Latest / Authentic Living / Searching for and Healing Your Authentic Self with Arnie Freiman
Transcript
- 0:01Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we conscious conversations about
- 0:08things that really matter in our lives.
- 0:12And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
- 0:37Hi, everyone.
- 0:38It's Roxanne Derhodge of the authentic living with Roxanne.
- 0:41Today, I have, Arnie Freedman with me today.
- 0:44Hi, Arnie.
- 0:44How are you today?
- 0:45I just great.
- 0:46How are you doing?
- 0:49So Artie's, gracious with his presence today, and he's done a lot of things in his career
- 0:54path, but, I thought I'd tell you a little bit about his his his bio that I have in front of
- 0:58me.
- 0:59His path, life journey has led him on a path of passion and whole person authenticity.
- 1:04And you know that I talk about the, as much as I can, spiritual health care and education.
- 1:12His expensive history ensured depth of character, and he is enables him to serve as an
- 1:16insightful guide for folks in search of their inner most truest self.
- 1:20And and then a path that I know all of us are on on a on an ongoing basis.
- 1:25Arnie is a feeler.
- 1:27He he feels life, his and yours deeply uses love, wisdom, spirituality, humor, fresh air,
- 1:35and food.
- 1:36I like that part to to to lead people home.
- 1:40So, Arnie, you've obviously had a full curve path.
- 1:46And, you know, you've been in health and wellness for a very long time.
- 1:50So kind of share with the the listeners what made you choose the this path, way back with?
- 2:00I don't know if I made a choice that was conscious.
- 2:03It kept evolving.
- 2:06I started out by really wanting to, clean up our cities and studied urban planning and city
- 2:13until I realized that that wasn't really the path that I wanted to take.
- 2:18And so I actually, bought a farm in West Virginia, started teaching college, and looking
- 2:26at our history, who we are.
- 2:29And that led to really wanting to explore models of learning.
- 2:33So I went off and did my graduate work in transformative learning models and develop
- 2:39different ways that we actually can hear information and take it in.
- 2:44And different pat patterns and tones and frequencies and so on.
- 2:48From there, I got so enthralled in healing coming out of a philosophy from the east.
- 2:55And so I started studying Chinese medicine, at the time, it was illegal in the US to practice
- 3:04acupuncture.
- 3:05And I, being who I am, I said, well, that's silly.
- 3:11So I worked at the state of Massachusetts and co founded the 1st acupuncture school in the
- 3:16US.
- 3:17And after that, we worked on getting the profession licensed.
- 3:21I got so intrigued at that point with the intersection of health care, philosophy, and
- 3:28spirituality.
- 3:29And then I went to the West Coast to California and found it the 1st naturopathic medical
- 3:35college there.
- 3:38Well, at that point, after getting the school all set up opened, which was no easy thing to
- 3:45accomplish.
- 3:46I then developed Hodgkin's lymphoma.
- 3:49Oh my goodness.
- 3:50Was told I would be dead.
- 3:52And at the time, I said, no.
- 3:54I don't think so.
- 3:56I was in my early thirties.
- 3:58And started to delve very deeply into my own life, what was going on inside me, and develop
- 4:06models to really look and listen deeply to what's going on inside of my being.
- 4:13And created a strategy for how I was gonna get through this illness and in so doing at the
- 4:20same time, learned the depth that we all have within ourselves and how we can really go in
- 4:28and pay attention to that really profound place where we can pay attention to what's occurring.
- 4:35And that began, what has now been a life's journey looking at that from a deep, rigorous
- 4:43place of doing that work.
- 4:46So tell me like, you must have, obviously, you get a diagnosis like this.
- 4:51This is, you know, any of us get scared, right, as soon as we get something like that.
- 4:55And I think I read I don't know if it was on your website or that you in the hospital, you
- 5:02bought a house,
- 5:04I was they they told me one day that, it had spread and sent in the social workers And they
- 5:13said, you know, well, this is what's happening and, you know, you should get things in order.
