to open the door for me. And I have to tell you, the audio engineer, I think his life has been completely changed this experience, because, you know, he's hearing the door open on the other side, and I have an entire blanket between me and the door. There's like, no way I could have opened it. And yeah, he kind of freaked out. So that's Nate. So Nate's awesome Nate opens doors, and he facilitated communication between you know, his family and myself and it gave me the confidence that I needed to continue to move forward. Because without that, I don't think I would have had the confidence I would have just stuffed it away. You know, I would have thought this isn't I don't want to deal with this. This is too much. Brandon Handley 13:35 Well, I think it's one thing to talk about it with your family right right like hey just see goes yes I'll go so that's all see goes right like whatever right where was it goes family that's what we do. This is coming out beyond your family right and reaching out to people that a like you said, there already like and just not the best place right? As parents like nobody will ever wants to lose their child no matter you know, no matter what. And then you're like, Hey, I've been talking to me and but they were receptive right but you took again, this is another kind of like a leap of faith right? Another chance where you just like but yeah, we'll go ahead and we'll do it right. Kiersten 14:18 A lot of leaps of faith. Scary. Very scary. Brandon Handley 14:22 Super scary. Um, no doubt no doubt. You know, you talked about opening doors to I just want to highlight this part two you know as as you go through this, I'm just gonna jump through some pieces here as you go through this. You've got no other spirits start like they're all like hey care, sister. Wanko go reach out to cares to like a lot of them right. But a part of what you do, and I thought that this was pretty cool was you help them through a light door and this is just prompted by you talk. Talk a little bit about this, this this thing that you do and I believe is that satisfied? was a two part of your organization as well? Is that something that you do as a service? Or is that kind of just something that's ad hoc? And then the group that you? Kiersten 15:09 Yeah, it's kind of just ad hoc and ad hoc, you know, what happens when it happens? If a case does come through or nonprofit, it requires me helping someone crossed into the light, then I can totally, I can do that. But that was new to me. I mean, I'd watched I'd watch the Ghost Whisperer, right. So I knew that there was something you know, that had to do with crossing into the light. But I didn't know what I was doing. So as all of this is happening, you know, I was not the person who was seeking any education on this, I just, I was not mindful of any of that. So as they're starting to come in, I'm starting to notice patterns. Because I'm very scientific. I like research, I like to find patterns. And I started to notice that when Spirit would come in, and they hadn't crossed into the light, or on the other side, they would be on my right hand side, like they would come to my right, they would, there would be chills on my right hand side. If they were already on the other side, they come to the left. So I was starting to notice that but then there was the what do I do? So I googled it. And apparently, you can Google a lot. So I Googled how to build furniture, I Googled spirit into the light. I'm a Googler. So I googled it. And I basically just learned that I, you know, if I speak with them, they speak back, I reassure them that there's no hell that they can come back and forth, I envision in my mind that there's a large light that they can walk through. And I just, you know, it's a lot of reassuring, because a lot of times, you know, I mainly channel children, or young young people, teens, sometimes in their early 20s, that's kind of that's the AGE RAGE for me for some reason. But some, some of them have committed suicide, and they feel a lot of guilt and fear, you know, that they're gonna go to hell, and so I do a lot of explaining before I actually help them cross. Brandon Handley 17:04 So that's pretty cool. I thought, I think that that's pretty cool that you know, you know, you don't just communicate with them. There's also a part of what you do, that says, hey, you know, your sock, let me help you through and it's okay to, to pass through, you're going to be okay, on this other side versus kind of like, again, just standing there on the ledge waiting for you know, and just being afraid of what's next. Right? Guidance. Super cool. The these guys do your spirit. You know, your spirit connection. also helped you to get on Shark Tank. Let's talk about that a little bit. Kiersten 17:37 They kind of did. Yeah, I mean, they gave me the intuitive, you know, intuitive hits to do it. My dad actually called me up. And he, this was in 2010. And he said, have you seen this new show called Shark Tank? So I just sort of laughed thinking it was like, you know, a show about sharks? And he said, No, no, it's for your business. Like, I know, you're, you know, I was busting at the seams at that point at celebrities and interior designers from all over the world, asking for my toy boxes, which was kind of crazy to begin with, right? That's where you know, intuition works. Because I was just a mom in a garage. So anyhow, he called me up and asked me if I'd seen the show. And so I took a look at it. And my first reaction was, this looks really scary. And I don't know if I wanted to put myself out there like that. And then I, again, sat back and thought, Now, I can do this, I need to do this. Because I need to grow my business, I need to scale it, I needed to find a manufacturer, because I was at the point where I could only do so much with my two hands. Brandon Handley 18:36 Again, for those those are listening, you know, you had this business that you're just literally out of like your garage hammer now in between classes to get to kids and run life. Right. And you know, it's impossible to scale. Right without without kind of taking those next steps and as your book, and as you just stayed like I mean, you were getting you were getting some really nice publicity. Absolutely. Right. Yeah. demand was there. And so shark tanks, like, let's go. Kiersten 19:09 Yeah, yeah. And they picked me which was great, because there are a lot of people that sign up for that show. And I mean, it was the second season of it. So I didn't have as much of a harder time getting on the show because it was still new. They weren't lining people up in stadiums auditioning them, I literally just had to film a you know, record a video and send it in and there you go. But I ended up on the show, I ended up I ended up kind of going through my own intuition. Listen on the show as well. Because being being someone who always was a people pleaser, her entire life and not quite understanding why I was that people pleaser. But I was and I was on the show and the producers are telling me to do one thing and I'm thinking, This doesn't feel right. And I need to do something different. You know, I really need to do that. But that's kind of Again, require me speaking up putting myself out there in saying, I'm not going to, I'm not going to take that advice. I'm going to go this route. And I'm really glad I did. Because I ended up getting two offers on the show. And it airs internationally, I still get messages from people all over the place that you know, watch it on Hulu. And that's just been incredible to have that. You know, that experience. Brandon Handley 20:25 Just super cool. Yeah, I love I love it. Again, this is a bit out of the book, right? where you work, you work, you work on the speech, and you presentation, the pitch as it were. And then like, was it the day before night for you? Like, yeah, I'm not gonna do that. And everybody's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? Man? That's such a bad idea. But also, you know, I think I don't know that we hit on it here so much. We did talk a little bit about, you know, we're, we talked about it that you are a marketing executive for a year. Yeah, this wasn't like, wasn't your first rodeo, right, given these pitches, and, you know, so you were just like, hey, what what we worked on, isn't in alignment with like, what it is that I'm doing, and you're like, I'm gonna go in, and be in alignment with what it is that I'm doing. And, you know, I've trained my entire life basically, for this, and I'm just gonna let let it kind of speak from the heart as well. Right? Kiersten 21:19 Yeah. It had to be authentic to me, and I knew it wasn't. And so that was the impetus for me to say, You know what, I can't I can't do this. I have to kind of do it my way. And they fought me on it. But ultimately, when I got up on the stage, and you know, I, I did well, I remembered my tickets. I did well. And again, I got the two offers. And in you know, what's interesting about that shows, sometimes as you read those deals don't go through afterwards. And this is something that I did not know, I didn't understand. I Brandon Handley 21:48 didn't know either until October. Yeah. Yeah. Kiersten 21:51 It's kind of common, to be honest with you, unless you pair up if the sharks pair up. There's accountability. But I think sometimes they can decide that they don't want, you know, they don't want to go through with it. Maybe they got wrapped up in the moment. So that's what happened to me. That's what happened to me. Thankfully, Hulu airs Shark Tank episodes. And a true angel investor out of California, wrote to me and said, Did you get that deal? Because I would love to invest in your company. So I was able to actually get more money, and I gave away less equity. Brandon Handley 22:24 That's awesome. That's awesome. So that kind of leads into the darkness. Yeah, so it's, it's been it's been quite, you know, it's been an uplifting journey up to this point, for the most part, right. But then, you know, here we go. You're traveling. You are working on G, you have gotten a potential spokesperson spot and working with the national international company. Kiersten 22:57 They were most will they actually produced overseas, so they used to, but they were Yeah, big company. Very, very large company. Brandon Handley 23:07 Right. So you get this, you get this job offer. And you're going to like close the deal. Determine a couple of final, you know, dot the i's cross the T's kind of thing. And then what happens? Kiersten 23:21 Yeah, so here's the darkness coming in. So I want to back up for a tiny bit, just to say that, you know, what I started to notice as I was a medium kind of an undercover medium really is, you know, as I was growing my bomb, I was on Shark Tank, all that stuff was happening. So when you watch Shark Tank, and you see that all of the spirits stuff was happening behind the scenes with me, I was starting to notice that a lot of the kids that were coming in, had been sexually abused or murdered by pedophiles and predators. And I just thought to myself, That's really interesting. Like, I don't know why I'm honored that they're coming to me, and maybe it's because I'm a mom, but I don't necessarily know why they're coming to me. So with that, in the back of your mind, I then enter into a trade show where I am supposed to be meeting with, you know, a bunch of different TV networks and talking about Stanley and we I was about to sign a $5 million licensing deal with them. And I lost my job. They shut down their production of their use division. So the minute I land in North Carolina, I lose my job. So I'm, I'm basically in a perfect storm, which did not help things. So here I am, perfect storm, trying to figure out what am I going to do? My husband wasn't making enough money at that point because I was the main breadwinner. So I stayed I tried to figure things out because I knew maybe if I stayed and I worked hard enough, and I got a lot of meetings, I could get a different, you know, a different licensing deal. Unfortunately, I ended up meeting a man named Tony at that at that event, and Tony walked in and kind of knowing a lot about me, but I did And realize that he knew as much as he did about me. And he just swept me off my feet. I wasn't planning on any of that. It was not something, you know, we had my my husband, Scott and I are obviously we're having issues in our marriage and marriage is hard. I mean, you're married, right? It can be hard. Yes. But, Brandon Handley 25:21 yeah, it's a relationship. I think any, any, like, ongoing long term relationship is hard, then, you know, couple that with, you know, you spend all your time with each other, right, you know, Kiersten 25:35 in job loss and what I was going, yeah, the afterlife. And so, you know, at that point, I started to connect the dots, I started to actually have visions of myself being abused by my uncle, when I was between the ages of three and six. And I ended up finding out that I was raped by him at five. I don't have a lot of memory of my childhood. So I was I was sort of looking back and putting all the pieces together, because that's, you know, that's what you do. Had I not had the mediumship base and the validation and working with cops and detectives across the country, I wouldn't have believed what I saw. Right. So I truly knew that what that's why they were coming to me. So I found that out right before I went down to what they call market, and when I met Tony, so that was the full spectrum to give you the phone. Brandon Handley 26:26 Yeah, that's important. For sure. Kiersten 26:29 Yeah. So Tony ended up sweeping me off my feet. In looking back now, it was absolutely, you know, it's sort of a handbook that the narcissist has the sociopaths has. And he followed it to a tee. He, he was able to know enough about me in order to sort of pull me in. And I let him right. And I think this is where, you know, I was thinking, Oh, my gosh, I this this man is amazing. I am having all the chills, I'm having everything that you would have, you know, from an intuitive standpoint to you know, our marriage has been really hard. And I'm done. I'm done. Right now, that was a week after meeting him. So I'm already not acting like the old Kiersten, I'm already in a different headspace, but not understanding that I am. So that led me down a road of three years of abuse, narcissistic abuse, financial abuse, emotional abuse, it was getting to physical abuse. Brandon Handley 27:33 And one of the pieces to like, you know, I think it makes sense to to say, hey, you know, here's this guy, Tony comes in and sweeps you off your feet, not only like, you know, was he had the, you know, this type of guy, but he was in the industry that you were in, offered support came in, I remember this, you took charge, like, yes, you felt like, you know, this was something you need in your life, this was the help you needed to get through and into the next steps. And, you know, there was a bunch of other stuff that you know, you know, I think as any relationship goes on, you're like, this is, this has been nice to have somebody give me this kind of attention and be in this space. And it just kind of, you know, it all took took in, you know, and it was all pretty rapid, right? In this book. And you're like, you're like, you know what, like I said, I'm out and you go into this relationship of like, you know, you're in, I think, you know, the relationship and who wasn't a scar, or like one of the somebody calls out, you know, you'll have your first argument, like six months, and you're still like, yeah, right. And yeah, that happened, right? Like, I mean, right around that period. Kiersten 28:42 Yes. It was interesting was around four months, I think when I started to actually recognize, like, This doesn't feel right. And that's another reason I wrote the book because my intuition I couldn't, I couldn't think it or feel it through my head or my heart, but my body could feel it. And so I was starting to get all kinds of weird body signals that something was off even though you know, I, I am stubborn, I was driven. This is right for me. Use of relationships. It's not all bad. That's the thing, right? It's not all bad all the time. There's, it's the cycle of abuse that you get trapped in. So I ended up, I ended up finally, you know, feeling around the four month mark that something wasn't right here because he started to talk about my eye contact with other men. He was kind of questioning things. But being a person that is very introspective and always goes and looks inside says oh, yeah, maybe I could have done that better. Or maybe. Yeah, that's that's how I operate. So that's what I did. Brandon Handley 29:48 Yeah. And, you know, you talk about the cycle. And it's funny, I read a actually listen to an article a few years back talking about neuropeptides, right, that just says hey, what you Going through was like the, you know, heightened like affectionate, right? You've got the highs of affection. But then you also have these highs of like, oh shit, you know what is going on here and like this kind of like this dislike, you know, I wouldn't call it paranoia but like you're just gonna, you're in a heightened state of like awareness defensiveness and like fight or flight at all times, right and so yes, Kiersten 30:25 yes. So I was not used to that your body, Brandon Handley 30:29 right with those neuro peptides, it's like it's an injection of energy and your body doesn't discern like, Oh, that's good energy I want more of that. It's just addicted to the energy, whatever energy it is bad energy. Oh yeah, it's just energy. Give me more of that. So that's where you found yourself was like in this in this wave of after wave it feels good I want more of that. Oh shit, I guess I want more of that. Right like yeah, Kiersten 30:59 no you don't. And that's what's so impossible for abuse survivors because I think in our society we shame survivors a lot and we say well, why didn't you leave sooner? You know instead of saying well why are they the way they are. And for me the key was understanding the intuitive hits I was getting to from the body, that from my body, like I was having buzzing sensation on my right hip anytime he would yell at me. Now, now that I'm out of the relationship and have been since 2017, I don't have that anymore. You know. So it was really interesting to pair that with the fact that I also was starting to understand the cycle that I was stuck in from the dopamine highs and, you know, the neuro, the bio chemicals, I guess that were like you were talking about? I didn't know that nobody talked about that was me. I had no clue. I was addicted to it, you know? Yeah. Brandon Handley 31:53 I mean, I don't I don't think that, uh, you know, I don't think those are new a newer findings and people, you know, like, you just got to work the relationship out. Right, right. Yeah. Like, like hell I do. Um, so. But I think one of the things to just kind of important here is that, you know, you had what was the guy's name? Jason right, that said, hey, you know, yeah, hey, this relationship, go through with it. And you're like, Okay, you know, everything felt right and aligned. And then, at the same time, like later, you know, same same guys. All right, yeah. It's time to check out. Right? Yeah. Kiersten 32:28 Yeah, it's interesting, you know, from the Spirit side, right. So what I was starting to finally understand by the end of the relationship, by the time I was ready to get a restraining order, it was that bad. Jason was coming in. He was 23, when he died of a heroin overdose. He has been with me throughout all of this, he was the one saying, Go get the restraining order now. Really helping me, you know, from the other side, he was the first one to say he's your drug. And he understood that as an addict, right? Sure. So there was a lot. There were those pieces, right? So he's there sort of saying, Yes, this is all feeling very, very big and very, very, like intense, because we had to hit you over the head with it. Because I don't think to be honest with you, I would be where I am now. And I know my husband and I would not be where we are now had I not gone through this. And and then later on, as you read in the book, Jesus and came back in and said, you know, this was this piece of your life was planned before your birth, like you could not have avoided them. And I had definitely had some I had free Well, I could have done things differently. But I think that's what I've, you know, I honestly feel that in my soul, because I wouldn't be able to tell the story. No and Brandon Handley 33:47 right, like, you know, and it was part of your healing journey, right? You might not have uncovered some of the stuff that you did to become who you are. And nobody's going to recommend and you certainly aren't recommending Hey, go find yourself a you know, an abusive relationship so that you can heal but this was your was your journey. Right? I think another thing that was kind of interesting, as you talked about this, was that this fear spirits didn't reach out to you as often during that period of the relationship. What do you what do you think that was? What was going on there? Kiersten 34:22 It was too dark. It was too dark. You know, I was living with a man who had no conscience operated off of just whatever his ego wanted, you know, was horribly abusive. So those children you know, and and I eventually found out he was a predator you know, with with countless women and teenage teenager that I know of at least one, so they're gonna back away. Now my core crew of kids that have been around me and with me for a long time, like Nate and Carrie and Jason, they stuck with me But the rest of them were sort of waiting in the wings for me to get out of it. But it was up to me to do that, you know, and I think that's what's so interesting about that journey is figuring out, you know, what would have happened, if I stayed, I would have died, I have no doubt about no doubt about that, I was told that I would have died, either by his hand or by my own because I was locked in such an abusive situation I was hurt, my hair was falling out. My body was completely out of whack. I was smoking to try and to cope with all of it, you know, it was just such a mess. And I know so many people find themselves in that is heartbreaking. Brandon Handley 35:43 Absolutely. Look, it's no good for anybody to be in that situation. You know, my mom left an abusive relationship, several, that's, you know, my father was locked away because of that, you know, going up so, so I understand, you know, kind of the toll it can take, and then you know, you know, how, how it impacts others, right. And in some way, shape or other one of the other things too, is that, you know, so you've got Mom mom working, like before you go into this relationship, like, you know, things are like, they're decent, right? Yeah, you're hitting, you're hitting snags, right? Tony's like, hey, I can help you with this stuff. Because, you know, he had a, you know, at least what you thought was a credible name in the industry and all this stuff. So whatever happened mod mom throughout all this. Kiersten 36:31 So my mom ended up I mean, it's still going today, which is great. I actually didn't have a manufacturer. But it was interesting to watch. Because I, what I saw myself do was sort of push it aside, once I lost that deal. Then it became about his line, or furniture. And so at that point, I'm thinking, Oh, my gosh, I believe in him, he's gonna help me, let's go ahead and just pour everything into his line. And then we can come back to mod mom. So I literally put it on the back burner for many years. And after I got out of the relationship, it started to soar again, literally, like within the first week that I was out, I got a I was reached out to by a manufacturer, who said, Are you looking for, you know, a licensing deal? And so it's just testament to energy? Right, the heaviness darker and? Brandon Handley 37:22 Yeah, well, I just, you know, I guess I'm just trying to highlight, you know, the, the, and even during that time, like everything Tony was working on was, you know, kind of turned into shit. Like, for lack of better terminology. It wasn't working out. Right. It was Kiersten 37:35 Turner's Yep. Brandon Handley 37:36 So, and I highlight this to simply because I'm aware that you know, you're back online, you're back on track, and you're doing well, and things are in a positive space. But I think that if we take a look at it all right, is the whole idea of being in alignment with the truth of who you are following your intuition. And kind of paying attention to it. And when everything's in alignment, and you're being true to who you are things work out, it's weird, right? You're like, yeah, I don't I don't get it. But you know, here it is, it's working. And I just wanted to highlight those two pieces, because there's a justification in the book, like everything, everything's a mess. And as soon as you kind of step out of it, and you realize it, and it has to do with like the energy that you're, you either you're around or coursing through your insides match your outsides is what they say. Kiersten 38:30 Absolutely, yeah. And I, you know, I wasn't being I wasn't being abused anymore. And I was, I was literally able to heal little KEARSON, because I stood up for her by standing up to him and saying, No, I'm done with us. And I was, I'm one of the only women that he has done this to that can be vocal about it. Brandon Handley 38:51 He's got a platform, you got a platform you're capable to. I mean, I think that, you know, a lot of people might give marketing a bad stick, but like you're capable, you know, how to tell the story in order to evoke the emotion, not that you have to because you live it, but like, you know, hey, listen, this is this is real. Right, I can tell a story and, you know, share it. So I think that's important, too. Again, these are all the parts of view that came together so that, you know, you could a expose this guy to others be, you know, share your story with others in a way that they understand like, again, you know, if it cures, not to say that any drug addict deserves to get like, you know, treated the way that you were in a situation, but if it did come from a drug addict, maybe it's she shouldn't have been doing drugs. Kiersten 39:38 Yeah, maybe I know, Brandon Handley 39:40 or Yeah. So the background allows for for credibility. Kiersten 39:47 Absolutely. And I think, you know, the other side of it is that I hadn't heard the term wounded attachment. I had never heard of that. Even when I was in therapy after I got out of the relationship and I was still you know, trying to put my My life back together and figure out how did I get here? It wasn't something that was known to me. And that is another reason why I wrote the book. And I wanted to tell the story, because wounded attachment is the is the subconscious way of attracting or being attracted to wounds that happened in childhood. So for me what I didn't What I didn't equate was that my uncle was very much like Tony. And I literally replicated that type of abuse as an adult, because little Kiersten was the subconscious driver of that plus, and, you know, 80% of our behavior is driven by our subconscious is so you know, just even learning that piece of this, you know, even without the intuition was so impactful for me, and powerful. Brandon Handley 40:47 Now powerful journey, powerful journey. So my mom's on what's the organization? Here's the Kiersten 40:57 National Institute for law, injustice. That's another Brandon Handley 41:01 one. So you've got like, hit on that one real quick for us. So what was the sir? Yeah, what, what's involved there? Kiersten 41:07 So one of the detectives that I worked with across the country over the last 10 years, his name is Mark Pucci. And he actually wrote the foreword for the book, he and I co founded a nonprofit, it's a 501 C three, and it's called the National Institute for law injustice, and we help families of crime victims at no cost. Because what we are finding, you know, a lot of the cases I worked on involve missing persons involve homicide, you know, that is, maybe it's a suicide, but it's actually homicide, that type of thing. And he has worked on a lot of those cases, too, as an NYPD retired detective. So basically, we said, let's do this, let's make it so it's not so freakin expensive for the families. Let's try and take that burden off of them and see what we can do. And we're gonna band together, everybody we know. So we're bringing in cold case, detectives, we're bringing in, you know, anyone and everyone that we know is credible. And that has volunteered to work with us. Brandon Handley 42:07 That's pretty awesome. I love that. And then you've got another one where you are helping others, children with sensitivities. So yeah, Kiersten 42:17 it's, it's not really an organization. It's just something I do. And I have found, you know, in my life, I clearly have been guided to many people, sometimes for hard lessons, sometimes for great stuff. But in this case, I feel like the parents of these children who are highly, highly intuitive find me. Sometimes I know them, sometimes I don't. And I literally just try and and to show them, you know, here's what worked for me, here's how you can create boundaries. Like if you're feeling overwhelmed, you can write a whole list of rules, like I will not be woken up at night, you know, it's a lot about using your own power to deal with being highly, highly intuitive. Because, I mean, it was scary as hell as a 36 year old, I can't even imagine, you know, I don't remember that. I know what happened to me when I was a little kid. But I don't remember that. And I wanted to help those kids get through that. Brandon Handley 43:11 Now. That's pretty awesome, too. Got friends, my wife included, who know sensitive at an early age, but don't or didn't have the resources to you know, talk to someone about it in a supportive fashion versus Oh, you didn't say anything? You didn't hear anything? Yeah, right type of thing. So I think that's a really cool service that you're done. So, books awesome. I enjoyed it. I certainly recommend it. You know, like I said, it's definitely been binge ready, readable? I've never, I saw that somebody else wrote it. And I was like, No, it's true, but it was bingeable That's what it was. But visible. There it is. So we are on a little spot that I always like to call like, kind of spiritual speed dating. Shearson like, you know, somebody's gonna pop in here and they're gonna be like, like, maybe Pearson's my next spiritual speed date. This one works. This works for me, I think, yeah, I pull out of 20 questions. So spiritual Bachelorette number one, why is there poverty and suffering in the world? Kiersten 44:20 Oh, my gosh, you picked a big one. Okay, so this is where I'm going to be very honest, and claim that I really don't know everything. I don't know everything. You know, I know my little piece of the world. I know that I can communicate with these kids. They pass information. We help get answers and we help connect families. I think the poverty and strife and all of that. I don't have an answer for it. I wish that I did. Like it's similar to I don't really have an answer for why kids die. You know, why? Why is this happening? I do feel like there are some things like in my life right now. that were planned before my birth, my soul said, I'm coming in, and I'm going to learn these things. Patience is one of them. I know that in my life. I know that, but I don't I really don't know. So that's not you know, I don't have an answer for you on that one. Brandon Handley 45:18 Oh, good. I mean, if it was me, and I'm talking to you, and I am that I would say, you know, I think in the suffering aspect of this, as we look at your story, yours was to kind of guide you through something where, at the time, the suffering socked right, it was awful. Yeah. But the end result? Was something beneficial. Kiersten 45:44 Absolutely. And I will say, you know, some of the kids that are some of the parents of the children who have passed on, have started foundations, and they've started nonprofits that help others. And so I can see how that, you know, does benefit it helps us grow, right, as a society, and humanity, it helps to sort of elevate, but I wish Yeah, I wish I had a better answer for you. But that's that's how Brandon Handley 46:09 it works. Right? It works. Doo doo. Sure, one wish for the world. Kiersten 46:17 Oh, my gosh, one wish for all? I honestly wished. You know, it's very similar to that. And I don't know if it was Gandhi who said this. I can't remember who said it. But, you know, if if we all meditated, right, we would have a completely different world. Like, if we all had that mindset, I'm not big on meditation, to be honest with you. And I'm to add for that, however, I understand it's just tapping into that, you know, to that inner knowing and so the universe and understanding that we're all connected, and how we treat others, whether we're here or in another continent, it has a ripple effect. And that's what I wish I wish that that that was something that was could become more known, I guess, Brandon Handley 46:59 for sure. I love it. This one is not out of my question bank, but if you continue to go the way you're going now, how long is it gonna take for Phoenix to move you to Sedona? Kiersten 47:10 Okay, so funny enough. Yeah, you know, we lived in Flagstaff, we were 45 minutes from Sedona and we would go down there and visit all the time. I love Sedona Sedona it's not really my bag. It's not my bocce Brandon Handley 47:22 too crunchy. I gotta do it. Kristen, is there anything else that you want to share with the group? Where can we send people to find you? What's next? Oh, sure. Kiersten 47:33 Yeah. So Kiersten half cocked.com, you can find all kinds of good information. I'm in the middle of book touring at this point, because the book just came out. The audio book will be coming out October 18. And, yeah, I'm excited too. We actually sat down my husband, Scott, and I sat down with the audio engineer, and Nick and we talked about what happened during the recording, which is kind of cool to get the back. Yeah, the backstory. So I'll be giving that out to to anybody that buys the audio book. Brandon Handley 48:03 That's cool. I always I always appreciate that. Will the book tour be listed on your like, we're Kiersten 48:12 going Yes, yes, it is on my website under Events. And so you'll you'll see right now, I'm actually going back to my hometown in defiance Ohio, shout out to the fine. We're gonna do that November. Brandon Handley 48:26 One of the things I'll call out about the book that I thought was pretty interesting is this isn't spiritual memoir. It's not easy to get this published. This is a published book. This is not a self published piece. And, you know, congratulations on that as well. Kiersten 48:38 Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, that was a journey in itself. Thank you so much. Brandon Handley 48:42 I appreciate very cool. KEARSON. Thanks again for being on today. Kiersten 48:45 Thank you. I appreciate it. Brandon. Take care. Absolutely. I Intro Guy 48:48 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove Dotco. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram and spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai  

Jen Gilchrist, Speaker + Transformational Success Mentor + Spiritual Teacher An Entrepreneur for 22 years and a Spiritual Mentor for 11 years, Jen Gilchrist has gone from Struggling Single Mom to growing a multiple 6-figure Business making money doing what she loves and empowering others to do the same. She works with “Highly Sensitive” and Spiritual Entrepreneurs on a deep level, helping them to reclaim the confidence, trust, and tools needed to harness their intuition, align with their purpose and step into their next level of leadership in their business and life, so they make a bigger impact in the world while experiencing new levels of freedom of time, energy and money in their purpose-driven business. Connect with Jen here: www.soulsuccessunleashed.com   Jen's message is around believing in yourself. 1:31 What was the catalyst that led you to become a psychic? 8:38 The pain and emptiness of not fulfilling your purpose. 15:22 Why you can't lead with spirituality, you can lead with straight transformation. 21:45 You have to be your own authority -. 25:47 Cultivating a connection with your spiritual support team and trusting your intuition. 29:59 The importance of listening to your intuition and being open to miracles. 34:40 Be honest with yourself about the fear that is holding you back. 37:12 The importance of having a network of support. 42:11 How to bring awareness to your breath and body. 46:32 How do you get into the present moment? 49:17 What is your one wish for the world? 53:02 Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited? Thought Process? Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already no inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question some time for another spiritual day with your host, Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:43 Spiritual dope. I'm on here today with Jen Gilchrist. She is a speaker and transformational success mentor and spiritual teacher. As an entrepreneur for 22 years as a spiritual mentor for 11 years, Jen has gone from struggling single mom to growing multiple, six figure businesses making money doing what she loves, and empowering others to do the same. She works with highly sensitive and spiritual entrepreneurs on a deep level, helping them to reclaim the confidence, trust and tools needed to harness their intuition, align with their purpose and step into their next level of leadership in their business and life. So they make a bigger impact in the world while experiencing new levels of freedom, time, energy and money and their purpose driven business. Shannon, thanks for being on today. How are you? Jen Gilchrist 1:31 I'm wonderful. Thanks for having me. Very excited to be here. Brandon Handley 1:34 I'll tell you what was kind of funny, Jen is like, I forget exactly how we connected. But it was a while ago, first of all been a while since you're already talking to beginning here. But I got a second outreach from I think your agency or whoever you're working with. I was like, well, that's funny. But I'm talking to her this week that like, Would you be interested in that app. So I'm still interested in we're still doing it. But you know, it's kind of like one of those things where I guess it's a fit, right? So thanks for being on. Typically like to start off with the whole idea that you and I were vessels for source energy, as it were, and this conversation while you and I will have our dialogue, and I'm sure we'll come away with something amazing and great. There's going to be somebody else tuning in, that's really going to resonate with your message. And it can only be delivered through you at this time on this podcast. So that person, what's that message. Jen Gilchrist 2:35 The message is coming through for your audience is is around believing in yourself. It's about having that that ultimate trust and belief in yourself and your vision and your dream. And to know that you are worthy of what it is that you desire. And what it is you see for yourself and that you don't have to do it all. So reach outside about tuning into that trusting yourself trusting the process and trusting your spiritual support to see you through. Brandon Handley 3:00 I think that's a big piece of love the message, a big piece of I guess ourselves as humans, is trying to do it all ourselves. Right? When you say you don't do it all yourself? Are you talking about like, spiritual assistance or just from other people? Like, what are you? How do you like to look at that? Unknown Speaker 3:24 I think it's both really, um, when I was speaking to that message, it was feeling more about tuning in and really working with your spiritual support, right? Meaning connecting with your higher self with your angels, your guides, source, like utilizing that larger part of who you are to be a guidance for you. That's something that I believe in a lot. It's helped me a lot in my life and my business, for sure. But also, I think that also extends to the physical world, you know, oftentimes, we try to do it all as solopreneurs, you know, and at a certain point, it's difficult to manifest or create the business with the vision that you might have if you're trying to do it all on your own. And so just allowing that support in as well be it a virtual assistant or your team, there might be a time and place where you need to actually allow some physical support in but definitely having that spiritual support being your driving factor to help you figure out the how, for sure, for sure, I find that people have a big vision and then it gets so overwhelming, like how am I going to do this, that they either don't stop, they don't start it to begin with, or they start but they stay kind of stuck playing small, because they're not allowing that support. And so I think that that is something to to really lean into. Brandon Handley 4:30 For sure. I would love you to talk about this. I mean, let's talk about this too. One thing that I think I find frustrating in this entrepreneur I'm gonna coach you space is you didn't get here like overnight. Right? You had successful businesses and you were successful in business before coming into the spiritual space, and you've flourished through that as well but like you know, where were you Before now and like how did you get to where you are? Jen Gilchrist 5:03 Definitely I like to say my life is now a spiritual retreat. And what I mean by that is I feel like, you know, massages, Zumba meditation, you know, for six years in a row I've swam, it's wild dolphins, you know, it is a way to, to rejuvenate myself and find that balance. And I do believe that now that you know, the balance of really that divinity, and that actionable action in life together create sustainable success, and it definitely wasn't always that way for me. By the age of 30, I was on that hamster wheels of society's version of success. You know, I was wearing all the hats, I was a single mom, I had built a six figure business doing hair and makeup by the time I was in my 20s, actually, but my first home when I was 30. And I was like on the outside of society's version of things I looked put together, things were amazing. But on the inside, I was extremely overwhelmed. I had no way to manage my stress, but wine and chocolate was tended to be what I would go towards. And eventually, you know, that caught up with me, that lifestyle caught up with me. I had been a verta friend's birthday party, it's been about 12 or 13 years now that I was at my friend's birthday celebrating her party and had a couple glasses of wine. Next thing you know, I was on my way home. And I ended up rolling my car, looking at twice ending in a ditch. And it was really at this crashing moment that everything came to a halt. And I realized that I couldn't go on this way couldn't be so frazzled, I couldn't have wine be the only way to like de stress my mind. But I was really afraid at that time. Because I didn't have any other idea how to do life, like how to do life without this. And so I was very afraid. And I had a lot of shame at that time around everything, of course, because we're putting up that facade to the world that it's all great. You know, but on the inside, I was feeling you know, how am I going to do this differently? Well, that's when everything really changed. For me, I prayed I didn't know what to do. But I just prayed to be at peace and to be happy. Because at that time, though, on the outside, everything looks great. It's like I had relationships that were toxic. I had my bank account money was coming in, but it was going right back out. And everything, you know, was really just a shambles. And so I prayed. And my grandfather came to me in a dream. And it was really special. He had been like my anchor point really for the whole family. And he died when I was about 10. And so at this time for him to come to me so viscerally in the stream. I just remember feeling his presence and him showing me that I wasn't alone in this world that I might have all these things going off and, you know, problems to fix and relationships that were going awry, and all the things but that I wasn't actually alone and that he was there God, the angels universe, you know, was there to support me. And I remember waking up from that dream, feeling like, wow, you know, I don't have all the answers. But I had this sense of peace and hope in my heart that I had never felt before. And I knew that everything was going to be okay. And it was at that point that I started to really just have the synchronicities. I wouldn't have had that language for it. At the time, I was raised in a very conservative Christian upbringing. But I started to have these synchronicities that were guiding me to like every self help book, I probably spent the next nine months reading every self help book imaginable. And before you know it, I just my intuition opened up when I started becoming aware of the spiritual side of things, my angels, my guides, and I started really going on this quest, and I realized that, you know, everything was going to be okay. And this is really a big turning point for me in my in my life at that time. Brandon Handley 8:38 So he had like, this kind of awakening moment, right? You know, predicated by the roll in the car, right? I mean, that's definitely a wake up call. Right? Like, you're like, I can't continue to live this way. You got a whole bunch of shame kind of definitely tied up in that too, right? Because like it was, are we gonna think, you know, I'm trying to do this thing and keep it all together, but I'm a mess. I saw really great. We live in memes these days, don't we? It was a meme just kind of talking about, like, you know, the life that we're living now, like, trying to do it all by ourselves, like, we have, we still literally have health, right? Like, I mean, there were, you know, even even in the industrial age, we would have somebody else in the house helping us keep it together, right there was paid paid out. Right. And now we're just trying to do it by ourselves. And as to keep up this, I got it all together and I can do this thing and it's a lot and having a single mother myself growing up. It's too much right? To try and just keep together. So you go through all that. And then you're having these revelations I love that you connected with like your spirit guides, as it were right angels, your grandfather and somebody come in there to help you and you're, you're coming out and you decide to kind of embrace this right now. and move forward into this space. And tell me a little bit about like, what that look like, what was the catalyst there? So you've got this hair and makeup businesses you've been doing. But now you're like, feeling it? And you're like, I want to lean into it. But I don't like you, like you said to like, you didn't even have the language or like know what it was. Right? So yeah, talk to me a little bit about that. Jen Gilchrist 10:23 Yeah, so it was kind of like this point where now I was awakened, right. And I, and I was excited about that. But then I was also pretty much awake in the dark, I hadn't remember going to my first psychic reading. And at that point, I didn't know if I believed in psychics, but a friend of mine said goes this lady, you know, she was really great. And she told me that I would be doing what she was doing in five years. And I'm like, but that sounds cool. But I can't imagine I'm barely even, you know, carrying my grandparents talk to me. So I went on this quest, and really got clear that my deeper inner calling was, in fact to help other people awaken their purpose and their spiritual gifts. And so I created a second, a second business, I was still doing my hair and makeup business, of course, full time. But I began a second business called divine spark within, which was my first iteration of my spiritual work. And it really never took off. And there was two big reasons for that. And one of them I feel was that although I was awakened, I was in the spiritual closet big time. I mean, heaven forbid, my family, my wedding professional friends, my hair clients, or anybody would know about this newly awakened psychic healer, past life, mediumship, angel card reading self, it was like, No way. So I had this really compartmentalised in my life. And the second reason was, I was extremely petrified of public speaking. So much so that I convinced all of my high school teachers to actually let me do all of my oral reports, before or after school, when I was this quiet on her students, they let me do it. I didn't even join a networking group for two years, because I had to stand up and say, like, 30 seconds of my name, even though I knew it would grow my business, like I was petrified. And so Brandon Handley 11:59 let me jump in there real quick. Let me jump in there real quick, because this is so funny. I had to do a stand in for BNI, this paddling at networking business networking group this past weekend, and like, I've been really trying to promote myself, but I didn't really have anything else to say. So I was like, Yeah, I'm doing you know, spiritual coaching, whatever and like, but just like you're saying, I was like, the 30 seconds. I'm like, listen, just give, you're just giving references to Dave, I'm just filling in for him. I'm just here for the breakfast. I'm good. But I totally understand what you're saying. Jen Gilchrist 12:30 Yeah, for sure. Especially, I think, you know, it was the two aspects of it that was keeping you really hidden and small and, and it got really clear that this was keeping me hidden in small my business, right, these visibility fears, this fear of public speaking, my my compartmentalization of my spiritual path, and all those things. But of course, God has a funny sense of humor. And the next thing, you know, I find myself at a conference for attracting clients and like, Well, yeah, that's what I need, I need to attract clients. And so the next thing I know that we're talking about speaking, to attract clients, and I'm like, Oh, of course, right. And I, and I remember, you know, feeling this pain of emptiness of not getting my message out. But I was arguing with my angels. I was like, Why, like, there's no way like, that's in the future. I saw this vision of speaking on stages and writing books, but I'm like, that's way down the road. And my angels were like, wow, you know, are you sure? Because I mean, you could make it down the road. And that's when I realized that I was fighting for my fears. When I was arguing with my angels, I realized, so Brandon Handley 13:28 what's, what's this? It's like that Marianne Williamson line, right? Or, you know, I'm not sure if you're an Abraham Hicks fan. You know, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna sit here and argue for your limitations, right? There you are kind of like, you're basically arguing for your limitations. In that sense. Yeah. Jen Gilchrist 13:45 And that kind of caught myself, right. And I called myself out on it. And I took myself outside because here I was in this room of like, 300, other highly sensitive, empathic people trying to make this big decision about money and investing in their business. And I, you know, I've never done that much before. And so here it was, and I took myself outside and I walked myself through a practice that I could perhaps share with you later, but it was the TLC body meditation that I use with my clients, talk to your body, listen to your body, and commit to this needs. And so I tuned in and I just thought, okay, is this really aligned for me? Like, what is my best aligned step? Because I knew I was triggered in a lot of fear about the financial investment about having to speak, you know, all these things. And so I got really clear that, you know, the pain and emptiness of not filling my purpose was bigger than my fear of public speaking. And so I ended up, you know, tuning into the fact that I also learned that my listen to my mind and logic, fear will stop me versus my heart. I can feel that intuition and trust and leap. And so I leaned into that, and I did that. I went ahead and I signed up for basically it was a $22,000 investment at that time was a lot for me. I didn't even have my mortgage payment in the bank account, so I couldn't use it as an excuse, you know, and I'm not going how am I going to pay for 22 months but I've been working with my angels long enough to know that I'm always supported in this way. And so I leaned in, and I decided to listen to that to that voice inside of me and not put it off any longer face those fears head on. And now I get to be here sharing with all of you and all of your community and people like this, which I love, supporting others to really know, their conscious creative power themselves and to feel, you know, unstoppable and whatever it is that they're feeling called to do. So that's Brandon Handley 15:22 literally into like the other a couple of other pieces to like. Taking that time to review and inspect your life, and it resonates with me so hard, the pain and emptiness of not fulfilling your purpose, right? That's just like, a gut punch. Right? Because I still remember I saw my first investment in like, coaching, it was substantial, right? And it was into, like, the podcast, Robin doing it. And my wife and I did not agree on it initially, like that, that was going to be a good idea. Right? And I just sank, right, like, I just felt like, MTT. And, you know, we turn that around later. And, you know, again, you know, it's not like, I started to, I started to, you know, just find out, okay, she was right in from her perspective as like, you're right. I agree with you. Listen, I wanted to appreciate the way she was approaching it right? At the same time, like, you know, it took me a minute to get there. And then as soon as I kind of got there myself mentally, and I'm okay with it. She's like, No, go ahead and go do it, you got to do it. But like, you know, that pain and emptiness of not fulfilling your purpose? Like, that's huge. Right? So that's, my guess, is what said to you, like, you know, what, I'm gonna do a substantial investment 22k I'm gonna go ahead and go do that. I mean, who were you talking to about that when you did it? Or should you just do it? And then later told people like, you know, when you decided to make this big change? You know, how did that go over? How'd you accomplish that? Jen Gilchrist 17:11 Well, I definitely did it on my own. I was still somewhat compartmentalize, you know, I kind of this is coming out of the spiritual closet was like an evolutionary journey. Up to this point, by the time I went to that conference and invested it, it was about five years after, or maybe, no, I guess it's about three years after I first started my divine spark within business. That didn't work too well. Right. And I recognize that a lot of my fear about signing up. If I took money out of the equation, I tended to myself and my body. And then of course, my guys, but more it was about what am I actually feeling here? Am I afraid of moving through my comfort zone? Or is it that it's misaligned? And so in that moment, I realized that it was really moving to my comfort zone, like I was afraid if money wasn't an object, would I show up for what I owe? Now I would actually have to speak if I do this program. Well, now we'll actually have to go on stages, I'll have to actually get up in front of people, my family will actually know about my spiritual work, if I get big, and I actually write a book, you know, like, how can I deal with that. And so I really did have to lean into filling that fear and then doing it anyways. And so to me, it's was an unfolding process that that was a big stake in the claim, a big investment. And then it continued to have me lean into my fears, and feel my fears and work through my fears, at different steps along my journey, for sure, in order to really just keep showing up for myself and not put other people's opinions or judgments, or fear of what their judgments might be above what it is, I knew in my heart, I was feeling called to do, just really getting that to that place of not needing other people's approval, in order to follow what I need to be right for me. And that was that took some time, you know, it's something that's, you know, an evolutionary day by day choice that I continued to choose. And, and my parents, you know, they don't, they don't, and I love what you said about you and your wife, too. It's like, when you had that internal fear and resistance, in some ways you are met with it. And that was sort of the same with me and my family, you know, they were raised very much in a Christian upbringing. So they, they were really afraid, at first about, oh, the devil is tricking you, or we know, whatever their religious programming was around it, like seriously, that was this way and I love my family, we're close. And so that was hard. And I think that kept me sort of wanting to keep it small and hidden and separate for a long time. But eventually, once I got okay with not having to meet their judgment with judging them or not having to need their approval, and I did that in our work on myself, it really dissolved. It's like, here we are, I see them all the time. Now my business is flourishing, and I'm not hiding it per se. But at the same time, it's you know, I don't feel Brandon Handley 19:42 like was, I'm not hiding it per se, like, what's that? I mean? Jen Gilchrist 19:47 No, I, we it's not like we're our topic of conversation. They know, this is my full time work for sure. 100%. But what I was, what I was gonna say is it's not like the topic of every dinner table conversation because it's not something that we relate on exactly, but it's an longer that before I was hiding it, right, which triggered this bubble of resistance. And as soon as I got over the need to hide it, and I just let that dissolve because it was okay, whatever their opinion, wasn't it, it didn't have to mean anything about me or our relationship, if they didn't approve, when I let that part go. I wasn't that without resistance from them anymore. I mean, it's not going to ever be something that's our favorite topic of choice, because it's not their interest, but it doesn't get in the way anymore. Does that make sense? Brandon Handley 20:32 Yeah, let's talk about to like, how, how does your business open up after you let go that, like, tell me a bit about that? Jen Gilchrist 20:42 Well, in so many ways, right? Because I think that fear of public speaking was a big one. Because, you know, then I began doing videos, I started learning, I learned that I love doing videos, I love teaching online. You know, I began to accept podcasts, interviews, you know, I allowed myself as soon as I got out of just trying to compartmentalize and control who knew what about what's in my life, as soon as I let myself just be more integrated, and I'll parts of me coming in, and all areas of my life and business. That's when opportunities started coming in. I wasn't blocking them anymore, through my fears. Instead, you know, opportunities of podcasts of speaking of, you know, teaching larger group programs, having higher exposures, more people showing up to my workshops, all of those things began to happen. When I began to shed my visibility fears, because that was literally cloaking me from the people that I was meant to serve. It might have stopped me from having people it didn't want to know about my business. I've got it. But it also stopped me from having my people find me. So now I can be seen at a much larger level and make a much bigger impact. For Brandon Handley 21:45 sure. No, and I asked that because similar process on this end, right. I had a spiritual kind of awakening scenario. And then I wanted to do, I wanted to share all that stuff out. But I wanted to, I did it by leveraging the, some what they want, give them what they need. So my first one was called, like, prosperity practice, right? Where it's like, let's talk about getting new money making successful there. But I knew like that I still wasn't sharing the truth of the message. And then, and I had, like, it was just kind of there was almost like this resistance that you're talking about, right? And there's just kind of like, some type of ethereal friction, as it were, right? And as soon as, as soon as I flipped over and a spiritual dope, like, it just opened up, right? Just like, and I was, like, you know what, I'm just gonna leave a spirituality. And I was like, but I also get, you know, my, when my wife told my inlaws, I was doing a podcast on spiritual I was like, What are you doing? Like, they don't care, they're not interested. And some other stuff opened up in there, but you know, so I get that part too. You know, we want to speak to our audience, right? We don't want to, we don't want to be in your you're talking about kind of being super empathetic, right? You take on energies very strongly. So surrounding yourself with people that are kind of aligned with your message, that's not really a benefit to you. Jen Gilchrist 23:24 Right, and it takes a little like I can relate with that part of your journey as well because you know, when I first started my business, and it's like, I realized okay, I gotta learn about marketing there's a whole learning curve about how to get in front of your people I mean, there's there's a whole learning curves are different from my other business for sure. And and I started trying to put myself in like figuring it out. And before you know it, my spirituality it was empowered women's leadership was like the next major iteration of my business, which was a safer version, oh, well, they can handle this and I can go to a network and that could be a sale and I wasn't trying to be fake it in ways that it felt aligned in what I taught with intuition and masculine and feminine energy and like how to how to be aligned but but my message but I got watered down in the process, trying to put myself into the square peg of marketing. Sometimes for scripture, entrepreneurs, especially your your message can start to get diluted and actually contorted in a way that isn't even sounding like what you do, even though it kind of is, you know what I mean? And so I spent my wheels quite a few years trying to figure that out because I wasn't going to own well actually, I listened to a lot of coaches that basically said, you can't lead with spirituality you can't lead with with straight transformation. You can't lead as a psychic or as a psychic teacher. And it's like I knew I was called to teach people to develop their intuition. Like that felt right to me. So I kept trying to find other ways to make it more adaptable to marketing standards. And it just didn't, it never worked until I switched and rebranded and just decided, you know, I don't care. I'm doing what feels totally good to me. And I'm just gonna start fresh and I've kind of tore that brand down rebranded, and fully started teaching, intuitive and psychic Development and everything flourished, you know, and it was just that little bit of marketing tweak that makes a difference. And I think, you know, there is a learning curve to it. But part of it was, I think, still me learning to own that final piece of just really owning that higher truth of who I was, and also not peddling other people's information above my own and saying, oh, you know, you're making you're making you're making an impact doing your souls work, I should listen to you. And in that process, you know, I spent a few years figuring out that that's not actually true. We do know, I think learning from others is great. But when you start to consciously abandon yourself a little bit in the process, trying to figure it out. That misalignment will show up in not creating the impact or money that you're that you're called for. Right? Brandon Handley 25:48 Yeah, no. So you've got to be your own authority. Right? You've got to be your own authority. And I think in that process, you were finding your voice you're finding, how do I express the truths of like, what's coming through me? And you had to go through those iterations? Right. I mean, I think that, you know, the people that came before us, like, if you tune into like some old Alan Watts stuff, right, you see, like, you know, there is like as kind of the teacher buttoned up in the beginning, because that's where he's accepted. But in the end, like there is as a shaggy, like beatnik smoking pipe guy, right? Like he turned into who he was. And he had to go through those iterations develop his voice in the same way like for you, you've got to go through. I mean, it's a process, you've got to develop and find the truth of who you are. Jen Gilchrist 26:39 I think in that process, yeah, it's like, to me, your spiritual work is like, you have your big dark night of soul, which is a big whammy for most people, whether it's health or relationships, or, in my case, a car accident, you know, it's like, boom, you have that kind of initial spiritual awakening that's jolting because you go from unconscious to conscious. But then like, to me, the building of my spiritual business is actually the biggest spiritual work I've done. Because you have to really dig into your own self worth your own feeling safe being seen your own, you know, confidence and certainty in your gifts. And like, you have to constantly move through that inner fear in order to step out of your comfort zone over and over again, to realize and manifest something that's an idea and to form. And so I have found it to be deep spiritual work to to build this business and a bit in a way, kind of beautiful, how it works out, right, it kind of forces us to keep aligning with ourselves in order to show up for who we're meant to be. Brandon Handley 27:33 know for sure. What would you say the scariest part of leaning into this space was for you? How did you overcome it? Jen Gilchrist 27:44 I think the scariest part, well, here's those two pieces, honestly, this the judgment of my family, I think the spiritual closet piece was a really, really big one initially, for sure, just because there's I didn't know any, but I didn't even know the word New Age, when until I was 32. Until this whole thing happened. Like I was in a bubble of what I was raised with, and my family, there were good, like, we have a great relationship, you know, it's not like I'm estranged from them. And that way, and so to disappoint and to see their fear and their shame, and like all of that was, you know, having to figure out how to move through that that kind of discipline, like when I felt like I was bringing them shame and pain and fear in that way, choosing what I was choosing, that I think was the hardest part was being okay with me and not needing their approval, and being willing to let them have their opinion and have their response, whatever that might be, in order to not betray myself. I think that took a lot of courage. And it took a period of time for me to actually move through that. And I would say that this honestly, the spiritual, you know, public speaking piece is part of that as well. Being sensitive, I didn't know I was highly sensitive or empathic. And a lot of my fear of public speaking was having to do with being very hyper aware of, you know, in high school, that deadpan stare, and all the judgments and you're like, Oh, they're all thinking these things, and you feel so self conscious, you know, and feeling and being hyper aware of that judgment. You know, it really does come down to just loving myself and not needing the approval of others, whether it's my family, or whether it's the people I'm speaking to a group that doesn't get it or, you know, whatever it might be, it's about me being okay with me. So I think that was the biggest, like, chunk of my journey. Brandon Handley 29:24 For sure. So I think somewhere along the journey, right, we come to learn that we are creators of our own lives, right? That we're kind of like a hunt that kind of we're we're 100% responsible for the life that we have. Talk to me about like just kind of stumbling on that for yourself and where that dawned on you and what you've done with that information. Jen Gilchrist 29:51 Yeah, I mean, of course, I think it started with you know, the initial some of the first books I read, you know, the, the secret the law of attraction, all those things kind of gave me a taste of it. And so I started recognizing and seeing the synchronicities, seeing sort of the the universe, how the universe gives us signs. And that way and for me, the angels, working with my spiritual support team, especially the archangels, was the one of the first things that came into my, into my awareness early on in my spiritual path. And so cultivating that connection and communication with that with my spiritual support team, and really just learning how to trust my intuition knowing that, you know, first of all, I think it's about being aware of seeing the signs that when things are working for you, or not working for you that there's an impact about how you're thinking and what your actions are taking, that are driving that reality. Right. So being able to take personal responsibility is a huge piece of it, for sure. But within that it was about how do I cultivate that communication and trust that I don't have to know the how right to me working with my spiritual team was so liberating, because I can have this really big vision and dream that I did that I saw was possible that I felt called to do, but no idea how to accomplish it. So knowing that I can just tap in and ask my angels and guides to support me in helping guide my path, helping to figure out what steps to take, as opposed to my mind trying to figure it out, really helped me feel more free and actually allowed me to, to go after bigger dreams, because I knew I didn't have to figure it out all on my own, I knew I was supported, I knew I just had to hold that vision, asked for the steps and then trust myself to take the Guided Action. And in that process, you will be in a completely different place in a very short period of time, you'll start to see the act, the reality that, that when you start to take action on this intuitive guidance is that you have whether you're just listening to your higher self to God to source to your angels, that line of communication is gonna guide you through. And so to me that taking those little steps is what, and cultivating that relationship. And knowing that I actually wasn't alone, which was interesting how that was part of our first message, you know, it's like leaning into that, that support. And knowing I was guided was the most powerful piece for me, I think when you Brandon Handley 32:01 and and so the spiritual support team, I love just kind of how you categorize that. When when you're talking I love I love you don't have to know thou, right. I'm a big fan. When I try to explain if I don't have to know the how, right you don't know, yeah. I struggle sharing that with other people who are in this space. How do you like to translate that into? I've never heard of the law of attraction. I've never seen the secret people. Jen Gilchrist 32:37 I think it's sometimes it's about surrender. So sometimes I'll speak to if simplicity is trying to control the House or control the situation or for something to happen, then it's to me, it's about well, leaning into that faith and surrender, learning how to let go and trust yourself. So let's see when it comes to not knowing the how I think most of the people that are attracted to me are definitely more on the blue side. Definitely one on the open spiritually slide. But really, it comes to talk about intuition, to me your intuition, and what I think sometimes surprises people because I do attract a lot of people who are new on their spiritual path and awakening that I do believe that we all have this aren't our gifts, right? Our intuition is simply the medium of our human self, being aware of our higher self or aware of our angels or of source, right, it's just the human awareness. It's the human communication, like the awareness of our communication between our higher self or spiritual support team. And so when you can start to play with that in the day to day, you know, I teach people just to start to take play with that and the day to day, how can you know, Guy help guide me? Angels guides, Higher Self source? You know, how can you help me align with my higher capacity I'm inviting you in and then invite them to just start to pay attention to what kind of nudges or feelings ideas or thoughts they get. And as they start to play with that, they'll start to see the evidence of that, oh, wow, I had this idea or thought, and I took action. And in that action, a miracle happened. That's so exciting, right? And so they start to see that. And as you start to build that little bit of cultivating that trust and faith in your day to day with the small things, when you're asked to make a big investment, like the $22,000 business investment, that wasn't my first time leaning into not knowing now, right? I did that by cultivating that on a daily basis by asking every day and figuring out what's the quickest way to get to, to the shopping mall, what's the what can I do in the little things, you know, and following and building that bridge in that and that trust muscle and that cultivation muscle of new recognizing the signs. And then when I'm asked to take bigger actions, I know that I can lean in and let go and I know that it's going to be supported. So that makes sense. So I started Brandon Handley 34:40 listening. So it's real similar, I think to what I expressed to a lot of people to write, you know, to start to trust your intuition. Right. Start to believe that you don't have to know the how and just see the vision of the whatever that you're trying to accomplish. And I'm looking for the evidence that that what you're looking for is kind of already there and coming to you. And I like that you talked about being open to miracles, right, like accept that there are miracles in your life and being open to them. So that's a, that's a great piece. And building building that muscle, right? I think that's really important. How you stated like, I didn't start with, I'm gonna go all in on 22k. I built my way up to that, right, like, because there's gonna be a lot of people that, you know, I certainly been involved in, kind of like a high pressure sales environment, right? Like, you really need to do this, like, you really need to back off. Right? Like, I mean, because I think that some people can get caught in the middle of this right in the middle of seeing the evidence being opened in a miracle, but not quite being ready. Right? So what you're talking about, grow into that space? Until, like, what you said earlier, too, is like, Am I in alignment or not? Right? Is this in alignment or not? And trust yourself there. Right? If Now's not the time, guess what? There's gonna be plenty of those moments open to you in the future, right? You're not going to miss out on kind of like your soul calling. Because you didn't invest in 22 Kids Day per se. Right, you know, but so that's what I think is really important, though, that you would up to that, right? Jen Gilchrist 36:35 Yeah, I think you do have to build that muscle. And that's kind of what I asked myself when I was trying to make that decision. At first, I'm like, Oh, my first money is the easy scapegoat. Right? Because it's right there. It's real. But I'm like, you know, I don't have the money in my mortgage payment, How I can't do it. And I thought, well, and I could feel that was kind of not all the stories I'm like, Well, if money wasn't the problem, what is underneath? Like, oh, I would be afraid would I even show up? For what if I invest in this? And I don't show up for it? Or what if I if I do show up for it. And then I gotta stand up there to make a fool of myself for you know, so I started getting into the fear of the reality was, was really coming more down to that fear of public speaking more than anything else, because I'd already learned and known that. I'm always guided, I'm always, you know, there's always I know, I've already seen the miracles happen. And so sometimes it does require us to just to look inside and be honest with ourself about, well, what is the fear that I'm allowing, you know, to hold me back from receiving this or blocking myself from having the opportunity for what it is that I'm asking for, you know, where is it that I'm not allowing myself to receive it, or where is there that I'm afraid of what how this might change my life, or my relationships, if I do, and you have to start to really address those in or, you know, be honest with yourself and really assess that because the more and more we get out of alignment, eventually, you just start to feel more loose and like the lack of fulfillment, we kind of got to at that point in our life, the more out of alignment we get, eventually, we can't suppress and numb and avoid that anymore, kind of snapped back until we just have to move forward. But we always have free will of choice, of course. But the more that we take actions against ourselves, the more miserable we'll be over. Right? And eventually, you just have to feel the fear and Brandon Handley 38:12 call the hero, right? Like, I mean, it's never gonna go away, it's gonna keep popping up, you're gonna keep saying No, put, it's gonna keep knocking on your door, right? And until you, you have two choices, right, you can keep pushing it away and numb out, right? Or you can kind of get into it and see where it takes you, which is, you know, sounds like kind of what you've done, and it's worked out. Jen Gilchrist 38:39 Yeah, and I think that another important thing to say, just because you mentioned this, too, it's true there every second, every moment of every time every day, we have an opportunity to realign so if we miss an opportunity, or we, or we don't say yes to something that was for us that could have propelled us forward, we can always align to something no matter how messed up your situation is, you can always align to a highest path again, we always have the opportunity. And the more that we say no to those things, the more that we push it off, the more that we push off our piece, the more that we push off our happiness, the more that we push off our prosperity and all those things so at a certain point, I think it's not necessarily guaranteed that we'll live our higher path and purpose that's an opportunity available but we have to meet it ASHRAE we have to choose it and if we don't choose it then it will always be in the future Brandon Handley 39:25 no 100% You know, Jen Gilchrist 39:26 so there's kind of that balance there and not beating ourselves up for what the past but also realizing the more we push it off the the longer we prolong the longer Brandon Handley 39:34 you stay where you're at, right yeah. Who is like your ideal client? Like who's to be reached out to you Jen, like, what do you like? Somebody calls you Who do you want to hear from like, what lights you like? Jen Gilchrist 39:51 I love supporting people who are willing and who are willing to do the work who who. So people that come to me are usually sent highly sensitive, empathic people who have gone through a level of spiritual awake thing, who are ready to go in and say, You know what I know that I can consciously create the life of desire, I know, I feel the soul's calling inside of me, and I'm ready to move through those fears and doubts and blocks within me. And I'm no longer willing to have those things stop me and I'm ready to push up my sleeves and do that in our work, so that I can align with my best life so that I can fulfill on my life's purpose. And so I can really make that impact that I feel called to do. Because I believe that I'm here to support and really equip those who know they're here to make an impact in the world with the confidence and the courage and really awaken their gifts so that they can go out and make that ripple effect of healing and change with their unique gifts, as well. And so I'm ready to empower those people who have a calling, but need a little bit of support, maybe getting aligned with that, and the confidence and the trust in their spiritual gifts in order to make that happen. Brandon Handley 40:46 It's hard, right? Especially like you found if you don't have somebody else around you that's already in that space, right to support you and going forward. So having somebody like you when you know, that person is ready, and they feel like they're ready. Is there anybody you stop? Like, and you say, You know what, you're just not ready, like, how do you know that that person is ready? How's that go? Jen Gilchrist 41:14 I mean, usually we'll have usually within a few conversations, you can start to see if they're blaming, you know, I think when people are willing to accept responsibility for their life and for their situation that I know that they're able to learn the skill set, because I can teach people the skill sets of how to do the shadow work, how to actually dig in, you know, I teach tools and processes and support you, I'll support you. And I teach you tools and processes to forevermore support yourself and your future clients, perhaps if you feel called to clear those root patterns to clear those fears and blocks at the core cause that are stopping you. Right, I can teach you how to do that. If you're willing to accept responsibility and want to actually implement those things. And so for me, it's usually in the languaging of, of if they're ready to, to kind of dig into that and feel the fears and look at what's actually going on within and be honest and want to move forward. So if I have that desire, I feel we can work together because mostly I work in group program settings at this point. I'm not doing one on one work. But and that's powerful too, because like you mentioned, most people, a lot of people I would say majority that come in don't have a large network of people that understand what's happened, you know, they've gone through this awakening, and so their old life or their old, or the people that are most around them may not fully get it. And so one of the hidden blessings that comes from the the communities and the programs that I share is that they create life meal soul family, you know, they have friends, they have people that they can come in and celebrate these miracles with the other people might kind of go, oh, that's a coincidence, or you're crazy, or that's a little weird, you know, no, they can come in and they can celebrate these things so that they don't get stuck in their head about it. And so they can feel seen and validated. And and so that people can hold that vision that you know what you are capable that is possible for you. And I think having that network of community support is pretty essential. Because most of us feel like the lone wolf in our family, we often feel like the odd man in charge we kind of are the ones who are chained breaking the patterns of comfort zones of those around us. And so having other people understand that journey, I think is self healing and of itself and also resolving the competition, right when you can be with people who want to celebrate you and that you have permission to celebrate yourself in front of I think all of those things, cultivate so much within you in terms of a healing and a confidence level that you will keep moving forward because it's not easy to live that life. It's not easy to was I could have stayed with my 15 Hour Workweek six figure business, you know, not working very hard in my business. But no, I felt the calling to move forward. Right. But it wasn't the easier path that's for sure. And so I think you need to have those people around you because there's going to be days that are easier than others and some days they're going to be harder. And so I think knowing that you have that support key to going forward Brandon Handley 44:00 100% definitely makes it easier what I'm going for you but what's Yeah, that's what it was the extra stuff like what's an exercise right that like you'd like to start people off with or you know, kind of get them in tune with themselves? Jen Gilchrist 44:22 Well, I have a couple that are coming to mind. First thing I think having the intention to thing with free will of choice. So if you're open