Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview with Max Friedstein | Awakening to Shifting Lifestreams

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Interview with Max Friedstein | Awakening to Shifting Lifestreams · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Alive and Kicking Podcast.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Kay Eck, and this is where we talk to ordinary people about their extraordinary lives.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Alive and Kicking Podcast, everybody.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: I have as my guest today, Max Friedstein.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh first of all, I just want to welcome you.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome, Max.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me, Kay.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so happy to be here with you because I just love being in your presence.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to say a little bit about how we met and a little bit about you that I know, and then we can get into what you know of yourself.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh God.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: We actually, yeah, we actually met in a crystal shop in Sedona where you work.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like we were just fast friends and also somehow co-conspirators.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: In what I'm not sure.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: But it was but it was an instant connection, and I'm just delighted to see how it's all playing out.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: And it's been such a privilege to know you.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: So even though you're young, how old are you?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: I just turned 25 in January.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: So even though you're young, I feel like you've lived a lot of life.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, I think it's accumulation of lifetimes, but yes.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like that's both on the inner plane and on the exterior.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you've done a lot of things.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you and I, um, so I cannot wait to talk about all of this, but you and I come from the same home state.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, but you had a very different upbringing than I did.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um, tell me about yours.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: My upbringing was the North Shore of Chicago.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know if any of our listeners have ever seen Mean Girls or like any of those like classic American um movies, like 16 Candles, I believe that's one of them, and then um Ferris Bheeler's Day Off.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were all filmed in my town, which is like that kind of classic American um upper middle class world.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it was quite a sheltered environment.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um I always use the word bubble to describe where I'm from.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And even people who live there describe themselves as living inside of this bubble.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, it was quite a different upbringing, um, in a sense that it was just so steeped in materialism.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was very little room for spirituality.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like there wasn't really spirituality.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know any spiritual people.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I knew religious people, but they're very different things.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And mostly what the community I lived in was kind of reformed to conservative Judaism.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was like the most popular, um, let's say, religion base.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I mean, I I really it felt like I had gone a thousand billion percent into materialism, um, the first kind of 21 years of my life.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would say specifically the first 18 years growing up in Highland Park, Illinois.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, but it kind of gave me that that ability to see that what I was searching for in materialism was never going to fulfill me um or make me feel whole.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: So when you were young, how did that affect who you were, who you became?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, were you aware of how it was affecting you?
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was benefiting uh from it in a sense that it's hard to know that something is harming you when everyone around you is telling you that you have what everyone wants.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So I I kind of had this life that looked so perfect on the outside, you know, perfect family, the way the perfect family's supposed to look.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, two parents and a sister, and they were all physically attractive.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was this, and then there was money, and then there was, you know, the status and the power that came with that.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: And thinking that that was um myself, I think was the biggest trauma actually.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like I started to identify with all of those things, and it served me in the community that I lived in, as in like I felt like I was on top of the world, but it harmed me in a sense that it it strayed me very far from my authentic self, from my core the core of who I really am.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: So tell me a little bit about how your childhood felt to you, like your place in your family and your your place in in the world.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I very quickly, I was like the chosen special child, as in I was a like automatically I was a performer.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like I came out of the room and I was just immediately dancing and I was immediately like figure skating.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever I threw myself into, I I really excelled at in that, in that physical world, and especially if it had to do with getting attention or getting validation.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was very adept at that.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so in my family, it was like, I think the only way that I was able to get the attention that I maybe needed from my parents or from um the community that I lived in was through being that shiny performer.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and even if it was negative attention that I got from, you know, being bullied from that as well, like being the only male dancer or only male um figure skater, it was all still this craving to be seen.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that was really the role that I had in my family of uh, you know, being that center of attention, but also being the person that wanted to mediate, like let's say the healer in a sense.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like if there was someone struggling with something, I was always the one trying to fix that or to make someone feel better.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but all of these roles I confused with, you know, myself and not just roles that I was playing.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think that's really interesting about the um this.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'm just gonna start that question over.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: That's fine.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: So um I I think it's interesting when you you come out of the womb, you know, clearly with a propensity for something, in your case, something rather dramatic and performance related.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then you you know very quickly see what the reaction was from your parents and your family, and so you kind of latch on to that, and it becomes kind of a crutch, and like you said, like it becomes a means to an end, which was attention from your parents, and meanwhile, your parents are thinking, he's amazing, he's so comfortable with himself, he's like out there, and so like there's this miscommunication.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Your parents aren't understanding what you need, and you're not understanding how to get what you really need.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, how did that I mean, does that sound like it was what was a hundred percent?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly how I would describe it.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: Was in a sense, that's what I mean by everyone telling me, like from a young age, oh, you know who you are.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're so lucky to know who you are.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're so lucky that you know that you're you know, queer at 12 and that you know that you're um a dancer and that's what you want to do the rest of your life.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, I had no like I wasn't even, I was just doing what I what was automatic, what was programmed into me without even there's no awareness with what I was doing.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like I was choosing these things consciously, they were happening to me and I thought that they were who I was.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And even though some voice inside of me all along was going, this can't really be it, this can't really be it, this can't really be it, but I kept pushing that down, pushing that down, pushing that down because I was getting so much reward from the external.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: My whole sense of self-worth was based upon the external, which I think we can all relate to in one way or another.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's just mine was to the extreme in a sense.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, and and that that's that is the way that children come to know themselves as infants is by the reaction, which is why a narcissistic parent is such a difficult thing, because there's no there's no response, there's no reaction, there's no mirror.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So um this, how tell us about your experience of coming out?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: What was that like for you?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I I'm so stunned by the fact that you were just 12 and people were like, Oh, okay, gotcha.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now I know who you are.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if somebody had said, I'm a cowboy, and um, you know, you would have been like, Well, yes, and you know, what else?
