Latest / Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck / Interview with Diana Schieke

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Interview with Diana Schieke · Alive & Kicking: Stories of Waking Up with Kay Eck

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Hi, I'm Kay Eck, and welcome to my podcast, Alive and Kicking: Stories of Waking Up.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome back, everybody.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: Welcome to the podcast.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_03: I have with me today my dear friend Diana Sheik.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_03: How are you, Diana?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Good.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Thanks for watching.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_03: It's so good to be with you here today.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's good to see you.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: Good to see you too.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_03: So let's just jump right in.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_03: You know, we're talking about um kind of our personal journey through this ascension path.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: And, you know, whether you use the word ascension or um enlightenment or embodiment or whatever word you might choose to use for it, how do you define that process?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: For me, absolutely.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's a um, it's definitely a coming to myself.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's a full circle going back to the level I was at when I was maybe four.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: The wisdom that I had back then, the things that I kind of really knew to be true without asking it, and and just living without judgment like I did when I was maybe four or five years old.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I'm getting back to that.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like I lost all of it when I grew up, and I, you know, and everything was um a question that needed to be answered on the outside.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then later on, noticing that, you know, it's it's all that inherent, that inherent wisdom is indeed within.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just saying it, it's really true, and it's there for you, and you can access it, and some people lose it, and some people don't.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: I lost it, but I found it again, or I'm finding it again.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that is so interesting because that is exactly how I have been describing um my journey is that this year I feel I have come back around to my second grade self.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_03: That was my first um, you know, sort of moment of really like consciously understanding my connection to God.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_03: And um, so I also have took a long route around, and like I just feel like I've I've gotten back.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_03: So that's so awesome to hear you say that.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_03: So can you talk a little bit about your childhood?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_03: Your childhood was not like standard American um childhood.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, no, I so my dad was American and my mom is German, and um, we moved around quite a bit.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was a kid, we um moved from New York, where I grew up, to Berlin, spent some years there, back to New York, and then when I was a teenager, I moved to Germany, uh, lived there for 23 years with my mom because my parents had gotten a divorce, and uh, you know, spent a lot of time in Europe uh you know, traveling a lot and seeing the world and all of that.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But as a kid, um I don't know, I I I kind of remember uh being very much in my own world, kind of um feeling very uh alienated kind of from from what was going on around me.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: I thought a lot of things that were happening were strange.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I felt uh kind of uh maybe like I didn't fit in, maybe.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but also at the same time, things that were true for me, I knew they were true, um, seemed to be strange to other people.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So I had to uh quickly learn how to adapt and kind of not seem weird.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, not say weird things.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, was that hard or painful?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, it was just like, oh, is this what I have to do now?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'll do that.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was very, you know, till this day I adapt very easily to to what needs to happen so that I can, you know, live comfortably.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of how I always lived my life.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of women and girls just do that, and and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's maybe not so good.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it is it it's actually being able to adapt quickly is actually a blessing.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's really awesome because you can you could just coast and soar, you know, it just depends on you.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: It need that maturity to know when it's appropriate and when it's not.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And as a kid, I you know, I didn't know.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: I I just thought, well, if they say it's right, they they must they're grown up, they know better than me.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would do whatever they they wanted to.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And now, you know, I realize not it was not always the right thing to do, you know.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: So you didn't consider it to be like a betrayal of your true self.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was just I didn't see it back then.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: I thought those that was my those were my my coping mechanisms and my survival strategies.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now I see it definitely as that.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now I see it as um giving some stuff up that I should have kept, but you know, as I said, I didn't I didn't see that back then.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was just about, you know, winging it and living life uh in a way that I could feel safe.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Because I never felt safe as a kid, so that was the way to feel safe, was would to be liked and to be loved, right?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're liked and loved, you're safer than when you're not.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_03: So I guess that's kind of what was the source of that feeling of insecurity?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um I just think my parents uh were just both, you know, loners and um traumatized in their own way, traumatized uh, you know, upbringings.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And my mom was born during the Second World War in Germany, um, kind of spent, you know, her days as a toddler in the basement when the sirens went off.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's I'm sure that's kind of you know, that that's kind of and the times afterwards where uh food shortages and stuff like that, where everybody, you know, very battered and and bruised Germany.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: And my dad himself had some issues with with his family.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I just kind of uh feel like they were wandering through life.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're there they weren't, you know, secure and stable in their own saddle, and you know who is, but you know, and as a kid, I I think I I felt that.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: I felt that we were kind of just wandering through life, moving from place to place.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't really know what was going on.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I learned quickly that to have some sort of safety, I needed to be, you know, part of the group, loved.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh uh the the more I would comply, the more people would take care of me.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I wouldn't uh get lost in the mix if uh if people would uh latch on to me in some way, or I would to them.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_03: What were what were some of the challenges of your childhood growing up like that?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a lot of confusion.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I guess a lot between um, which is kind of weird uh looking back, between German and English.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I grew up kind of kind of bilingual, and then when I was six or so, we moved to Berlin.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'd spoken English primarily the whole time.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Then we moved to Berlin, it switched to German, and um I remember being confused by the different languages, understanding all of it, but not knowing which language was being spoken.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know if somebody was speaking English or German to me.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just knew I understood it.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I couldn't differentiate between the languages because it was all like a mix, it was all mixed up my whole life, you know?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I just as a kid inherently understood what was being said to me, and I think I spoke back in both languages.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's a little confusing.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And also being confused of where where am I?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Where do we live?