if people are open to I always suggest asking you know, stepping in so our angels and our guides, right and even just making that agreement with your higher self right you're kind of setting yourself up for the beginning of the day that you're hey this is my intention. So setting the intention asking you have to invite in that spiritual support because we do have free will of choice. So asking you know, hey, help me see help me show me loud clear signs I can easily understand to either align with my higher path today or live my purpose or to whatever your intention is inviting and your angels your guides. And making that intention with yourself, I think is important. Because then you can start to, you'll start to trigger the synchronicities to happen, and will start to train you into being aware of all of the miracles and opportunities that are around you every second of every day, if we can just be present see them. So to me, a small meditation practice, even 10 minutes in the morning is going to be an imperative piece of that, right, some kind of tuning into your body, your breath, which I can give a short guided one for that as well. And then asking your spiritual support team, your angels, your guides, your higher self to be invited in to actually guide you throughout your day and start to notice what happens that that right there can be a very powerful way to begin to cultivate that communication and to start to instigate those synchronicities and to start to gain the inspiration, the ideas that you're being called to take in order to have that vision come to fruition. So that's the main thing. Yeah. And then a quick meditation I suggest people to do is that TLC meditation, that might be something I could quickly share, and I can actually even get, I can also give a short, free guided, you know, one for them to appreciate the concept. Brandon Handley 46:13 So there was definitely appreciate the audience definitely appreciate that. For sure. Thank you. Jen Gilchrist 46:17 Yeah, well, the TLC, because I know a lot of people I don't know, this is me. And I think a lot of people when you first start meditating, like I can't meditate my head, my mind is going like I think there's just no way you know, it's like, trust me is try you know, but the T just stands for talk to your body. So you know, just closing your eyes and being deep into your, into your body into your breasts. And just remembering that you just follow the process, you take those nice deep breaths, it starts to give your mind somewhere to focus, so that you're not trying to just clear your thoughts altogether, right, you want to give yourself something to focus on in your body is always in the present moment. And so that's one way to start to just bring that awareness to your breath, and your body. And so, in, for instance, if you're hitting anything, really could use this in many ways, but maybe you're feeling like you're procrastinating on a project. And you're like, why I keep procrastinating? Well, you can ask your body, right tune in and just say, okay, so talk to your body as well. Where's this procrastination? Or where's this anxiety? In my body? Right now? Where's this core of this in my body? And then you just start to notice and you'll be present with feeling? Is there a constriction? Is there an area? Do you have an idea or a vision? Like, where is it in your body, that you're actually feeling the core of this anxiety? And then you can start to ask, you know, well, what is? What is this trying to tell me? Right? What is it that I can do in order to be in alignment with peace, maybe that's what you want to bring in. And then you have to listen. So the L stands for listening. And so that's when you just get quiet and present and be open to what ideas, thoughts or visions might be coming to you in that moment. Even just placing your hands on that area, like if you notice, I feel tension in my neck, that starts to give awareness and presence to something you've been ignoring within your field. And it will start to give that that part of yourself that stuck energy that that emotion or whatever it is, that's that's there, that's kind of calling your attention to that moment as a block, it'll start to allow it to begin to dissipate. So then once you listen, you know what, what next step can I take, start training yourself into asking this open ended questions to be aligned or to be at peace right now. And then you just notice is that a glass of water is that taking a walk, what small little vision thoughts or ideas are coming to you, because often, it's just in those small little things that will start to bring you back into that alignment that will change the course of actions and mindset that you'll have for the day. And so then c is commit to those guided actions. So I kind of like the acronym TLC, right? It's easy to remember. But it's also just kind of bringing that awareness to first you have to ask, then you have to quiet and listen. And then you have to commit to taking the action. And if you start practicing a quick meditation like that, you'll start to cultivate the awareness that you may have been overlooking previously, because your intuition speaks to you much more quietly than your ego or your mind, right? We have to get up present enough to actually recognize those signs. Brandon Handley 49:17 For sure. Now's a great, that's a great meditation. I love it. You know, tuning in getting quiet, following your breath. And not just having those kinds of epiphanies, but you know, actually taking action on them, right? loves the idea to commit to it. I've got this idea, and I'm actually gonna do something with it. And I think that that's pretty cool. I enjoy that. Well, thanks for sharing that. I've got a little section here that I basically think of this podcast is called like spiritual speed dating. Right? Like somebody's gonna tune in today and they've had enough of me, and they're moving on, and they could be moving on to like you Jan right. Like, you know, so if you're open to it, I got a couple of questions I'd like to ask you. Sure. So I like to say spiritual Bachelorette number one, how does one obtain true peace? Jen Gilchrist 50:17 Truth peace. I believe true peace comes from being in the present, you know, when we're when we're not to me, when you're not in peace, your mind is thinking either usually into the future worrying about something that hasn't happened. Or it's in the past, ruminating, feeling guilty, resentful, or frustrated with something that's happened in the past that you wish you could do differently or you're angry about. And so both of those kind of steal your joy and steal your peace. So for me being about peace is about getting into that present moment getting out of resistance to what is having acceptance of what is. So taking those, you know, calming breaths could be one way, but then just being in that space of accepting of what is that's the first step of being able to change your situation, when we can accept what is and not full responsibility, it allows us to now begin to take new action that will liberate us long term. Does that make sense? So it's about kind of really being present, being surrendered? Being in acceptance, and just asking, you know, what is it that I can do today to feel more at peace or to be more aligned with myself so that I can experience more joy, more joy, and start taking those, you know, quick, day to day habits will start to shift things a lot Brandon Handley 51:28 less, I think that as it pertains to what you've already talked about, you know, set the expectation that joy could show up, right, the peace can show up and start again, seeing the evidence and be open to miracles. Like if you've never felt that peace before, and you feel it just for a moment, that could be a miracle in your own life. Jen Gilchrist 51:51 Gratitude journaling is kind of under looked at sometimes I think that's one of the quickest, very quick way, if you're feeling down in the dumps about something, or you're feeling overwhelmed, you know, doing a gratitude list of just rampaging out a bunch of everything you can be grateful for the first time somebody told me this literally, the only things I could think of was, I'm grateful for my mom, my family, my daughter, my dog and my house, like I was in the dumps, I could not that like, literally, that was my list. And she's like, You know what, put, I'm grateful for myself, I'm grateful for you your name on the top of that list. And then every day, I would start adding to my list. And then I started reading the whole thing, and then I'd add some more things. And before you know it, I was like, wow, I have a lot to be grateful for. And that really starts to shift and your energy and your happiness. And it allows you to start to attract a lot more miracles and a lot more Brandon Handley 52:42 like it. It's like you've got a coral reef of gratitude. Right? As far as I've ever heard of expanding on the list, so I like that's good concept. Um, doo doo doo doo. One more, one more. What is your one wish for the world. Jen Gilchrist 53:07 I wish everybody to just know that they are conscious creators, that they are powerful beings that can create the life that they desire, I want them to just know that they do not have to stay stuck in situations that do not serve them that do not make them happy that they absolutely have the power to create a life they Brandon Handley 53:22 love. So I think this is one of the one that I agree. But it's also tough to share with people, right? Who haven't stepped into that space. Right? Who haven't kind of seen evidence because you're gonna be like, well, what am I God? Right? You know, I'm just gonna just manifest Brandon. Right? You know? So how do you, you know, take that to the next level, what are some steps somebody can do to start to see that for themselves. Jen Gilchrist 53:57 I think first you have to have the awareness and the desire and then it has to be present the awareness and the desire to change the situation. To me personal responsibility has a lot to do with it. And it doesn't ever mean that we are accepting bad behavior from others, it doesn't mean that, you know, we deserved to whatever sickness or bad thing that might have happened our life, whatever we're at, it's about just acceptance and self responsibility of, of that awareness. Like I choose to have things differently, I'm going to be present with what is and I'm gonna second responsibility for my part within it. So that way, to me, that's the first step of the creation process, that's that's clearing the space for you to be able to start to want something different and it's just about, you know, getting to the bottom of knowing that you deserve more a lot of times, you know, realizing that, that you do deserve more and that more is available to you. So I think for me, it just people have to be aware and open to it agree to set that precedence and then taking that responsibility to know that if I can say okay, what is my part within it? It's not to say that something was okay if there was a wrongdoing, but it's about to say, how can I get underneath at this root cause of like, Why did I allow that? Why did I allow that kind of behavior in my job or relationship? Why is, you know, hmm, that's interesting. Well, now I choose that I have more self worth, I choose to have a boundary, right, I'm choosing to not make a new decision. And those little steps will very quickly start to empower a person to realizing that they don't have to keep their past does not have to dictate their future, if we don't allow it. So it's kind of like creating that clean slate pivot, when we can do that, Brandon Handley 55:35 like that, right, you know, kind of breaking away from your default mode network of thinking and start to make these conscious choices and decisions and taking that 100% responsibility for yourself and seeing how that begins to change your life. Right. It's so powerful. So thanks for sharing that I liked I liked it walkthrough that. You mentioned, you had something that you would like to give to the audience. What was that? Jen Gilchrist 56:06 Oh, yes, definitely. So I have I have the masterclass series for those that this is resonating with, I think you're really gonna love it, there's probably over six hours worth of content and video training. It's a masterclass series that starts to teach you, there's four days, and it teaches you about how to communicate how your intuition works, how to communicate with your spiritual team, how to start to actually cultivate that and bring that now each day I'll give practical implementable exercise exercises that you can bring into your life to start to work with your spirit team to recognize your intuition. And then I teach you some healing tools as well as that TLC body meditation I spoke up like how can I start to get present? How can I start to now move that energy that might be stuck, maybe old emotions, or fears or doubts that are holding me back. And then I'd get a little bit deeper into how to how to utilize your intuition as a way to guide your life. So it starts to move you into being able to have the confidence and courage to take action on your intuitive guidance. And then there's a lot of healing. So each day, there's also healing work around clearing your fears and doubts around around things that we talked about today, the confidence and trust of your intuition, you're coming out of the spiritual closet, those types of things often come up as well as a lot of tools for the highly sensitive empathic person to not absorb everybody else's energy around them, which is ultimately what led me to my burnout. And I did show it. So I think it's in that series people walk away. I've had, you know, hundreds 1000s Actually, of comments, when I've run this live from people who have just taken, you know, big life changes for themselves away from this series. And so I'm excited to extend that to all of you there is that meditation that I spoke of as well, that daily practice that I think that they will enjoy. Brandon Handley 57:47 Megan, find that on your website. Jen Gilchrist 57:51 Yes, I can give you the link for that. It's soul success. unleashed.com is my website. But I think I would have to give you in the show notes, Brandon Handley 58:01 the meditations and the course on the master class. Thank you so much, Jen, thanks for being on today. Really enjoyed ourselves today. Jen Gilchrist 58:12 Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure, and I'm super excited to connect with your audience. Bye for now. I Intro Guy 58:18 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram at spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email to Brandon at spiritual dough.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This i

Katische is an Intuitive Sound Healer (Certified) and Past Life Regression Therapist. Katische discovered the power of sound as a new modality for past life regression. Why simply lie on a couch, feeling anxious about your ability to go into hypnosis, when you can relax at home, with a set of headphones in your ears, and be transported to another time and place, thanks to the use of specific sound healing instruments, and the hypnotic voice of Katische. Katische is a skilled intuitive sound healer, who uses vibrational aromatherapy, to help you relax and take advantage of all of your cares. https://katische.com/about-katische Welcome to the show. 0:00 What's coming through to you right now? 1:21 The practice of “Don't check your phone”. 6:33 Singing bowls as a healing tool. 12:16 Perimenopause and menopause. 17:07 How the sound journey has led him to where he is today. 24:37 What is the eternal mind? What is akashic records? 30:15 What does past life look like in past life? 37:01 When is war justifiable and when is it not? 43:00 What happens after you die depends upon your beliefs. 49:28 The importance of being honest with yourself. Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited? Thought Process? Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already no inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question some time for another spiritual with your host, Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:43 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with cuttlefish haverfield, she helps old soul Starseeds and Lightworkers to break free of current behaviors and limiting beliefs impact and their potential and sole purpose. See access accesses the sub and superconscious mind across all lifetimes has happened to him break the patterns, beliefs, the words broken in half the powers beliefs and karmic vows that are holding you back so that you can live life according to your soul's desires, not your ego, or your karmic paths. Teach how are you it's been you know, we connected a while ago, so great to reconnect. Katische 1:21 It's great to reconnect with you too. I'm great. Thank you very well. Brandon Handley 1:25 Awesome. So teach, I like to start us off with the whole idea that you and I we're we're vessels for cosmic spiritual, universal energy, whatever you want to call it. Something's always coming through to us, for somebody else's kind of like higher and best good, right? So in that vein, what's coming through you right now, this time that's coming through for one of our listeners, highest and best good. Katische 1:56 So right now we're in a fairly intense emotional period. So today, I had to clear my energy before we we came on to this podcast, because right now, we've got Saturn in retrograde for all those astrologers out there. And when Saturn goes into retrograde, it is time to deal with karma, and karmic patterns. And right now, it is a really good time until October, to look at how you're behaving and interacting with other people in the world because it's coming up for healing. So that's something to really look into at the moment is, right now this morning, if you are triggered by somebody, you kid annoyed you friend, a teacher, or a colleague or client, that's actually not about them at all. It's about you. And it's to do with the timing right now. So take a deep breath, go and do meditation, sit down, have a cup of tea. It's so cool. It's all good. It's just ready, ready and ripe. Ready, right for healing and for a little bit of introspection. Brandon Handley 2:57 And that's that's the healing and the time period. We're good to do that all the way up top to over is that what you're saying? Katische 3:05 It's gonna be where Adam retrograde and straight into Saturn retrograde. Brandon Handley 3:09 Just straight up to shenanigans. I'll tell you I was absolutely irritated this morning with with people and things. So this, it's good to know that it's me. And always. Right, right. And I think that that's super important to know. And so, you know, just off the bat you because he said it clears your energy. How did you do that? Like, what's your process for cleaning your energy before you hopped on here today, and thanks for thanks for taking that extra time. Katische 3:42 I sat on the couch and I had a cup of tea. And I went onto YouTube my TVs connected to the internet, you know Smart TV things that we didn't have when we were a kid. But now Now it's just like old hat technology. And I looked for a sound healing. So I looked for a one of the 10 billion channels that I subscribe to that are different hertz of sound, blended with beautiful imagery, that I could just sit there and shoot into the sound and accept the healing of the music. And then that matches and changes my vibration. So basically swaddled me with love. And then says right, let's do whatever you want to do. I just wanted to come and relax. So I listened to the music. And then the sun came in and I moved my face to the exact location of the sun, close my eyes and then when I close my eyes, I see a multitude of colors. So my third eye becomes active and then I receive in the angelic healing from the team that I work with. And that's how I clear my energy. Brandon Handley 4:47 That's great. I'd love to hear that. What was that? I mean, did you was there multiple frequencies and Hertz right of hertz frequencies that you chose today or did you land on one that was like I need to clear XYZ and NGL Katische 5:01 um, a lot of the times I will look for specific hurts, but these days, they that you know how YouTube shows you the same thing over and over again that it predicts your behavior. So I tend to get a couple of different frequencies come up, over and over again. And those are generally to do with a heart chakra. So healing the heart and making yourself feel a lot calmer, off the top of my head, I couldn't tell you what they were. But this, you know, for 28 hurts comes up a lot. And it's about the feeling that I want to obtain. So this morning, I was I wanted to come and center myself, I wanted to remove the agitation that I was feeling from, you know, the triggers that I had been triggered by because I hadn't set my energetic boundaries at the start of the day. So usually, when I wake up, I set my energetic boundaries, and I don't look at my phone or do anything business related or world related until I've got myself organized. This morning, the first thing I did, for some unknown reason was checked a message on my phone, and boom, that person was having a bad moment I reacted. And you know, you're like, Oh, why did you do that? So yeah, it's just coming back to the Hey, you have to come first. You have to get energy ready and grounded for the day. Otherwise, everything that everyone else is feeling is gonna set you off. And I know that because I'm just very empathic, empathetic and very energy sensitive. So I pick up on other people's feelings. Brandon Handley 6:33 Well, sure, listen, and I think that's an awesome practice. It's one that I think I've been doing for not your whole routine, your whole team. Sounds great, right? I have no energetic boundaries set that I know of. So that that piece sounds really interesting. The piece I'm very familiar with is don't like the first. Don't check your phone. First thing in the morning, right? Don't check your phone, give yourself dedicated. I tend to give myself around an hour in the morning, right, where I dedicate it to breathwork doing a meditation, journaling, reading something that is, you know, kind of timeless and helpful. The last thing I want to do even like if I see texts, like notifications, I'm like, No, I don't, or the news, or like Facebook or any of that stuff. You know, I'll get to that. But like you're saying your energy and I'm not empathetic. So I can only imagine that I'm terrible. But like, I just like, I can only imagine the kind of energy drain or the distraction that it can cause somebody who's hypersensitive, like you're saying, You are to like all these energies out there. Like, I'm like, It's like a It's just a disruption. That totally unnecessary. So low. I love that. So, you know, Tish and I, we got together today to talk about one thing. And it's things have changed in your life, right? Since then, and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. You came on, as, you know, sound integrative healer, but your path has changed since then. So let's talk a little bit about the sound a little bit about the science behind that and where it's taken you and what you're what it is that you're doing now. Katische 8:21 Oh, okay. So yes, when we touch base, I had trained as an intuitive sound healer, through the modalities of the crystal singing bowls. So what happened for me was that in COVID, the first time around, you know, back in 2020 Feels like a long time ago now, when everything shut down. I was like, Ooh, what are we gonna do now? You know, like, and I was drawn to Crystal Singh boss, I had received a sound healing prior to sound healings, that I had resonated with and had really impacted me on a physical body level. So I had been privileged to be at a an event, which is for something totally different. They brought in a beautiful relaxing session with the sound healer, who played the didgeridoo, which is just just amazing. I love the didgeridoo, and a whole bunch of other First Nations, we call them now in Australia, First Nations musical instruments. And he had the symbols as well. And I had some issues with female hormones at that time. And it cleared that issue for me instantaneously, like within 12 hours, something that I've been struggling with for months, and I was like, hold on a second here. This is interesting. And generally, for me, I'm a very curious person when I get that hold on a second. I'm also a really big academic geek and I just go right throw me in. And so I was like, okay, my body really, really resonates with sound. Let me find out a little bit more about it. Why why do I I, why do I respond so well to this. And so I just went on on the internet as you do. And I found an institute in the UK who basically have sound healing training, and all the different instruments that you like. And I went well, I liked the singing bowls, they're pretty. And I find them very relaxing. So let me go and study them. And what it did was it taught you the basics of science behind sound to understand basically what you're talking about, so that you could understand how something that you can't see can actually heal the body. And I guess it's we're so used to, prior to doing sound healing, I worked with essential oils quite intensively. And I understand how aroma works with the body. You know, I studied the science behind the aromatics in the body in terms of the olfactory system and the limbic system. And so I was like, Cool, I get how my nose and my ears and my throat work to inhale aromas which then can heal me. So if my brain could grapple with and understand an aroma, which is essentially invisible as well smell, then the next step for me was to understand auditory healing and go Well, it's the same passageway that makes sense. I'm listening, I'm not doing anything actively. I'm just receiving, how does that work. And what I learned in the sound healing was that, for me, in particular, and I realized that for other people in particular, the sound really worked with calming and grounding people. So at that time, and COVID, obviously, everybody's on heightened alert. Our nervous systems are kind of really like a really tightly strung violin, and the singing bowls, which look like this crystal thing that shouldn't be grounding and calming. If you knew which singing bowl, which musical note, the singing bowl was tuned to create it for, you could actually really do some wonders for your nervous system by grounding and calming yourself. So for example, I have a singing bowl, and it is attuned to the Root Chakra. And so it's my biggest thing in football, and it makes the deepest sound. And I have never been a student of music in this lifetime. I'm not the person that can actually even read musical notes. I mean, I did piano until grade 10, and grade 10. But I was one that kid that always had to write the notes on top of the lines, do you remember this is a so we and I played percussion as well. But again, I was that kid that wanted to play the musical instruments that had no understanding of what I called the gifted kids did you know I wasn't good at math and science. And so it wasn't part of my brain that I tuned into. But I knew I really liked it. And for me, when we get into this, the science of sound healing it was, I read something, it makes instantaneous sense to me. And then it goes out one year. I forget it from a technical perspective, but I'll just go and do it. Which is totally different to way the kids my kids operate. For example, they my son is learning about sound waves in science at the moment. We just discussed this last night. And he's very much on the specifics, the details. And he remembers all the fun stuff. Whereas I'm like, Well, I know that I need this singing bowl, and it makes me feel this way. And I know that aligns with this chakra. And don't ask me what frequency it is. Because I remember that I wrote down in my notes, and I studied it. But that's superfluous. I'm here to use it as a tool. And so I studied the singing bowls and learn how to use them properly, what the hygiene is how to center your energy. And then I came to the pathway, which was at the end of the course, do you want to be a person who puts a singing bowl physically on a person? Like imagine a massage table? You can take the same balls to a practitioner level where you use them, like an acupuncturist would use them or Hearthstone massage therapist and you place them around the body and on the body. And you do a physical form of healing. And I was like, you know, when I started this course, I thought maybe that would be pretty cool. But we've had a year of COVID now and I'm like there aren't going to be people going to massage therapy rooms right so I was like That seems pretty, pretty high risk strategy for where we are in the world right now. What do I what do I feel more called to do with their singing bowls? And for me, the first calling was there has to be a lot of people who are stressed at the moment that could benefit with just relaxing with the singing bowls. You know, it's really like no matter how stressed you are, if you lay down put us have headphones on or be in a room with someone with a singing bowl. You know, you're out cold before, you know, like it just does have this amazing ability to relax the body. So I went down that path. And as I began to play and use the bowls more and trust my intuition more and see other instruments that really resonated with me like simple, simple instruments like a shaker and the coffee time, then I learned that I could take people on shamanic journeys, like I can do shamanic journeys, what are you talking about? Well, I took people, I knew very instantaneously that I could take people into their subconscious mind, and take them on actual journeys to clear, stuck emotion. So I knew how to clear stuck in motion on the physical body. But when I started to experiment more and more work more and more with the symbols, I learned how sound not only removes pain in the body, but it's actually the most amazing miracle worker when you're working with it at an emotional level. And so I started to help people doing via zoom, having these beautiful sessions where they would just put on the headphones, listen to me play the bowls, and I would take them on a shamanic style journey where we went into the subconscious mind. And we worked on self love, we worked on grief, and any of the emotions that they faced, then what happened was that I went, Oh, that's pretty easy to get into subconscious mind. But I want to go further than that, I've got a hunch that I can actually go at a deeper level. Because I'm quite an impatient person. I was like, I don't want to heal them just at this level, I want to go deeper. I've got a lot of Scorpio in my chart. So I'm like, let's just dig deep. And let's get messy. And let's bring it all up. And that's when I realized that I could actually take people into past lives, and that I've always been able to do that and have done so over very, very many, many lifetimes. So that's the journey progressed. Brandon Handley 17:06 Awesome. And so let's let's just pause there for a second, right? Because one of the things even if I head over to your website, and this is today, I don't know if you're gonna change it. And by the next time somebody gets there, but one of the things that you talked about that I think that you're talking about today is the the pair perimenopause thing, right, like, where you've gone through that, and you're having that situation, is that what the sound healing helped to alleviate some of the symptoms that you're having in France? Isn't that yeah, Katische 17:36 that was the original thing. Yeah. So I had, I had very permanent post changed everything for me, because my hormones changed, which changed my physical body changed my emotions. It gave me panic attacks. And it gave me uncontrollable bleeding for women. And the sound stopped the bleeding. Brandon Handley 17:59 The sound stopped. That's awesome. Yeah. And the reason I tuned into that, just to see where my wife's having her own experiences, right, and I thought that was really interesting for that to pop up in your journey as as it's kind of happening here. And I wasn't seeking anything out like that. But, you know, as her symptoms vary, I think, you know, in comparison, but what do you recall? Right? Do you recall the sounds and whatnot, that that you experienced? What was that time for healing? And even walking into it? I would ask you, were you going in there optimistic? Were you going in there looking to have that healed? Are we just going in there to have an experience to see what the sound was gonna do? And lo and behold, the sound clears this out. Katische 18:47 So, for me there's two components to this. So perimenopause and menopause, because I used to teach on this. This is what led before the into the next phase of my life. perimenopause is a spiritual awakening actually, for women. It's a physical awakening and an emotional change. But it's actually a very important spiritual awakening time for women. Symbolically, it's the time when obviously your bleeding changes, you become less able to get pregnant. So eventually you stop being able to have children and this transition from being a caregiver and Creator of life, to the creative phase of your life where you then tap into your spiritual wisdom. And the physical symptoms that you have in your body during perimenopause and menopause are going to mimic things that your mind is struggling with. Okay, so if your throat if you start having thyroid issues, you're not speaking your truth. Okay, if you start having digestive issues, you're not digesting life properly. Anything to do with the womb is creative issues. You're not allowing your creativity out. mental fog and clarity is another big one. hot flushes is to do with anger, anger is represented in sweat. Yeah. So I started teaching people, I did it for a couple of years about all the symptoms. But I got frustrated because women just wanted a tablet, or a one stop solution to stop it. And so where it happened with me was, basically my body said, I'm gonna give you this intense experience, right? So I'm gonna make you really dig down deep and dirty with what's happening with your body. So like, excuse me to all that people out there who aren't comfortable with blood, but I bled non stop for three months. Okay, and we're not talking a little bit, we're talking, just catastrophic bleed, where a lot of people would have gone and probably got a hysterectomy. Yeah. And I was like, this message here is for me to get really deep down and dirty with with myself as a woman, like I was disgusted by it. And I had to get really comfortable with what it represented to me. I had to really get past that. Inconvenience that anger, though, why me? Why can I fix this? Why is nothing working? What is the message behind this for me? And it was when I then went to that, that workshop, which was for essential oils, that they had the sound healing session, that I was like, No. Having to leave the room very frequently to deal with myself. And then I did that session, and then that's when I got a break in the bleeding. It just stopped the next day, after three months, and that's where I was like, Well, okay, yeah, Brandon Handley 21:41 yeah, that's, that's a lot, right? That must have been like, so relieving, first of all, right? Like, just be like, like, thank you, for the love of God, it's been A River Runs Through It, you know, enough, right? And I can only imagine, like, you know, like, you're saying, I think most people are gonna go to a doctor or something. Because anything that lasts longer than the norm, we feel should require some type of medical attention. And we don't trust our bodies, we don't trust our intuition. We don't trust ourselves. We've allowed ourselves to kind of fall prey to authority outside of us. And it sounds like, you know, you took hold of you became, and you maintained your own authority over yourself. I think that's pretty cool. So you had this auditory experience that that help? Did it stop after that after the experience? Katische 22:39 Yeah, and so it was fine for several months, and then it started again, and then reinvestigated and went deeper. And so for me, the change point was that it was a sign all the things that I got, you know, I had to stop drinking alcohol, because I would have want to step back one bit for two seconds, I trained in the wine industry. So I worked in the wine industry for many degrees in in wine marketing. So why would make me instantaneously angry and dripping wet, right, I was like, Well, this is not this is a joke, right? Supposed to relax you and then so I had to cut out alcohol completely. So much, so that even, you know, lose lots of botanical, non alcoholic gins and drinks coming out. And I tried those, but because I had strong audit, sensory training, even the smell of the botanical gins that were non alcoholic would send my body into hot flushes, because it knew the smell that was associated memory, or wine, so too strong. So I cut alcohol out. And when I went to the next layer, I went, I realized the spiritual connection. And it was like, this is the time when you need to do what you're actually come here for. And you need to stop beating yourself up about all these multiple careers that you've had that have never gone anywhere, and realize that they're all stepping stones for each other. And we're trying to lead you on this path. And you just need to trust yourself to follow the things now that absolutely don't make sense. That certainly don't make sense financially, your mother won't understand your kids won't understand them. But you just need to go with it and see where it leads. And know that it's going to keep morphing and changing and you won't understand it but with each thing that you try a new layer of yourself is going to unfold and learn more about yourself and your body and your knowledge and then somewhere something is going to click in and that's what happened for me is that it's that constant morphing, you know, right? So, Brandon Handley 24:37 so, yeah, the, you know, this journey that you're talking about. And I also want to toss something else out there just for the people listening that aren't familiar with you, like you got the wind back on and you're talking about all these other backgrounds that you had, you know, you were I think working during like kind of the.com era and during that era you were working 50 originally name of the company, but I know that it's since become Accenture. And it's funny because I picked up the line and you said high risk strategy and just totally made me think of you and like the consulting industry, right. But, you know, so for those that aren't aware, that's a significant firm to be a part of, right. And so that's why it's, you know, people such as yourself to come out of there, there's, they're very intelligent, you're motivated, you know, how to fix things, and you've got an eye and it sounds like, you've also got this, this passion, to take things to such a deep level that like, you know, when when you pick up on something like it sounds, the healing the things that are working for you, you want to dive deeper into them, do them. And then, as it turns out, right, that's just as you're saying, a stepping stone into your next place. And so you've taken your sound healing, you've taken this journey, you're now past the sound. Sound only, right? Because you're still using some sound in what it is that you do, because it does work. It does work. You know, like you said, there are these words for calling people, you've got stuff that you know, works with specific chakras, or like you said, just areas of the body you can use like acupuncture. But now like, you're doing something new, right? And talk to us a little bit about where the sound journey and this overall journey has led you to and what it is that you're doing right now. Katische 26:33 Yes, so to acknowledge that, yes, I started out life as a management consultant. I used to wear pinstripe suits every day, you know, I wanted to be a CEO and go to New York and never come back to long way from where I am now. And what I've learned in this journey is just to trust myself, piece by piece, you know, like literally a half an hour by half an hour. And to learn that even though it doesn't make sense logically, if I can't spreadsheet it, planet, analyze it, it's okay, it's still gonna be fine. And it will all work out in the end. So the sound was really important in getting me to trust and to tap into the spiritual world as well. So once I accessed using the singing bowls, I could tap into my connection to the angels. And so because I knew that the singing bowls were so wonderful for relaxing people, you know, in hypnotherapy, if you think of a classical hypnotist, it's a kind of a cold, cold clinical situation when you're sitting on a couch. And you either gotta have, you know, like the old fashioned movie pendulum, or something to stare at, or you just listen to the voice. And most of the time, people freak out, because they're like, I'm not relaxing enough, I don't, I don't know, if I'm really relaxed enough to trust this hypnotist to go into my memory to to find the root cause event that's been stressing me or why I'm feeling this way or whatever. When you add sound into a situation like that, what happens is that your ego self just kind of goes to the left and says, Whoa, man, it's this, this crystal singing bowl stuff, it's, you know, it's relaxing me I'm trying to find it, but I can't. And I found as a tool, it really, really helps make people feel comfortable. It really takes them deeper into a trance state, so that they can get their ego mind out of the way. And then we can look at healing them healing memories and emotions and things that are bothering them either at the subconscious or the superconscious level. So for me, sound was the thing that could help me take my clients into a really deep state. So I learned first of all, that I could take them to access memories and events from this lifetime helped clear reframe change limiting beliefs. What I learned was that the crystal singing bowls can take people so deep into a relaxed state, that they actually can access their eternal mind, this superconscious mind, which is the mind stream that has existed, always. It's the mind stream that has existed through all lifetimes. And that's the fun part. Once you start doing that, you open up everything in the world. And I didn't know that. Brandon Handley 29:28 Right? I always, always, first of all, I always laugh at like, you know, the things that look, the things that you're doing right now just sitting here in your seat, you are creating blood, you're growing hair, you're generating cells, your body's doing, like literally trillions of activities at a time. And you are doing that right without thinking about it. So the great question I always have is why ALC you're capable of right? Yeah, you don't know about and just like you're saying, you tapped into this thing that you didn't know how to, you didn't know you could do before you could do it. But here you are doing it, if that makes sense. And, and, and so just a quick question on the eternal mind superconscious mind is that synonymous with Akashic records? Katische 30:26 Akashic records is where you can tap into everything that you've ever thought, yes, it's a location, it's a physical filing cabinet for your brain to go to. But you it, it exists in a life between lives. So when we die, and we go back to the other side, or heaven, or whatever name your brain wants to give it right? There is a garden and a temple and a lot of university rooms and libraries and a whole section of places that you can go imagine like a city in the sky, right? The Akashic records is one section of that, which is a big mother of a library, and you have your own room in there, and all of your own books, each of those books represents a life that you've had. And you can dive into a life by the Akashic records. But your eternal mind is always with you, you don't need to go to the Akashic records to, to tap into your eternal mindstream. And the more and more work that you do with your eternal mind and understand the difference between your mind of now so contagious mind, your tissues or ego, person, personality, for this lifetime, versus the personality of my eternal soul. Your soul has its own personality, and then the personalities of your other incarnations. You can tap in and bring in resources from all lifetimes, just by being yourself in your current moment in time. So to really weed you out, I can do work and connect with my subconscious mind right? It just by being quiet, and I can bring forth skills from other lifetimes. Once I realized that I had a skill in a certain lifetime Brandon Handley 32:27 I love it right. And Thanks for Thanks for Thanks for clearing that up for me, right? Because, you know, when you're when you're saying eternal mind, superconscious mind I'm thinking Akashic records, when you're talking Akashic records, this is a place that I can go pretty much like a library, my eternal mind, it's always with me always available once I realized and recognize how to access it. So that Katische 32:50 Correct, correct, yeah. And you can use you can go to the Akashic records, if you want to find a specific lifetime and, and clear a specific limiting belief. But once you train your mind very clearly to work with your eternal mindstream. It's with you always. And you Brandon Handley 33:08 I'm ready, what step one I want to do right now. How's it how's it work? Talk to me a little bit about kind of what this looks like, if, let's let's like, look, I'm writing what happens to I pick up the phone, who I call? How do we how do we start working? And what are some of the first steps? Katische 33:25 Yeah, so some of the first things are to identify, and this sounds really beginner level, but let's just play with it. The first thing that you need to understand is what's your thought and what's not your thoughts? Okay? So and this is just a basic mindfulness concept, but thoughts and emotions are all energetic, right. And at any time, you can tap into your own thoughts, and the thoughts of your family, the thoughts of your city, the thoughts of what's happening in your part of the the world that thoughts dreams float by, and what happens is their energy and our antennas, latch on to them. And we as humans go, oh, that must be my thought. When actually it's not your thoughts. So the first thing to do is check, am I feeling an emotion or a thought? Is that mine? Or am I just picking it up from somewhere else? And when you learn to play within, and distinguish and defined between your thoughts and your emotion, so have you picked up an emotion from watching the news from driving past a hospital from How do I know how to I Brandon Handley 34:31 mean, these things are in my head. Okay, so you know, I, you know, I think that I may have approached something similar without knowing that I'm doing it right on purpose or anything like that, but like, recognizing that like, these really aren't my thoughts. He's just like, just thoughts from like, not even they're not mine. Like this, like this isn't my thought like I've Why would I this Why would this thing even be here like Katische 34:59 you just said Go away, not mine. Yeah, a lot of the times one of the easiest ways to do that is to be really clear with when you're triggered, and see if it's your trigger, or if it's your parents trigger. Oh, yeah, am I, because my mom told me to feel that because she was taught to feel that led to generational and a DNA based trigger. So really the basics are mastering your own thoughts and emotions, your family's thoughts and emotions, and then tapping into what's yours and what's yours of all time. And that's, that's the groundwork because it's, then you're setting boundaries and saying, I am not my thoughts, I am not my emotions, I am able to tune into thoughts and emotions, and I need to check. I am a setting solid boundaries because I I have ownership of my body in my mind, and I determined what is going to influence my life, right. And so by getting crystal clear on on your thoughts, at the conscious level, you're then allowed to access the subconscious level, which then allows you to access the superconscious level. It's kind of like a training ground? Brandon Handley 36:11 For sure, for sure. So all right. Paying attention to my thoughts and emotions. First of all, like, for me, I'm always like, is this a thought or an emotion? Right? Step one is a thought or an emotion, then I'm like, Are these even my thoughts? Or my emotions? Or are these conditions or the these pass down? And he's generational? Is this in the news? Is that Is that what you're saying? I'm doing right? Katische 36:42 Yeah, because this next step is so for example, with me. What I found very clearly was that sometimes my thoughts and emotions weren't from this life. They were a hangover from a previous life where I had not allowed myself permission to let go of something that had happened to me. Right. So I can tap into anger. And find the trace of it in a past life, for example, or impatience. Brandon Handley 37:10 So and when you're talking past life, are you talking about a specific, kind of like, you know, traditional past life from a certain teaching or learning or just past life in general, right, like, and the reason why I'm just thinking, like, you know, karmic, I'm thinking, you know, Hinduism, I'm thinking Buddhists, I'm thinking, whatever, but how, what does that look like for you in past life? Katische 37:34 I guess. So. I have studied Buddhism in this life and being Buddhist in many other lives, so quite familiar, at a soul level with that value system with reincarnation, but what I teach and talk about is the universal the galactic the entire system of reincarnation, which means life as a being an energetic being on this planet, and all planets, all time dimension spaces. And so energy, if we go back to energy, energy cannot be destroyed. Energy always exists, right? So you as an energetic form, maybe Brandon right now, but you have never not existed. And you will never cease to exist. So when I talk about past lives, I mean, well, actually, they're concurrent. But that's a whole nother conversation. There is no such thing as time other than on Earth. So everything's happening at once, which makes it more complicated. But you can tap into and understand other versions of energetic representations of yourself. Brandon Handley 38:55 Okay, that that kind of gives me what I was looking for. Right? I was just kind of curious what you again, and you hinted at it right and talking about karmic or just kind of like these cycles of, you know, Buddhists, rebirth and whatnot. You're talking again, universal, no, specific religion or background or doctrine, just just like this is past life. This is energy at its highest level. And in its purest kind of form. That's what Katische 39:26 I'm, what my sole mission here on in this lifetime is actually to do, which I've discovered is to teach the principles of reincarnation devoid of religion. So to strip away religion and bring it back to the energetic basics, so that we can look at and understand what is without adding dogma to it. Brandon Handley 39:50 Fantastic. And how do you learn this? Who's teaching you Katische 39:55 a lot of sessions up there? Yeah. So because I regularly go in and do past life regression sessions and Akashic Records sessions for myself, I walk the talk, each time I get triggered, I check in is this something that's coming up for clearing because this is my purpose, I'm different from everybody else in that I'm here to discover my stuff so that I can teach other people. And on my podcast, I showcase my past lives. Yeah, I record this session so people can read about it, I'm starting running books about it. And what I'm wanting to do is to teach people how to find is the root cause of an emotion or something that they're feeling or experiencing their life. Something that as a result of what's happened in this life, or another life. Because both of those you can break free of you can break free of whatever's holding you back, either from earlier in this lifetime, or from a repeating pattern, which is karmic, over multiple lifetimes. So I'll give you an example. I haven't got on the podcast Paco yet. podcast yet. There's gonna be an upcoming episode about frustration and impatience. So my father when he was alive, always said to me, patience is the lessons of your life Diigo patients, and I'm very impatient, I'm impatient to get things done to get results. I change things very frequently, where I live, the businesses you name and my impatience. When I truly deeply stepped back even to understand it, opened up a life as a Viking. And this Viking dude was a military commander. And he, in this particular lifetime, understood the ocean and the moon and the tides. And he was the right hand man of the Nordic King at the time, right. And they were trying to go and conquer in England. And that's like all the boats across with all the people. And the king was busy doing his wining and dining and doing an older diplomatic stuff. And I'm like getting impatient over here. And the Kings just like finally, for God's sake, we're just go now, right? And I'm like, No, don't go now the tides aren't right, Mama, you know. And because I'd been in the Kings ear. He's just got sick of me, right? We'll just do what you said. And what happened is in it's written in history, it's documented in history. The ships went out, there was a storm of all storms. And we lost 5000 men died that day. And I had to go back in and heal that impatience. And learn that it was a trait that I had carried on because I had never forgiven myself for being impatient, and for causing the death of 5000 men. Brandon Handley 43:00 There you go. That's awesome. Right? You know, being able to kind of go back take a look at that. trace it down, find the story in reality, my guess is like you felt the story. And they like does this something that actually happened and you're able to find a story that aligned to what it was that you felt and the story that you trace down? I think that's pretty pretty exciting for you neat. So teach we're at apart and the podcasts that we kind of get to some slick spirituals feed dating, right? Like some you know, because basically, somebody's gonna somebody's gonna attend his podcasts. They're gonna be like, who cuz he she seems pretty cool. And I like her story. I like auditory stuff. I get to journey. I'm going through menopause. It'd be great to talk to somebody that understands what it is I'm going through that I could just talk to. That could be guys too, that aren't obviously going through menopause. Right. So we've got a couple questions I'd like to ask you ready? All right, spiritual Bachelorette number one. When is war justifiable? Katische 44:17 Oh, well, as a human being, I would say never because I don't I can. I don't support violence. However, at the spiritual level, there is a reason for everything. And so was when you look at the reason that they're caught caused spiritually there is something that needs to be cleared up, or enacted or happen for humanity to learn a lesson. Most wars we come out of them and we say this will never happen again or character gets profiled and awareness is raised. Suffering is highlighted and there are things that we learn from war. If we don't learn as a civilization, we tend to repeat Get the patents again, yeah, we create another war on the same thing. And when you can take the Eagles view of war, and learn not to attach emotionally to it, and to bring yourself daily into the suffering that is caused by it, but to ensure that you are watching from a high level, learning the lessons and not involving yourself or causing or amplifying that cause of war, then you can sit a lot better with it. Brandon Handley 45:29 So as to you know, kind of learn a lesson is basically what I'm hearing for humanity as a whole, right? Something needs to be healed. I mean, even if you kind of took it like at a galactic level or whatnot, would you look at it is almost galactic level, but like almost in the body, where you there's an infection that needs to be routed out, unhealed and all you know, your body acts your body reacts. So this is just energy, galactic energy reacting to an infection and say the the human system. Katische 46:07 Yeah, the human is infected with the need for violence. We're very violent society, we're full of anger and hatred. And we haven't learned those lessons. We're also a very divisionary society, we create categories, judgments, and we based each other based on the color of our skin. And our beliefs are where we are born our income levels. And if you look at our religious beliefs, if we look at all wars there, it's all about bias, and misunderstanding that we all don't. It's a fundamental misunderstanding about the level of connection of humanity, and that we are all from source. Therefore, when you hurt one person, or judge one person, you hurt another, that there should be no such thing as discrimination, categorizing or bias at all. So that's what was teaching us. Brandon Handley 46:54 Right? And that's a listen, it's a tough one to learn. And it's a tough one to apply, even as you make progress along your spiritual journey, at least has been my you know, it's tough to not judge something very tough, you're not doing it on purpose, right? And it's tough to not separate yourself from yours, you're acting spiritual, and you're not acting spiritual. I mean, where are you coming? You're very material, I'm very spiritual, you know, that kind of thing. So even even along this journey, of becoming and being your spiritual self and connecting, there's, there's still that division. What do you recommend? What are some things that you liked? Or have helped you to? With that, with that challenge? Katische 47:43 Stop watching the news. And stop sharing suffering. Suffering, suffering is part of the human experience, you know, we all have terrible things. We all have access now to hyper zoom into what's happening in countries that were nowhere near. Yeah. So we can send out love and blessings and do whatever we can, in our capability to help if it's our path, and this is not playing down or making wrong people who go in and have an active role in war. That's, that's their role for this lifetime. But if you know clearly that your role is not to be involved in war, right? If you're not to be in, in general, in an army or nurse, or, you know, on the ground, you have to focus like this. Straight on and say, Is this part of my soul challenge? Is this part of what I'm here for? No. So detracting and worrying about and moaning about and sharing about suffering, where I can do nothing, it's out of my control, only drags my vibration town, and takes me away from how I am here to serve. So stop being distracted, know that the right people who are meant to help in those situations are being called and they're going, you know, there are people that are just like, off there, and they're there to help. If you're not called in that way, please, for the love of God, focus on what you're called to do. Let those who are meant to do it, do it and be the spiritual server that you are meant to be in your realm. Stay in your park is basically it. Stay in your field of vision. Brandon Handley 49:28 I'm in 100% agreement. Now, that being said, I'm sure there's plenty people out there, like how could you turn a blind eye at all this suffering? Right. And I think it goes back to what you're saying, though, too, is like, if there's nothing that you can do about it, you shouldn't attach yourself to it. Like is it? Is it great that that was happening? Not really, right? Are people suffering because of it? Absolutely. If we look at it from the perspective that you shared today that this is healing A hurt. This is a lesson. You know, that's one perspective. And this is one that I think a lot of people do, they will super easy to see that if you're not directly involved, kind of Yes. agreed with that as well. At the same time, what can we do to? You know, I think as on look not necessarily even onlookers where what can we do then to help others to create a better life? Right? By not focusing on on all that other pain and suffering and hurt? Where can we? Where can we make some other things better, right is that kind of where, Katische 50:35 because if you focus firstly on yourself, which is the opposite to what we're taught in society, focus on your own self focus on the people in your immediate vicinity, it's the outward effect, what you do to yourself, it ripples out, which is the best thing that you can do for anyone. Because trust me, if you if you aren't feeling called to war in this lifetime, you've probably been in the thick of it in many lifetimes. You've done your service. I know I've done my service in many, many, many occasions. And this is not the time this time. I've been there. I've done that. And I've lost my last my life before. So that's how I look at it. That's how it helps me. Brandon Handley 51:13 Well, what's the perfect like, perfect person to be talking to about this next one, spiritual Bachelorette number one? What happens after you die? Katische 51:25 Well, what happens after you die depends upon your beliefs. Hmm, Brandon Handley 51:29 how's that? How God told me what Katische 51:33 it does to him when you believe so what you expect to see. But generally, if I was to give you the stereotypical experience of what I've seen with my clients, is that the, the, and I've seen it with my father because my father died. And I watched him die because he had terminal prostate cancer, and I was beside him when he died. So I've seen the physical body stop functioning organ by organ, I have seen the last fluids leave the body, I've seen the mouth open, the eyes closed, and the spirit leaves the body, I've physically seen the spirit leave the body. So not something you can make out once you've seen it, you are changed forever. And it's the greatest privilege on Earth to be there when somebody dies, to Spirit then then looks for the light. Depending upon you and your mindset and your frame, it'll be an angel, a dove, a rainbow, a bridge or a tunnel. And you've your spirit floats up on high, you have this eternal mind stream, you are now just mindstream you're just energy. So you can see yourself being the dead person, the body that's wherever you are, right? You then adjust so to speak to being just this consciousness, this energetic being, then you look for the light or whatever you've been looking for. And you go towards it, it's like a magnet, you're drawn towards it, you cannot help it. And then you go upwards. And you are greeted by an angel, a family member or a loved one a guide somebody who then takes you for a life review, which is where you look down upon your life. You review what happened in your life, and depending upon what kind of person you were there for the life, you will feel every emotion that you inflicted on other people, you will feel the ramifications of all of the actions that you had in that lifetime. There is no one up there to judge you. It's you judging yourself against what you set as a criteria for learning in that lifetime. What you needed to experience what you're supposed to do. Once you've gone through that, you know, Brandon Handley 53:50 cuz he's right there. I gotta pause right there because it sounds like I get a performance review at the end of this one. And that right there for me it would be straight hell, I hate performance reviews. Katische 54:05 You performing your review on yourself? It's not God. It's not anybody with Brandon Handley 54:12 you, but it's me who's like here's all the things you said you wanted to go there and do it and I already know me I'm like, well Brandon, you forgot to do this. You didn't do that you didn't act in accordance to like all the things. Alright, so go move on. Katische 54:26 So it gets a bit lighthearted though, because the you the higher self of you, the EU of all time, knows and loves you unconditionally. So the EU of all time actually has a bit of a joke with you off of facts like Brennan was sorry, delete that out. But you know, we've done this 72 times how many more times you want to do it? I know. I know. I know. Right? And what happens is that because the because it's an unconditional space of love, you then get taken to healing, a room of healing, which is according to your needs, auditory needs. Visual needs whatever, exactly what you need to heal your experiences. And then you bring in your soulmate. So the people who agreed to work with you in this lifetime, who are key players in the lifetime, you're like, Ah, cool, I'm having a beer at the pub, man. Geez, you're a nasty person, you know, or whatever you like, the mind opens because you like, you, ah, man. And then you go off to the loo University rooms and you learn the skills that you didn't have for this lifetime to like, essentially upgrade. Brandon Handley 55:36 Right? That sounds like fun. Absolutely. So thanks for listening, you have any performance reviews? I was like, oh, man, I hate filling those things out. It's always worse. How did you think you did? Well, you know, I could have done better. You know, I give myself a three out of seven, whatever, you know what I mean? Which is, it's okay. It's honestly, in the end, it's being honest with yourself and about what really happened and just kind of taken. Can we go to the beginning of kind of what we talked about here. So thought or emotion, we just take it as, as objectively as we can and be like, alright, well, that was sure wasn't how I thought it was gonna go down. Right? Or that went exactly the way I wanted it to. And here's what went well. And here's what I'd like to do more of next time or do differently next time. So thank you so much for sharing that with me and the audience. So yeah, who should be reached out to you who you know who's like the ideal client for you right Katische 56:35 now. The ideal client for me is somebody who has reached a pass in her life where they're like, I have tried everything. And it's not working. I'm not doing I'm not achieving what I thought I would achieve. Something's holding you back. And I have tried lots of different healing modalities. I have searched my conscious mind. And there's something more than I'm not breaking through on that. I'm your girl, because I'm the one that can tap into this superconscious mind and say, Alright, let's have a deeper look. Brandon Handley 57:09 Yeah, so beyond taking you beyond. So where can people find you? Where can they do reach out with you? What's the best way to contact? Katische 57:17 Best way is to go to qatif.com. So Ka t i s c h e.com. And go listen to the podcast. You'll find out pretty quickly by listening to the podcast whether you resonate with me or not. Brandon Handley 57:29 Right. Well, thank you so much for being on today. I really enjoyed it. Katische 57:32 Thank you so much for having me. I Intro Guy 57:36 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram and spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email there Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  Melissa Drake is the author of The Orgasmic Entrepreneur: Discover the Sweet Spot of Love, Sex, and Business by Simply Being YOU, Sacred Medicine Integration: A Companion Journal Supporting Ceremonial Medicine Experiences, and TranscenDANCE: Lessons From Living, Loving, and Dancing. She's also a TEDx Speaker with 25 years of climbing the corporate ranks and a decade of entrepreneurial experience. Her TEDx Talk, "The Dance of Collaboration," presents fresh insights on the benefits of collectively beneficial collaborations. As the founder of Uncorped Influence, Melissa helps like-minded businesses and individuals find solutions and go further than they thought possible. Connect with Melissa here: https://uncorpedinfluence.com/   High Lights The importance of finding out who you are and what you are. 2:56 There's a time and a place for fame. 17:19 Stop Fixing Yourself:. 21:38 Who were you before you entered the storm? –. 28:53 Working with people to address their limiting beliefs first. 37:08 What is our greatest distraction? Fear or doubt? 45:38   Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general, you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual with your host, Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:43 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with my special guests, Melissa Drake. And before I launch into even like the bio right, Melissa, thanks for getting your bio. There's not too long a. That's always nice. Sometimes I get like a full book. And that's okay, too. I'm just we met. We did like an Instagram thing together with Jeremy Snowden. So you and I connected to Jeremy Snowden. And we did like some Instagram work earlier. That's right, right. So I think that was last time I didn't much work there too. So we connected through there. And it was really cool to connect and see you do your work. And as we all kind of got together to support each other and go through that Instagram challenge. So we met there. And so Melissa is the author of the orgasmic entrepreneur discovered the sweet spot of love, sex and business by simply being you sacred medicine integration, a companion journal supporting ceremonial medicine experiences, and transcend dance lessons from loving, living, and dancing. She's also a TEDx speaker with 25 years climbing the corporate ranks and a decade of entrepreneurial experience. Her TEDx talk, the dance of collaboration presents fresh insights on the benefits of collectively beneficial collaborations. As a founder of uncorked influence, Melissa helps like minded businesses and individuals find solutions and go further than they thought possible. You're right there. It's right there that's sacred and perfect. So Melissa, so I look at us as like these conduits for universal energy, call it whatever you want. So here, you and I are. And when we get together on this podcast, we'll have a great conversation. But it's really for the benefit of the end user they're gonna have and listen to this good, they're gonna hear something that we're not even, we're not even talking about, right, like this is gonna, it's gonna be a message that can only be delivered through you to them. Right now, what is that message? Melissa Drake 2:56 Oh, wow. Well, I think the message is related to the conversation and the fact that it's all in the moment, and that different people bring up different perspectives of us, and how important it is to really figure out who it is we are, and what we're here for, and how we can bring that power. And not necessarily power, but just that essence, to help people. And to, as you said, be that conduit to help people advance in whatever that way is for them. And knowing that it's different for every single person. Brandon Handley 3:38 Yeah, it's so great when when you connect with different people, they see you in ways you pletely different Yes, you never imagined right. You're like wow, you that's what you saw. And you're like, I'll take it or Whoa. But I think it also illustrates to you how, like, how versatile you actually are, you're like, Wow, I never saw myself in that light. And here I am. And this is this is somebody else's perception on me. I never even never even thought which I think is which I think is great. And then you know who it is and what we are and you shied away from power. And I think that I think that we get we especially in this space of like spirituality and your mind your P's and Q's buster. Like you call it. Which word do you pick? I mean power, but I don't mean power. I'm not sure if you're familiar with David Hawkins power versus force book. Melissa Drake 4:37 No, I haven't. So really with him as a person but not the book. Brandon Handley 4:40 Yeah. So I mean, it's it is it's a dance right? Of Yes. Which words make the right sense, but I think the essence of who you truly are is actually quite powerful, right? And once you've Once you tap into that, like you're able to share it and you know, it's Get the essence of who you are, is that power that's surging through you that you are the conduit for? Right? Melissa Drake 5:06 Yes, all of us are. And sometimes it's really hard to own that power. And when you get in these, these relationships in these conversations, and people reflect that power to you, and they say things like, well, this is who I thought you are. And you're like, I didn't know that. And it's just, I love that continual opening the continual process of figuring out who it is we are. Because I was a person who, before I was 43 years old, I had no idea who I was, I simply did what was expected of me what was told of me what I thought others wanted me to be. And then suddenly, I was like, Oh, this is all a lie. And then just had to completely rebuild myself from the ground up. And I would say somewhat advanced age. And then I look at my son who's 26, who never had that issue. He's just always been himself. And that was just a beautiful, a beautiful thing. Brandon Handley 6:11 So it's interesting. I always kind of reflect on like, the Bible for one reason, and that's like that was talking about, like, the 40 days of this that the other thing and the age of 40. Right, give or take something something happens to us as as humans, right? Yeah. Do we blossom? Do we have, you know, self realization do we have? What do they call an existential crisis? Do we, you know, something happens, right? I think I think that we, as Alan Watts calls it, I think we're peopling were playing. And it's like, we're at a stage where we don't recognize but we recognize it like innately, right. So truthfully, we're like, we connect with it. So you get to this spot where like, you realize kind of everything's a lie, or some necessarily everything is a lie. It's like, it's not aligned with me. It's no longer it's no longer aligned with you. And like, you can now like, you realize you can make these choices that you weren't making before, right? It's kind of what it sounds like. And that's exactly it. Yeah. Right. And then it's like, and then you start to realize that like, Well, yeah, walk walk us through, like even recognizing that space, like, was there something leading up to that for you? And then, you know, what happened during that transition? Right? Or, you know, what happened during that transformation? Melissa Drake 7:47 Okay, so yeah, Something definitely happened to me, a lot of things actually happened to me. And it wasn't until the universe hit me upside the head with a two by four that I finally woke up to it, like, I spent a lot of times to severely depressed. So much so that I rarely got out of bed. I lost both of my parents in the same year, my son went away to college. And then I got really, really sick with two really horrible, concurrent illnesses. And then I was like, Okay, so maybe it's time for me to do things a little differently. And I started, that's when I actually started dancing. And that's what helped bring me to life and understand what was going on in my world. And then I lost my corporate job after 25 years. And so I had like this perfect storm of really not so great things happen to me. But I call it the blessing that wasn't even in disguise, because suddenly I had a clean slate. And I could make new choices and do what I wanted to do instead of what was expected, or what I had always done. And so it was really a beautiful opening, that didn't look or feel so beautiful at the time. But it was an awesome opportunity for me to just say, who am I? What am I here for? And what do I want to do? And when I lost my job, I was like, I want to write, I've always been a writer in some capacity. And I want to help end the stigma of mental illness. And that was, that was my focus. And I have curated my, my life and my career around that focus. Had I not lost my job? I'm not sure that would have happened. Brandon Handley 9:38 Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that I think that um, I think that that's always the case, right? Not always the case. But it's often the case where you're like, What do you mean my job at 25 years is gone. There's probably like, a little bit of anger, a little bit of resentment, even with your parents, even with your parents passing to like, yeah, you guys still need you like, what do you think? What do you think you're going for? Melissa Drake 10:00 Yeah, and I felt so young to be an orphan. I mean, I wasn't even 40 yet. And to not have parents was wasn't challenged. Brandon Handley 10:07 Yeah. And then and then all at the same time, you've got your son going to school too, which is like, you've done this thing you've probably identified with being this mother and being the ER and all these things, and you have all these identities being ripped away. Melissa Drake 10:24 They were and they were also a distraction. Like, they kept me from looking at who I was, because I was codependent ly taking care of everyone else. And then suddenly, all I had was me staring at myself in the mirror being severely sick. So I was an easy choice at that point. Brandon Handley 10:42 Are you able to talk about this sickness illness? Either that's Melissa Drake 10:48 kind of gross like to have the worst illnesses you could possibly have one was related to my menstrual situation and which cropped up out of nowhere. I had to have a full hysterectomy to rectify that. And the other was I undiagnosed digestive disease that caused me to lose 110 pounds in nine months. Wow. Wow. So Brandon Handley 11:09 those two combos, Melissa Drake 11:10 like those are two of them, you know, just really, it's happening at the same time. And it really knocked me out. Yeah, Brandon Handley 11:20 yeah. So I mean, you you're like, everything's just quite literally gone to shit. Like, it's like, it was a big, right, like, you're like, I don't even like my wife is always like, she'd be like, I couldn't possibly like she was like, I couldn't possibly. So I mean, literally, like, this is like, nine months, I'm sure like, I couldn't possibly but like everyday, you kept getting back up and charged and forth. And kind of getting through it. To explain to me like this dancing, like, you know what type of dancing is like, doing in here that's helping you through this. Melissa Drake 11:53 So I, I met some people online. And we just happen to like the same dance club. And we started going to this dance club, I started a group of women and one of the things I noticed is that when I'm dancing, I'm in my body. And I have spent so much of my time up here around and dissociated. So I didn't even realize that at the time that when I was dancing, I was grounding. And I was being present, it's one of the few times where I'm actually present and in my body. And that was actually the healing modality, I thought it was dance, I thought it was the club. And it really isn't either of those things. It's its presence, it's being embodied, and just being in the moment. And so when I, I lived in Iowa at the time, and so when I lived there, it was all about going to the club, and they only open on the weekends and all that good stuff. And then when I moved to California, there's all sorts of new opportunities here. One being ecstatic dance, which is just where everyone's in their own little world, doing whatever they just moving, like literally moving, shaking your body getting the energy out of your system. And that is such a powerful healing modality and because it's, you're obviously present, but you're also releasing the trauma and the sort of energy in your body at the same time. And that was, that still is today one of the most advanced healing modalities that I have. And I'm, I've done nearly all of them, especially in California, there's so many fun things to do and try here. Brandon Handley 13:29 Yeah, it's all available there. Right? It's all available. And you're like, like you said, You're right outside of LA. So you got you got access to, to the stars. Um, so, you know, talk to me a little bit about, you got a couple of books out, right. You know, talk to me about what you're writing, what you've written, and a little bit about what went into those. Melissa Drake 13:55 Thank you. Sure. So the first book transcendence, I actually, I started taking private dance lessons to learn how to be led, because I like to kind of be in charge and be controlling sometimes. And so what I what I learned through that was that it was the best therapy I ever had, I'll just say that it was literally the best therapy I ever had. And I likened it to being led by the universe, our life, there's one big dance with the universe. And so what happens when the universe gives you a job loss after 25 years? How would you continue that dance with life? And how do you get up and flow and just learning about the energy between dance partners and then bigger with with God or the universe as your dance partner? What does that look like? And so the the real theme of that book is allowing the universe to lead your dance with life. And when it doesn't look so great. How do you manage that? And then the next book that I wrote. And interestingly, the very day I uploaded transcendence, I lost a very lucrative client. And so I had the opportunity then to test the theories, which is, how am I going to let the universe lead this stance, which led me to the next book, the orgasmic entrepreneur, which started with a theory I had about data, who was listening to a podcast and this man was talking about data and how important it was and how it shows people how that how you care, and that he was very meticulous, even referred to data as a love language. And I thought, I bet data geeks are the best lovers. Because they're always looking for the sweet spot. And growing up in direct mail, I know that even when you find the sweet spot, you never stop looking to improve your results. And so that's kind of how the idea for that one started. And it's really a look at the the relationship between business and intimacy. But the final thru line of that book is about being yourself in every aspect. So whether you're on a date or your lunch with a friend, you're with your family, or you're doing business, are you showing up as you are? Are you being yourself? Are you being authentic? And are you being vulnerable? And that matters, that you know who you are. Because if you don't know who you are, it can show up as you. And one thing that's particularly important, I think, in today's world is that we all have this online persona. And does that match with who you are as a person, I had a client that I worked with for five years before I actually met them in person. And she said to me, You are the same person, online as you are here in my presence. That was my favorite compliment. Like she was just really, really powerful to me and versus in the corporate world where I was one person at work, which is highly productive, highly successful person. And then at home, I spent seven years in bed. I I mean, I literally went to work. And then I came home went to bed. And that's it. So there was zero integration of my life. Brandon Handley 17:19 And I always I liken that to the matrix, right. There's there's Neo, and Mr. Anderson, right. We have this book on you, Mr. Anderson. So like, you're you're this person productive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And Eric, could be anybody. Right? Yes. Yeah. You're a cog? Yes. And, ya know, you go in, and you and you do do good. And then like, you go home, and it's like, you've got the sun, nothing. Well, you've got nothing and or you've got this whole other life that you really, really want. And it's like, yeah, it's like, never there. Yeah. And so, yeah, that's, I mean, that's powerful. Right. But I love that. You, you have this online presence that you're talking about, and being that person through and through everywhere you go. Yeah, I think you know, you love to hear your opinion. I think there's a time and a place to kind of and maybe not, man, because we've done it for so long. This, this, you got to be this person and go do that thing. And you'll get these results and like you go and you do it, but like it maybe you do get the results, but what's the cost Melissa Drake 18:40 to fame? So it's important. Is Brandon Handley 18:43 there still a place for it? Is there still a place for for that? Do