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like did that happen for you?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Were people like, what else?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like um, I think, I think sexuality in the time that I was growing up, it really got intertwined with a sense of self.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's like in the Western world, sexuality like what became if you are gay, that's who you are.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we had to do that in a way because the queer community and like the LGBTQ plus community, like didn't receive, wasn't seen as equal under the law, you know, wasn't seen as equal human beings.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So they had to fight to be able to be seen as human beings.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So they had to say, I am this way, I'm born this way, this is who I am, therefore you cannot like dis uh discriminate against me or oppress me.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: But we didn't realize, I think, at the time that that was happening, and it's not that it's wrong, like it led to where we are now.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's just that we didn't realize when that was happening that we were sacrificing um a greater truth, which is that we are not, we are not just our sexuality.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like the identity is not based upon the sexuality or or who we love or who we sleep with, that there is a um something at the core of us that is limitless and and is just pure presence, pure awareness, and always shape-shifting.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I happen to think that the queer community is is and just queer sexuality, just pushing the boundaries on the that binary is helping us actually as a collective move more into that pure state of presence and limitless possibility that says, you know, today I feel like this.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, I feel like this.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, I want to kiss that tree.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right now, I want to kiss that part, like whatever.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that complete childlike presence that I think we're returning to.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love that so much.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is so true and so wise that on the way to limitlessness, we have to move through labelessness.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And not that the labels are bad, but that they limit us, you know, like it to me, it's always like yes and what else?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Like, or like the because you know, or nothing, you know, totally anything else.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us about like high school and then what happened after high school.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, well, so when I came out in middle school, it was like um, it was extremely accepted.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like I grew up when Obama was president, like that was what the year that I came out when I was 12.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that there was this kind of um acceptance of it at the larger scale.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: The media was accepting of it.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was seeing it on TV, I was seeing it in so like so it didn't feel it was terrifying at the time.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I I really was suffering with a lot of anxiety.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: But actually, this is what changed my whole life was that I was suffering at that time with a lot of anxiety around my sexuality and around um at this point, I see it very differently.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, I thought I was suffering from anxiety because I was afraid of people's reaction.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: But now I see it as that I was suffering from anxiety because I was taking on a label that wasn't gonna be actually who I really was.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't incumbent, I was sacrificing a whole aspect of myself, sacrificing myself really, um, to belong and to to feel safe.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because this sounds crazy, but if I didn't accept, if I didn't take on the label as gay, then if someone came up to me at school because I was more flamboyant and feminine, and someone came up to me at school and said, You're gay, I would get offended, right?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm trying to say, oh no, I'm not.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's bad.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: So then I learned it was like, well, if someone calls me gay and I just say I'm gay, then I'm not gonna be bullied.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: They can't really hurt me.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I I originally thought that I was suffering from bullying, but really it was that I really was terrified of what was happening at a soul level, which was like really cutting myself off from a whole aspect of of who I really was.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: My gosh.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was just talking to somebody about this very thing that is it's like so profound and so like close to my heart, is that especially around the time of middle school, which I sometimes refer to as the black hole, literally.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that um young people of that age, they start to recognize where the angst comes from is not school necessarily.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: It's from the awareness that life itself is not as it should be.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: That this is not right, that's not right, this is not the way it should be.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like, and and there's like this deep mourning and loss, and just like, holy shit, where am I if I'm not in the good place that I thought I was?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you know, like, oh my god, that's so powerful and meaningful for the 12-year-old to face alone because nobody really recognizes that, you know, like, oh my god.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: But it did, it did like uh just know how beautiful the universe is, like that anxiety and what it manifested as called my mother's attention to me.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what that did was she she basically started, she had just started doing something called the work with Byron Katie.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you've heard of Byron Katie?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So she had just started doing the work with her and had started working with a practitioner in the Chicago area, who then she said, uh she said, Max, would you like to go to a session with his name was Paul at the time?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I was 12.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was the beginning of my um transformation because I was then introduced to self-inquiry, to questioning my beliefs and meditating and really understanding that everyone and everything is a mirror of myself, and that was happening to me at 12 because of what was happening.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it's like it all led to how it needed to play out.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: So tell us about the dancing.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the dancing.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I ended up going, um, I was really originally like a figure skater.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was dancing always, but I was originally figure skating.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then I was around the age of 11 when I quit figure skating, um, which was all around the same period of my life, that middle school time.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I started to focus um mainly on dance.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And there was never a time in my mind that I thought I would be a professional dancer.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like I in high school, I loved school.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: I also loved dance.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: I loved all of it.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the more that I got the validation from the dance world and from um teachers and you know, uh artistic directors, then the more I was like, oh, maybe I should do this as a career.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like I remember there was one moment where my dance teacher of like for a very long time, she looked at me and she was like, Why aren't you thinking of applying to schools for dance?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why would I do that?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: She I was like, I never thought I was good enough to do that.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And then she was like, No, of course you are, like you should.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it was in that moment that I went, Oh, someone else just told me what I should do.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sign I should now go do this and be this.