- 5:19So instead of getting things in order, I bought a home.
- 5:23They said, well, you're crazy.
- 5:24I said, well, that's most likely true.
- 5:26But what's that got to do with anything?
- 5:28I said buying a home, 1st of all, would give my family a place to be.
- 5:34And second of all, was an affirming action to say I'm not ready to leave yet.
- 5:41And one way or the other, if I'm not here, they have a home.
- 5:44And if I am here, we have a home, and it it but it it wasn't an affirmation, wasn't it?
- 5:50It was an action step to say, I'm not ready to move on yet.
- 5:56I mean, they told me a few times after doing too many surgeries that they kept seeing it in
- 6:06different places, but it never was there in those new places.
- 6:10So truthfully at one point, I blessed them, thanked them, and said it's time to move on
- 6:18because I have a life to now live.
- 6:20And started to really focus in different directions.
- 6:24I would also say for those that are, you know, encountering real life physical crisis.
- 6:33We need to take control of our own journey.
- 6:36We need to bring in all the skills and the support, which may or may not include
- 6:42allopathic physicians.
- 6:44In my case, I worked with one of the most extraordinary Chinese practitioners who was the
- 6:50quarterback.
- 6:51And he and I took charge of what we were gonna do, but we brought in the allopathic providers
- 6:58who offered their skills, which were immense.
- 7:02Mhmm.
- 7:02But we also brought in all the other practitioners and philosophers and thought
- 7:07thought leaders to look at what direction and how we were gonna proceed.
- 7:13So we can't listen to something as the full gospel.
- 7:19We have to take it in, and then we analyze what the meaning of that is in our own journey.
- 7:25So clearly, I mean, what had happened to you, you know, your body was giving you signs.
- 7:31You know, something had to shift.
- 7:33And I'm gonna think that you really had to go inside, deep inside to really listen, and I
- 7:39often say, you know, we we get the signs.
- 7:41Right?
- 7:42We get the psychological signs, and we can we can bat that out, you know, in all the way as
- 7:47far as we want.
- 7:49And then the emotions, they they get deeper and they get stickier.
- 7:52And then we think, oh, I got I'm gonna ignore this one too.
- 7:56Right?
- 7:56And we do this.
- 7:57And then all of a sudden, you know, we start to get physical symptoms, and then we have to go
- 8:01up show up and see the doc who says, you know, you gotta do some things.
- 8:06So in your life, what when you when you got this diagnosis, what did you do to kind of were
- 8:13you already connected to untraditional forms of medicine?
- 8:16Or
- 8:17Yeah.
- 8:17Well, I was running the naturopathic school at this time.
- 8:21And as I said previously, I was running the acupuncture school I was already in a different
- 8:27space, but, you know, there's a difference when you're running the school and now when you have
- 8:33to face your own journey.
- 8:35So one of the things I did, which, of course, they struggled with at the hospital, was I
- 8:42started to look at different forms of going within.
- 8:47And I started with different meditative techniques.
- 8:51Which I found were wonderful to get me in, but I needed to learn a strategy for myself.
- 8:58What worked for me and I taught myself a way to go into what I now call the portal.
- 9:05There's the portal inside of ourselves.
- 9:08Where we basically have stories going on.
- 9:10Right?
- 9:11We have movies happening all the time.
- 9:14Either we're gonna write those stories or become the playwright of these wonderful
- 9:19journeys.
- 9:20Are they gonna write themselves?
- 9:21They're gonna come from the journey with that we've taken that we may not even be aware of
- 9:26what we're doing.
- 9:27It could come from our mothers, our teachers, the workplace, our peer group, the tribes that
- 9:33we associate with, they're probably coming from all of those sources and we've lost our essence
- 9:39in the midst of that.
- 9:41And I went to a portal where I would I said, where am I the most at peace?
- 9:48Where do where do I wanna be?