you feel like maybe you need it all that shit to get to where you are today? Melissa Drake 18:50 100% I, I'm embarrassed to admit it. But 100% I needed that shit. Because like the I think it's Oprah's quote that the universe will send you messages and you know, whispers they start as a whisper. And if you don't listen, you'll ultimately get a screen. And I needed this screen to wake up. Yeah, so I definitely needed I don't regret it. Brandon Handley 19:15 But or call you and tell you that. Hey, girl. Melissa Drake 19:23 No, she hasn't called me yet. Not yet. But the but the last book that I wrote that I'm really happy about. And I wrote it in collaboration with other people is sacred medicine integration. And that was something after I wrote the other two that I really kind of delve into plant medicine. And the thing about plant medicine is that you get some really beautiful insights and you learn things about yourself and about the environment and about the collective consciousness. But if you don't take the time have to sit with and integrate those things and actually take action on what you learn. It doesn't really matter. Like it just kind of goes in and out and you get you get stuck in a loop. And my first medicine experience was combo. And we had a lot of people in one room, Brandon Handley 20:21 what is that I'm sorry, Melissa Drake 20:23 I'm sorry, combo is a it's a it's a frog poison. And they actually like pierce your skin. It's almost like a cigarette burn on your skin. And then they apply this, this combo. And it instantly drains your your system. It's an energetic and physical purge. So you instantly start throwing up, like it's just Brandon Handley 20:50 gonna give you somebody that, Melissa Drake 20:52 you know exactly. Well, you know, that's interesting, who would sign up for this? And I'll tell you that the first day I was there, and we're going around the room, and everybody's talking about why they're there and why they signed up. And one of the gentlemen said, I'm doing this because I'm better me is better for everyone. And I thought, how cool is that, like that? There are people that are really willing to do this work so that they're better not just for themselves, and not because they want to manifest money or whatever. But to be better people. Yeah. And so it's, it's a really great cleanse for your body and for your energy, and for your mind, all of those things. And I've done, I've done Bufo as well and psilocybin, and those medicines. Brandon Handley 21:38 You got the you got the South, you got the South California connection. I do SoCal connect, I do. So you know, I would love to do a couple things here, right. Let's hit on that for a second. I'm going through a book right now. Oh, my God. That's each book called stop fixing yourself. Right? In my question, is this right? And, you know, either way, it doesn't really matter. Are we trying to get better? Or are we trying to discover the truth of who we are? Melissa Drake 22:15 I think we're trying to discover the truth of who we are. But it's under the guise of getting better. Because we and I'll tell you, I love the title of that book. Because I worked really hard at fixing myself for a couple of years, only to find out that I'm not really broken that I'm fine. And it's really important. For somebody else, no, no, not at all. Not at all. No, thank you for that. No. It's really more about accepting the parts of ourselves that we don't necessarily like the dark the shadow shadow work. Yeah. So it's, it's not wrong. It's not bad. It's just needs to be integrated. It needs to be seen and heard and acknowledged and accepted. It's not something I was like, oh, let's fix it in like a surgical team. Let's just let's just get rid of it. And that's how it works. Brandon Handley 23:11 Right? Ya know, and that's super powerful. To really accept yourself truly, wholly and fully, so that you can operate at 100% versus like, I'm not this 50% This this baggage is no good for me. Right. But I'm hauling it everywhere I go anyways. Yes, exactly. Yeah. Yeah, Melissa Drake 23:34 exactly. It's exhausting. Brandon Handley 23:36 Let's talk about I have never had frog poison. I've never Bufo I don't know. Let's talk about like the differences. And I think what I would love to hear is what are you learning from these different plant medicines? Right like yeah, what's your what are the set and settings you have to let's let's get down into that because all right, we got frog poison. Which is like you're showing up to throw up? Melissa Drake 24:09 Yes, you are. Brandon Handley 24:12 Bufo is what was it the empty? Okay. Is that crystallizing, you're smoking it or is it something else? Okay, so that's like the 10 minute trip businessman. So Melissa Drake 24:24 about 20 gap. It's about 20 Brandon Handley 24:28 to 20 minutes, shrooms psilocybin, we don't want to call it surance because they're always like up in arms these days. Go ahead. And LSD mescaline? Not yet. Yeah. So they are on the they are on the to do list. Got it. Melissa Drake 24:53 So it presents itself Yes. Brandon Handley 24:57 I'm sure that you're in South LA area. They will present itself Melissa Drake 25:02 safely, safely and in a proper setting setting. Right. Right for me is always a ceremony. Brandon Handley 25:09 So there's a there's a woman I read her quite a few of her books. Listen to him actually. Florence Scovel. SHINN? Yes. Yes. With with grace and imperfect ways. So so there you go. Oh, that? Yes. So yeah, walk me through, I guess like, what are these ceremonies looking like? And what are you getting out of? What do you feel like? Which ones are having like, the greatest impact on you how they helped me along the journey? Yatta Yatta, yatta. Melissa Drake 25:37 Okay, so every one is different. Every ceremony is different, every experience is different. And they all kind of work together. So when, when I do boufal, it's, it's combo first. And then they kind of go together. As far as when I'm learning. All sorts of things like a lot of first of all, the masculine feminine integration, being able to integrate those two sides of myself. And as with everything, it's a process, it's not a one and done kind of thing. It's, you have the insights you've worked through. I specifically designed questions to help journal, what what are the insights that you got from the medicine and I have written just pages and pages, every time I get out of ceremony, I spend the entire next day writing about what came up for me what visions I had, how I felt, what the experience was like, there was a lot of information related to generational trauma. I even had some suspected, repressed trauma come up as well. And just, you know, to spending time with myself, questioning what happened. And then really journaling on that and what that means. And I've had family members read my journals, after ceremony, and one, my one of my cousins, who's read all of my books said, I've never related to anything, you've written more than this. Just because there were so much related to my family and the way that I grew up and how it impacted me. But I would say any kind of medicine and I even have, like, I'm really sensitive to medicine, so I even have an out of body experience when it comes to cannabis. Like I just have these crazy, crazy insights. But whenever I do medicine, for me personally, it's always like the files in my brain are shuffled, arranged. And I'm perfectly stored. So much so that I can't stop laughing, because I'm so grateful for it. Like, all the bad stuff, the shitstorm that we talked about earlier, I'm like, oh, okay, I see. Now, I see how that's connected. And how that led me here. And how this connected me to that. And it's just this, this beauty that I can't unsee and I just feel so together. I feel like everything makes sense when I do medicine. Brandon Handley 28:11 Tell me just tell me a little bit about your corporate life. Like what was your role there? Melissa Drake 28:19 I had many, many roles. I started as a, like a data entry clerk at low, low level, and I worked up to being a director who recorded to the CEO, Brandon Handley 28:29 my direct mail business, Melissa Drake 28:32 insurance, actually. And so direct mail was a large part of that. My last role with him was for 10 years I did competitive intelligence and also partnerships. So that's, in large part where my TEDx talk on collaboration came from. And yeah, gotcha. Brandon Handley 28:53 It's always interesting, right to see. What's, what's the approach to the experience of the plant medicine is right, like so what? What and who were you before you entered the storm? Melissa Drake 29:10 Yes. And I'll tell you that, that my son is the one who opened my mind to medicine in the first place. When he was a youngster, younger than he should have been. He was telling me about these medicines or his plants, and saying, you know, really important people have used them to open their mind. Sure, and they're really successful now. And I was like, huh, and I didn't judge him. I didn't get angry. I was just I, I consider I didn't get high till I was 43 years old. So these were things that I just I never would have considered Brandon Handley 29:44 at all right, right. Well, and listen, it's it's interesting. I think that the headlines that are out there right now, eliminating some of the fear behind, you know, what we've been, you know, taught up until like this point, you know, drugs are bad. Okay, type of thing would now it's like, Melissa Drake 30:09 alright, well, John Does our bags. Unknown Speaker 30:13 What if we Melissa Drake 30:14 are a different story? Sure. Brandon Handley 30:16 Like what? And not for nothing like 90% and almost all the drugs are out there derived from some type of plant based so there's there's generally a plant that does like what that, you know, can do when, you know you have this approach, so we're like, it's it is, again, plant medicine even kind of absolves like this other barrier right to that drug. I'm not taking drugs, man, I'm nothing. This is plant medicine, y'all. Right, right. Right. And so, you know, which, which is great. I'd love to hear you. There's a couple, I'd love to hear sounds, you said you had some generational trauma came up for you. I would love to understand like, what was the setting and the space that was there for you. So that you could be safe that you felt safe in that space? Absolutely. Melissa Drake 31:17 So it was actually just really beautiful and serendipitous the way that it worked out, I went to a ceremony and I ran into a woman who I just felt really compelled to talk to. And she happened to be there with her son who was there. He has the same name as my son and is the same age as my son. And he had been dealing with addiction and spent five years in the jungle learning these medicines. And so he was the person who administered them for me, and his mother was there and his father was there. So I also had, you know, in addition to having this, this person with direct experience with the medicine with the tribes, his family was there. And so it was almost like not almost it was like, he was a by proxy for my son. She was my mom, he was my mom. So it was almost like a family constellation at the same time. And it was it was in a private home. It was a private ceremony. It was very, very beautiful. And the way that it was was set. And the way that I was cared for the way that I was loved. It was it was just, it was an amazing, amazing experience Brandon Handley 32:36 here because I think that that's really important to make sure that you know, not only do you have somebody that is well versed in what they're doing, yes. Not just somebody who's been like, I took turns like five times I'm ready. Let's do this. Let's do this, y'all, everybody, everybody. And then and then have like, you have that space created for you. So if and I don't know, like if you had the generational trauma, like if there was a breakdown for you or not, right? Well, there was lots of breakdowns. So making sure that like, you know, I've heard of I think events where there's so much like too many people, right, trying to get Melissa Drake 33:20 my first one there were 40 people in a room, it was way too many people like way, way, way too much. But also, that's what caused me to write the book because the shamans are the people delivering the medicine, the medicine is their specialty. But there needs to be integration afterwards. So how do you help people with an integration and do it in a way that is feasible for everyone? We even have a free download of the book with the questions for people to access so that they can get Brandon Handley 33:51 it right. Like I mean, you know, integration agreed. I think that everybody's everybody's in agreement that integration is essential to plant medicine experience. Let's talk about let's use your generational trauma one as an example, like how did you integrate some of those lessons in your life? What did you do to integrate the lessons he took away from that? Melissa Drake 34:18 So the workbook is designed to actually pull out those questions. There's, there's a whole series of questions, and then a 30 day action plan. So the first thing for me for integration is just taking the time for myself, to go through the questions to spend all that and I've even used these questions for things like I went on a wellness retreat last year where there was no medicine involved, but it was still really powerful. The experience was powerful enough that I needed to spend the time to integrate that. So just from and because I'm a writer, journaling is what comes easy to me. If you know that There are many ways to integrate. And I also have a community that I talk to about and share the writings with and communicate with. Brandon Handley 35:13 So what would an example, one or two examples be of those questions? Melissa Drake 35:19 Well, let's just, let's just pull it up and see what? Sure. So it's, it's designed into there's before ceremony. And some of the questions are what are you committed to an honoring through this medicine work? pure intent means you believe it, what do you intend to shift through this work? What constructed limitations would you like to address through the medicine? A constructed limitation is like a limiting belief that something you believe that is not actually true. For example, believing I'm not good enough is limited. In an actuality, every single person is made of the same magic with the same potential as another, therefore, this belief is constructed. So going into the ceremony before you even go, what is it that you want to want to do? What do you want to curtail? What do you want to grow? What will you say when you achieve the healing you desire right now? And then my, my favorite ones, right before so that's when you sign up? Because the ceremony begins when you sign up, right? And then right before the medicine you ask what what's the healing that you came for? What are you ready for? Speak to your higher self, your best friend, your soul, the energy is ready to support you help is available, because you ask what will you ask for? So it's basically like a really intense intention setting, a lot of people will set intention before they do medicine, but just really delving into an I will say that we wrote this after having completed a I think it was about 14 week, NLP training neuro linguistic programming. So the questions were designed specifically, to help make sure that the words the beliefs and the actions are all aligned. Brandon Handley 37:08 Yeah, no, that's, I mean, it's powerful to combine. You know, all that psychology with with these this work, right? You know, not, not just not just oh, it's just my higher self, man, we're cool, man. It's like, you know, hey, let's, let's, let's, let's leverage some of what we've learned over the past 100 years, give or take on, like, what's working? And, yes, how can we get in there? And, you know, we'll say, it's not surgical with the mind. But it's kind of is, but you because you get in there and you are like, you're like that if you do this work before ceremony. And you're really like, you do the work. And then you get in there ceremonies like atom bomb on that shit, like, Melissa Drake 38:03 yes, yes. And my my belief, like, what I really want to do is work with people to address their because essentially, we get what we believe, right? So if you go into ceremony, believing that you're going to get the healing you need, believing that you're going to be helped, that you're going to be built, guess what you will be, if you think it's just a pain, then that's what you're gonna get. And so I ideally want to set up a system so that people are receiving treatment for their limiting beliefs first, so that they're set up and primed and ready for the healing to be really effective. Like you said, to just drop a bomb on it and then have the most positive impact that you can. Brandon Handley 38:46 Yeah. I love it. Definitely great stuff. You gotta have doing doing that. I think ahead of time is a primo. Yes. Good stuff. So all right, I go in there. I do my I do my pre work. I'm geared up. I go in there. I have an amazing experience. What happens next? What do I do? Like and by amazing experience, I'm like, I was in there. I was like, surgical commander, like my mind was my mind and I owned it. Melissa Drake 39:16 So for me, my amazing experience is rolling around on the ground and puking and screaming and crying and laughing and Brandon Handley 39:25 no, you can keep that one that is mine. Around a vomit, that's a promise. I intend to keep. So amazing experience whatever that means to you. And then you know, what is the integration starts to look like right? So what happens? Melissa Drake 39:45 Number one is rest. Come home and rest. Meditate, breathe, be present. I like to spend time in water whether that's the pool or the hot tub and ocean. Rounding. walking barefoot on the earth is a beautiful thing. aim. And then for me, I usually start the next day writing, I spent an entire day writing. And then the book is actually designed to for every day, too, because a lot of times, I mean, I'll get the bulk of what happens the next day. But a lot of times, the insights don't come until days later or weeks later. And so just monitor, I'm a huge documentation freak, as you can imagine, as a writer. So just writing what came up for me like, oh, okay, maybe this is related. And, you know, you get these just little segments of insights over time, and then just keeping track of them. Yeah. And the other thing that's interesting, so I always do my journaling online, and I do a save as the prior version. And it's really interesting to see the growth, because the questions are designed, like you get all of this stuff out, right? You document everything. And then at the end, you know, like, what are the learnings you get, you know, for me, it's like, between five and 10 bullet points where I can really segment these are the learnings that I got. And what's really interesting to see is from one journey to the next, how the learnings evolve over time, and how I can tell I have learned from what I did last time, or this this last one that I did after a mushroom journey was okay, this is the same thing, like I'm still in the same spot, like I had the same same learning which is good because it's, you know, it's a process that I'm, I'm learning more about that. But also this is this is an area where I need more exploration. And so that we have a couple of different versions of this book. This one is designed so that you can do 11 journeys in one book. So all of your stuff is in one place. Brandon Handley 41:51 Should it be like once a month take a month off like I mean, what's that? You know, Melissa Drake 41:56 witness not for me to decide. That isn't Brandon Handley 41:59 so yeah, I mean, is there a recommendation on like, how long you Melissa Drake 42:06 know individual Yeah, it's very individual I would say that it's up to the person and the shaman like for me personally in it in two years time I've done maybe 10 journeys all together what would Brandon Handley 42:24 you say like a couple of things that you've learned that you don't feel like you would have learned without the assistance of plant medicine Melissa Drake 42:35 the number one thing is the ability to see how connected everything is and how amazingly supported we are by by things known and not known seen in that scene felt and felt and just knowing that that were okay. And one of the things that I wrote many years ago after after the first time I got high was the beautiful intention of every single thing like we think there's this conspiracy that everybody's out to get us and it's really just the opposite that conspiracy is everything set up for us. Yeah, and everything's happening perfectly that's the number one thing like I said all the all the files are filing in my brain and I'm like, Oh, this is so beautiful. Even the mess is beautiful. Brandon Handley 43:22 Yeah, yeah, there's a there's a really good book on like, kind of chaos theory. Even even like as chaos evolves and does it saying it creates a beautiful pattern? Yes, yes. So so um, in and so you know, it's like, you get this you get this knowing what can I do with that Melissa Drake 43:53 well, tell me what you mean by knowing like knowing you need to do medicine or knowing from the medicine Brandon Handley 43:58 I'm in the medicine and I feel amazingly supported that like you know, I've got the support and I have this knowing this innate knowing what does that do for me? Melissa Drake 44:10 So for me personally, I move different when I know that I'm protected I don't move in fear I don't move without I don't move. With hesitation I move with grace. I move with ease. I move with with understanding I move knowing that I'm supported. It's like when a little kid is jumping off the edge of the pool and he knows his dad is going to catch them he just runs and jumps in versus oh my god, I don't know what I'm gonna do and so you just move differently. When when you No, Brandon Handley 44:46 no, that's perfect. Right? And this space does grace and ease and understanding in the space of like this knowing does know that calming because you've been in supportive environments to enhance like that. That Well, 100% money. Yeah, absolutely. Melissa Drake 45:09 I think the medicine does part of that. But I will tell you that seven setting does as much, if not more, just knowing that people that I was with, I could feel their hearts. I know they were there for me. I know they were supporting me. It wasn't about money. In fact, it was completely donation based, and they would have done it for free if I didn't have the money. So just Yeah, that's the people the set the setting. That's huge. Absolutely. Brandon Handley 45:38 That's awesome. Right. And I think that that that's a big takeaway, right? I mean, agrees II. Grace, ease understanding translates really into a confidence, right? Yes. Yes. To like, you know, moving forward. encouraged. Yes. So I love it. I love it. All right. Well, cool. We are kind of at a spot which I like to I like I like in these podcasts. Most it's a little bit too, like spiritual speed dating. Right, but somebody's gonna somebody's gonna tune in this podcast, you're gonna gonna be like, You know what, Melissa has to be my next spiritual date. Right. So, in that vein, let me ask you a couple questions here. He didn't want some new questions like alive, right. Spiritual Bachelorette number one. What is our greatest distraction? Melissa Drake 46:39 Fear? Absolutely. For me, personally, I know that it has been fear I get caught up in what if it doesn't work out? What if what you know, when I when I move with the knowing there is no distraction, there is only inspiration, there is only just being guided by my internal guidance system. And when I'm worried about fear, or when I'm not present, I would say that's probably even a bigger distraction, which is fear based. If I'm not present, I'm either worried about the past, or I'm worried about the future. And just, you know, looking at all the shiny things, instead of being like, Wow, look how grateful I am for what I have right now in this moment. Brandon Handley 47:30 Sure. Sure, that's, I mean, that's a great one, would you say? Is it fear or doubt, right? Melissa Drake 47:38 Good distinction. They're not the same. But they're very similar. And I would say both. And I would also say that they're both limiting beliefs. Brandon Handley 47:59 And I think this is an opportunity for, you know, looking for faith of some type, right? Like you you mentioned, I think way in the beginning of the story, you're like, hit a guy will show me shit. All right. Let's do this. Faith, I don't know and what but like, you know, I've got this theory. Here's the thing. I believe that is going to show up in this in this kind of manner, right? Yes. Okay. All right. Spiritual. Bachelorette number one. Hoo, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. Why is there poverty and suffering in the world? Melissa Drake 48:43 Because people don't know or understand their power, because they don't have that knowing because they don't have the confidence. Because they're, they're afraid. And I will tell you that I've had my own poverty and my own suffering. And it's directly related to a lack of belief in myself, and a lack of belief in the universe and a lack of belief in the people who support me. And when tapped into that, you know, when I'm tapped into that knowing, suffering and poverty is doesn't even show up on my radar at all. Brandon Handley 49:26 How does that look for someone who's in the middle of it? Right? I think that's a real big challenge Melissa Drake 49:31 is a huge challenge. So Brandon Handley 49:35 if you Yeah, like, I mean, the question is, like, what if you showed up and told yourself, you know, hey, don't worry, everything's gonna be fine. While you were in this poverty and suffering state, what would you have said to yourself, right? Melissa Drake 49:47 Well, that's still the truth, even when I'm in in that mess. Like when I lost my job and didn't have any idea what I was going to do. The truth was, the truth is, and always will be It's gonna be fine. Sometimes we don't want to hear that. But it is true. And I would say like, when you're going through it, the best thing you can do is just have someone by your side to support you and to see you and witness you and not try to fix it or solve it. But just be there with you until you're ready to come out. And my my son is an amazing example of that. Jeremy is an amazing example of that, of someone who just allows me to, because we kind of have to come to terms on our own time, no one can solve the problem for us. So just someone to witness what you're experiencing, and allow that to unfold in the way that is best because like I said earlier, it's great. We're gonna make it or we're not and that's okay, too. You know, I would say like, Brandon Handley 50:54 listen, listen, I'm all in, right? I'm all in. And sometimes I might get the universe level. And here's the here's the funny thing, right? You know, here, here we are. We're on a, a tiny little ball in the middle of the universe. It's like perfectly suited for us to live, breathe, eat people. And we don't think you know, and and never, never, like, you know, never like you never, like wake up one day and be like, oh, man, the Earth is out of gas. I can't, I can't go to people today. My car, my earth isn't ready. Right? Like, you know, it's always it's always available. And you're use yourself, you pump blood, you create blood cells, you grow hair, you breathe in your sleep, and you do it all in your sleep without even like now we're doing and you don't trust that the universe kind of has your back to like, I don't know, lining you up with something that doesn't suck. Yeah, that's on you. Right. Like, that's because, again, like, you will get what you look for. Yes. Right. And so retraining yourself to look for those things the Melissa Drake 52:13 right, it's the retraining. That's it. And I will tell you, sometimes we're more comfortable in the mess because that's always known. Brandon Handley 52:21 We get double you know, right. Like, you may have like this big shit show of a mess, but it's your my shit show I run this big know how to operate. Yeah, right. Right. Right. And so it's like, All right, well, you don't have to, but like, not just the fear of something worse out there. There's something we're sure there's always something worse out there. But like, you know, I don't know. You make your way through it. So, so great to have you on one real quick question, right? Collab collaborative AF, what's happening behind me here? It's just like, so I mean, what, what, what is what is on the board? For those of you that are listening, she's got a board up behind her says, I'm gonna say it looks like collaborative AF. So like, you are Melissa Drake 53:07 absolutely 100%. Right. So when I, when I released my TEDx talk, which is about collaboration, I decided my business name was going to be collaborative AF. So I did keep that for a couple of years, and then I transition to something else. So that's just my my old branding that you're looking at, but it's still Brandon Handley 53:25 like, not not AF. No, I'm Melissa Drake 53:29 absolutely collaborative as my my new business platform is uncorked influence as in not corporate, but having that corporate foundation. Brandon Handley 53:41 So, you know, where can people go to find out more about that? Melissa Drake 53:45 On corporate influence un Corp, Edie? influence.com, that's my instagram handle and my website as well. Brandon Handley 53:55 Who would you say is like your ideal like client, like who should be they should be reaching out to you. Melissa Drake 54:02 So primarily, I work with authors who tell stories. And so anyone, literally everyone has a book in them. But it's not so much about writing the book. One thing that I have found is that writing a book is one of the best healing modalities available to mankind. You will find all of your stuff when you write about your book. And so I'm the person that's going to be that safe space to support you through that vulnerable, share. And also package your book, edit it and make sure that it looks beautiful, and it's ready for the world. Brandon Handley 54:36 Awesome. Melissa, thank you so much for being on today. Melissa Drake 54:38 Thank you. It was very fun. I appreciated the conversation. Intro Guy 54:43 Really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram and spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email there Brandon at Spirit Waldo Darko and as always thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality this includes the most thought provoking part of your day Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date until next time be kind to yourself and trust your intuition Transcribed by https://otter.ai                        

Creator of the Re-Sourcing MethodTM  Jenna Smith provides a tangible framework for people to access their untapped resources in order to live a life of purpose, deep confidence, and self-trust. An in-demand speaker, professional singer, coach, and author. Jenna is known as the “real deal” to get you past trying and fixing,  to fully living as your ideal self — permanently.  How?  Because she aligns people back to their nature: As confident, worthy, creative, successful beings.  Cutting through half-baked Woo-Woo and Ra-Ra self-development, Jenna provides concrete easy-to-learn tools for tangible results that last a lifetime. Jenna Smith trained in Spiritual Psychotherapy, Ontological Coaching, Peak Performance, Oneness, as well as Shamanism and Intuitive healing from Peru, India, Africa, Ireland, and North America Contact Info and Links: Website:  www.jennasmithcoaching.com Follow on IG: @adventuresinjennaland   Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one I'm to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you can have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general appear so limited in their thought process? Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't have to have all the answers but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another head of spiritual dove with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:43 One Hey, there's spiritual taupe. I'm on here today with Jenna Smith. She is the creator of the resourcing method, Jenna provides a tangible framework for people to tune into their untapped resources in order to live a life of purpose with deep confidence and self trust. An in demand speaker professional singer coach and author Jenner is known as the real deal to get you beyond trying and fixing to fully living as your ideal self permanently. Jenna has been trained as spiritual psychotherapy, Ontological Coaching, peak performance oneness, as well as shamanism and intuitive healing from Peru, India, Africa island in North America. Jenna what's going on? Jenna Smith 1:28 It's always interesting listening to that. I'm hanging out in southern Ontario, Canada, a little snowy right now. Brandon Handley 1:36 Well, I mean, you're lucky I love the snow, even a lot of snow. I've never really had to spend much time much further than Maine for winter, which, which was cool enough for me, I think that might be my limit. But who knows. I still like the snow and ice. Anyways, thanks for being here today. With us, we, we connected you and I connected over on pod match. I love it. It's like Tinder for podcasts are so different. And, and we get the opportunity to you know, see if there's a good fit beat. And before we hop on the call, and we did that actually, we still hopped on one just make sure was a good fit and really looking forward to the conversation to Jenna Smith 2:18 me too excited. Brandon Handley 2:20 So Jenna out, I always like to start these off with the whole idea that you know, you and I are conduits for your creative source source energy. I think you know, coming from shamanism, what you hear in shamanism is like being the hollow bone or something like that, right. And there's always something kind of flowing through us and whatever is flowing through us really ease isn't even for us, most likely it's for somebody else. And and there's a message that's coming through you today at this moment that somebody's gonna hear on the other end of this podcast. What is that message today? Jenna Smith 3:01 I feel like well, when you said sometimes it's not even for you, I feel like it's also always for you. But, um, I'm feeling like freedom is an inside job is is the two and I'm hearing right now. Like just dialing in our capacity to feel free from the inside. And then how that reflect in the outside world. And to dream like dream, our dream into being versus react from what's being already there, or other people are doing, you know, to be a creator. So that's, that's the vibe. Brandon Handley 3:43 I love it, right? The whole ideas that we're here creating our lives and, you know, one way or another, we're active participants. And hopefully we're willing, active, knowledgeable participants, creating something that we actually want in our lives versus being you know, being like, I think you said reactionary, right versus like, oh, shit, this is showing my life, I better tend to get out here freedom's an inside job, though, to your point. So I think that's a great message and a great way to start us off. So, you know, I know that we connected over the fact of you, you're, you're doing your coaching and you're in space of doing, you've done like many years of psychotherapy, you've done many years like peak performance. And you also ended up doing well call like just Aboriginal right? Healing, right. This is the the type of healing work that you'll find in native spaces. Yeah. Indigenous, there's no word. That's indigenous. So, you know, let's talk a little bit about your journey. You know, what do you think has been what has led you to this more spiritual space? Outside of the general? I'll just call it the general grind. Let's talk a bit about how you landed where you are today. And what are some things we could share with the audience? So it'll help them to step out of the grind and step into themselves, right? Jenna Smith 5:27 Yeah, yeah, and come with it. Sometimes the language I'll use is like 3d and five d, and maybe your audience would be familiar with that. But essentially, like a 3d existence, dimensional d dimensional, you have a job, and you have to do what's in front of you. And you follow these rules, and you kind of just don't have your own voice, and you don't have any freedom and power, really, you're just doing what's in front of you. And that's it. And that's true for many people. And whereas, like a five D reality is the acknowledgement that you're co creating, and you just slowly start to step out and out and out of systemic oppression and things that aren't there to, to empower humans. So just, I just thought I'd say that in case they say 3d and 5g, but how I got here was I think I came in at five D was like wtf is happening. So I mean, nothing extraordinary. My dad worked in the salt mine, my mom was a grade one teacher. But I was always an empath. I was always feeling other people's feelings and aware of things. And I could feel at home in nature. And eventually, when I got more and more to music, and eventually that was like, Oh, that makes sense. Because that's just creator, unencumbered, like nature, music, creation, anything in that creative realm where we're the intermediary of creation, right? So I was raised Roman Catholic, though. And that, that something felt off to me when I was, you know, kneeling and sitting and standing and mumbling the thing you're supposed to say at the time, you're supposed to say it without any connection to it. And I was like, hmm, this doesn't. This doesn't make sense to me. So that's, that's sort of like, the origin of knowing that there's something else at a really young age and then life presented new things. I was in a car accident when I was 15. And sustained, like soft tissue injuries, absolutely everywhere, nothing broke, but everything hurt. And that created a sleep disturbance. So I had like, no restorative sleep and chronic pain. And that created something called prevalent algea, or chronic pain syndrome. People might be aware of that. Basically, you're just always in pain, your brain doesn't work as well, all these kinds of things. And the doctors are like, yeah, so no, this is just how it is. You're just gonna have to deal with being in pain and there wasn't any options. And again, my voice in my head was like, really, like, you know, I didn't know the other option. But essentially, that led me to learning Reiki, Reiki got me connected to the energy world, like my Reiki teacher was like, hey, I can help you. And so my teachers, so over time to make a pretty long story short, teachers came to me the more that I was receptive to them. So what I would notice is I would create this opening of like, maybe there's another way or I think there's another way, and then a teacher would come. I didn't like, seek things. Often. My teachers found me. My teachers came to me so my Reiki teacher was a synchronistic event where I mentioned the word Reiki, and then someone's like, I'm taking Reiki I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna go to that thing. It was completely non forced. They always came to me. And then with shamanism, it just made sense to me. So energy made sense. To me. Reiki made sense to me. Oh, we're energy. And it's just, you know, when something sounds right, it that there's like, yeah, this makes sense that energy can come through. And this feels good. Oh, cool. Look at how I can sense things with my hands. And I kind of always knew were there. And then just kept getting more and more refined. And then in the real world, like, oh, I should have a job. So I love singing, and I was good at singing. And I went to university for singing, because apparently, that's gonna get you a singing career, which it won't. So that's not a thing. It'll get you in debt. And then you'll be like, Oh, what's, what's the plan for this? So that led me to being a personal trainer and doing these jobs and being in that 3d world, like, oh, had to pay my rent level up, but all the while I'm doing spiritual development. And I need my shaman mentor, random guy named Chris. You know, like, he doesn't have a special shaman name. Brandon Handley 9:51 I'm just assuming. Yeah, I mean, we all know Jenna Smith 9:56 Chris is actually his shot. I was like, No, that's wrong. His shaman He was left foot. But normal looking dude named Chris at a music festival looks at me strangely. And I was like, what's that about? Then we did an energy exchange and he helped me put my spirit back in my body. He's like, do you want to put your spirit back in your body? Yes. Brandon Handley 10:18 Do I know what that means? Yes, Chris. That'd be fantastic. I'm guessing you're the you're the person that does this. Jenna Smith 10:24 Yeah, like he had a t shirt and everything. So So I actually joke about him like strange, man. I think I was 22. Now he was maybe 3040s. And I was like, oh, yeah, come back to my mom's house. So we'll do an energy exchange of bodywork Brandon Handley 10:40 Did Did you tell your mom that that's what was happening? Oh, didn't Jenna Smith 10:44 tell her all I'm just like these, this free creature. Luckily, my spirit guides are like, we've got to just corral this chick until we get her tuned up. So. So either way, he put my spirit back on my body we did. It was at a traditional healer, heal me lie on a table, they heal you, right. That's what I was used to. I go and get Reiki, I go and get healed, I go see a healer. This was you know, weird to kind of like Tai Chi movements. And then you access something in the spirit world as a shaman and then you can blow it, it's another way to move into the physical through your breath, to blow that energy back into where it belongs. Or to blow out energy that is not in the highest. So there's no good or bad in shamanism, it's usable energy and usable energy. So when that happened, I felt a distinct shift because a bunch of we did a heart thing. And so a bunch of ex boyfriends popped up, like, called me something is like, out of nowhere, like one week in the one week period. I had a dream about you to learn. I'm like, okay, strange, but so so it's like evidence, right? Like, this isn't a coincidence. This would not have happened otherwise. And then my actual like, fiance type person living with me left, I went back home and there was a posted, I'm, I here's the key, like insects in the city. So I was that I quit. Yeah, like, I can't like something like I couldn't do as in person. Something something and I was so devastated. But this spirit in my body new vibrational muscle that I had was like, just curious, just wandering, and not freaking out. So both happening simultaneously. So I call Chris. Um, why did you do? What, by the way, he said, you know, she said, His Spirit stuff that I now say to my clients of like, you need to see each other with new eyes, blah, blah, blah. But it was just evidence to me, it was just intangible world that was just so powerfully boom, like, superhero landing, made tangible, like this energy shift. Did that recalibrating my life to match my spirit more? Brandon Handley 13:26 Right? Right, right, right. You energetically aligned right? Your spirit was like in your body and present and kind of an awareness of the Spirit in of itself, right? Just be like, Oh, shit, like Peter Pan, right? You So you found your shadow and you sewed it back on? Jenna Smith 13:44 Just just just that space was filled and and and now I could see through those eyes. So sort of like bambi legs, though. Oh, I don't know what I'm doing yet. Brandon Handley 13:57 We have to get like three or four more Disney references. And by the end of the podcast, Jenna Smith 14:02 we'll get sponsored. I love Disney movies. And I sang right and I like talk to animals. So I'm like, I wanted to present a Disney princess like obviously there should be a movie made about me. So anyway, that introduced me to shamanism that introduced me to the world of indigenous medicine which then more again, same thing, met mon Daza, from Zimbabwe who's a peacekeeper medicine man. So cool. He was taught how to be a medicine man from his ancestors through his dreams. So dragged about all the herbs and everything his feet were hanging over riverbank, seeing all the herbs without any instruction he went and got the herbs that he Oh this looks like this and didn't know what they were. Next stream was basically an encyclopedia of feeling like this is for this in this is for that. And then people started coming. So he tells this isn't like some guy on TV trying to make money like This is like he has nothing to prove. So like this Is this legitimate other good five d, where you're given instructions, you are being trained, you're being receptive, you're participating in your training, which is also very important. And then the people come, then you're then you're a magnet, right? Then you have that magnetic quality. So then the right people came, the people who needed him came and etc, etc. So learn from him a little bit and then just followed by spirit, just follow like, oh, go to Peru. Oh, go to these things. It wasn't like, Unknown Speaker 15:36 I should go to Peru so I can get a selfie on Machu Picchu, and then that'd be super cool. And it'd be super spiritual. Like, Jenna Smith 15:42 none of that voice guided my journey. And I think that's why like, Now this stuff is really cool. Like, when I was in high school, I'm 39. This was not cool. Like, this was like weird. And, you know, like, oh, like it wasn't Oh, neat. Tell me about chakras. Like, oh, my gosh, you're a shaman meet like before? Brandon Handley 16:08 It's definitely it's definitely interesting to see this kind of surge in the space. I mean, I think that Ayahuasca has a lot to do with it. I think that the Jenna Smith 16:22 entrepreneurs, tech startups, well, Brandon Handley 16:25 and a lot of, you know, I think, you know, plant medicine being legal now, like everywhere, right? Like, so with that coming to the forefront, there's like, it's become just a little bit more mainstream and acceptable, right. To your point to you've got tech entrepreneurs and people with high profiles, it'd be like, Yeah, I asked him for life, bro. And so, you know, it's bringing it to the forefront and making it this kind of cool thing. But what I think and you know, love to hear your part on this. And thoughts on this as well, is we got to be real careful, right? This is like a veneer, right? This is just the surface level of, you know, the spirituality, right, like just saying your spiritual wearing all the clothes and doing all this shit. Doesn't necessarily mean that you are, you know, connected to yourself. Right. I actually kind of had a question earlier. You know, where's the disconnect in general religion, right? Traditional religion, and want to make sure that we don't go down that same path again. Jenna Smith 17:38 Yeah, I believe in there's many rivers to the same ocean. Energy about spirit religion, as long as it's like, the not the human vs. Right. So the human vs of like control and power, and we both can't be right at the same time. That is when you need to call BS because Spirit is we're all right, all the time. So there's, there isn't that war energy, there isn't any separation, there literally isn't in that frequency. And we can't get there from the mind. We can't get there from a cognitive mind. Unknown Speaker 18:24 So yeah, Brandon Handley 18:25 well tell me more about that. Jenna Smith 18:28 Yeah, so the mind naturally will separate to the mind will naturally see good and bad, it's a good thing. It's like, that smells bad. Don't eat it. Like it's a good tool for life and for relationships and for unity and oneness and CO creating a world that doesn't suck. Not a great tool. Like it's limited. So the cognitive mind is bound to what has been, and what's been told to you. Brandon Handley 18:58 And the target in mind, again, cognitive mind, again, is what's bound and what Jenna Smith 19:04 it's bound to only what has been, and what's right in front of you. So it's what they are doing and what has been done. So it's not the place of innovation and creation and possibility. And unless someone has the courage to bring that in, but the cognitive mind is not the place where you create new things, or you create deep connection. It's a tool. It's just simply a tool, but it's not meant to be what we live from dominantly Brandon Handley 19:37 does so now of course, the follow up question is where are we supposed to live? dominantly. Jenna Smith 19:43 So, I believe we have the capacity to use our mind as a tool. And our body is a gateway to intelligent information through sensation and our heartspace which can also be used with emotions, it's a space. You know, when you there's no words, right? This is where music comes in, this is where poetry comes down. This is where art comes in, where it's trying to translate that thing that you can't bring words to what we try. And it's a beautiful trying, when we do it artistically. The dot space is the space of love and creation, where there is no noise of thoughts, because the thought is meant to be a tool. It's very reductionist, what I'm saying but it's, it's to help make sense of something make sense of where we could go with it. And we can increase our capacity of feeling with sensations in our body, we can increase our capacity, feeling the space of the heart and living from it more and more and, and going to fill up fill up in this space. Um, we just aren't, we're taught, we just weren't taught but the Ayahuasca is in the plant medicines are also those gateways, those access points that clean off our receivers. So but I like to make it really grounded and really easy, and like something preschool kids could do. So then that means adults could do it to feeling like they would be dumb if they dried, but your body and your heart. And so there's this place called your center, where all of it is there, like you can feel the body sensations, the mind has something to say, the heart is giving us data, it's all data. And then there's a space in between, there's a space in between all of that where we are. Hmm. And that's, that's where if we go from there, we're good. No matter the circumstances or conditions, this is what I've come to find. You know, my dad's committed suicide, I've been through a tornado killed chronic pain, blah, blah, blah. And it's, it's this, it's this place where I don't break where it is unbreakable, you know. So that center place where you have access to your body, your heart, and your mind, and then your spirit. All working at the same time. Brandon Handley 22:13 I want to use the word like resilience for this place where you don't break. But is that a good word? Is there a better word that you can think of that would describe that place? Jenna Smith 22:24 Hmm, I mean, I call it I call it this is the resourcing method. This is but it's not the best word either source like to resource to is the method of how to get there, but I would call this space like resilient is is a it's like a, you know, it's like an ad it's like your will get resiliency. Brandon Handley 22:44 Right. Right, exactly. But I think that there's I think that if what I'm understanding is that this is really a space where where you're connected, this is the place where you're connected, right, where you realize just in a moment that you're connected with source and in that space, right. Where you won't, you can't break. Right. I love you know, Bob Proctor. I haven't listened to him for a while. But one of the lies that he said, that really resonated with me back in the day was your spiritual DNA is perfect. Right. And so since then, I've always had to agree with him. So this is a place where you're spiritually connected, and you can't, it's impossible to break. So that would be I guess, where I would land that. Would you agree? Disagree? Jenna Smith 23:42 Yeah, there's no wrong or bad. There's no behind or forward. You know, you're not like, you know, people like, Oh, I'm dealing with this again, on like, two steps back with no Brandon Handley 23:54 users right here. Always here. Right? Jenna Smith 23:58 Yeah. And, and we heal in a spiral. Right. So sometimes the you that's a new new expression of yourself looks at an old date with new eyes with new capacity with new resourcing. In order to bring it fresh consciousness, bring it fresh, bring it Love, bring it attention, we don't have to add fancy words bring attention to something that was too hard to be with before. Okay, there's something wrong with that. So yeah, I like all that. Brandon Handley 24:28 And I like the idea to have it being in a spiral. It always makes me think I always think of the golden ratio, right? And just kind of like the growth is the growth is it gets bigger as you go out, but you still TierPoint like you can still see all of the rest of what's happening. So one of the things I want to hit on too, I mean, I'm definitely loving the you know, the indigenous conversation and talking about some of that but also want to just make sure that the people listening because You've also got two degrees in psychotherapy, right? So I mean, it's not like you didn't go to school and study and you just did a bunch of ayahuasca and hung out mud baths for a couple years and came out of it being like, Hey, I'm a healer. You're like, Hey, I also am classically trained, Western style. And then, you know, East meets West. Let's talk about the convergence of the two a little bit and how that's where do you see that convergence? Jenna Smith 25:30 Well, it's a great time, as you said, the hype Enos of plant medicine that can be misunderstood is like a transactional nature, I take this, I get that. No. And so if you don't have discernment, Trump being a trauma informed therapist is, luckily, it's trendy now. Like, it's also gaining trend, which is great mental health and the, there's some missing elements, but to be trained hours and hours and mentors, and it's, it's, it's so small thing, and I'm not like tooting my own horn, I'm just saying. It made sense to me to put that much time and effort into it. And the payoff is I am capable, when someone has something arise to deal with it. Like deep trauma, all of these things, you can't just Life Coach School them. Like there's some cool stuff with that have like habit management, all that kind of stuff. But when we talk about deep healing of human beings, fragmentation and PTSD and addictions and and you know, bringing up suicide, there's like, deep stuff that you don't want to eff with. Like, it is possible, Brandon Handley 26:48 right? And as a coach myself, I'm like, I tap out, I'm like, I'm out. You need somebody you need somebody else to deal with this shit. Jenna Smith 26:56 Okay, it's just like saying, Brandon Handley 26:59 Yeah, this is this, this is this is outside of my purview. But I love that, you know, you're able to, again, you're harnessing many different kinds of facets, right, many different pieces. And just curious again, to where you're seeing this convergence. Okay, right. Shamanism? Yeah. Jenna Smith 27:20 Yeah, I'm seeing in the world. Okay, so I started and then I went off, but there is what I love is the with the internet and the online world, that you're seeing more trauma informed with Gabor Ma Tei. And Thomas Hubel. You know, you never really hear their name out loud. That, that they're starting to have these conversations and those that are interested in seeking and wanting that wholeness are able to access this information, because it's out there. So there is a convergence, because, you know, in psychotherapy, you do inner child work, in shamanism you do. Soul Retrieval, right. So, um, and then there's just inner parts. In general, we have all of these inner parts that are dealt with in the psychotherapy, therapeutic model, that are also seen in the shamanic world, they're just different names. So it's really cool to be a part of both and then this Ontological Coaching and high performance and achievers and all that kind of stuff. And working with that type of personality type is really fascinating, but they all do converge, and how we relate to reality. So with the shamanism, being that creator, and not having it be wrong or bad. And then with psychotherapy, it is to bring Completion to things that haven't been processed before. So essentially, so you're not repeating the pattern, which is the same thing as being a co creator, right? Like, okay, so I tend to attract this kind of thing into my life, how can I be different in order to create an experience a different experience, so they, there is a lot of convergence. And the more you do it, the simpler it gets. That might have been like a lot of words, but what I find the essential truth of these converging is that we are already whole, what arises is what needs attention. And it's the right time if it arises, and you will attract the right people. I've always attract the right teachers, but not if I think I need them. Now, if I'm, you know, like up until 4am, looking for the solution to the problem. Right. Brandon Handley 29:37 Yeah. So, I love that you're hitting on that point. I jotted that down earlier to when you're talking about the you know, being magnetic and having the people drawn to you right, like, you know, and without, without seeking, right we talk about I think we hear a lot in this you know, spiritual just five d See this other space have a life of ease, right? And how things are supposed to be easier. And people are like, No, you got, you got to do all this work and you do all this other stuff. But you're also now you're not. And so this, this part that you're sharing, which I just want to highlight is like, you know, the people showed up when you needed them without like, ultimately seeking them without saying, I need this now in my life. But then when you do, you're like, Oh, my God, where I need, like shamon 101. And I need it like in zip code 19465. Like, oh, I can't find a shaman that fits my needs. Right? Where's How come a shaman won't just show up? Right? It's just energy that we put out thinking, I think that I heard you talk a little bit about this on another podcast, trying to do it from the egoic place. Jenna Smith 30:51 Trying to infer something's missing. So when when we're committed that something's missing, we're going to create, keep creating, something's missing. So we'll, we'll find somebody but they're maybe not great. Or like that you have a weird experience or Brandon Handley 31:03 your lesson? No, Chris, there. No, Chris. Jenna Smith 31:07 Chris, I mean, come on. That's the reality of it. I was gonna be like, what is Chris's Brandon Handley 31:13 name, I need to get ahold of Chris, is that like, Chris? versus shannon.com? Is that what I heard him say? Jenna Smith 31:20 He's gonna love this, it's so much fun. But you know, I do want to touch on that ease part. Because it's a both and you do work, you do do work on yourself, you do have a committed relationship to yourself and what comes your way. But there is ease on the other side of that, in order for you to be your fullest expression. So you can't just dink around, whatever, like, although sometimes I do because that's part of my full expression like, dawdling, it's like a way for me to kind of defragment or like hanging out on my hammock, like the things that make me more me, make me a better healer, make me more present, make me radiate more, so I can help more people, that that isn't the only reason why I'm doing it, I get to live a great life, and I should, as you do, and as should others. And that's sort of like the memo, people need to get like you give from your overflow. And that's what you deserve to have is what is that life that creates those conditions for you to be that, and sometimes that's working more hours for some people, but the ease is in the lack of struggle that you're not? Brandon Handley 32:38 Well, I mean, if you're working harder towards or in a life that you actually want, there's, there's a there's a purpose, there's a meaning there's alignment, right, then, you know, with all of that should come some type of ease in that. And it's not. Because it's your choice, right? Because this is this is like a meaningful, this is what I'm doing. I'm doing it on purpose, versus like, I'm getting up to pay the bills, I'm getting out because this I have to do this and all those things. Jenna Smith 33:09 Nature. So there are ants, right there ants are as a species, right? That that's their jam. Like there are people, and I know them and usually hire them. Like you come work for me. Like because you love doing this. And I thrive with lots of space, lots of space and time to go into cave time. And I need that in order to go out back into the world. And I've tried it different ways. But no, it just it's I would call it to be true to your nature to just assume the tree is going to have what it needs. And you know, the dog depending on where it lives, who's hosting it goes into should have what it needs, that in nature, you're going to have your needs back, just just just the way things are. But why not humans and to me, it's about returning to that that vibration of pay if I was created by a Creator and nature, this intersection of both which they are i There is a life where everything I'm supposed to be is supposed to be here for me. Not because I'm entitled. It's that everyone should essentially be able to come back to that existence because that just makes sense. That just makes sense to me. Brandon Handley 34:21 Right? Right. I think honestly, we're seeing that a lot more out there right now. So I guess the question I would have is, let's let's talk about doing some work with Jana. Right? Like who you know, who you working with? What's uh, you know, somebody who's listening to this podcast is like, Yeah, I'm down to do some spiritual shamanism and let's, let's get in out of the 3d indentified the, what are some of the first steps there? Jenna Smith 34:49 Yeah, so I mean, I mean, like pragmatically My website is Janice with coaching.com. And I work with The people that I have on my website that feel deeply and think big, so they're, you know, the achiever types that they know there's something that they're here for, but they're dealing dissatisfied and that kind of thing. So when I work with people like that, through conversation, it's like transformational conversations we meet as they speak, I can hear where they're out of alignment I can hear where they're battling themselves. In reality, I can hear programs that aren't theirs that third their mom or this and I don't villainize parents, and I don't villainize the programs, it's just like, that's not you. And it's very pragmatic, and that by having those conversations, okay, now, here are the things that you as an individual, individualized things that work for most humans anyway. So that's a bonus that will tune you to you more. And it's like in digestible increments, because that's, again, what makes my my job easy, is I'm tuning in to the intelligence of that person in front of me, knowing that it knows how to guide this person, with all of my gut with all my tools and all of my teaching all, but the biggest thing is to be present with the human in front of me, and listening deeply with presence and go from there. Maybe not the answer you're looking for. But that's what Brandon Handley 36:25 I mean. That's what it looks like. Right? That's what looks like for somebody to come to you and do work with you and to initiate what you know, what is something I guess what is something practical that maybe somebody doesn't have the time to pick up the phone to call Jenna today? Or this week? Do you have anything that they could take a look at themselves some tools that you might offer? Jenna Smith 36:52 Absolutely, yeah, so not sure if you have as a link notes. On my website, you'll see a link to programs and there are free meditations. So the heart breathing meditation is. So the three things I'm always going to recommend our heart breathing, which is meditation to center into the heart space journaling, and sensing the body sensations. So those are the steps to start to strengthen those vibrational muscles I talk about with your body and your heart, managing your mind and accessing your spirit. So they're all on that website. So there's, there's about five free meditations and the heart breathing it but if you were to pick one, I would say take on the heart breathing exercise for a month and start there because that's the muscle. It's like if you only ever did bicep curls, right? If you're into fitness, hi used to be a personal trainer. But you know, like, it's like, that's what we're always doing is our mind, our mind our mind. But you got to start working that muscle that doesn't get enough attention. Yeah, so it's like, definitely start there. I am writing a book right now. So that'll be coming out. So once you join teachable, you will get access to being on my list. So then you'll know when the book comes out as well. Brandon Handley 38:05 Awesome. You mentioned, like I said, check out another podcast and you'd mentioned something that I really liked about journaling, like journaling is what is not necessarily just writing down stuff, it is what Jenna Smith 38:18 it's a technology. So it's a it's an integration technology of merging your mind slowing it down, embodying it, it comes down through the heart space, your heart is connected to your hands energetically. And then as you're writing on paper, ideally, like computer typing isn't the same thing. As you're writing you're you're simultaneously being aware of and you're witnessing your experience. So you're getting all of these things all at once. And most people these days are like, Oh, I can't write as fast as my head. I can't you know, I can't write fast enough. I think it's hilarious. It's like, what do you think the problem? Like? What do you think the solution is? And they very rarely think to write slower. Just see what happens. Brandon Handley 39:08 Right? Right. I know, I've certainly gotten the feedback. Well, you know, if I write that much, my hand or arm is gonna hurt and like, well, I don't know, then maybe write less that day and work your way up to it or Jenna Smith 39:18 whatever, right? It's just the noise of the mind. And so as you start to write in a non hairy, crazy way, that is showing you how your mind is right. You're you're bringing awareness to thoughts and you're bringing awareness to your experience of thoughts through the page. And then as you begin as you journal more and more, it's this relationship with yourself that you're cultivating. You know, do you have the page? And so it's not a Dear Diary, it's uh, you know, you can do a brain dump, which is just blah, My shoulder hurts. It was hard to sleep. And then oh, maybe I'm grateful for this grateful for that. And then sometimes you could do a creation journal where Oh, you know, I'd love to feel inspired today and then just have floated out, like, you have no idea how it's gonna happen. And I've done this before, it's so neat, how creation will play with you, if you play with it. Like if you're I would love to experience I did one time, I'd like to be delighted. Whatever something and I, I hold out this book and then there was a bookmark that said, so are you ready to be delighted today? And it was a Pottery Barn ad. But it was the exact words, Brandon Handley 40:33 right? Well, it's, you know, to me, it's interesting. You know, I was going to ask you do you write down? Do you generally ask people or recommend that they write down some things that they might want? Oftentimes, right, we don't focus on what we want. We tend to just focus on the noise, right? Instead of cutting through it, and just saying, that's a bunch of noise. Here's actually what I, this is what I'd like this to look like. And then when you're writing it down, you're becoming part of that creative process. I think years ago, I called it like, physically, like the cosmic record player of the universe, right? Like the pen being like the needle on the paper being, you know, Jenna Smith 41:12 that's cool. That's a neat record, right? Brandon Handley 41:15 And so, but then it shows up, because now you've like, you've given yourself permission to just see it once. Now you're gonna see it, like, again, I think we talked about in the beginning here, you just talked about seeing the evidence of these things that are showing up in your life. So awesome. No, I love I love that. Is there anything else you wanted to hit on? Before I flip this over to just one more section here? Jenna Smith 41:40 Nope. Other than on my website, there are journal prompts, as well. Okay, so that's like, the brain dump start thing and then some prompts of like, creating and I actually can't remember them right now. But basically, holdings are very good, though. Helping Yeah, they're great. Like carry member one. But two prompts, because if you're new to journaling, you'll just be like, most people can't deal with this blank page to save their life. So confronting and you were so afraid of getting things wrong. But anyway, there's journal prompts, so but I love that record player. I just had a really cool visual when he said that. Brandon Handley 42:20 So I mean, look, when it came to me, like as I was doing it, just that's just how I felt right? I've got a tactile response of the paper to write. I've got a favorite paper to like, I mean, I'm just That's it gets to that point. You're like well, this is my favorite pet and I can't journal with it. Jenna Smith 42:35 is true. Like the these like gel pens that Unknown Speaker 42:40 that? Yeah, yeah. Brandon Handley 42:42 Yep, that and I've got this my papers down there. But I've got like this cotton press paper. That's all tactile and responsive. It's so great. Anyways. I'll share that with you after the fact. Okay. So I like to I like to I like to like in this podcast is kind of like a spiritual speed dating thing, right? Like, because people are gonna tune in and they're checking out like, hey, JENNA SMITH could be my next spiritual speed date. Like, I think, you know, studies also show out there that a lot of people just kind of go through like a 90 day cycle. Like, they're just like, hey, I'm gonna tune into all things Jenna for like, 90 days. So somebody's gonna tune in, you feel like nowadays, spiritual speed dating. There's a question. I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions you get for that. Jenna Smith 43:27 Never Never done this on a podcast before I like it. Brandon Handley 43:30 Alright, so spiritual Bachelorette number one. Describe God. Jenna Smith 43:40 To me, God is the source of everything and always here, but also like your cool uncle that wants all the best for you. And you can just call them and be like, so this is what happened today. And it really sucked, or can you get me a pony? Because I'd really like to have a pony. So I feel like it's not an ego thing. But it's this divine creator parent that intrinsically because you've been created wants you to be your fullest expression. Brandon Handley 44:15 Like, who wouldn't want that for their child? Right? Like if I'm if listen, if I'm taking a one in 400, Chilean shot, ascended jennasmith down to this dinky planet, or I'm not sending her that I have a shitty experience as a parent, right? Yeah. That's just my take as a parent, and you know, if you put it into the context that you're putting in, like, what are we also afraid of? Right? Like, you talked a little bit about like, even just getting to this prompt like getting to a journal and be like, I don't know what I was supposed to write. Right and like being afraid of writing the wrong thing. What are we what are we also afraid to Jenna Smith 44:53 do that we're not enough? We're so afraid that we'll get it wrong. We're not enough and were worthless, like the worthless Unknown Speaker 45:04 virus Jenna Smith 45:06 is just the worst. It's just the worst. It's like it's couldn't be further from the truth of who we really are. I had it too, I call it toxic shame. But feeling worthless is the antithesis of who you really are. And the it feels so terrible that you also don't share it with anybody. So it stays hidden and Off, off we go in this pain loop. But it's just not true. It's the feeling of worthlessness is so terrible, because it's not true. It is my belief. Brandon Handley 45:37 Get it? You know, just not even being worthy of something decent to write down that somebody would want to read type of thing? Jenna Smith 45:45 Well, you get it wrong. Like if you're wrong. You're wrong. Not you're not you're you don't have a journal yet, or this is new. Brandon Handley 45:52 Listen, I think that even sometimes my own gratitudes are wrong. I'm like, well, that doesn't I'm not sure if that was the right gratitude for today. Am I doing this right? I get it, I get it. And I also think that in conjunction with that, that's one of the things that people are afraid to make decisions, right. There's like the paralysis of what if I make the wrong choice? What do I make that what? Good? Well, no, Jenna Smith 46:17 I was, it made me think, you know, we also our children, we don't stop having an innocent, vulnerable self when we're 19 and then figure out what job we should have and who should we should marry and started like, it's so stupid. We're always vulnerable. And so this acceptance of our vulnerable self will also help with that too. And like, Unknown Speaker 46:38 Ooh, I'm scared of this, but it's okay. It's okay. Brandon Handley 46:43 To love that, to me, I'm definitely working through sounds sounds like you know, inner child work. What was the shamanism version of that? Jenna Smith 46:53 Oh, soul retrieval, Brandon Handley 46:55 soul retrieval and Shadow Work could all kind of be Jenna Smith 47:00 like, it's just basically saying like, Hey, it's okay to be like I call it being humaneness and beingness. The humaneness realm is the inner child and the shadow and the ego and the relationships and I would never be like Hitler. Brandon Handley 47:16 Speed balls, cocaine and heroin. You never know. Right? So yeah, Jenna Smith 47:21 the just the humaneness has its own thing. And then the Beingness has its own thing. And we're both Right, right. Brandon Handley 47:26 Which is super awesome. having you on here today. Love that. There's lots of free material that can help others along their journey. Where should we send people to to connect with you? Jenna Smith 47:38 Definitely. JENNA SMITH coaching.com. And I'm on Instagram, at Adventures in Jenna land. Brandon Handley 47:47 All right, awesome, awesome people that are Intro Guy 47:50 cool. I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove Dotco. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram and spiritual underscore. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email to Brandon at spiritual dove.co. And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  Best selling author and book agent Bill Gladstone has been in the publishing industry for over thirty years. In that time, he has represented some of the biggest names in the business and has helped to shape the careers of many successful authors. Gladstone is a man who knows the ins and outs of the publishing world, and he is someone who can be trusted to get the best deal for his clients.   