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what led me into, you know, really taking it seriously the last few years of high school and training, you know, six to eight hours a day, and then applying to NYU and getting into the Tish School of the Arts dance program, which uh I was there for three years in in New York.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like it was all just a culmination of that um seeking attention, getting that validation story.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was really just what um dance became to me for me.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's saying a lot because that is a high level of accomplishment already, you know, like to to be somewhat misguided about the real nature of your path and to to and to still excel.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's like that's kind of incredible to me.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: Because usually if you're not really, if it's not really a thing, you kind of like are terrible at it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: But um well, that's funny that you say that because I think that that that's the core misunderstanding that I experienced was that what comes naturally to me might not actually be where my soul's gonna grow, like where I'm actually gonna grow.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually in my outside of my comfort zone.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: That is right.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: So that's me.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like, people are always saying, Oh, you're so naturally good at talking to people, you should be talking to people.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, that's my comfort zone.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's why I I know I now need to go into science in a laboratory and be like, I need to not because that of one is right or run is wrong, just because where am I gonna grow?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's in that um discomfort.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really profound.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, um, see, I said you were so wise.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: No, so what happened after school?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, well, it was actually during school that my life changed.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it was my final year of NYU.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was in a really codependent um relationship with my partner at the time, Paul, my first love.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um I was I I mean, throughout NYU, I was sick, I mean, all the time, but I didn't realize that that was a thing.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everyone in New York is sick all the time.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're in pain, you're sick, you're tired.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just the norm.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you think that this is how life is supposed to be.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept, but things just kept getting worse.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like I would, I developed what they called like IBS or whatever, but I would have was having to go to the hospital once a month because I couldn't breathe and my stomach was in so much pain.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't swallow food.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And meanwhile, I'm thinking this is totally normal that I should just be in the hospital once a month.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, like my last year of NYU, my knees started to give out.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: Like no one could understand, no Western medicine for a year could figure out what was wrong with my knees.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: They just started to do this thing where they would lock and I couldn't um bend them and I couldn't get up.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: If I did bend, I couldn't stand up again.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it was really starting to affect how I danced and my ability to dance.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: And by the end of it, like after I'd say 11 months of dealing with it, I it really got to the point where I couldn't even walk.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so at that point, I had hit, you know, rock bottom.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just distraught because I had thought I had found the dance company I wanted to go dance for, and I had, you know, none of this was in my plan for how I thought life was supposed to go.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so basically, I ended up like my dad had known of this shaman in upstate New York who um his name was Guillaume at the time.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now his name is Angel.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he, this guy, Guillaume, used to be the um, I think he was the president of Louis Vuitton and like this high, you know, net worth CEO that left everything and had a spiritual awakening, traveled the world, and then moved into a little cabin in upstate New York and opened this healing sanctuary.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad had mentioned to me on and off over the last few years, and I just kept kind of pushing it to the side because at the time I was really an atheist.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I just did not believe in um, I didn't even think that Byron Cady's work was spiritual.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just thought it was logical.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like everyone's a mirror of me.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: My thoughts are it's up to me to choose what I believe to be true.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not um spiritual to me.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was just truth.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And but I so I had no real connection to the mystery or to the to the magic of life, but I was craving it.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like I was at a inside of myself.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So when I my dad mentioned to me this period of my life when I couldn't even walk, I was like, you know what?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna go and see what happens.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: So I rent a car, I drive three hours upstate New York, um, and I go to meet this guy.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I really thought he was just gonna like tickle me with some plants and then send me on a way and be like, you're healed.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And really that day it changed my entire life.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up um, you know, working with plant medicines for the first time, something called hape.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard of hape?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a sacred tobacco that they um serve you and they blow it up your nose.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's not really a psychedelic or psychoactive, it's just it's used for really before ceremony, like it's used for clearing, for clearing energetic blocks, uh, grounding and connecting to your higher self.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: And when I the moment he did it, I had this out of body experience where I heard my soul just offer me the guidance and it.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, you you need to leave New York, you need to leave your boyfriend, you need to leave dance.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just like all at one time.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, huh?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, and by the way, you need the floor pulled out from underneath you.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_01: You're welcome.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I remember when we first met, I described that moment as like my life had been going as like a boat.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was on a boat traveling at a thousand miles per hour in the same direction for thousands of years.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly the momentum that day was like the day that the sail began to like change direction.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I it was like all that momentum came to a halt.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I was hit with like the weight of how much I had been not living like my life for who I really was and how much pressure I'd been putting on myself and how much ancestral karma and ancestral trauma.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, all of it was just like slamming into me.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I am like for the first time turning this other direction and seeing a whole other side of the world that I had never seen before, other side of myself, really the internal, the intrinsic spiritual part of myself that I had been disconnected from.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: So at that point, was there even an option for you to turn a blind eye to what was being presented to you and going back to the old way of life?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: Was that even an option for you?
