Latest / Postcards to the Universe / Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D.

Transcript

Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D. · Postcards to the Universe

0:09
Welcome to Postcards to the Universe with Melissa Capria. Do you believe in magic?
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What if you were told that all you had to do was get a
0:18
little creative and work a magic spell to bring anything you can imagine into your
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life. Here on Postcards to the Universe, we will share manifesting tips,
0:29
postcards, creativity, abundance, and prosperity. Here's your host, Melissa Caprill.
0:38
Hi everybody, and welcome to Postcards to the Universe with Melissa Creating the
0:43
life you crave. It's Wednesday. How are you doing today? I hope
0:47
that you are doing well. How's everybody handling the time change. I don't
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know about you, guys, but I am like every time we change,
0:57
we go back, we go forward. It takes me a little bit to
1:02
get used to it. And I just wish they would pick one and we
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could all stick with it and just move on, because it sends me off.
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Man, just that one hour really really does. So I don't know,
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maybe you handle it better, but I'm super sensitive to that kind of
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stuff, the light and the way the light, you know, when the
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sun rises and the sunsets, So yeah, for me, I just want
1:23
one one time and let's just go with that. But I hope everybody is
1:29
doing really good. I love Wednesdays. I love doing my show. I
1:32
have a really interesting guest today, Stephen Eisenstadt. He's an author and his
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book is titled The Imagination Matrix, How to Access the Greatest Power you Have
1:42
for Creativity, Connection and Purpose. And he's going to join me in just
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a couple of minutes. And you guys know who listens to me on the
1:49
regular how much I talk about creativity, So it's really exciting. I actually
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finished his book early this morning, so I'm excited to talk to him.
1:57
If you are tuning into my show for the time, welcome. I am
2:01
so grateful that you're here. Just so you know, we do record the
2:05
show live. And if you like the show and it resonates with you and
2:08
you want to check out some of my other shows with my other guests,
2:12
you can always find that on Home Time's Radio. In the archives, all
2:15
the shows are listed and you can listen to them anytime you like. Or
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you can go to my website Postcards to the Universe dot com, and I
2:23
list all the shows up on the podcast section on my websites. You can
2:29
listen at your leisure, and I really hope that you do enjoy the show
2:32
and you keep coming back to my regulars. Thank you so much. I
2:37
love that you keep coming back. It means the world to me and a
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little bit about me for those who are tuning in for the first time.
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I am also an author, I am a photographer, and I'm an artist.
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So, like I said, I am creative, and I have a
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book called Postcards to the Universe, Harness the Universe's power and manifest your dreams.
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And I photographed all the pictures in the book, thirty manifesting stories,
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along with the postcards that contributors created. And a manifesting postcard is like a
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mini vision board. What is what do you want to bring into your life?
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You put it on your postcard, I photograph it, and when it
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becomes a reality in your life, I share the story. And so there's
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thirty of those stories in the book, and it's broken down into the main
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areas that we want to create more abundance in love, in our health,
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in our careers, in our money. Right, we can always ask.
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We always want more abundance. That's what gives us joy, that's what makes
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us happy. So I have a bunch of writing exercises and I have fun
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manifesting games and you could check that out. The book can be found on
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Amazon and Barnes and Noble and your favorite bookstore and if they don't have it,
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all you have to do is ask them and they won't order it for
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you. So I wrote the book. I can't even believe it's coming up
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on five years already. And I decided that I wanted to start doing some
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live readings from the book. So I'm doing those on Instagram and TikTok and
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I post them also on link Get LinkedIn and YouTube and they're short videos.
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I share one of the stories, I share the postcard, and I talk
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about it. So if you are on social media and you like them,
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please say hi, give me a like share with your friends. That would
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be wonderful. So what I started doing is I started rephotographing the postcards that
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are in the book. And it's very different the way I'm photographing I'm now
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than I did them years ago before I put them in the book. So
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it's fun for me tapping into my creativity, redoing them, reworking them,
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spending time with them. So it's really open things up for me personally,
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and I hope people are liking them. I share those each week so you
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can check those out. On any of my social media you'll see me be
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posting the postcards and a little snippet of the person's story. I'm always asking
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for people to send me a manifesting postcard. Please do. If you have
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any questions, reach out. You can find out how to create one and
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where to send it on postcards to the universe dot com and you could check
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out the workshop I'm doing on there too, which is called Manifesting through Gratitude,
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a visual journey where we're using gratitude and our camera phones to manifest.
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Okay, so let me bring out my guest, Stephen Eisenstadt, PhD.
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He's devoted his life to understanding the profound wisdom and healing power that exists within
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each of us. Through our dreams and imaginations, we are able to access
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limited creativity, limit lists, not limited, excuse me, limitless creativity,
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innovation, improve relationships, and ultimately our human potential. In the imagination Matrix,
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how to access the greatest power you have for creativity, connection, and
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purpose, Eisenstadt expands upon his world renowned dream tending method to present a step
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by step process for unlocking your creative potential. Through guided exercises, meditative practices,
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dreamwork, and more, you'll discover how to dismantle the obstacles and mental
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habits that limit your ingenuity and problem solving capacities, and reawaken your access to
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the field of consciousness that exists below, betwixt and between the surface of everyday
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experiences that Eisenstack calls deep imagination. His method teaches us to align ourselves with
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the fundamental source of creativity, so even when we feel overwhelmed as individuals,
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we can allow a greater intelligence to animate and guide us, and doing so,
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we become more purposeful, resilient, and connected and able to get be
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the agents of change that our world needs. He's the founder of pacifica graduate
6:59
instant to dream Tending and the Academy of Imagination. For more than thirty five
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years, he's explored the power of dreams through depth psychology. He's collaborated with
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Joseph Campbell, Marion Woodman, Robert Johnson, James Hellman, and Native elders
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worldwide. He conducts dreamwork and imagination seminars throughout the US, Europe, and
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Asia. So if you want to find out more about him, go to
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his website dream Tending t ndig dot com. Welcome Stephen, thanks for being
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here with me today. Oh thank you, Melissa. It's a pleasure.