Find out more about Bill: https://waterside.com/   Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question some time for another hit of spiritual with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 Hey, the spiritual tip I'm on today with our special guest William Gladstone and he is the co author of the books tapping the source, the golden golden mic or the golden motorcycle gang and author of the international best selling novel The 12. Glassnote is considered an international expert on indigenous cultures and the meaning of 2012. He is also co producer of the highly acclaimed film tapping the source as a literary agent Mr. Gladstone has worked with some of the most respected and influential authors of our time, including Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Neale Donald Walsch and Tom Hartman. And last but not least, and of course, not not even probably the tip of the iceberg. But Master Shaw, who I recently interviewed, and that's how I found out about, you know, the guy behind the scenes. William Bill Gladstone. Thanks for being on today. Bill Gladstone 1:36 It's a pleasure. And yeah, I'm glad that you had the opportunity to interview Dr. Shah master shots. He's kind of a hidden secret right now. He's not really hidden. But you know, I've represented you know, Neale Donald Walsch deals, Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, Marie Kondo. And there's a level that they have in terms of their visibility that Dr. Shah does not. And it's kind of ironic, because Dr. Shah, in some ways, is a more important spiritual teacher, what he's able to do. And I ended up I was so intrigued and worked with him now for about 15 years that I actually investigated and wrote this book, Miracle soul healer exploring a mystery. And it really is a mystery. Not only does he have the ability to heal people, but he's been able to train other people to heal people. And that, to me is like mind boggling. How does that happen? So, you know, in the 10 years since I originally wrote miracle soul healer, I've learned a lot more about Master shots. So we're re releasing the book come out in a couple of weeks, and that we've changed from exploring a mystery to documenting a legend because it's my belief that he's going to become a legend just in the way that Edgar Casey is a legend, legendary healer. What Dr. Shah has been able to do is extraordinary. And what's almost more extraordinary is that he keeps reinventing himself. It's like he started off, you know, as a as an acupuncturist. I mean, he's got degrees in medical, traditional medicine, but also Chi Gong and Tai Chi and acupuncture and herbal medicine. So he's always he's just as a very exploratory nature. He never satisfied even though he's he's always wanting to learn and develop himself. He's just a very creative human being an intelligent human being. So a few years ago, right at the beginning, when I agented, his first big best seller, he already had bestsellers before I started agent again, but the first one I did was miracle soul healer, and he included a calligraphy and you can see behind me I have a calligraphy now I was gifted one by one, which is wonderful. But at the time, it was like, Oh, now he's really gone too far. Now he's saying that this calligraphy, this piece of art, this piece of paper has healing properties. I said, No way. Anyway, you know, I got up on stage. I remember I was at a one on one author, one of one of that with Rick Fishman, who he actually introduced me to Dr. chatons, you know, when the book first came out at least 10 years ago, and, you know, I presented the book and, you know, I was a little bit, you know, I don't really know if this drawing you know, is, but the rest of it, you know, I've checked out, you know, it's really interesting. And I remember when I got off the stage, someone came up to me because we had given out some copies. And I said, I'm a something impact. And I opened the book to the page, and the energy from this is just incredible. Well, you know, I guess maybe there's something to it because I thought it was pretty far out there. But and that was really, when that happened. That's when I started, you know, because I have degrees from Harvard. You know, I published articles and, you know, scientific and my father was a chemist before he became a book publisher. So grounded skepticism, healthy skepticism. And so, but now I was intrigued. So that's when I did the original interviews and I interviewed over 100 people when I wrote miracle so healer, and there's absolutely no way you would have so much positive results, just from the placebo effect, and certainly the placebo effect. And yeah, there's something to that, but there's something actually going on. So that's why I've continued to be in contact with with Master Shah. Like, him, I also like to keep exploring and growing. So I am finally realized, even though you know, he gifted me a calligraphy, I didn't really pay much attention to it. But then recently, I came up with the idea that we should do these NF T's non fungible tokens, we should sure, you know, do one that was, you know, going to give financial abundance to people because in addition to healing, there's other blessings that are communicated through the calligraphies. And I was skeptical, but it's like, you know, it's not going to hurt anybody, if they believe it, and it works for them. Great. I'm not saying it's gonna work, but just as a collectible, because the art itself has value. So we did choose 5000 of these prints, electric prints, and we sold all that $2,000 Each generating $10 million. So that got even more of my attention. It's like, whoa, and as those you know, I think they sold like to 1500 people, because a lot of people bought two or three. Well, there were at least 600 people who like, wrote in within weeks of getting this calligraphy, my financial world has been, you know, like, evolving. And I'm like, Okay, if that's happening, I guess it's time I still don't understand exactly how it happens. But then, you know, so I'm like, Okay, this is really amazing. I get a call from Esther, she says, my new thing is, song, I have this special dowel song. I'm gonna give all my healings now through the song. And I'm like, okay, and I want you to organize the concerts. And I said, What master shot. I'm a literary agent. I don't really understand the world of music. You gotta give me a you know, we just started all these, because now we're also some of the original calligraphies, I sold one for a million dollars, I mean, big business. I said, Let me focus on these things that I understand. And I'm already doing. And he said, well, but heaven says, You can do this, you know, everybody. And I said, Well, I used to think that was just sort of like a joke. But when he says, heaven says, I know everybody, it means I will know everybody, if I don't know, I'm now the right person. For sure, he's kind of on a spiritual mission. And I mean, this is true. I mean, I don't believe it myself. But two days after he asked me to represent and find a record label for him, and I told him, Look, give me six months, I've got to focus on all these other things. My daughter who's a ghostwriter called me with a project. And it was a project related to a marketing expert, actually two marketing experts that wanted to use her to write a book. But she wanted me to something the agent to negotiate the terms and do what I do. So I got on the phone, and I met this extraordinary author who has a marketing company. Well, it turns out, she also has a record company. And it turns out that she's into, I don't even know what you call it, this non traditional music, World Music, whatever. And I said, Well, you know, I've got this other claim, why don't you go and listen to this music and tell me what you think. She writes back the next day is the most incredible music. I never had anybody like this, we want to, we want to, you know, do everything we will do the concerts. And actually the album for that is coming out in about two weeks. So now, it's not just the calligraphy it's not just the healing. It's not just the teaching. It's also music concerts. So who knows what Master shows going to do next. But I am very intrigued with all this going on. That's why I decided to go back and just update the book a little bit. Because there's no longer exploring a mystery. It's documenting a legend. I've never met a human being who's been able to pivot and be successful in so many different areas. I mean, he's like, you know, he's now a concert performer. He's mastered calligrapher. He's a Master Healer. And what actually is my greatest point of contact with him is we've been doing together for almost a year now, what he calls the power and wisdom of Dougie Jain, which is the teachings of Lauzun dowdy Jing is a book that was written over 2500 years ago, only has 82 chapters Laos, who is considered the foremost promoter, and expert on Tao, he introduced the concept of doubt to the world. And I studied philosophy at Yale. And I've always been intrigued by the world of ideas. So MasterChef asked me to host this show. And the main benefit I get is, he's taking at least an hour, sometimes two or three hours for each chapter. So it's probably going to take us two years to go through this. And it's totally free. I mean, I'm just doing it because I'm learning so much. And basically what you're learning is the way of the doubt nature's way. And the surface. That seems very simple. But these lessons, the more you hear them, and the more you truly understand them, the more profound they become. And you know, I've worked with all these great spiritual visionaries Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, as I said, before, Neale Donald Walsch, and you know, they're great. But I have to say, if you want to go back to first principles, I'm becoming convinced that the Dow, the understanding of what the Dow means, particularly the way Dr. Shah interprets it, is kind of the fundamental face of all knowledge, it's really been intrigued. And so I've been learning that. So I'm very grateful to Master Chef for bringing all this to the world. And I'm also totally alive. But what's also was remarkable is, but 15 years ago, we did this film, tapping the source, and we interviewed over 100, major celebrities, authors, business leaders, billionaires. And what we learned was that the source of happiness for all of these people was very basic, it was finding a way to express gratitude every day, and finding a way to be of service to others. Well, then, push forward 10 years later, I'm studying, you know, Lao Tzu and the Tao. And what is the fundamental message from Master Sha? One, in his case, it's a little bit different. You start with forgiveness, so that my people didn't feel the need to ask for forgiveness. But Master Sha, you asked for forgiveness, then the next few things, express gratitude and be of service, my purpose of life is to serve. That's what Master Schultz presents. So I found that, wow, what I've been doing, you know, totally in what I would call the secular world, you know, just mainstream world is now sort of linking up with with Master Sha, which is admittedly, an esoteric traditions. I mean, not everyone is going to resonate, you know, with the Chinese language and the Chinese philosophy, but they really are one. And so I've really been having a lot of fun with this. And we're combining, we're starting to do these tapping the source summits. And so at the last one, we had Deepak and my good friend and client, Dr. Ervin Laszlo with Master Sha, and looking at these big questions, you know, where do we come from? Where are we going? Why are we here? What is the nature of reality? What is the nature of our universe, and it's really interesting as we as we go forward, because there is a common thread, and there is a way of raising the awareness of the average person, because it may not seem like it's such a big deal, but it's actually a very big deal. If the majority of people on our planet had a greater sense of who they really are, not just in terms of their personalities, not just in terms of their family backgrounds, but who they really are, as, for lack of a better word, spiritual beings, universal souls. When I was a bit, Brandon Handley 13:51 let me jump in here real quick. So, you know, one of the things I enjoyed in researching you was listening to an interview that you did with Jack Canfield, maybe 10 years ago, maybe 11 years ago, we talked about and just like you talked about here, you came from like a chemist, your father's a chemist, book publisher, going into this industry for yourself where even he'd mentioned to you I believe, you know, don't be a writer there's no money being a writer. And you know, you're and I can hear you I'm in the business world as well. And I can hear you rattling off numbers like you're a very your business acumen. You know, you're very focused on the business. Right. But you also you also co authored another book, is it tapping this horses? Welcome. Have it right in front of me? Yeah. Bill Gladstone 14:37 It was tapping the source. I should have brought him up, you know, show him to you. Brandon Handley 14:42 I didn't give you I didn't give you any prep on this. So Bill Gladstone 14:45 yeah, tapping the source which was Reus issued as a complete Master Key System. Tapping the source was brought to me by another one of my clients because he had become a big fan of Charles canal, Charles canals Master Key System. There's so many rumors about it, Bill Gates uses it Elon Musk, like circulated in Silicon Valley. But tapping the source was really a modern, updated version of The Master Key System. And Charles canal was the first writer who combined Eastern ideas with Western ideas. Napoleon Hill gave an owl credit for all of his work with thinking grow rich. And so Nell really was the source of information for what we now call the Human Development movement, which has been going on for about 100 years. Brandon Handley 15:38 So, and that wasn't until that was, like 1012 years ago that you tapped into that book. Were you aware of him before that? Bill Gladstone 15:47 Not at all, I had never even heard of Charles now. Your mind Brandon Handley 15:50 blown, like what it sounded like? You were just like, wow, what is this material and this is so amazing. Well, Bill Gladstone 15:55 not on this. And I have to be honest, I remember when I was very young, because, you know, it was in publishing already, I was living in New York, and I got invited to something called dare to be great. And it was, as far as I was concerned, a whole lot of hocus pocus and hype. And, you know, manifest this and envision that, you know, I just thought it was a lot of people trying to steal your money. So I've been very skeptical of this whole self help genre. Even though my father's article publishing was one of the leading publishers in self help. He also was very skeptical. So I was not that open when unkind. So Oh, I got this book, Master Key System and its depth. And the same thing, frankly, with the secret. And you know, even though a lot of my friends, like they're oversimplifying, and it's not that simple. But then when I read Charlson out, which was not as simple as a secret secret, actually had made reference to Charlson out, but I wasn't aware of who he was at the time. But the secret over simplified, Charles tau is very rigorous. That's why we had to write the book, it was 26 weeks to go through the course, in those days, you have to understand this 100 years ago, you had to pay a dime for each. So it was $2.60, which is probably like $2,000 today, but you had to complete each each lesson. And then you get the next week's lesson. And each lesson required an hour of meditation. And it was very complicated. But when I finally read the material, I understand why Napoleon Hill and others had gravitated to Charlson else, he really had found some principles. And, you know, they've been misrepresented too often. For example, the law of attraction, according to Charles now, is really the law of love. And it simply means if you're emanating energy of love, you're going to draw energy of love back doesn't mean you're going to get a one to one correspondence, you send out energy of love to someone who's, you know, in a bad mood, and he, they're not going to send you back love, they may send you back, but you know, something you don't want. But over time, if you if you if you are able to generate energetic fields of positive energy, positive energy will be drawn to you. And this is very interesting. Turning back to the master shot, because now I'm beginning to understand what happens with these calligraphies. He puts so much love into these calligraphies. It's creating a field. And so it's not Hocus Pocus, there's actually reality to what is going on here. But yes, I have a very rounded and I think my mother, my mother was very inspiration. He wanted to save the world, she really had a big heart, my father wanted to have fun, and he wanted to win. So he came up with all these ideas. And he made a lot of money doing things that nobody else had ever done in book publishing. And he had a lot of fun doing it. And he never took any of it too seriously, in terms of the actual content of the books. So I kind of have this combination. I like to have fun, and I like to make money. It's fun. And I've made a lot of money. I mean, it's really, if you look at everything we've done, it's in the billions of dollars, not that I've personally made but that I've generated for the book publishing industry, and a lot of it for my authors and a lot of it for myself and my company. So I even wrote a book called be the deal that I wrote in seven days because I also launched the very first print on demand book company, and we needed proof of concept. So the first print on demand book ever written by a solo author and have to say that because the same day that I finished my manuscript, we got hold of the Star Report The thing about Clinton at the time and the sex scandal with money. So that was actually the very first print on demand book. Mine was the first solo authored book, and we actually got an investment of $28 million from Barnes and Noble based on we now had proof of concept. So yes, I I have this wonderful combination of, from my mother, I get this sense of, you know, purpose and wanting to help others. And then for my dad, I get this feeling of, hey, let's have fun. And let's see how much money we can make and what we can do. And I think that they go together. Well, I think that when, you know, like, we changed our mission statement about 20 years ago to waterside productions exists to help authors and publishers create and distribute books that will make a better world. So that's really what our focus has been. And if you focus on creating a better world, and having fun, you're probably want to make a lot of money. If you're if you're successful in doing that. Brandon Handley 20:40 You know, absolutely. How could you not right. And, and I think that there are ways that you could not obviously, but if you take a look at to see, you know, to it's funny that you did that project with Charles Sinawe, I did a project myself on that on that same book, right? I did, I created an audio, where I put like, isochronic tones and like bio rhythms and like the sounds of nature, all behind the reading of the book, so that, you know, somebody could listen to it in that same way, right? And just kind of get the content and I released it in the same way that he released it, like in a weekly format, right? Because the way that it was originally meant to be consumed was just like our online courses today. Right? It's just, that's what he was doing back then. So I thought that that was pretty interesting. But you know, what you're doing whether or not you know it, or knew it at the time was you were being you were already being of service. And I think that I think that um, you know, Wallace D wattles also talks about this, which is not the guy, but Napoleon Hill talks about how if you're if you're doing these whether or not you know, you're using the law of attraction, like your friends, Jack Canfield, and all these other people are gonna say, you're, you're, you're using it, right? So you're being of service, you're helping people get access to some of these books, you may not already believe half of the stuff that you're seeing in here, like, whatever. And you brought up something really, really, really important, in my opinion, is you went to this, you went to this seminar, called dare to be great. And you're like, are these guys selling snake oil? Right, is basically what you're saying. But here you are selling calligraphy? Yeah, right. What has changed, I think inherently and you because again, the deck the Jack Canfield audio, you talked about you said you weren't that into personal development at that time, and in this space so much. But seems though, over these past 10 years, maybe maybe maybe longer, that you've kind of fell into the space, and you're believing more like you're talking about emanating this love, and it's gonna come Bill Gladstone 22:41 back, basically, it's seeing the results, seeing that it works. I mean, when I went to that dare to be great seminar, I mean, the guys, I mean, they look like used car salesmen, I just didn't get a good vibe from them. And I don't know, whatever happened with that organization, you know, I didn't list but you know, it's kind of like any of these. And, you know, Scientology, I think is the same. I mean, I hesitate, because you got to watch out for these organizations that have come after negatives. But sure, they're really self based organizations, they're not real, that they claim to be of service to others. But if you go behind the scenes, you find out that's not really the case. So you do have to be careful. And exercise caution. Butcher, when you do find an organization like Master Chavez, and I've done all the research, I mean, I've met all the people. That's why I wrote the book. I mean, it's really selfless. I mean, he's not, he doesn't need money, he doesn't care about money for himself, yes, his organization to grow, and he does care about having the biggest impact. Well, you know, what is money? Money is energy. If you don't have it, you're not gonna grow. But yes, it's more seeing the results. I mean, I've personally spoken and met with dozens, really hundreds of people whose lives have been significantly improved, because of either the calligraphies, or the teachings of master shots. So you know, I've seen the results. And you know, he's not a perfect human being I'm sure he's had his failures. And, you know, he's very cautious to say, I'm not guaranteeing anything for everybody. And there's one thing about Dr. Shah that, you know, I'm, I was super skeptical of because it was too easy. explanation why things wouldn't work, which is, in the end, it's all about karma. And if you have bad karma, I can't help you. I mean, I can't help you. But I can totally help you because you we each have our karma and our path. And there is truth to that. But I was skeptical because well, that's too easy. If it doesn't work. It's all on the patient. So, you know, but then, as I've dealt more and more master shot, I've seen that he is authentic and that his system And does work. And I'm still on the fence. I just had this conversation with master shot a few days ago about the nature of karma because as I become more immersed in, in, in Lao Tzu and the DAT karma exists according to master shot at the level of the human experience of the, the world of things, we have the world of nothingness in the world of things. And I've always been sort of more drawn philosophically to the world of nothing is the world that includes nothing is and the world of things. And in the world of nothing is obviously there's no karma. And in terms of my personal experience with karma, I have a very different view. I don't actually believe there's time or space. In the real universe, the universe we experience obviously has time and space. So in that limited universe, which is really a universe of illusion, yes, there's karma. But ultimately, there's not even that there's there's there's a universal, energetic connection, to all of existence. And at that very, very deep level. There's, there is no karma there is no, there is no judgment of any kind. This is what allows and teaches the doubt, which is the source of the source. And we can't even I mean, like we think of the the source. And it allows you even said, the Dow that I described in my teachings is not the real doubt. And it's the same thing. We as human beings can't even contemplate what the true essence of all existence is. It's beyond comprehension. But we have good approximations. And we can learn a lot by aspiring to be aligned with the nature of existence itself. And that's really all that all the spiritual teachers are saying, when you say Be of service will be of service to whom? Well, you're really ultimately being of service to the energy of existence itself. And the energy of existence is magnificent. It's everything, even what we consider evil, is it still energy, and all existences is a play of energy. And within each realm, there is good and evil. And it's very important to sort of raise our vibration so that we experienced the highest possible reality we can. But ultimately, it's all play the way I explain it to people. If you have kids, you probably have gone to some little league games, and Little League is great right now their Little League World Series, I actually prefer watching that over major league baseball. Anyway, you see these kids, and you know, they're playing, and they're playing their hearts out. And during the game, nothing matters except the game, and you play by the rules of the game. But guess what it says the game is over. It was just a little league game, it really didn't matter at all? Well, at a very big level. That's our own experience as human beings, we're playing a game, and it matters, it matters a lot. You know, whether you are treating people well, whether you have children, your grandchildren, you have someone that you love that loves you, all those things are really important. But when you leave this planet, when you leave your human form, that was nice, but it represented less than less than a finger of your existence. So you know, if you can start having that perspective, and I think even somebody like Putin would think twice about murdering all the people that he's murdering, I mean, it's going to catch up in a different universe, perhaps. But you know, if we could combine this larger sense of how we are all individual, that we're also all one, we're all interconnected, we're all part of the same energy flow. I think we we'd have a much better world. Brandon Handley 28:48 Like, did you see yourself like in this space? 1015 years ago? Could you imagine yourself talking like this? Bill Gladstone 28:57 I don't know, if I didn't give it any thought one way or the other. It doesn't surprise me. I mean, cuz I've always had, as I said, because of my mother. I always had this interest in sort of the non material. Also, one of the reasons, you know, I probably evolved this way. And I covered this a little bit in the film, tapping the sources. When I was 15, I had a near death experience. And I was I was gone. I mean, it was an interesting experience. But I was I was on my way to wherever it is, you know, I was headed, and it wasn't on this planet. And I was not forced to leave. I was, you know, sort of given a choice. And, frankly, I mean, I'll tell the story because it's kind of interesting. So I was 15 years old, and I had the flu. And I had a really bad case of the flu kind of thing. COVID It wasn't good. And those days we actually had a family physician, and he would make house calls. But he said it was February and I was living in Westchester County and it was kind of snowy and you know traveled was not that easy. And he said, Look, I'm really busy. I can't make house calls. But you know, I've got other patients who've come down with this flu. I've got something that I think will help if you can bring Bill in. So my mom drove me over. And, you know, the doctor looked at me said, Yep, I think you've got the symptoms here. I'm gonna give you the shot. This should work. He gave me the shot. He said, I'll be right back in a minute. And next thing, my memories, I'm gone. I'm like in bliss. And I'm, my bliss is interrupted, because I hear this loud voice. And I said, Oh, what's that lead voice? Oh, that man. That man's very upset. Oh, that man's wearing a white coat. Oh, that man must be a doctor. Why is he upset? Oh, he's upset because that body on the floor is not responding. Oh, that's my body, I better get back into that body. So the doctor won't be upset. But there was no idea that I better get back in my body because I'm going to be dead. It didn't occur to me. And it didn't matter to me. And having had that experience, which at the time was not that common and very little was known about near death experiences. Moody had not even written his first book on afterlife. So I was actually discouraged mostly by my father, but also even by my mother, don't talk about this. Nobody wants to hear you're valedictorian of your school. Everybody thinks, you know, you do all the sports your captain, a couple of sports team, this isn't gonna get you very far talking about this kind of stuff. Just stick stick to your normal life. It's an interesting experience you had my dad is the chemists was, Oh, you didn't have any oxygen. It was all hallucination. You know, don't take any of it too seriously. Well, it took me about 20 years when I started uncovering that other people had had similar experiences that I realized, no, my dad was wrong. In this case, my experience was authentic. And so because of that experience, I've always been kind of aware that there's a lot more going on here than just what meets the eye. Brandon Handley 32:01 I got it. What do you mean? And so how do you feel like you became this lightning rod or catalyst for so many of these prominent authors? Like how did you find yourself in that space? Well, it's very hidden, because Bill Gladstone 32:15 I certainly didn't set out to do this. I was the leading agent in the world for books about technology. We, even before we did that the dummies series, we had had 500 best selling books, we represented over 25% of all the best sellers at the time when computers first evolved. And that happened really, through a relationship I had with Andy Kay, the founder of nonlinear systems, which became K Pro computer. So I was given access to all these computer documentation writers, so we started representing them. And overnight, we became the leading source of books about technology. But like many things, we did the very first books on the internet and everything on the supercomputers, we created the very source of our demise. Because the internet made it unnecessary to buy a book. I mean, not for everybody, but we used to sell, oh, I don't know, in a single year, 5 million copies of Windows for Dummies, for example. Now we still sell it but you know, I think it's down to like 100 200,000 copies, which is not insignificant, but compared to 5 million that so when you know in our business was was booming, and you know, we were doing great business, but then when the internet crashed and the need for these books also fade because there wasn't as much innovation. I mean, there's you know, like, Okay, now with that Twitter and me, there's still things happening. But compared to the boom of the late 80s, early 90s, where you had a new computer, a new software program, and these things, you know, just took the world by storm, you actually had more space in a Barnes and Noble dedicated to computer books than to fiction. You had an entire wall, it looks anyway. So we have this great success. And then it started to go down. And I had one call when the very first books I'd ever aged. It was the Sphinx in the rainbow by David Lai. And David was an extraordinary human being he just passed recently in his 90s. And I actually signed the book to publish it when I was editor in chief for Harcourt Brace Yovanovitch here in San Diego, but I left her court to create waterside productions. And they canceled the book because they have an editor who even understood the book because this book was way ahead of its time. It was explaining the nature of the ability to predict the future based on hologram sick concept of the universe. And also why sometimes a prediction would be wrong. Anyway, it was it was too sophisticated for anyone left it hardcore. So I got a call from Dave and he says what do I do and I say oh Don't worry, I know people in New York and other places. I'll I'll do some aging on the side because I actually sit at Waterside productions to be a film company, not a literary agency. So that was really what got me into the agent in the first place. And I did sell that book whose first book I ever sold. I actually sold it Shambala, which, interesting. They then that book went out of print 20 years later, and David revised the book and we sold it to enter tradition. So it's still in print with a new title and arrow through time. But the reason I mentioned this is okay, so after David, I got involved with all the computers, I turned down people, including Tony Robbins, because too much time to deal with them compared to what I could do. I could sell 10 books on computers, one of which would sell at least a million copies in a day. And you know, Tony, I love Tony and we met. But you know, he needed a lot of hand holding that time and guidance. And I was like, Tony, just not really worth my time. So yeah, I don't regret it, you know, would have been worth my time as it turned out, but you know, who could have predicted it? In any event? Yeah, I've turned that I've made bigger mistakes. I turned down Jeff Bezos, I could have been one of the seed investors of Amazon, back down because the business plan didn't make any sense to me. So I've made my mistakes. I don't know what's interesting. But back to David Loy. So David calls me up. And it's just the right time. He says, I've got this friend. His name is Dr. Ervin Laszlo and he's written about 30 books, but none of them have sold more than 5000 copies. And I think you'd really enjoy working with him and he needs a good agent. So that's how I got connected with Irving. And Ervin was already at that time considered the leading systems theorist in the world, he had studied Alfred North Whitehead, and he really had, you know, he was just amazing. He had created this organization called the club of Budapest because he was also a naturally gifted concert pianist. He was a member of the Club of Rome. And the Club of Rome said nobody's paying attention, because they, this is back in 1972, the limits of growth really was the precursor to warnings about global warming, and everything else. But nobody was paying attention. So they said, you know, they seem to pay attention to celebrities, you're kind of a celebrity, you know, create a writers and poets organization. And he did and you had people like, yo, yo, LA and Peter Gabriel, and the Dalai Lama, anyways, credible organization. So I met with our event, and we became good friends, and I was able to, it actually was a lot of work more work than probably any book I've been involved with he because he was a scientist. And he wrote this book, which eventually became the Akashic science in the Akashic field actually, blanking on the title, the exact title, but we ended up having I rewrote the book myself, it was only 120 pages. And then I got the editor who had worked with Deepak Chopra, science and the Akashic field was a final title. And I got the editor who had worked with Hawking and Brief History of Time, and then he edited it after I rewrote it. Anyway, it took two years, and the books only about 160 pages. Because what we had to do is we had to take these very complex concepts and get them down to a level where ordinary people could understand them. And what was fascinating was, Dr. Laszlo was showing how new scientific concepts parallel, ancient intuitive wisdom about the nature of reality, the Akashic field, if people don't know about the Akashic records, it's the belief that everything that's ever happened is stored the information is stored. And the reality that modern science is now showing is that that's probably the case. It's not a superstition, everything does exist in successful anyway. So I represented Irving and once I represented Ervin that sort of opened the box, and I had actually sold a book to Neale Donald Walsch because he had his own imprint and Hampton Roads, but I hadn't representative but once I did Urban's book, it just opened the door, and then all these people started coming to me, and this business is very small. If you represent two or three of them, you know, Eckhart came to me, and that's a wonderful story of how all that happens. But when you have two or three of these big superstars, everybody thinks you're a genius and you have the magic touch. So they all just come to you. And because I've always been accessible, and very honest, I mean, one of the things that's remarkable is my father because I work for his company. I remember after the first week, he looked at me and he said, You may be too honest for this business. You know, publishing just have a lot of hype all media does. I actually know there's a lot of hyperbole will be kind of not outright deception. So and I've just never been, you know, I I don't know just my nature. I I can't lie, I just, you know, I have to be who I am. And I have told you. So, you know, that's very attractive, because, you know, you want to be able to trust your agent. So sure, that's, that's one of the reasons I think, you know, we've been so successful. I've actually never solicited a client. All of my clients have come through referrals. So, you know, interesting, it's just, you know, and but back to your idea of the energy. Yeah, there's kind of an energy field. I think that calligraphy helps actually, I think, to create the the vortex, but I've always had it I mentioned this semester, you're shocked because he like, you know, well, why don't you share that, you know, some of your success comes from all these calligraphies. And things I said, Well, that's true. But you know, I want to be honest, I've always had this success, actually what the calligraphies are doing for me more than that, is allowing me to enjoy the success at a higher level. Because I do have what I did, I think I've gotten a little better at it very impulsive side, where I've thrown money at things, very foolishly I've given people I shouldn't have given them and being more respectful. And I think part of it is because of my interactions with master shot and the field that I think he continues to help create. But yeah, there's kind of a vortex of energy right here in my little office, where I don't have to do anything, I just wake up every morning and out of the blue and pretty good right now it's sort of intensified, I have had at least six billionaires contacting me in the last year, all from either want us to age them or publish them. And, you know, you can't invent stuff like this. It just it's kind of miraculous, to listen Brandon Handley 41:41 to another Tibetan Buddhism book. I forget the Masters name, but he has his line. It sounds kind of like your life at this point in time, right? I have everything in the world comes to me. Right? That's kind of what he says. And there you are. Right, you are that vortex the energy is coming back into you. And I love it. What's bill? What's next for you? Your What are your thoughts? What do you where do you see, Bill Gladstone 42:05 I actually see, what do you know, my main focus, you know, I maintain my health, you know, enjoy my, my kids and my grandkids? And, you know, try to give back. So how do I get back, it's what I do best. So yeah, we're just doing everything at a higher level, we're starting to do these big concerts for Masters shot, I think we're going to reach a lot of people through those. We're going to do calligraphy, exhibitions, I think we'll reach a lot of people through that, we'll continue to do our NF T's non fungible tokens for other authors, I just signed up Napoleon Hill Foundation to do some NF T's and working with Mark watts, son of Alan Watts to do some NF T's. They're interesting. And some of these billionaire clients that are coming to me, I've been a big champion of heart mass. And so they have, they have a new initiative, and there may be one level of it, which also includes NF T's which are able to measure your individual contribution to creating global coherence award you in some way, for positive behavior that leads to coherence. I do think that coherence and raising human awareness is kind of the most important contribution that I can make. And I think that I'm in a position where more and more things are coming together, I can envision sort of like the equivalent of you know, Live Aid concerts, you know, beyond just semester shot, just major healing concerts that raise awareness, and that, you know, make a positive contribution. I also think that, you know, there's a reason, I mean, some of these billionaires have called me up and said, You know, I had a reading, they have their own spiritual paths and my spiritual, some of them that have basically said that I was predestined to appear in their lives, and we're supposed to do something together. And none of us know exactly what we're supposed to do. But there's a number of things that I can envision. And I just say, you know, it's sort of like, I always go back to the movie of the young man, Karate Kid, wax on wax off, and you know, then eventually, you get into the main stage. And despite everything I've done, I really think most of what I've done is kind of wax on wax off. It's not really the main event. And I kind of feel that I'm still not quite on the main stage yet. But that's coming very soon. And you know, we have a number of things we want to do we want to reissue the type of the source film, you want to interview, more. Spirit wasn't Brandon Handley 44:36 able to get that on and wasn't able to want to watch it really quick. And I wasn't able to find it on Amazon Prime. Bill Gladstone 44:41 Well, because we've taken it down temporarily because we re edited it out it, just send me an email after this and I'll get it out to you and you'll love it. It's really, I mean, I watched it after 10 years and mostly is due to my wife's production and editing. But it's really I mean but it's it's fantastic. It's just, it's so inspiring. And so wise, there's so much wisdom. It's the kind of thing you could watch five or six times, and you'll learn something new every time. But yeah, I see that happening. I see interviewing more, and just getting more visibility for the kinds of things that I have been doing and being more. That's why I'm doing the show with you. I mean, I don't need it. And I don't seek it. I don't not enjoy it. But it's not, it's not necessary for me to be, you know, you know, I did all that in my 20s. But if it's going to serve, I'm very happy to do I mean, I was on the Today Show I was on, you know, I've done a lot. You know, I've done a lot that, you know, most people and myself included when I was very young, it was like, oh, boy, that would be the pinnacle of this and the pinnacle. And I'm in a nice place where, yeah, I mean, happy, you know, to be on Oprah or something like that, but I've never really thought it and, you know, despite my ability to sort of speak and be friendly, kind of very happy on my own. Just, you know, I wouldn't say I'm an introvert, but you know, I don't need a lot of outside. Recognition. It's never been something that was important to me. Brandon Handley 46:16 Sure. No, that's important, too. So I mean, you you've played, you played a major role. I think in the spiritual evolution of so many people, and not a lot of people know that you've played that role, which I think is it's pretty, it's pretty neat. And again, it goes back to you have been of service all these years, so many people, they just may not know you directly. And that's what I thought. Bill Gladstone 46:39 It's very interesting. You say that, because one of my very closest friends passed just a few months ago, Michael, guys. And about 10 years ago, I was going through, you know, we all have challenges. And I don't know, there's some things that were going wrong. And I actually was feeling like a failure. I actually was. And I remember Mike and I have known each other. I actually started waterside in his office, you know, 40 years ago, 40 plus, and he just said, Bill, you've helped so many people, just with the computer books, do you realize how many millions of people, hundreds of millions of people have benefited from what you've done, that was really a wake up call. And it really got me through that little bad stretch. It was like, Okay, I'm not a complete failure. I've done something of value. But yeah, it's interesting. We just did a class on the Dow with Lao Tzu and the greatest leader is the leader that no one even recognizes. The greatest leader doesn't even get recognition. The next level of great leader, yeah, they get a lot of admiration and praise, but the greatest leader leads in such a way that no one even knows, he or she is the leader, Brandon Handley 47:50 Will. Again, you, like you said you didn't have to take this time. And I definitely appreciate you being on here today. You are rereleasing Master Sha book and the power of the Dow. Yeah. Bill Gladstone 48:04 This is really something if you've never heard of Dr. Master shots, this new edition, this is just a mock up of the cover. It's really worth reading. I mean, it's a fun read. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback. And it's done is the story. It's not, you know, it's like how I met him and interviews with a lot of different people. But I think it really will open people's eyes. And I really do feel that he's not received to date, the kind of visibility that someone of that caliber and have that ability to give deserve. So yeah, of everything for this interview. That would be the one thing I would hope your fans pick up on. But yeah, it's happened to source the movie. You can go back, you know, Amazon is still this was my most successful book, The 12. It's really, you know, it's all over. Brandon Handley 48:50 I remember seeing that I remember seeing that cover quite a bit, especially Bill Gladstone 48:55 this book we published to a major publisher, and we got it into the airports and you know, it really, we can say it's close to getting the movie deal done. And that wasn't millions, and it could still happen. I've actually figured out a way to do it. But yeah, though, if you want to have a really good read, and understand that the Mayan calendar is real. And it never predicted the end of the physical universe. It predicted the end of the energetic universe, and we're actually in a new energy every 26,000 years, there's a new energetic field. And think of a sunset. If you're unless you're looking at the sun when it sets. You don't really know the difference between 10 seconds before sunset, and 10 seconds after. When you're at the scale of 26,000 years. 10 years is like 10 seconds. So we are in a new era is happening. You can see it in a lot of different ways. The fact that the world seems worse right now, doesn't necessarily mean that we're not actually entered In a better era, whether it evolves in the way that it's intended to or not, it's really up to each and every one of us. Each and every one of us has a role to play. Even if it's just at the level of your thoughts, thoughts do create events. And that's why I'm interested in ideas of global resonance. And I'm interested in being on shows like this. Because if you're full of negative thoughts, you're going to draw negativity. If you're full of positive thoughts, you're going to attract positive energy. So that I think is absolutely demonstrated. And so anything that I can do to help people sort of reframe their personal existences in a more positive way, I'm delighted to do so. Brandon Handley 50:46 Thank you so much. But where can people find out more about what it is you're doing? Where would you like people to go? Bill Gladstone 50:51 Oh, my gosh, well, the best is, I guess, just WWE waterside.com. I am not into self promotion. So I don't really know. I mean, yeah, all the people that I work with it they probably think Bill you're getting this tends to promote what we're doing. I didn't do it. So maybe they will send you afterwards and you can put up on the screen for sure website. I probably shouldn't reveal this. But I even though I'm a champion, while the technology I don't use it, I still have a flip phone. I don't I've never searched the web. I don't use I don't use the modern technology, people that work for me do. But I really, you know, if I could, you know, I'm very happy sort of living in the old 20th century. Having actual lunches with people COVID has been tough on me on that business has actually been better than ever because everybody was stuck at home and they were all reading and writing. So you know, but yeah, I miss I miss the human interaction. And technology in May is useful. And you know, I'm so grateful that we can do this zoom call. This is close to personal, but it's not the same as face to face meeting so Brandon Handley 51:59 I couldn't agree more. Couldn't agree more. So I will share out whatever you're able to share with the audience bill and again, thanks for being on today. Bill Gladstone 52:06 It was a pleasure. Thank you. Yes, sir. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Master Zhi Gang Sha is a Tao grandmaster, healer, teacher, and author of 30 books, including 11 New York Times bestsellers and several others on the bestseller lists of the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Amazon. He has an MD degree in Western medicine from China and is also a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Master Sha has combined the essence of Western medicine with ancient wisdom to create Soul Mind Body Medicine®, Master Sha's Soul Healing®, and Tao teachings to help humanity. He is a grandmaster of several Asian arts and in 2002 was named Qigong Master of the Year at the Fourth World Congress on Qigong. With the creation of Tao Calligraphy, he received the highest honors a Chinese calligrapher can receive, being appointed to the position of National Chinese Calligrapher Master as well as Honorable Researcher Professor by the State Ethnic Academy of Painting in Beijing, China. Learn more: https://drsha.com/ Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question some time for another hit of spiritual dub with your host, Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 Hey there spiritual dope. I'm on here today with Dr. and Master Shaw, who is a prominent figure in many disciplines, science, medicine, meditation, spirituality, art, and he is also a New York Times best selling author name a few. He recently came onto my radar when he toasted an ambitious science and spirituality conference last month titled The tapping the source Summit, where he was a featured speaker alongside brilliant minds of Deepak Chopra and Ervin Laszlo. But the best way to introduce master Shaw is that he is one of the leading voices in the space of alternative healing and integrating conventional health methods with spirituality, meditation and improve consciousness. And finally, Master Shaw's healing methods integrate it focus on the power of self healing Body, Mind spirit and positive energy. Tall science combines traditional practices such as meditation manifestation, traditional Chinese medicine, Tai Chi and calligraphy with modern approaches and the healing mindfulness and psychology. Some mouthful. But Master Shaw, so happy to have you here today. Master Sha 1:47 Great, it's my great honor. Thank you. Brandon Handley 1:50 Absolutely. So I usually start this off in one way. But I think that you, you had mentioned that if you can kind of distill wisdom down into a single sentence, and that must mean that you have mastered it very well. So my question to you is what would be one line of wisdom that you would share with the audience today? Master Sha 2:12 Today, I would like to share, you have the power to heal yourself. You have the power to heal yourself. I have the power to heal myself together. We have the power to heal the world. Brandon Handley 2:23 That's yeah, I love it. I love it. And you know, as I understand it, you got your start at a very young age and martial arts. And you continued on to ACC, you puncture you've got a doctorate and then you continue to just go out and heal these people all over the world. Unknown Speaker 2:42 Yes, Master Sha 2:44 I grew up at the age of six I went to the park with my parents, or Tai Chi Grindmaster the strategic Marcia and the disabled the pulling hand the Master Chen to move the disabled poor 15 feet away. I ran to the master I say yay, music when the father I want to learn is he look at me is such a young gay 60 years old, right? No, no, no, no, no, you're too young. No, no, no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, I want it. I know he's, I wants to, I want to say your parents around my parents. And with grid support. I started my age at the age of six. Yeah, wow, that was awesome that later you know, everybody know China Qigong, Kung Fu eating Fung Shui, Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and are as artists now I have my healing cancer, happiness source with the Dow signs, all the things that we introduced, I positioned myself serving. That's all for humanity. Brandon Handley 3:50 But in listening to one of your books, I understand that you know, you are kind of the vessel for the divine right as a servant of the Divine for humanity. What's that look like for you? Could you explain that to the audience? Master Sha 4:03 Thank you so much. About the 20 years ago, inland amazing Buddha saw kill California and with full tempo people got up here, but I still diagnose it. As everybody see down there. God see here and I grew from China. I need to honor God. I said it Okay, everybody, no need to do anything. I bought onto the floor. I said, Dear God, thank you so much, because it's my spiritual courtesy. God punishing myself today I come here to share you a universal law. And he said, I am a universal servant. He pointed me you are a universal servant. He's where his hand everyone everything is a universal servant, or universal servant offers universal service unconditionally. If a person offer little service, little blessing received little blessing. If a person offer more service, we see more blessing. If pours in offer unconditional service of unlimited blessing. I see Dear God, I make I'm making a vow to you now, I want to offer my service for humanity unconditionally and a goddess smile and the he left Brandon Handley 5:19 you go and So, ever since then you have been giving of yourself unconditionally Is that Is that fair to say? Master Sha 5:28 Yeah, after that why I try what a 20 years and 11 miles per year. So, I basically you know, air air airport hotel, hotel airport, and I seldom go to any sightseeing, I offer the healing to two to 3am all the time as a healer. So therefore, I was uniquely in that apart. I serve that noun style keyboard workshop. Now I have a trend the 1000s of healers, more and more more medical professional call me. So therefore, my goal like I say just now you asked me one sentence, I am serve serve healing. Because I have created Saudi and Saudi and heart touching result. And I train healers. I teach you serve healing come by ancient the Buddhism Taoism, Confucianism, the eyes of essence Western medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, energy, spiritual healing together, and now calligraphy, Tao sound Tao water and a silica a package for humanity. Brandon Handley 6:34 Right. I love it. And for the people that are just tuning in and listening to this one today. You master Shaw doesn't you know this isn't? You're working with big people. Right? You're working with very few billionaires millionaires are tuned into Queen what's what's the Queen's first name? Master Sha 6:55 nplb Yeah, Brandon Handley 6:57 yeah. So I mean, you know, this is a, you know, regions and, you know, monarchs. So when you when you think about, you know, who is he helping? And who's he working with? You know, the gentleman who was the inspiration for Jerry Maguire. He's worked with him to have great success. And now he's going on and sharing stuff on about Master Shawn introducing you to so many people, this, this is all true, right? I'm not making this up. And so I want to make sure the audience is yours or hurt. If they're not already familiar with you, because the work that you're doing out there, it's to help to heal people. But there's also all these ways that you are helping people to become more prosperous and find abundance in their life. Is that true? Master Sha 7:41 Yes. The story just so you mentioned David martyr, go to Instagram. Famous Speaker Now TV show organizer, you know, and also the coach and 10 years ago, and Bill Gladstone is like a book agent for Deepak Chopra and Aki Toller. Tammy theories and also like Jack Canfield, all of them, and he introduced me to the David a martyr. I asked, David, what can I help you? David said, I want the more money. The more money Brandon Handley 8:18 to show the money, right? You said show me the money. Oh, yeah. He Master Sha 8:22 said, I want more money. And you know, like this app, I can make click with the table. And by the way, he lost $100 million. Brandon Handley 8:30 That's not the money to lose. Yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. Yeah, Master Sha 8:34 there's lots of money he lost. And you know what I did? Everybody relax. Brandon Handley 8:43 So those who are just listening right now, Mr. Shaw is drawing some calligraphy, which is a big part of what it is that he does. So he's Johnson calligraphy here. And he's gonna walk us through it. Master Sha 8:55 Yeah. And that Tao means the source or ultimately the source allows the ultimate origin Yeah, Mr. Korea, Chang Shu. chun chun means of flourishing, David Marshall last one a million dollars. And he asked for money. I said all the calligraphy and I said everyday put your hand together. Just to follow the path. And David Emerson gave a testimony. He said, I try over 200 days, more or less a year on the airplane. I do not know how aeroplane works. But I have the face for airplane which can bring me to one place to another place. But I have the face for massage as a dog calligraphy. Master shall say the dog Korea flourishing. Master shall say that this wants to give me a blessing. He never received a John any workshop not even know half hour. She just did 10 minutes a day. She said I could not believe the moment I start to do this Isn't my business start to change? Beginnings is a piece of more or less than 1.5 million per year, one and a half years later, she has a business to become a 60 million. Now 100 million. And he said before you asked me, he interviewed me many times, as a who's the most skeptical for Master Sha? David, I do not believe you at all. But now who is the most of believe you meet David also? Brandon Handley 10:28 That's great. Let's, let's talk through it right, because I do quite a bit of conversations and around prosperity and, you know, kind of giving in to faith or, you know, tapping into source, right and allowing it to flow through you. I imagine that's kind of what's happening here, when they're doing the calligraphy but could you walk me through, like, what that process is, you know, my tapping into source and allowing it to flow through me and, you know, surrendering unconditionally, what's happening here, Master Sha 11:00 okay. Basically, let me share ancient wisdom. If you want a wisdom, you will spread the wisdom, you teach people how to try and come alive, spirituality, spiritual wisdom, the technologies, the wisdom and the techniques and wisdom. If you want wisdom, you spread the truth. If you want the money, you'll give money to others in up this is really with the past life, the past life, like now a natural disaster, you know your environment that children, no parents, people, no food, no house, in a past life, you will serve the poor you will give lots of money, this life, heaven give you back again. Why your life some people try so hard to economic money, because we have not served enough for before. So therefore, many people struggle this. So therefore how to do that. I teach you forgiveness. Remember Jesus, you are forgiving miracle happen. So there are four very important wisdom is to talk with heaven. Divine if you believe or source. You said, my name is Chi Gong Shah. I do not know my past life. But in my I believe some people totally believe some people may not believe us. I do not know how much I believe. But I believe as a human being we all make mistakes. I'm very sure nobody told me you'll never make mistakes. I believe the challenges I have now in finance, or maybe her relationship, maybe something I did wrong. I may not realize Can you forgive me? Very sincere. So that's the key ask your forgiveness czar connect with the source what the David Mars has said every determinists. Now I understand are is that we can see we can touch by the source we cannot master shall talk Cree graphy is bring the source love light, the frequency vibration, invisible power, we see I connect. So my my interference, my blockage remove the door just open for me. That's a whole group if it works. Brandon Handley 13:18 Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. And you have you have so many modalities that you've been teaching over the years. Another one that you talk about is singing, right and kind of vibrating from within. So could you talk a little bit about how singing does something similar? Master Sha 13:33 Yes. You know, and the song. I want to share like that. About 17 years ago, I was in the bay area where the wooded area very famous area with my two teachers, three teachers that I said, you know, I said can you give me a song for healing? Everybody can said God if you believe God, the moment the moment the rainbow app, the strong force coming up rainbow light. My sword I show the rainbow light and the pool flew down I opened a massive Lulla Lulla Lulla Lulla Lulla Lulla Lulla Lulla Lulla Lulla I just know this God of soul voice. I said God that what is mean for that? God said I love my heart so I love all humanity. John Hart and the source together. Love peace, harmony, love peace, harmony, that I said God how to say I love my heart on soul. I love all you minor T John hearts and souls Unknown Speaker 14:44 to gather love, peace and harmony. Love Peace and harmony. Master Sha 14:57 This is a no no These people sending so I have a love peace, how many.org Free Download gifts for humanity. And also another one is the scene is called Towson. I wrote the ball. You know, everybody know I remember the flag famous singer in us. And 10 years ago, give her one time a private healing. And she said Master Sha, who taught do you say me? God? God? Yes. What the guarded kid did teach you. I said, God that teach me senior from the lower abdomen. And then she said, while she was fascinated, she said, while she was at the teenagers, for sound, the coach asked her, where's the virtual core? Of course, we know it's your vocal cord, and her co personna coaches and No, no vocal cord is in the genitals. She says you never heard people talk about that. And she was fascinating. She and after giving her one time here, he gave me a quote a very nice comments for my service for my senior now. Just a Hangout, a first 1000 Healing concert. And Quinn DMB was there and the hostess show and the princess and Isabel, who is a famous opera singer award opera singer with Domingo and such in the same state, she come down with other singers. We had a great fight, and not too long ago. Brandon Handley 16:29 I love it. And you know, so you again, you're connecting with some people that have that a lot of people I think, when they see rich and famous people, they see rich and fame and they don't kind of give the credit to maybe the service that they're giving in mass. Right you So you talk about giving service like unconditional service to many, many people, right? The more that you can serve, the more that kind of flows through you. Would you say that's true? Master Sha 16:59 That's absolutely true. You know, remember God gave me a universal law I shared earlier if you serve a little little blessing. Now I you know, like now, I have 1000 healers, and people honor me a lot. But what I did now I'm doing now. Instagram, every day, Monday to Friday 12 to 12 Five freezing me just by a few days. Save 8800 People Riley we live I turned on, okay, this is nothing guarantee. Experience the power of daily healing, back pain, shoulder pain, choose one area cancer depression. Hi. Unknown Speaker 17:39 Hey, Hi, are you are you We are your ya yo Hey, yo, hey, yo, yo, yo, hi. Hi, yah, yah, yah. Yah, yah, yah. Hi. Yah, yah, yo, Master Sha 17:55 five minutes, all the feedback. People just love it. Incredible result. That's why I said, you know, thank you so much to see the world. What I asked. I asked him nothing. Three surveys. Brandon Handley 18:08 Yeah, yeah. And it's having it's having amazing results. As matter of fact, I also heard a story about you mentioned that you've got a book on healing the back right now. Yes. As I understand it, somebody received this book, and they said, You know what, I want to I don't know how much time we're gonna have to read this book. And somebody told whoever received this book. Well, you don't have to read it right away. Just put it on your back. Master Sha 18:30 That's of quinti Jambi says that her story okay you know Yeah, yeah Queen d&b You know and I say Congo, Congo Congo queen and she has a car accident in January for few months to serve up in pain she was he was with a Bill Gladstone to your grandsons okay back pain master saw he said to the top quantum healing that's a book and its own I really booked an appeal to no need to read a book massage I put a tree with a hidden Cliff greasy and couldn't be put on the back lie down there Elisa my music at the top quantum machine is silent calligraphy I have a calligraphy wall and the art radiators in reasonable light so after one session 50 minutes after session clean the obvious such a few Wow Where's Mr. Robin pain disappeared? So therefore another time a medium I got the interview almost every day just a few days ago. A lady who the book interview me you may think I'm a craze have promoted Marsha I know nothing about the master shop. But I got the book. I have a back pain massage. I said put the book on the back for 10 minutes. I did I could not believe how much better I cannot believe a healer put the put the power on the ball and see it's so fascinating. Anyway, you know because I I surf every day freely. Now I have 1000 Harder Patreon story more number one medical professional. I never promised anything. You'll believe me. You'll see the word you do not believe me see, the by the word does not matter. I would just give my love. Nobody can stop me to give love and light. Brandon Handley 20:12 That's right. That's right. Mr. Shaw. You've got a great saying about a pair, right? Share that with the audience too. For again, my audience may not be as familiar with you. What's the if? If I want to know about a pair What do I Master Sha 20:23 say that in ancient wisdom if you want to know if a pair sweet Tec if you want to know to talk clearly see Towson works. Where come Monday to Friday, five minutes, Saturday quindi Jambi after Queen DRBD concert. She was moved. Mr. Shah, I will serve you unconditionally. I said one on You're the queen. Another. No, no, Mr. Shah, you are serving. Now. She hosts my show. Every Saturday 1130. To tour we have Tao source healing with the Master Sha Quinby. And tomorrow, it is Saturday every Saturday Instagram. Now we have a private account. That may be why mostly will be open to public people had to Brandon Handley 21:04 deal Yeah, sure. That makes sense. And and you talk about Dow as dow is soars, I always thought Dow was something else. So we're talking about Dow clear. Are you talking about source calligraphy? Is that what you're saying? Master Sha 21:18 Yes. Are you know that I think that you know, everybody know Lao Tzu, The Art of the doubt the gene. So Bible and the Dow the two most popular bellies, minutes and minutes of billions of copies of word away, loudly used to honor the by all university philosophy department, lots of dollars and 81 chapters and shared the truth of politics, economics, education, spiritual journey, longevity, even your mortality. Lousy is such such a wise man. And therefore it Kidada in Facebook every Monday or chapter by chapter, or chapter 17 People respond to so well. And also one background is an I was the China longevity Council who literally lived 808 years old in China. I was the lien holder how how they happen is a 204. In the war that fifth Cuban Congress, they gave me an honor as a Chico master of a year while I was on the state I saw a doll master where the dog clothes sit down those pouches by sit on you can see the power of this master as a wah disagree the master I approached him she is the punk Chinese longevity star 372 D Major holder and he said to meet with the next day lenita holder I want to share one story is shocking to me forever. I want to Las Vegas as a rejuvenation conference that I'll talk to in a brief time sit on a wheelchair for the empty the plate. And my master said kung fu master said Chicago first name you can tell her I want to offer the healing to her goddess brig timer powerless people and I said doctor explained my theta can I speak English very well. I said I said what's your condition she said she said I get a car seat and the middle of the back spinal column cardio powerless that my teacher put the hand here on the heaven this is real story my teacher connect with the source my teacher ha big sama got contact while ago push the power and AHA and the wall for time. My teacher said stand up to work the toxic no paralyzed people for the real stand up walked this call my teachers a power is the ancient adult masters that he transmitted power to me. I did also for Paradise. So that's kind of unique power and odd anyway I do want to say too much about myself. I've created so many miracles live in just one story in India. famers baalei will start Auntie army million people know her. She has a death in Mumbai and you know in in Mumbai and a live workshop and she came I choose a demo process. She mentioned here she's 70 Something like that at least. And also take on a hearing aid behind her nothing. I use psycho punk to lay down the life of wow if you need those to hear to hear right away. So you can hear what our people cannot believe it's called Live miracle to six a death one month later I returned no hearing aids also. So I'm also another in India you know why a session? A boy had tunnel vision on it because he here never can see here in 10 minutes my healing and she cry in a family hold together. You know the you know talk to Kathy again is Chief policing for crime the association and he heard he heard the news. They brought me to the to a doctor conference MD scientists. I offered the diviner healing hat because I'm not God, I'm servant of God, God gave me all for the hand. Then I choose one Dr. Chi summation one hand that I choose a demo person. The doc says how to do I say you just asked God him to do he knew that they had to go out justify five minutes. The man and this is a miracle. I tell you, this is Md scientists session because the miracle Indian people believe miracle. Brandon Handley 25:35 Sure. So let's let's dial it back just backwards just a second, right? I mean, this is all super powerful. And amazing, right? You know, for those that didn't pick up on it, maybe I didn't mention it. You got the doctorate in acupuncture? Where would you say you went all in on spirituality? Or was spirituality always a part of what you did? And and you know, it was always integrated? You know, tell us a little bit about that. Because, you know, where or has it always been converged helped me out there. Master Sha 26:08 Thank you so much. I 85. A compassion Buddha means people know when the compassion Buddha came to me at the age of five, she appear, you know, my throat I can see she showed me, Tabby to create his compassion mantra, or your channel 551 minutes Namaha Ranaldo IA and relax. Now Mohalla Donna de la amo am bolo de de Obernai bodhisatta boy mo without a boy MO The all on your on manavi Sudano la Jana medially though Iman Walia malo Ed bologna endo phenomenology, new ED MOBA, Nozomi Nodame. Washington Zabadani. Mr. Balaji the Healy mobileread Rosa Mala Mala more emotionally doing judo Judo Jang amo variety Dora, Dora was at URI ma ma, ma, ma, Maududi, northern Walla, Walla, Raleigh Vida vida. See, I learned at the age of five, for these secret chanting tabi doors at seven Buddha's when you can everybody can be active as like, give us a forgiveness give us blessings. So there are for at the age of five already a spiritual person. Now, a whole life spiritual journey. So therefore I study modern medicine, MD, traditional Chinese medicine, acupuncture, hai Zhi, Jing, Qigong, Fung Shui plus pure reality or the Tao calligraphy now I put everything together I position myself service, you asked me why I sent him go, everybody has the power to heal yourself, I give you a book everybody can do the job. Brandon Handley 27:54 What do you think is keeping people from connecting with the source themselves the way that you have Master Sha 28:01 this because people in the third dimension you know, we are in third dimensional long wide high, but people forget a Buddha saints on the fourth dimension millions of people follow Jesus and Mary means people follow Buddha minutes people for Mohammed. So, this is I believe all i all know all wrong, why missing people follow them, they are in the fourth dimension. We are so complicated the human stuff here here much more simple. So therefore my teaching everybody should connect with a higher dimension with a source there are limited wisdom on limits the power or limit abilities. Force dimension has a use feed the more tech power than the third dimension Fifth Dimension God their fifth dimension has yielded the power more than forced dimension. Anyway in one sentence there are infinite dimensions this allows the teaching Tao bigger than biggest no Andy Brandon Handley 29:09 bigger than biggest no ending infinite. So if I you know I guess pick up some of your calligraphy or do some of your other teachings this allows me to maybe tap into the fourth dimension and then also gives me access to the fifth if I practice accordingly. Master Sha 29:24 Yes, you're very smart. Beginning with a third dimension to now think all I can connect with the youth in it. They will not they want to workout. I think this we're if you call the president of US office, the President will not answer the phone. The Secretary will answer the phone is it good enough already? So there are four themes in why you talk higher dimension lower dimension since come down this respond already to that the human one, we come a step so there are for calligraphy Heiser Calligraphy is transformative art. Do you connect with the fourth dimension? That'd be People connect they then later we we purify purify we more light more light like the cleaner room like the studio one light little bit light hand light much lighter so therefore the higher dimension brighter brighter brighter our face she could live physical body turned to the light the body takes the practice spiritual practice meditation chanting so therefore it's a process to be higher higher higher as no way by the way you get the highest power No, no, no, no, my whole life. We are serving the calcaneal gang gang gang gang gang that I continue gaining every day I'm learning every day I'm growing. Yeah. Brandon Handley 30:45 So let's say that I realized that the way to gain is to give right of myself so if I'm giving more so I can gain more Is that right or wrong? Like I mean is that you know, if somebody does that like you know, I've heard this before. So, what do you what do you say to that? Master Sha 31:04 Psycho psycho Very good. Very good your philosophy there towards sure the first one a good keep sure Unknown Speaker 31:18 sure Mrs. gave a good door. Master Sha 31:23 Do I miss a to receive to receive our shoulder shoulder. So therefore, by the way you think I gave I will receive Why do nada thinker receive only you give unconditionally universal we are arranged to give you back why you think I serve because I want to serve I want to gain more steel surface nice. You think about the you that's so key for spiritual journeys, forget yourself. Totally give others. That's the secret. Brandon Handley 31:56 So that, you know kind of giving without an expectation of an outcome, right? But just giving selflessly so that without any attachment to the outcome, reducing the suffering. Yes. Great. So your big thing right now is the calligraphy. Let's talk a little bit a bit more about kind of what led you into calligraphy from everything else because like I said, You did the use of the Tai Chi did all the martial arts you did the acupuncture, writing, singing, tapping. I mean, you've done so many modalities and you're helping so many people in the world today. What led you to tune into calligraphy? Master Sha 32:42 Yes, there's a famous professional, professionally chewy, but the whole secret how special she was more than 100 years. She learned is the unique art form alas the Qing Dynasty unperceived teacher she was a born in a palace and she how this unique art for whole life. She's University professional Toronto University, China tune copy that like a Stanford Harvard, most famous to university every year when she was less than one two years. Every year. She was a guest speaker for the for Teach your child's language. United Nations honor her as a Chinese language expert. So I was introduced to her she we made a documentary she shared in a documentary she said I have incontinence you know more than 100 years and I use psychopaths lower abdomen. Brianna put one needle pull electricity Gouda one time to heal the incontinence and this is okay I think I showed my interest team and she thought if much if a doctor shall kill my incontinence, I may deliver this art I think everything you think about in the higher level thinking is arranged life is arranged we know that. So therefore, she started teaching me and after I learn is by the her art not for healing, but because of my healing background for whole life. I asked my teacher I want to turn this a calligraphy Eisah healing art. So go ahead can I teach you humanity go ahead. So therefore I change it one is writing like this. So normally for example as normally DA is a greatest normally dark thriller i is i and you know English A to Z are Chinese hags horizontal vertical live side by side dots are hook. So 16 components are to form our words. So therefore one is right he's like this. That See. See my life. I never stopped my law. Right? This call one is waiting for the this is why this wait him is Kevin. power but the key is I connect with the source they choose me as a servant so therefore not why why would any calligraphy I connect that great is love I connect the source are the we can see the power Canarsie taken me no time than you know that within three we have a lawyer a lawyer breast cancer come to liver 80% covered by cancer it was really awful I hope police case she went to all the major the top oncologists ironically we feel she just tracing because this invisible invisible light here like a day with a martyr and lost $100 million on trees this one or hundreds made millions because why because the the field the source feel your scientific way order connection harmony create a good result these order disharmony this disconnect him cause trouble so therefore this is the field to take a while to do this I agree Sir everybody knows sang shy we all did a song we feel warm but the song is in existence the word the star galaxies but the source is source of creative heaven earth the source is even invisible but the use of what you may not feel hot and warm but the invisible powers of creator power we seen therefore people connect we have 600 cases for chronic life threatening condition with a medical data on Bureau board result now for us for example now, US data now 40% Idols has a depression anxiety 25% I don't take a prescription medicine. See I put this one on the book. I'm putting on a heart okay heal me connect with the art okay, this invisible field heal me heal me think about this art it's a field sure was focusing on so therefore I put some people's hard to believe really hard to believe but one day it will grow people said whoa master Shah has a calligraphy are the book everybody can afford a book Brandon Handley 37:27 What's interesting to me is is growing up I've watched quite a bit of anime right our Japanese cartoons or you know some type of derivative and one or even like watch plenty of movies and one of the things that kind of always took up stood out in my mind was they would take a piece of paper in these movies you know rice and calligraphy and pass it out like a spell and that's basically I mean is that kind of what you're doing here right you're like yeah, you're you're putting the power on here for the connection right you're creating this link to source for people to connect with Master Sha 38:02 Yeah, that's exactly what correct and I connect with the source and the source Love Light the frequency vibration is the invisible the most positively information energy made within we have negative information energy matters for pain inflammation tumor relationship financial challenges, why we connect with this invisible light to take a light coming watch the darkness this in a studio you switch off dark morning light as the sound light up dark night so this invisible light more than this light more than the Sun is the invisible source because source created Heaven earth so therefore this hard to believe but because we have so many miracles, it's hard to believe but more and more people start to open all not only for healing cancer, chronic pain and also we did a research psychologist Ray the resolver for depression anxiety, David Ammar to get a huge financial place. Now the Queen levels get a place also now people start be aware massage as if creating new technology. Use our Connect Tracy, you heal heal me. You heal. I can do two minutes to swim. It's a healing. Give me a time. Let me hold my book. Everybody I can do healing for two or three minutes. Okay, well you already do I can do two minutes. Brandon Handley 39:29 Sure. We can do that now. So I'll put a timer on give me okay. Master Sha 39:33 Okay, give me three minutes. Brandon Handley 39:36 You want a three minute timer yet? You're ready to be healed y'all. Master Sha 39:41 Okay, nothing guarantee Okay, everybody relax. Close your eyes. Because this one is booked for back the support for depression dirt. You don't need to have this to any back pain, shoulder pain. Choose one area. The adult click we see. Our dear master shoutouts A total relax is a clicker you see the love light the frequency vibration will radiate my sound vibration will radiate a one area focus on one area on only one area your neck your back your heart you're kidding Unknown Speaker 40:17 Hey yay Unknown Speaker 40:23 Hi are you ya hate me? Hate You Are you ya he he you yah yah yah Oh ye Master Sha 40:49 now calligraphy live there Ciao calligraphy love the sea invisible field class 1000 vibrate in one area remove the negative information energy Mater yo Yaya Unknown Speaker 41:06 HEY YOU ARE YOU yah yah Oh yah yah yah yah yah Oh yah yah Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo Unknown Speaker 41:17 Yo yo yo, Unknown Speaker 41:18 yo yo yo, yo yo yo, yo yo ya Unknown Speaker 41:28 you ya hey Unknown Speaker 41:31 Hey yah yah, y'all ye yah Hey Oh, Ye are you yah. Hey yo yo yo Hi Brandon Handley 42:11 very powerful very powerful thank you for that. Thank you for that and I hopefully you know hopefully the people who are listening you know they they focus on me when when when you're seeing and you're giving this healing you want us to be calm? Right? You want the listener to be calm? What should we be receptive should we empty ourselves out and just let the music and the singing flow through us? Should we focus on a place that we're trying to heal? What does that process look like for example? Master Sha 42:40 Relax please give me a second do not think something else right shoulder pain my heart is okay a gentle rig relax when you relax so the vibration open much more freely. Hi Allah Allah Allah Allah live coming vibration that people you know Monday to fry the Instagram lecture earlier I said five minutes for up to 1205 Just by a few days 800 people why because in ancient media is not your mission if you want to know you for Paris with a tasty eat when people keep us Wow five minutes I feel good. The results are phenomenal people respond because why just now you heard about Yeah, people will buy berry so you're asked to such equation relax why you'll see much a sharp back pain shoulder pain kill more cancer than normal thinking oh toilet gave you to the field? Yeah, that's a secret Brandon Handley 43:36 and when you say putting them into the field he put him in like the fourth or fifth dimension what's happening there? Master Sha 43:41 Yes because we answered that mentioned why so many miracles Hey, Unknown Speaker 43:47 all y'all Oh, Master Sha 43:57 this is a higher dimension frequency come down. It's not me. That's why I say there's so many miracle I do not take any credit. I'm just a chain or a sermon that the power go flew from my song flew from my calligraphy that is to the power Brandon Handley 44:13 Yeah, you're just you're being a vessel right and letting it flow through you. percent. And let's just say for for whatever reasons maybe you know the song that you're singing and I've used it maybe to heal myself Could I also use the same song to be granted some type of prosperity and abundance in my life? Master Sha 44:35 Yes. Therefore I therefore now I'm teaching manifestation course. So many people are learning because why? You know our house related with negative information energy, major finances, same thing, relationship divorce, cannot find a true love cannot get a pregnant everything. My teaching in my book now The first chapter universal law, very important wisdom, my whole life study, only learn three words share the second word called cheat, everybody no cheat, vital energy life force. Next, why is a kill? Kill is a tune with the metro, Metro, do a metro. So therefore, see beloved Einstein, E equals MC squared, this is energy E here Metro speed of light. So I started relativities do not have this shared, shared means to So, here's the spirit, heart, a heart, heart and the mind. So in quantum physics, information, all information or message, so information may see dollar signs or Dr. Rowley and I have quantum faces we created 1000s. And millions of people believes soul spirit, meaning people believe here, they are the same thing. And this is what we try to share with humanity. In our summit with Deepak Chopra with Ervin Laszlo people talk about classic consciousness Newton and Einstein relativity is consciousness. Quantum physics, we teach it Tao, consciousness. Tao consciousness is no thought human we saw there's no words I'm putting this so there is no sound hire system no thinking hires the thinking the highest power is with this source. So there are four top click we see Tao some Tao water and people who the Water Economy transmission I put the invisible power instead of people drinking Mira got miracle I'm just a vase. So choosing serving the higher dimension power goes through me offered to the Dow Santa Clarita water that's a miracle happen again again. Brandon Handley 47:03 Now when you say no thought What's that feel like? So how does somebody know that they're experiencing no thought? Okay, thank Master Sha 47:15 you so much. So in a Buddhist teaching Tao teaching even the people for millions people meditation, human brain is a designer for thinking number one, we have to think we have to think for the people may not know in a deep meditation you can spatial mantra you cannot try to force you know assault you will get a mental disorder and be very sure you're very happy happy very happy we have a song by the way you meditate while you can the mantra spatial mantra can I was higher dimension while you turn 10 Can human assault laser laser laser Zion while reach a high level you complete like nothing thinking the white light there's a higher level so therefore in the end, I just gave a beginning step for the higher Rama first is a chilled him this is your meditative chill. Chill is a clean lie the pure peace chill tune to kill me as of quietness. And the next one while you're trying to mind try meditation. The second stillness deal deal means the stillness. What's the deal? Thing is no salt while you meditate the more finely whoo Yep, totally quiet your mind because your hardest key hard house is the minor so this of course is a training and techniques champion. When you reach a state your mind totally stopped thinking but at that moment you can actually source that's a car steel. Brandon Handley 48:58 And and that's how you know I think I'm trying to take a car Carl Jung coined a term called like the numinous right feeling feeling connection, overwhelming source of connection to Source is that kind of what would you would explain it as I will Master Sha 49:16 see, no source because remember, no source is no human source. But the in the fourth dimension fifth dimension, the Buddha saints they have activity also. So why you have no humans are suddenly you saw wow the Buddha's gallery you saw oh my god the millions of people county that is in the days and police work they do have phenomenal also but another third dimensions. Anyway, this is this is very deep is hard to explain in the show that you have to get a premium. Brandon Handley 49:57 I get it you also something else to the really appreciate It never thought and then I guess I've been trying to come to a way of figuring this out and you explained it very well. But I'll leave it like this. So let's say the healing works. The song works. I've tasted the pair. It's sweet. All right. You say to be delighted, not surprised, as a reaction. Right? Could you explain that? Because I think that um, when we connect with source when some miracle happens, yes, we act surprised. Right? Yeah. What why? That's amazing. And so why do you suggest to be delighted and not surprised? I'm curious. Unknown Speaker 50:41 Uh, yet this like this. Master Sha 50:43 One is the stage for cancer, liver cancer. 80% of brain cancer, leukemia. I have quite a few serious leukemia. They all recover. Very surprising. It's called Miracle hopeful, hopeless. For the for us a third damaged miracle. For them a source of No more No more sense of frequency vibration. We have a blockage, the light coming in. Wow. washed out like why we take shower the carwash and take shower we wash the third but these tog Kruger you see the field not a washer skin, carwash it's a skin there's a washer internal our guys Whoa, holidays from skin to boom, wash the stuff out. That is sacred healing SOURCE LIGHT, calligraphy carry a light see behind me, there's a Dow, I'm standing here, every moment a source LiDAR, Flash me flash a flash wash. So therefore dices connect with the source, we all can connect it. So therefore, you know I have so many free events, join with me experienced more. Brandon Handley 51:52 Well, Dr. Shah, where should we send people to find out more about what it is that you're doing and what is next for you. Master Sha 51:59 Next for me, is I want to meet some people experience or more experience that I love my heart so I love all humanity. John harness social together. Love Peace and Harmony, love his harmony. I want the millions of people understand I have the power to heal my serve. You had power to your serve. Together we have the power to heal the word. See the COVID and then King war, all kinds of crises of political, economic health, all kinds of challenges. Humanity needs to transform the heart, hard horse's mind so you know why the sentence humanity needs to purify our heart, heart, connect with a higher dimension where you connect with the heart. You'll forget about human stops, let it go. Human stuff will block you connect with higher dimension. Connect with the source. There are unlimited wisdom on limits. The words are limited success. That is my final closing. Brandon Handley 53:05 That's it's a wonderful, wonderful next step. So thank you so much again, Mr. Shaw and one more time where can people find more about you? Go to Dr. Master Sha 53:13 Shah TR is he.com Join me and I must social media Instagram Monday to Friday, five minutes a Saturday Queen d&d show. Every Saturday I do first time a free Tao quantum healing send the Tao secret on the free event paste the pair first. That's okay. Brandon Handley 53:37 Here's the pair everybody. Thank you so much for being on today. Yeah, welcome.  