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: So it was an option.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I, it's not like after that experience, I changed everything that did the next day.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was like I slowly started to make those changes over the course of a few months.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I left New York quickly, like within two weeks.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was back at my house in Chicago with my family.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then, but I was still hoping that my knees would heal once I did what spirit said.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's like once I did what spirit said, my knees will heal, and then I will go be a dancer again, and then I will get the attention that I need.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was also not wanting to give up that control over my life.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember reading Louise Hayes' work and finding out that, like what she says about the knees is that it's the ego, it's the inability to surrender, like the inability to bend to like, let's say, our higher selves.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like higher powers and this outside thing, but just that part of ourselves that that knows, like that inability to surrender.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was fighting it for a while.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and even I would say two years into my journey, it took, it took really this this past year of breaking my back to literally tell me that that is now done.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like that chapter is is over.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: Are you saying literally you broke your back?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, literally I broke my back when I moved the three weeks after I moved to Sedona.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, wait a minute.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Go back to Chicago.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sorry.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: How long were you in the ashram?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in Chicago?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, the one in upstate New York, the healing center.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, sorry.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was just one day.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was one day.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, literally this all happened in one day.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: May 31st, 2017.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, literally.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: So you went back home and then what?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, then I started to like fall apart.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: So then I started to crumble and really get into a space of what am I doing with my life.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm not, you know, the pressure for that 21-year-old.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: I graduated a year early because that's how the school NYU works for the dancers.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm 21 and I'm supposed to have my life figured out.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's what everyone says.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like that you're supposed to know what you're doing with your life.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sitting there in the summer while all my friends are, you know, starting their at their companies and starting jobs and start, and I'm like, oh my God, like what is happening to me?
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm laying with my parents, like getting stoned every day, just like trying to function, like in the upstate, I mean in north shore of Chicago.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: And but I start learning how to meditate and I sign up to go on something called Vipassana.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever, you know, Vipassana?
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I had I had barely ever meditated before, and I'm decided I'm gonna go on Vipassana.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: And as you can tell, I talk a lot.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: So this was a very, very powerful experience for me.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: So let me pause right there and just um have you explain to people what vipassana is.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to say it's like going from playing um, you know, with little army guys in the backyard to Marines Boot Camp Day one or something.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Literally.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: How do you explain it?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is a beautiful way of explaining it.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so on board with that.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was yes, zero to one thousand, definitely zero to one thousand.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but some part of me knew that I needed to go to that extreme um in the beginning because what it did for me was it got me to see how much suffering was going on inside me that I couldn't see before that was causing all of the sicknesses and the pain.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't like that vipassana made that go away.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was like vipassana exposed that to myself.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the real anxiety that I was living with, um I think from living a false life, also just that that anxiety when we when we're not being ourselves, we are anxious because we know that we're fragile in a sense.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Someone could poke you right there and you would just crumble to pieces because you're not built on substance.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing holding you up from the inside.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's all a house of cards.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I really was experiencing that.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: So Vipassana took it all down.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it was during one of those meditations.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I mean, it's the days are like this, it's insane.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the meditations where I heard that same guidance I had from that plant medicine the day that um I went to see Guillaume, this experience basically, my higher self said you need to go to India October 3rd.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, thank you.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's pretty much why I came to the Basana, it was just to hear this guidance, I guess.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: So literally after those 10 days, I my parents picked me up from the retreat, and I was like, I was like, I can't tell you about what I experienced.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: I have no idea how to describe what I experienced, but all I know is I need to go to India October 3rd.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And this was in July at the time.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I booked my tickets to India.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: I bring my mom with me, and we're going to this Ayurvedic clinic in the southern tip of India, um, Kovalam.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I had heard about it for a while and it always been drawn there.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that still thinking that I'll go there and they'll magically heal my knees and I will then return to um my life.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I get there, and again, my life changes.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I met my mentor within like the first three days of being there.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's where I met my current, you know, mentor and guide who I've been working with every day for the last three and a half years, really, who's changed my whole life.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, has awoken me to that guide within myself and is been that kind of um solid reference point during this period of my life where everything was being turned upside down and crumbling.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so when I met her there, I ended up, you know, she did a reading for me.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: She was tarot reading at the time.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: She's her name's Dr.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: Helen Cogan, and she she's a behavioral neuropharmacologist who then had her own spiritual awakening and left everything and was traveling the world for 11 years.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's how we met in this clinic in India.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: She happened to be there at the same time.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and basically she she was the first person, because even with the shamans that I had been meeting, because that summer I'd been traveling with shamans from around the country, I was meeting people that it felt like they were not my sole family, as in like they were stepping stones for me to get to where I needed to go, but it didn't feel like they were speaking the same language as me.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like I really inherently believed and believed that everyone is a reflection of me and that everything, everything I think that someone else is is what I think about myself.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I live my life that way.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't meeting people who were who were living life that way, um, especially spiritual people.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: They were having all these profound spiritual experiences, connecting with source, doing all this stuff, but it wasn't integrated into their lives.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you saw how they lived, it was like they didn't walk their talk.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Do you see what I mean?