- 9:50Well, for me, I wanted to be sitting by a pond under a Willow.
- 9:56It just feels great.
- 9:58Laning on that Willow tree.
- 10:01Sort of a little Walt Whitman kind of an experience with leaves of grass.
- 10:07And I, by the way, have done a couple of walks with Walt.
- 10:10So that's a little scary that I'll talk about in my workshop experiences where we walk with I
- 10:16ask people to take a walk and speak with whoever they've wanna speak with their whole
- 10:20life.
- 10:21My case, it's Walt.
- 10:23So I did that.
- 10:25It was pretty powerful stuff once you're there.
- 10:29So I found a place of peace and harmony, which in the midst of all that fear, and it's quite
- 10:36clear I was dealing with fear.
- 10:38When you're dealing with life and death, we can't, you know, kid ourselves.
- 10:43I was very much dealing with fear.
- 10:45And I had to chill it out.
- 10:47I learned how to do that.
- 10:49One day, someone mentioned that I should go see this jordanary French Moroccan, hiplet,
- 10:54hypnotist.
- 10:57And she was much more than that.
- 11:00And she said, let's go in and see what happens.
- 11:02We went in.
- 11:03She said, I pulled she pulled me out, Arnie.
- 11:07You're already there.
- 11:08So let's go really in and do the work.
- 11:11And she knew I was in the under the Willow by the pond.
- 11:15She said, now let's really go for it, Arnie.
- 11:19What's happening with your child, and it happened to be my seven year old self.
- 11:28Sitting in the corner of a room, like, in a fetal position.
- 11:33Oh, no, Arnie.
- 11:35Bring that child out.
- 11:37Hold his hand together, you're gonna walk into the pond now.
- 11:41You're not just sitting by the pond, and you're gonna go to the bottom of the pond.
- 11:46It's dark.
- 11:47It's murky.
- 11:48I couldn't catch my breath until I could.
- 11:54And the lesson there was hang in it will work out.
- 11:59My seven year old and me were walking through the bottom of the pond together.
- 12:05Until we were called out and then sat back under the Willow.
- 12:09Mhmm.
- 12:10Well, she taught me I needed to communicate with my seven year old, and I call on my seven
- 12:16year old when I need to, when I want to, he calls on me, And one of the most extraordinary
- 12:24things is I learned how to soften, and I learned how to hold my heart.
- 12:31So I take information in through the heart.
- 12:34It then goes to the mind, which the neurotransmitter send out through the body.
- 12:40So that way I was raised in New York with a bit of a tough edge.
- 12:46It's there when it needs to be but that beauty of the softness of who we are paying attention,
- 12:53listening, and bringing the world in through the heart is the gift that I've been given
- 12:58through that whole journey.
- 13:00What an amazing story.
- 13:02You know, it's it's interesting because I'm a a trauma specialist.
- 13:06And, you know, I I I see so many people that get stuck.
- 13:09Right?
- 13:09They they like you said, you go into that portal, and, you know, and and it's almost like
- 13:16they're making the same bend, and they know they're gonna crash, but they they come around
- 13:19the same bend with the same story and the same narrative over and over again.
- 13:24And it's really having people recognize that, you know, unfortunately, you know, we all go
- 13:29through to have lived is to have had pain.
- 13:31That's a reality of life, but you don't that does not define who you are.
- 13:35But oftentimes people don't know how to get out of it.
- 13:38Right?
- 13:39They're stuck.
- 13:39They're that seven year old is stuck, and they're disconnected from that seven year old
- 13:45because that seven year old, not only holds joy, but the whole pain.
- 13:49You know, we live in a culture, particularly these days.
- 13:53For those of us that have lived a while, where we're not really given permission to go into
- 14:01that deeper place.
- 14:03And for a we talk about how the mail needs to soften, but we don't have any real guides, and
- 14:09we don't have the support.
- 14:12I see my strength as an inner journey.