Learn more about Ryan here: https://ryanmcelvenny.com/about   Want to know more about today's podcast promo? Check here: The Skeptic Metaphysician Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general, you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual dub with your host, Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 Their spiritual dope I'm on with a special guest today it is Ryan McAvennie. Right I get that right? That's correct. Yeah, so listen, for the for the people that have been on this podcast for a while and hang hung out for a while. Sometimes I really jack up like the the last name or any part of the name, right. And I think one of the things that we we learn here is pay attention to your intuition. I was getting ready to start off and I was like, You know what? Let me ask real quick, right. Let me just make sure. And, you know, Ryan Ryan helped me make sure that I said his name correctly. Right. He's got a lot going on guys. He's got a background in medicine. He's been in a Buddhist, you know, you are in a monastery for like four years, you've traveled around the world. And you're deep into this breathwork you're still pretty young, I would say right now at this point in time, I wish I'd found it kind of at your age and had the journey that you did. But once you explain to everybody why you're on and kind of where you're at. Ryan M 1:45 Sure. So for me, just to clarify, it was a tantric ashrams. So we, we were following more Yogic and Tantric principles and studying these and other than Buddha, I spent a little bit of time with Buddhism in Thailand. And then I was in a process of, you know, I was in a process of exploring a lot of different things. And I was also in a process of really exploring my own darkness and the depths of my darkness and going into quite a dark period of my life. And that, that essentially brought me to where I am now, because it kind of broke me down. And I ended up in India, and I met this tantric school, I ended up going deep into that and moving to Denmark, where they had their second biggest ashram, and then living there working for that school, studying and practicing very, very intensely periods where it was seven hours a day for seven months while working more than full time hours. So it's quite quite an intense life. Not necessarily what when I first mentioned that I was in an ashram, a lot of people imagine this very, very relaxing kind of lifestyle, but because we were Tantrics and karma Yogi's, we loved the intensity. And that's what we were cultivating this capacity to stay centered in intensity. And this is still very much the, in a way, the core of my entire, the way that I live my life and the way that I share these techniques and teachings that I share now. So since leaving that ashram, I came to a point where I felt that what we were being taught in the ashram made more sense to practice in the world than in the ashram. So Tantra is a is a philosophy that's very much something to be practiced in the world rather than in isolation. And so I left and I started teaching the techniques that I'm still practicing that I, I learned the foundations of there, and they've continued to develop. And I was teaching one on one for about a year. And about six months ago, I started to teach groups, these techniques. And in around when this should be airing, or maybe a couple of weeks out, I'll be launching a new platform, which will go even deeper into some of the techniques that I learned there. And a lot of that is about working with the breath and working with different ancient techniques from the hatha yoga tradition, but bringing them kind of up to a more modern standard. So understanding what's actually going on when we're using these techniques, and understanding the mechanics behind them both on a physical and we could say an energetic or spiritual level. So that's kind of what what I'm up To these days, Well, right now, honestly, I'm settling into my new home in Mexico. And that's been more of a process than I expected it to be. But once I'm settled, then it's straight back to developing this platform and teaching, teaching these techniques, including meditation and breath techniques. Brandon Handley 5:25 Now fantastic. So look, before we dive into all of it, right, and that's awesome. You've been so deep into this, and again, to the people that are tuning in, and listen today, if you haven't checked out, you know, make sure you go check out his Instagram, because he doesn't, you know, really amazing postures and, you know, exercises that really kind of blow my mind, right. I'm like, I'm at the beginning of the beginning of the beginning. And Ryan's, you know, definitely further along than I am, he talks about doing seven hours of meditation a day, for seven months straight, I might do seven hours and seven months, if we're just calling it, calling it out. But that doesn't mean that I won't do it and use it. So I mean, that's pretty intense and awesome. So we're gonna dive into all of it. So Ryan, I just like to start these off with the whole idea, right? That you and I are basically conduits for universal energy, right? You and I are here for really everybody else's highest and best good, right? We're here for service. And somebody listening to this podcast today. They're gonna, they're not gonna hear that you and I talking? They're, they're gonna hear a message that's specifically for them. Right? And it's can only be delivered through you to them on this platform in this moment. What is that message today? Ryan M 6:48 Well, I feel that different people will be in different places and take different things from but for me, what, what is one of the core messages that I really try to get across to people is the importance of cultivating a dedicated daily practice, whether that be five minutes, or 10 minutes, or, as it was my case, it's sometimes seven hours. And whether it's five minutes or seven hours, it doesn't really matter. It depends on what we want to offer to the practice and what we are kind of aiming for the practice to help us to achieve. But especially for, I would say, especially for men, this daily aspect to it is very important, this this dedication, this this fire. And this is one of the things that I always try to encourage people to embrace. Because, I mean, you kind of mentioned that a little bit before we started recording. But there is so much what I would call the plague of vagueness in modern spirituality. And actually, when we when we look at yoga, traditional yoga, so yoga, now, it comes to mean just postures, but yoga. Asana is one part of yoga postures are one part of yoga. And Yoga itself is, in fact, a very, very detailed and almost scientific system for Spiritual Development for development of the person, like even outside of the spirit, development of the capacity to control the attention, the capacity to move our energy and not be moved by our energy, if that intuitively makes sense to you guys. And when we start to practice daily, we start to see the impacts that it can have for us in and there's a number of like I can I can elaborate on that quite a bit. But I don't I don't want to jump ahead and jump too much into that. Brandon Handley 9:03 No, thank you. And I think that that's awesome. Right. Like you said, Absolutely. There's there's a vagueness, right. And it can it can be a little little maddening. Because like, let's have a conversation. But let's also lay in the plane, right? And understand and come to an understanding of what that looks like. And when you talk about, hey, yoga, yoga, like you said, is been westernized, right, we take, we see something happening, and we see the outside effects of it. And we're like, oh, we want that. And we do all the outside exercise and stuff. And I feel like that's it. Right. But really, as you're saying, as you're as you're talking like there's a there's a greater depth to this. And the development isn't just your glutes, right? Your development isn't just a you look good and yoga pants. It's like there's a whole like there's a whole like inner work as a matter of fact, all of it The should kind of boils down to like this inner work and its inner process, this inner knowing and development that, um, hopefully I think is growing right. I feel like that awareness is growing at this point. Yeah, I Ryan M 10:12 definitely thought that it is, I feel that we're at a, almost a tipping point in terms of the way that the collective subconscious and the way that the collective consciousness is expanding, and I feel that people are definitely like, and the other thing is that, honestly, even when I first started teaching, I never use the word yoga. I never use the word Tantra because I don't necessarily want people to associate these transformative techniques with their prior held notions about what yoga is. And so I feel that, you know, whether it's how popular mindfulness meditation is becoming or meditation in general. You know, Asana is one thing now we got Wim Hof was really spearheading the breathwork movement. And now we're getting more and more breath practitioners who are realizing what a powerful tool for transformation that is, we don't need to call it yoga for it to be a powerful tool, you know, and it doesn't need to necessarily have exactly the same overall goal as the yogi's had, which was liberation, because what is liberation, it's the removal of all of the programs that we've had put into our subconscious. And this is once we are free from that we're free, right? And that's kind of what we're, we're faced with, and what we're more and more, I feel more and more people are starting to become aware of how much in a sense to say it very directly. And a lot of people get very triggered by these kinds of terms, how much we are automatons conditioned by our previous experiences. Rather than being like, consciously engaged with the world, we're really engaged with the world through this filter of past experience. And that, to me, is like the essence of yoga is removing that filter. And I feel that, that that is becoming more and more popular now that that awareness of that those programs and this desire to, to at least choose which programs we have, if not to remove them completely, is becoming more and more widespread. And I feel that that's very beautiful. And the yogic thing is that once we realize that, that's what we want to cultivate. We can see that the yogic technologies, whether it's, you know, Asana is a very useful technology, but even more so when we start getting into working with the breath. When we start getting into one pointed meditation. These are very, very effective tools for exactly that for removing our conditioning, and then making space for us to choose the way that we want to be in the world. Now, I will add one caveat that I think that there is always a danger when things start becoming we can say like more mainstream, that the evidence can get larger. So for example, mindfulness meditation has become very, very popular. And it's become very popular because it now has clinical trials that support its efficacy in certain realms. And it's been shown to be very, very effective for reducing stress for harmonizing the nervous system for reducing reactivity and allowing us more space to choose the way that we want to engage with the world. The trouble with that is that for the yogi's, for example, and even for the Buddha's mindfulness, meditation was not an end in itself, it is a intermediary phase towards a higher state of meditation, where we really enter this, you know, states of silence, which have fallen a little bit out of vogue, because they are quite, you know, the, the learning curve to access them is quite high. And so we've kind of settled for the intermediary stage. The danger is that we'll go ahead Brandon Handley 14:33 go ahead. Well, I mean, so let's let's pause there for a second right, you got a lot a lot in there and then it's awesome. It's all like new stuff that I agree with and subscribe to. So that's why it's awesome. And I'm not looking for an echo chamber though, right? It's like okay, you know, you you've gone and you've lived like you've lived this right? And you're you're currently living it which is great. Yeah, and if you don't mind you mind if I give a little blurb on like, the pre, how you before the before times before you started doing the breath work and other stuff that's on your site, right? Like, I mean, you, you know, and and I bring it up because you know, plant medicine and hallucinogenics and psychedelics are a big part of this, all this right now, right, this mental health space, I went through it too, right and, and the reason I bring it up too is I want to, I want to touch on the idea that the work that you're doing in the breath work and this yogic work, and the stuff that you can do on your own, is almost more intense, cleaner and better, in a sense, right? Like I think of, I think of kind of, like, you know, like LSD or hallucinogens are almost pale in comparison to the reality of what you can create by through this breath work and some of the other stuff, right, and some of the, some of the takeaways and connections that you can establish that are long term versus when the trip wears off, you're like, well, that's over. And that sucks, right? Because now you've got this thing that you've created and sustain, you've got a sustainable connection effect that it doesn't require you Ryan M 16:23 even more dangerous, when it wears off. Yeah, and we don't even realize it's worn off. And we think we're still there. So when we're acting like we're still there, but it's not showing up in how we engage with the world. This, this is something that I've really, what I would say is that there's a difference between experience and integration. And we live in a society now that is far more, I would even say obsessed with the experience, we want to have the intense experience, we think that the experience itself will transform us. But there's no space given to the importance of integration. Without integrating the experience fully. As you said, it wears off, it doesn't really make the deep transformations that we're longing for. And we hold on to this, I like this, somehow mental idea or this memory of the experience as if that transformed us. But it really, most of the time, it's not the experience itself that's transforming to us, it's the integration. And so these tools, what I feel is that psychedelics are an incredibly, incredibly powerful tool to be shown things. So we see a lot when we and I still, you know, since it during my time in the ashram, these kinds of things were strictly forbidden, since leaving, I feel, you know, firstly, and let go of the dogmas that were there. And I want to engage with everything consciously, rather than reject some things and prioritize others. And so for me, I enjoy very much psilocybin and mushrooms in recent times, but what I've noticed is that these are very powerful tools for seeing certain things. But then it's my daily spiritual practice, which are my practice of breath and meditation, my transformational practices, which allow me to integrate the lessons from what I've seen, so that I can actually change the way that I engage with the world. That That makes sense. Brandon Handley 18:40 Right? Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Right. I think that it's like you're saying, The, we've got this propensity to chase the experience, right? Or even hold on, like you said, Hold on to the memory of the experience, even with the breath work, right? I mean, we can have this intense, powerful breath work experience. And the next time we go in, we're like, I want I want what I just had last time. Right? And, you know, to that end, Ryan, since we're talking about it, right. And again, all the conversation about the removal of the filters, right? Talk about that all the time, right? I love the idea too, that you're taking, you're saying, you know, let's remove yoga, let's remove this other any other language that directly identifies this as like yoga or something else, because that makes it that makes it accessible to everybody. So because if you say this is a yogic practice, somebody's like, well, you know, I tried yoga once and that's just not for me, right? Because they've got this memory again, and they created a filter to that. Right? So you remove some of those filters so that they can you know, remove all the filters or like you said, consciously engage in cut like say, hey, you know what? This is dumb. model that I had before this is the program that I had been using previously, I recognize this now as the program. What program do I want to run now? Right? Like, you know, for a while Ryan, you were running the ashram program, now you're running this other program, right? So like, you know, consciously saying, right, this is the this is the, this is the new program, right? This is the old program, it worked for a little while, it got loaded, I changed a couple pieces of code. And we're going to run this new program and see how that that goes, but doing it at a conscious level, like you're talking about, and being fully aware of how you feel in this moment, and whether or not that's an alignment, Ryan M 20:40 are really able to connect to how we feel in each moment, programs become much less necessary. And then you can really, so one, one thing that I've really noticed, and this is I'm going to talk more genuinely about personal development, is that the trend in personal development is this introduced the introduction of new programs to sit on top of the old programs. So if you have somebody that's very shy, one of the examples I use, and I'm not, I'm not necessarily criticizing or judging this, but if you have a man who's very shy, he might go out and learn game so that he gets confident to go out and speak to women, he introduces a new program on top of the shyness, but it doesn't really do anything to heal that that wound that's inside that's, that's causing that, that set of circumstances, it's a new program. And the programs tend to compare against each other. And sometimes one is the dominant program. And other times the other is the dominant program. But the biggest problem with this is that when we introduce new programs, we are introducing the program that we believe is most beneficial to us from the place of the mind. So it might not even be the case. And even if it is the case that that is the program that's best for us, it's best in this circumstance in this moment. If that same man enters into a long term relationship after those experiences, he now has his shyness to contend to in terms of dealing with his lover, and he now has all of these essentially quite objectifying programs which he's introduced, when it comes to dealing with his lover it's not so harmonious for that new situation. So it's a little bit out there but for me, then the best thing from my perspective is not to focus on the introduction of new programs, but to focus on the removal of programs and the connecting to how I feel in each moment being aware of my inner processes in each moment so that I can come from a place that's that's genuine that's not programmed that spontaneous that's fresh and and responsive to reality rather than reactive to my past experiences or my kind of Yeah, I don't want to say program too much but programs beliefs Brandon Handley 23:27 Sure, so I mean your your current your current beliefs, right is kind of how you would just say these are my current beliefs and how do I how do I take a look at my current beliefs and determine whether or not they're still good for me? Right and then you've got a process that sounds like a they're bringing you a quick interruption of this podcast is share a trailer of another podcast this is known as just kind of a podcast trailer exchange of a podcast that you may be interested check it out. Unknown Speaker 24:04 My name is Wil Geary and unlike Mulder and Scully, both want to believe we've embarked on a journey of discovery we've talked to people deeply entrenched in the spiritual and metaphysical world, we've thrown ourselves into weird and wonderful experiences. I've joined a coven of witches. Wait, you joined a coven? Yep, all in the interest of finding something anything that will prove that there's something beyond this physical three dimensional world we all live in? This is the skeptic metaphysicians join us every week as we explore a new corner of this weirdly wonderful universe always keeping a pragmatic eye on the subject. You don't live entirely in the womb, the womb, the womb, what's the womb you know, the womb that doesn't help them go woowoo you know the woowoo Why didn't you say that? I'm sure I did. Catch us on your favorite podcast platform across the world on select radio stations, skeptic metaphysician, your world will never be the same. Brandon Handley 25:00 And now back to our regularly scheduled program. Like where you could help me. So that process focus very Ryan M 25:09 much on these techniques, which I mean, particularly one one technique in particular, which have called diaphragm hacking, which is based in very, very considered to be a very high yogic technology. And it's kind of I don't use the original yogic name for two reasons. The first one because it can be alienating to people who don't care about Sanskrit, but also because that technique will that name has been attributed to a technique, which is not really on the same level, it's, it's, as you said, it's a very superficial understanding of that ancient technique. And what this does is it does a couple of things. But in terms of what we're talking about right now, it has a almost direct capacity to interface with and, and on unright programs. So I'm a completely different person than I was six years ago, when I started to practice this technique. Six years ago, I was someone who was completely controlled by my desires and addictions, I was addicted to weed, I was an alcoholic, I was very addicted to pornography, and addicted to sex. And I was very, very angry all the time. And this was a very heavy program for me to to start to unright. And the main, one of the main tools has been going into, essentially, like, when we work with the breath, we're interfacing directly with the nervous system, the breath is known in yoga, and now in kind of modern terms as the gateway between the conscious and the subconscious, because it's the only one to take it to modern terms, it is the only one of our autonomic nervous functions. So the functions of the nervous system which happen automatically without our conscious, you know, our us putting our hand on it consciously, it's the only one that we can start to control. Without too much prior training, you need a little bit of training, but anybody can sit down. And if you tell them, Okay, slow down your breath, they can start to try to slow down their breath, they have that capacity. And this means that it's this gateway between what we call the somatic nervous system, the functions that we have direct control over, and the autonomic nervous system, the functions that we have, that we normally don't have control of. And through interfacing into the nervous system, this way, we can start to essentially rewire it to underwrite those pathways. Because, again, I don't want to get too technical, but I'm just going to make another relation between ancient yogic science and modern science, modern behavioral science is that in yogic science, we have what's called samskaras. People often talk about karma. It's a very misunderstood concept. And it's very, very, like, it's a very high concept is the thing when when you actually get into it, but what I feel is more relatable is the one of samskaras, which are referred to as these groups. So samskaara literally means this group, and it's this idea that every time we have a thought, every time we do an action, we scrape a groove a little bit deeper. And that means that it's easier for the knife we can say to follow up to fall into that path and follow it again each time. Does that make sense? Brandon Handley 28:59 Absolutely, I mean, look, it's like a meal for anybody that's ever held a record. Right? Like, I mean, this the same thing, right? You've got this. You've got the needle that that's going to keep staying in that track. And so like, you know, it's disrupted, right. So yeah, that makes sense. I love that love the imagery in Ryan M 29:17 terms of yogic science as a result of the groups that we've built up, either in this life or in the yogic idea and past lives also, but we'll keep it a bit more relatable and just say, in this life, we we start to be taught certain behaviors from a very young age, we start to have certain thought patterns from a very young age. And every time we have that thought, every time we do that action, it gets a bit deeper, meaning that we're even more likely to do that thought or action. And so what's the end and this has been shown very much now with modern behavioral science in terms of the way that we form habits. So we know now that the more we'd do a certain action, the more likely we are to pick that up as a habit and to start doing it with with ease or with with less difficulty, or even unconsciously. And I like to use the imagery of a path in a forest. If you're walking through a forest, you can see the path where there's been people who have walked beforehand, it's it doesn't have growth on it, so it's easy for the feet to follow. Now, if we want to change our behavior, sure, there's going to be need for a conscious effort to choose a new path through the forest, which isn't so easy to follow. So we're going to need to have a landmark, for example. So say, at the big tree, the past goes to the left of the big tree, and we're going to say, You know what, I'm going to start going into the right of the big tree. But every time we're not conscious, we're gonna go down that left path, we're not going to go down the right path, it's going to be a conscious effort to keep going down that right path, until we start to go down it enough times that we start to cut a new path through the forest, and the old path starts to grow over. Does that does that make sense? Brandon Handley 31:20 Yeah, yeah. And I love it. Right. And it's just like you're saying, I mean, this is applicable, like anywhere, if you're driving home, and you've got a certain road that you always take, right? You stay on that road, right? Even though there's plenty of other ways home, you have to consciously make an effort to be like, you know, what, I wanted a different direction that I want to see. Right, and to. And see, one of the other things you mentioned, like pass laws before too, and, and while that might might seem for a lot of people to be like, Ah, I don't know, I pass lives, man, let's, let's take this example, then if you don't believe in past lives, and you're one of those people that says, you know, all these things matter, and I believe in science, then let's use a little bit of science, right? It's definitely been proven that freights pass through, or at least like seven generations, right? So the stuff the programming that we are born with, is, maybe we can't and won't call it our past lives. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say, you know, just we can, we've just barely begun to know how to read DNA. There's more encoded in that then than we know yet, right? So what's in there could be past lives, records of past lives, right? And the way that you act and react has been scientifically proven to be passed on to you, from your ancestors. So you can call it past lives, you can call it something else. But the truth of the matter is, the way you act and react has definitely been programmed into you. And you through what Ryan's talking about here has the capability. Like, like Brian saying, you know, and Ryan, you can jump in anywhere, but like, you know, as you enter, freeze directly with the nervous system, and you can begin to flip the switches of your genes through this practice. So I just wanted to Yeah, I wanted, I wanted to highlight that because you're not off the mark by saying, you know, bug. When you talk, like, talk about removing the filters, right? This is kind of this is why I went back to that, you know, if somebody's got to think about a hang up on on past lives, then they may not have a hang up with the science. Right. But to me, they're ultimately the same. You saying the same thing, which, Ryan M 33:49 as I said, when we really get into yoga, it's really a lot more scientific than we realize there's very little vagueness to traditional yoga. If you read the original Hatha Yoga manuals, they really read a lot more like an instruction booklet, then some kind of very vague and woowoo New Age spirituality thing. And at the end of the day, whether we believe in past you know, it's a, also just a form of describing certain phenomena, like, like you're saying, even outside of jeans, like even if we don't get into jeans, just the very fact that your grandparents raised your parents in a particular way. And then your parents raised you in a particular way, is already writing these, you know, neurons into certain pathways that are easier to fire down. And that's exactly the same as the path in the forest. When neurons are used. They get easier to fire down and when neurons are not use, they get less receptive to the electrical signal. we'll create our behavior. And so we can even just talk about past lives in terms of well, my parents, my parents, parents, my parents, parents, parents, as you said, and the way that they inscribe certain behaviors or thought patterns into us. And when we start to use these techniques, and not only these techniques, but in my experience, these techniques are, you know, one point at meditation and yogic breath work and these kinds of things, they are particularly effective ways to interface with these patterns. Brandon Handley 35:41 Right, let me jump in the record at one point in meditation, How's that different from you know, from from headspace, for example, or headspace and Ryan M 35:52 Buddhist mindfulness, which is really an intermediary step in a deeper meditation practice. So, one point that meditation is, is very, okay, it's almost, you know, the, the name describes itself, we, we fixed the attention to one point, and then it might run away, we bring it back to that one point. And we just train more and more to be able to keep the attention on one point. And then this leads to very, very incredible effects. Because when I'm gonna go a little bit into detail here, but essentially, we have this one of the great things about mindfulness is that it starts to make us aware that we are not the mind, we start to became able to observe the movements of the mind and realize that the the movements of the mind, and the thoughts are separate from our attention and our being, which is a very, very important step. Because in our society, especially the western society, we are so deeply identified with the mind, we even have philosophers in the Western tradition, saying, I think, therefore I am. And it's not true. We are and the thoughts are an observable phenomena from the place of our true self, which is the, the observer. And this, this can be Brandon Handley 37:28 part of the experience, right, like they're a part of the experience that we ascribe to ourselves. We like event like me jumping in the water and bathtub, Ryan M 37:36 comes in and stirs up the water, you start to freak out, because ah, you've put your hand in me and you're stirring me up. It's not the case, we can, we can take the step back, and we can observe, oh, wait, those are my thoughts. And I'm watching them, so I am something else. And so that that is a very important step. And it's very good that mindfulness has become popular so that more people start to realize that there is something more to their identity than the mental movements. But what one point of meditation does is that through affixing the attention firmly to one point for long enough, the movements of the mind stop. And then we discover that stillness, that statements that used to be associated with meditation, I remember when I was a child, that's what meditation meant. And then that was kind of quite a quite a high goal that people felt a bit intimidated to embark upon. And so this new definition of meditation showed up, which was just basically sitting and listening to music or listening to a guided thing. But meditation is very much this, this state where the mind stops. And one point at meditation, go ahead. Brandon Handley 39:00 Well, I mean, so what I'm hearing you say, though, is that mindfulness is kind of where most people are, at this point in time. And Ryan M 39:12 we're calling lots of things meditation, which is essentially any activity where we maybe introduce a bit of awareness, maybe even not, maybe we're just listening to music, we have a fixed label of meditation to it. And it's a little bit problematic to do so not because these practices or these actions don't have value they do and I'm not denigrating their value. But Brandon Handley 39:44 right now, yeah, I just want to make sure yeah, I want to I want to clarify, right. So if we're, you know, if I like purity as much as the next person, right? Like I'm not going to call butter Ryan M 39:58 right, so margarine, butter And then it gets to the point where nobody knows what butter is anymore. And this is what's happened with a lot of these things with meditation. Nobody wants to get nobody, somebody thinks about what meditation originally meant anymore. And even is aware that there's something there's a next step beyond what's become quite popular in this in the form of mindfulness or in the form of, you know, visualizations and all of these relaxation practices. They're very they're very valuable but they're they're a different thing. And it's sad to see Bata become extinct because Brandon Handley 40:52 right. But But here's, here's what I'm really enjoying about this conversation is to let's reintroduce the distinctions, right, let's come back to it. Let's say hey, listen, this is great. It's not that it's not that you've been doing anything wrong. And it's not that you're doing the wrong thing. But let's, let's understand. And let's be clear that your your mindfulness practice is not meditation, there is something beyond and this is, you know, I'm glad you're bringing this up, because I wasn't familiar with this distinction prior to, because I'm sure my experience has been like, alright, you know, these mindfulness practices and headspace helped a ton. Right? What took me to the next level was, yeah, helped me what helped me a ton. What took me to the next level was breathwork. And finding finding, even just moments of stillness in that space, I've been at it. And I could be totally wrong. I'm going through the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying right now and talking about Bardo states. Right. And for me, that spaced that just that little space of stillness is for me, like artists, they had a transition in between, like, all the crazy, and just this for a minute. Right? And so to me, so as I tell the group, I'm like, Listen, if you tried meditation, if you tried mindfulness, and your mind still fucking crazy, that's because you have, there is absolutely something else to it. And I tell people that when we do, when we do this breathwork then we go into this Bardo state, we go into, like, you know, retention, or something like that, I feel like you definitely is what meditation is, missing a marker, my clothes, a lot Ryan M 42:35 of people when when we speak about this, because, for me, the one point of meditation is very important. A diaphragm hacking, which is a form of, it's a form of breath holding, with a few different added things to it, but its foundation is a breath hold in a void. So in an empty lungs state. And this is exactly what I say to people is that one point at meditation is great if you're really doing it. And even myself, after six years of practice, the majority of time that I'm meditating, I'm sitting, and I'm, I'm waiting for that meditation. Or I'm, I'm aiming to get to that meditation, but I'm not necessarily there. And the trouble with this is that it's to speak very frankly. And it's a practice which we can bullshit ourselves into believing that we're doing. I can sit there and I can say, I just meditated for an hour, I'm so good. But I know that if I'm lucky, meditated for a couple of minutes of that hour that I was sitting, when we start to get into breath holds, you cannot push it, you know, you're either there or you're not. And if you're not there, you know, because you need to take a breath almost immediately and enter a breath. If you're really there, you can hold for one minute, one minute and a half, two minutes. You can hold these, what's called bundles in the yogic tradition, and still hold the breath for for multiple minutes and then you know, hey good. Yeah, exactly. Brandon Handley 44:17 Are you saying about like energy losses that we're seeing work but yeah. So but yeah, I got I got it. Um, what is like, Alright, man, we just met. I not never done breathwork before. Totally interesting. So what's the first thing you're gonna tell me to do? Anyways, Ryan M 44:43 square breathing. Square breathing is a fantastic technique. It's based on a yogic technique called summability pranayama. And the fascinating thing with square breathing is from a couple of levels. Firstly, it's very, very harmonizing to the nervous system. So you are automatically starting to bring the nervous system into a state of equilibrium just just by doing a little bit of square breathing, it's a, it's an incredibly simple technique to do. But it can be very, very powerful because the majority of us exist in a state of constant nervous system excitation, and it just, it brings it back down. But the other great thing about it is that it's already starting to train, what we can call co2 tolerance, which is becoming more and more talked about and more and more popular in the current times. And this is a very, very good indicator of our capacity to deal with stress. So the, if you don't mind if I go on a little bit of a tangent about co2. So we have at the base of our brainstem, oh, four man, absolutely. what's called the chemo receptors of co2. And this is telling us or this is sensing what the partial pressure or the concentration of co2 is in the blood. And co2 has been a very, very misunderstood molecule. Because it's been seen previously, it's just a waste product of the rest of the of cellular metabolism, essentially, of the workings of the body. But more and more, it's being acknowledged to be a very, very important molecule for the function of everything. it dilates the vasculature, which allows for blood to more easily travel into all parts of the body, including the brain, it's also necessary for oxygen to detach from the hemoglobin and actually enter into the tissues. So the more co2 we have, the more efficient we can get oxygen into the tissues, not it's not. Brandon Handley 46:56 Real quick, is it more co2 or the right balance of co2? Ryan M 47:01 A complete answer to that, because it hasn't really been looked at in, like, so what I'll say is that, from my perspective, I am not sure if I can get enough co2. I'm very curious, because my entire, like, my practice has been so focused on these breath holds, so focused on increasing my co2 tolerance. And now my my natural respiration rate, it sits at about five to seven respirations per minute, that's when I'm just when I'm checking it out. Wow. Brandon Handley 47:45 And that's like, just that's just like you not. And for for somebody that doesn't understand what that is. That's and I believe that's about around five seconds and five seconds. If I was counting, right, Ryan M 48:00 that would end up with six. So yeah, exactly. Around that sometimes. Power even. And that. Brandon Handley 48:09 Right, so yeah, so So for the I think there's somebody you know, for listener, right. Try that out for yourself to see what Ryan's regular breath work, you know, breathing. That's your regular breathing, I consciously have to do that. Right. And I think so it's pretty cool as roll call that out. Go Ryan M 48:28 ahead. No, as you mentioned, I have a background, I was a registered nurse. My first rotation was actually ironically in the respiratory ward. And when, when we look at that, in terms of modern science and modern medicine, that would be considered a dangerously low respiration rate. If somebody had that respiration rate on the ward, you would start to worry about that person. And should have certain symptoms, like sluggishness, or like the incapacity to really engage in these kinds of things. But I definitely don't feel like that, you know. And when it comes to recently, I was I was a very avid DJ jujitsu competitor, many, many, many years ago, before I started on this path. And recently I revisited that, and the coach was amazed at the way that I don't seem to get tired, and I'm not fit at all. I'm not strong. I'm not athletic. But what I noticed, after he was commenting on it so much, I was just becoming aware that even with a guy 20 was heavier than me on top of me, my breath was still very calm, very slow, and he wasn't breathing like. And so, for me, I'm not sure I'm not sure and, you know, I don't want to make a statement, but for me, I'm not sure that I can get enough co2 in the system. It's just about increase Taking that tolerance and increasing the amount of co2 gradually. And I'm definitely more centered, more relaxed more still, than I ever have been when people hear that I used to have anger problems, they can't they kind of can't believe it, because that's not the way that I come up. And yeah, go ahead. Brandon Handley 50:21 That's great. That's great. No, I love it, right? I mean, I think you and I could go on for a long time. Unfortunately, we're kind of towards the tail end. So I want to make sure that you also hit on you said, you've got a new course coming out, right, a new platform, you get rid of what's what, what's that going to be? And what can people expect to find there from the five week Ryan M 50:46 trainings in the diaphragm hacking technique. And it was, it was wonderful, it was wonderful experience. And it needs five weeks, because it is a little bit more of an advanced technique. And so I like to build it up level by level so that people really get strong results from it. But what I noticed was, some of the participants were getting very, very amazing results from the technique. And other participants were getting results, but not to the level that I would like it to be. And what I realized the difference was is this kind of foundation that they have. So the ones who tended to have better results were people who were already meditation practitioners, either the past or mindfulness or something else, or ones who already like really into Wim Hof, really into yoga. So they had that foundation already. And so what I decided to do, and the other thing is that I noticed that after the five weeks was over, many of the people would slow down or stop practicing. And without, you know, I was in an ashram for four years, I had that support to my practice of being there. So what I really wanted to do was to solve both of those problems, a new form, which will be more of like building an ongoing community, so that people are supported in continuing to develop their practice. And also, the program itself is being extended to a quiet intensive three months, and people can take it at their own speed. So they can take it over longer than three months, which really lays the foundation so they start to get an awareness of their body, get an awareness of their breath, get an awareness of what's going on with their mind, learn to relax, before having the more powerful but more difficult techniques taught to them. And I'm hoping and I've done this with my one on one clients, and it's been quite effective. I'm hoping this allows everybody who comes to the platform to be able to build that foundation so that when they learn the more powerful techniques, they can really get the full results from it, they can really start to interface with the subconscious and remove whatever heavy programming so controlling them. So we're going to be going nation's Go ahead. Brandon Handley 53:15 Yeah, so I mean, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, so you're, I think on your site, it's like, you know, if you don't mind, like, you know, part part of what you're talking about is you know, focus and freedom from like anxieties and addictions but also sounds like there's there's some benefits to Ryan M 53:35 with learning more practitioner is because I feel that if I was just upfront with how profoundly impacting they have been, for me and my students so far, I would sound like a snake oil salesman, I had to focus in on certain what's called pain points in the industry, which I don't necessarily love to do, but it's part of the part of the game. But really, the biggest techniques are so effective I get it someone whether they're dealing with anxiety or addiction, or whether they just want to level up to be the next the next capacity in you know, in focus in presence, especially presence in underwriting programs in you know, opening up to be more engaged with their reality and achieve even more and be more in line with their their purpose and their dreams. And this is really what what we're aiming for. Brandon Handley 54:45 100% I love it, man. Well, listen, when I talk about breath work, I talked about it as I'm pretty sure it really is the silver bullet, right. It fixes so many things and it addresses so many things. I'm glad to hear, you know, look, I mean, it's a challenge To quote unquote market it when really all you want to do is share honestly and truthfully, like all the greatness that it can do for anybody, right? You've got to pick and choose though kind of who those any bodies are as you get yourself up and running for the people that are tuning in, guys, you know Ryan's no joke. If you're serious about breath work, and you've had enough of mine, I get it. That's cool. Even if you still hanging out with me, I won't be jealous if I spot you hanging out with Ryan and checking out his breath work because you know, he's going to offer you something that I simply at this point my I'm on cannot so check out Ryan Ryan, where can they go check it out? Ryan M 55:47 And I'm sure that there'll be some link with this. And I'm also I have a website Ryan Michael vinny.com I'd mess you know, I'm mess on top of that. I'm mainly on Instagram these days. So that's that's the best place to find me. Fantastic, Ryan. Brandon Handley 56:12 Hey, man, thank you so much for stopping in today. I know you're just came from Costa Rica. You over in Mexico. You've been very busy. So I appreciate you making the time to be on Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brandon Handley 0:00 I'm shuffling myself here for a minute as thought about the vehicle that got me to the grocery store, how it got me there, and it's gonna get me there to where I'm going next this week was a revelatory for me is there was a kind of some work experiences that caused me to do some reflection. And also recently read, listened to the Malcolm Gladwell book of what got you here won't get you there. And even coupling that with deadline of like this. The level of thinking, whatever you're thinking, you know, however you thought, Got You Here Won't Get You There. And I think that's somebody else. Someone noteworthy. So the things that made me successful in the past, right, kind of like just due diligence, go getter, and just go, go do what somebody asked, what's going to take me to the next level? Potentially, is asking more questions up front, clarifying and getting ahead of, you know, thinking I understand what somebody is sharing with me versus not. And I say that because my whole life has been a don't ask a ton of questions. I feel like I've got an understanding that sometimes it's a shortcoming. So that's part one, of, you know, kind of what got me here won't get me there. Right. And I've been successful at getting to where I've gotten to, now I need to get to the next space. And what has helped me along the way, has been just over the course of I think, the past four or five years, is understanding auditing my thinking, right, understanding what I'm thinking, being aware of the triggers, in my thinking, and kind of looking at them, reflecting on them, and just understanding whether or not they're for not even just my highest and best good, everybody's highest and best good, right? Not that I know what that is. But there's a I think if we if we give any credence to intuition, you know, we kind of follow our heart with that kind of thing, right? And I say that as I. It can be this simple, right? Well, first of all, breathwork is very helpful for this. Right? breathwork is super helpful for this and monitoring your breathing and where that's all right. So once you begin to put a pause into the automatic response of everything that it is that you do, you begin to realize that there are other options available that may be better suited to what it is that you're trying to accomplish with life or just How could your day be better. And I say that because the simple notion of this morning and I had an option, right of that again, this is also simple, but this is how deep your really thought processes go. The habit that I had this morning. Habitual automated life was I had my cup of first cup of coffee, a cup of coffee that I don't particularly love, but the habit is having a cup of coffee, so I had it. It's okay. Meg likes a dark roast. I don't like it so much. It's okay. As I ran out to the store to grab some bagels for breakfast. I was about to make a second cup of coffee because I have two cups of coffee. Right? That's my habit. Have two cups of coffee. And as I was getting ready to have the second cup of coffees is getting ready to make it I was like I don't even like that particular cup of coffee. Why don't I I know. Brilliant revelation. Why don't I just wait to go get the coffee that I actually like and have that when I get back? Because our habits dictate a lot What we do, like, I think, people toss out numbers like 95% of what you do, right? It's just kind of, it's by rote. It's what you do every day, just automatic, the brain takes a lot of energy. But you pause for a second. You say, What am I doing? Realizing catch yourself in the motion? Of what you always do? You got to ask yourself, Is this still? What I want to be doing? Right? Like I said, at work, I was like, This is what got me here. What is it that I need to what is it? That that's no longer? It's no longer working from this role? What do I need to change? What needs to be changed? In this role? And look, meditation, you know, spiritual dope, right? Meditation comes into play, sit, relax, clear the mind. You know, set the prayer or meditate on what is it? That would serve me better in this in this space in place? And this time? Right? And the instance of why am I still drinking a cup of coffee that I don't even want? Right? separation between your your automated responses, and just pausing for a second. And again, breathwork will take a take a play with that, as you can pause and control your automatic everything for a moment. And it's just a simple thing. Again, why am I drinking this cup of coffee? If I don't like it? Can I? Can I wait 15 minutes, and, and sacrifice, that habitual response to have the thing that I actually like? And I think that the more that we can do that, the more that we can pay attention to those responses and begin to create new responses, the more that we can begin to create the life that we actually desire in a way that is, to quote, my favorite, one of my favorite authors for Florence. Scovel Shinn have have a life that is filled with ease with grace, and in divine ways. So yeah, short runs straight out to the coffee picking up the bagel will be like that. But I thought that I was sure that I also thought that I would share Hey, listen, what got me here isn't necessarily what's gonna get me here, there. It's not going to be what gets me there. And that doesn't mean like the ethic, the attitude and maybe, maybe all this, maybe the ethic and the attitude that got me here won't get me there. And those are some of the things that need to be revised. And I had to make that discernment that do I want the next thing and am I willing to do what's required to get there? All great questions. And these are things that I've wrestled with this is things that I use meditation for, these are things that I read for this are things that I do breath work for that that are all very helpful along the journey. Hopefully it's been helpful for you Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brandon Handley 0:00 What is going on BJJ report these year is 2022. The date is July 23. It's been a minute, since I've done a BJJ report, spiritual dope, but just just just recognize that this is all in how you say, all spirituality, right? Spirituality, materialism, life is all encompassing, right? thing for the longest part. People separate each piece and what they do. And they say, Well, this is my spiritual practice, this is my life practice, this is my work practices, you know, they separate everything. But when you separate, everything becomes diffuse and begin the kind of watered down and weakened messaging, all this other stuff. So in saying that, realizing all my own path is that it's not separate. And so going to jujitsu and having jujitsu and practicing jiu jitsu and interacting with it, it's all part of my own spiritual practice. And nothing kind of brings that home more than when you go to new and, and or different gyms. And you realize that there are good old Jim, like, I haven't been gone that long right now from from precision. I haven't seen them for a little while. And so you go in there, and there's no, if you haven't been there for a little bit, there's new faces. And then there's old faces for the old faces, you're super happy to see him. And for the new and you catch up and for the new faces, you're excited, right? You're like, Okay, what's this person all about? What's their game, and you get to know where they from how long they've been doing it. And it's really, for me, it's a it's a welcoming? thing, right? It's very welcoming you. Unknown Speaker 2:13 You can only when you wouldn't go back, I guess if it wasn't welcoming, if you would push for, for anything, but you kind of walk in and you just say hey, you know, Brandon Handley 2:26 introduce yourself and go in and get about it. But then you get into these roles, and you get into flow, and you just start to lose time. And And again, that's in Tibetan Buddhism, and maybe I'm wrong, I don't really care. They call this a Bardo states, right? These transition states, these moments in between the rolls, while you're rolling, what happens in the in the midst of midst of transition, and anything can happen in that space. And so what are the other things that we talked about was really honoring? Like, any level belt, honoring anyone, regardless of kind of where they are in the immediate practice of say jujitsu? Because when you start Jiu Jitsu, everybody starts off as a white belt. Or do they? It's a real question. When when somebody comes in as a white belt, do you believe that there's some integrity with that, right? Like white belt means really kind of never done it and you're just getting started and whatnot. So you always ask them, I do anyway, it's hard to know what their background is where you're coming from? What brought you in? Have you wrestled before? Because that always plays a big bowls jujitsu, since it's a grappling art. And, and, you know, what are you? What are you about, and you kind of do a little dance as you try and figure it out. That being said, I mean, there's definitely, there's definitely people that are inherently, you know, athletic, we play football, maybe they again, if they've wrestled, maybe they've done jujitsu before, and then just picking it back up again, honoring every belt at every level. And that's one of the things that definitely learned and we're discussing today. When I first saw it, I was I was at a competition. And I was up against this guy who looked young looking too strong, but he only he didn't have any stripes on his belt and I think I looked maybe two or three African and I thought I was hot shit. Right. Yeah, no, and I had some so therefore ergo, felt like felt like there should have been my game. Turns out like you know, you ended up going across collar choke on me literally choked. So he's literally like choking me out and like, blood literally pops out my nose. And I still remember like the the younger guys that were there from our gym. And they're teenagers in the gym coming up to me. Like, what happened, man, I was like, he choked the shit out of me. Right, I lost. But what really happened was I didn't give. I didn't give respect to the person, I was paying attention to the belt. And ever since then, you know that that's come across several times. I always talk about people who are blue belts, or purple belts, like a blue belt could be a blue belt for a lifetime. And you just never know what you're going to go up against there. But I think that what this kind of illustrates is life in general, right? You never know, a person's complete background and what they're going to bring to the party. Right. And, you know, even if they've been there for a while, staying somewhere and being involved with a certain thing for almost too long of a period can almost be a hazard to the role, oh, most people get set in their patterns, they get set into what they think they know, they get set their set of beliefs, based off of what they know, and what they've experienced. And believe that that's it, that's the answer. And the illustration, there is things like Henry Ford and the VA, right. The the eight cylinder had already been like something that then existence, but what they don't think that they had was the VA. And he wanted to make it lighter, and want to make it more powerful. And his engineers kept telling him that it couldn't be done. Told him they couldn't be done. So what did he do? He kept asking for it to be built, kept asking for it to be done. And he hired on new engineers, he hired on engineers, that new engineers, and he did not let them work with the old engineers. Right? And he told him, I want this VA, I want it lighter, I want it faster, I want it stronger. And lo and behold, over time, these engineers, even though it never been done before, they were able to do it. And this was of course against you know, the the old engineers that kept saying it couldn't be done. I think another example of this happens, you know, just because you've got money and resources you feel like, and by backing in support, it doesn't always mean that, like you're going to get it accomplished first or best. And the example that ends up being like the Wright brothers. Versus I forget the language, first name, but Langley, right. Had all this money had all this support was doing for like the I think, I think the military. And here are these two, like bicycle mechanics. Trying to figure out aeronautics, right, how to figure out like airplanes. And, you know, the Wright brothers were the ones that figure it out. And Langley was super pissed, right? Like, he was so mad. The deal is, like, these things can happen anywhere, any way, shape and form. And you got to give gotta give credence, you got to give respect to people that are putting the effort in and putting the time in and showing up regardless of where you think that they are. Because that's not important. What's important is like, where are they, where they are, right? They believe in what it is that they're doing. They believe in what it is that they see. They believe in themselves enough to keep that and keep showing up, put the effort in. And sometimes that effort is going to overcome wisdom, sometimes that effort is going to overcome technique and sometimes that effort and willingness to put themselves into it is going to overcome resources and support. You just gotta respect that. That's possibility and see that and flip that script and see that for yourself. Right? You play the over underdog, whatever you need to do whatever your story is. You're the one who's right in that in the same regards to these other people that we're talking and about right, they may not have had the same resources, but they had the ability, the capability and, and they soldiered on and made it through, right? Or they showed up and they put the effort in. Or maybe they put more work in. And that's just simply respect anybody, whatever level you think that they are, and appreciate and look forward to whatever it is that they have to bring. That's nothing that I think that I've learned through jujitsu is really and again, like today, I really look forward to what somebody else has to bring, versus in versus really myself already know what I know, already think I know, I already think you know, already aware of my level of knowledge about that. I'm aware of my level of knowledge. What I'm excited for is like what somebody else brings to the table? What are you bringing? What are you doing? And I get excited about that. Right? I get excited about somebody putting me in a move that I've never seen before and pausing. What just happened there? Right. And I, you know, I play my own game and I enjoy it immensely, and are very pleased to their own strengths and our level. So that is that's the rambling from the BJJ report today. But I mean, the biggest gist of it is your respect the respect the person, the level of where they're at. Appreciate the excited about whatever it is that they bring to share with you and celebrate the differences right Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brandon Handley 0:01 Good morning, what's going on, I am doing a 90 day challenge inside of another group. And I've decided that I'm just gonna go ahead and bring it outside of the group reminds me of the challenge itself is going live 90 days. Ideally, you're doing it 90 days straight. That being said, I wouldn't say nine days straight, but I am about 30 days in and figured I would share some things that have been going on, one of the things I'll share is shared yesterday, a thing on a bit on sharing lessons with your children that you learn later in life sooner to the children. And somebody else replied that sometimes, you know, people aren't ready for those lessons yet. And I agree that the fact of the matter is that they may not be able to understand. And that's okay, I didn't understand a lot of the lessons that that were taught to me when I was young. But what happened was, the seeds were planted. Right? When I finally did, you know, as I believe, learn some of those lessons later in life might not be the best place to walk. We did learn some of those lessons later in life. The the full weight of the lesson kind of bore fruit, I guess, is what I would say, right? Because those lessons are planted in your mind at a very young age. And, you know, think of a tree right? There finally planted fruit tree takes a couple of years actually to even be fully productive. Right? You plan it, and it bears fruit, you're like, huh, this is a fruit tree, maybe I should take better care of it, maybe, you know, maybe I should learn more about how to gain the most fruit from this tree, for example. And that same lesson kind of holds true. When you when you teach the children or for yourself, right, when you've learned the lesson, the seed that's already been planted, like maybe your parents taught you something young in life. And it all kind of clicks, right? It all kind of comes together. It's it becomes accelerated for you. And then. And I think that, you know, just like I think myself, you have an appreciation later in life, for the lessons that your family tried to impart maybe even teachers, whatever, whoever tried to teach that lesson. And finally it becomes finally clicks for you. And you have a new appreciation, because because you have a new level of understanding for that person. And or the lessons they're trying to impart. Because now you have new information, you have new experiences that you did, and that were necessary to complete the lesson. And so, you know, I share that, as you know, this morning. And this week, the children and I've been listening to the boys, Finn, and I've been listening to Liam, and listening to this. It's called a little history of economics, which is, which is pretty cool book going over, or going over the beginning of economics into present day, you know, and, and the little nuances within economics that maybe little little known factors. And what's really cool is being able to say hey, if you listen to this part of the book, in economics, then you you'll better understand kind of how where we are right now. One of the conversations that came up was, oh, will robots are gonna take all the jobs, so the economy is gonna go to hell that was thin, sharing that and we had the opportunity to kind of walk through that we had the opportunity we have previous experiences in our world that kind of say that that's not 100% True. Watch out cars go slow. That example really would be liberal because look at the industrial age, right? When steam engines came when all this other stuff came, people were like, ya know, what are we gonna do for work? Whenever the doubles come in, everything's gonna go to hell. No, we're, you know, some things, quality of life actually got better. Right? And that was one of the things I explained to the kids like, what, uh, what jobs would computers would AI be taking, that, that be taken away from you with their jobs that like, nobody wants to do their jobs at the gate that can't be mechanized. And so we've been, we have correspondents a universal, whatever, what is a universal payment or whatever. And further and more, but then today, you know, popped up a couple of other different people in the book and their theories on economics. And first I'll touch on, you know, I think it was Adam Smith that talks about, you know, creating the pin and, you know, basically the the father of modern day economics and what we live right now, and what we all really need to understand is that we're living in a theory, right? We're living in a theory and economic theory, that this is how it works best for everybody to create, like the most the greatest GDP, right? So whatever it is, you're doing right now that you're trying to specialize in right now is based on economics, modern theory of economics that goes back really only to about 1770s Right 1770s With with Adam Smith, and you know, some continued improvements or adjustments on that. That being said, he's not the only person this is this put forward different idealisms for modern society, and a couple of them, several of them have to have kind of roots in into what I fallen into with spiritual dope, right? Like, how do you how do you have like a good material life and still have a good spiritual life? And you know, hearing some of the these other ones how because like, listen, Adam Smith talks about specialized work being like, people, they create pins, you go in to your job every day. And your job is to grind the, the needle of the pen. Like, how, like your life, would you drive yourself nuts, I'm sure Listen, there are a few people that can do it, right, there are a few people that can Moorish doing the same fucking thing their entire lives, and love it, and find meaning in it and just like everything in it, and that's great, right? Hallelujah to that motherfucker. Right? Good luck. I can't. I know, I can't. The world is way too diverse, or way too many things that are interesting to me to explore. And there's a one of the one of these, you know, theorists had even came up with an idea of exactly that, like communities built on. Yes, doing what you're very good at, but also having the ability to do and try different things. And, you know, people would do do what they could in these communities. And the way that they would get paid would be the profits from what they did, right. So basically, you know, kind of sustainable communities and then sell I guess, selling the goods. I didn't get too deep into it. But I thought that that was really interesting, because we literally are living in an economic theory right. And we continuously look at right now, look at look at where we are right now. And you know, all this inflation and the attempts to correct it by you know, you taking corrective actions. And you go all over the place with with your theories on how we got here and zigzag and Zuk Zuk. But it's a theory And we're in the fucking middle of it. And it's not the only one. And so I just, I just bring that up because we have the opportunity to make adjustments we have the opportunities to just like the rest of our lives. See, see if there's a different way. And what's interesting to me is that what I've experienced and what I've gone through and with with spiritual dope, in the whole idea of like, how do we marry, you know, our spiritual life with our material life, and, you know, especially after you've become, especially if you've never, especially especially if you've never been spiritual, before you get hit with something and you don't experience and, and then you're like, well, oh, man, I gotta go become a monk. And oh, man, I gotta go. You know, in India, you go become a forest dweller, right? You've done and you've done your your bid to the community, and society is greener than I could get greener hosta which is a house dweller. Right, you you have your household responsibilities, but at a certain point, you know, you say, All right, well, cool, the kids are raised. I've performed my duties as a husband, or wife. And now, you know, I'd like to go commit the rest of my life to God. Right? I mean, that's how they roll. I'm sure that that's not 100% specific. But but it happens, right? So in America, we come up to this point, we call it a midlife crisis, we call existential, whatever, the truth of the matter is, we don't have we don't have a really good navigation system for that. Right. And a lot of that's based on, you know, how do we keep the economy thriving? And how do we, as good citizens, help to keep it thriving, and oh, if you, if you're not productive, you're not being a good citizen, yada, yada, yada, so. And that's all based on, you know, kind of monetary and gross domestic product GDP. But that's not all that we are good for. And so some, some other people have had some theories on how to navigate through that. And I thought that that was pretty exciting. Given that I've never been exposed to the to that myself, right. Like, I was like, Oh, wow, you know, other people have. And I know that I'm not the first person to go through it. But like, here's other people, they've had theories that put into practice, they've attempted to establish communities. You know, it's what we would call here, alpha projects, and beta projects, something take off, right? If you go back to something take off. And, and that's, you know, a lot of times ideal ideology. And plans don't meet the, they can't simply be executed, because there are lots of intangibles when it comes to, you know, trying to merge, merge these ideas, thoughts and processes, put them all in practice. So that's what I share with you today. You know, as as part of the challenge, so I'm calling through and just putting this stuff out there. I've done this type of thing before, where man I, when I did Father, for the rest of this podcast, I must have done like, hundreds of just daily, daily pieces that I got let out and for me right now. I feel like what I've been sharing is worth sharing beyond the immediate group that I've been sharing within and getting more and more into the practice of doing this. creating and sharing as a practice, versus thinking about doing it, thinking about doing it, thinking about doing it and then never doing it. So here's to you hope you have a great day. Hopefully, this has been something interesting and insightful for you as well. You know, being able to know that a you know, we are living in, you know, in this kind of theory, and we're working through it. It's always kind of an evolution that we're going through and and and I think you can take that on a tangent as well take care of it. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Meet Fatima Nathan, she is a spiritual person and a neuroscientist, she covers neuroscience from a materialistic and mainly non-materialistic standpoint. She's the author of the book "I Am You... And You Are Me" (https://www.amazon.com.au/AM-YOU-ARE-ME-ebook/dp/B09B7DL859), the designer and creator of a tarot deck Shades of Gold (currently successfully funded on Kickstarter - https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fmna1808/shades-of-gold-modern-tarot-deck-in-the-new-world/), and seeks to "Spread Light to The World". You may check out more about her work on www.fmna1808.com   Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone, the world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalized. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question. Time for another hit of spiritual dub with your host Brandon Handley. Let's get right into today's episode. Brandon Handley 0:42 4321 Hey there spiritual dope. And thanks for tuning in. Today we have special guest for you today Fatima Nathan and she is a neuroscientist entrepreneur, professional life coach, counselor illustrator content creator and author who strives to uplift the consciousness of humanity as she believes that everyone deserves a chance to be a kick ass version of themselves. Through awakening, she uses vibrational energy to practice Tai Chi yoga is extremely outdoorsy, where she spends time meditating, as well. Seema, thanks for being on today. Fatima 1:20 Thank you for hosting me, Brandon. Yeah, Brandon Handley 1:23 for sure. So I usually like to start these whole things off with the idea that you and I were, you know, we're basically just vessels for energy, right? Cosmic energy, creative energy, whatever you want to call it, right? We're connected to source and source is flowing through us to one of our listeners today. Right? And this message can only be delivered through you through this medium to that listener, what is that message that's coming through you today, Fatima? Fatima 1:52 I guess the message that comes today is that we are all constantly always part of an energy of the universe. It's always existent. And we are part of it. And in order to be part of it, we need to let go let loose and just realize that it's much more than what it seems. It's just about being present in the moment. And living in it, and you realize this much more. Brandon Handley 2:26 Yeah, I love it. Right? The whole idea that there's much more and I guess a lot of that's predicated on on being present and trying to become become aware of, like, what is it? Because I know, I always tell the story of like, when I was growing up my mom, she was always like, well, you know, you've got to be aware. There's awareness. I'm like, I'm totally aware. Like everything outside. Right, right. Yeah. Because yeah, because I'd like to see me bumping into what I'm not popping in any walls. I see everything. Right. But But I think that, of course now, you know, 30 years goes by and you're like, I think that the awareness that she was trying to talk about, was this internal awareness and this awareness and connection to Source? Is that what you're talking about? Fatima 3:14 So I wouldn't exactly say that everybody is able, okay, let's look at it in a scope that everybody's working their daily lives, you can't expect everybody to say you have to be connected to source. But you got to be present in a moment in time. We're so busy in our daily lives, that we wake up and we do our daily things. And we don't realize that it actually requires energy, to stay awake to get up to walk. But if we were to take a moment in time just to stand in a place at a time and close our eyes, and just feel, we will realize that it's much more than all of it. And it comes down to the fact that when you are present, you actually feel a lot more. And that's what keeps you going that keeps you alive, I guess. So at that point, it becomes How far are you willing to step out of what you are running in your daily lives? I guess it comes down to everybody always looking at the device. So it's looking at their phones walking around like is if they don't look around, right? If you just take a moment at a time and look, listen, and feel it's much more than what we actually experience. Brandon Handley 4:39 Okay, no, I look, I agree, right? There's a lot more going on than then than we even get into. And I think that especially in your field, right in neuroscience, and your studies, you also realize that like we're typically only able to tune into Be like such a small percentage of what's even available? Right? Like, I mean, I don't know what the numbers are, but I know that we see like, you know, probably less than 1% of all visual spectrum, we probably hear less than, you know, same same type of thing. Super curious about, like, you know, coming from your space. What was it like for you to tune into your own spiritual awareness? You know, this deeper level of consciousness? And how does that juxtapose with with the science? Fatima 5:35 Yeah, so on average, on average, so as to speak, the human brain only use a percentage of three. So that includes all your functions just by itself. So if you look at it, much of the brain is not actually being put into use. And I do believe that part of it is actually consciousness, to be able to use that. And to create much more, it's another thing. So how did I do it was, it took a long time, I had to actually move out, move into my own space, like, eliminate myself from the noise in the world. And just sit down. And I guess, at that point, when you're speaking about vibration, when you're speaking about energy, when you're speaking about anything of that matter, you just got to sit. And you got to eliminate yourself from the noise. Yeah, it's not easy. And you can even do it when there's people present. And this every day, you just got to sit, and you got to just be in sense of self. So to tell you, if you tell that to a normal person, they'll say, Oh, it's a bit difficult. How do you do that? I mean, you go through everyday life and everything. But I guess when you to achieve a highest state of consciousness, it requires your mind to actually shut off from the normal. And you can, Brandon Handley 7:18 yeah, when you say that, are you talking about shutting off like the prefrontal cortex? Like shut mouth? Fatima 7:23 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So when we say that we're trying to say, shut off your thoughts? Shut off, what's going to happen next? What do I need to do next? What's coming next, what's going next, just shut it off for a while for a second. Just do that. And when you shut off that part of your mind, you realize it's very difficult. Yeah, it's very, very difficult. But if you just focused on your breathing, that's a way that you actually can't shut it down. Because you're actually counting how much you breathe in and how much you breathe out. And that, by itself, makes it thoughtless. And when you do that, you don't need to think about anything, because that by itself is energy. So yeah, it initially started that way for me. And then eventually, I went further into meditation. And I developed a lot of techniques when it came to Tai Chi and yoga and stuff, and it wasn't about a workout, or what I was going to gain from it. It was just about movement, and energy and how you work with it. So you got to start from really basic. Just imagine if you were born and you couldn't breathe. When a child is born. The child cries first is not because of anything is because the child is trying to gasp for air for the first time. And eventually, as the child learns to breathe, it gains a highest state of consciousness. So it works the same way. It's it's about becoming a life again by starting from scratch. Brandon Handley 9:21 So I love that idea and that concept. You know, and what's really cool for me right now, what you're saying is that, you know, I teach breathwork I host and facilitate breath work right and right, that's been definitely definitely my my perception for myself has been when we do this breath work when we do the counting. We we are we have to be 100% present because we are focused on the counting we're focused on the type of breathing fan and and that eliminates any other thoughts from happening right and correct me if I'm wrong, right. But I guess the idea too is you know that our you know, our prefrontal cortex or our thinking mind can only really hold about four things in mind at one time, right, like, give or take. And so, you know, once once we're counting, we're breathing, we've got like, all this other stuff going on, we've got about four things happening, right? You know, we're trying to, like, breathe from my belly and expand over here and, and be totally present to this movement. And what you're saying, as well, I'm hearing you say is to like, this kind of unlocks and allows that energy to, to be there? Is that what you're saying? Fatima 10:34 Yeah, I'm trying to say that, but I'm, but I'm also trying to relay a message to everyone that they don't realize that they're constantly breathing. If someone were to take a moment, to actually focus on how they breathe, that bites were they comes from the stomach, whether it comes from the diaphragm, wherever it comes from the lungs, it doesn't matter. It's it just goes down to just focusing on that, because it's very simple. Even if someone is anxious, regardless of whether they understand what we're trying to relay or not. Everyone always says just stop, take a second breathe. And it works. Brandon Handley 11:22 No, no, I believe, right? Exactly. In any instance, if you're kind of caught up in everything, every moment, and all the things and you just pay attention to your breath at all, no matter where it's coming from doesn't matter what's happening, but you're like, breath. Right? So that's where you're at with that. So, you know, how does it you know, how do you how do you go from, you know, being this kind of pure science person? Right. And to spirituality? I mean, are they are they separate? Are there are they together is, you know, have we have we done a disservice by keeping them separate for so long. What are your thoughts? Fatima 12:07 So, I guess, if you want to see people are now trying to build a scope between spirituality and science, especially neuroscience, because they're trying to link most of it with the mind. But I guess it comes from the concept of, I would say that the mind is always existed, you need to leave it. But in order to step into spirituality, you have to come from a space from the heart. So you need to leave the mind, come to the heart, in order to come back to your mind and create that connection again. So it's not about the brain is speaking about the mind. So when you speak about the brain, we're talking about all your thoughts, your reactions, your everyday when we speak about the mind, we're actually speaking about using it in the right way. What are you going to do? Use it to think create an outcome. That's the separate part of the mind, he gets to tell you whether it's positive or negative, whether you take the left or whether you take the right. But there's no wrong or right in this. When it comes to science and spirituality. Everyone's going to keep fighting for the rest of time. I mean, it's like any other field for that matter. But how did I come out of this, I guess I had my own life experiences. I spent a lot of time chasing the field studying a lot, thinking that was what I wanted in life. And I had my own life experiences that made me realize that this much more, and I went seeking and searching but when I did that, I asked for my soul. I actually stepped away from the mind. And I took my own time. I sat down by myself and I really asked from my soul. So it took it took about two years. It took about two years to in order to dissociate from something and really connect with a deeper sense of self. It required a highest state of consciousness and you got to know there are things that will fall off. People that will fall off situations that will fall off. But you got to be ready for all of it because all it welcomes is the new and at that point, you know that when you separate the science part of it that people talk about brain and you know, they can't explain most of it. And when you come to spirituality, this is something that is unexplainable. Try as you may, everyone can speak as they can. But everyone gets to experience it. So yeah, that's, that's how I see it. Brandon Handley 15:23 Sure, sure. So I guess what I'm hearing you say is really no current, like strong linear lines to, you know, science and spirituality, right, that that's been kind of just Fatima 15:37 now. And now, you know, Brandon Handley 15:40 even I think even in saying higher state of consciousness, is that a scientific line that we can use? Or is that just kind of like, internal feeling a sense of self that we get to? Or can't? Is this something that we can put on a scale and be like, oh, yeah, it looks like you're, you're just below like level 33. And, you know, a couple more weeks, and you should have it. Fatima 16:06 Now, so I always say this. Consciousness is good enough. Just being conscious. You know, you don't have to have a level, there's no level, even spiritual people never reach 100. Anyway, they don't have all the answers, that they're never going to reach 100%. There's no limit. That's, that's the thing about spirituality. But when it comes to science, I guess what they try to do is they try to put a number to it. They try to say consciousness, highest state of consciousness. So an example would be if someone were they in the operation theater, and what happens is, they don't wake up from a coma. And, but they can hear, they can still hear people talking to them. And if you hear when they come out, they always say, Yeah, I heard you. But I couldn't respond in any way. But there's no answer to that, that can be given. If you ask science, they'll say, Oh, that was the highest state of consciousness. But there was there's nothing that they can put a number on saying, Yep, this is solid foundation. So just like they can't, neither can we. So the number is the number. Brandon Handley 17:33 Got it? So we're kind of at a point of we all agree that it's there. But we don't agree on what it is. And since we can't, since we can't quantify it, right? It makes her a Tucson makes it hard to science, I'm sure that's improper grammar. But interesting, interesting. One of the things that, you know, I saw on your site, too, was kind of like this, this linking with the heart and the mind. And that's a big part of of my own journey. I think that I don't know what the Buddhist line is for that, or the Chinese word, or I think in other languages. When they talk about the heart, they actually mean the heart and the mind connected at the same time. You get into like Western cultures, such as you know, America, and I guess, you know, England, where the two words are separate, right? And so, in doing so, we've, I guess, kind of treat, we've created that separation, versus some other cultures where, when you say heart, you mean, the heart and the mind? You mean, that connection? You know, I'm curious is to understand in your field, and if you've come across this yourself, I think I watched the show, I'm asking you, like all the science questions I've gotten now. It's fine. You know, there's, I guess there was a show that I'd watched where they talked about, I guess, that they have found that there's a cluster of about is it 40,000 cells are like the heart actually has like a little bit of a brain. And oftentimes, signals will go from the heart and the heart will react before the mind actually processes what's what's happening. Fatima 19:17 Right. So, you know, they say that when people's heart fails, sometimes they put a pacemaker. So the heart generally has a pacemaker by itself, it's called the sinus note, right? And this is genuinely like the hot spring, it knows when to pump, how to pump and how many pumps in a lifetime it's gonna make it comes made as such. But what we do along the way, can either extend it or it can either decrease its life. So generally, the heart is the only organ in the body not connected to the Brain in the sense that it runs the entire thing. In order for the brain to function, the brain needs the heart before the heart meets the brain, because that's where you get the oxygen from in order for your brain to work. Right. So it's one of the organs, that it's actually the only organ. So one of the organs is actually the only organ that works that way. So when it comes down to what you were trying to ask, yes, it, it does have a brain of its own. That's why it's segregated for the rest of the organs. Yeah. Brandon Handley 20:43 Well, how interesting is that? And so I guess the other piece too, right, is that, again, this is a, you know, some show I watched either YouTube or guy or something else like that. Like, you know, again, the brain or the heart. I guess transmitting like a fear signal or a happy signal or an event is like, coming like, I guess, what are they saying like that? The heart processes up to like, 66 seconds sooner than the brain. Fatima 21:18 Right? Right. So what's, I guess? Yeah, right, right. So this is where I say, when you come from tapping into our highest state of consciousness of consciousness by itself, you're coming from my heart. What I mean by that is that you're opening up to what we all have, it's called intuition is something that we all know, that's going to happen before it happens. But truth be told, even people who are in the normal world who are let's say, they, they, they're, when I mean, the normal, what I'm trying to say is that they're not so in tune to stepping away, they're living their daily lives, and they have a sense that something's not right, something's gonna happen, or something great is gonna happen. But they say it's in their gut. Because the rhythm they feel is closer to the diaphragm, but it's all in tune with the heart. So what exactly that is, is that, that sense that a feels, it's called intuition. So the signals are from there. So if just imagine if you were to step back and open up entirely to consciousness, and then reach that part. So can you imagine how much more you can feel? Brandon Handley 22:57 Yeah, 100%, right. Yeah. Terrible opening up to that to that much. Because, honestly, like, sometimes when you open up, you're like, Whoa, that's a lot. Right? Yeah. A lot. It's a lot of energy. It's a lot of I don't know, but I have the brakes on that. Because, well, what do we do with that much, right? So when we're when we're opening up and to consciousness, are we saying like, is this opening up to a feeling it's opening up to an energy is consciousness the mind? Or vice versa? What are your thoughts there? Fatima 23:32 So, like, I always say, consciousness requires the mind and the heart to work together. If the heart is to open, you take in too much. If the mind is too open, you don't take in anything at all. If both are connected, you reach a state of balance. And that state of balance is called the yin and the yang. And that's what's very necessary, that needs to be dark with light. If not, neither can exist, but in equilibrium, they exist, literally in Zen. Brandon Handley 24:20 So, so we're seeking what we're looking for is some type of balance. And in your experience, how have how people been able to make this connection and establish a balance. Fatima 24:38 Okay, so so far, whoever I, I deal with to help in these kinds of situations, everybody goes through everything. What I tried to say is that you got to start with self. You got to start with dealing with what's in your mind first, you got to start with your worthy. You know, you got to forgive yourself, you got to learn love, you got to figure out things and life situations which you're encountering step by step. In order to overcome that opening the heart is always later, dealing with the mind comes first. You got to deal with what you're facing, whether it's past present, and how you can overcome that. And then when you step, and leave that completely, then you move into the heart. So it's a step by step, you got to start only with self first, it has no time. There is no time to it. But your life situations aren't a place for you to feel like, Oh, what have I done? Or oh, whatever I lost, it's about how can I use it? To face the present? Brandon Handley 26:12 Yeah, I mean, and I think that as, as I continue to do these studies, that's what I found, right? Through through every resource either. Either, like the business field, right? Or, you know, through the spiritual seeking, right? Or psychology, this is a similar, you know, real similar story that says, hey, stop looking at everything, like it's a shit show and start saying what it is that is teaching you, right? Like, what is what what are you? What are you learning here? And how can you use this for your own evolution or for some way to move yourself forward? Right. So So I think that the plan that you're laying out works really well for the person that is already like, kind of like, open minded, or, you know, just kind of like, in their head. What about the person that's already like, over, you know, what do we call them? We call them like these, these empaths? Right, these people that are super sensitive from their heart already. So how do we help them to course correct and get up into their head a little bit? Yeah, Fatima 27:29 so most of them are like that. So you see a lot of people who are also like that, and you also see a lot of people block. So when it comes to people who are more like, open empaths, right, and it starts with patients, you got to work with them, and you got to tell them, rather than starting from the mind, you got to treat with them from the heart. Because in the space that's so much open. That's where sensitivity comes from, right, how they react and how they are affected and their emotions. So you got to work from their heart. And at that point, when you realize, if someone is very sensitive, when it comes to those terms, it means a lot of emotions, which means although it comes from the heart, the main blockage is in the heart. So that itself is a key, not having opened it, that they have caged it because of some experiences. So you got to be really gentle with them. And how you tune with them and how you work with them is a bit different. So for them, I guess what they need to see is how to open bit by bit. They lack the trust in that sentence. So one person is through the mind. But the other person is through the heart. Brandon Handley 29:09 I think it's awesome. Right? Right. Because again, you know, the main blockage is still in the heart. Right? Right. Right was what I'm hearing you say and I love to dig into it like so, you're saying you're saying like because of the lack of trust or something that's happened to them? It's actually still a Cait like their emotions are still kind of caged in right they're still crying. And I guess their reactions are just kind of like See, I've just got I guess I would say that I feel like they're more open right and overly sensitive, but is it because it's so compressed and tight in there? Fatima 29:53 And K yeah. So yeah, people overly sensitive it's because it's so caged. because of what they've experienced, that any small reaction that people create that they've been hurt so much, or that they have experienced life situations that even the slightest thing would trigger them. And that's when you know that yeah, that's the starting point for them by itself. And majority of the people that you come across, almost everybody has their heart caged. Brandon Handley 30:30 No, that's interesting. Right? So let's talk about how we open that bit by bit. What do you have for us? Fatima 30:36 Yeah. So I guess when it comes to the heart, like I always say, it's one of the most precious things, even in our body, for that matter, we speak scientifically. But But seriously speaking, I guess from a Tyrian point, I always say this, start from self, start from their mind, treat yourself first face what you need to face and do what you need to do, you don't need to start from the heart first. Just solve whatever you need to sort of do your situation, bit by bit. And then when it comes to the heart, that's gonna be the toughest, and you're gonna be the first one to run. And it's gonna take a while. But it all starts from if you take one step at a day, just one step a day to make a decision. Like maybe you say, today, when it comes to the heart, you'll say, maybe you never trust people for anything, for that matter. And you meet a stranger and someone says, something simple. Okay? It's not a big deal. And you said, Okay, maybe why not? Or, I always tell people is why don't you start this way? For once, tap out of your mind, once once you solve the mind, but tap out of your mind, and say, Let me listen to what my intuition is helping me. And I save it seems so hard, always think of it this way. A child starts to crawl. And then the child learns to store but no one is told the child get up and walk. It's an instinct, right? And when the child falls, the child stands up by himself or herself, and continues walking. So who are we to say we can try another step? Brandon Handley 32:48 No, no, I love it. I was actually thinking about it yesterday. And real similar terms, right? Just all that we're trying to do or accomplish. And I think one of the challenges is that we live in this always on instantaneous society. Right? Like, I can order I can order anything I want. And I can have it here today. Yeah, I want I want to watch any movie in the world. I can watch it right. Fatima 33:18 Right now. Yeah, right now. Brandon Handley 33:21 Right. So I think that we've become more and more conditioned to like this instant gratification. And, like super inexpensive, super easy to us. And that when when we're faced with something that smells a little bit like it could be work without like immediate gratification. Right? We're kind of put off. Right? So how do we, you know, share and show the benefits of, I don't know, transcending this need for immediate gratification for something that nobody can describe. But it's been we've been told it's so amazing. Fatima 34:04 Right? So, so I guess when it comes to that one thing we got to remember, it's very simple. I always tell people this, it seems like something that's really far fetched. It seems like what most spiritual people experience is like, Oh, look, I need to spend hours meditating. I need to step out of my fears. I need to do that. Yeah, everybody needs to do that. But I always say look at it this way. When you chose a job, or country to move to or any situation, did you not step out from that fear? Did you not take a chance? Did you not make the extra effort? Every company says you have About three months, one month, three months of a probation period, it's not guaranteed yet you leave your job and you do it. Yet you make that chance, you get married, you have children, you don't know the end of the outcome. So if you live in that world, and you think you can do it, what's so difficult from doing what doesn't require effort, it's effortless, truly, to just step out from all these things that we keep putting too much energy into, and just be instead in an energy that literally vibrates with us. Brandon Handley 35:46 Yeah, I actually had one of one of my breathwork students reach out this past week talking about feeling her whole body vibrating, right, just getting connected to source. I mean, so there's like, you know, there's this higher vibration that you get tapped into this out there. And like, when you when you when you tap into it, it's mind blowing. And, you know, she she said, like, quite literally she goes, now I see why people become monks or nuns or like, you know, devote their lives to this because it's like, why wouldn't you right? In the middle of reading a book that is somewhere not next to me, that just talks about that once you learn some of these tools, just like you're doing right now, once you've learned tools, once you've connected once you've figured out kind of how it's working. You're, you're compelled to go share it. Right? Like, wow, let's, let's talk about this, this thing that nobody's talking about, let's go talk about this. And what's interesting is is to me is, is that people have been talking about it all the time. When we haven't, right, we just haven't been at that level of awareness. There's been like, oh, well, normally be like, well, that's, that's for that's for those people over there. Right? That's, that's great for them. That's great for them. I'm on my way to get a latte. I got other shit to do today. Right. And this other thing that you talked about that too, is that I think a lot of people feel like you've got to sit in like lotus position for two hours a day, like you're talking about. But it can be done in I don't know, Fatima 37:32 just walking. Brandon Handley 37:35 Yeah. So So that's so cool. I mean, it's really interesting, too. And it's great that, I think to see somebody like yourself, who you know, you're, you're a brick and you're a real neuroscientists, right. Like, it's not like this is detached. And, you know, it's not like, I think what we've been used to, again, is people who have plugged into like, the spiritual life, they, they're a monk, they're a hippie, they're thrive, right? Yeah, like off the grid. They're like your life. And so I think it's really important and, and I'd be curious to see for you, are you seeing more spirituality in everybody's life? Have you noticed? For me, I feel like a big part of this surge, I'd say in spirituality, again, it's always been around us, but comes from COVID, right? A world worldwide pandemic, you know, a real people to connect, right? We're like, hey, wait a second, I need to tap into this sense of self and really kind of embrace it and understand more about it. Fatima 38:44 Right? So when it comes to that concept, I guess it's called a period of isolation. That's when it is. So when there's an isolation excluded from the world, right? So what are you gonna do? You got nothing to do face yourself, you have no choice. Figure out your life for this happened. Because everyone went through a situation that was unimaginable, right? He can't go out. You can't do anything. So face yourself. So I guess as the years are passing, what is trying to happen here is that doesn't even the university works through tapping through a higher state of consciousness for more people. And if you realize more and more people are coming into it, and they're at least making the effort to figure it out. And we as individuals just like you, you, you run a podcast, and you know, you're spiritually yourself, and you do a lot of work. And it's the same way so most people are just normal. We are not sitting and we're not you know, saying mantra doesn't praying beads or anything like that. We're just normal individuals running our daily lives. And we meet people along the way. And we build a connection with them. And we try to do our best to relay the message and help with the universe to build a great state of consciousness just for the collective. Brandon Handley 40:25 Yeah, I mean, it really goes to the beginning of the podcast, right? Like you are working, working through us. Right? Yeah. Working through us. And it's kind of like, how are how are we are going to express that right? How are we going to express our spirituality and whatever is inside of us, essentially has to be expressed? Right? Right, in the same in the same way that I guess, you know, an oak tree expresses an oak tree, a dot expresses a daffodil that for those whatever's inside of us, and neither one is like, there's no specific way to do it. But it's going to happen, right? Yeah. Fatima 41:05 Each one has to be different. If not, you can't touch so many lives around the world. Every spiritual person comes up with their own way, their own method, and, you know, it has to work differently. If everybody were the same. Nobody's gonna listen, that should be taught. That will be the fact. Brandon Handley 41:25 Yeah, yeah. Well, so you're also offering, like, some services through your website, where, you know, what type of people are you working with? Like, who should reach out to you to connect? Fatima 41:37 Yeah, so I always say this, there's no particular type of person, as long as you're open. And most importantly, you want that change, and you want to start somewhere, just saying that you want something different. And to start, you can connect at my website. Brandon Handley 42:00 And, ya know, exactly the, the idea and the desire, right to make that transition. Right. And I think that that's really where that's really where it happens. I think you would you would, you would said, hey, you know, hopefully, my soul, where's my soul? I want to cry. Right, right. And for me, I still vividly recall it was about four or five years ago now, you know, writing that question, you know, to the universe, right, like writing that question? Handwritten, be like, alright, you know, show me and like, within weeks, like, it was like, full on, like, I was like, Alright, stop. Fatima 42:45 Yeah, you do you do reach that point. But like, I always tell people, it's got to start from there. And more importantly, you got to be open to it. Yeah. It's, I can't give you the, all the answers. If you're not going to make the effort. You can't do anything, if you don't take an action. Brandon Handley 43:09 Right now. 100%. One of the things that I wanted to hit on to, till just now, you know, we always talk, we talk about the self, right? Searching for the self, just associating the self from this other thing and all these other, you know, when you talk about the self, you know, and trying to find out who the self is, Who am I like, you know, I know that growing up there. Well, clearly, I'm right here. So I know exactly who I am, right? And musicians later in life to mean something entirely different. So when you're talking about the self, what do you mean? Fatima 43:46 So when I speak about the self, I always speak about, who are you now? I always say that, who are you now? Because even if I asked you that question, Brandon, and I sit for a year now, you will give me an answer. But no one has the answer to who you can be in the future. What you can build further from where you are. And I always say this, if you want to know self, just ask yourself, Who are you now? And then from there go? Who do I want to become? That itself builds an entire different universe? Brandon Handley 44:35 Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, you open yourself up to the possibilities, right? Because it's, you know, if you run around and be like, I am this I am this, I am this and then you keep reinforcing that same story over and over and over. But then when you say, then you say, hey, Fatima 44:51 yeah, so So when you say who am I? You gotta say, Why am I actually here? What is my purpose? What is my purpose? You are not going to get an answer. But you will realize the possibilities that open up just by asking that question from the depths of your heart. Brandon Handley 45:19 Now, it's fantasy. Fantastic. That's fantastic. Thank you for that. So we're at this little point where I like to ask a couple of different questions on this podcast is kind of like, spiritual speed dating, right for team that's tuned into this podcast, and like, you know, I'm looking for my next spiritual date. You know, so in essence of that, you know, spiritual batchelorette Number one, what are we also afraid of? Fatima 45:51 How self everyone is afraid to face themselves. That's the biggest fear, but they would have how much they would give, and what they would get in return. They think it's from the other person more, but it's actually themselves that they feel the most. Brandon Handley 46:16 Not I don't want to say, look, I mean, myself included, right? There's, there's always things that I fear about myself, you know, either success or failure or anything, right, Fatima 46:26 right. Because we constantly thinking, right? Brandon Handley 46:31 But that goes back to that goes very goes back to what you're talking about, like, starting with the mind first, like how do we determine, you know, how do you say, hey, you know, you're worthy, forgive, learn how to love and then get to your your heart later, right. But those are the things that like, We fear ourselves, because we've created for some reason, somehow, we turned ourselves into a monster. That and, and it's like, alright, well, am I actually the Boogeyman? And sometimes we feel that we are and instead of, instead of, kind of doing the work and facing ourselves, because we're, what we think we've created, right can get in there. And the best term that I've seen for is called, like, can't do that shadow work, right? Like who? Who, who have you hidden away that inside of yourself that could use some love? Right? And allow for that? Fatima 47:27 Yeah. So I always tell people just just do this. What he creates situations in your head when it is non existent. It's pointless. Why do you think of something when it doesn't even exist? Then you literally manifested into your life Brandon Handley 47:46 becomes easier to see because you've primed your mind for it. Right? You said? Yeah. You're like, you're like, here's the directions for a shitty day. I'd like to have. Right, yeah. Fatima 47:56 And then you, you know, people manifest things, and they get good stuff. The other people who manifest things in the reverse way as well. Brandon Handley 48:06 Right now 100%, right. Yeah. Because that's what we've we set our mind filters to right we say yeah, just like just like we're Google and any database we set out what are the filters? What are the filters and what am I searching for? Right? So all right. Well, I got one more for you. Let's check it out. Do to do to do look for a fun one. What is your one wish for the world Fatima Fatima 48:37 case peace and love. That's literally it's like Bob Marley. Gave you could live a life with a man who spoke so much truth and who has so much wisdom and captions. It's living him in a real world. Literally, just being connected with everyone. So peace and love looks like this. You don't need to go out day you don't need to go and change the world. You're gone. You don't need to change war. You don't need to give you x stop with a stranger on the street. Smile. Say hello. Acknowledge live a Bob Marley life. Brandon Handley 49:32 I mean, such as be decent and kind. Fatima 49:34 to others. Yeah, exactly. Brandon Handley 49:37 Sure. Sure. know for sure. So you know, Tim, Nathan, thank you so much for being on today. Thank you. That's a website. It's www dot F as in Frank for Fatima in this manner. And a 18 Oh eight.com Thank you so much. Intro Guy 50:00 Thank you. I really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram and spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email there Brandon at spiritual dog.