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: So she was the first person that I met that walked her talk.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it spoke to me.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: It scared me because I was like, this person sees that I'm lying all the time.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is horrifying.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like she sees that I, but she she was unconditionally loving, and that was really new to me.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: So this reading she gave me was basically, you know, acknowledging what I had been going through because no one in my life understood what was happening.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think we all understand that when we're going through a spiritual awakening and people around us don't um understand what's happening.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: They think we're running away from things, they think we're throwing our lives away.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my grandparents literally thought that I was like giving up my my life, like dance and performance.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so she was the first person that was like, no, you're right on track.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: You're right on track.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: Just surrender, keep listening to this guidance, and we'll see each other around the world.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we did, we would meet up.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: She she was running these different tours, um, these different uh guided tours around the world with people.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I would, you know, I would continue on my travels and I'd meet up with her, and then I continue on my travels and I meet up with her.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, it was this.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've described it on someone else's podcast I was invited on as like meeting someone that was teaching me that everything happens for a reason, like that that there's no accident that the when the waiter drops the cup when I say this word next to me, that this is all information that I can be reading, not just reading a tarot card, but reading my environment.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is all me speaking with me, all me interacting with myself.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: So there's so much information.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Life is not boring, life is like rich.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: So that was what she was training me in to really see my shadow through these reflections and take responsibility and acknowledge it.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's what I've been doing the last three and a half years.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what I love about your story, and you're going to continue with that, is that you can have this like major awakening where everything becomes clear, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everything's cleared up.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: It sometimes takes another and another and another.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: And for this may go on forever, that you you need to like see these things.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: The way to see them is through a little bit of a shock.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, hopefully, as you become more masterful, you won't need the shock.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like if somebody drops a cup in when you say the word dance.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: That dream's broken.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: I get you.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like, yes, you know.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, how did you end up in Sedona?
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, so I had been traveling.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, for those three and a half years, I was traveling the well, three years I was traveling the world, and then I was in Sri Lanka when COVID started to happen.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was like literally there a year ago this time.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, March 22nd was the day I got evacuated out of Sri Lanka back to the states.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I had just gone through a major like death in Sri Lanka.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: If any of you are thinking about going there, I mean, that land is so powerful.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is pure magic.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I literally had to be like taken out of there, taken back to the states.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I hadn't been home in like 10 months.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I end up back in my parents' house, like in the North Shore, for four months in lockdown, like most of us.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, it really was it was a time of you know, tribulations and amazing growth, but also deep shadow work of all that family stuff that I had been running from.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I started to have these dreams of these red rocks, like while I was home.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I had never been to Sedona, like I didn't know anything about it.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I had remember, remembered that Bashar had, did you ever know about Bashar?
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he had talked about Sedona as being, excuse me, the vortex of um of amplification.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I just felt really drawn to go checking it out and seeing what would happen.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that I would meet my friend here and the road trip up to Oregon, but after a week of being here, it was just the guidance was so clear.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have to stay here.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a job within a week of getting there at Gateway, and it was just like I need to root, like I need to ground.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: I had been mobile for three plus years.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_00: It was time to sit down.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I was terrified.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, my boss, when I first got interviewed, she was like, How long are you thinking of staying here?
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Two months.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, I'm not hiring anyone for two months.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, like that's just not happening.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What do you mean?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, you have to commit to at least a year.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot do this.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: But because of how much fear I had had to doing it, I knew that there was something in it for me.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, this is gonna push me to grow, even if it's uncomfortable, even if I'm feeling trapped and scared, like there's something in that that will be what I need.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I said yes to staying.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then even, you know, two weeks after I got the job, if I was doubting of whether or not to leave, it was like literally I broke my back and couldn't live, couldn't leave, couldn't move.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I was cliff diving and jumped off like a 30-foot cliff, yeah, with someone who I had met two hours before, like literally two hours before I had met him, and he had taken me hiking, and then he rescued me out of the water and he took me and gave me a room into his house.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: I was actually looking for permanent housing.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: I couldn't find housing at the time.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he's that's who I live with now.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: I live with him, the guy who rescued me out of the canyon.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he also put you in the canyon, he also put me in the canyon, yes.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: Don't tell him that, but yeah.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: So um I didn't even know that part of your journey.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: I guess your lunch hour ran out when we were just I know there's a lot to talk about, yeah.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_01: So how long has it been since you've been here?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Since July.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: So about I don't know how many months, eight months.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: So you've not only had you've had a dramatic life externally, physically, internally, like it's been dramatic.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's been like big and you know, undeniably powerful, really.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you know, it's the only life you have, so maybe you don't know that.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: But um, so what's what's next on the horizon for you?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: How are you um how are you integrating your Sedona experience and where is it taking you?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a really good question.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I find I've I wrote a little bit about this a few weeks ago, but I've been realizing the more that I spend time here, like what Sedona represents to me at least.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: And if people resonate with this, they can see if they do.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_00: But to me, it's like it's like limbo.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of where the soul goes after, you know.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say you have a near-death experience, and where you go during that near death experience, that dimension, that feels like Sedona in a sense.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: You you die and you don't know that you've died.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: So you're here and you're walking through this, like this, this, this heaven in a sense.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: But really, what it is is it's a place to review and heal.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm reviewing how I've lived the last 25 years of my life.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like even the last four years of the spiritual awakening, I'm reviewing that and I'm going, what's well, you know, it's life review.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like what's in resonance with me now?