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And I'll tell you after listening to your introduction, I am going onto your
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social media. I cannot wait to participate. Oh thanks so much. Yeah.
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Well, when I saw when I was introduced to your book, when
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your publicists send it to me and I was looking at it and I was
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reading about you, I'm like, oh my god. I'm all about the
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creativity because that's what fuels my life and that's what brings me joy. And
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when I notice when I am not living in my creativity, that's when I
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find myself getting depressed or irritated or you know, because I'm not in that
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energy which feeds me and that's how I work. But I love in your
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book that you don't have to be an artist. See a lot of people
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think you have to be an artist to live an imaginative, creative life,
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and you don't. So I'm going to let you tell us about the work
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that you do and what the imagination matrix system is. So go ahead,
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floors, yours Okay, great, well, I so agree with you.
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I mean, I've been not only a founder of these different organizations that you
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name, but also a teacher, professor, a therapist for decades now.
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And one of the things that I've discovered is the same as you that when
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creativity opens, right, when imagination opens, almost by definition, curiosity awakens.
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And when we're curious and get into our curious mind rather than only our
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rational mind, which of course is very important as well, but when we're
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in our curiosity, we aren't anxious. It's hard to be curious, if
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not impossible, authentically curious. And the experience crippling anxiety, isolating, depression,
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I mean, the afflictions that we all suffer in one way or the
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next. So opening curiosity, becoming part of an imaginal process, something different
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changes in life. The quality of life really really takes on a different kind
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of experience. And so that's the advocacy behind the book. That's what really
9:50
moved me. I've been working with dreams and dream work and the book dream
9:54
Tending has been out for some time now, and I worked with literally hundreds,
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if not thousands of people worldwide. I'm working with dream which has been
10:01
a big part of my life and my fascination and my consideration. The dreams
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yielded something in addition. They offered, in addition to associating the dream material
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to our personal life and to the collective stories of the collective unconscious, it's
10:22
called in psychology, there's something else. They opened portals, portals to imagination.
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And when I talk about imagination, I don't mean an imagination that we've
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been caught and cocked, or an imagination that is imposed on us. I
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mean an imagination that comes from the inside out, an imagination that has a
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life of its own, its own autonomy, its own sense of deep belonging,
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truly a living imagination. And when we participate in that, something different
10:54
happens. Just like you've noticed in your life with creativity, something different,
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qualitatively differ different happens. We become more innovative, we become more creative,
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we become essentially more curious, and we also find something of tremendous value.
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We find our innate intelligence, our sense of genius. And also, as
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you share, and I'll just pause after this effort, it's not that we
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need to be artists only. I mean to be in our innate genius in
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our imagination brings us back into ways of being in the world. I mean,
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I work with people in engineering, I work with people that are founders
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of corporations. I work with parents, community activists, community members. I
11:43
work with people in all different vocational aspects. And when we're working in whatever
11:52
context and we're connected to an imaginal life, something different does open. It
11:58
really flowers from the inside out. Yeah. And in your book you talk
12:05
about this too, about the sense of being curious and how I believe that
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as children were naturally curious. Right, children are just naturally curious. They're
12:18
curious about everything. Why something is the way that is, why it looks
12:22
this way, why it sounds like this, why it tastes like this.
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And as we become adults, we tend to lose that sense of curiosity and
12:30
that sense of wonder. And you talk a lot about rediscovering our curiosity.
12:35
Can you share a little bit about that. Yeah, And just as you're
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sharing, to watch children and now we have to really to really recalibrate,
12:48
because right, children are naturally curious. They are I mean, we're boring
12:52
with a blueprint already, not only genetically, but also a sense of calling
12:58
from the beginning actually, and curiosity allows us to follow that unique sense of
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calling, that authentic sense of calling. The Greeks call it intallicy. You
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know, it's something that we're born with a yearning to move forward. And
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children, I mean, it's part of how they experience the world. It's
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necessary really language formation in an action with others, developing a way of being
13:24
mobile in the world. I mean, curiosity is really an important ingredient,
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and too, particularly in the world of today, that gets programmed out rather
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quickly. Right. First, they are the expectations of a family or a
13:39
culture, and the expectation often has to do with achievement, with nothing wrong
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with that, but achievement at the expense of curiosity and the natural mind that
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separates us from our unique capacities. And of course with so much social media
13:56
now for all of us, right we begin to oh, gets assumed really
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in the programmer's code versus our own essential code, you know, our own
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sense of calling. So we have to be very conscious and careful with that.