- 14:15And I see myself and my being, when I walk into a room, I'm very clear now that I walk into the
- 14:22room filled with joy, even in the sadness.
- 14:26I've had a lot of sadness.
- 14:28We all carry that with us.
- 14:30And so how do we hold that holding the joy that surrounds us?
- 14:35There's this fullness and abundance that really is the essence of who we are.
- 14:40And then this stuff of life, that stuff we're balancing the air and the earth, and walking on
- 14:47the earth is a deep journey.
- 14:49And so we have to bring that beautiful self into it.
- 14:53For me, it came through studying, deeply in the realms of deep philosophy, eastern thought,
- 15:01getting ill and exploring different, you know, when I had a practice and and treating people
- 15:08and so on, and then my own crisis.
- 15:11And it wasn't just one crisis.
- 15:13So how do we keep going further and further in there?
- 15:17And so the book I've written, which is a culmination, I'll say there's a few aspects to
- 15:23the book.
- 15:23It's quite unique.
- 15:24I had no idea that this book would come out the way it a few years ago, probably 10 now, at 3
- 15:31AM in the morning, every single morning, I'm trying to sleep, I would get awakened.
- 15:38I didn't know what was happening.
- 15:40If I didn't pay attention, I was getting headaches So I got a pad of paper and I put it
- 15:47next to my bed, and I'd start allowing whatever was gonna come out to come out.
- 15:53And what came out was poetry and a particular style of poetic that is about opening the heart
- 16:00and going in.
- 16:02And all of a sudden dozens of poems start flowing out over the weeks.
- 16:08And then I asked myself, Can I come and do this at 3 in the afternoon?
- 16:14So it'd be I'd like to get some sleep.
- 16:17And in that, I learned now how to actually have a conversation with that in herself that's
- 16:24going on that needs to bring out these words.
- 16:28So the book came together with the poetry, pretty deep stories, practices, and blessings.
- 16:37And it's looking at that stranger within ourselves that we've either hidden in the
- 16:44corner become none numb to, and we need to now basically reclaim ourselves.
- 16:53And then we need to take this journey, which the book is actually, active journey looking at
- 17:01how we in fact come to that center place, which is our home.
- 17:06So it starts with reclaim and ends with home.
- 17:10And we take this journey.
- 17:11And and I think, you know, it's regardless if with my practice or when I'm speaking or when
- 17:17when I'm talking to you know, directors or HR, people are looking for the same things.
- 17:23Yeah.
- 17:24We are all looking for the same things.
- 17:26We're You know?
- 17:28I work with some school districts with the health and wellness programs, and I'm working
- 17:34with some districts now and some pretty conservative areas.
- 17:40And first, they started to look at me at what are our differences.
- 17:45And I said, why don't you hang in there with me a little while?
- 17:49And let's see if, in fact, we can get past our differences because I see them as an illusion.
- 17:56And if our hearts can meet, and if we truly wanna do the work together, let's go on this
- 18:01journey together.
- 18:02It's much easier to do with people that we think we agree on everything.
- 18:06Mhmm.
- 18:07Well, I've been doing it, in this one area for 3 years.
- 18:12And I'm still there.
- 18:14And they're now saying to me, I thought you were crazy when we first met.
- 18:18I didn't understand you And now I'm in fact opening to things that you're showing me.
- 18:25I wasn't even allowed to use the word mindfulness.
- 18:28And now we're able to look at these things and explore it together.
- 18:32I I have this one person politically a little different and we set that aside because we know
- 18:38that what we're really looking for is the same thing.
- 18:40We all wanna have a life filled with joy and happiness We all wanna share and be with each
- 18:46other.
- 18:46We want to give and be in relational.
- 18:49And as my mentor, Bob Kimball, who just passed in about the last 2 years.
- 18:54I'm really, really sad.
- 18:56Bob's work was looking at the intersection of love and violence.
- 19:03This culture, Bob said, chose to look at law.
- 19:08Love is a much deeper.
- 19:10Really, it love takes practice.