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: What lessons do I need to learn?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: My shadow and my demons are being presented to me and all of my interactions, but also so are my guardian angels and so are my spirit guides.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's like this place really is to me, it is that state in between quote unquote these other dimensions and the material world.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've been asking myself, you know, why am I here in this frequency, in this dimension for this length of time?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's because I'm learning to to really shed all, not learning, I'm shedding all of that I was.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm, in a sense, letting go of who I've been the last 25 years.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when it's time for me to leave, I'm gonna be, in a sense, reincarnating.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I leave here, I'm coming back into, I'll be in the same body, but I won't be the same person.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it feels like a safe kind of womb, Sedona is to shed and heal and die in a sense.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, to me, this place offers so much opportunity for integration and healing.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so every day is that, yeah.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's funny because it, you know, when you're on the path that you're on, and certainly I've been on that similar a similar path with none of the same characteristics, defining characteristics.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: But it's really hard for people who aren't doing that type of work to understand how much is going on when it appears from the outside that nothing is happening.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: A thousand percent.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean talk about that, what that's like for you.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, well, I think about that.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Think about a flow, think about like a uh uh anything but a flower.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking, I'm getting the image of a flower.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And how if you looked at a plant, you would think nothing is going on.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's just it's just a plant, right?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: But how many invisible forces and and you could call them angels, you can devas, whatever you want to call these fairy beings, or just intelligence, universal intelligence that's operating at an invisible level.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: You can't see it with your physical eyes.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: But how does that plant know to grow and then bloom into a flower and turn into this magical thing?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: We don't, we would never be able to tell.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: For example, we could never tell that a caterpillar is going to turn into a butterfly.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like there would just be no, and if you looked at a at a what do they call those?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: A cocoon.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you looked at a cocoon, you'd think it was nothing.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: You'd think it was nothing was going on.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: But how much is going on inside of that thing to actually transform that caterpillar into a butterfly?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: That really is, I think, for the Western world, a whole rewiring of what we've been taught, which is to value the material, to value the visible.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything is about what it looks like, what can you tell people that you're doing?
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: What can you show and prove to the world when really it's so much it's so much about what people can't see, what's not seen.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: And what can't be proven.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and what can't be proven.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: Trusting the the that that which cannot be proven is a huge obstacle for a lot of people.
• 41:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think like, wow, it if you only knew what you were missing, you know, like, and I think that the the flower analogy is really apt and accept that you're you're like the flower, except you're conscious of what's going on, you're conscious of becoming of being a bead and or a bud, and knowing exactly what is required and what is not required to become the flower.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so it's so much and it's so enthralling, and you can't like, and then you get to a certain point where it's like, but still, yeah, dudes, I'm a flower.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's your purpose.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, honestly, what I find is that it's yes, it's difficult, and yes, it's it's intense and it's overwhelming at times, and it's really like, what the hell are we doing?
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it's what we came here to do.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: We know that at a core level, we know, and that's why it's fulfilling, and that's why we keep doing it because no matter the darkest of days, we know that there's something nourishing us.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's something happening alchemically inside of us through this process.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have to value it.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: And more of what I was saying was less about the was more about how people can look at what we're doing and go, what are you doing?
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm like from the outside, people would go, You look, you're just living your life.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like there's so much happening inside of this, like inside of just this one interaction, inside of you know, lifting my phone and putting it over here.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's interesting.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard of the gene keys?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: And they've been coming into my awareness a lot lately.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Me too.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: They just showed up for me too, like a few weeks ago.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: And there's one gene key that it's he talks about going from um, oh, let me remember.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's leaving my mind.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not meant to be.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_01: It was something really important, but we can I don't have a good grasp on what they even are, but it's just this you're this is the third time it's been brought to my attention.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I I know it's something that I need to take a look at, but definitely, definitely.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's really powerful.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yeah, I totally see what you're saying.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I we as we were saying before we came on, um, you know, if you ask somebody who's doing this work, like how are they doing what you been doing?
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what's up?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh my god, where do I begin?
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and then it's like essentially nothing.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then, however, there's been like listen, I became a new person, I dropped an old person.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like, yeah, all the things.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's funny.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I for one, and I'm sure our listeners too cannot wait to hear what happens to you next.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it's not life threatening or um thank you.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've learned I've really learned.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was a you know, life changing experience in a sense, but I really learned through that injury, like that I don't have to learn through drastic suffering like that.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: There was a belief that I was carrying in me that created that experience.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want me to go into a little bit about this?
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because I can talk.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I mean, it's symbolically what happened was I jumped off this cliff that was higher than I thought it was.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the three weeks that I had been in Sedona, I had felt already like, you know, I talked about it being the amplifier.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_00: So it was bringing to the surface how how ungrounded and how high I was getting.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I was constantly seeking these spiritual highs throughout my journey.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what I didn't realize was that, you know, we live in a duality, we live in a binary system, in a sense.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: So if I am swinging to that pole of high all the time, I'm gonna have to have extreme lows to balance that out.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: They they have to balance each other out.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: So in order for me to like, let's say, not experience such intense lows, it's to really stay neutral about things, is to not be seeking the high.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: To be, you can experience ecstasy, experience joy, but it's it's being the observer of it rather than thinking that the high means that I'm doing something right, that I'm worthy, that I'm like a lot of people in spirituality, they say, you know, like it's all about being great all the time.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about being happy all the time.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like that's so unnatural.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that would will always have to have with it an intense depression and intense contraction and intense illness, injury, whatever, in order to really balance us out.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because all this, that's all our bodies, our souls are trying to get us to do is return to that state of equilibrium, of homeostasis.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that fall helped me see that if I can remain grounded, if I can make the central point of neutrality be my um anchor point and be my zero point, then I won't really need to experience such intense, dramatic um slaps in the face.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: And when they do happen, I've always embraced them.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like, oh my God, I'm doing something wrong.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's just giving me an opportunity to see more.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's chasing the spiritual high is a real thing.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can get you can get caught up in that a little bit.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_01: I I don't have the tendency to get caught up in it too much, but um I, you know, there are times and then you think like, um, I need to like balance my checking account.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like I need to go be human for a minute.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 46:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then for me, that's what of what was so profound also was in the balancing of the checking account, that like that's also spiritual.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like that symbolizes you balancing something in your life.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like before this, before this podcast, I literally cleaned my entire room.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was resaging all my crystals.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was, I mean, it was just like clearing the space.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was like energy needed to move, like doing human stuff.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: But it's all spiritual, it's all meaningful.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:53
  unknown: Wow.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I just love you so much.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think I feel like we could go on and on and on again.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_01: We could, but um, the format does not allow.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_01: So um totally fine.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_01: The format's in charge of us right now.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: So that's totally fine.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to move on to the lightning round, and I have to admit that I've actually usually it's they're like light and fun questions, but I've actually um selected all deep and meaningful questions for you.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yay! I'm excited.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um first question what role has art played in your life?