14:13
Yes, and you share a little bit some exercises for us adults who
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get so wrapped up in our like you even mentioned you know, some of
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us work sixty eighty hours a week. Right, We're just constantly work,
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work, work, work. So how would somebody who is listening right now
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things, Well, you know, I kind of know what I have to
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do every day. How do I get curious? How do I become curious
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again about what I do every single day of my life? Okay, well,
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let me share a really short little story. I just got back from
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China. In China, I was presenting to a huge audience, because in
14:52
China everything is bigger in a way. You know, where a conference here
14:56
might be fifty to one hundred to three hundred people, in China's two thousand
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and three thousand people and another ten thousand online. So I'm in front of
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the big group of people talking, and their struggle is the same as our
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struggle. In this context, things are programmed, even a little more programmed
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actually there in that culture than in our culture at the moment. And so
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I offered an exercise and offer everybody's listening this very simple exercise, and it's
15:22
seen with soft eyes or focused eyes. I mean, that's what the exercise
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is going to be. And so you simply the easy, easy part of
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doing this is you bring your two four fingers in front of your eyes and
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you bring focus and then you look around with focus between those two fingers.
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You have a lens of perception looking through the two fingers. Then you move
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from there to peripheral vision, which means you separate your fingers out. Just
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very easy, very simple. And then with wider vision peripheral vision, you
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look around again. If you go back and forth with that for just three
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or four times, and then walk into your day, whether you're on a
16:06
city street or on a trail in the mountains, right, it doesn't matter,
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or in your home place wherever. That might be soft eyes, peripheral
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and then focused eyes. And it's extraordinary what happens because curiosity begins to awaken.
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You get curious. You're starting to see differently. And when we see
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differently, you know, we all of a sudden instead of just thinking through,
16:30
what is the agenda for the day, what's the next set of obligations
16:34
that I have to fulfill? Right? Or where am I focused? So
16:38
focused and determined? Okay, that's that one mode, Nothing wrong with that,
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we need that mode. And two, when we include the peripheral way
16:47
of seeing, peripheral vision, something different happens. We're taking in the full
16:51
landscape. So there's nothing complicated about this at all. And too, the
16:56
beauty of that very simple exercise is it opens curiosity. We are no longer
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in a fixed pattern, right, We're shuttling between two ways of scene,
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and those two ways of scene opened up third, fourth, fifth way of
17:10
experiencing the world. So I'm in China, I'm in front of all these
17:14
people, and I offer this small exercise, as I just shared with him.
17:18
All of a sudden, the whole room is focused. The two fingers
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close, you know, peripheral, the two fingers widen, and we see
17:26
with wider vision curiously. Here's what I found very touching, heartfelt, really.
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So I was there in the conference for the next like four or five
17:36
days. I was doing keynote speeches and workshops, mostly on dreams in China,
17:41
and every time people saw me, the greeting was with those two fingers,
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soft eyes, open, focused eyes, soft eyes, focused eyes,
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and it really evoked a sense of play. And just as you're sharing it
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at the beginning, child's play, not childlessness, that's different, but child's
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play, that natural awakening of curiosity that in oh, I don't know,
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push towards imagination. Yeah, and I want to talk about our imagination.
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I am a big use of my imagination. I always have been, ever
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since I was a kid. Of course, I was a kid before social
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media and before they internet, So you know, I get a little concerned
18:29
about the generation now who's completely technologically. You know, their whole life is
18:36
on technology, which it wasn't my experience nor your experience growing up. So
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you talk about us using our deep imagination and you call it journeying in the
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realm of deep imagination or the DIG, So you want to talk a little
18:51
bit about that. For me, it's something that comes naturally because I've been
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doing it since I was a kid, right, So for me it's it's
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it's not difficult. Some people may find it more difficult. What is the
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DIG? Yeah, okay, well that is now for me a life practice
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that I bring myself to every morning. You do too, in your art
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work, it sounds like, and many people have their own version. So
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the DIG is a name that I use. But when I'm working with people
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and I'm having workshops all the time on this where people come together and we
19:22
support each other in the bigger community, the DIG is the capacity to journey
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and you know, because I shared I work with dreams a lot, so
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I work with that formulation of imagination. But dreams have more to share with
19:37
us than a commentary on the day. Very helpful that is, or on
19:41
our past history or how our past history is affecting our behavior in the day.
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Dreams are very useful that way. And as I said earlier, they
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also contain teaching stories, so the collective psyche, and there's mythic motifs and
19:55
archetypal patterns that are present in dreams which are informing. But then there's something
20:00
else. There's a portal into the next evolution of imagining imagination, and that's
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the dig right. So in a dream, inevitably, invariably we'll meet figures,
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and sometimes they're not pictures. Not everybody has picture images. There felt
20:18
sense, right, or there is emotional response, but something's moving forward in
20:23
dream activity. And in that we can find different portals, which means that
20:29
we get to know the characters the figures in dream time and or in imaginable
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time, and then we follow them. We literally follow those figures into the
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realms of imagination. And that's where I'm naming deep imagination an imagination as I
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said earlier, with the life of its own it's autonomous, right, it
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has its own intelligence. I name that imaginable intelligence, and we can participate
20:56
in that. The biggest hurdle, the heart part. And yet once we
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get going, it becomes the most valuable thing that I think I can do
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personally, or what I share with others, is that when I'm journeying in
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that way and those realms of the psyche and those realms of imagination, I
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am not the leader. It's not an I person oriented journey. I am
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connected with a variety of companions in the book Imagination Matrix, I name them
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soul companions. I get to know them, I develop relationships with them,
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and then when we're journeying together, they're taking the lead. I'm one of
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the many figures, right, It's an entourage that's going on this particular journey.