- 19:12Us.
- 19:12Love takes work.
- 19:14I choose love.
- 19:16I choose to do the work together that brings us into this place where we choose to wanna meet.
- 19:21Martin Boomer said, what is god?
- 19:24God is in the meeting.
- 19:27Meeting in an eye now in a sacred way.
- 19:30Rather than meeting in an eye object way.
- 19:33So first, we have to open in a discerning way to one another through ourselves.
- 19:39And if we bring our authentic self to each other, then nothing can really get in the way,
- 19:45can it?
- 19:45We're bringing our fullness into the wherever it is that we're engaging at that time.
- 19:50And I think, you know, what happens today, and I don't know if you'd agree.
- 19:53It's half of the time people are their facades are on so much that they forget to take them
- 19:57off, right, because, you know, the everybody's walking around with this personas that they
- 20:02think they should be, you know, And then, oh, really, you know, when I see it's when people
- 20:07are truly connected or when, you know, it's that co creation that is allowed to happen once
- 20:12people drop their defenses, and they and they can connect at such a profound level that
- 20:17healing can just happen.
- 20:19I think you're exactly right.
- 20:21And that if we even are willing or available to put down that facade for a little while.
- 20:31Many of us see this bravado as a man.
- 20:34I'm supposed to act a certain way.
- 20:36Right?
- 20:36It didn't work for me all those years.
- 20:39So I don't wanna keep doing it, and I find out, let's let's try other things.
- 20:45So one of the things in the exercises I do in the workshop around rewriting our stories.
- 20:52And I say to folks, try this try a different story on for yourself.
- 20:56Let's go into the portal and write a different story.
- 21:00Oh, if certain aspects of it don't feel right.
- 21:03Don't work really well.
- 21:05Rewrite it?
- 21:06We can consistently rewrite these stories And we don't have to live with the old ones that
- 21:12are not working for ourselves.
- 21:14And there's, I think, sometimes, you know, the first word in the in the Bible in the Hebrew
- 21:20scriptures in Hebrew is, which was translated so often as in the beginning, Everyone knows
- 21:28the words in the beginning.
- 21:29I go, wait a minute.
- 21:31A little shift in a beginning.
- 21:36Right.
- 21:37For sure.
- 21:38You know, I I I wanna back up because I think something that I really wanna touch on, is the
- 21:44portal.
- 21:45Like, So you talked a little bit about that meditative state, which, you know, I know
- 21:49there's different ways to get there, but you you said you created something called order.
- 21:54Can you can you chat a little bit more?
- 21:55Because I know I wanna know more, and I'm sure everybody's listening is going, okay.
- 21:59What what's he talking about?
- 22:01Yeah.
- 22:02Well, so many of us have tried on many different meditations.
- 22:07Many many of us started with TM.
- 22:09Right?
- 22:09We started years ago doing TM and then we move to different or some of us stay with Tia.
- 22:15It's fine.
- 22:16And some of us explore different things.
- 22:18Maybe it's Repassana, and whatever.
- 22:20We go off into all different ways.
- 22:23And I realized for me, there are wonderful ways of common in allowing that monkey brain to slow
- 22:29down.
- 22:30But I had work to do.
- 22:32I wanna do some work in there.
- 22:35So I said to myself, well, take whatever works well for me and for me, it's a way of quieting
- 22:45myself, quieting that monkey brain, And there again, we could chat probably in another time
- 22:52because it takes a while to look at different strategies to do that.
- 22:56But when I get into that place of quiet where I'm feeling comfortable, I then send a message
- 23:04from my heart to where I would like to be.
- 23:07It's almost like a it is.
- 23:09It's a film.
- 23:10I'm watching a movie of walking to the Willow sitting by the pond, sitting down, and start
- 23:18basically crafting a different story.
- 23:22Or if I'm comfortable with the story, I stick with the story and I let it, grow.
- 23:30So it's a focus.