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's an interesting question.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the first 21 years of my life, I don't think art played a role in my life.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think that I wasn't an artist, if that makes any sense.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_00: I was never really tuned into creativity.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was doing it was like almost automatic programming to get attention, to get um care.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it could fall, people from the outside would say, This is art.
• 48:02
  SPEAKER_00: Look how beautiful that is.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I think what makes art art has nothing to do with what the person outside of it is saying.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_00: It has to do with the person's experience of creating it.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: You could make the ugliest thing in the world, but your experience of creating that was a process of surrendering to a higher power and experiencing a creativity flow through you.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is art.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_00: It could look like poop, but who cares?
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if if it's based on what other people tell us, then we're we're lost.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's it can't be.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_01: Holy cow, I'm so glad I asked you that question because that was just genius.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've never answered that question before, it just came out of me, and I'm grateful that you just asked that because I just learned from myself.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it does.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: That was incredible.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:44
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: So the second question is how is self-esteem gained?
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's gained.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's we already have self-esteem.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: We already are worthy, we already have self-worth.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's in the letting go of all of the programming and conditioning that has made us think that we need to gain something, that we need to um get something.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's so beautiful.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: See, I'm I think we met actually so that you could be my teacher.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_01: Oh you're my teacher.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, number three, what's the difference between fate and destiny?
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: It brings me to I'm hearing like free will, this idea of free will.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I've talked a lot about this with Helen and with different people on my journey.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's like at certain layers of or certain levels of consciousness, we experience things differently.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_00: So at at a very like a, it's not hierarchical, but at a lower vibration, we experience fate as like this is happening to us, and we feel almost like a victim of fate.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like when I hear fate, a lot of the times it's like it was fated or it was it had to happen, but it people feel like a victim of their experience or feel like a victim of life.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as we start transforming that victim complex, I think we do start tuning into destiny, which I do think is is real.
• 50:21
  SPEAKER_00: I happen to believe in destiny, but I don't believe it is it is this linear thing of like you are to get here.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's more just that when you're you're when you're really present and when you're surrendering to the intelligence of life and to your higher self, you you can you see that there is this natural unfolding, like the like the seed is going to become a flower.
• 50:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's going to.
• 50:47
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't need you don't need to make it become the flower, you don't need to do anything, you just need to be there believing, supporting, nourishing, offering, listening, and knowing that that that that seed is going to turn into the flower.
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_03: So for me, yeah, yeah, go ahead.
• 51:01
  unknown: Yeah.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: So just for me, destiny is is just knowing that I will that I am doing what I came here to do, that I will do what I came here to do, but it's not getting so involved in it.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not getting too heady about it.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's really surrendering to the hearts, knowing and letting that lead us.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that is the best parenting advice I've ever heard.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um literally, from my 25-year-old friend.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, that's kind of the understanding that I came to about children, other than the fact that they came to teach me rather than the other way around.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, is that they already they're already coded to become themselves.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you're just there to make sure it's not pop tarts and Cheetos all day.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, that's that's yeah.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're there to be um support for them on that journey.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_00: And to, and the only way we can, as parents, let's say, know that our kids will become who they are are meant to become or that they will be okay, is if we know that for ourselves.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: We have to know that about ourselves.
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's why as we stop focusing on our kids and we just keep going, anything I think about my kids is what I think about myself.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: So let me keep coming back to myself, keep you know, reflecting on that and using my children as a reflection of where I am in my life.
• 52:23
  SPEAKER_00: And if we do that, I'm saying as if I have kids, but I have people around me all the time.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if we do that, then we are in service to them.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's so beautiful.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I can't.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even think I'm gonna get through all these questions.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_01: What does freedom mean to you?
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_00: Freedom is the ability to be myself, but the authentic self.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think freedom is presence.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_00: I honestly think freedom is just presence.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm hearing freedom is who we are, it's really just who we are.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's that is an attribute that could describe the core of who we really are.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that we have to get or that we have to attain again, the same thing.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny, I always have a mask that says freedom is a state of mind as well.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I have on my mask, I have a little thing that says freedom is a state of mind, because so many people feel like, you know, with a mask, like, oh my God, my freedom is being taken away.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, well, your freedom really can't be taken away.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_00: The person who said freedom is a state of mind is Nelson Mandela, who was literally in prison for years.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where he learned that freedom is a state of mind being in a physical prison.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think freedom comes from when we align with the truth of who we really are and we realize that nothing in this material world could ever take that away.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: No external circumstance, no, no Trump, no Biden, no none of these people can take that freedom away.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's something we inherently are, and it's the ability to choose our perspective on everything that happens to us.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_01: Brilliant.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: I love that one too.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for these questions.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've got two more.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_01: How hard is it to cry?