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And just let me mention. I don't want to romanticize or idealize.
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I just been a therapist way too long in a teacher and a parent and
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a human for all my life obviously, and you know life is hard at
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times. I mean it is. There's times of trauma, great upset,
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addiction come in I mean, one thing after the next. So it's not
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to romanticize. The sole companions that I'm talking about are figures that some are
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very supportive and caring and protective. When we think of people that have been
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I don't know, our mentors, or some of the elders that we've grown
22:17
up with that have really been special to us, protective support, a best
22:21
friend that's been unconditionally supportive, always has our back. Those are the supportive
22:26
companions. And then too, you know, there's those figures that are difficult,
22:30
sometimes intolerable, even horrific, might marriash, and those figures we need
22:37
to work with because when we work with those figures and we see what's behind
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the mask, so to speak, you know what generative spark is in the
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most frightening the figures. When we can really discern that, then together the
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supportive soul companions, the shadow like soul companions, together we journey in the
23:00
imaginal realms. And oh my goodness, you know, just as I'm talking,
23:06
I feel it through me. You can feel the curiosity begin to bubble
23:10
up, you can feel the enthusiasm. Right, I'm now in imaginal realms.
23:15
I'm like in child's play at that point, and I'm being introduced to
23:19
all kinds of places and spaces and landscapes that otherwise I wouldn't be as conscious
23:26
of. No, it's so perfect that you're on my show right now,
23:32
because can I share something I'm sharing this first time? Okay. So,
23:37
I've always had a hard time meditating in the sense of being a quiet mind
23:45
where everything goes blank. That is never worked for me. Well, anytime
23:49
that I do what usually happens is I never called a journeying. But what
23:53
would happen is I would journey. That's how it works for me. So
23:57
a visualization happened and I would go into a story. So recently, and
24:03
this has only been in the last couple of weeks, every morning when I'm
24:06
doing my little you know, ten twenty minute thing, a new story has
24:11
appeared. And I've been going to a forest because I'm dying to forest bathe
24:18
in a forest because i live in South Florida with palm trees and heat and
24:22
I'm like wanting to be in the forest. So I'm forest bathing in my
24:26
imagination and I go there. And I have met recently a companion who's come
24:33
forward and it's a dragon and realizing that this is the year of the dragon,
24:37
and I never associated it just kind of dawned on me. I went,
24:41
oh, this is the year of the dragon. And everything that I've
24:44
been doing with my own work is I've been focusing on gratitude, gratitude,
24:48
gratitude, gratitude, gratitude. So my dragon's name is gratefulness. And now
24:52
he has a form and I see him every day and it has been so
24:59
powerful. I cannot even explain it how powerful it's been. Like I now
25:03
have a physical form in my gratefulness that I can go to in this beautiful,
25:10
serene place, and other things are happening there too, but it's just
25:14
been like it's only been the last couple of weeks and it's been like so
25:18
healing inside for me. It's just amazing. So just talking about this with
25:22
you, and then you just happen to be on my show today, you
25:25
know what I'm saying, Like, there's no question I hear you. I
25:29
love that, Oh yes, And just that you know you're in your version
25:33
of the dig, which is not a dig for you, but you're in
25:37
your version you're journeying in that forest and you're meeting figures, there's that soul
25:41
companion dragon gratitude right present now. And the curious thing you said about meditation
25:48
is that I thought, well, what the heck, let's try this out,
25:52
because now we have all, you know, scientifically and neurophysiologically, we
25:55
have lots of research now, and we have lots of ways of measuring brain
25:59
wave activity and so on and so forth. So what about meditation the quiet
26:03
mind? And how does that, you know, compare it to the more
26:07
imaginably active mind. So we did, you know, we have two research
26:11
studies going now, one qualitative, one quantitative. In other words, one
26:15
is more scientific in terms of numbers and measurement, and the other is personal
26:19
sharing of you know, what their direct experience are. And what is amazing
26:25
is that when we're in that place, like walking through that forest, and
26:29
we're in the story web of imagination, and the figures come out and we
26:33
begin to interact, and gratitude comes forward as well as our heart opens.
26:37
You know, actually fata brain waves increase, so that active imagining mind is
26:45
as effective, if not more effective, than increasing not only imagination but breath
26:53
and creativity and well being, you know, And you notice how our body
26:57
calms when we're in that place. Yeah, no, it's yeah. I
27:03
believe you because it feels that way to me, So I trust the process.
27:07
I'm trusting it like I'm saying, it's okay, this is what is
27:10
working for me, because I know how I feel, and I go by
27:12
how I feel. So let's pause here. I just looked at the clock.