- 23:32When I was, dealing with the illness, I focused on what I was seeing in my body.
- 23:39And I would go off into different places and look at what's there.
- 23:43So for example, I was told it had gone to my lung, And I went, oh, no.
- 23:51So I went into the lung, and I came back and I said my lungs are pink.
- 23:56They look perfectly fine.
- 23:58Yeah.
- 23:58But you're nuts.
- 24:00And they said, well, okay.
- 24:02But they still look pink.
- 24:04Well, they wouldn't hear me.
- 24:06So I went to this extraordinary oncology social worker who she and I had done work together,
- 24:12and she said, I trust you and I believe you.
- 24:16Asked the head pathologist, which put hard career on the line to reread the pathology.
- 24:23They were wrong.
- 24:25It was a virus, and it wasn't there.
- 24:29And they didn't wanna tell me that and lose face.
- 24:32So they just called me in and said, well, we're gonna start treatments again.
- 24:35Oh.
- 24:36How do we really look at ourselves?
- 24:38And it's not looking at ourselves in a sort of a silly airy fairy kind of a way.
- 24:45It's really going in deep.
- 24:48What's there?
- 24:49But then I need to call on other assistance to confirm or to support, and that becomes very
- 24:56important because We know the Buddha talked about the importance of the Sanga.
- 25:01We need a community.
- 25:02We need a community, though, that really is there to meet us.
- 25:07And so many of us, particularly in this culture, we get our community at work.
- 25:12We get our community from our Stephen Lee Steven Levine used to talk about, family of
- 25:18origin versus family of choice.
- 25:21Mhmm.
- 25:21Many of us go to our family of origin when in fact we might be able to develop families of
- 25:27choice that really are there to support us.
- 25:30We need to bring the whole thing together.
- 25:32Mhmm.
- 25:33And then we need to stick with this.
- 25:36And that's why the Buddha called it practice.
- 25:39Najeev calls it the work.
- 25:42But we need to go into these places and we need to keep bringing teachers in.
- 25:46So I've had the privilege to do retreats with extraordinary beings like titnot Han and to sit
- 25:54with the Dalai Lama and and and listen to him talk to a group of extraordinary people and you
- 26:00know, you go off with great teachers that I've been able to study with and so on.
- 26:05We need to bring these folks in.
- 26:06We need to have a mentor.
- 26:09Or more.
- 26:11We need to have a muse.
- 26:13We need to bring in these folks into our lives.
- 26:16And if we're a little don't know how to do that or we're concerned that we don't have really
- 26:21great discernment as yet, then why not start with wonderful like, I do these, what I call
- 26:28experiences where we come together and we do listen.
- 26:32And one person said to me at a at at an experience, I I would like you to take more
- 26:38authority in the room.
- 26:41And I said, no kidding.
- 26:43I really am only interested in facilitating your taking more authority.
- 26:49Right.
- 26:50Right.
- 26:50I used to take authority believing that was the real thing to do.
- 26:54My only role here is to offer assistance, support, guidance, to be a facilitator.
- 27:01I'll help you find your own authority, and some people are ready for that.
- 27:05Some people still need a little more work.
- 27:08So how do we journey?
- 27:10We need to find teachers that are not taking anything from us, but enhancing who we already
- 27:15are.
- 27:16That makes
- 27:17One quick thing.
- 27:18I'm sorry.
- 27:18One quick thing.
- 27:21I now do it automatically.
- 27:23I put my hands on my heart throughout the day.
- 27:27When I feel right?
- 27:30And I get stressed I'm in a situation.
- 27:34I'm listening to something going on in the political scene that I can't get away from.
- 27:38Whatever it is.
- 27:40I put my hands on my heart.
- 27:42I cut my heart.
- 27:44How can you not feel your heart?
- 27:47And that goes right into my mind and throughout my body because we now have the knowledge that
- 27:55our neurophysiology is very much controlled by how we're thinking, feeling, and experiencing.