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to your zone and trust your intuition Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  Chris McCann is a tech business and thought leader specializing in helping successful people and companies remember who they are and align their life with their purpose. After many years of professional striving at the expense of personal development, he awakened to the need to cultivate an inner life. Chris charted a new course prioritizing professional achievement led by personal meaning by studying the world's great spiritual texts, training with prominent spiritual leaders, and developing the tools required to navigate life and find real purpose. Today, he manages several ventures that help others find their meaning and purpose, including coaching clients one-on-one, building Scale-Up sales teams, providing corporate consulting on conscious leadership, and facilitating retreats. Connect with Chris: https://chrismccann.co/ Unknown Speaker 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general, here's so limited, Brandon Handley 0:12 spiritual dope, I'm on here today with Chris McCann. He is a tech business and thought leader, especially especially thought leader, specializing and helping successful people and companies remember who they are and align their life with their purpose. After many years of professional striving at the expense of personal development, he awakened to the need to cultivate an inner life. Chris chartered a new course prioritizing Professional Achievement led by personal meaning by studying the world's great spiritual texts, training with prominent spiritual leaders and developing the tools required to navigate life and find real purpose. Today, he manages several ventures that help others find their meaning and purpose, including coaching clients, one on one, building skill up sales teams, providing corporate consulting, conscious leadership and facilitating retreats. Sorry, because I got tripped up there a little bit. We're saying. So I'll tell you right now, I took me a second to remember, Chris and I were going back and forth before it's got started, how we got connected. And I wanted to connect with you because because I'm in I'm in the same space, as you as matter of fact. So I'm in the technology space have been now for about over 12 years now. Right? And, and what you're talking about really resonates with me, you know, how do we find purpose and like this? This daily grind, right? How do we wake up every day and be like, what I'm doing today is helping somebody somewhere, and is aligned with me spiritually, somehow, right? Like, shit, man, how do we make that happen? Right. So that's, and I was like, I was like, Yeah, let's have this conversation. I think that'd be cool. So that's happy to have you on here today, Chris. I usually like to start these off the whole idea that you and I are, what are we? What are we we are conduits for spiritual, universal energy. Chris, whatever's coming through us today is going to somebody on the other end of this listening in, and there's a message that can only be delivered through you to that person. What's that message today, Chris? Chris McCann 2:18 Shut up and get out of your own way. You know, there's, it's really interesting, and thanks for having me on. It's a real pleasure, I love just talking shop and, and connecting with folks. So there's, I'll put a big, fat asterisk on the end of that, which implies that I could be wrong about all of this. So if, if I, if I ever tell you that I've got it all figured out, and emails, come over to my house and just, you know, walk me off into the nearest plot of land. It's, you know, it's interesting to think about organizations and our role in it. And you and I were talking about this a little bit ahead of hitting the record button. And I'm really fortunate to work for a technology company that has a great product. Like we literally get people promoted when they adopt our platform. And you know, and go into production with it. It's it's a content management platform. And, you know, various sales roles that I've had throughout my career, whether I've been doing technology recruiting, whether I've been pushing stocks and bonds or working in bond us for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter way back when trying to borrow the car from my parents, you know, and everything in my life has been a sales job in one way, shape, or form or another. And to have some form of meaning attached to what we do on a daily basis, if we don't own our own enterprise is absolutely critical. When I think of how we can make an impact, right, and it's different when you're working for a small startup, as opposed to working for a fortune 50 or fortune 100 company where you can literally become, you know, you know, badge number 13,743 That happens. And, you know, how do we then ascribe meaning, or find meaning in what we're doing on a daily basis, because, particularly with the pandemic, Brandon, you know, the the concept of work life balance, which in my mind has always been a fallacy, but those lines are blurred even further, when all of a sudden for those of us that are married or in relationship or have children or even grandchildren, we all of a sudden found ourselves surrounded by co workers that were anywhere from 12 inches high to you know, our grandparents. And so those lines became very blurred and how do you then go from an office or you know, commuting into working from home and you're a able to perform this sort of integration. And so a lot of the work that I've been able to do with people, whether it's my team internally at my company, or working with other organizations or individuals has been distilling the mission, right, and whether it's a mission statement on a 10k for an organization, or it's something that the founders come up with, and then looking for adjectives that you know, a shared interest or a common ground between myself as an employee, and the broader organization. And it's a lot less about, you know, I want to be this when I grow up, but what are the adjectives that really energize us as people? And what can I do more of that at least leave me in a place where I don't feel completely depleted, but I feel replenished. And that's been a really interesting exercise for myself and the folks that work with me and the folks that I've worked for, as well as my private clients. Brandon Handley 6:02 That's awesome. I mean, I want to bring them up to one thing, yeah, it's great. I read a little bit of backstory, right. So you started off and you didn't start off like in like, you know, some of these fortune 500 companies, you start off as in, you know, a family owned Bread Company, which I think is really cool, too, right. And so you grew up kind of work and doing the daily grind, and you propelled yourself and you work, you kept working, right? You just kept this like really strong work ethic, and has a lot of success in the Fortune 500. And I think that, you know, look, if you grind yourself out, especially with youthful energy, right? As a youth, you can make a lot of things happen. He made a lot of things happen. And then at a certain point, you know, you ran into some of these things that you're talking about, right? This work life balance and kind of looking for it and realizing a it's kind of a fallacy, and then I'm gonna fast forward into the fact that hey, work life balance in the pandemic sucks, man, that was awful. Still kind of awful, right? It's still kind of going on. I talked about it at home right now I work from home, and I've got my two children. They were home with us for the first year. And even now, it's kind of like, it's, it's like, I feel approachable sometimes. Because, yeah, I'm over here at my desk anytime on my desk, like my wife's, like, you know, don't go in and bother dad, he's working, but like, I'm like, I'd rather they come in and bother me, then. You know, whatever's on the phone. Chances are? I mean, I'm not saving lives today with what I'm doing. Like, I'm not like, like, I'm not in the middle of surgery. Right. And I think that I think that, I think that a lot of people, as you probably saw during the pandemic, they realized, you know, where they had the opportunity to rejigger their their their stuff, right? Like, how do we, you know, what, what's what is important to me? Right? So I guess it'd be really curious to see kind of what you saw, like, in the past couple years, and where, where people are at, right? And distilling this mission and working towards becoming more replenished. I'm trying to think of the Strength Finders, there was a standout 2.0 is Marcus Buckingham Yeah, yeah, that's what you reminded me of, and thinking of that, as a great series, right? In that kind of what you're doing and having people focus more on their strengths, where they can go and leverage their strengths. And at the end of the day, they actually feel replenished, because they gave to the company versus something was extracted from them? Chris McCann 8:25 Yeah, that's a great question. You know, so I had this conversation. Two weeks ago, when I was interviewing a candidate, and in the high tech space for an organization to all of a sudden shut their doors in this market means that something went very, very wrong very, very fast. And so I found myself and my first trade show in two and a half years in Las Vegas as a shop talk for that that was in and out, but the day before fast as an organization existed, two days later, after receiving 100 million plus in funding, they shut the door. And so a lot of really talented people found themselves out on the street, you know, overnight. And, you know, there's one gentleman that I interviewed that I really would love to hire, however, the role that we have opened isn't the right role for him and so we spend a lot of time talking about this. And what I love about marquee Marcus Buckingham programs and particularly with standout is that weaknesses are weaknesses for a reason. Right? And just because you have no interest in them, or you want to ignore them and being able to minimize them, but when I found myself ran into my we'll call it mid 30s. So I was two children that were teenagers at that point, and you're struggling to pay bills and trying to figure out life just wasn't working for me. Right and Nevermind the love affair that I was I had with vodka at the time to in every realize as I was approaching 40, that I had to do something different. And so I pulled this is when Seinfeld was a very relevance, you know, television program. So I pulled the Costanza and I decided to do the exact opposite of everything I had been doing to get better results. And it sounds like you've also participated in a lot of programs around self discovery. So it's anything from birds Meyer to stand out to the Enneagram, etc, right? Anything. Brandon Handley 10:34 I'm looking for who I am, right, like, I'm like, I haven't figured it out. I need like, 70 Fucking books to figure it out. I'm like, I don't even know man. Like, because real similar to you, right? You know, got it, you get up to a certain point. And you're like, man, I've been working really hard. What have I even been doing with myself? And who am I like I've been doing everything people told me I should be doing. And for some reason, I'm still kind of stagnant and I'm still unfulfilled. Yeah. Chris McCann 11:01 So hell, I was 23 or 22. And I house mortgage, I never finished college check. I barely started and I spent more time doing my radio show, and I did anything else. And I did all the things that I thought I was supposed to. And that's just how I was raised to your point. I mean, being the the child of two generations removed from a gentleman who came over from Poland to start a bakery. If nothing else, I knew how to work hard. But like the movie Christmas vacation when Clark is out there in his front yard, and he's you know, getting ready to display the lights in front of his in laws. And he gets out there in he's like Joy to the world. And goes to connect those connectors and nothing happens. The mother in law scoffs Audrey, his daughter looks at him or looks at the mother in law and says, you know, you've worked really hard on that. And the grandfather says, so did washing machines, and I don't want to be a washing machine. I'm gonna work smart. And so, you know, in this in this mid 30s, like, turn about because you'll hear oftentimes in these programs or reading books, like whatever you did when you're eight years old, is how you should spend your time today. But fuck, like is collecting baseball cards gonna put my kids through college is me sitting in the basement sketching or drawing or, you know, writing poetry or whatever, is that going to move the needle for my family? And like, no, so I started to really focus on the adjectives. So I love to create if I wanted to play volleyball, but in the middle of Michigan, there weren't any volleyball teams in the winter for men or boys. So I started our own volleyball team and intramural sports coaching, leading coaching my my brothers and sisters teams, writing and I loved advanced analytics. I was, it was like crunching numbers on the back of baseball cards, and I was a kid that's like, well, these are the things that I would do in my basement, when I get into that flow state where I lose track of time. If I can at least look for these adjectives and the role that I'm in today, right, where I feel empowered and on purpose, and is that I'm part of something that's bigger than myself. Maybe that'll work. Right? And it did. Right? And you know, today and it's it's funny how when we get out of our own way, and we do things that come naturally to us, or that we have a proclivity for where life isn't as hard, there's not as much resistance, you don't have to fight it, and you can be in the flow. Brandon Handley 13:37 Right. Chris, real quick, do you mind? For somebody that might not be familiar with flow state? Right? I know that you and I, we've been like, we're so deep in it, right? Like you would like flow. I know exactly what you're saying. But somebody's missing, even though I've shared it on every podcast, probably as well. But this could be the first one that they ever listened to. So flow state, what does that mean to you? And you know, that that Chris McCann 14:01 flow state for me is when I just lose track of the concept that we call time when I'm doing something that just feels right, and feel is the operative word there, right? Where and you've had perhaps meditations or perhaps you've done some sort of plant medicine where you begin to at least have a reference point as time being a construct as opposed to something that actually exists. And if there's one thing that the listener that your audience has done in their lives where time slowed down, that feeling becomes a reference points and you can start to lean into an explore more of what's available to you. Where you feel in the zone, you know, it's in perhaps it's because you're playing softball on the softball all of a sudden looks like a watermelon and you couldn't not hit it. These moments are few and far between but they're provided to us to help us Remember, our true nature? And we are on purpose? Brandon Handley 15:06 Yeah, man, I love that. And you're using these words like, you know, empowered on purpose. Other words like integration? Are these some of the words that you're bringing into the companies to get people to kind of charge? And again, would you say here kind of feel more replenished? This is the stuff that you have in there. Chris McCann 15:26 It is. And you know, a lot of it is really intuitive. Brendon? You know, I don't, I've been on the receiving end, there have been a victim of a lot of motivational speeches in my professional career, right? What I want to know is, what's the one or two things that I can take away and actually implement or use in my daily life? Right, I don't need a guy coming in from a van down by the river rolling into our office or going into our high school auditorium, telling me about the perils of alcohol, or anything like that. I want something tangible, and something that I can use. And it's one thing for someone to tell you or for someone to tell me what the answer is, but anything that's sticky, anything that creates lasting change in my life, has been because I've had a realization, then perhaps someone shed a light on it, someone illuminated for me, but until I can experience it and make it my own, it's not going to stick. So I like to think that whether it's me as a sales leader with my 12 direct reports, or it's me working with organizations, I like to think that I can help them find their own answers, you know, there's really three layers to that, and whether it's, you know, at home with my family or at work or working with, you know, individuals, somebody can come to you, you know, and as a as a frontline manager, and you and your coaching, right, and this applies to the work that you do, and the work that I do, where you're you're basically saying, Okay, here's the play that we're going to run, right. And there's the teaching aspect as well and where you're teaching them the fundamentals of how to be coached. So I'm going to teach you how to do a crossover dribble to use a sports analogy, but this is part of a broader plan. And it's that's the, the coaching the teaching aspect. But when the rubber hits the road, and we're lasting change begins, is when people will come to you for advice. The flip side of that is then being vulnerable enough on my side as a man and as a human who has a lot more questions than I do answers. And being open to receiving advice. You know, one of the things that you had mentioned around, you know, this journey of being a baker, although to where I am today, my father in law, and I sat down last week, and we were back in the Midwest for spring break. And, you know, he's said to be my goodness, 78. Self Made, put himself through Harvard, hardscrabble, Ohio guy, you know, he still drives what, uh, Billy Corrigan's Ferraris around, you know, he's just a really interesting guy. And we're having dinner and he looked at me across the table and was like, you know, Chris, can I can I offer something to you? And I don't want you to take it out of context. Absolutely. He's like, you're a Put me in coach sort of guy. He was like, Okay, tell me more. He's like, you're Put me in coach guy, like, just put me in and I'm going to figure it out. He's like, look at what you've done just in the, you know, 12 years since I've known you. And he's like, but that's not a bad thing. Chris, he's like, I'm the same way. He's like, You Put me in coach, I'm gonna figure it out. And I'm gonna do it right, I'm gonna do it well, how do you know what's not happening around you? Or what is happening around you? And it's like, well, tell me more. He's like, Well, how do you know, because like, you have a lot riding on content stack, you have a lot invested, you have a lot of options that are on the table, and there's no guarantee that those options are going to be worth anything, you know, when you're fully vested in 14 months. So my question to you, Chris, is, how are you going to make yourself more aware of what's going on around you? And I had to sleep on it. So the next morning, I woke up and I was like, I got it. Like, I have my own internal board of directors, Brandon, and I have a nutritionist. A fantastic general practitioner. I had a strength and conditioning coach when I was competing. I have spiritual teachers. I have everything except for this business camp. And I'm in I'm in a frontier here. I've never been part of a post Series B organization with tall direct reports. It's working its way toward an IPO. I don't have have access to the Board of Directors weren't sitting in on meetings any longer. So I'm actively searching for a mentor who has done this and then where I've been. Now. This is me as a 49 year old man. If it were five years ago, that would I've been open to that sort of advice, would I have been vulnerable, vulnerable enough or willing to listen to someone as opposed to being a puppy and coach, certainly guy. Like, I wanted to be able to turn to Him and receive that sort of guidance and advice, and kind of hack my own professional development. Like, why would I not listen to someone who's a septuagenarian and pull up is absolutely critical. And that's really part of listening and feeling it and I'm very grateful that he was able to share that with anyone out there wants to be my mentor, I'll take it. Brandon Handley 20:57 Well, you know, it's funny, you bring it up, right, like, so. I wrote down, I always do this, right. So there's a, I don't know if it's, I think it's national. But so it's called the service corps of Retired Executives. Right. My grandfather was a member of that. And, you know, this is a group of people, you know, retired executives, I don't know what else to tell you. Right? That it's an organization that helps people in business, right. They've been there, they've been there. I think one of the things that we do such a shitty job of is like, Listen, don't get me wrong, like anybody younger than us full of the van vitality and vigor, disruptive, all this other stuff, we completely neglect everybody that's gone ahead of us. We're like, well, you know, they can't even work an iPhone. So what the hell would they know? Right? But, you know, just because they can't work in iPhone doesn't mean like, I don't know, let's look at marketing over the past 100 years, marketing hasn't changed, the application of the marketing has changed, like, where you put your billboard up has changed. Right, the rest of it is all the same. Same thing with business. Same thing with a lot of this other stuff. I think that a lot of that's the same. And so I think the story that you tell is really cool, though, you know, you're looking to somebody that's been there before I did this very disciplined, very similar. My my father in law. Geez, I think I was still drinking. So beyond five years ago. That's how it mark time. Before After drink. So he and I were, we were sitting, we were sitting down. And um, you know, he's a great guy. And I don't think too many people, you know, talk with just have a real conversation with them, right? Just kind of like heart to heart. And I said, you know, what, Mr. Clark? I was like, what would you have done? Different? What looking back? What What would you have done different? You know, he was very successful in his own right. And throughout his own life, he goes, I would have spent more time my family. I mean, that was it. Right? I guess that was enough for me. And so like, you know, a lot of the things that I've done, you know, I always go back to that in my head. You know, just, it was a 10 minute conversation, but was very impactful, right, to being able to, again, look to the people that have been there before you man, like, one way or another. So I think it's a great story. And I love the you know, Put me in coach guy, right? Like, I mean, you go in, you jump in you go do it, right. And you're gonna do whatever it takes us what I'm hearing here, and you say, right to do it right to it. Well, I love the thing to like, and you've got it on your website. So you don't have all the answers. You've learned how to ask better questions, right? You're doing all this through, let's also just reiterate this issue, kind of a spiritual, I guess, you know, maybe there's an awakening. And you let's hit on that for a second. Where's this? Where does that hit you? Right? And tell me a little bit about that. Chris McCann 23:43 You built everything. I didn't know that things weren't possible growing up. Right. And it's not because we had everything handed to us. It's just I think that's just how I came flying out of my mother's womb, like Life is one big grand adventure. And one of my board of directors tells me and reinforces that I chose the Super Deluxe premium package when I came into this lifetime because I've got all the experiences. And, and I say that because I know there's so much more out there. And it was what may 5 of 1990 I remember this distinctly and the context of this is a little bit different today than it was when I remembered this happening to me. I was what 16, maybe 17 years old, just turned 17 And I had gone out on a date with my girlfriend, and just wasn't feeling it. And I you know, I'm gonna take you home. I just want to spend some time by myself. And it will happen to be the fifth year anniversary of my paternal grandmother passed away at the age of 59. And so I guess I was what 12 And she had passed. And at some point you During that night, I remember seeing a light come in the window, whether it was dreaming or what actually happened. It's all fantastical storytelling, I don't know. But definitely impactful. And as this light, came in through this tiny window is like straight out of a Disney movie, and then sat on the end of my bed. And I sat up automatically. And it was my grandmother's voice. So that wasn't her form. And she's like, Chris, I'll always love you always be here when you need me. And how could you feel like I didn't love you. And then I remember a dialogue happening, although the words were are forgotten, but certainly felt this went on for some time. Now, the next morning, I woke up, I felt amazing, I had completely forgotten about the experience. And then halfway through the day, I was like, Oh, my God, this actually happened. And that was the first reference point I had of this otherness that existed. And then, of course, it was 1920, Married kids drinking divorce, 15 years of Clooney in it and trying to figure it all out. And I had lost sight of this, this otherness, or perhaps a truer nature of reality, to be followed by lunch in Chicago with a friend of mine, and we were talking about spirituality and religion. And, you know, it's a couple of, you know, old school Chicago sales guys getting together over lunch. And the conversation quickly pivoted. And he's like, you know, Chris, I don't know if you're familiar with this. But there's something called the Akashic records. I learned this from this woman here in Chicago, and she's like a grandmother. And, you know, she'll give me advice. And I learned how to do this, you know, sort of reading and tuning in. And for him to say that, to me, really struck me now, you know, how these things work. Three days later, and back in Santa Monica, I go into our local yoga studio, and the owner says, Hey, Chris, you might be interested in this event, but we have this woman, Helen coming in, and she's doing Akashic Records readings, and I thought you'd be interested. And I was like, who am I to say no. And, you know, it's I leaned into that. And that was my first experience, you know, sitting around with someone who's got these psychic medium capabilities. And Brandon, you know, I'm hard charging type a charismatic. And, of course, I had something to do, I had something more important to do, as I had already arranged to be able to leave early, right, because I had to get my son to his doctor appointment. And she's like, Well, Chris, and there's six or seven other people sitting around. And she was like, you know, Chris, I know that you have to leave early. So if you want to go first, by all means, go ahead. So, you know, we're sitting in a circle. And I looked at Helen, who's a very dear friend, you know, at this point in our lives, and it says, Well, here's the deal, like, everything's coming up roses, like I was sleeping on a couch, and picking up cigarette butts off the sidewalk, you know, so many years ago, and now I live near the beach in Santa Monica. I have a beautiful wife, beautiful family, and my kids are great. I want to know, how do we take advantage of all this momentum? Right, like what else is out there? And she looked at me and then Brandon, everything just slid away. And it was just as if it were her and I in the room. She's like, Chris, the first thing you need to know is how proud they all our view and where you are right now. And it's like, wow, it was just like dead on. And I remember getting into the car because my wife picked me up or taking their son to see his doctor. She was like, What happened to you? And I'm usually not at a loss for words. So I fired my psychotherapist. Right, because What's past is prologue and I started leaning into, you know, my time with Helen. And eventually I was like, you know, I think I'm supposed to learn how to do this. Chris, I have been waiting for you to ask me, you know that in so she taught me how to access the records. And then I spent a couple of years being fascinated with that modality and all of a sudden you have the answer, and you want to help everyone. It's like, Come to me, I'll help you with your masters, teachers and loved ones and we're gonna figure out life together. And this concept of awakening is ever evolving. And I'd like to think that I've removed a lot of the self fascination from it. And as my dear friend and teacher Carlos says, he's like, keep on truckin. Right. It's like, what's behind that? What's behind that and what's behind that? So the reality is that, I don't know. Because part of this awakening that is constantly folding and unfolding and unfolding. I don't know how it all works. And I'm not fascinated by it. Either, if to your earlier point, if I'm getting out of the way, and a clear vessel for source or spirit or the creator, or whatever it is to move through and be of service, then that's all I need to know. And it takes a lot of the pressure off and having to perform you feel like that monkey with a right acid Brookfield Zoo. Brandon Handley 30:26 No, not for sure, for sure. And it's really cool. First of all, right? Like, I love the, the idea of, you're 16 you're sitting on the bed, you've got your Twinkle, twinkle, little star moment happening. Right? And, and, and then, you know, 20 years goes by give or take, right, like, I'm just using round numbers. And I just, I just wonder if, you know, and this is just a kind of a theory, in my mind, we've got this window of opportunity that presents itself, right, kind of like the call of the hero, Joseph Campbell stuff, right? Like, in our late teens, right, we've got this call to the spiritual space. And I want to because I had something similar, right? Like, I think I was like, 19 my might have been more drug induced, but that's okay. There's like, yeah, there's like this, this calling this like, just kind of this, this huge pool. And, and like, you know, I remember leaning into a little bit then and telling people and be like, Yeah, I think I was meant to, like, go kind of, like, you know, do do spirituality, where can people give you like, the crazy eyes, you know, like, keep off in this car, right. 20 years goes by for you. So I always wonder about like, this kind of window of opportunity. And like, you know, if we if we let it pass, and like, we're, we've got to spend the next 20 years grinding the fuck out. Right? So we got to go there. So it's an interesting thought, I'll let you know out there. Maybe you can tell me your kids or sounds like they're older now. Right? Like and just definitely be curious to hear if they've kind of experienced anything like that for themselves. But then I also love that, you know, you're sitting there, you're having you're having lunch, right? And I love that like, seems to me, these spiritual conversations are happening more in our work lives. Right? As this is a professional company, I'm guessing this professional meeting, right? Not a couple of you guys haven't, you know, tried to figure out like, what the next what are the next steps? Chris, what's the next step? You know, bringing up the Kashuk records, and you're like, I don't know where and then and then as you said, right, you know, what happens next? Of course, the universe is like, well, first seems like he's interested, let's present it to him. And Chris McCann 32:40 yeah, totally, totally. It's, it's really interesting, for sure. Brandon Handley 32:46 So you're doing this work, right? Not nine, like you're you're doing your day job. But it seems like you're also bringing this type of thought process and modality to other businesses and companies as a speaker. What a facilitator can tell us a little bit about the work that you're doing that brings us to corporations and sales teams. Chris McCann 33:09 It was really by accident. So as part of my leaning into being a Spiritual Activist, and you know, wanting to bring the Akashic records or psychic mediumship or crystals and incense to the masses, I had created this either or mechanism in my head was like, Okay, I'm going to put down being a successful sales leader, I'm going to lean into just doing as many $200 An hour sessions as I possibly can, because I want to be able to help people. And, you know, that went on for some time, but I just, I wasn't able to really find a lot of traction with it, or even for that matter, satisfaction, because, you know, it felt like people were coming with really the same questions. And I'm sure this is true for you as well. It's, why can't I find my life partner or my relationship sucks, and that I don't have an interest necessarily, and just focusing on that, like, my, my client base at the time was 82% of women and 18% men, like where's my life partner? And, you know, sitting with Carlos represented again, and he's just a beautiful guy. And as a quote, how do I make this change? Like, how do I actually go from this to this? And he's like, you're doing at work, dumbass. Brandon Handley 34:35 What's the what's the this to this that you're trying to achieve? Right? Chris McCann 34:39 And how do I how do I move from you know, like, grinding away as a sales guy to just being of service to people to help him and he's so as Kevin was, you're doing it and I was like, oh my god, like I have so many awkward keynote is in front of me, you know, to bring these worlds together, right and to where I can play at work and be well compensated for it. That's the deal structure. Okay. But then someone today that's an executive in the company called because they just wanted some advice on something else. If you don't know where you're going to be able to be of service, and this idea of linearity between if I do this, this is the result? Well, no, I know that, you know, as an example, if I do this and make myself available to serve this other mechanism, a company might just say, Hey, Chris, we're gonna give you 10,000 More options because of this. So there's, it's not a direct transaction, right? Yeah, Brandon Handley 35:43 it talks about that. Right? The whole idea of us looking for linearity, because the story works on a timeline and a straight line in our mind. I think that, you know, linearity does exist in once we begin to apply spirituality and or other, you know, talk to me about that. What do you see, ya Chris McCann 36:03 know, I feel like it just integrates. Well, no, it frustrates my wife to know. And Brandon Handley 36:11 I want to, I want to find out about all this stuff, too. Right. Chris McCann 36:15 Yeah. So she loves to listen to these podcasts and, and hold me accountable for what I put out there. And that, you know, these timelines are really slippery. Right? And, and even if we're going to consider the idea of past lives, whether it's true or not, no idea, it's been my experience that there's something to it. But even then, it's not like because I when I would do past life regressions on myself, it was like, Well, how can I be in multiple timelines at once? Like, how can this be true for me, and like 1963. And this is true for me in 1959, but they're radically different experiences and radically different places. And what I've come to understand is, it's a lot like a DVD, or you throw it in there, and you're able to skip chapters, and there's some fluidity moving back and forth. But the movie Interstellar, right? So I love for these things to be underpinned by science as much as possible. Right? Right, right. And when we look at the movie Interstellar, and how you can go into space, and then you find yourself on a planet, where you might be on that planet for 15 minutes, but 40 to 50 years is passed, when you're 60,000 feet or, you know, whatever it might be above the planet, the science supports, that time is a construct. And if it is, in fact, a construct, you know, do we get to play with this non linearity? When we put expectations on things, and this is also like, you know, what's the purpose of life, you know, it then it has to be transactional. And even though that's our understanding, as a human This is storytelling and this is really organized religion and governments and others telling us that there has to be this framework around this to make sense of I'm firmly convinced brand and and that, you know, all the great spiritual leaders, whether it's a Mohammed in a cave drinking Ayahuasca, or is Jesus run off to the desert for 40 days, you know, these folks went out, they had some sort of a psychedelic experience, they come back and then someone puts a church around it, or a mosque or a temple. You know, it's like the profit is equal. This sounds like a really crazy trip to me. And Brandon Handley 38:29 when no doubt, right, no doubt, and I think anytime you take some Texas over 2000 years old, some things are gonna get lost in translation, quite literally. And that's, that's kind of the thing I always, I always even like, look at the number 4040 days and 40 nights or whatever is more than yours. I mean, because look at you and I right now and the age of 40. I was really great. Man's really great YouTube, I forget who Rupert Sheldrake maybe, does, like, you know, life begins at 40. Right, and it's like it really, for me, it's really turned a corner, right, right around 40 and just turned into something so much. I don't know. Different, better cooler? I don't know. Chris McCann 39:11 Yeah, it's talking to a neighbor of mine the other day, she's 82 years old, and her her partner passed away. You know, he was a curator at the Oakland Museum of Art. And she's had a really hard time because they've been together for 60 some odd years. And she's fascinating, fascinating lady, and it's taken time for us to get to know her. She's pretty, you know, pretty closed off in a lot of ways. But we were talking on the front porch the other day, and she brought this beautiful sage plant over for for us. And we were talking about aging parents and what she's going through and she's like, you know, Chris, like as we get older, you know, ideally, we pick up a little bit of wisdom along the way. But not everybody does. Right. And, you know, it did me Again, for me around 38 You know, my 29 year old son and I were out for a walk the other day when I was back in the Midwest, and he looked at me, and he's like, you know, dad, he's like, they say that people can't change. He's like, but you're dead. He's like, look at you. Brandon Handley 40:22 Man. How's that? Chris McCann 40:25 Beautiful focus. We're connecting. Like, I mean, I had him when I was 19. Right? Yeah. So easy. He's like, he's like, Dad, he's like, we kind of grew up together. And as he's gotten older, and he has his first child, there's a different context, much like our experience with our own parents, you know, when we became parents. And it's like, you know, holding, it's not that I changed. But everything that I had hoped was possible when I was a kid is ad infinitum. And so it really feels more like I remembered who I am. Brandon Handley 41:02 Yeah, yep, yep. Yep, yep. Yep. I love it. Yep. True story. Good stuff. Man. It's really cool that you got to experience that with, you do a couple of other things, too. I want to hit on real high level ones. I was just checking out your Instagram for a second. Tell me about the quantum field trips. What's that all about? Chris McCann 41:26 It's the quantum I forgot about this post. So this was, you know, again, underpinned by science. But you know, I'll oftentimes lead this getting groups together. And it's not stumped a psychic, but it's helping people find their own answers. And so as we're beginning to understand that consciousness, in fact, could have some underpinnings of quantum theory. In fact, there was a report that came out today with a University of Alberta. But they've noticed in these tubes, in plants and in people, that light disperses differently. And when you apply an anesthetic than they perceive it, this gap could actually be where consciousness exists. And I know it's a mouthful, and it's a lot to consider. But like, how do you then use these tools, these ancient technologies of meditation or breath work, or just tuning into yourself, to be able to intuit what's true. And so what we'll do for the first 30 minutes is talk a little bit about the science that underpins this, and then I'll have people work with each other, to be able to start to help people find their own answers. They're fantastic. We do them actually all over the country. And we certainly do them in our backyard. And again, giving people tools to be able to find their own answers is where I find the most joy, right? Because I know he Brandon Handley 42:54 loves something, let's talk about that real quick, do not do not turn up, right, like we talked about, like practical, tangible things, right. And a lot of times like we're have you and I are having a great conversation, but it's definitely very high level, right? So what is like a practical tool or two that somebody like you're talking about right now. They're challenged in life. And they they what are some tools that you offer them. Chris McCann 43:15 So what I love to be able to do is connect with folks. And what we oftentimes do is find that one moment where it's either have significant trauma, or they felt the most connected, and will begin to on Earth, how and where they feel that as men that are in the body as men in our 40s, we oftentimes turn off our feelings Brandon Handley 43:41 turned off at like eight man, come on now. Chris McCann 43:43 Everything moves directly down into the root chakra. And what I've noticed in working with men is that we don't allow ourselves to feel. And so because I love working with with fellows that are in a similar situation to myself, is noticing where in the body this is in developing a discipline. And that can feel like a dirty word. But discipline to me is really listening. And developing the discipline to listen to where in your body feels most connected to what's true for you. And this can be done over the course of three minutes. It can be done over the course of you know, a couple of hours. But it's an intuitive exercise and will surface up something that's going to resonate. And women at least give you a runner. So as you go into your next meeting, or you go into your next day, where if your spidey senses off about something, where do I feel that in my body, and then we start to develop a muscle memory around? Well, if I listen to this part of my intuition, and not over intellectualize it, what happens when they bet on that? And invariably, when people begin to tap into what feels right for them, what's true for you? That's not for anyone else to tell you. What's true. For You is a very intimate internal affair. And to give people tools to be able to tap into that, whether it's connecting with your breath or just being able to close your eyes and listen, it's developing that anchor. And then over time, we begin to leverage that more and more. And I know that's a very broad stroke answer. But it's all about feeling and listening. Brandon Handley 45:24 No, I'm with you, right. So I want to own nail a couple of things down here, right discipline. I think that if anybody goes and I look up the word, it really just means how to learn, right? Like, I mean, it's not like, you know, how do you learn? And then how do you apply that and not even like a rigorous, like, you're gonna get 30 swatches if you don't do this correctly, kind of thing. Having that develop that for yourself, right? Like they were called disciples. People, they were, you know, they were called disciples. And it's not not not too far off a discipline, right? So it's really, really about learning. I love to that you're sitting on, you know, what's true for you, intimately and truthfully. Books upstairs, you got to be your own authority, Chris, you got to be your own authority, what's inside of you, you can't have somebody else telling you what's inside of you. Right? You may, you may, you may need some work right with somebody like, especially as men, we shut everything down a certain period, we grin and bear it and we trudge forth we Sally forest, we grind them do all the weeds, all this stuff that like leaves us burnt out a certain period. Because we never paid any attention to ourselves internally, and we need to reconnect with that, right? We need to learn what these feelings are that I'm feeling, right? What is what is this that I'm feeling? Because that can be a huge frustration point to that. I'm feeling this thing. I want to know what it is. And the next closest thing that I've got to it's anger. Right, right, because I don't know what it is that I'm feeling. So I'm just gonna plop this over into anger and be angry. Right? It could be something else. So like in this huge spectrum of what feelings are. So in this whole piece of what you're talking about, too, is vulnerability, right? You've got to be willing to test that intuition. It could be a scary moment, I could be coming up to you, Chris, you could be my you know, you could be my sales leader. I'm like, Chris, you know, I'm, I'm feeling this certain way. And I'm just gonna go with I'm saying that you don't know that I'm trying to come from a place it's coming from my right shoulder is where I'm feeling this intuition. It's a vulnerability, right? Because to man, especially, that's a chink in our armor, right? Here's that chicken, the odds of my feelings right here. If he can see what my feelings are, he's gonna poke at it. Right? So but if we do that, and something good comes out of it. That becomes it becomes strength. Right? It becomes like a really just an awesome, awesome tool. So I think that that's kind of what you're sharing, right? Yeah. Yeah, awesome. So thanks for sharing that. So, Chris, what I like to do around this part is to lean into ces for like the fun part of the show, right? Somebody tuned in today. They tuned in at the beginning, they liked what she had to say about like, you know, the beginning on like, who your message, but this is a little bit like spiritual speeding, right, Chris, somebody, somebody out there is like, alright, well, depending on how he answers one of these two questions is what now I'm gonna go spend some more time with Chris. So spiritual Bachelor Number one, distraction. Chris McCann 48:35 Greatest distraction. The disconnect between our bodies and our higher self. Brandon Handley 48:51 Talk a little bit more about that. Chris McCann 48:53 This dissonance exists between what we think is true, or we want to be true and what actually is true. And we over intellectualize think too much, feel too little. thinking too much. It was a greatest distraction for me. For many people that I work with Brandon Handley 49:12 too much in the head. Yeah. Too much too much too much up there. You know, I talk a lot about that. And just the idea, and I'm sure you've run across this yourself. But, you know, in other cultures, you know, the word for your heart and your mind is usually just one word. Right? And it's our western civilization. We've got the heart in the mind where they're separated. So it's it, we mentally have them separate, right. And so the disconnects it's not an evolution, we started, you know, we're like, oh, that's your heart. That's your mind. Right. And so I think that's an interesting one for sure. getting back in touch with body sounds like you're doing that through breathwork meditation, and even just like, hey, where do you feel that in your body? Chris McCann 49:58 Yeah, let's name is not it. simply an auditory experience, Brandon Handley 50:02 feeling feeling for sure. Man is current religion serving its purpose. Chris McCann 50:10 Yes, to those that need that education. Religion is a construct that man is put around spiritual experiences. And I do believe that we select, or we select the variables that were presented in this particular lifetime and expression. And if we're meant to be dogmatic in any certain religion, or tenant or belief system, it's because there's something for us to learn. So I'll say yes. But the opportunity exists, then to prove out that that might not be true for you, which can lead to some pretty radical self inquiry and forming your own internal affairs. That to me has been the opportunity. Brandon Handley 50:57 I got you I got so serving, serving a purpose. Serving Yes, for sure. For Chris McCann 51:03 sure. Maybe, maybe not the highest purpose but a purpose Brandon Handley 51:06 pay? For sure. For sure. I get it. I get it. Well, Chris, you know, a couple of things. Everybody, I want to make sure that, you know, Chris does does looks like you do some awesome work with men as well. You do some men's group, at least men's groups. I loved having this conversation a little bit. We touched on that. men's groups as well. You do speaking engagements, it sounds like you're facilitate trying to get businesses closely aligned with purpose. Intent, right, and being aligned and really engaging their workers. Right. Yeah. And what else? What is? Yeah, what else? Would you let want to make sure people know that? Who should be connecting with you? Right? Chris McCann 51:46 Yeah, you know, and it's a lot of organizations are just like people, right? They're organisms. And I think of content stack, you know, where I am today is it's a movement, and it's not an organization. And, you know, it's when you have so many people involved, it takes on an energy to itself, but oftentimes organizations, even though there may be noble one thoughts, they can often be weakened execution, they lose sight of their original intent with the founders original purposes. And for me, and when I work with organizations like that, you know, it's just, again, it's helping this entity or this organism, remember who they are, and then aligning the people that are there to that mission, but the mission first than the team, and then it's you, the employee, or you the CEO. So organizations that feel like perhaps they've lost a sense of themselves, or want to perhaps create, I mean, that sounds altruistic, but perhaps a way for people to feel more empowered and invested in something bigger than the company. There's an invitation for them to reach out to me there. And I just love helping guys like guys that have grinded, they've done everything right. So at least at the beginning, they were told was right. And yet, somehow they get to this place where it's like, Fuck, I thought I arrived at a miserable. Yeah. And I can, and I love helping as well. Brandon Handley 53:12 That's awesome. Christina, where should people go to find out more about you? Chris McCann 53:15 Just go to the website. It's Chris McCann, ch, RI S, M C, C, A. N n.cl. There's a Contact Me page there. And my myself and my team of myself will gladly respond and you set a time to talk. Brandon Handley 53:30 Awesome. Thanks for being on today. Chris McCann 53:31 Thanks for having me. It was a real pleasure. Absolutely. I Unknown Speaker 53:37 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram at spiritual underscore go. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email there, Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition. Transcribed by https://otter.ai  

    Intro Guy 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general, you're so limited? Brandon Handley 0:12 John Johnson, also known as the natural medium, that's his site. He's been on a pathway of the discovery of his own spiritual and personal awareness for many years. Tutoring is John's greatest passion, to work to support the expression and understanding of ourselves and to discover our own truth. John is also the tutor at the world famous Arthur Findlay College in London and has an the qualified spiritual healer. self development has always been a passion for John and he continues to use this in his teaching philosophies today. John, how you doing? Thanks for joining today. John Johnson 0:47 Very well. Lovely to be with you and speak with you. So the converter? Brandon Handley 0:51 Yeah, fantastic. So you and I connected through a mutual friend of ours, Deb Levine. And you know, she she's speaks to all of you loves you to death you and I connected not too long ago had a really nice conversation. And, and you came back anyways. Right? So one of the ways I like to start this off with John, is that you and I, we're vessels for spiritual energy, right? Creative, universal energy, call it whatever you'd like. There is a message that's coming through you that's going to reach one of our listeners today that can only be delivered through you in this way. What does that message today, John? John Johnson 1:32 Well, no pressure on that one. I think one of the I think one of the big things about life is to make sure that we live truth and truly to ourself to do the things that feel right for us. That might not be right for everybody else. We're very, very, I suppose very hard on yourself, giving yourself the space to live truly to who and what we are. Because we always want to please other people and make sure a lot of people were happy or show that we're progressing. We're not standing still. So I think for me, that would be really trying to encourage anybody and everybody and also when I speak to other people, I always talk to myself, as to encourage, stay in your truth. Do the things that are right for you. Even if you're not really sure. Keep gon going. I think it's a really important thing to keep on going. Brandon Handley 2:25 100% You know, it's funny, I just I just got done making a post to read. Got to know if you've ever watched Mrs. Maisel. Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Really great series on Amazon. And the finale. Just talks a little, a little bit about what you're saying there. Right. She's, Mrs. Mays was kind of hiding behind like these self imposed limitations, right, saying, Yes, I want this thing. But only if it happens in this way that I've got outlined for me, right. Which in this series is keeping her from her truth? Right? Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about like, well, you know, what, how you work with your clients and keeping them aligned with their truth and bypassing some of their self imposed limitations? John Johnson 3:13 Yeah, I think I mean, the thing about human nature, I'm a big interest in the psychology of people. So why do we do what we do? Why do we not do the things blah, blah, blah. So for me to really start to understand people is to understand myself. So that's the start point, I need to understand John, and what he is and how he is before trying to help anybody else. So I think one of the things about human nature and us as individuals is that we love to have comfort and safety. So we always look for comfort, and we always want to have safety. But we also love familiarity. So if it's unfamiliar, we'd rather walk the same pathway, do the same thing that's painful, rather than try something that might be less painful, but the fear of doing something less painful, is more fearful. So what we end up keep back to the familiar again. So for me, one of the things about the development of the person, which is where the emphasis really lies, as first of all to find out where they really are, and their truth, as opposed to where they think, or what the wants the people around them to think is the truth. I mean, we all have the, it's called the masks of life. You know, we have the masks we put on to go to work, we've got the mask for the friends, we'll get the mask or the relation. And it's really about trying to take all those masks away. Because the question is always what is it you're so afraid of? You know, what, what is the fear? What is it that you think is so bad? There's going to be so wrong. There's going to be so disruptive for you just to be you. And it's amazing the stuff that we all have individually in our minds. What we're brought up to think about ourself, what we think our parents or peers expect of Is the demands of what makes you what makes you successful in the world? What kind of person do you have to be to have a good relationship a good job. There's so many, there's so much stuff that's put into us and programmed into us, that doesn't necessarily match who we are and what we are. And for me, it's about, it's like deciphering what's true and what's not true. And the hardest thing is that when you challenge people's realities, they start to recognize that that's not their reality, which is a really scary thing to happen. Because when you wake up to your actual reality, it's a very scary place to be because all the all the little bubbles start to pop around you because you thought you're that, in fact, you're told no, you're not. You thought this was important. But it turns out that it wasn't overly important. And you start to recognize the limitations that we've created for ourself. And, of course, we always want to blame other people and blame circumstances. But there's a great philosophy, which is that you know, that trauma and difficulties happen to everybody. But what we focus on is what happens to us rather than how we react to what happened to us. So, if something if somebody was a difficult parent, or we had somebody very dominant, then that was the trauma. But how do we react to that trauma? Do we make ourselves very small? And do we live our life walking on eggshells? Or do we actually stand up and recognize why this was happening? And my reaction was to make myself small. So then I can wake up to the reality and say, Well, I'm actually not smart, which means I don't need to hate, which means we'll actually I don't know what I want to do myself, because I've always been hating. So it sort of cracks open that shell of what we think we are into the reality of who we are, which is why a lot of times people don't necessarily respectfully, don't always do the work. Because it's the hard way. The easy way is just to hate within the clouds and the fluff of spirituality. And that the hard way is to sit back, sit down and really go into the depths of your own soul, and really look deeply at yourself and recognize the truth of what you are. And then the question is, obviously, what is truth? So it just keeps on coming? You know, it's like a snowball. Brandon Handley 7:28 Yeah, no, no, definitely, definitely a lot in there. Right? I think that, you know, a line we use over here in the state side anyways, you know, and you may use it over, there's like, the devil, the devil, you know, is right, better than the one that you don't? Right, and so, so, so, and it really sounds like, you know, a lot of what you're talking about, too, is that people, you know, they have these stories built up, and like you're talking about once you kind of, you know, pop this bubble, or I think another analogy I've heard is House of Cards, right? You pull one of those cards out the whole thing tumbles down. And then the left, I gotta imagine reevaluating their story, right or the left, as you talked about, like, seeing all the masks in front of them versus on them, right, seeing for a moment that they've got all these masks in front of them, in terms of kind of helping people to challenge their reality. And John would jump right into this right. In terms of helping people, you know, challenge their reality, what are some tools? What are some ways that you like to help to do that? John Johnson 8:40 I think one of the first things that I always do, I always want to, like, speak to the person get get a kind of feeling about where they are with themselves, because of some of these very, let's say somebody's very self destructive and very self critical. If you're going to challenge the reality very quickly, you know, you can, you can just push them over the edge of themself. So the first thing is always to be very conscious of where they are, and be very careful of how far down the rabbit hole you want to go before really trying to do the proper work. So for me, there's very simple practices, like you mentioned, there would have been earlier, when I remember even with Deb and people like that, there was a so there's such purity within them, they have this need to help and want people. And sometimes the thing that's getting in the Wii is never the ability of what they are, it's the person. So when you start to forget about the ability, somebody wants to be a doctor or nurse, a therapist, an intuitive worker, an energy worker, any of these kind of things. It's there for everybody because that's it's it's not even negotiable with its there the potential lies within the presence of the power, but as the person able to to release themselves as that person able to surrender to who they are. That's that's the struggle. Because the wonderful thing I have a phrase or seeing, which is, you know that when you develop the person, you will unlock the potential of the person. And what we do in today is that we try to give people tools to make them into something hoping that will get them to come to themself. But the actual process is the opposite. So I do and people come to me and say, I want to learn to do mediumship, or I want to learn to be more intuitive. The first thing I asked them was way. And then they say, well, because, yeah, well, and they don't have an answer. Exactly. Always, because they haven't thought about why they want to do it. They're just busy trying to get somewhere, which is normal for I mean, a huge percentage of his portfolio did the same thing when I started. But then the question is, okay, so why do you want to do? Well, because I'm sensitive. And then I challenge, I'm sensitive and say, Okay, well show me somebody on the planet who's not sensitive. So that answer doesn't work. So what's the reason you want to do it? So what happens is you charge to challenge their belief, because belief is the foundation of the whole thing is truth. But the truth lies on the foundation of belief. Because if you come from a certain belief system in us install a belief in yourself in a certain way, as soon as you recognize belief is the one thing that you can't take off anybody. You can take everything off somebody, but you can't take the belief is something that's deeper than the essence of who they are. So to challenge the reality is to challenge the belief. So then I give them exercises and ask them questions like, so what would be the purpose of that? What would be the purpose of this? And when they gave me the purpose, they might say, well, I want to be rid of energy. And I want to work intuitively. And that's why and I say, but what do you want to do with it? Well, I want to be able to look into the future, and I want to be able to make predictions. And then I say, Okay, so tell me, why is that so important for you to do that. And what it means is they're having to dig deeper into the answers of the questions they don't want to ask themself. So it keeps it almost like you're, you're forcing them into the, into the space of the self to actually find out. And sometimes the answer comes where, well, I'm actually afraid of my own life, which is why I want to know what's happening. And it's like, well, is that the right reason to develop this then? So I'm not somebody who just yeah, I'm very good. There may be so I'm very, some very precise and critical in many ways towards my myself. But I am not somebody who wants to help people become the magician, or other I'm not interested in people becoming the showman if they are the showman, because that's what their ability presents, that's what they will become. But most people with integrity, have a self, like a self healing process where they just come home. And when they come home, what they felt they wanted to do might not be actually what they actually do. And I think that's the big difference when you awaken and ask the question. They actually feel I want to be an intuitive, I want to be this, I want to be that. But when they go through the whole process of development, at the end of it, they might say, I actually want to be a Chinese want to work in Chinese medicine, or I want to be a mature and you go great, perfect, I'm really happy for you. Because we don't need to have 300 million mediums on the planet. You know, it's not needed. We need good people who do the job, that rate for their soul with the express what's right for them. And the way that's right for them. That brings us back into the naturalness, the truth, and also the belief system. So it keeps challenging by asking certain questions, to try and get them into that space of what is the reality of belief. Because I think if you have the reality of your own belief, and you're honest about it, that opens opens all the doors for you. And then ability presents itself. Brandon Handley 14:07 Now, all of that, right? So, you know, if we if we started off, right, it's really just a matter of I think he even said at the beginning, where are they? You know, in this journey? Where are they in this journey to find out the truth of who they are? And, and, you know, like, you're saying, we can all we can all do? I don't know, I don't know if listen, I think we all have the capability like a saint, do any of it, be a doctor, be a lawyer, do whatever you want to do. But the real question is, why do you want to do that? Right? And I love the lines, that potential lies within the presence of the power right? And being able to surrender to who they actually are right within them. Asking those deeper questions that we're just not asking those questions, right. It's like, oh, well, nothing wrong, like so you know, I had an interaction with this thing and that person I want to go to Do that. Okay. Why? Yeah. Why? Right? Why? Why? You know? And if they don't answer that question immediately, and this is what I found for myself, Johnny, and this, probably what you've seen too is like, you know, they go and they go, and they do the thing. And they realize that that's not for them. Absolutely. Right. Yeah, but it could and it sounds like your journey, right? LED you like, hey, I want to go to the same note leads me over here. Leads me over here. Leads me over here. And I want to like, you know, the idea of, hey, I don't want to work with somebody that's just doing this. From like, a magician and showmanship state, right? Did I capture that correctly? Like, you know, you want somebody that people that you'd like to work with, or you know, really getting deep, this this coming home thing, when you're talking about coming home, you don't mean coming home to get their, their their tea? On the counter, you're talking about coming home to this the truth of who they are, right. And I can't remember whether or not I think when we had this conversation before, and when I first started on my journey, a big piece of it. John was like, just beginning, you know where you are. Right? Begin where you are, start with that thing that you think you want to do. And I felt empowered, right? Like, the liberated, right, this expressing the truth of who I was, I had no idea what exactly it was, I was expressing. But I was feeling a greatness. And when I say a greatness, I'm not talking about like, I'm number one, I felt filled with something. Right. And I would go ask other people out, so what's it like for you to step into your greatness? And they would like, Whoa, there's nothing great about me. And I think that what you're trying to show these people, there's something great about everybody. Yep. Right. So so, you know, when when when they start doing this journey, John, when they start recognize they start doing a self healing and expressing the truth of who they are? What are some of the, what is some of that look like? I'm trying to, you know, because I guess what I would say, is that part of the awakening process? I'm not sure if that's what you would say to like, what are some of the symptoms as a turret? Terrible word for symptoms? Like, what are some of the signs that, that they're totally holding themselves? Or what are some of you know, people say, John, I'm feeling like this and your and your responses, like, oh, okay, you're on the path, you you've clicked the next click in the ratchet or whatever. John Johnson 17:31 Yeah, I think one of the things about development when you, I think the moment of waking up to who you really are, is this, as I said earlier, it's a scary part to bust all those reality bubbles, you wake up from who you think you are, to who you actually are. And the thing about it is, it's really, it's quite a scary transition for many people. But at the same time, if you can embrace the change, will you start to recognize that one of the things that's very human and as that we carry so much baggage, of emotions, demands expectation, main chatter the monkey brain, when you actually notice how much energy that costs you to live in a way that's not right for you, but you keep doing it anyway, when you start to notice that you have more energy all of a sudden, because you've made small changes in your thinking or small changes in your actions, or you start to respect yourself a little bit more than you notice, all of a sudden, you have more time, you have more energy, then you're already showing that you're starting to wake up to the truth and reality of what you actually need in your life as opposed to what you have been doing. The one that will always is really hard. There's the thing about the challenge of this kind of wakening up to yourself spiritually, it also means that the creation of what you have around you always starts to flip and change, which is the scary part. So when, for example, I remember when I started to be true to my own self, and started to really feel and do the things that felt right with me, I started to have problems in relationships, friends, because I wasn't being what they always wanted me to be. And I started to go women, this is your problem between you and them. So you deal with it. And I was always the person, man, okay, you know, again, and try and find an answer and solution and shine. And because I said, Wait a minute, that's not my job, you've created the problem between each other. So suck it up, and go and solve it. And I'm just gonna stand here as you need me, I'll be here. But this is not my this is not my battle. And what you find there's those people then call you selfish. Because you're selfish because you don't care because and what's happening in the cycle in a psychological sense is that you're owning your own power. You're starting to do what feels right for you. But they are now having to take responsibilities that they never took before because you always took their responsibility. So you would solve that problem, which means they never had to deal with it. And all of a sudden, you see new suck up, not my problem. And you're the bad one. Because now they need to think for themselves. No, they need to start to do that. So one of the big things for me, when I see people that start to kind of wake up to the space is that they start to notice that there's almost like the war drum starts to rumble around the family in the ruins relationships. And it's like, I thought that was a good friend of mine. But actually, when I see the way they treat me in what they do, I'm not sure they actually aren't a good friend is what I thought they were. And that person over there who I never thought was a good friend is actually more honest and truthful with me than anybody else. So your reality snaps and changes that you start to notice the reality of who you are. And then you know, you're starting to be in the right space, because then you're living truthfully to what's true and important for you. And you're no longer pleasing, satisfying, or taking on responsibilities that were not yours to start with. So I think that's a really big sign to look for. When you notice that the world starts blaming you for being selfish, you're probably doing something right. Brandon Handley 21:09 Well, you're right. And I totally agree. Only because I agree. And I've seen it happen for me anyways, especially especially in the struggle in the beginning, right, where you draw on this journey. And this is kind of that line, what you know, what are the things that are no longer serving you? Right? Yep. And my experience was that those things dropped away on their own, like effortlessly, right? Drinking, for example. It was like, Oh, I don't this please. Like, there's no, no reason for me to keep doing this. As a matter of fact, if I keep doing this, it's like, you know, there's all those No, good, that's coming of it. And then when I stopped drinking, like, here's all the people that stopped wanting to hang out, right? Like, why why? Why did you quit drinking? I was like, Well, why don't you? Why would I need to explain myself? That doesn't even make any sense. Right? Because and because other people are curious, because they want to do it to write but they can't, they haven't gotten to this space. And then and then this other area that you're talking about, like, I'm not going to do this for you anymore. Because you really need to be able to do that on your own or like, you know, I have, my life is valuable, too. So I'm going to actually be responsible for mine, you'd be responsible for years, right? And being called selfish, or, you know, spending too much time on yourself type of thing like, well, I don't know. And, John, I think it's very important to do things for others and give and be of service. Yeah. But one of the people that you're here to be of service to more than anybody else in the world is is you John Johnson 22:52 can't serve and look after yourself, then you're only you're only going to sacrifice, sacrifice your own self to help everybody else be happy. And the thing about that is that when you create the pattern of I'm going to make this person happy, so I can be happy. That never works. Because they end up becoming so happy that they got on relief and achieve and you're sitting back going, Oh, what about me. And you see this person a lot in relationships with people. So they meet somebody, and they want to be put on the happy go lucky, I'm crazy. I can sing. I love karaoke, I like to have a good drink. And they want to be something to be impressed to be liked. And after a few months, when they start to calm down and relationship starts to become a bit more normal. They go, I don't really feel like going out and drinking. I'm not really all that bothered. And the person who they've just met says, Yeah, but when I met you, you are crazy and wild. And you did this. And they go, yeah. And honestly, the answer is, but that wasn't me, I was trying to make you like me or impress you or so it's a very, very difficult thing. But that goes through like the wheel and the pattern, where every time they meet somebody, they've got to impress them to be liked. And then when they become themself, which is maybe more passive or introvert or quiet, or they're maybe just normal, whatever normal is, then the person they're with, they get bored because they don't see the interaction that they attracted to them to begin with. And the person who does it to the other person ends up on their own again, and they never understand my people leave me because, you know, help that person to come stronger. I help them to become more confident I help them to be successful. And when they where they left me, it's like, okay, so why would you help them so much to do something they needed to do themselves? And it's okay to say to help other people, but that's that's what we're here for. There's a human kind of human nature, we're here to help and support each other. But there also has to be some teams doing nothing, as the support has not always do something. Like don't always have the answer because sometimes the person needs to come with the answer, because if you always give the answer then they're not doing the work for it. So you're Trying to get the balance between being of service and being there. But also respect your own self, give the space for other people's growth, but give yourself the space for your own growth. And hopefully you meet in the middle somewhere. And I think that's the hardest thing for is to have that balance Brandon Handley 25:16 100% spent, you know, especially in kind of any relationship, right, you can see the you can and here's the other thing on that, too, John, like you're talking about? If we come with an answer, we call it an answer to the question from our own perspective, and when the person that we're trying to help is able to come up with with their own answer, from their own perspective, chances are, it's actually going to be a different answer than than we would have given. But it solves the same problem, right? And it's also that much more effective for that person, because they're like, oh, wow, I can answer this stuff on my own. I don't need you to be answering my stuff for me. And, and a lot of times, I think, just when you're asking these people, these next level questions, so like, oh, wow, thank you for asking me these questions and challenging me a little bit and making me dig a little deeper to realize that they actually have the resources that they already need within them to move forward. Yeah, I John Johnson 26:19 think the thing is, when when some of the things that don't answer, they're going to trust and believe in that answer, because it was their own. And even with me, when I do any teaching or workshops, I actually tell the people who come on courses, and I'm going to ask you more questions than you asked me. And normally, it's always the teacher is the one who tells the answers and tells of the who is going to be. But I do the opposite. Because if somebody says to me, Well, I have a problem with us. What do you think then I say, Well, what do you think? And they go by? I don't know, I'm asking you. And I go, Yeah, but I want you to come and tell me what's happening rather than me just I can give you an answer every day. But it doesn't mean it's the right answer. I want you to come and tell me what you discovered. And then I'll give you something because the developments always about FAA choose to do it myself. And this is again, a really important thing with a lot of the work that I do. When somebody has success in some of the lands on the money, the just to do something that's so important, so powerful, such a transformation. I want them to wake up and recognize the that the work. Other one waking up and saying, Oh, John, thanks so much, because you helped me that I want them to give themselves the credit for the work that they did. Because they found the answer, though, I may have been an instigator to shove them and put them in the eye to get them where they want to go. But they're the ones that can wake up and say to their friends and family, I made this choice. And I am happy because I feel happier now than I've ever done. Rather than saying, I made this choice, because John told me it'd be good for me. And it worked out well. Because it's not, it's not about that. It's about encouraging you to find that truth of you by asking you the questions you don't want to. And then when you get the answer, and it works for you, you can be proud of yourself. And if you get the answer that doesn't work for you, then you have to take responsibility, that that doesn't work. But what did you learn from it? What can you do the next day, because we have this tradition within spirituality, especially if you're doing some sort of leadership bar. That, you know, we're meant to have all the answers. And I mean, I've got hard enough time living my own life without trying to lead anybody else's life. So we've got to be able to see the two sides of it, you can't be the hero for everybody, without also been the developer. So if you're going to be somebody who's going to tell people how to live their life, and it goes great, and they get praise, you've also got to take the problem, when it doesn't go well. You can't have only the praise and just have the other stuff. So that's why the, for me, the best thing is always when you have advice from anybody, as they should not be telling you how to live your life and what to do. They should be encouraging you to look at opportunities, but ultimately you decide what happens because you live and die by the sword. And that's so lifers. And that for me is so important because today we have everywhere in the world. But today there's more about thinking you have an insight into something or because you're even with your own development. I mean, you've done a lot of work with your own self. So people may have this trust in you that you might have an answer that goes beyond their perception. But at the same time, if it goes beyond their perception, they're not going to get it anyway. So they might as well answer their own question and come to the truth where they are. And not because we're bigger than each other. It's just because we have different pathways of understandings. So I would rather somebody wakes up and says, This is my understanding. This tool is right for me and I can see Wow, well done. Congratulations. You know you did so well be proud of yourself. Rather than I get the praise when in fact that's not my life to be praised. That's they need to have that period of of themselves. And that love of themselves, and really be in contact with that spark of divinity, to recognize the power, the power that created it. And the power that creates has the power to heal. The power that creates has the power to move. It's all there. We just got to tap in and believe in it. So I think it's a really important thing that people get the get the answers themselves with encouragement, the end of the day, their answers the most powerful answer. Yep. Brandon Handley 30:24 Yeah, no. Right. And I think the, the, the line that I use on that most of the time is, you're both the gift and the giver, right? And you give that gift to yourself, and you're able to give it a and it just kind of replenishes itself. Right. And to your point, right, certainly been in position where people may think that I have an answer for their question or their quandary. But I got to tell them, No, I, this isn't a This isn't my area of expertise, right? I don't know what it is that you're looking at, here's what it seems like to me. You know, I'm happy to point you in like a direction that I might go in and seek an answer for yourself. Right. And, and that's been very effective. And they come back supercharged, they come back very excited. This is what I found it oh my god, this is my experience. So helping people to empower themselves sounds like you kind of like what's your what's your about? Now, John? John, I think one of the things we didn't really even dig into much, you know, we talk a little bit about your background, you you're a tutor, your tutor of what John Johnson 31:30 I call it, the the intuitive arts. I, when I started it was always called, you know, you call yourself a medium and blah, blah, blah. But for me, it's just too narrow. To be called a medium. If you look up the word medium, now actually says it's that's the medium between two things. So I actually talk more about the intuitive arts. So for me, it's a lot about everybody has an intuitive art, whether you draw paint, sing, dance, you know, rate speak, there's something intuitive about the art of your expression, then for me, the expression of communication and self development is that intuitive art, you learn to be in contact with the intuitive power, you learn to trust yourself, which is the thing that everybody wants is to trust themselves and believe in themselves. And, for me, it's about trying to knock through all the stuff that stops us getting in contact with that intuitive ability. So that's why it becomes an art of intuition. It's an art of expression, rather than it's something you need to become a master of, and you need to have a job and you have to become because you're sensitive you need to accompany. It's not that journey. If that's the journey for you, then that's what it will become. But the journey is really the intuitive arcs of unfolding this intuitive ability that, again, we don't, we don't give ourselves the credit of how intelligent we are within the soul. Very simply, we're born into the world, we have this sense of awareness. And by the time we get to the age of 567, we're taught to think and analyze, and that purity of who we are, it's still there, we've just lost contact with it. So when we get older, and hopefully a little bit wiser, then we start to give ourselves permission to tap back into that intuitive gift that's already there. And that's why even I don't even like like the word gifts, because it's not actually a gift. It's it's sort of part of the package. It's like, it's like buying a computer without a hard drive. You know, it doesn't happen you buy a computer, the hard drive that comes with a hard drive, because that's what the computer needs. So for me, the ability of awareness is already packaged within the souls experience. And you're just trying to get back in touch with that intuitive art. So that's why for me, I'd rather see tutor of intuitive arts or tutor of self development, discovery, intuitive arts, that kind of areas more with, I think, my interests mostly lace. Yeah. Brandon Handley 33:52 Awesome. And so when somebody comes to for kind of expression of these arts, and, you know, it sounds like you're almost willing to let them go, if you realize it's not a fit to write, he was like, hey, you know, let's, let's, let's why you want to be here. So who do you feel is like the best fit for what you have to offer? John Johnson 34:18 I don't think there is a Pacific that, for me, there's no specific thing or checklist because it's purely if somebody feels drawn to a weekend to trust themselves, or they have experiences of unawareness, which they're not sure real, they want to trust or energetically wise. All we're actually doing is we're giving ourselves permission to find out what we can find out about it. Very often we hear stories, as I said about some of these supercenter sensitive and oversensitive. Well, I don't believe in oversensitive people. I believe in people who are very sensitive who are not in control of their sensitivity. They don't understand that which is why they We come oversensitive or you cry all the time, and you get affected by everything. And you know, you're, it's only because we're not in control of what they're aware of. It's not because they're more sensitive than anybody else. And then you have other people on the spectrum who are like the sensitivity of a piece of woods, who want to have more sensitivity. And it's like, well, you know that you are sensitive, you're not allowing yourself so what are you afraid of? What's the what is it? You're not allowing yourself to be vulnerable to with yourself? What is it you're afraid? What do you think's going to happen? So it's, there's no, there's no, there's no right or wrong. And it's also what I teach. When I say to people, I don't really have we need to categorize people with beginners, intermediate and advanced, have levels of experience. But at the same time, we can have somebody with no experience who can actually trust themselves and do more of a better experience than somebody who has lots of experience. Because sometimes Knowledge is power. But some things knowledge destroys the naturalness. So there's no real. But again, it's just, I think it's just one of those areas where if you feel drawn to discover, then just be open to see what's there. And then it will actually draw you forward. And its own way that way that needs to be for yourself. So there's no right and wrong, there's no good or bad, nobody's better than anybody else. Nobody can and nobody can, it's really just allowing yourself to be honest. And just find out what you can find out from yourself about yourself, that that will actually unleash the intuitive ability. Brandon Handley 36:32 I love that have the idea to write have, you know, do you not overly sensitive, everybody's pretty much got the same amount of sensitivities, it's how you respond to those sensitivities. And where would you like to be alone that or if you're okay, crying all the time, be okay to cry all the time. Like, that's a great release anyways, you know, but, but realize that that is your choice, right? And realize that if you want to, you know, kind of come along somewhere in that and same way, vice versa. Right, I would say a more along the vice versa, side of, you know, not feeling right, but also understanding that, like, you know, I, I have the capacity and capability to feel in a greater sense. What am I afraid of? I don't know, I'm not doing that with you today, though. The, the the other piece to that you'd mentioned is and I think this is really powerful. And it's the idea that a beginner can actually, in the beginning, have more success, quote, unquote, success in an endeavor than somebody who's had the experience, primarily because they haven't. They don't know what the theoretical limitations are. Absolutely. Right. They don't know what they don't know. Well, you know, last time I did this, or my previous experiences are the people that I work with have influenced these experiences. And so I believe that these, these are the ceilings, these are the thresholds. And so I guess that that also points to the idea of always trying to have a beginner's mind. Yeah, John Johnson 38:18 I mean, the thing is, there's no limitations, no boundaries, other than the ones we create. And the thing about it is that this is why for me, I always have this, this feeling of responsibility, because of what I do is that I know, for a fact, that whatever I do with somebody who is very fresh, very new, very much the I don't believe in a beginner, but somebody who we put unquote, beginner, what I tell them and what I advise them, and what I tried to help and support them to do will become the foundation of what they do for the rest of your life, pretty much. So when somebody has a foundation, which is I'm very down to earth, but there will things so when when somebody has a foundation, which is like bells and fluffy clouds and purple things and unicorns and these lovely things, if it's that's the foundation, where there's no there's no essence of life and strengthen it, as they develop after 234 years, and they try to get more deeper in contact with what they're doing. They have to actually break all those habits to try and learn the truth of the truth of the habit. So, if that's why I've said so many times that the teacher or the influencer has so much responsibility, because what I tell you or what I influence you to discover, will become the foundation of what you do. So that's why as somebody who's new, there a clean slate, they don't know anything. And when I teach normally people sometimes they call me the unknown teacher. Because I don't actually tell them how to do things. I try and encourage them to undo things because when You undo it, and you actually allow the natural expression, nobody needs to teach you. Something just has to keep you within reality of what your sensitivity is trying to do. And that will naturally move. My job is to match the movement of them. It's not me to tell them to do what I do, because then I'm making a clone of myself. So it's very much about the person who's new. They're so easily influenced because they believe you because you are the teacher, the instructor, and I often challenge them and say, okay, so what would be the simplest way to do this? And they say, Well, I don't know, I need to open a door, and you need to meditate for half an hour and a half to put on a blue light. And after we had a crystal and have to do nicely, okay, so let's start. And they do it. Or they do something and I see, well, you never put a crystal on, you never made the seasons, and you never, you never put a light on and lay down for half an hour. But you did it. So what does that tell you? And then you see them going, oh, man, yes, all that stuff I think I need to do, I don't actually need to do but that scares me. Because I like the safety and the comfort of doing it. Yeah, but you don't have to do it. You've just proven yourself, you've done. So now is your choice. Do you want to do that? Or do you want to just go with what happened? Because that was natural for you to do. So the challenge is constantly trying to not teach them anything, but give them the space to grow and learn. So it's, it's an interesting journey. Brandon Handley 41:23 No doubt, no doubt. And you know, sounds, I understand that you're, you're very good at what you do. Right. So, you know, Donna, Deb again, you know, refers to you and regard you very highly. And so super excited that we got the connection here. You said two to four years in the beginning there, John, you mean, I can't do this in eight weeks? John Johnson 41:49 Well, depends how much money you have. It's, it's most people, when we're really really genuinely honest about the process of development unfoldment, trusting that which is insane as most people that again, depends on on how they're taught to do it. Some people will maybe do four or five, six years before they really start to get into that space. Now, it's a very simple reason. Because from your age of 4567 years old, up until whatever age you are today, so let's say you're 4045, you've been thinking and analyzing for 38 years. And for you to drop the analytical mind, but still use it for you to drop your knowledge but still rely on and for you to get in contact with the space that you've you've tried to shove away and ignore, it's not going to happen in one year when you've been ignoring it for 39. So it's just a time of awakening. And some people go faster than others. Some people are very much in contact, but they just need to understand that more. So varies for many different people. But I mean, even for me, I didn't do anything in any professional capacity for the first six years or so. And I was training really, really hard and regular. But I never felt it was granted to do something for somebody else when I wasn't fully comfortable doing it for my own self. So Brandon Handley 43:17 it makes a lot of sense. Right. And I would have to say that, you know, the parallels, and is in line with what I've seen so far, just in a nice conversations kind of what's that growth trajectory? And I'll bring it up and just say, you know, that it actually it takes real time, you know, the two to four months is, it's yes, it's real time, but in the context of personal, you know, personal development. Yeah, that's kind of like a blink of an eye. Right. And there's so much to what you're saying there's so much to kind of undo there's so much baggage that like, we're just not willing to let go of just yet. Right? Like, I'll leave this one behind job, but I'm carrying the rest for now. And, you know, I'm gonna keep the rest for the rest of next year. Maybe I'll drop two bags. Right? Yeah. I get it, I get it. So, John, I got I got a little section here that I like to call. It's kind of like spiritual speed dating. Right? Some ways to it in today's spiritual speed data, like you know is John is John for me. And so, spiritual Bachelor Number one, you know, we talked about fear a lot. And I think that we talked about, you know, who what, what would you say that we're all afraid of, John Johnson 44:36 they're afraid of their own their own personal power. Not afraid of being too good. They're afraid of being everything they are. And the I think the biggest fear mostly when you really connect with people who really genuinely have the heart, the compassion, the love to serve and help other people. But a lot of the times the fears of themselves about said being too powerful being too good is trusting themselves too much because they're afraid their ego is going to come. They're afraid that people are going to, you know, they're going to become something like an animal in disguise. And I think that's, that's the biggest thing. And in combination with that is vulnerability. And vulnerability is seen as a negative thing. And the fear of being vulnerable is why we stopped being childish and be crazy and dance around. I mean, a senior, you've seen a little clip of you dancing around in the restaurant, and I was thinking, Yeah, go for it, Brendan have a good time. vulnerability, you're just expressing your craziness and your vulnerability, you're not thinking, you know. And vulnerability actually, is the biggest thing we can give ourselves, the biggest strength is actually to be vulnerable is to be beautiful. So this is a very powerful thing. So to be in your power, but be vulnerable to your own power. I think that's the biggest gap. Brandon Handley 45:50 Yeah, definitely a paradox there. I think that, you know, until you experience it, or you go through it a couple of times, you're not going to understand it. And so definitely, definitely powerful. I agree. I agree with that. Who do? What is our greatest distraction? John Johnson 46:10 I would say, well, the easy answer is the mind. I think our biggest distraction is the we give so much power to the mind. If we give ourselves the permission to be more aware, we wouldn't be so restricted. So I think that I think the mind is the biggest distraction. There's a wonderful quote, which I would love to tell you what it is exactly word for word, and who said it, but right now my brain freezes up. But it's along the lines of, we've created a society which honors the honors of the mind and forgets the soul. And you know, you know, the one I'm talking about, that is such a, such a true powerful thing that we give so much power to the mind. And the thing is, respectfully, the mind does stupid, the mind doesn't know what he's gonna do is waiting for impulse. So we're giving power to something that doesn't know the best for ourself. And then we the the main just flips us all the time, because we give power to something which is actually the passenger is not the driver. So for me, I think the biggest influence we have as our own natural mate, I would say. So Brandon Handley 47:17 how do we avoid that distraction, John Johnson 47:21 but a bucket of water is always a good place to start. Think it's again, I think it's about just being able to break away from the break away from the things that we think we are and the world we're in. I mean, even just taking little sabbaticals, taking a little time off, I mean, that these silent meditation retreat, silent retreats, just something that gives us a break from ourself, and from the environment that we live in and just pulling us away, give us a space just to reflect and just be, because then that space, hopefully we connect with a reality and our truth. And that hopefully will help us wake up that the hard thing is that, even like COVID, obviously, is a really good example where we all get stuck in a sort of teamwork. And we all make choices and decisions that say, I'm not going to go back and do that anymore. And that wasn't good for me. And now we've had the rest that recognize I was working too much. And slowly the water starts to turn, how many of us are going back into the old routine, and many of us are staying true to what we've discovered. So that's what I mean by the, the influence of what we think in demand, because it's what we think we need to do. I think I need to go and work 100 hours again a week. But we're proved that I don't have to do that. But I'm back doing it again, because my main thinks that's important. So I think that's a big kind of paradox. Brandon Handley 48:41 Yeah, no, no, 100% I appreciate that. Well, John, thank you so much for being on and hanging out today. You know, if spiritual listener decides that you are the next spiritual date, where should they go and find out more about you? John Johnson 48:56 And well, the easiest thing is there are very kind of basic website up to I'm not a big social media fan, although I am. I'm I'm trying to allow myself to become a little bit more accessible and available. So these this thing is the website, which is www dot shooter, John johnson.com. And Instagram, it's the natural medium. So the underscore natural underscore medium. So that's, that's probably the two places that I'm more actively aware that as I said, I'm Deb was one of the one of the people obviously contacted us. She's been at me for a long time to say, Come on, you have to tell people you need and I'm going, Oh, God, I don't want to tell people because it's not it's not my thing. I'm happy to do the work I do and I'm happy to do what I do. But I'm just throwing myself out there as Yeah, it's a bit awkward. My lack of vulnerability to that. Yeah, Brandon Handley 49:51 there you go. There you go. You know, you're practicing what you preach. Making yourself uncomfortable. You know, leave leaving leave In the devil, you know, John Johnson 50:01 yep. Keep on walking, you know, that's it. Keep going. Brandon Handley 50:06 I got it. Well, John, thanks again so much for being on today. John Johnson 50:09 Thanks for inviting me and it's been great talking to you, and wish you a lovely day and your listeners. I Intro Guy 50:15 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual dope, and Instagram and spiritual underscore go. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This concludes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brandon Handley 0:00 Hey, what's going on I used to do, I guess we call this BJJ report. I'm thinking of a couple different things as I walk out the door of precision jujitsu here in spring springs city. Let's do that deal is I know there's a spring spring out. Deal is I've been trained in here for a little over a year. And what I'm thinking about are two things, right? One is kind of like attachment slash change. And the other thing that I'm kind of prompted by as a friend of mine, there was a dialogue going on between a couple of my friends around the idea of maybe love without attachment. Which would make me think of kind of love without expectations, right? Love without unconditional love. Right. So those two things. So the first one is kind of like fear of change and initiating change on your own. And what happens in that instance, as I was leaving this morning, and, you know, saying goodbye to a couple of guys and ladies and the instructor, there was a little, little, you know, kind of tuck in my heart for a moment there because, you know, we've all kind of come to known each other over the past past year, year and a half. No, no, some idiosyncratic cities, we played our jujitsu game, and we've helped each other improve, and in some way over over these years, and with each one of these people, for me, like I remember specific moments where they first submitted me, right, where I learned a lesson from them. I think that in jujitsu, the lessons that's where the lessons are learned when somebody catches you, and puts you into submission. And in my mind, I'm like, alright, well, that's I need to learn how to defend that I need to learn how to not get in that position, I need to, there's something there's a hole right in the armor. And so with all these people, and all the addition and the instruction, right, and the way that Ryan instructed the entire time, and I even told him, I said, you know, when I first started, it was funny, because that's one primary move that I got from him, that's not his primary move, which is like a foot lock, ankle lock. And his other one is signature move, I guess would be had an arm choke. And I told him, I said, when it first started, like he did like a month and a half of have had an arm. And it's all good, but like, we got teased and just be like, well, we would be coming from like guard position, or from all the way down at the bottom. And I'm like, well, where's like the three steps, the six degrees to, to had an arm. And so you know. The thing is, is there's a new place is coming up the street, and it's two minutes from me. And, you know, their game is going to be different. And when I was leaving the door, I realized that things were about to change. And things are change has been initiated. And when you're in the middle of change, there's a transition state and I love the word. I love Bardo state, in terms of Tibetan Buddhism, where they talk about this transition state where enlightenment is possible, right? Anything is possible and transition, we'd like to think that we are in control during that transition. Much like when you jump from an airplane with a parachute, you would like to think that you're the one in control of that situation because you have a parachute. You don't think you're gonna die when you jump out of a plane. Right now, I think that we can all be fairly certain. And Steve, the obvious, which is, when you jump out of a plane with a parachute, you have a strong influence over the income outcome and you have a strong influence over that transition state transition state being from when your feet leave the plane of the ground. The plane to when they touch the ground. There's a whole transition state in there. There's the freefall there's the ground the report and letting go. A whole bunch can happen in that in that transition state. So as you initiate a transition, you need you influence I think the out comes by attitude by education by a lot of these other things. But that's what I was thinking as I rolled off the door, and I got my time in with a few of the people. And it's funny because we're all saying goodbye. And I'm like, Well, you know, I'm, I'm attached, I'm not attached, right? I've enjoyed, and I will continue to enjoy their company. This, I think leads into love without attachment. Right? Love without attachment. It's really unconditional love. If you take if you take a second step back. Love with attachment, I think implies that you can only love somebody, as long as they're available for you to love. Right? As long as somebody's giving you the conditions to love them, then you can love them. And you're attached to those conditions which allow you to love them. Right? They're alive. Well, that allows me to love them. Right? If they're past, well, I don't know if I can love them anymore. Right? I'm attached to them. Hurt hurts. But love never, ever hurts. Love is only love and love is like really something that if you allow yourself, that's something that you are. Right, you are love, you express love. And nothing else is required. Right? You either love someone or you don't. And I think the attachment might come from if that person leaves and you might grieve. Grieve, grieve their passing, you might miss them. But that does not take away your love of them. Right. I think that that's how I would probably chase that one down. Yeah, so attachment and love are not synonymous is basically where I would go with it again. You are You are Love unconditional love does not require anything from anybody else. In order for you to do it. Think about your children. Right. I'm thinking about mine right now and how we've got a tween. And now sometimes I might be frustrated with his actions. And sometimes I might be frustrated with his attitude. But I still love them. And he's still a good kid. And I still remember being a teenager asshole. I don't know, when that stopped. Maybe it never did. And that's okay. Like, that's just, unfortunately, unfortunately, unfortunately, I don't know part of the process, right. But that doesn't stop me from loving him, because he's also doing a lot of really good things if I'm gonna withhold my love because he's experiencing humanity. Well, that's not right. And I tell him all the time, he says, You know what, I love you, I think you're a great kid, and I think you're doing I think you're doing amazing things. Thank you for all that you are doing. Right? I try like hell to call that out more often than then. So if you've never had children, trying to think of like, you know, some things that you might love unconditionally. Like your favorite food, your parents, right? Even like loving your loving, loving your family can be hard, too. That's another one where you can love without attachment 100%. And you can love without judgment, your family. And that's, that's another big challenge, because we can spend a lot of our time thinking about how our family members doing things so differently than we are. And if only they would do XYZ, then you know, they wouldn't be in the messenger and now or maybe they have done XYZ and they're ultra successful, and they won't fucking talk to you. Right? And so you're mad at them. But that doesn't mean that you don't love for them doesn't mean that you don't care for them. It just means that you're mad at them. Right? There's There's separation there. And, you know, withholding love over the attachment of them being compliant or complicit with your demands, that they get their shit together and see how awesome you are. Right? It's not on them. That's, that's a limitation that you put on me. And look, I'm certain that I put it up. And it wasn't for the longest time where even even more often than not, I'm like, Well, you know, having to do something, to show the love, I think is like kind of another thing. And the attachment or like, I need to visit moto to show that I care. That's not, that's not true. You don't have to do anything to be loving somewhere. All of those are kind of the fictitious and Maple Leaf and shit that you see on TV or five love languages. Those are the social compliance is programming. We're like, alright, well, you didn't do this. You didn't act the way that Matthew McConaughey did and was it made to marry or whatever, I don't think that you actually love me. Well, that doesn't make sense. And my love tank isn't full shit, you know, I don't know that I've got enough gas where. So those to me are social constructs that somebody else needs from you, in order to feel loved. And again, there's no need for any of that, I don't think in order to feel or be loved. And again, this is more attachment, the attachment aspect of love when you and that's where attachment and desire are the root of all suffering. When we've got attachment connected to anything that we desire, we're going to suffer, we're going to feel suffering, we're going to feel we're going to feel less than we're going to feel like you're going to miss something or them. And again, as I walked out the door this morning, as you initiate change, you're attached to what you've got. And you're you don't know what you may get as the next piece in your life because of change. Hope that hope that you find some of that helpful hope that you're able to initiate change without fear that you're able to initiate change without you know, being attached to a where you are right now. And be without being attached to the outcome. Something in that transition state. That is more beautiful than anything else. I think that anybody in here knows that. We've got an event to go to sometimes the preparation and everything leading up to the event is better than the event itself. Alright, y'all take care. And if you're looking for any more like this, anything else to help? I guess I'll be doing these quite a few more times somewhere. Day six of 90 in total, not in a row. Thanks to the soma breath group, David Lorenz. Played a cat. Where's that? Where's that? I gotta gotta go. There's the X Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Satyen is the founder and CEO of the multi million-dollar transformational academy WarriorSage. Satyen has impacted over 100,000 students from over 50 countries around the world. After 35 years of rigorous study & practice in both creating enlightened business growth and developing higher consciousness, Satyen works privately with CEOs, high impact individuals, executive teams who have mastered accomplishment in the financial and public world, but now want a deeper balance, illumination and self-realized equilibrium that he calls Peak Existence. A remarkable living synthesis of eastern wisdom and western practicality, Satyen combines the power of the warrior and wisdom of the sage to lead leaders worldwide into their highest self knowledge, self-expression and impact. Satyen's elite clientele know they are ready for next level integrated fullness, and a life vibrant with purpose, passionate intimacy, connection, significance and transcendence. If you are ready, Satyen's fearless and heartfelt style will transform your untapped potentialities into strengths and the full spectrum of your life into peak existence. https://warriorsage.com/   Unknown Speaker 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people in general, you're so limited thought process Rest assured, you are not alone. The world is slowly waking up to what you already know inside yet can't quite verbalize. Welcome to the spiritual dough podcast, the show that answers the question you never even knew to ask, but knew the answers to questions about you this world the people in it? Most importantly, how do I proceed? Now moving forward? We don't even have all the answers, but we sure do love living in the question some time for another head of spiritual Brandon Handley 0:36 one. Hey, there's spiritual dope. I'm on here today with our guests. Satyen Raja. He is a co founder with his wife, Suzanne Raja, that founded warrior sage back in 1999. That's the last millennia, right? So it's and they founded it with a mission to activate leaders with powerful missions to bring their dreams into reality. So for the past two decades, Sultana Suzanne utilized her three decades of immersion in wisdom, transformational and enlightenment methodologies to provide hundreds of trainings and workshops, international, Lee teaching 10s of 1000s of students, the art of the warrior, the art of sage and the art of the lover. So Sam, thanks for being on today. Satyen Raja 1:20 Brandon, thanks for having me. You're nice introduction. Brandon Handley 1:24 Awesome. So, you know, I usually like to start this off with the whole ideas outside. And I think you'll appreciate this, that we're, we're conduits for like universal energy, right? And whatever is coming through us today is for the listeners like highest and best good. Right? So what's coming through you today for that listener? Satyen Raja 1:43 Well, it's what you just said that we are conduits, we are the conduit. And one of the foundations of, you know, the philosophy that I am to live by is rather than seek freedom and love. Recognize we are the conduit of freedom and love, we already our freedom and love, we might not remember it, we might forget, look, you and I whoever's listening, we're free enough to step aside a few minutes in the middle of a day, how many people on the planet in the history of the planet, have even the time the energy to do so or even listen to this. So we're in a special category of beings who have the choice to go, I want to learn about being spiritually dope, I want to learn about deepening myself having more prosperity, deepening my content. So means we are already free in many, many, many, many ways. So the appreciation of our current state of freedom is valuable. And we also have to appreciate where do I have love who, where is the love? I have beautiful love with my wife, my family? My, my, my friends? My colleagues, of course, is their lack of stuff is their glass here and challenges here we all will have. And right now the challenges are magnified many fold as we know, from the planet due to all the circumstances. But can we anchor ourselves as love as freedom, rather than neurotically keep trying to seek it from stuff outside of us? Brandon Handley 3:13 Yeah, 100% I love that, right? Recognize really what we already have, and who we already are in this moment. Right? Without having to go beyond that. You know, as you're talking, it's just kind of reminds me of kind of the Buddha's story, you know, regardless of how real or true it really is. But like, you know, the idea of a woman says, saying, I want to be happy. And the Buddha is like, hey, drop the eye and the want just be, you know, happy. So it sounds a little bit like that's what you're saying, right? And again, look, it's super easy to look around and realize what we don't have. And I think that, that as a Western culture, that's what we've been trained to do. Right? With all the marketing and all the things hey, here's all the stuff you don't have you want this, that's what's gonna complete you. And so, so, you know, I love that I love what you're saying. So but here's what's cool about what you're doing right now, you've been doing this for a long period of time. And as you and I spoke about in the beginning, we connected through a mutual friend, lend right, who I've had on a previous podcast hasn't great conversations, and he introduced me to your book that is coming out. Let's see if I've got this in front of you here, the transcendent CEO, and I wanted to talk to you and share with the audience a little bit about what you're doing in that today. So let's just start off with a very thought and the idea of what does it mean to be a transcendent CEO? Satyen Raja 4:41 Well, I mean, a very blessed privileged position to be a guide and mentor, supporter of business leaders, founders, CEOs who are leading socially impactful companies that are here for the greater good. And the challenge with business leaders is we're stuck in an old paradigm of extreme reaction, greed, goal setting to achieve more and more money, more and more market gain. And you know, it's predatory. And it's almost militaristic, the idea of like, going to take over this merger, acquisition all the languaging. And the paradigm is based on a military, energetic and paradigm that is dead. If we keep going down that way, we're gonna destroy ourselves. Business leaders are some we are the most powerful people on the planet more powerful than clergy more powerful than politicians. Why? Because wielding Money, money, whether we like it or not, is a power on the planet. Now, it's not the money that's good or bad, or indifferent or neutral. It's how we use it. And how we use it is based on the depth, the resonance of our consciousness. If we're going to meet egoic state, we're going to how much money we have, we're going to correct continuously be voraciously looking for more. If we're in a weak state of being, which is the next evolution, then it's about sharing collective win win. But even that has a limit right now. The next stage of evolution, what I call the transcendent leadership, and the transcendence CEO is a leader who's become aware of the whole, they've had some type of spiritual awakening, they've had some type of Inner Awakening, where now they feel their symbiotic relationship with the whole existence. It's not a mental thing. They're not reading that we are one, they're not intuiting or hoping that Hey, are we interested, they know it, they got they've had some medicine journey. They've had shamanic experiences, they've had enlightening experiences, which have dropped the veils of separation. And now with that Omni wind consciousness, they're able to make decisions run their companies leave their personal lives, from a win for the whole of humanity. This is the next level. And I believe it's necessity. And those who aren't moving into that dimension are claiming that they're going to die, they're going to die on the vine, because that paradigm is dead. And it's self destructive. And whoever is still entertaining, it is going to reap the benefits, or I should say the destruction of that paradigm. But as you know, what you expressed at the beginning, we are in a whole new era where the transmission, the vibration is calling us into Gaia centric, Earth centric, unity. This is where we're going, this is where we're at, let's drop into it and make a difference with our businesses. So that's the that's the essential essence. Yeah, moving forward, it's about taking the path of least resistance and maximum impact, rather than will will will will willful power. We go from mule, to magician. That's, that's Brandon Handley 7:51 my Ultimate Edition. I like one of the things you threw out there a couple of things you threw out there that I found in the book that also resonated with me was the idea of the Omni win. I mean, I think we we say Win, win win. But sometimes there's a loser in there and looking for those Omni wins in these situations. That's the point we're trying to do. And as you spoke about, we we live in a culture and these corporations that you're talking is the hired mercenaries hired guns, right, you know, that we're talking about a militant state? And, you know, I don't think that you can really approach you know, something that's for the good of all, from a militant stance. Right. And so that's the stuff that you're sharing. And you talk about the Enlightened leader being necessary, right, and how that's going to be the change paradigm and how that's how we've got to move forward. Yeah, my question, I guess is, you know, is that something that you're able to help these leaders cultivate? Or is it something that these leaders have experienced? And then they're like, Well, how do I integrate this new way of being and knowing into my business? Satyen Raja 9:04 That's a great question. Brad needs both. You know, look, COVID has brought the world together. We all sharing the whole world, sharing a worldwide challenge over the last two years. Right now we've got more current challenges, wars, and all these other things going on. But that brought us together in a way seeing our humanity, it doesn't matter if you're the queen or a popper. All of us are vulnerable to these things, you know, and there's a great equalization in it knowing that in the invisible is our faith. Perhaps this is a humbling of our ego. But I think it's a good humbling and I think it's an invitation for all of us to recognize, I'm not even going to feel fulfilled unless what I'm doing. It has a good benefit for more than just myself and my family and my personal goals. It's not about becoming absolutely give everything away and treehugger and, and not have any care for your personal success. It's personal success and plus plus plus. So the paradigm I like to introduce, you know, the old paradigm was peak performance. Let's go from average in a low peak, then remove ourselves and we're able to get more done, be more effective, create more results in a shorter period of time, with more focus of who we are. Everyone focuses on the peak performance focus for too long burns out, I've seen it over and over families burning out, heads, you know, relationships, going through all types of strife and struggle, even when the businesses are going strong. Why because there's not a balance and equanimity and equilibrium of being. And so I really feel it's time that we embrace equilibrium, having a healthy family life, having a healthy body, having a healthy relationship to spirit to God to truth, to enlightened, whatever we want to call it. And then from the wisdom from oversaturation, in that our leadership in business is now wise, it's not extractive, it comes from wisdom. And this is, this is the era we're going into the era of universal wisdom, which I believe is the most important value right now to embrace. Brandon Handley 11:35 If you I mean, if you recall out what what Universal Wisdom means, like, I guess, a phrase or a paragraph, what would that sound like? Satyen Raja 11:45 Wisdom is tapping into the ancient knowing that's within us. That comes from all the wisdom traditions of east, west, north and south. There's things that masters have told us, of every ilk that is familiar, that's resonant. And those ancient wisdoms that our indigenous elders hold our elders hold from all around the world, from all cultures, we've made we've we've put a golden calf on the throne, and that success, money and peak performance, and all these things in that realm. But the wisdom shows us that peak existence is where the diamonds have lifeline. And peak existence is how is my life living, peak performance is you're going towards a goal of having more output more success in one area. Peak existence means I mean, join the whole spectrum of life being with my lady making love with my lady, taking my children out, having fun with my friends, having time to relax, and do nothing and enjoy nature and all the gifts of Mother Nature, as well as being focused on our success. And we're in an era that I've seen with the CEOs, I mentor, where we can truly have all of that without compromising at all the depth of who we are in our integrity. Brandon Handley 13:10 Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, because, again, breaking away from what we've had for the past 100 150 years, right, I think, to your point, we've seen the we saw the fractures and the fracturing through COVID. Or nobody escaped it. Like you said, Nobody got away from COVID. And, you know, what it did everybody experienced the same thing at the same time. Nobody, nobody got away from it. Right. And that burnout, and the willingness to, to try to continue as as though there were no pain, no pandemic here, nothing to see, right, everything. Everybody's everybody keep moving forward. And that really forced everybody to take a real look at themselves and get close and see themselves for who they were, and ask themselves Am I Am I living this peak existence? Like you're talking about? We don't know what's around the corner? How can I? How can I start living a peak existence? And I think that one of the formulas you give in the books is the five pillars right in the five s? Watch. Is there a little bit about those? Because I think that I think that those are kind of core when essential to not just the peak existence of a CEO but for any life. Satyen Raja 14:23 Absolutely. So one of my mentors, Kevin nation's business mentors, he shared with me his philosophy of these F's and and so faith, so I call them the I call them the freedoms, faith, family, finance, fitness and fun course you can add more apps to that. But faith is our spiritual connection to ourselves, our belief in ourselves, our belief in the higher power, our connection to the universe, is how connected we are to the synchronous flow of existence is what I call faith. It's very valuable to cultivate. Family of course, you know, we can enjoy all the riches of life. But if our family life if we're not having beautiful relationship and flow in our, with our intimates with our family members, there's an emptiness of life, there's an ache, because our home base is not there. So fostering and putting family people see which one you put first I go, I don't faith, family finance, fitness and fun. Our threads have a strong rope. Any one of them are weak. If you put pull on the rope, it'll break. Each one has to be healthy faith, family finances. There's a lot of focus on earning. But what about saving? What about spending? What about investing? What about dealing with your money from a place of the doubt that there's infinite, but and that you don't own anything, that we're just a steward of all our belongings and our money as we're here that stewardship energy is a very wise way of approaching it, it takes us out of the ego at faith, family finance, fitness. Our bodies are a vessel for our spirit. When we feel strong and healthy and alive and vital. To make love more, we're seeing more, we're respected more, we feel better about ourselves. And we got more energy to fulfill life, faith, family finance, fitness and fun. This is one of the ones I had to work on is a very focused individual. Now, before that, I would burn myself out years back. Now I make sure in my week, every night every day, I've got fun going on. Fun than this and fun with my wife and with my friends fun with my kids fun by just by myself. So when we have these faith, family finance, fitness, and fun, and we water each one like a garden, they all grow together into 12 into a inter weave into a very powerful rope that's unbreakable. And we can scale that all the way up to heaven. Brandon Handley 17:10 That's awesome. And, you know, I think that one of the things that, you know, knowing about you is a strong background in the martial arts was I think, you know, just has always kept you probably connected into at least some type of reflection, even though at certain points sounds like you, you went real hard, right? And just life in general. And I think that that's just kind of that's kind of the path, right? That's kind of this, this is what everybody tells you, you're supposed to do. Santana go go hard, go strong. Don't stop until you sounds like a Michael Jackson. So I'm gonna stop. So you had enough. But you go strong. And you find yourself you know, looking back and like what was all this for? Because you you find that you maybe you lost touch with your face, you find touch that you maybe lost touch with your family, and the fun. Maybe you've had a success and you're fit but like there's this vast amount of emptiness. But uh, you know, I know that last I read at least you know, you've you've got the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, which I think that as we go, I practiced this myself and I love it. I don't think jujitsu. Yeah, listen without it. Listen, listen, 530 in the morning, you know, I jump out of bed and I make that part of you know, three days, three days a week, it's 530. In the morning, I'm on the mats, you know. And this, I love it. Because there's no ego there, right? There's no ego, you're you can't be in any better state of flow than when you're trying not to get choked. Right. And you know, as we're as we get older, we're still able to do this. And this is another place where we can put into practice maybe slowing down and teaching others Hey, listen, sure, you can go super fast and get it but maybe you're relying on your, your piss and vinegar as it were right. Versus like technique and just a practical, purposeful application. And again, this is stuff that I'm seeing you teach in the transcendent CEO, right. So when you approach are people approaching you or you going to companies and pitching I'm just kind of curious what this looks like from, you know, not necessarily even a business perspective, but how are you being approached and how's this I transcend the CEO reaching the ears of CEOs that might be willing. Satyen Raja 19:22 Most of my clients are all by referral. They've heard me on a talk or heard me somewhere, or I've shared on the stage for I've expressed in a conference. You know, like I invited do keynotes and such and, but, you know, I've been very blessed to have you know, my focus has not been on marketing. So this is for anyone in business. My focus has been on serving my clients so they have exceptional experiences, and results in their own personal lives, which then become a 10 times better marketer than anything I I could write or market or put out in ads and all that. That's because that's me, that's what's worked for me. For me, I just take my heart, my soul, when I have my clients, I want to flush out their dreams or aspirations, I want to take a look at the good, bad and ugly, what's working, what's not, where's their shadow, where's the ship, they don't want to look at and go right for that fearlessly. And then take them there. Why? Because as leaders, we got to we can't bullshit around with our shadows, we got to strengthen them, we got, we can't put them aside and show our shiny successful side. And inside, we got termites in our, in our cart or in our consciousness, right. So because I have that, how can I say, ferocious love to accept only the highest in those I work with, because I know they've got missions that are valuable, I don't bullshit with them. And I believe that my experience has been that attitude of love with fire, with care. Seeing the results in their life, that's where I put all my deepest investment on, and I trust the universe. In the return that results of that. Brandon Handley 21:17 That's awesome. And I love reading some of the stories in the book of you hanging out with Stuart while to write like so. I mean, you've had some really connections with some cool people, you've had this great journey, and you're able to share this with others to, you know, look, create connections to leaders, and oftentimes, you know, I think it's great look, for everybody to experience, you know, some type of enlightenment, some type of awakening some type of spirituality, right, like, you know, definitely connects with your all your five, right, your faith family, you know, but one of the things that I think is most neglected throughout, again, Western culture, and just speaking primarily from experiences face, right, and the spiritual connection, we're like, Listen, I'll get to that, like when I'm dead. Right. Like, I'm willing, I'm willing to, you know, gamble on the deathbed with that one. But I think that, you know, that's, that's too late, personally, and so, you know, having a CEO speak to you, you know, from that level, opens that up for the company, or the people that are, you know, within there to just say, wow, you know, if he's doing it, and he's talking about it, and he's sharing it, I might need to check this out. Right. Is that kind of the idea? Yes, yeah. Let's hear more about it. Satyen Raja 22:37 We follow people we trust, we follow people that are demonstrating lifestyle lifestyles that we value. There's a lot of great operators, a lot of bullshit con folks. There's all types of talk, talk talk. We've got Tech Talks every weekend going on great talks, who is doing the walking? Are we doing the walking? Are we doing the talking? So one of the things is to discern what's a talker, who's great at oration, and who's embodying and living it. My only concern is that we live these ancient principles and where I start, and everyone is invited to this, I believe a foundational start, is awakening to your true nature, the spiritual side. Now, faith to me is not belief in something that I don't know of. Faith is having an experience, of divinity, of union of truth, of that of essence, if you will, of enlightenment, from the experience orienting our life, to become Gerland with the truth of who we are not the identities. The shallowness is of ourselves, or the, if you will, the wobbliness is within our own psyche, but identified with the essence and you know, all the leaders, I take through the coaches that we got different levels, right I have, I've got about 300 coaches in my organization. And the first thing that we do with our clients is we take them through what we call kinjo ke NSHO. That comes from Japanese Zen tradition. And it's a process which helps people dissolve the barriers of what they're not and who they're not, and come into their true nature. Like for the first time, they wake up to know who they are, I am. Once you have that essential experience, everything you do if you're a business leader, you're a father, a mother, an athlete, you're an everyday person working, everything will be far more deeper, harmonious and connected to the universe, because you've discovered who you are. So that's an essential I'm going to recommend and challenge invite everyone to experience Brandon Handley 24:52 so as you would recommend that they check out what Kensho is or do you have something else that would help them to dissolve those barriers, right? Yes. Satyen Raja 24:59 Absolutely, and they can download that free on our warrior sage.com website, we've got three activations one is called fight. One is called the abundance activation. It's a one day complimentary, totally free, no strings attached seminar that you do at home with your beloved's friends, family members. There's another one called relationship activation to really up level your emotional IQ and your skill sets in all relationships, including intimate. And then the power activation is awakening your enlightened power, not the power of the ego, it's dissolving, it's enlightening, and all that's available, absolutely free, you can download it, experience it for yourself, it's less lecture, and it's exact guided processes. So get a friend, family member, a spouse, a child do with each other, and you see the results. Okay. Brandon Handley 25:51 Now, I love that. And a couple things in what you're saying here, too. I don't know if you blanked out and on the I am when it becomes too like who you are. Because it's almost ineffable, right. Like, it's this type of thing where like, you find out who you are. And that's it. There's, I think you talked a little bit earlier in the beginning, there's a there's a knowing, right, there's, there's no disputing what had happened. In that moment of awakening, of accessing realization, activate whatever you want to call, like, there's so many different ways you can do it. But like, once you're there, and you hit it, you're like, oh, shit, right, like everything. There's a big ol, like, everything just kind of moves to the left or whatever, right, like everything. In that moment. Everything is different. And even then, and I think that I think that a big challenge for a lot of people is to realize, you know, the awakening, that's just the start. Pray, I mean, like, the awakening is just like, Okay, you just got here. Thanks for showing up. Satyen Raja 26:59 When we go to bed at night, right, we sleep. When we wake up in the morning, it's not the end of the day, the waking up is the beginning of the day, right Brandon Handley 27:06 first? Yeah. 100% 100%. And I think that there's a challenge to a couple of things that you're saying. It's like, again, not power isn't an egoic sense. I remember. And this was I was just beginning, even just the podcasting and feeling, feeling encouraged to step into myself, right when I am stepping into, say, stepping into my power and talking to peers and said, you know, wouldn't it be great if you could step into your own power into your own greatness or like, wow, I'm not great. And so what is it that is keeping people from accepting the truth of who they are. Satyen Raja 27:46 It's the attachment to the identities that keep us safe, secure, and huddled in the known. Okay, safe, secure and huddled in the known to discover who we are. We have to have the willingness to go I know who I am already. I'm a father, I'm a husband and this and that of that I'm a friend of someone, I'm a son of my father. Those are all identities, all labels, your schooling your education, as you shared when one discovers who they are, it's like a spiritual soul orgasm, a recognition of who I am. That goes beyond words. It's beyond this world beyond this earth plane. There's no words for it. But we can talk about it I can talk about orgasm but if you haven't experienced orgasm, it's so much more than that what can be spoken about even you can talk volumes on it but one experiences profound in the same way waking up or what the Japanese called Kensho or in India Yogi's call it Samadhi in English we can call it the direct experience or the direct consciousness of your of who you are and what you are. So we call it the our I am this we can hear it. You can meditate you can do mantras or I am you can feel the center of I am this but it's not full enlightenment. It's that it's not a full awakening. Brandon Handley 29:17 Right there's a there's like I I consider myself awakened but I don't consider myself enlightened. Yes, right. So I mean, but I would still consider awakened just a different plane than I'd had existed before. Right as no better no worse. And it's look everybody's a Buddha, right? Like I get it like it resides in everybody. But there's still there's still more right? I just wanted to call that out, right? Like I don't Satyen Raja 29:45 in Japanese. In the zip tradition This can show or the initial waking ups. And Satori is a term given to sustain enlightenment which comes after maturation guidance, support or after the initial awakenings that so Satori represents the sustained state. And there's depths of that as well, right Brandon Handley 30:10 now, and I say, I don't know, right, like I'm my first time through. So, you know, so I guess the question I would have to write let's, you know, gain transcendence SEO, I think what you're doing in this is really awesome. Do one of the things that in the book, you recommend to use it as almost an Oracle? Right? You kind of open it. I don't know, if you mean Oracle, similar to like the eaching, you kind of open it and you get to a point, you're like, hey, what's on my mind at work? Today? Think of a reflective question something that's, you know, hard on me, opening the transcendent CEO book and be like, Oh, here's some stuff that I could work on. This is this is indicative of what I'm going through? Oh, here's some answers on how I can apply this. Satyen Raja 30:54 Right? Absolutely. You know, I designed it as an Oracle, anyone who is in business, or you're interested in leadership, or a leader, you're might not be a CEO, or founder, CEO. But we all are leaders, you might be the CEO of your household. You might be the CEO of yourself. Right? So this book goes into these principles, you can open it anywhere can incite reflection stories, wisdom, attunement. So it is like an oracle or an eaching, or a tarot deck. Easier to read that way. That way, you don't have to start getting to the end. Brandon Handley 31:34 For sure, and so of the people that you've shared this with and have worked through with, what would you say, has been the largest impact or Aha, teaching out of this book for for some years. Satyen Raja 31:50 It's what I said earlier meal to magician. tendency is in the wet in the whole world is to be overly willful, especially in leader ship positions, willful willful Drive, drive, drive, keep going take a breather, drive, drive drive, and it produces results. You know, the old paradigm, massive action equals massive results, it's a great paradigm. What we don't hear is also equals massive burnout. Behind the scenes, we don't hear about people exposing Crush It, massive it, right, right. When you say that, you'll end up being crushed, I've seen it over and over and over, every person that continues down that road, always has some backfire a boomerang backlash, some on physically, the relationship, something pans out, they get some they get burnt out, and they don't know what's going on, or they lose their fire. So the paradigm of going from hard work to a transcendent leader is the trans transition. And to deal with that we have to deal with our we have to transform our addiction to doing we have to transform our addiction to control. And, and and when we do that, in fact, the control and the commanding becomes 100 times stronger. You become like Archimedes, you get you're able to lift the whole world up with this with a lever, because you're not using willpower, you've made your internal lever so powerful, right? That's the key. That's a good formula to magician. And that's, I think, the essence of this book. Brandon Handley 33:34 And you've also got, you know, transcendent culture, which is the companion book with this. And to be honest, I haven't had a chance to jump into this one just yet. But, you know, is this where the leader can kind of refer to and how to grow and nurture their, their people talk to us a little bit about the comparison. Satyen Raja 33:52 Yeah, exactly. You nailed it, Brandon. So the transcendence seals for yourself and your own mastery and leadership, transcendent cultures. Now, how do you bring that into your teams, they bring in your family, your team dynamics, whether your team is 2345 or 1000. This we've always sages also chief, a cultural adviser for numerous companies. And we also bring in programs of coherence taking teams that are in chaotic state into coherence in less than two hours. That's powerful. That's part one of our reputations and fame and claim to fame is that we take the most ragtag crazy wild set of discontinuous and chaos filled teammates in a zoom call for two hours, we can really literally dissolve the major obstacles that got in their mindset and get them aligned and coherent and moving forward in a good way. And that to me, I believe human dynamics is the essence of and supporting the Hello in the happiness and the joy of healthy human dynamics in an organization, that's the key to making them grow. And 20 100x, which now I've seen with the companies, I mentor, many fold TEDx as a minimum that happens to them over over the time they work with me. Brandon Handley 35:19 Sure enough, super powerful. And I think that, you know, science is proving out, you know, a lot of what you're saying how you put people in this state of being, you can expect to have these type of returns the, the old fear and, and again, militant, you know, crack the whip or whatever, you know, run them down, run a run to the ground. Sure, to your point, we can get results that way. But, you know, you're gonna toss that one out and go get a new one. Or they'll quit. Satyen Raja 35:44 Right, right. Turnover churn rate. Brandon Handley 35:47 Right? So hey, Satya, I always been awesome. And I love it. I know, we don't have too much more time left. What, uh, what I got here for you is the fun portion of the podcasts. And it's what I like to think about is that this is a little bit like spiritual speed dating, right? Like somebody's gonna tune into Satya as podcasts, they're gonna be like, well, do I feel like spiritually dating site 10. And what he has has brought out for us today. And to that end, I've got a couple of questions, I'd like to ask you, you ready? Please? All right. And I know you're married, but spiritual Bachelard. Number one, you know, why are so many people depressed. Satyen Raja 36:25 They don't know what their true mission and purposes are. They're denying it, or they're avoiding it. Because even when you find what you're what you're really here for, right? And the way to ask, the way to know that is take some time, get a journey going or go for a walk, sit down at a river sit down in nature underneath a tree, pick a few hours, universe, me and my soul. What is mind to do now? What is not mine to do now in the world? Have a sheet write down what is mine to do? What is not mine to do? What is mine to do? What is not mine to do? Do that for an hour or two, you'll get more honed in to your center of what you're here to do when you do the depression will start to alleviate Brandon Handley 37:11 now. And, you know, that's also one of the exercises in the book, if I recall correctly. And so there's more more like that in the book. So thanks for sharing that. You know, then that reminds me to the call of the hero, right? Joseph Campbell's called the hero, right? If you find out what your purpose is, and you kind of reject it, it's just kind of keeps nagging at you. Right? And it keeps following you around. Like I'm still here, you still got your thing to fulfill. We talked about this? I don't know. I'm not a soul contract guy. Because I don't know enough on it. But But soul contracts, right? Say, Hey, we said we're gonna do this. And we showed up. So thank you for that answer. What is the relationship between science and religion? Satyen Raja 37:53 Well, in this day and age, all the lines are blurring, and science, philosophy spirituality are getting closer and closer together. Because we're noticing that universal laws or universal laws, doesn't matter what spectrum you're in. And I believe science. As we go deeper into the quantum mechanic dimension, it sounds more and more closer to spiritual dimensions. And one day, I believe will be a place where there's no distinction, where it's just a universal science that takes into account the observer, the subject, relationship, and all of the whole spectrum of the game. Brandon Handley 38:34 Yeah, I think it's been a lot of fun to watch them converge over the past couple of years. I don't know about you how kind of excited you are. When something comes out. You're like, oh, I can go to somebody and be like, it's not all woowoo here it is. I've got something for you. Right. Satyen Raja 38:49 But some of my top CEOs are like, some of the world's most brilliant scientists, like scientists, AI genius is a biotech geniuses I'm talking geniuses, right? But when they get the taste of the spiritual flavor and the awakening, they're like, Wow, the maturity of their science goes to a whole new level. Wisdom informs science. Brandon Handley 39:14 Sure. There's a correct me if I'm wrong, like I mean, there's a you know, what's the opposite of constriction? Right, there's a release, right? Because they've been going through constricted and they've been going through like, forcing and if they can sit back, release, relax, and I guess you receive, right is kind of how it works out. Well. Hey, Satsang has been so much fun. Is there anything else that you wanted to share prior to sign off today? Satyen Raja 39:39 Well, you know, I'm just very grateful for you your energy, the good work you're doing out in the world. Thank you for sharing and asking me these great questions and everyone who's listening. You're welcome to come to our website, Warrior sage.com. And there's many, many different teachings and interviews with all the great CEOs there a lot of inspiration, and it's just been a pleasure, my friend. And let's let's keep banding together for the greater hole right now. Okay, Brandon Handley 40:04 I appreciate it Santana thanks for being on today. Satyen Raja 40:06 Let's brother be well I Unknown Speaker 40:09 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dope podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co You can also join the discussion on Facebook spiritual though and Instagram and spiritual underscored. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email there Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  MORGANA RAE is an international bestselling author, an award-winning entrepreneur, and a pioneer in personal development for 27 years, putting LOVE first to build wealth and impact. A favorite guest on television, radio and print, Morgana has guided thousands of entrepreneurs, innovators, healers and humanitarians to heal the rift between heart, spirit, and money… to save the world as only they can. (You can find longer bios at www.morganaraemedia.com)   www.MorganaRae.com Unknown Speaker 0:00 Your journey has been an interesting one up to hear you've questioned so much more than those around you. You've even questioned yourself as to how you could have grown into these thoughts. Am I crazy? When did I begin to think differently? Why do people intend Brandon Handley 0:12 to one? Hey, their Spiritual Dope What's up I got a special guest on for you today it is Morgana Rae she is a 20 time international number one best selling author and mentor coach, as he's regarded to be the world's number one authority on relationship with money. Her groundbreaking approach to love centered wealth building has featured her on the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, all the major television networks coast to coast radio and hundreds more. We're gonna fans call her the money goddess, because of the many documented stories of clients manifesting unexpected income of hundreds 1000s 10s of 1000s, hundreds of 1000s even over a million dollars, within hours of changing their relationship with money, a pioneer in personal development for over 27 years, we're gonna write speakers and coaches from a desire to empower idealistic entrepreneurs, artists, healers, and humanitarians to have a big impact in the world and the heal the rift between heart, spirit and money. You know, so thank you so much for being on today. It's funny, because, you know, Wall Street Journal is great, right? Yahoo Finance all the major telecom and the one that of course, gets me I'm like coast to coast. What? So, so awesome to have you on here today. Morgana Rae 1:36 Thank you so much. Yeah, coast to coast was fun. And you get a lot of time, and it's in the middle of the night. So my husband's what was listening from home, because I have to do it on the landline and we don't have any landlines at home. And he says you are breathing really heavily during that interview, because I was just pacing the whole time to keep my energy up. But it was it was a great experience. It's I mean, Toshinori it's amazing. Brandon Handley 2:07 So right, how is this, you know, legends in the field, and that you've been with quite a few other legends as well. But that's the one that that's the one that jumped out at me and was super excited about that. So I usually like to start this off, we're going on with the whole idea that you and I, we are conduits for Source Energy, right? And there's somebody listening on the other end of this podcast today that needs a message that can only be delivered through you through source energy to them. What does that message today Morgana Rae 2:40 the people that I speak to that I'm speaking to right now, like, I'm not interested in the sociopaths, so we're going to leave them out of the conversation. But spiritual people, the do gooders of the world, the artists, the innovators, the healers, the humanitarians, these are the people who have the most painful relationship with money. By the way, you know, very rich people have pain too. And I've coached on the total extreme ends. But I'm speaking really here to the spiritual do gooders who really just want to help. And that is such a different mindset and relationship with money than say, the entrepreneur who is happy as a clam, to make lots of money harming people. I was in a mastermind years ago real mix of people, but I felt very out of place. Because one of the speakers was going on and on about how owning shell companies allowed him to sell potentially defective helmets and potentially defective guns. But if he got sued, he was protected because he owned a shell company. And that's not what I want to bring into the world. That's not what I support. I felt really, really alienated by that. So that's that, oh, do this make money? Yeah, that's an equation, but that hurts. That hurts. For those of us who care and honestly, that mindset is threatening the very existence of human life, and a lot more on planet Earth, the whole like Exxon, hiding all its data about climate change. That by the way, is also not a healthy relationship with money if you are so scared of not making a certain number milestone that you're willing to risk life on earth that is not a place of abundance. So what I want and you You know, I tend to just channel as I speak, and I never ever, like script or plan what I'm going to say, but I do know what I want to teach. And I want to today teach how to get love, and your highest values and your most divine self, and money playing on the same team as partners, not adversaries. So that's, that's what I want to focus on. Brandon Handley 5:34 Now, I love that. And you're right. It's so it's funny. We've gotten to a point now, I think, and you know, the money exchange being currency exchange being an energy exchange, where people can't even say the word money, right? Like I, I'm literally, what I'm doing today is working for money, bless you. And bless you. I think the third time is like you get a wish. Granted, it's the the CIO, is interesting for a minute, because people came to say, you know, I want to work for money says like, oh, well, you know, we're gonna, there's going to be an energy exchange, meaning there's going to be money exchanged, but like, not being comfortable enough to just say, I charge $5. Now, right? And so being able to get that to the point where you say, money is spiritual, and it's not necessarily just a material thing. So I sounds like that's kind of what we get to, or at least get them all on the same plane if it what's your approach there? Morgana Rae 6:39 Well, money, I think really highlights or magnifies what's already there. And where I started kind of my origin story on this path of working with money as a pain door to spiritual growth and personal development, and also clients making a lot of money is that I had such shame and guilt about charging to help people, I really felt like I was taking their money and that was harming them. And that was a bad thing when I really was here to help. And lo and behold, I became really, really good at not making money like, like Olympic medal caliber ability to repel money from people who wanted to hire me. And at my lowest point, I was living in Los Angeles, one of the most expensive cities in the world, a million dollars will buy you a teardown. And I was making $100 a month with half a dozen coaching certifications, a bunch of celebrity clients, mountains of testimonials really, really dialed in marketing and the website and the brochure and the business cards and the tagline and l o ads, and the vision boards and the affirmations, and the local la healers who kind of wave their hands and change your money, DNA and all of it. None of it worked for me. None of it worked for me. I had to get to the secret reason that I was repelling money what was inside of me that was pushing it away intentionally, completely unconsciously. Consciously, I was going to those awful networking meetings and and getting more and more certifications and just taking more and more classes on sales and this and that. And I took a class on overcoming sales objections and I'm like a super good students. So seven people let me get my fingers right seven people in a row. I overcame their objections, which means that they said I can't afford it, or I don't have time. But I really want to there are these like words that you say and I overcame their objections, and I kid you not. Those same seven people did not show up and did not pay. And I sitting here now, I actually don't believe in overcoming people's objections. So I believe in letting people make a decision for themselves. They know what is right for them better than I you know, it's not my decision to make what they can afford and what they can't afford. And I don't like manipulating people I actually tried to talk people out of hiring me and see if they jump over that and convince me then we have a client but that's, that's today. So back there. I hit a really just deep moment of despair. I you know, when I got that seven to no show, that was when I completely ran out of hope. Like I was doing all the metaphysical stuff. I was doing all the practical stuff, and I've been doing it for a long time. And I want to make a point here that if you ever find yourself doing everything you're supposed to be doing, taking everybody's classes real Applying it doing everything you're told to do, and do this. And you do this nears, you keep doing everything you're supposed to be doing and you aren't getting the results that you desire and deserve. It is my opinion based on my own experience and coaching 1000s of clients that you are probably unconsciously protecting us yourself from what you're pursuing. And you're not crazy, you're not a failure, when we dig deep, you will find that you have really, really good reasons, good solid reasons to protect yourself. And we need to make what you want safe. It has to be safe. And it has to align with your values or you will always be like running into a brick wall. And just driving yourself crazy. But it's amazing how quickly and dramatically things change. When what you want become safe. By the way, I just, you know, listening to like, share my bio is always you know, kind of a meta experience to hear somebody, you know, describe you and I had a client a week ago, Friday call me up who went on my very intense spiritual tiny, one week money goddess retreat that I keep to like three to six, sometimes eight women, so that I can coach everybody individually really deeply. And I coached her in September. And she called me a week and a half ago to tell me that she made $1.2 million between September and Brandon Handley 11:44 that's women only, like that's how the guys can jump in. Yeah, Morgana Rae 11:47 everything else I do has guys, that's just the one thing. But so that was like between the end of September and mid February. So I'm not even going to count how many months I think it's like it's not many, a couple million dollars, not a lot. And by and she is a spiritual teacher. So it can be Hi, Mike, I have like a raw food coach multi seven figures, like I get really weird, brilliant people. Even even the like, even the sciency ones, the big the big data lady is also into magic. And there's a data analyst in Australia who talks to dead people. So that's that that's my crowd. Okay, so I'm in this really dark, horrible place, just I don't even want to live anymore because it feel and I'm rushing through this really quickly because I want to get to content and teaching. But when you know what you're here to do, finally, right, and you have this gift, especially if you're a healer or an artist, and you have this gift that has to come out. And you can't make a living at it. It feels like you're being rejected by the universe itself. And it feels cruel, because you're doing everything you were told to do, and you aren't getting it and it feels sadistic and mean, and it's like I don't even want to play. And that's where I was. And I'm speaking to any of you who know what that's like, now, Pastor center? Brandon Handley 13:21 I'll tell you no, it's like, right. I mean, it's, you know, think my first round of coaching was like that. I'm like, wow, you know, I've got all the right things I'm doing. I'm doing all the right things, saying all the right things, Jones the right places and all this stuff, like, you know, and then you know, I guess it gets to a point where definitely a gift has to come out. And like you're saying like, well, universe is rejecting I know, I know, at that point, like I'm doing something wrong, if it doesn't feel like it's an alignment. And you know, the values aren't aligned, and you keep throwing up against the same thing. So what hasn't changed? Morgana Rae 13:57 Yeah, there really wasn't anything left to change in my doing. And so I'm in this place where I can't afford anything. But I still have a coach can't afford rent, but I still have a coach, thank goodness. Because that's what changed my life. Very shortly after hitting this really horrible place, I think it was this the next day, because we're talking now a couple decades ago and every decade it gets a little fuzzier. I had a session with my coach, great guy who had been making suggestions really, really wonderful coach and I would do everything and nothing was shifting and we were like, didn't know why. And that day when I was in such a helpless, sad, angry, despairing place that inspired something in him to come out that just told total game changer. And he asked me this really weird question. He asked me if your money was a person who would your money be. And instantly, I saw exactly who my money was being. And it was this big, scary, dirty, violent biker dude who terrified me. Like, by the way, I always feel like I have to apologize to bikers at this moment. It's not you. It's this this one. Like, stole that the long sideburns and you know, the wife beater shirt and the tattoos, but there was something about him that was just really mean and dangerous that I couldn't be with. And I instantly saw myself at like a live event. So I could have my eye on him every moment hyper vigilant to create maximum distance between the two of us. And that was my lightbulb moment. Oh, my God, that's what I was doing. I was creating distance between money and myself as if money was going to kill me. Completely unconsciously. Because daily, I was taking all the actions I was supposed to take. A friend of mine says it's not your fault. It's your responsibility. Which is awesome. So there's no blame here. But because this relationship is your responsibility, you have the ability to respond and change it. Yay. So it was so clear to me in this moment that this biker, there was no way that I could have money in my life. If it was this guy, it just wasn't going to work. So I had to get rid of the biker, I had to get rid of what I now call the Money Monster. Which, by the way, has nothing to do with money. Like we can start with financial crimes and the experiences scarcity are people who exploit and do terrible things in the name of money or when you you know we can we can start with your own financial traumas are of your family or ancestors, we can start there. But that's not that's, that's just the door. That's just the beginning. What the reason money is such a painful subject, it's so taboo, like we can talk about sex, but we can't really talk about money and numbers. And there's so much shame and fear around it is because money represents really the deepest, deepest pains and challenges and vulnerabilities of being human. It represents love, are we loved? Does the universe love me? Am I wanted value am I valued? What is valued? What are my values? Its value? And bottom line safety? Like? Do I even get to exist? Am I treated like a human being can I eat? Can I get medical care? Do I have a right to exist? Is the world a safe loving place that values may or not, that is exactly what money represents. And so that's where you want to dig up the root cause of this Money Monster. So I have I didn't know that at the time, I had to kind of figure it out and reverse engineer it. So I could do this for other people later. I just happened to be in that horrible moment of experience, which made it very easy. So Brandon Handley 18:34 yeah, I mean, you are in the ultimate survival mode, right? You're in the ultimate survival mode or your quote unquote, like rock bottom. And, you know, I always talk about the difference between, you know, the people that are at the rock bottom, they have nothing left to lose, or the guy won't go try this other thing, right? It's like the Janis Joplin song, nothing left to lose, right? And then you've got two healthy normals, right? Which are the people that that are that are there, okay, where they're at, but they're not okay, right. They don't want they don't want to change it. But like, it's sometimes it's easier to lose everything so that you can go for exactly what you want. Morgana Rae 19:10 Well, I believe and I call my process alchemy, like, you know, so, law of attraction, fans take a deep and cleansing breath. You'll get to have your positive thinking in a little while, but right now, it's not going to help you. It'll keep you stuck. So what we want to create as maximum polarity alchemy is the transmutation of lead, lead in human experience into gold. And the first thing we have to do is separate them completely and focus only on the lead and it's like a slingshot and it creates a tension that catapults us where we want to go but first we have to go really, really deep into the lead into that experience that we don't want to have, because that's what motivates change. And when you're in neutral Reality I call it money mode. It's kind of you're stuck. Can we change? Yeah, but first we have to dig, we have to dig a lot deeper into your reason to need to change. So that is the, like, glorious, sacred opportunity of these these hard moments. And that's where I am, kind of take a different tack than the way Law of Attraction is taught. I'm not saying hi vibes only I'm saying, Let us you know, low vibes are part of life, they are sacred, they're useful, they actually have a tremendous power in them, if we use them, you've been through the experience, let's not waste it, don't come back another life and have to do it again. Let's get it now. And just milk it for everything, every every drop of wisdom and enlightenment, and empowerment and evolution that we can get from it. So you know, go deep, and then make it into this really human real monster that has no good, because this is what we're going to change. And it makes it more real when it's a person. We can talk about ideas for years and years and years, we can make lists of negative beliefs about money, so what but when we talk about relationship relationship is between people, even if that other person is your cat or your dog, you know, it's it's personal. There's there is back and forth, it has to feel that way for it to be real and relatable so that we can change it to have a real reference. So that's step two is making making the root cause the wounds anything that made you feel unsafe and loved unworthy things, maybe you're ashamed of maybe violence or accidents, especially things that illnesses especially things that don't look obviously like they have to do with money. I find that's really the best place to look. And then you then you imagine it's that that there is this person who is responsible for all of it. It just can't be your parents and it can't be you because in step number three, and this is what I developed since I went through my own shift first time decades ago, I found it more effective with clients that if instead number three, you obliterate you obliterate the beast, by any means necessary. So hello, Love and Light crowd. I know you're all vegans. With yoga mats, I know it. And I invite you to be as violent and overdramatic, and and thorough and complete in destroying the monster because at the end of the day, this monster will destroy you. There can only be one my mother loved Highlander. So there can only be one, there can only be one. Let's make that you. Yeah. So rid of it. Brandon Handley 23:15 Yeah, real quick, just just just second, just pause as we go along for a second, as you're talking about, you know, creating this maximum polarity and going into the alchemy. I mean, there's a lot of energy stored and pent up energy in these areas. And you're talking about going to, right? And then you know, are you talking about transmuting that like you know, energy into into this right into the things Morgana Rae 23:38 like the fire, it's like the fire in the alchemy lab. So our victim experience which I think you know, it's like I don't want to be there. But it's part of the human experience and if you've been there and I have been there then the you want to use it. And I in my experience, the victim experience tends to feel very heavy it's kind of got a heaviness a coldness of dampness if we're gonna get all like touchy feely about it. But what helps you rise up from that victim experience and set boundaries and say no, like Monty Python Thou shalt not pass? Is is that like that slain that flaming torch and we have all these beautiful spiritual archetypes we've got Durga in India, you've got St. Michael in the West, you know, just slaying ignorance. And we're only we're not killing anything that has a corporeal form. So you just want to embody that that like Kali, flare of ignorance. I also loved Shiva, I got my degree in religion, I was really into Indian religion so and just destroy this embodiment of everything that He does not get to move forward in your life, like everything that you do not want to allow in your life experience. You put that in the monster and you reject it in this very dramatic, like Lord of the Rings playing the orcs fashion. And that's the first half of the process. Brandon Handley 25:24 I mean, sounds good, right? And definitely a bunch of terminology I certainly understand. Right. You know, so we're making we're making this monster and we're we're personifying it. Right? I think anytime we in stories, right, we personify, there's a need to personify so that we can are able to relate to a lot easier. And that's what you're doing when you create this Money Monster and personify it. So that, right, Morgana Rae 25:51 and it makes it a lot more specific, and unique and personal to you. This is your monster. This is not some generic everybody's monster, this is yours. And this one is focused on you. So it's very personal. And the way to take your power back is is that third step of destroying the Money Monster. And then when the monster is gone, yay, there's a new situation. When I first got rid of my monster, yay, I really and and I had this experience of oh my god, there's this feeling of emptiness. Like, I've had this omnipresent monster Dude, my whole life around me that I never felt it, it's like you know, air, but when it's gone, you really notice, and nature abhors a vacuum. So I didn't know to destroy the monster then. And I was afraid it was going to come back. Or some like random Money Monster strolling down Sunset Boulevard was just going to get sucked into my vortex. So I needed to fill that spot. Immediately. Instantly, as soon as the monster is gone. Now we have a new problem slash opportunity, which is we need a new relationship. And it needs to be completely the polar opposite of what we had. Now the lucky thing is when you've slayed the monster, and you have slayed and obliterated and rejected everything that you do not want in your life experience, only one thing remains and that's love. Like that's it, that's all that is, is love and expressions and manifestations of love. So when I thought to myself, well, who could I have in my life that I would want so much that I'd be willing to have this relationship even if it's money because money has been very hurtful and scary in my life and I don't want to get into that kind of thing again. So I instantly luckily visualized in that moment just kind of showed up ready made. Who showed up with this tall dark handsome romantic young man carrying a bouquet of red flowers dressed in a tuxedo as if he wanted to take me out and he was very romantic and very loving and very in love with me and wanted to woo me which was is actually the character of this relationship is that it feels like love relationship love comes first before the cash and I have found over the course of coaching so many people that a lover dynamic usually is best best for a number of reasons on a spiritual level you're both equals your your honey this new relationship the money honey, you can you can break his or her or their heart you know, it's not rescue me money, you know, its partners, which is really healing and it kind of heals all those broken unloved bits inside of us. And because I also know that many of us have had really, you know, terrible sexual trauma, maybe a sexy money honey isn't the place to start. So the first rule is that this new relationship is really really safe. And that this person loves you. Loves you exactly as you are loves you more than anybody in the world. And this is somebody that you want to be with and have in your life as a partner because this person is worthy of your deepest love and admiration. shouldn't trust and it's just cool to be with someone nice, safe, you feel loved and you love back. That is step four, that is meeting your money, honey. So when I met mine, and I was aware of wow, this is so weird. This is like Money loves me, which is completely different than my lifetime experience and nothing that I expected. But he felt so vulnerable. And I could feel how much I had been breaking his heart for years by pushing him away. Like, I, I was the one hurting him. It's like, wow, I don't want to do that. So as you're not ill, it was actually me, I and this is really important. Unbeknownst to me, I've always been the gatekeeper. It's like, it's like Judy Garland and Wizard of Oz with the red shoes, like, you always have the power. But you had to go through this experience this Initiation this portal to find it because it's part of your evolution. So when it became safe, then I had the power. So but I knew he wanted to stay with me. But here's the kicker is I had no experience and how to allow this money to stay with me the way he wanted to. So I asked, that is the greatest thing about having this hot, sweet, adorable loving fun money, honey, of the money per episode, an American imaginary person as I can ask and get an answer back. So I asked him what he needed. And that first time out, he said he needed me to love him and stop treating him like a monster. And I thought, well, that's fair. What does that look like? Sure. And so we talked about it, and we I made a commitment to him. So step five, is you have the conversation with your new relationship with money. And Step six is you take concrete, measurable action. And this is what I committed to him was that next time you brought me a gift, I would say thank you. And that would look like if somebody wanted to hire me, because that's generally how he was trying to give me gifts. I would say thank you by saying this is my fee without any shame. With that feeling of appreciation, as love, and I got to try it out really quickly, because four people called me the next day and hired me for double what I'd ever charged before. Yeah, Brandon Handley 32:35 that's amazing. Would and it is right. It's kind of like that paradox, right? Where you're talking about having all that energy there, that Money Monster was kind of made me almost like a money bodyguard. Right? You know, you can look at it kind of any other way. But like now, she says she doesn't want any, you know, right. And then and then as soon as you know, you took a different different approach. And he said, you know, let them all in, you know, and, you know, but real quick, another one, you mentioned a couple concrete measurable actions, what, you know, and to me that, I think about, like, you know, numbers and timeframes and anything like that, but you said, You made him a promise, right? Something different. So what would be like another one or two concrete measurable actions? And we'll do that. Yeah. Morgana Rae 33:22 So for me, it was all accidental. And so I'm a lot better with the people I coach, I was just sort of like, oh, this is, you know, Oh, it worked. And then, and then I had all these clients, and I wasn't marketing the money stuff at all, but they were human beings, which meant that money came up. Because money is honestly the number one excuse that we human beings give for everything we can't have, do or be. So that's why and that's the only reason that I focus on money in air quotes as my pain door because the work really isn't about money. But it is fun when people like Anna call and you know, tell me that they that she made the $1.2 million or Perry made they made over $12 million. The big numbers are you know, kind of stand out so concrete measurable action, this is fun. Because when you're asking your money, honey what he or she or they need from you or want from you or you know, just whatever that conversation is. The answer that comes back is typically very wise and impossible to execute. So it'll be love yourself. Or trust yourself. Or the worst. Relax. Never ever, ever tell a woman to relax That's, that's bonus. That's Brandon Handley 35:02 yeah. It's funny how many times you hear it, but you still can't figure it out. Morgana Rae 35:12 So very cool, good, aspirational ideas. And nobody can love themselves perfectly 24/7 For the rest of their lives, we want to have a win. Also, I believe that if you want physical, concrete, tangible, measurable change in your life, then you want to take some kind of concrete, physical, tangible, measurable action, because it's kind of pulling it out of the ether into the physical realm, energetically, and you are teaching yourself and the universe that something has changed, but you want to give some kind of physical representation as sort of the little nice bow on top for any active magic. So what I suggest is you just start brainstorming with your money, honey, you don't have to know what the answer is, because you've got your partner here. And if you're really tuned in, and this person really feels real and present and yummy, and you're excited, then it's going to be easier to get communication back. And for some people, you can just do it in your mind. Some people it's I have a client right now a guy you know, some people think I only coach women, but I also coach guys. He's very kinesthetic. He's very in his body. So writing works better for him. So you just like Neale Donald Walsch, you know, Brandon says that don't turn up money, honey, that you just write it out. However it is. But so what you're looking for as you just sort of spit out ideas is how your honey response in my experience, like it's, it can come out really quick and easy and fast and quiet. And sometimes it's so quick and quiet that I can pretend that I didn't hear the response. But you learn how to how to dialogue with your money, honey, and you learn how to recognize his or her response. So what you're looking for is the thing that really lights your money honey up and what is very, very common with clients is clients love to be like good students. So very often, the first thing that will come out is I'm going to make 30 sales calls a day and I can just I just want to like collapse and like dig a grave right in that moment. It just feels so heavy. Yeah, I mean, what's happening there they they're in there, they're using their conscious mind and they're doing what they think they should do. But if they run it by their money honey that's not turning their money honey on the money honey doesn't think that 30 phone calls a day is going to be fun unless the money honey does but so far, I haven't seen that yet. Brandon Handley 38:20 It's funny though, too. Right? And sorry to interrupt, right because this is exactly the question and like I said when you said you know this measurable action that's exactly what I'm thinking Well, I gotta go 30 calls a day I gotta do this thing. I got to trudge and grind my way through it and my money on he's over there like keep going your mule Morgana Rae 38:40 Yeah, but see that usually is more of a Money Monster Energy. So this is this is what is so fun about coaching and every human being being different. So I've might question that we might find out oh, that there's still some Money Monster left or maybe the money honey just doesn't like that. And we just we keep going. And so things it can be something obvious like do your taxes get that out of the way and my client will tell me oh my God doing my taxes felt like foreplay I'm like great but also sometimes it's something completely unrelated to money my client Katie curtain and this is public. It's you know, I've got I've got the she let me like record and sell the audio was actually on a public teleclass and then she became a private client afterwards. But so the first time we slayed her Money Monster, she had her money honey, her money honey, really lit up at the thought of her going skating in December, in Canada where it's really really cold, but that's what her money honey wanted. So she says She was going to do it. And then she didn't do it the first day, because she was so stressed about money. And there's so much to do. So she didn't do it. Day two, didn't go skating because she was so stressed about money and debt and all that all that she had to do, nothing happened. Day three, she went skating, she took her 10 year old little boy with her, they had this amazing time, this amazing heart connection, she came home, she got a phone call, and somebody gave her $10,000 without her even asking. And that was the beginning of the journey. Janet brockmeyer also very, very similar story, her money, honey wanted to go walking, but she's too busy trying to get clients for a week. Finally, she went walking, and she picked up two clients at more than she'd ever charged before. I have a client whose money honey wanted her to stay home and do laundry, and she got a phone call and a $20,000 client. So it can be about money, or it can be about something else. It can be self care, you know, is is very attractive to money, healthy boundaries, very attractive to money. Sometimes my money honey says, You know that thing you've been putting off? It's time to do it. Okay. Right. Brandon Handley 41:12 Now, you know, you said Law of Attraction earlier. Right? And, you know, it feels similar in that some of these actions are in alignment with like, kind of what we really want to be doing, but we're letting money be the monster that it is and saying, Well, you can't do that right kind of thing. But in law of attraction, in some circles, right? It's like, do the thing that makes you feel good, just go do that and feel good? Or like, Morgana Rae 41:42 yeah, go ahead. Sometimes. Back in 2007, I thought it'd be a really cool idea to go on a book tour. And by the way, at that time, my book might at that time, my publisher was OfficeMax. Like, now I've got a real book. And you know, Walmart carries it. But back in the day, my publisher of record was OfficeMax, sometimes Kinkos, the dependent on where I was. And I had booked a cross country book tour, where I was speaking at like, all these mystical bookstores up and down the west coast on the East Coast, a little bit in the middle and doing radio shows. And it was really, really cool. Until it was approaching. And then I didn't want to do it. All I could see was I was spending so much money on airfare and housing and rental cars with no guarantee of making a penny back. And I just didn't want to do it. And my money, honey said, you're going to do it because you said you're going to do it. And I did it. And honestly, I completely sold out my inventory. At my first speaking gig. It was, I think, some kind of like, conscious living speaking conference in San Francisco. And then the next day, out of the blue, I suddenly had a TV interview in Sacramento and I and I honestly made more money in that in those few weeks than I'd ever made before. But I had no I didn't know that I would. And it really came down to you don't know what's going to happen because that's life. Like, I never predict what's going to happen. Sometimes I can see something but most of the time, especially with sales, I don't predict that. But yeah, my money How do you said do it even though I didn't want to do it? That's integrity. Brandon Handley 43:46 Yeah, I'm in with that. Right. Like, you know, the Four Agreements type of thing right sounds and you had to do what's your own integrity with but also sounds like sounds like Your Money Monster was showing up because you were starting to worry about like, you're starting to worry about you know, spending too much I'm doing all this and I know money honey, I said we'd go out again, but not right now. Now. I suppose you're taking for a nice steak dinner. But you know, what a mind in the pennies or whatever. And so it sounds like kind of like that's what showed up and but you went ahead and you listened. You got that guidance. And you know, it kind of opened up and it shows you that. Go with it. Like yeah, we don't know what's gonna happen. And that's what I love about sales too, right? Because they'll sales always like, we want linearity. Show us. The lines going up. You're like, well, how we'll do it. Morgana Rae 44:38 Yeah, well, I love the way you put that because yes, sometimes you just have to decide. You have to decide who do I choose to be in relationship with. I did this teleconference back in 2007. And it was the first big one that I'd ever really done. And I had the speaking gig in Norway. I was single at the time, and I had As fantasy this is totally not related, but I have this fantasy that I go to Norway and get to say something like, Why yes, Hans, I'd love to see your long boat. So that yeah, that's how I was making business decisions anyway. So I have this big figs speaking virtual gig on a huge platform, and I was the best I've ever spoken up until that moment, right. I was like, really on and I was making, I was making an offer like a ridiculously underpriced offer. But it was stretchy for me at that time. And then no sales came in. And my shopping cart crashed. In retrospect, I think that probably so much was coming in at that time that it completely crashed, and I wasn't getting any orders. And I felt so betrayed. So betrayed by money, because I just spent the last 90 minutes talking about what a great person your money honey is, and how you have to be a great business. Or sorry, a great a great relationship partner. And, and then he did this to me, and I was cursing him out, like, so angry, so hurt. And what was even worse was it didn't upset him. He just thought it was funny. He was laughing. And, and, and he said, we'll turn it into an opportunity. And I'm like, oh, and he says you'll figure it out. And I had this instant moment of self awareness that cursing out my money, honey may not be the embodiment of being a good relationship partner right now. So you're Brandon Handley 46:45 hanging out with Hans Morgana Rae 46:46 Fu Fu so I like pulled up my big girl personal development panties and, and said, okay, okay, I'll look for the opportunity. But I want you to know, I'm really, really mad at you. And the next day, I got a phone call from the host of the class that I taught for this huge personal development company, who said, Oh, my God, that was amazing. I had never thought of money as a relationship, which is hysterical, because that is their signature product, its relationship with money, that whole company. And I'm, and she's saying, and I'm sharing the recording with everybody in our office. So I'm glad. That's wonderful. And like, my little antenna starts to perk up. I wonder if there's an opportunity here. So I tell her that, like, my shopping cart went down, and I'm pretending to have a sense of humor about it. And she goes, Oh, that's terrible. And I go, but can we do about it? What can we do about it? And she said, and she said, Well, I will just send out the replay to our audience of 500,000 people, would that be okay? And I thought, yeah. So it went out to 500,000 people. And my sales were far more than they would have been had all this drama and broken shopping cart nonsense, far more than it would have happened. Like, you know, just long term clients. Yeah, totally covered the trip and all that kind of stuff. And it was a really good learning moment for me. Sort of so you can actually have a fight and still be loved. You have to choose Are you going to have a relationship with your money honey, your Your Money Monster, you don't know what you're gonna get with your money, honey, but you do know what you're gonna get With Your Money Monster and you know, you don't want it. And things can turn out far, far better on the other side of what looks like a mess, right? So you just have to, you know, you just have to stay in relationship, like a real relationship, stay in communication, and keep putting love first. Brandon Handley 49:07 What's it look like? I guess, to have that ongoing relationship, like I guess, you know, are you writing notes on the daily be like, hey, you know, money honk money, honey, you know, to hear what's going on, you know, do we send notes to each other? What's the ongoing communication process like? Morgana Rae 49:29 It's gonna be different for everybody. I have a client named Athena who goes on God walks and she just has conversations with her money, honey out in nature, and it's been really supportive for her in first financial stuff. She went from being in mountains of debt and in a bad marriage with two small children just kind of making $100 here and there with psychic reading gigs to making 10s of 1000s of dollars a month in about five months. And then her Honey, honey said I don't want you to do that anymore. I want you to focus on music. So she's been on that other journey and her money honey has been there in terms of like getting married and her money honey has been there when one of her children tragically was killed. And she had to ID the body. And she said she couldn't have done it without our money, honey. So it's a it is a spiritual journey. She doesn't walk in what I do, what is my easiest way to like get the most value out of the relationship and stay connected daily is I have a practice of every day answering a bunch of questions that I created for myself. And some of that is in my book. What is not in the current iteration of the book, but I think I want to add it is I like to share what what are my challenges actually, there it is, in the book, I'm on a on a weekly a weekly thing, but I do a daily now, which is what is challenging need, what do I have? Do I have any negative thoughts is like the best way that by the way, my negative thoughts, it's almost like a turns my money honey on because it gives him you know, something to do. Right? He wants something to do. So if I, like come out with that, you know, saw I'm not good enough, I'm gonna fail at this. Nobody loves me. He'll respond usually first by laughing and tell it and then giving me whatever message like I need. And that's my favorite practice for staying in daily relationship is kind of flipping my own negative defaults. And then hearing my money, honey, it's sort of a trick or a hack for accessing your highest wisdom without all of your neurotic baggage attached. Now, it's also like if I making it this other person, then this beloved, right? And it's kind of flirty, right? You know, he's just he thinks that my insecurities are adorable, by the way. So this my husband's like, they are so similar. Brandon Handley 52:22 I'm glad, I'm glad it's continued to work out. And definitely, it's definitely quite a bit in here that you've shared. There's plenty more on your website, you've got your books, podcast, plenty of other podcasts and audios. And what we'll share out some links at the end here. But is there anything else right in this moment that you'd like to share? If not, I've got just a little little bit that we do. And then and then we have to towards the end? Morgana Rae 52:44 Oh, yeah, I have a really fun, non scary, easy quiz on my website, my money love quiz, that I encourage you to start there if you don't know where to begin. Because all it there's, you probably have figured out I'm I'm really not into the judgey Shamy thing. I believe we are all on the same journey, which is to a life that is focused completely on love, lifestyle and legacy. And the only purpose of for money to exist is to serve love, lifestyle, and legacy. And when it serves anything else, that's when problems happen. So we're all on the same path. And so this quiz just kind of it helps. It helps you identify where you're just really super strong rockin it, where you need support. And based on your responses, it lets me know what to send you. Like, instead of just giving everybody in the world the same gift. It's like, Oh, why don't you listen to this? Maybe this is where you need to go next. And so that's that's the quiz on the homepage. Brandon Handley 53:59 Very cool. Now, thanks for sharing that. That will be beneficial. I love that you send out something that is actually not just like, hey, thanks for thanks for filling this out. Everybody gets one of these right? Says personalized little bit. These tend to degree that they're answered. So we'll definitely send people there. And if you've got just a couple moments here, then what I always liken this to this podcast, who's kind of like spiritual speed dating, right? Like somebody's tuning into the podcast, and they're like, I'm just looking for my next vehicle speed day, who am I gonna spend like, because, you know, I think you know, in the world of marketing to like the average time that somebody spends about 90 days like kind of listen to like certain podcasts before they move on or this day, right? So it's a speed date. And you're my spiritual bachelorette of the day. So spiritual Bachelorette number one. I think this one, this is a good question for you. Why is there poverty and suffering in the world? I think Morgana Rae 55:02 people are fundamentally just as sentient beings. We're frightened. And because we're frightened, there is a tendency for some people to hoard. I don't think, you know, oligarchies with all these resources beyond whatever they need. They are very, very frightened people. It's it. And I think this is why we have poverty and suffering, because we have the resources, we have the technology. But there's a there's a very tribal, a very ancient wiring, in our belief system, that we have to be separate from others. And we have to have more than others. And it shows up in lots of different ways. You know, religious wars, racism, sexism, fear of otherness, fear that there won't be enough for us. And I think that's where it all comes from. And the solution is, it's so individual, it's systemic, yes, but all systems begin with individuals, is we have to work on ourselves first. And it always, always, always boils down to I am enough, when I am enough, it is possible for me to have enough. When I not enough, everything in the world is never going to be enough. And that's that's the real world work that needs to be done. Brandon Handley 56:44 Nothing that's powerful. A couple of things now, right sounds like, you know, part of it's just like this, this heritage, right? It's it's been kind of handed and people just aren't breaking the chain, right? Be like, well, this works, especially if they're rich, right? Like, well, this worked before. And we all say rich, I'm gonna keep doing it. Right? Let's keep this Let's not break this chain. And then the other part, right? I am enough, are idea of things folks who earlier, right? The money equals our value, I don't see a bunch of money. So I must not be worth a whole lot type of thing. And really just kind of changing that other game, you're like, Well, you know what, actually, I don't need the money to show me my value. And as I begin to see my own value, understand that I'm enough, I began to see more money, right? It's kind of it works a little bit in the reverse. And then I think that we've been taught, that's been my experience anyways, right? And, you know, you talked about the vacuum, sometimes it's just like, as a bag up and somebody acts it up, and then that's great. Right? So that'll happen. And so it's pretty interesting to see that happen, especially when we when we talk about our worthiness and our value. And we we tend to relate that worthiness and value to how much am I doing? And how hard am I working? Right versus your enough, like, you don't have to like, you know, I don't know, sacrifice your all of who you are, to get what you want. So, Morgana Rae 58:07 like the wealthiest state of being, is when you don't need to prove anything right. Brandon Handley 58:13 Now, I love that. I love that one more here for you. Because I think that it relates to what you're saying. In you mentioned about people being frightened, right. So when they're frightened, you know, that to me would indicate that that's preventing them from living to their full potential, what else would be keeping people from living to their fullest potential? Morgana Rae 58:34 Well, I actually I had this image when you were talking about being frightened, because like, one of my favorite topics is the connection of love and money. And one of the unintended consequences that I found of my work early on, which is my favorites, is that when people heal their relationship with money, their love lives get better. So women, when we're frightened, we become really like hard and protective and masculine and we have our armor up and we're like, we want this that that and we're not going to settle for anything less and we're like, and gods are like, Oh my God. And men when they slay their monster what is so beautiful is like, you can see it in their shoulders. They're like this and and, and they they become the heroes they've always wanted to be. And so while women when they when they need their money, honey, they may be like, Oh, I can finally finally relax. Now it's safe. I can just wrap myself in my money honey arms and, and be supported now in this moment. And for the man it's like their money, honey. It's like you slay the monster for me. You're my hero. And he's like, Yeah, I am. And so he becomes really attractive not just to money, but to romance. And the same for women. And that that is, I think, my happiest favorite effect of the work because it really ultimately, is. It all boils down to our relationship with life. Are we safe? Are we wanted are we loved? Brandon Handley 1:00:17 Awesome, we're gonna thank you so much for coming on today. Now I know we can send them to take the quiz, folks, where should we send them to connect with you? Morgana Rae 1:00:27 Morgana ray.com Just my name with a.com at the end that is the mother ship that has my video series that has the quiz that has my book that has hundreds of articles and videos and you know my programs and if you want to, like run off to Bali or Mexico with me for a week and become a money goddess, that's where you'll find it too. Brandon Handley 1:00:50 Awesome. Thanks so much for being on. Morgana Rae 1:00:53 My pleasure. Thank you for having me. I Unknown Speaker 1:00:56 really hope you enjoyed this episode of the spiritual dove podcast. Stay connected with us directly through spiritual dove.co. You can also join the discussion on Facebook, spiritual and Instagram and spiritual underscore Joe. If you would like to speak with us, send us an email Brandon at spiritual dove.co And as always, thank you for cultivating your mindset and creating a better reality. This includes the most thought provoking part of your day. Don't forget to like and subscribe to stay fully up to date. Until next time, be kind to yourself and trust your intuition Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brandon Handley 0:00 So there's a story about a farmer, and Africa. And he wants to go seek his fortune. He's really tired of feeding his sheep taking care of his sheep and wandering them around all over the place, and making sure that they're taken care of. He doesn't feel any type of gratitude, and he feels like everyone he talks to. They're finding diamonds, they're mining diamonds, and they're making their fortune. So one day, he decides, you know what, I want to sell my farm, I want to go and seek diamonds. Myself, I think that I think that I should be seeking diamonds, as well. And so he finds a buyer, he finds a buyer for his farm, finds a buyer for his farm. He's all happy he prepares himself gets his money provisions. And he heads out to seek his fortune. Years go by the farmer, He's happy. He's enjoying his life. And he keeps seeking his diamonds. He knows that one day he'll find them. The person who just bought the farm, He's happy. He's always wanted to be tending to sheep. And he's always wanted his own farm. They both have what they're looking for. And the farmer who has bought the farm, he's able to now sit and enjoy his life. Meanwhile, the farmer turned minor. He's out there seeking, he won't stop seeking, he continues to look everywhere he can in order to find these diamonds. Here years go by the farmer has been successful with his farm. He's had his herds. He's, he's enjoyed his life. He has enjoyed the farm that he bought. And he's enjoyed raising animals here in them and providing the community providing for the community. The Miner never quite found the mine that he was looking for. He never struck it rich, he never found the diamond field that he was looking for. And on this very same day, as the miner was passing away, leaving this earth, the new farmer, the farmer that I bought the property that had lived his life of serving his community. With the farm that he purchased, he stumbled across a rather odd looking rock and his stream next to his farm. A pens down he picks it up, because I wonder what this is. And he goes and he takes the rock takes it over to somebody who specializes in stone genealogists or whatever. And that guy's like, wow, you have found an amazing diamond. That's an amazing time and so on this very same day that the minor passes away. And he turned turns out that the farm that he had sold had been what he was seeking all this time turned out to be exactly what it was he'd been looking for his entire life. On the name of that story, it's a I think there's a real long book on that one name of it is called diamonds in the backyard, you've probably heard me talk about it before for I think about it offense. I think about it often. I want to take this camera a second here today. I'm literally how far away am I from my house? I have no idea how to get the camera here. Let me see if I can do it. So it turns out that we always hear without touch turn like that, right? We kind of always have what we're looking for, even though we don't know exactly what that is. Right? For me. I'm always like man, I would love to have a place to stream I'd love to have a river. I would love to have all these things. I'd love to have a great yard where I can just you No, go take the kids and go play an open field health field. Even cooler is if I didn't have to take care of it. Right? If I had a gardener, right, and not even that, I think that's another one of the things that when you think about it, not even not even not even that. Because if I think I need to have a gardener, and if I think it's gonna be in a specific way, that's all that's the only way that I'll ever see it, because the only way they'll ever recognize it. Now. Here I am today, I just shared some pictures with you sitting over here, right next to the school river. I am alone as can be. And it's just absolutely gorgeous, beautiful day. And this is about two minutes from my house. Two minutes were renting, right two minutes from where we're renting, because we didn't want to buy right now. And within two minutes from where we're renting, there's this park right behind me, which you can't see because I'm behind the barrier, which nobody comes down here. I'm sitting on a riverbank. And at this park, there's a volleyball net, there's a wide open field, there's a pavilion, there's electricity, there's 5g, I'm right next to the river I'm in I've got exactly what I've always been looking for, except for I always thought that like it had to be done in a certain way. I've got x, I can use this river anytime I want to go fishing, do whatever I want. And so it brought to mind the story of diamonds, diamonds should get for hanging out by the water. It brought brought to mind that story of diamonds in your own backyard. Because there's a good chance that you want something that you've already got, there's a good chance that you feel like it has to be done in a certain way. Yet, in all honesty, whatever it is that you're actually looking for, already exists. And you've already got it. And you're striving so hard to get this thing that you've already got. But you never really recognized it right? How do you recognize the abundance of what you've already got? How do you recognize the fact of the truth of the matter that what you're looking for is already within the palms of your hands or beneath your feet, as it were, as I'm sitting here on the ground and got this third here. And I've got these birds, and it's just so beautiful and peaceful. Quiet. Like, unbelievable. So what are you looking for? Anything, maybe not everything that you're looking for, like, you know, sure I'd like some cool cars or something like that? And do I maybe I've already got them in some way that I'm just not thinking of but you know, maybe something a little less tangible. Again, like I've got this river, I've got this field, I've got these things, I've got these places that I've already been seeking continuously, but I've always had access to him. Why does it have to be I need onus, when I don't, hey, you never own it be? Why does owning it make a difference if you have access to it all times, and for what it's worth, is your taxpayer dollars. I mean, this is what I'm paying for it. I'm paying for somebody to keep this stuff up. I've got a gardener, I've got the things. So in a way, if I'm willing to look at it in that way. And if you're willing to look at it in a certain way, you've got a lot of the things that you've always been looking for. Except for you've got this and I've had this historically. And I'm not saying I don't anymore, got this certain way that we think that it has to happen. And if it doesn't happen that way, then then it's just not worth it. And I just don't want it that way. Why wouldn't want it that way? Why would I want it that way? For you, you either want it or you don't. And there's a willingness that you need to have to examine that. And this is I think, more of the idea of your life examined. Right. So examine your life, examine your wants, your needs, desires, and take a look around and see if see if out of all the things that you would like to have in your life. See if you don't already have arms See if that's something you already have. And for me, that's a huge hit of spiritual dope. I'm gonna click this off. I'm gonna do some breath work here, shoot some more video and do some and I'll see if you can hear I don't know if you'd be able to hear me you probably can't hear it. Let's see if you put it on the microphone Cesar vibrates I got my tuning forks here right I'm gonna give myself a full on tune up today. And just enjoy this nature enjoy this piece and resonate with the fact and the truth that I've got already got what it is that I've been looking for. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brandon Handley 0:00 Hey, what is going on spiritual dope? I am I'm hesitating, it's really interesting to find that the podcasts I've recorded are taking me so long to put out. And it's funny, because it hasn't always been that way. And the reason, there's no real good reason, but I'd have to say that what I find interesting, I think that one of the reasons for this is I'm a little scared, a little fearful. I'm a little, it's not exactly what I wanted it to be. I'm sure that it will be enough. I knew that it will be enough. The thing is, and I think that you will find this so long, your own journey is not exactly what I wanted it to be. So I just don't want to take that step, which I know is just kind of BS, also, it's a lot of work. It's a lot of work, it's a lot of work to put it together. And I'm just curious, you know, for myself, what, what kind of effort to I believe is necessary for all of this, to, to kind of have that right message set out to do the right thing. To be inspired to be driven to be motivated, but not to be zealous, overzealous, I would I guess, I would say it's a little bit of zeal is, is okay. But I thought that I would share that with you that, in all honesty, there are parts of me that are intimidated right now. Because I've let myself get in my own head. And I share that because anyone could be on that journey, you could be on your journey. And I share it because geez, what, four or five years now worth of podcasting. And here, here I'm finding a little bit of fear along the journey simply because I pause for a moment, simply because I don't want to let who down? Right, in reality is I feel like I'm letting myself down a little bit. Because again, it's not exactly where I would have liked to have been, specifically right now with this podcast. And, you know, as I'm saying it out loud right now, I'm also reminded of, you know, here's where you are now. And, you know, five years ago, or, or whatever, at any point in time, you know, I'm right, exactly where I wish I had been, could be. And of course, now we find ourselves where we wanted ourselves to be, and find that that isn't what we wanted. That's part of the journey, I suppose, part of part of the growth part of this efforting part of us being so you know, personally judgment, self critical, all that other jazz. And I'm also saying this to want to stop by. So it happens to be that I think then that within the next month or so is the two year anniversary of the podcast. So I'll begin at that point in time to release some it just so happens to coincide. And I'm going to actually set a date. Because that's those are some other things that happened. With our dreams with our realities with with all things if we don't set a date, if we don't put something in mind. It doesn't matter how long it takes to get there. And sometimes that's okay. I'm not saying that that's not okay. But we we lose some type of drive, we lose some type of something, we lose the momentum. And I'm reminded of the late great Zig Ziglar. And I'm not sure where he got this from I'm sure he got this from someone himself. We lose the intent. It's it's called the law of diminishing intent. You know, we have this intention, we have this desire. And when we first feel it, that's when you strike while the iron is hot. That's where that comes from. You strike while the iron is hot, you strike while you're hot. It's true, you know, then because you've got that passion and everything going on with it. And the law of diminishing intent, says that, you know, over time, you're going to lose the intention to do XYZ. So that's all me a little bit there, right? I I interrupted myself, I slowed down that intent. purposely let go of some of the momentum. And that was done to create and do a format, to deviate from what I had been doing to do what I believe, to be an improvement over what I've already been doing and in, in the desire to make it more palatable to you. The listener was to put this into some type of packaging, some type of easy to consume recognizable thing. And the funny thing about that is, is that I've got another listener, she reached out to me after going through a fair amount of the catalog. And she said, Well, did you did you create these? No, what she said, she said, this is interesting, because I was able to go through and listen to all these and each person had a different perspective, a similar story, and they were able to kind of share it out. Because was it your intent? To do it that way? So that, that was varied, but similar, so that there were these multiple stories that resonated over time with with the listener? And I said, Yeah, you know, that was that was exactly, that was exactly. And so it was really cool that that intention came through. And it's my hope that this next, this next bit comes through the intention to put like a stamp, as it were, on some of these next ones, categorize them a little bit more better. So that there is a point driven point a message, something we're trying to pull out of it right. When this next section of the podcasts has certain overtones, the first I'm thinking right now, I think the first one I'm just gonna do, I'm gonna lead with kind of what started these podcasts. And that was the the idea that, you prosperity, through spirituality. So there'll be a little stamp there. There's a, you know, four episodes, three or four episodes that we talk about prosperity through spirituality. There's going to be some episodes when we talk about energy work, breathwork, and spirituality, how do these kind of what are the intersection integration points of these things? And how can you harness them? In your story? How can you? If that's, and those are the things that are of interest to you along your journey? How do they play a part? And so be able to put those into sections so that the listener, you are able to go through and say, You know what, I've always been drawn to the breathwork side of things. How does this you know, how does this play a role in spirituality? We're gonna do psychedelics, how does that play a role in spirituality? Are they necessary? You know, what are some of the benefits? What are some of the not so great? And that? So as we come along, I think yeah, June 18. Is is the quote unquote, official date. Of of, of this. So look, look, the week of June 18. I'm also going to switch out the dates from putting these out on Sundays, and then the middle week, which will also make that challenging. That being said, I should have enough time, ladies and gentlemen, if I, if I play my cards, right to get some of these all finished up and posted and worked on, which I've actually been doing on in small batches, only to find myself frustrated, because some of them, you know, their challenges. There's some challenges with echoes, there's some challenges with just echo is really as the primary one or you gotta go through and find where maybe somebody dropped off because of a bad connection. Where does that fit back in. So there's a fair amount of effort that does go into these. As much as we'd like to get them all with one shot right from the beginning. We do have to do some editing, we do have to do some cut and paste. We do have to get creative. I think the funny one for me on in this process is yeah, there's an echo. But the good thing is that there's an echo the entire way through so I'm able to use one feed out of two feeds to create the entire podcast. I'm really curious how that's gonna end up coming out after I filter it and edit it and get it all through There were challenges like the videos didn't didn't, you know that video is not going to sync up. So not to cut that out there were challenges for some reason is technically adept as I am, I couldn't figure out getting my video to come on. So it's like, what the hell. But these are some of the challenges. And these are some of the areas also of opportunity to grow to try to understand to see where you are, this is, this is for me, this is a full on full growth thing for me to see where I am and all the process but I thought that I would share with you that you're mildly intimidated, right? I was like, what's what's the hesitation here. And at first glance, it looks like there's some fear and trepidation on my side. So you're not alone in whatever it is that you're facing. Regardless of whether you're new just getting started. Also like to share with you that this will pop up as it is for me throughout the things that you're going through. And as much as I love this, there's, there's a law here and there where it's like, Okay, what's the value? Where am I doing? And I'm gonna get going now is I have gotten caught in the storm. I'll actually let the storm play a little bit. I've actually purposely put myself in the storm just waiting for a moment for it to pass over me as my own little practice of symbolism driving into the storm so that I can hear the cacophony, the melody that's offered in it, and know that just like all other things, this too shall pass. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

I'm not sure how to describe my relationship with The Voice of a Generation.  Brandon inspires me.  Brandon challenges me.  Brandon loves me.  Find you a Brandon Handley.  He has changed my life on so many levels.