27:17
It's like a a half hour mark already. So let's take our break,
27:19
and then when we come back, we'll talk more about all of this
27:22
is so interesting. Thank you. Stay tuned, everybody, We'll be right
27:26
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29:22
Hi, I'm Melissa Kaprio from Postcards to the Universe, Creating the life
29:27
you crave. Do you believe in magic? What if I told you all
29:30
you had to do was get a little creative and work a dream spell to
29:34
bring anything you can imagine into your life. Well, guess what I've got
29:38
the spell for you. Postcards to the Universe, a global movement for manifestation,
29:44
is a casting magical tool for you to use whenever you want. How
29:48
does living and passion sound to you join me in my movement where you get
29:52
to create in the magical playground. Let's think outside the box and do some
29:56
playful conjuring by at our desires With a manifesting postcard, we explore our hearts
30:03
and allow the alchemy of our dreams to appear. And don't forget to tune
30:07
in each week here on Home Times Radio with my show Postcards to the Universe,
30:12
Creating the Life you Crave at four pm Eastern Time, I share tips
30:17
on creativity, abundance and prosperity, and you will be introduced to the coolest
30:22
guests, trailblazers, mystics and creatives who enrich our lives. Hey, everybody,
30:34
welcome back. So if you're just joining me, I have author Steven
30:37
Eisenstatt with me and we're talking a lot from his book The Imagination Matrix,
30:44
how to access the greatest power you have for creativity, connection and purpose.
30:48
So Stephen, before the break, we were talking about going into the realms
30:53
of deep imagination, into the dig And for anybody listening who like you said,
30:59
it doesn't have to be pictures. I'm a visual artist, so for
31:02
me it's visual things come you know, and sometimes I have to I tell
31:07
myself in my journey to stop and what does it smell like? What does
31:11
it feel like? You know? Because for me my go to is visual,
31:14
right, it's the images. So for people who are like having a
31:18
hard time to do that, what would you recommend they do? Well?
31:22
I think that that's exactly right. Actually, our senses taste, touch,
31:26
smell so so helpful here when an image comes, Let's imagine the image comes
31:33
in a dream of the night or a waking dream. It's a sensation,
31:37
doesn't necessarily need to be a picture. Image rzation comes and then we instead
31:44
of just analyzing or interpreting or trying to figure it out, we allow it
31:49
to take form. It embodies, right, And one of the ways it
31:55
can embody is to personify it, to bring it out in front of us
31:59
from inside to outside. And then look about. You know, what landscape
32:05
are we on? What does a taste like? What does the smell?
32:08
I mean, honestly, if you have an image at all of a sea
32:14
setting, an ocean setting, or a forest setting, just as we were
32:16
describing for the break, if we're in that forest, and then use our
32:21
noses and go, yeah, get the scent. Oh my goodness, you
32:24
cannot smell something and not be in full presence. You're in at that moment,
32:31
in a witnessing presence, and the form begins to animate, illuminates,
32:37
really comes to life. And you were mentioning the figure that you had met
32:42
Dragon here now right of gratitude. Present. Now, then when we take
32:46
in the breath of that forest area, we feel the land underneath our feet,
32:52
we even touch a tree, maybe even a little bit of the dragon.
32:57
If it's safe, right, something different happens. We are then part
33:00
of it. We are present. Then something else occurs, which is the
33:05
wonder of the whole thing, because with permission, we can say to dragons,
33:09
just look at dragon's eyes as dragon willing to receive you. Now,
33:14
we're not looking for the answer, that's our ego mind, that's our first
33:16
thing that we're trained to do. Rather, we're just present and looking to
33:20
see if receptivity is possible. Nine times out of ten, with safety and
33:25
protection, it may be. And then get curious. Follow dragon, Let
33:31
dragon take the lead. Where does dragon take us? And who does dragon
33:36
introduce us to? And before we know it, now we're surrounded with a
33:38
number of figures and the story begins to unfold. Yeah, and that's what's
33:44
happening. And that's every time I go in. Every morning, something else
33:47
is presented. And Yeah, it's been really interesting and I'm enjoying it tremendously,
33:53
and I notice that I feel after I come out of it, it
33:58
sort of sets the whole day for me, you know, like I've connected.
34:01
I feel like I've grounded, you know, into the earth somehow because
34:07
where I'm at in the forest and the leaves and the smell and the I
34:12
can smell the earth and it reminds me of Mother Nature and all of that.
34:15
So let's talk about that, because you talk a lot in the book
34:20
about using something you call the four quadrants of the Imagination Matrix, and you
34:25
go over them in all the different chapters in each part you're talking about.
34:30
So, can you tell us what you mean by the four quadrants and how
34:32
we can utilize that in our life in the imagination Matrix? Yeah, and
34:38
let's keep it simple, because it is essentially very simple. Yeah, it's
34:44
complex and simple. So in the book, I go in great detail,
34:47
right, just as you described, right, four quadrants. One of the
34:52
quadrants has to do with Earth right with the generative quality of Gaia and using
34:59
the mythic just that sense, the regeneritivity of Earth. The second has to
35:06
do with story and mind and imagery and really being present to and available to
35:14
the figures that present themselves, that kind of mind, not only the rational
35:17
mind, but the curious mind, the animated mind, the imaginal mind.
35:22
And the third quadrant has to do with machine. And when I mean by
35:27
machine is not necessarily machine. It certainly includes the new technologies, and it
35:31
includes machines that we've been part of for thousands of years. Right also includes
35:37
this body, the functionality of this body as a machine, because the work
35:42
that we do in imagination has such implication for us emotionally, psychologically, spiritual,
35:47
and too physiologically. So I work with a lot of people that are
35:52
suffering from physical affliction and one sort of the next. Honestly, it's called
35:58
complementary medicine, integriates medicineality. But one of the real beauties of this kind
36:04
of work is it has such such powerful impact on our physiology, regardless of
36:10
the disease syndrome that we are challenged with. So the third quadrant has to
36:16
do with functionality, how things work, how things are fluid, where things
36:21
are blocked, how that moves right, the energetics of the whole thing.