- 28:04I wanna feel my heart Mhmm.
- 28:08I could go right into the portal just holding my hands on my heart.
- 28:11Well, I can feel it, and I'm I'm I'm urine.
- 28:14You're in New Mexico and I'm in Niagara Falls and I could feel that shift, Ernie.
- 28:20Absolutely.
- 28:22You know?
- 28:22Everyone listening, put your hands on your heart, and just breathe naturally.
- 28:31Just breathe.
- 28:32All you're doing is paying attention to what you're already doing.
- 28:35Mhmm.
- 28:36And you're bringing all the impulses through the heart up to the mind and out to the rest of
- 28:45the body.
- 28:47When your days are getting crazy, teachers tell me they have no time to meditate.
- 28:53I say put your hands on your heart.
- 28:56One minute, 2 minutes.
- 28:59You'll be in a whole another place.
- 29:00And when you go back in the classroom, imagine where you'll
- 29:03be.
- 29:05Mhmm.
- 29:06And you a nurse called me on a weekend and said, I'm about to go crazy I'm gonna die.
- 29:13I can't even breathe.
- 29:15I said, what's going on?
- 29:1720 family members here, and they're driving me crazy.
- 29:20I said, well, let's take a walk together.
- 29:23Are you nuts?
- 29:24I said, well, we're on the phone.
- 29:26Walk out the door.
- 29:28Mhmm.
- 29:29We took a walk together.
- 29:31We put our hands on our heart.
- 29:34She called me Monday.
- 29:36You saved my life.
- 29:38She said, no.
- 29:38You saved your life.
- 29:40So whenever this is happening, walk away 2 minutes.
- 29:45Put your hand on your heart.
- 29:47Mhmm.
- 29:48And it's, you know, it's it seems so simple.
- 29:51Right?
- 29:51But it's it's not easy because out of out there in the world, like you said, what's happening
- 29:56politically with with you guys out in the US and and the, you know, the violence that we're
- 30:00seeing all over the world is we're doing the opposite right, where people are thinking that
- 30:05mindfulness is a one off kind of thing, but really we all have the ability to heal
- 30:09internally.
- 30:10And when we connect to ourselves.
- 30:13What do we do?
- 30:13We we change what's around us.
- 30:15We change people.
- 30:16We impact people, implicitly explicitly just by our actions.
- 30:21Just by being who you are as a clear being in touch with your essence, you've come home or
- 30:28you're working on staying home, When you walk into a space, people are going to experience
- 30:35you.
- 30:35Mhmm.
- 30:36It's a quiet power.
- 30:39All the clamor, particularly in the US.
- 30:43Right now, we have a leader no matter what opens his mouth primarily lies come out.
- 30:48And certainly anger and all this dissension, it hurts me.
- 30:54It just hurts
- 30:56Yeah.
- 30:57All I can do to really deal with that is to bring my heart into a room with a lot of play
- 31:03in humor.
- 31:05And how do we bring that we need to own that we are beautiful beings
- 31:11Mhmm.
- 31:11And the fact is he's there.
- 31:13We can do something to shift the energy around that.
- 31:16And we can't tip on Hany's to say during the Vietnam war, And remember this titnot Han is a
- 31:22Vietnamese monk.
- 31:23Yes.
- 31:24We were destroying his country.
- 31:26The US wouldn't let him in because he was president of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship for
- 31:31many years and tip not hang in one of his earliest books, wrote that the US American
- 31:39Americans in the peace movement could throw rocks and be angry better than anyone else he's
- 31:45ever seen.
- 31:47Do you know how to love, he said?
- 31:49Do you know how to touch in?
- 31:51Do you know how to give that love to each other?
- 31:54And if we're really gonna deal with war on many different levels, we have to learn to
- 32:02Well, on that, I I don't think we can end on any better of a note that, you know, the more
- 32:07we love, we can make a difference.
- 32:08And for us to go back to basics, Now I know you're launching your books.