Brandon Handley 0:00 Ready? What do you think of that guys? That's the st. Seybold, meditation, Tibetan, Pan beaten brass and bowl that I got for Christmas, everybody Christmas. Finally, just figured that, since I'm into the energy work, the sound were meditation, I guess I'm a kind of an easy target. Now as I look over there, and I see that I've also got a bunch of crystals with a tuning fork too, that I can charge up. It's cool stuff, definitely enjoy it. But I always want to think about hitting that Tibetan singing bowl as we get going here. So wanted to catch up. As always listen, you know, there's a lot going on. I think that sometimes you see somebody and you see what they've been up to. And then next time you see them. Like something happened, maybe maybe you and I speak and and you already know that into this breath workspace. And then next time you talk to me, I tell you, hey, this thing happened. That I want it to happen. And it seems linear. Because when we tell these linear stories, or we tell stories, they kind of have to be time bound and linear. And it's not always that's not, that's how it looks on the outside. That's how it looks on the outside. So when we when we talk about this story, I want to share what's happened with me recently. And this is in relation to kind of stepping out beyond my comfort zone. And doing something I wish I could say was scared, I don't know that I was scared. Or you know that it was beyond my comfort zone. And I was concerned, it was beyond my comfort zone in the fact that it was something that I hadn't done before. Right. So I want to do this breath work and I want to reach out to people and I want to I want to have some impact. Meg and I have been talking and you certainly love to make money, doing the breath work paid money to do the course still paying paid for the course. But a big part of doing it is to do some give back to the community how can I actually serve others? And you know, make have an impact? Because I think that we want to be successful for sure. But how can we have a life of significance How can we impact others and in such a positive way that they are moved to be I hate saying their best selves, I don't want anybody there already that that best self art is kind of their as you may or may not know, vegan, I got an argument once upon a time. And she's just says, you know, you just see people for their potential, not as they are and 100% correct in that. And while it's not necessarily an insult, but the thing, the thing is, is like to see them as great as they are in the place that they are right now and recognize and reflect that to them versus Oh, you're wasting your potential kind of thing. And oh, here's, here's who you could be. And I think that was that was what she meant by that. I was breaking up with her. So So my thing is, is that I was what do I do next with this breath work? And how do I you know, and I'm not even thinking about this significant thing so much as I'm thinking about how can I give to the community? How can I do something without expectation? How can it be con anyways? A an idea that had been brewing in my mind for quite some time, and I hadn't taken any action on it. And the idea had been, what if I offer some of this breathwork these breathwork services to a recovery facility for people who are going through recovery, I reached out to my friend Dave, and I, you know, kind of ping ping the idea off of him. Said, Hey, I'm thinking about reaching out to these guys. Is this a good idea? Is this a fit? He's got 25 years of recovery and is active in AAA. So I said, Hey, and he's absolutely, absolutely 100% It's a fit. So, look, I don't have a card. I don't have an agenda. I don't have a pamphlet. I don't have a presentation. But I know this is something that can help others. I know that this is something that I can do. For someone who's going through the recovery process. Teach them not just the breath work tools, but the whole all these things that the transformational coaching and do this for people because when when they're and I've been in this space before I've gone into rehab Gee, I went into rehab and I was like 19, I've definitely gone through the process of, of quitting, quit drinking, what, five years ago, and I haven't had a drink. And it's not, it's not always easy without some of these tools to leverage. I would be hard pressed it would be, it'd be a real challenge for me. Sometimes I break. Sometimes I say to myself, Man, I told Mac, I said, I've said I've had like, you know what, sometimes it's just be easier. If I could just go grab a drink, say fuck it. And, you know, so much easier, right? But is that I, I don't do that. I rely on some of these tools. I do the breath work, I do the meditation, I go read I go exercise. I do the jujitsu and I stick to that there I say the plan. And I err, quote the plan. But these are the things if I continue to do that, then I wake up the next day, and I still respect myself for not, and I look, if you drink you drink, I don't care. But this is something this is for me. So I don't I don't have this. I don't have this kind of plan. Right to to share with the recovery center. But I do know what it's like to use these tools, and go through the process and use these tools to replace the drinking. To replace the we'll call it the addiction. And so I reached out, I don't want to call, right and here's the deal, nothing, nothing may come of this, right? It's simply I just want to go and do this because I'm so tired of living this life of what if so tired of, well, I can send an email and considering an email and effort. Right? Is an email an actual effort? I don't I don't think so. Personally, again, personally. But, and not being attached to results, right. So I all I know is that whatever is happening feels right. And you know, when I say feels right, and I used to I use the terminology of follow your bliss, and some people that call or you got to watch it when you say follow your bliss. I don't mean going out and getting high and getting fucked up and going and having sex with everybody, anybody you whatever, that's not bliss. Okay, that's I don't know what I don't know, what are they? hedonism, right? Yeah, there's a fine line, I think between like following your bliss, which is what fuels right in your heart. versus less go get fucking on that kid in the corner of fucked up and I want as long as it's a different story, right? It's a different, different space. So I'm feeling I'm feeling I'm feeling like this is my bliss, I'm feeling like this is, you know, this is the call get get in and go do this thing. No call to. To to the group of people. It's raining, it's crappy out, I'm going to a city that is one of the highest murder murders per violent crimes per square mile or whatever. And I just get in the car and I go, it's an hour away from home. And I have no idea what the outcome is going to be all I know is I've got this feeling. And it's something that I feel like I should be done. So I get in the car, I drive down there. And the whole time I'm like, you know, expecting to speak to kind of like the house manager or a person and just go in there and say, Hey, not sure if you guys are using breathwork as part of the recovery system, some of the tools for your guys in here and gals. And if you're not Would you be open to it and just kind of list off a few of the benefits and you know, have a conversation and offer it free of charge. Because this is an opportunity to give to some people that have gone through some shit, man if you've never faced an addiction or had an addiction or had let go of something that was your crutch was your thing. Oh, and for a lot of these people. That's the entire lifestyle. That's it. That's all that's happening in their lives. So you take that away, you take away their identity, you take away their friends, you set them on this path that they're so uncertain of. Scary, scary. So I find the place. And, you know, I'm wearing flip flops somewhere in my standard standard gear. And I walk up to the door, ask if I got the right place. Okay, you got the right place to sit? Well, you know, is there somebody like our front desk? Or is there somebody I can talk to? They're like, wow, the owner, she was like, wow, that's even better. Right? Awesome. And I go in, and I meet the owner, super just like super cool guy. Very grateful presence is like super, he's super present, looking me in the eye the whole time. And, you know, even though he jumps right up to is in the middle of like another meeting. And I just say, Hey, man, I love your story. I love what it is that you're doing here. You know, I've gone through and fought my own demons in the past. And I just got a it's got to wonder it's funny, because I threw the question out there. I was like, Hey, man, you ever, like drive an hour just to go ask somebody a question. And I did. So that if you ever drive an hour, or just ask somebody a question, and he's like, Nah, man. I don't know about that. And so I said, you know, look, I'm just curious if you're familiar with breath work, and is that I didn't need to say finished, finished. Same breath work he has I totally use it. We don't do that here. And I was like, Yeah, well, that's why I'm here. I said, Would you be open to certified breathwork, practitioner and trainer? And I feel like there's a ton of benefits. He's like, Yeah, absolutely. I said, I'd love to come in and do this for your group. He's like, absolutely absolute. And he's like, Hey, Sam, thanks for coming down. And thanks for being here. How do we how do we even do this? He's like, Do you got a car? I only have a card. Right? And so he puts me in contact with the guy that runs the house, reach out to him long story longer. And he's like, Well, let me talk to the guys. We got a house meeting. And let me talk to them. And we'll see. We'll see if anybody's open to it. And I'm nervous, man, I'm like, oh, man, geez, you know, maybe, maybe nobody's gonna know, he didn't even know what breathwork was, you know, the house manager didn't tell me more about it. So I did. Tell him like, kind of all the benefits, how you get calm, how you get clarity, how you can, you know, pretty much calm yourself down and, you know, strengthen your core, you know, core self and get in touch. Be mindful. All these things? And he's like, alright, yeah, let me let me talk to the group, send me some stuff, some some links, talking about it some some links about how effective this practices for people in recovery as well. And I said, Well, you know, here you go. I'll follow up with you on Wednesday. And so I follow up with them, I fully expect him to just like kind of, you know, I'm nervous, right? I'm nervous the whole time. I'm just, I guess, anxious, anxious, uncertain, right? I'm just, you know, it's out of my hands. At that point, right. I'm just, it's out of my hands. I've done what I could do. And I'm sitting to think of myself, I'm like, Wow, maybe I should have done a little bit more to prepare and get that situation under, into a better place. present more materials, yada, yada. But in all turns out, that it's a go, and they're open to me coming down and presenting breathwork and working these guys through a session. And I want to be able to give these guys and gals, whoever whoever's in attendance, want to make sure they have the tools and give them these tools that they can use to go through their recovery. And I'm sharing this story not because not only because it's so I'm so excited about it, I'm thrilled to be able to do this in person, with some people that are men, if you're in recovery, you're going through this you are you headed in a whole new direction, right? Who you been isn't always who you're gonna be. And I think that's true for everybody, but nobody more so than people in recovery, because who they've been, has been, again that core identity that core to them for such a long period of time. That now they have to start start all over again. And hopefully this you know, it makes them stronger, you know, how do we present to to these guys, and give them those tools, but you know, so I get the opportunity to do all this. And again sharing this because even if you and I just talked and I said hey, you know, I started breathwork training and tomorrow I get to go to To teach it to people, the stuff in the middle. It's not linear, like I had no idea and the way that I was feeling I felt actually feels again, feeling the bliss feeling like I should just pick up and drive and go and just follow it. Like mags, like why shouldn't you call first as a cop, I'm just gonna go drive down there, no idea how it's gonna go. But I know, in my heart that if I go down there, and I get the opportunity to talk to somebody and have a one on one face to face, and just be honest, about my intention, chances are that much, much greater. I think because then you truly get to establish a connection, and I am doing it without. Without, there's a desired outcome, but I'm not attached to it, right. So if I go when I feel it, and the thing the other part of it was, like, even the reception of it felt like it was so it was received so well. And graciously, that I know that there's a need for this, and I can reach out to others now, just kind of that gave me the confidence to to consider reaching out to others. At any rate, you know, not linear, in that it can, it can happen. You know, it looks like a straight line on the outside the sort of straight line, but there's so many other things going on so many other variables that are in, you know, kind of my energy field that are happening in the universe that have to happen outside of me, in order for that to coincide. The owners like you know what, normally I'm, I'm never here, I just happen to be here. And I was like, wow, because like I just literally happen to hop in the car and go so look, whatever it is, your heart's calling, and you're feeling called to do I think that, you know, step into it, right. And don't expect linearity. Don't be thinking if you're feeling attached to the outcome, there's gonna be some fear and trepidation to do it. But do it knowing that you're coming from your own heart and from your own space and with grace and love and caring, and I think that in the end is gonna work out better than you ever could have possibly imagined. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brandon Handley 0:00 What is going on spiritual dope, I am chilling like literally in the middle of some some field right down the street from us where it was a farm converted into a park scenario. And it's it's crazy. It's not crazy. It's just great like here I am. It's a beautiful big blue sky. Perfect summer well not even summer spring breeze. Look at 5g I've got it's got 5g here, whether or not it's frying my brain, I don't know. But what I do know is that I'm in the middle of a field. grasses, just perfect. Maybe 60 some odd degrees, some as you can hear the birds and you just feel spring happening. And I'm getting ready to hop on with a few my buddies where we are talking about the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. Really good book so far really, really interested in it really great. One of the biggest takeaways for me so far has been a couple of nice takeaways so far. But the one of the biggest ones is the Bardo, which is this state of transition Bardot's or the states of transition where enlightenment can happen or awakening can happen. Have to go back and double check the specifics on that. Either way, one of those twos always always a cool thing. Except for so far, I think in the middle of it, especially the awakenings session or awakening, if you don't know what's going on, there's a little bit of being freaked out going on. And in that kind of mess the magic is happening right? You don't know when the middle of all that mess that the magic is happening. You just like this is a fucking mess. Bring that up. It's kind of interesting, a couple of couple of things. One thing is talking to another friend of mine, and just brought up the kind of idea of what's going on in your life. And he brought up the, I think, you know, the idea of turning into a butterfly. And there's a chrysalis state and of course we all know that the caterpillar precedes it all jotted down is like nobody really ever goes back and interviews the caterpillar. Right? Nobody goes back and, and checks the scene to say, it's almost like, I don't even know what you call it. Right? It's like that. You know what? I know that I'm done with this forum. I knows I'm done with this state of being and I'm ready for my transition. Like where is that fucking trigger? Like who does that? Where's that decision made? I'm done. I'm done being a caterpillar. You really can't first of all, maybe you could maybe be like, Hey, where are you going caterpillar on my way to you know morph. I'm on my way to destroy everything I've ever known ever been. So that I may become this this other things fluttery, fucking black guy. And I think about that because there's a guy another guy back in, when I first kind of got started in the space of just, you know, self development, and whatnot. You brought it up because nobody really wants to hear you going through your shit. Right? Nobody really wants to hear about you going through your shit. They just want to know how do you fix it? Because if you're still in this shit, people are just like, I'm in my shit to your and your shit. I'm in my shit. We're all in the sick. We're in the shit together. Right? I mean, you hear people say that. Hey, we're in this shit together. Nobody ever says you know you never hear somebody you know talking about being interviewed while you're in the shit. You hear about people you know kind of before they hit the shit. Oh, wow. They were great people this is how they were before then. Right? Oh, you know, Mary was fantastic until you know somebody spiked to drink one night after that it's all going to shift or Jerry was great until fucking you know we lost a job and then it all went downhill from there. Nobody see nobody ever talks to the person really, while they're going through the shit. Right? Oh yeah, but he rebounded and now he's great. Oh yeah, but she's rebounded in Nazareth What the fuck happened in the middle there happened in the chrysalis state because again, totally destroyed everything that ever was and that you don't really see that with I think humans too much a lot of times you'll run into somebody from high school or school or an old work colleague and that's pretty much the same as you remember. Maybe a couple quirks or differences or children. But for the most part, they're pretty much not not a whole lot has changed the butterfly. Completely different than the caterpillar like, I mean, two totally two totally different things, right. You don't go over there and say, Oh, hey, look, there's a baby butterfly over there. A butterfly being caterpillar. Like there's a caterpillar. There's a cocoon. There's a butterfly. So what happens in the middle there? And I think that that's, you know, I think that Unknown Speaker 6:23 some of those pieces that get lost some of those are the pieces that get lost we Brandon Handley 6:32 we love we love the rebound story. We don't really love to hear about like, kind of what went through the middle there like Oh, shit, man, I was freaking out. Oh, shit, man, this is really scary. Oh, shit, man. Like I was a mess. I wasn't really sure it was gonna work out. But you know, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. And lo and behold, here I am. For you listen to this podcast. And you know, that a lot of the people that that are on the show, it's not linear, right? There's an idea. And even with that linearity, even if you've got the one person who's like, hey, in five years is where I'll be in my life. They've got the plan. They've got it all fucking worked out in five years. They're their whole fucking right. Right. But while it may appear linear, on the outside, I can guarantee that it was not the universe is not linear. promise you that. It's not linear. We know that it's possible for time to be reversed. Right and small, literally atomic units. So you know, what happens in the middle there? What happens in the chrysalis state what invokes the chrysalis state? Have you gone through it? Have you? Noticeably purposely intentionally said, I invoke the chrysalis state? And what happened in the middle there? Because I don't think we hear enough about that. We hear about the caterpillar, we hear about the butterfly. We never really, we don't interview the caterpillar after the fact we don't gave it's not possible. And we never really get to see kind of what's happening inside that chrysalis state outside of the fact that it's done in a safe space. Right. There's a wall there's a cocoon like that's hardened it's a chrysalis crystalline state even as it's becoming so love to hear any stories you've got as what was it like for you to invoke the chrysalis state? What was it like to be inside of it? Was it like coming out on the other side? In regards to linearity? What was that like? Hit me up Brandon at spiritual dope.co. We'll chat later. Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Brandon Handley 0:00 He what's going on? Spiritual Dope. So what are we looking at? What are we looking at today? I had an I had somebody reach out to me that wanted to do a, a kind of activation meditation. And so I was like, Sure, set it up. And I did it recently and thought it was pretty cool. And part of the experience was that, you know, as you're sitting into the meditation as you're being guided, one of the things that you do, and I did was pull all the energy out that you've been sending out, right, call it all back. And that's great. Here's the deal. Not all of my energy that I send out, is amazing, right? There are definitely some moments throughout the day where I'm like, fuck this, that I shouldn't be doing this. Don't get me wrong. There's also plenty of moments where I'm like, Oh, I'm so grateful. Namaste, bitches. But a couple of things happen. Right? So, you know, what did come back to me. And it came back, like, immediately, during the meditation, were a couple of things that I kind of already do, or did or have sent out, right. So some of the energies that I sent out, showed up in the specific meditation. And what were some of those things, some of those things were the kind of like, when you're sitting in your meditation, and you're, maybe you're visualizing a light, you don't just visualize this kind of 180 degrees that you sit in front of you, right? You, me, you us we are radiant, beings, meaning that the energy that you send out doesn't just go forward, it goes around behind, beneath above, like, the frickin sun. Oh, like a light bulb. Any one of those things? Light bulb or a sun you choose. And so that was one of the things that she brought up in this meditation, I was like, wow, I know, I'm always that's exactly, you know, the guidance was to do that. And I was like, shit, that's the, that's exactly the way that you know, kind of, I see it. Another one of the pieces of guidance were like, go to the edge of the universe in your mind. Right. And here's like, the funny thing is, is that you can, is as vast as the universe is you can imagine sending your mind to the edges of universe. And that was the guidance. And that is something that I've sent out mentally, I've never said that stuff before it came back. Now, that's pretty cool stuff, the deal is, again, some time sending out some shit. And just kind of be mindful that I need to be more mindful that myself. So this does meditation made me realize, and again, you know, all the things that kind of you send out, come back. And definitely, absolutely visualize this as a torus field. If you're not familiar with the torus field, it's basically a doughnut of ever generating energy with you in the center of it. Imagine, if you will, when you look at the United States are not the United States, when they when you look at Planet Earth, and they show pictures of kind of the magnetic field, from north to south and how it goes around the planet and protects us or sends out you know, these kinds of energy fields, you do the same thing, I do the same thing, we do the same thing we are making, we're magnetic. Anyways, you know, our hearts send out magnetic field, that's been, you know that, that's the shift that gets calculated, right, that's the ship that gets captured. So that's what a torus field is. So the other piece about torus field those, since you're generating it, you're at the center. And when you generate it, it's the smallest piece, right? That's the smallest piece and then when you send it out, again, goes out kind of like a doughnut but but bigger and water. If you've seen the fields that surround the earth, just like that the earth is smaller than the magnetic field that it generates. You are the same way. You have these magnetic fields that you turn Right and that you've got polls on you. You're like a tiny dancers of different. You're, you're a pole dancer, you, you, you, you're the same way, right? You're sending out these, these, these fields as well. So we got to take this kind of stance of like, wherever you are. Just notice and this isn't like a police yourself, notice what you send out and take a look at em for what comes back. Notice what's showing up in your life. And see if you can kind of pinpoint where you think that might have originated from because you're sending it out. It's going out and it's like, I'm gonna go get you some friends, motherfucker, right? Like your thoughts. Like I'm sending out this one thought. But the one thoughts like, I know where there's a shit ton of these and I'll go out bring the whole game, right? It's kind of like, you know, the drunk guy that has wandering the streets and you lose them. You lose the drunk friend. And then when you finally catch up with them again, he's got like, fucking 20 other drugs with them. Right? Like, dude, they're all like, we're all coming back to the bars close. We're all coming back to your house. No, you are not. Yes, they are. Right? You're trying to stop like 20 Drunk people have come back to your house, it's like nine possible without the cops. Anyways, that's what's happening with your thoughts. Right? And so you want to send out like these kinds of, again, you know, these positive vibes, nice positive vibes, they don't have to even just be like, just thoughts. Like, imagine, you know, kind of like when you're doing a yoga practice, when you're trying to center yourself, and you're centering yourself and you're, you're feeling good, that's sending out good energy, you're doing it for the benefit of your body, mind and soul. Same thing with the breath practice, you're getting centered, you're, you're visualizing what you actually want to participate in. And, and you're doing these things. Without an attachment to the outcome, you're doing it just for, Unknown Speaker 7:10 excuse me at that moment. And being in that moment. Brandon Handley 7:15 So could you imagine, again, what kind of a you have these more positive thoughts? And again, these aren't positive thoughts and like, oh, you know, something bad just happened? And that's okay. It was no, it was meant to be type of thing. And again, that's even kind of weak. You know, just it's not spiritual, bypassing, it's not, you know, there are some shitty things that happen in life. Right. And, and the deal is, what are we learning from it? As a practice? That's where I'm trying to go here with this, though is, see where things are coming from? Something shows up in your life, the thing is, you sent that out? Where did it come from? How did that get back to you? And the more that you can send out these positive thoughts, and more, you might be able to notice some of the cool shit that happens in your life. You know, for example, out of the blue, I got a call from one of my favorite authors, you know, desk yesterday, just saying, Hey, we had a webinar yesterday, we actually want your input on it. And I was like, what? I was like, Where's that coming from? And for me, you know, I just kind of looked at it and to, you know, I'm putting good energy out, right, I'm putting energy out that just says, Hey, I want to participate and be a part of, you know, some great things to be of service to my community, whatever that community is for people on the journey. And this feedback is for specifically people that are on that journey. So to be able to participate in something like that was a return on the energy that I have been sending out, try it out for yourself. It doesn't have to go or be so deep, but when something happens to you, good or theoretically bad and nothing is good or bad, so for our thinking makes it so when something happens to try and try Where did that come from? What did you send out and again, this is 100% ownership in your life and all things in it. Something comes back to you. Where do you feel like that originated from Unknown Speaker 9:32 you Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  Brandon Handley 0:00 What is going on spiritual dope checking in on you, I know I said I would get some podcasts out the interviews and I will. That's not why I'm here today, though, they will come out, I'm just not satisfied where everything is right now. I don't think that it makes sense to rush it unless I really need to. And there's really no need to rush it. And I think that's what we're talking a little bit about today. I've got a quote here that I posted to Facebook in 2019 that I showed up again, and I had mentioned, hey, this, this resonates almost almost more today than it did then. You know, suffice to say that it still has an impact. And it still strikes a chord with me. And somebody else asked me said, you know, what does that Brandon, what does that quote mean to you? And so I'm gonna share a little bit about that today. In response to the question, and the quote is, and the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took some blossom. And it's by a nice Nin. Hopefully I'm saying her name correctly, she is I've got wiki pulled up over here somewhere. Here we go. You should French born essayez diarists, novelist, writer, short stories and erotica born to Cuban parents in France. She was born in February 21 1903, died in 1977. You know, on a cursory glance, you'd be like, well, you know, whatever. and whatnot. I've never never even really heard of her but she has so many quotes that are really similar to this that are just like so. For me, I'd say evocative right they they evoke some type of emotion and they resonate with me quite well. And so when we when we kind of like let let's extract what it is, and this this quote that resonates with me, and maybe it resonates with you and maybe leaving your personal personally in the in the blossoming bud pureed phase freeze, please. So here's the deal, you are the flower and you have held it in too long. You are the flower and you've held it in too long, your your your you your petals, right, your petals are continuing to grow on the inside, and it just becomes tighter and tighter and tighter within and you don't know the challenge is and this was my challenge to you don't know exactly. And I'm still in this process and I wouldn't I wouldn't dare say that. I'm not completely out of the woods yet as I like to say so you don't know exactly what kind of flower you are. You don't want to risk sharing the fact that you're even a fucking flower you don't want people to know you know, you want people to think that maybe you're the plant. Right? Really Hey, I've always been Brandon this Brandon plant you've got this identity that has stuck with you for so long that you you don't even know what it would mean to bud to go now you're in a bud now you're in a bud state right now you're in his buds seat. And like I said the longer that you wait these petals they they grow on the inside right and each petal that grows in is thin and delicate and beautiful as it is has more space compressing on the inside each one kind of slowly crushing you on the inside out. There calms this kind of point that you reach in your life where that doesn't make any more sense to hold back where you've got something that you want to be or become something you're trying to share something that you know you realized for so long you played it for so you played safe for so long. And it hurts like it gets there's a there's an actual hurt you know, for me it was kind of like a deadening on the inside. If I didn't take the risk to go ahead and decide to blossom, right, whatever, you know, again, accept the risk and blossom, you say, hey, you know, fuck it, I gotta I gotta move forward, I gotta open up, I gotta, I gotta be me, man, you know, I gotta express the truth of who I am. And that really wasn't even it at the point. And this is a really, you know, kind of a super memorable moment. And I would love to say that it was like, hey, when my kids were born, I'd love to say that was when I decided to, you know, come back and be be married, and I spent the rest of my life you know, and with my relationship with Meg and then, but it really just those were all pivotal moments. And I think that they were, you know, semi conscious choices, right? It's like, Yeah, let's go ahead and do this thing. And let's think this isn't gonna be great and definitely meaningful and impactful areas in my life. But it was like when I made this decision, along with support from from mag to first just kind of start the podcast right, open up my very first podcast and get a coach and chase down this kind of this dream this thing that I thought I could do this thing that called to me that pulled on my heartstrings. And initially, there was a initially it was like, Oh, well, I don't know if that's such a great idea because you know, looks gonna cost a fair amount of money to take on this coach and go do this thing. And there's some fear there, right? And again, this you've got this, you've got this you've got the the quote, right, the the day came when the risk it helps to remain tight in the bud was more painful than a risk and it took the blossom. Some things you're gonna hurt to do to lean forward into there's a risk that's inherent. I don't know again, I don't know what kind of fucking flower I'm gonna insert into. You don't know what kind of flower you're gonna turn into. I've spent my entire life is this plant. Right, let alone this. Look, I didn't even realize that the blood was forming. And the blood was forming that it was so tightly wound that I was like, you know, listen, if I don't do this thing, but don't do whatever this is Chase the podcast become a coach. And, and that in that moment that was there. And again, this is very similar to the hero's call and Joseph Campbell's. No, you know, the arc, right? The mythology. That's the hero's call. There's something pulling on you so hard. That if you don't lean into it, if you don't feel into it, it's it's almost like a guillotine to the heart. Right? It's almost like severing the the it is just like you're severing the connection between your head and your heart. You go numb. You say to yourself, well, this is it. I've given it everything I've got As matter of fact, I had somebody that I would talk to off and as I began the podcast as I leaned into this basis that asked me because well, why are you? Why are you even trying you, you kind of have like the things that you want and whatever and you have a pretty good life. And that's it because there's something else out there. This isn't it? This isn't it. And so you accept the risk to blossom. And you're gonna come to find out the truth of who you are. You know, there's no longer when you make that decision. The question to wonder what if? Because now it's like anything else once once you begin to allow those pedals to unfurl? There's no going back. Right? There's there's no, I'm sure there is a flower out there. Some botanist is gonna be like, hey, but you know, there's just one flower that does diddly Dude, I don't care. I'm gonna talk about the vast majority of them. That once you begin to unfurl, once you begin to blossom once you begin to allow the truth of who you are to be exposed on purpose, with intent and alignment with all that you are. That's it, man, you're you're you're there. You're in that space. And that's what you That's, that's kind of, you know, looking back, right? Hindsight is 2020 And you know, look and being able to say, take a look at this quote and realize the moment that that happened for me in my life is hindsight 2020. When you're in the midst of it, when it's happening, you don't you it's, it's hard to know. It's hard to know, and I can't tell you that you're easily going to be able to say, Oh, look at me on blossoming. Because you're not going to know you're gonna. And that's, that's part of as part of this whole kind of the wonder, restlessness, nervousness of life, is that you're doing it and you don't have to be doing it, right. It's happening for you. It's happening through you, you're experiencing life. And just like the idea of the story where the mentee, or the young devotee shows up at a monastery, and he's like, Hey, we're here to get enlightenment, and, you know, find my path forward and you know, become spiritually renewed or whatever. And he talks to the master at the temple. And he goes, because all right, well, you know, sure, you're more than welcome to do it, it's gonna be a lot of work gonna be a lot of effort should take about 10 years. And the young disciple devotees like, what? No, no, no, I got that kind of time. I got that time a time. What if I work twice as hard put in twice as much effort? And, and really double down? How long will it take me then, and you know, the, you know, master at the monastery, he's like, Well, that's gonna take you 20 years. And the thing is, and you'll come to realize this, as you progress, and as you're doing what you and I'm still in the process myself, again, I'm not trying to say that I've mastered myself or hands on stuff, it's an ongoing process, what I've discovered is that a lot of this is true. The harder that I try at some of this stuff, the longer it takes to realize, recognize and understand. And the more often that I just do it and flow with it, it happens for me, versus me making this kind of Sir crazy effort. It's very similar. We all talked about planting the seeds, you create the conditions for the seeds, and then the seeds do their own thing, right, you create the conditions for what you would like to happen and what you would like to happen happens almost on its own. And again, not saying there's zero effort, but it's not. It's not this thing where you're putting forth this desperate type of energy anywho, I thought that I would share that in kind of a podcast format, simply because typing it all out really doesn't. I don't think do it the justice that it needs. And you're not going to get the tenor of that. And I'm not great with punctuation. So again, the quote is, and this is a response to somebody asking what this quote meant to me, and the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom by nice, man. Thanks for the question. Hope you enjoy this quote as much as I have Transcribed by https://otter.ai

  Link to the book: https://amzn.to/3uUgkYE   Brandon Handley 0:00 What is going on spiritual dope, on a little bit of a, we'll call it a holiday with Megan, the boys. And while we're on holiday ended up doing over Easter, happy Easter, everybody believed in Easter ended up doing a breathwork session with Soma breath on their primary page. And there was a lot of like, a lot of a lot of things have to fall into place to make it work. Because again, we were traveling, we're in a place that we've never been in before, and was just really exciting to participate, do it, create it, experience it, if you did not experience the breath work. It was it was great. And there were there were some technical difficulties. But we were able to leverage those technical difficulties as things that happen in real life, there was some static, and maybe the volume wasn't exactly where it needed to be. But once adjusted, we were able to tune in to, you know, the, I'm trying to think there's a phrase I keep that's eluding me, he talks about, you know, when you when he really tuned there's a certain signal that kind of leads all the other signals. And so what you want while you're tuning into something, there's going to be static. So we use part of what happened during that meditation, as just that very breathwork is just very piece of that, right you in life, there's going to be static. In life, there's going to be, there's going to, there's, there's not going to be clarity, and you're going to be seeking clarity. And in the midst of seeking clarity, you've got to tune in, right, you've got to adjust the dial, you've got to get it right. Something I wanted to share with you. So I want to share that first of all. And the other thing I wanted to share was about this book called The tools by Phil Stutz. And Barry Michaels Nichols, I don't know, written in 2012 really great book, I've got to sit here in my lap. And the reason I do is because I wanted to go through a couple of things with inside of it with you, before I jumped on to my next book, and I think that's important, right, stop and pause, reflect and be with it for a minute. My next book I'll be reading as it's another book on breathwork. So I just wanted to get through this. There's a couple tools. Right now, there's about five tools in this one book, that I think are very impactful and usable. One is called the reversal of desire, basically running into your pain instead of running away from it. And using your pain, and things that cause pain, theoretical pain, not necessarily true pain, to propel you through the situations, in a number of different ways, you'd have to just kind of do high level on this active love. act of love really just being the idea that giving true love to everyone that you see unconditionally, and not the kind of, you know, let's go to bed kind of love but just every you love everything and have it come from the depth of who you are. And you'll experience some pretty, pretty powerful, pretty powerful things there. Another one of the tools is inner authority. Again, we talk about all the things that you're going through and your spirituality and your life, and the things that have been subjected to all of it for you. Only you can determine what that really meant and what that really felt like. And sometimes the experience has to be, it can only happen, you can only determine something by experience. And you've got to be willing to stand by that you've got to be willing to feel that. And you've got to be willing to be there, share it, don't share it. But that's you know, according to you what you experienced. And that's pretty powerful stuff. A lot of times, you're looking for an authority outside of you to tell you what you've experienced, a lot of times you're looking for approval or guidance and other things from people outside of you when really you need to be able to give yourself a little bit of courage, a little bit of love and support and follow some of what you believe follow some of your intuition follow some of your bliss and see where that goes and and see what happens. So inner authority is one of them. The Grateful flow I think that we're pretty well versed in, in in gratitude these days. We III have a real strong idea of knowing that, you know, the more that you share gratitude, the more that you experience gratitude, the more that you look for things to be grateful for, the more of it that you'll have inside of your own life. A couple of other tools here really is the one of them is Jeopardy. And Jeopardy, as I understand it, is you just like everything else that you're doing any other tools that you're already using to get you from where you've been, to where you are, you need to keep using those tools, right? You need unless you find a better tool, you need to keep using these tools. When you stop using the tools progress stops. Right, it's like when you get to ride on a roller coaster, and it's whipping around. And then sometimes it's got to pull everybody to the top there, add to the climax, that big ol ride, you click, click, click, click, click, click, if it stops, ratcheting you up if the tool stopped working, that's basically what happens for you. And me, right, I'm just as guilty as anybody else they talk about this is that you get into a place where you've used the tools, you've gotten yourself to a place where you feel comfortable. And then you start fucking using the tools. Like I'm cool, bro, everything's exactly I got everything exactly where I want it, I got this thing nailed. You stop using the tools, that shit starts falling apart. And you've got to remember to continue to use the tools. Now, not necessarily just these tools in this book. But these are very good tools that they shared with you. And this book, he talks about listening in the end of all this, which I think is really powerful and potent. I'm actually gonna flip to kind of like the back of this book. Some words that kind of stuck out to me, in the end here talks about the idea that you need problems in your life, so that you can begin and that so that you begin to start using these tools like meditation and all the other tools that were listed in here, this act of love. I've employed different types of these tiles, but they give some really inner authority. This is shit I promised you like I've been using and have used but I didn't have names for it. Right? I couldn't accurately depict it, or I didn't have a scenario for it. And these, these two put it into a really cool scenario. I believe I shared where I had somebody telling me about my awakening experience and having a conversation like oh, no, that's not what it was. And I almost fucking bought into it. I almost said, You're right, maybe that's not what I thought that it was. But you have to remember to be your own authority, you have to know that that was your own experience. And, and that is exactly what kind of happens in the back of this book. They're talking about fruits of a new vision. And essentially, you connect with higher powers going through all this right? So that's kind of the blurb as you get through all this. You connect with some higher powers. And here's the thing, right? They give chapter eight fruits of a new vision. Pillar one thinking about higher forces is worthless, you have to experience them. Oh, yeah, fucking, I get it right. Again, this is the experience that I've had on my own. And the search that I've been on, has been like, where are the words like, what is the language that how do I express this? And so he says here, you, you can't prove or disprove the existence of higher forces. They're only real for you. If you can feel them. Okay. I absolutely am in talks about the floor off philosopher Kirk Kirk guard hinting at this principle when he wrote life has its own hidden forces, which you can only discover by living on the line and here's your only your whole being can experience higher forces is real. And again, I try to this is this is what I went through. And so it's just really great to see. While you don't need any external validation, finding, it certainly feels great. pillar number two, when it comes to spiritual reality, each one of us is his own authority. Whatever you're going through, you are the authority on you. They talk about this as the new spirituality. Each individual must experience higher forces and arrive at his own conclusion about their nature, external authority figures can no longer define your spirituality. fucking love it. So. And these are two, like one guy who was a lawyer went into, went into a psychiatric practice. And the other guy had always been into the psychiatric practice. Great book. And this is where I talked about pillar number three personal problems drive the evolution of the individual, if you don't have any problems, what are you going to fucking fix? If you don't have any challenges? Where are you going to look for ways to grow opportunities to grow? So challenges pop up in your life. You employ these tools, you have an experience, you have the experiencing, like, oh, or was that what the fuck just happened, and then you continue to have those experiences. So I think that that's pretty cool. I'm looking for any other pillars on this. I don't see it right now. Looking for, they talk about, well, good book, included, including the shadow, you got to include your shadow, grateful flow, those are the tools again, as they kind of do a highlight on them. I'm just looking for some of the last last pieces, I can definitely say that this is a book worth reading, I wanted to share this book with you. Here we go. It says and the universe has been designed so that higher forces are available every moment of every day, we simply have to use the tools to stay connected with them. Talks about what the fuck was like literally, tree ranches fell on the car. Little bit of a little bit of what's it called small tree branch talks about writing this talks about writing this book and talks about you as a creator. And not the consumer. And again, that's another reason why I came out here to talk about this book a little bit was that you go from one thing to another to another to another to another rarely digesting or using some of the tools that have been implemented. Again, this book says hey, stop, pause for a second use these tools, don't just be a consumer, pick up the book, read it, and then go straight to another one without having some sense of of connectedness to it. So I think that it's definitely a book worth checking out for yourself. It's the name of the book again is the tools. subtext is five tools to help you find courage, creativity, and willpower and inspire you to live life and forward motion. Flip into the tools again here in the book, just so that I can share them with you the reversal desire, active love, inner authority, grateful flow, and Jeopardy. And you will, you'll have some I believe that if you've leveraged these tools, if you do it on a daily basis, for any period of time, that you they will have a cumulative effect. Anytime you stop using them, I promise you, you will notice that you have stopped using them. Life will feel different, there'll be a different texture and feel to life. Anytime you stop using them. And they'll have an effect. I think that's that's life lasting for you, if you continue to use them in my own practice in my own life. These tools and similar tools have proven to just be so, so powerful and so potent. So check out the book. I'm happy to leave a link, I'll leave a link to the book in the podcast notes. And, you know, wishing you the very best if you haven't checked out any of the breathwork sessions, just yet, you know yet another tool that I have found to be super impactful in my own life, and it's been impactful on others already that I've shared it with the summer breathing methodology coupled with, you know, kind of adding other pieces into it as I come along. But check it out. There should be you know, reach out to me, or check out on Facebook. There should be any event for most Sundays, around 1:30pm ESP. It's middle of April 2022. Just check out the Facebook profile and to reach out to me if you don't see any information on the breath work and find out what's not still going on. Hopefully it's still going on. And you get the opportunity to experience it for yourself. That is it and we'll talk later Transcribed by https://otter.ai    

Do you have a map for all there is going on in 2022 so far in this earthly experience? What if you could navigate the tides and have trust in your own compass through your divinity? Brandon Handley joins Soul Nectar Show and shares his own awakening experience while already on his journey of service. He now helps guide people to prepare for their own awakening experience and to integrate their experience into powerful purpose, meaning and ultimately vision as a Transformational Coach. On his podcast, Spiritual Dope, he shares practical applications, theories, and stories as they relate to spirituality, the law of attraction, and coaching tools so that his listeners are empowered to take action in their lives. Watch this episode for insights on the mystery of awakening and how it leads us to our own Knowing. Join us. LISTEN: Spiritual Dope Podcast 30 DAY PROSPERITY GAME: https://spiritualdope.co/course/prosperity-game/ MORE ABOUT BRANDON HANDLEY Transformational Coach Brandon Handley initially developed his coaching career by pursuing three life coaching certifications along with certifications from Champlain College in Appreciative Inquiry and in depth studies of Motivational Inquiry as well many other certifications in NLP & Cognitive Behavior Therapy all in order to deliver his client's powerful transformational coaching experiences. Along the way, he had an awakening experience, which drastically shifted his focus from being a life coach to becoming a Transformational Coach. He now helps guide people to both prepare for their own awakening experience and convert their experience into powerful purpose, meaning and ultimately vision. He created the platform of Spiritual Dope, a podcast where he shares practical applications, theories, and stories as they relate to spirituality, the law of attraction, and coaching tools so that his listeners are empowered to take action in their lives. In addition, he interviews others who are leading with their spirituality and finding that their lives are ultimately much more joyous, fulfilling, and steeped with purpose so that his listeners can hear from many various successful sources and potentially be inspired to lead their lives spiritually forward. Connect with Brandon: Web: https://spiritualdope.co/ Podcast: https://spiritualdope.co/kerri-hummingbird/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spiritualdope Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spiritual_dope/ YOUR GUIDE TO SOUL NECTAR: KERRI HUMMINGBIRD I love mentoring women to rewrite the story of their lives through inner transformation, connection to essence, remembrance of purpose, and realignment to authenticity and truth. If you don't want to settle for anything less than a life of passion and purpose, book a Discovery Call and let's talk! Schedule today!  http://bit.ly/2CpFHFZ JOIN SOUL NECTAR TRIBE! https://kerrihummingbird.com/membership/ Do you lack the confidence to trust yourself and go for what you want? When you take actions towards your dreams, does self-doubt infect your certainty? Do you find yourself distracting and numbing while also feeling something is missing inside? Do you feel disrespected and like your wisdom is being dismissed? Do you have a hard time asking for what you need? You may benefit from healing the Mother Wound and reconnecting with the Divine Mother for love. Find out more at www.motherwoundbook.com You may be a member of The Second Wave, here to uplift human consciousness from the inside out by healing patterns of suffering that run through your ancestry. Find out about “The Second Wave: Transcending the Human Drama” and receive a guided meditation at www.thesecondwave.media

Do you have a map for all there is going on in 2022 so far in this earthly experience? What if you could navigate the tides and have trust in your own compass through your divinity? Brandon Handley joins Soul Nectar Show and shares his own awakening experience while already on his journey of service. […]

Brandon Handley 0:00 is going on spiritual dope, we're coming at you where we're coming from. We are, we are in Vail, Colorado today. And we're here for for business, we're here for work the day job. And I had spent, it's been quite the adventure, I should say, came out here to connect with a potential client, somebody we're working with, then really no set agenda was just kind of, Hey, get out there and see if you can connect and make something happen. And you don't have to tell me twice to go out to Colorado from Philadelphia to go ski and snowboard and and check things out. And it's been pretty interesting. And I think that there's been a couple of entertaining and enlightening moments for me that I thought that I might share with you. One of the one of those things is if you haven't gone snowboarding or skiing in the west coast and in Colorado, and also if you've gone in 20 years or so your body may not, may not provide a welcoming response. So it's been entertaining to just see what a difference it's, it's taken on my body after a 20 year hiatus. The other piece is, you know, man, what's, what does success look like to you success looks like a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And this context for me, one of the pieces that look like success was purely getting to the bottom of the mountain, especially against since I hadn't been in so long as you know, didn't also recall exactly how to do it. I don't know if you ever saw the movie, the abyss. And we're going back I think to like, I don't know, maybe even the 80s. And there's a scene where these guys have to go down so deep into the water, that they have to breathe in liquid. And it's like embryonic fluid, right? And, and it's got oxygen or anything in it. And the line is, don't worry, your body will remember right, you know, you'll, you'll remember. And that was kind of what I was running with in this in this scenario, as well. So suffice to say I didn't make it down. That was huge success. And what I will say though, too, is you look, I made it down, I've got all my limbs, and I'm a fully functioning human. And we're here to support what is called the adaptive spirits event. And these are athletes, the Paralympics athletes, these are people who some people are blind going down these hills, missing limbs, no limbs, it's just really inspirational, to see what they're able to accomplish. And you know, on top of everything else, of being able to get to this event, and do it for work, to be able to participate in any event like this super meaningful, super inspirational. And really glad that I'm able to have a job that allows for me to participate in something like that. Well, this actually, we're still taking a mini break as a as we're in between sessions. So success looks like getting to the bottom of the hill alive. For me this weekend. And you know, a couple other funny things that I thought that I that I may share with you is that I also know was using some rental board and bindings had never used before. Got to the top of the hill. I got somewhere I forget. And I literally didn't know how to take these things off the bindings, right? I'd had no idea how to take them off. That was little I was like well maybe somebody should have showed me how to do that. And then I had to go boots I had no idea I didn't know how to take them off. Right these like I've never seen these things before they twist right with like, like a ratchet type thing where they just keep twist and getting in tighten and tighten or. And I was like looking for like a release mechanism. I was like, Oh my God, my feet are stuck in these forever. There was like some mini drama in my head where I just saw like the doctor couldn't figure out how to get these off and cut off my feet for some reason that would never happen. But that was the image that was in my mind. I think that we all know that sometimes our mind can get ahead of us and what else have And again, these are just kind of like little moments that just as you experience them, as you think about them, as you're going through them, you can get frustrated, right. And again, if we come from the space of, of believing that we're working with the universe is one, this is a benevolent universe, these things are being done for you, and that type of thing. And that's really the context that a lot of these things are occurring in for me. And one example of that, is that I took a bus from where I was in Vail to another section in Vail and the lady's like you're already where you're supposed to be. I was like, yeah, that doesn't make any sense, because I don't recognize where I'm at. Right? But she was right. So I took a bus about a half hour away from where I was supposed to go, and had to wait a half hour to get back to where I'd already left. So there were a couple of things in that for me, that I thought were kind of interesting. You know, sometimes, like the what were some of the thoughts that I had was, like, maybe, like, maybe you're already there, you just don't recognize it. Right? Because that was that was certainly my case, I was already where I was supposed to be. I just literally, I was not familiar with where I was. Right. And so that I thought was pretty interesting. And I had a chocolate myself for that. Because, you know, in spirituality and and all this seeking that I think gets done. Chances are, you're already where you're supposed to be. But there's like this egoic thing that just pushes and pushes and says, No, that's not right. This isn't right was we're supposed to be and this is, this is what's supposed to be happening. But I was already where I supposed to be. And I spent about an hour getting back to where I already was. So bring that up, because there was a stint in my 20s, early 20s. So actually 19 and 20, where I connect to myself spirituality, my spirituality then, but I shut the door, right. And when I hit it again, right around 40, I was like, oh my god, this is like so familiar. And I remembered how there was like this window of connected ness and opportunity. And I felt like the the calling, then. But instead, you know, I spent 20 years getting back to where I already was, thought I'd share that one with you. And then this will be the last one that I go ahead and share with you one of the clients that I was trying to connect with. He has really like it's kind of like a needle in the haystack. Right? And we hadn't had much communication and this was, this was kind of a calculated risk. As it were, you know, go see if you can connect, okay, there's plenty of people out there, we haven't really done much and and you're flying solo, which was also just kind of interesting. And so we went looking connect and send emails, contacts. And I started to feel like this kind of like desperation, stalkers, energy has, like, I'm just not, I'm not digging this, right. Like, I definitely want to do the job and do the work and do what it is I'm supposed to do. But I want to come at this from a place of love of service. And really, how can I help, you know, share what it is I have to offer for your best benefit. Not Hey, I'm here, I'm here jumping around, right? Pay attention to me. It's like Alright, let's get together. Let's go do something. And, and, you know, I wanted to get to know this this person as a person, right? And so I just said, You know what, I couldn't I couldn't locate him, couldn't find him poked around a bit searched. And I was like, You know what? Fuck it. I'm out. Like it's not worth like this. This desperation, energy and feeling this way. And the moment within minutes, within minutes. The my client, you know, a person had reached out, reached out he says, Hey, Brian, and let's, let's, let's get to we don't have much time. I can get together for breakfast tomorrow. So you know what, I'll take it we'll get together. People have been talking about a great place for practice. I said, let's meet this place for breakfast and connect. And so we did. And things went very well. We had a great conversation. He invited me along to go skiing with him and a few of his other buddies. He was a great skier. Me not so much. But I spent some time with him on the slopes too. So I think that it went better. And if we wrap all the way back around the beginning, this is what a success look like to you went better than I had anticipated, got to spend some time some real quality time with him and at an awesome event, participating in an awesome event, and meeting other great and great cool people, some people that I've never that I've met, that I've known and worked with online and never got the chance to meet in person so that that happened. But let me let me slice and dissect a couple of these things. Right. Like, again, the universe is working with you, right. And I've been trying to force it is kind of what the takeaway was. And the that desperation, energy, right has had all this energy in front of me blocking what the blocking what the universe was going was doing with ease, right. So I thought I'd share some of those takeaways, as I'm on this trip away from my family missing my family and, you know, hopefully next time I do a trip like this, they'll be able to make it that was the other cool thing about this event. People brought their families along with them and got the chance to meet other people's kids. And so, just a great event. Those are some takeaways from from where I'm at. I believe I'm looking at you know, starting to rerelease some podcasts here shortly with not rerelease but start releasing some interviews here shortly. And I think that there's a lot that you will enjoy in that. So be on the lookout for that. And as always, hope you've enjoyed your hit of spiritual dope. Transcribed by https://otter.ai