36:24
And the fourth quadrant is what we mentioned. It's something that is of the
36:30
other transcendent. You know, everybody has a different name. Some people will
36:34
use spirituality, other people will use this sense of cosmos, cosmic consciousness.
36:39
There's all kinds of universal consciousness. It's that which is transcendent. And those
36:45
quadrants come alive when we're in imagination, particularly if we allow ourselves to bring
36:51
attention and mindfulness and open our modes of perception to appreciating their existence, their
36:59
presence. They are interrelated and interactive, so they don't they're not stand loans,
37:05
but they touch into one another. And in the book for Sure,
37:08
I show people how when we're living in imagination and we begin to bring awareness
37:17
to the quadrants that are available, and notice how they interact at the places
37:23
of interactivity, at where they touch one another. That's you what I call
37:28
confluence. There's a place of confluence. And those are portals that offer themselves
37:32
to really what Joseph Campbell used to say, right the outer reaches of inner
37:38
space, and he got that from somebody else who got that from somebody else.
37:42
But I really enjoyed my studying with Joseph because you really begin to move
37:47
into dimensions of consciousness and mythic awareness that are really quite revelatory. Yeah.
37:54
Yeah, it's fascinating, and you share in the book. Yeah, you
37:59
go into great depth in the book, So anybody listening who highly recommend you
38:02
read it. And he really explains it in a way that you can understand,
38:08
that you can understand it, and with examples of things and practices to
38:13
do. So even if you say you have ten minutes, let's say you
38:17
only have ten minutes in the morning to do this. You talk about how
38:21
we can utilize the four quadrants quadrants in just going for a walk. Let's
38:27
say we have ten minutes to take a little brisk walk outside or something.
38:30
So it's not something that you have to study for years and get to a
38:38
level of practice before you can even tap into it. Just a few minutes
38:43
a day can help you start to shift your focus. Correct. Oh,
38:47
so correct, And you know I'm by nature, I've been a teacher all
38:52
my life. So not to make it esoteric or abstract or overly scientized,
38:59
right about not what I'm up to in this book in particular that I save
39:02
that for academic lectures and all that kind of stuff. This is an offering
39:07
to people, and every concept comes just like you said, with very particular
39:14
exercises that are simple to do things, and then also with examples from my
39:20
own life personally or others that I've been privileged to be part of. So
39:24
yeah, you can find all the things that one needs to do. Actually,
39:29
what I'm doing now goes right to what we're talking about. I'm working
39:31
with one to five year olds. So this is preschool, oh, I
39:37
know, right, and it's so precious it is. And the initiative is
39:42
to bring in today care with care providers the capacity to sustain imagination. I
39:52
mean, kids already come in at that age with imagination, but like we
39:54
shared very early in the program that you know, they're being you know,
39:59
kind of pushed out of that. They are being literally programmed out of that
40:02
by so much. And now AI is coming. It's one thing up to
40:07
the next, right, So how is it that a caregiver can really sustain
40:13
support, offer you know, possibilities for little ones one year old's, two
40:20
year olds, three year olds, four year olds, five year olds,
40:22
to keep their imagination alive and vital. They can move into story time and
40:25
ways that are you know, just quite extraordinary. So yeah, it's not
40:31
to create this overly abstract is to miss the idea that we are born with
40:37
the capacity from the beginning to be naturally imaginative and creative. Yeah, I
40:45
love that you're doing that with the little ones. I swear courses like this
40:49
should be in schools. There should be an elementary, middle and high school.
40:52
They really should. You know. It teaches you how to go within,
41:00
you know, And I also believe this could I had a guess when
41:02
we were talking about resolving conflict without violence last week, and I really think
41:07
something like this could also be utilized in that, especially with kids and bullying
41:13
and all that kind of stuff. It's like, the potential is just amazing
41:16
of where this work could could expand to, right if we utilize it.
41:22
So I love hearing that it's going into to the schools. That's great,
41:28
it's a wonderful right. And then you know, I for five years of
41:30
my professional life I taught middle, junior, high school, middle school.
41:35
And know now that goes into not bullying only on campus, but it goes
41:39
into bullying, cyber bullying, and online so now it's a new phenomenon.
41:44
So really to tap in really is in service of supporting a different way of
41:51
being in relationship to one another when you're in your you know, early to
41:54
later teens at that age group, and also in partnerships, in marriage and
42:00
partnerships, right, it is very different like what you were sharing. When
42:05
I wake up in the morning and I'm in practice like this, and it's
42:07
not like three hours, right, it's twenty minutes, thirty minutes, forty
42:13
minutes. Each of us makes it our own. But when the day starts
42:15
that way for me, who I bring to my professional work, to my
42:20
marriage, to my family, it's a different Steve, It's a different person
42:25
because I'm not in it alone. And let's just spend one moment there.