- 32:12So tell everyone about the book because I'm sure people are probably gonna wanna know where
- 32:16they can pick up a copy or if there's digital ways that can get it, and also about your
- 32:21workshops that you provide.
- 32:23Yeah.
- 32:23So the book is called befriending Your Stranger.
- 32:28And it's currently on all the different sites.
- 32:31So if you like Amazon or Barnes and Noble or even it's on Target, It's everywhere.
- 32:36And you go there and you can even buy it today, preorder it.
- 32:40It comes out September 1st, befriending your stranger.
- 32:45And the workshops, what I call, as I said, experiences.
- 32:50And unlike many, workshops that are happening these days, that are very large and
- 32:57motivational in character.
- 33:00My experiences are very small.
- 33:02Intentionally to because we can't I wanna do the work.
- 33:06So the workshops are, two and a half days of where we come together to to really the intent
- 33:15is at the end of the two and a half days.
- 33:17And I should say, I always close whatever I'm doing.
- 33:20And with the workshops where we cook together and share a meal.
- 33:25We know the power of sharing a meal together and all of a sudden, the energy shifts and
- 33:31people start really opening up with things.
- 33:34So we'll spend two and a half days together doing deep profound experiential work going
- 33:41into these places, going into the portal, learning how to do it, rewriting our stories,
- 33:47learning how to continually do that and learning how to really find home.
- 33:52And so that's what we do, and, they're really a lot of fun in the I mean, I bring a lot of joy
- 33:58and play within the practice and the work that we do.
- 34:02What sounds amazing.
- 34:04I I can't thank you enough for your time today.
- 34:06And, you know, as a psychotherapist, I I always go back to, you know, we can create sad
- 34:13profound change if we just align our hearts, you know, to that other person that I'm in the
- 34:19room with, but you don't need to be you know, in the field where you're helping like you are
- 34:24or I are, it's just about just thinking, what am I feeling and what potentially is that other
- 34:30person across from me feeling and trying to think, what can I do to maybe reach out if you
- 34:35know someone's distressed or maybe a bit spirit because you can offer that?
- 34:39It's like a it's like a that that warm hug that you give with heart to heart.
- 34:45By just letting them know that that you're open to connection?
- 34:49It is about connection.
- 34:50And and how do we bring touch into a world that's so frightened of touch.
- 34:58That's how we do touch in a very healthy healing way.
- 35:01Touch should be healing, and it shouldn't be the kind of craziness that the media talks
- 35:06about.
- 35:06So we need to be in our songas where we bring together you know, how to live fully.
- 35:12Well, thank you so much and for everyone listening.
- 35:14I want you to, you know, you know, take the time.
- 35:18Take the time to connect to go into that space that, like Arnie Singh or, within yourself
- 35:24because we all have profound love.
- 35:25We all have had things that have hurt us.
- 35:28That sometimes, might deter us from our path and to know that you can go and sit with it, to
- 35:35be able to get past that because you are not defined by your pain We are all light.
- 35:39We come into the swirl as a light.
- 35:41We hit bumps along the way, but that doesn't mean it needs to get you off where you need to
- 35:45be.
- 35:46And, so take that step today.
- 35:48Try to connect with someone or or to yourself to be able to connect with the others around
- 35:53you.
- 35:53Again, thanks everyone for listening.
- 35:55And if you're wanting more information on me, you can reach me at roxanderhodge.com.
- 36:01I'm a mental health and wellness specialist.
- 36:03Take care, and we'll talk to you soon.
- 36:05Bye, Ernie.
- 36:06Bye bye.
- 36:06Thank you.
- 36:09Thanks for tuning in to authentic living with Roxanne.
- 36:12Cree the space for positive, healthy change.
- 36:15Roxanne is a keynote speaker, psychotherapist, and coach to work with Roxanne, visit Roxanne
- 36:22durhaj.com/blueprint.
- 36:26We'll see you next time on authentic living with Roxanne.