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's funny, I felt like I could cry right now, just now that you said that.
• 54:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um it depends on the moment for me.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like personally, it depends on the moment.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: I have a Gemini moon, like I can get very multiple personalities with my own emotions, but I've been learning to, you know, completely surrender to my emotions and to be fully present with them.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I just cry in the car listening to music and the the beauty of whatever's around me, or I cry because stuff really is tough in that moment.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: To me, yeah, I don't even know how to answer that one.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's not so hard for me to cry.
• 55:32
  unknown: Yeah.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm now that you're talking, I'm realizing that I go through phases of what makes me cry.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: And in the beginning, when I was younger, it was like that thing, you know, that the world is not as it should be, and I don't understand why, and I can't seem to do anything about it.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, there's the fear of being seen, and then there's um the having to like face your programming and the wounding and the trauma that, and then I moved on to I'm just speaking, just talking a little bit about my path.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_01: Then then I went through like the injustice of the world and the suffering of humanity in general, and then um, and also specifically, you know, specific humans, and now I find that I'm not crying as much as I used to, and I think I've just like let go of so much of what I thought I had control over or could do something about, or didn't understand that I'm just totally much more neutral, you know, about everything.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's been really interesting, but I'm sure makes the universe like try this.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's beautiful because I think I think it is like you're saying, it's happens in stages.
• 56:57
  SPEAKER_00: I do think there's a process that we are there is a point where we have to, you know, allow ourselves to cry and allow ourselves to feel the weight, like we're we're become vessels and open vessels for this energy to move through us.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're processing not just for ourselves, but for the collective.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I do think the the more we do the work, the point is not to stay in that pitying of the planet or in that, like, you know, seeing the world that way.
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're only seeing the world that way.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: We're only seeing that much suffering in the world because there's that much inside of us at that point.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the more we heal, we keep healing that suffering inside of us, we keep holding ourselves and being with ourselves through it.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think the more we do get to a neutral state.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then we don't, we don't worry about the world so much.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_00: We know it's gonna be okay.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: We know it's gonna get through it.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: We know it's it's it's in charge, it's really not us.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like, right.
• 57:51
  SPEAKER_01: And there there is something I find that is a little disempowering about crying for someone else.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 57:58
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like it's it's believing that they're powerless or that you know, something's happening to them rather than for them, and some not doing as much of that.
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_01: All right, one last question here.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_01: What is beauty?
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_00: Authenticity.
• 58:18
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I agree too, 100%.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_01: So did you bring a question for me today?
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: I did bring you a question.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: I hope it's easier than those.
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, it's a really it's a good one.
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: Just give yourself a few minutes.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_00: But if you could give your 25-year-old self any advice, and I I think it's funny we kind of talked about it five minutes ago, but if you could give your 25-year-old self any advice for you know what's to come, and um yeah, what would you say and share with them?
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: I think that um my answer is actually surprising me, and I think it would be maybe surprising to others, certainly 25-year-olds.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because I think the typical answer might be just you wait, don't worry, you know, things are gonna work out and you're gonna grow and learn in this.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_01: But actually, my first instinct is to tell her you were right fucking on, you know, because the things that I was facing and rejecting and suspecting were the truth.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was suspecting the truth, I didn't know it, I didn't believe it, but I was, and I didn't have any support for that at all.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody that I knew was asking the questions that I knew.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I was kind of I was rejected just for asking the questions and wanting to have like deep relationships and to, you know, that wasn't a very popular thing for a 25-year-old woman who's I worked in PR.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like I suffered working that job.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, people, this isn't right.
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_01: Marketing's terrible, you know, like yeah.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: It was like I was successful, but I was like inside, it was like such inner turmoil for me.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: And if I could have, and it instead I felt like I can't break through the glass ceiling because I don't have what it takes, when actually it's like that wasn't even worth doing, you know.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's probably what I would say.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, thank you.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is that's beautiful.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're right on.
• 1:00:40
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, I have had such a wonderful time with you, and thank you for your patience for me earlier in getting to my my place.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_00: What a gift! Like, wait, I want to tell you something funny.
• 1:00:54
  SPEAKER_00: That last week, um, some guy walked into the store.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: What's his name?
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_00: Hold on, and you know him.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he was on your podcast last like two weeks ago.
• 1:01:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I connected with him.
• 1:01:07
  SPEAKER_00: What's his name?
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let's see.
• 1:01:09
  SPEAKER_00: Aaron Ogden.
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, I forgot he was in town.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you love him.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: He walked into Gateway and we just were like, hello.
• 1:01:18
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so it's he's a beautiful person.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, he's so beautiful.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, like is he still here?
• 1:01:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, uh no, I think he's in Santa Fe right now, but he's gonna be he wants to be buying a property out here.
• 1:01:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's thinking about it.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe you guys should talk to each other.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: Connect for sure, for sure.
• 1:01:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and actually, he he would has been trying to connect with me and I haven't been available.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, Erin.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god.
• 1:01:44
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that is so funny.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's awesome.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, thank you again for being here.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've loved spending time with you.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you so much, Kay.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_00: Seriously, that was a gift.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're such a beautiful blight, bright light.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: You too.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: You too.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.