42:30
I'm not in it alone. I am now present with the figures, those
42:35
soul companions, you know, the inner community of figures. We know that
42:38
we need an external community for the most part to really prosper. We need
42:45
to be in community relationship with folks, even when we need take a loan
42:49
time for a month, even three months for some people. But still community
42:52
is so vital. The same is true in the world behind the worlds,
42:57
between the worlds, betwixt the world and the in our worlds, right,
43:00
we need that inner community as well, because then we have a home place,
43:05
a place of belonging, and we're in it with the other members of
43:08
our story, and that really is the difference that makes all the difference,
43:13
I think. Yeah, I agree with you. I thought something was interesting
43:17
when I first read your book. We just touched on with the quadrants with
43:22
the machine, and I love that you said that the machine is also our
43:24
bodies because at first I was like, well, what does he mean by
43:27
the machine? And then I found out obviously. But can you share a
43:32
little bit because I get a lot of people writing to me and I like
43:37
to have I have a lot of healers on my show. We talk about
43:42
companion healing, alternative healing technologies and all this stuff. So can you share
43:46
a store a little bit of a story of somebody who utilized what your teachings
43:51
are for a health situation that they were going through and how that benefited them.
43:58
Yeah, for sure. So as a way of background out of this
44:01
work, I've started with my colleague Robbie Bosnak, what's called healing sanctuaries.
44:07
So these are people that are really suffering from you know, physical pain,
44:12
distress, disease, illness, and when they come into this sanctuary, and
44:19
sanctuary is such a big word, so when they come into this, this
44:23
facility, this place that we create, then there's something different that happens.
44:30
So let's get a concrete example. I'm gonna change the name, but well,
44:37
name Rita. And Rita comes in and she is hurting, she is
44:40
suffering. I mean, there is arthritis that is crippling really and it's getting
44:46
worse and worse. It's neck, the shoulder, and you know, her
44:52
life has been very active, yet in the last year she started to feel
44:57
it, you know, coming on, and then next year happens it's getting
44:59
worse. With void arthritis, it takes an incredible toll. And she was
45:04
hurting. And so complimentary medicine or integrative medicine is in combination with a very
45:13
significant and useful medical care. So I don't want to separate the two and
45:17
twenty years ago, it was difficult to talk about imagination. The medicine physicians
45:22
were all against it, thinking that it was going to sabotage the medical treatment
45:27
protocols and like that, and there's a completely different now for the most part,
45:31
in most sectors, a different attitude because people are really seeing the benefits
45:37
of combining the two. So here comes Rita. She's got that real pain,
45:42
right, and she's tried. We worked with physical therapists type folks that
45:45
are trained effectively medical physicians, really well trained, doing all those kinds of
45:52
things, and still the pain is getting worse. And then we go into
45:55
this form into working with imagination to combine that with their really well conceived medical
46:02
care from the first quadrant right read Oh my goodness from Earth and I'll never
46:10
forget she was. She had a garden, and she loved her garden,
46:14
right, and she just felt when she was in the garden there was something
46:17
special happening. So I suggested, hey, take some of that earth,
46:22
some of that earth that is generative in and of itself that you have such
46:25
a high regard for, that already has healing properties. Ah, she did.
46:30
And the story of the garden, I mean, what brings you there?
46:35
What are you telling yourself? And how are you in relation to the
46:38
guys. She does. She wrote a little poem and a story about the
46:42
garden. As if it was a living part of her life, and it
46:45
was truly, I mean at her homeplace, in the pain that she was
46:49
in, that was her retreat space. So that garden had a story to
46:52
tell, right, and then the mobility she was hurting, and you know,
47:00
of course you water a garden, of course, but when her hurt
47:02
would come, tears would also come. Because she was really losing the capacity
47:07
to be in relationship with herself, with her family. It was heartbreaking,
47:13
honestly, So tears would come. So we took a little of those tears,
47:15
a little that water. Then we have a little earth, We have
47:19
a story that she wrote on a piece of paper. We have some water
47:22
from the tears that quadrant. And then in this instance when I talk about
47:27
the universe or the cosmoconscious like that, what it is here is intentionality.
47:32
If you believe, if you really set an intention for yourself that what I'm
47:37
about to do is really going to support and help my health, that intention
47:43
becomes really medicinal, really important. Right now, it's time to make the
47:46
medicine, the imaginal medicine. So we had her take the earth, you
47:52
know, we had to put that earth on the piece of paper that the
47:54
poem was written on. Some of the tears we put into the earth,
48:00
and we kind of combined that, you know, into a substance. And
48:05
then we had her rub that right on her neck along her shoulder, because
48:09
you have to have a practice, right, And every time she ingested medicines
48:14
from the physician, she would pursue the medical care and then supplement that compliment
48:19
that I should say, with this treatment that she was doing warmer hands,
48:23
you know, just by rubbing them with one another that brought a kind of
48:27
warmth to it, and then put some of that onto her neck and onto
48:31
her shoulder. Now here's what happened. A week later, she started to
48:37
feel relief, right. Two weeks later she started to recover a certain kind
48:42
of mobility. And three or four weeks later she really you could see the
48:47
joy come back into her life. Right, not only withoud the relief from
48:51
the pain, but just the capacity to be back into family life and right
48:55
back into herself is remarkable, right, And yeah, is it as some
49:00
people could say, yeah, it's a placebo, right, But a placebo
49:02
is not necessarily false. A police cbo can be something that is created and
49:08
generated through and from an out of imagination that has incredible capacity, impotency.
49:15
That's right when science behind it. Now, if you follow Joe Dispensa,
49:21
there's science coming behind it. So is it really a placebo? Or are
49:24
we talking to ourselves and changing things right? Exactly? It's interesting, It's
49:30
so interesting. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I'm all
49:34
about that. And you know, obviously nobody's saying you should stop seeing your
49:37
doctor, you know, any of that kind of stuff. Just just adding
49:42
this to your your health protocol, you know, is a wonderful thing to
49:45
do. Yeah, that's why it's called complimentary. Right. In addition to
49:52
however, I have to say, just as you share, not only is
49:54
there a science behind there's a whole body of science behind it now, but
49:59
it's the potency of the imagination is quite extraordinary. Really, you know nothing
50:05
more honestly just now speaking out of my therapist. So if nothing more,
50:10
just when my quality of life shifts and I don't feel victimized by the illness,
50:16
but I'm interactive with and I have something that I'm doing that is in
50:21
support of myself, my imagination. There, I say, my soul wife,
50:27
you know, things change, my attitude changes, I moved from feeling
50:31
caught by, crippled by, possessed by into a different kind of relationship.
50:37
And truly our breath deepens and our quality of life changes, Yes, and
50:44
exactly. And I say it in a way of when we shift, we'll
50:47
raise our vibration. And when we raise our vibration, we match those frequencies
50:52
of those things we want to bring into our life at that vibration that we're
50:55
at. So if we're low, we're going to we're going to bring in
51:00
more things that are a vibrational match to that. But when we raise it,
51:05
we're going to bring in more things that are a vibrational match to that.
51:07
So it's interesting, it's really I love this stuff. As you can
51:13
tell. This is like this is my language. I love it. So
51:17
I want to talk a little bit because we only have like five minutes left.
51:22
I want to talk a little bit about imaginal intelligence. And I love
51:25
the chapter on imaginal intelligence. So what is that? Yeah, So what
51:30
we've discovered, and we've had the conversation all the way up to this moment
51:35
that when we access imagination, when we really put ourselves into that place of
51:42
the dragon in the forest or in whatever version, we have of the dig
51:45
we are now participating in imagination, and what happens is our imaginal intelligence increases.
51:53
Now we know about intellectual intelligence, we know about emotional intelligence, right,
51:59
there's a lot of differ. We know about artificial intelligence, all kinds
52:02
of different intelligence. There's also imaginal intelligence that we can actually literally measure.
52:07
Now to the extent that we live in imagination, that imaginal intelligence increases.
52:14
I called IQ four just because I like to put the quadrants in there.
52:17
To the extent that our imaginal intelligence increases, there is a direct correlation to
52:23
quality of life, to well being, as I said earlier, psychological,
52:30
physical, emotional well being. It's extraordinary. As imaginal intelligence grows and evolves,
52:37
and children of course are born with a very high IQ in imaginal intelligence,
52:44
then it dims. Oh to return to that place really opens wonder is
52:51
what it opens. It opens a sense of wonder and awe in the world,
52:54
as if the world itself has an imagination, which I think it does.
53:00
Oh, it definitely does. I mean we know, you know,
53:05
so with you know from whatever is going on within will end up showing in
53:09
the world. Right, So absolutely, this is a universal concept. So
53:15
the more of us that practice this, we are going to naturally influence those
53:22
around us, right, and it shifts everything. So yeah, it's really
53:25
interesting and maybe taking the last thirty seconds or so, Yeah, what I've
53:32
noticed is that when imaginal intelligence increases, there's something else that happens. And
53:37
what happens is that which is innate to each of us, our own genius
53:43
begins to come forward and feel supported. And it doesn't mean we're going to
53:46
be Einstein, right, it's not that. It just means that who we
53:52
were authentically, you know, that sense of calling that we spoke about very
53:55
early on, that innate genius has an opportunity to blossom, to come forward,
54:00
to really begin to lead the way, to be part of our kind
54:06
of innercompass. And that is remarkable. To be connected to our true desire,
54:10
our true yearning, and to then be responsive to that in the world
54:15
is you know, it just changes the way of being in the world.
54:20
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. Absolutely. And that's why I love doing
54:24
my shows so much and I love learning new things. And this is the
54:29
first time, not that I don't know what the concept is, but I
54:30
never heard the word imaginal intelligence before I met you and read your book.
54:36
So I love that I have something new to add to my little toolbox of
54:42
magic as I like to call it in my you know and my thing.
54:45
So I love that. So Stephen, are you do you do? Are
54:50
there YouTube videos? If people can watch your seminars or follow you? I
54:55
mean you Obviously you can get the book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and
54:59
the your book the book dealers. But like, if people want to learn
55:02
more and listen to more of your talks, how can they do that?
55:06
Yeah? And there are multiple ways of doing that. The easiest way to
55:09
do this is simply go to dream tending dot com dream tending dot com and
55:16
then there's listing the workshops that I offer, and there are videos that you
55:22
can be part of. I do a Tending Tuesday piece that you can get
55:25
involved with, which is simply free offering to people. So each week I'll
55:30
do something. There's all kinds of ways of getting involved and engaged, and
55:36
it's so helpful. Like the community that you're part of and that you're generating
55:38
around your work, It's so beautiful, isn't it to be part of a
55:43
community of not like minded others, but people that are open hearted incentive to
55:49
others. Yeah, yes it is. And I thank you so much for
55:52
joining me today. Thank you, Steven. Okay everyone, I'm so grateful
55:58
for all of you. Thank you for listening to post Cards to the Universe
56:00
with Melissa creating the life you crave. And I'm wishing everyone a wonderful week
56:05
filled with joy, abundance and love. Peace,