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't understand that we got in a plane, then we got out.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know we were in a different on a different continent.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I knew we were somewhere really different, but I didn't understand where or why or where we were on the earth, right?
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of um a lot of confusion that kind of first when I went into, I guess maybe second, third grade, then I understood what what what was happening, you know, where I was.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's really interesting.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_03: I can remember when my when we moved across the street from one house to the next, um, my son said to me, I've seen their house and they don't have any toys.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, No, we'll be taking our toys with us.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_03: You know, like you don't know what what your kids don't know.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_03: Like your parents probably never showed you on a map, you know, this is where is where you know we're going to be.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_03: And oh no, you just there's like a lot of things that kids don't know that you just don't realize, you know, and you don't, and you don't even you don't think of explaining that to them.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, there's so many things.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Where are we?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Why is everybody different?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: What something's different?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't is this the US?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, yeah.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_03: But that sense of like where am I is like that's really a really powerful thing to experience as a young person.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like that is that's really destabilizing.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like you're on the on a skateboard on a deck of a ship, you know.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's pretty much um what you just described.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: The where am I?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh what's going on, that's kind of uh something that I never had.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I I grew up with everything is movable, everything is unpermanent, uh, everything can change at any time, and that's kind of how how I grew up.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: If it's bad or good, I don't know, but that's definitely a big theme in my life.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_03: So how did um let's say you were in Berlin from the age of six until seven and a half, just one and a half years.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: One and a half years, and then you were back in the States.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: Did you have a sense of how the two different countries affected you as a child in the way that you were growing up or what you were experiencing?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it was definitely a very different world, uh, especially back then living in Berlin, because back then it was still um, you know, there was East Berlin, it was um blocked off from West Berlin.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we were able to visit East Berlin.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that even as a kid going to East Berlin, going through Checkpoint Charlie.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and as an American, you had to go through Checkpoint Charlie, and you'd have to, you'd pass through that border, and I remember all the men with their machine guns, and I remember that big difference between what West Germany and East Germany looked like, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: You went from the normal Western world, this is the I guess uh end of the 70s, beginning of the 80s, and um, and then you stepped into this communist, you know, gray, gray and gray and gray.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: The people looked different, the clothes looked different, everything was so it was a different world.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember that as a kid, obviously I didn't politically know what was going on, but I I remember the hostility, I remember the faces of the men with the machine guns, I remember it being a very serious, and you know, the way my parents reacted.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was a very tense and and and and creepy kind of a vibe, you know.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And uh then coming to the US and everything was definitely a lighter, uh, a lighter situation.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: It was um uh there wasn't that that separation and that um I don't know that that that weird Cold War vibe, you know.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: So so that um that was definitely a big difference between the two, Germany and the US.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: Plus in the US, I guess we lived outside of New York, so it was more a rural situation, and then in Berlin it was completely smack in the middle of the city.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So there was that difference too.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_03: So then um later in life, when you I guess returned to um to Germany, did you have a sense that the two environments affected your path, your spiritual path?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Or yeah, because um since Germans and Americans are are so different in their, you know, in the culture and the way they um the way they live life, it uh opens up another, it opens up another view to humanity, to people, to the way people think, the way they feel, the way they are.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: And in that, and and to me, people are the way I understand the world, right?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I understand through people.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I don't get like my husband uh experiences life through nature.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I can't connect to nature in the way he can.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: I connect to people, and people show me the world.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: People, emotions, feelings, things that I pick up from them explains the world to me.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that was just another way of explaining the world.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it opened up the world to me.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: It made it bigger, it made me understand more about myself and about the the world in general.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: What was the first time that you had a conscious awareness of yourself um growing up?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Conscious awareness of myself.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um I couldn't really tell you.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um I remember some stuff like when I was probably around five or six around that time, I think I did uh have some experiences.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I remember when I was around seven thinking that I had some kind that I had originated from the sun.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what that means, but to me it was clear that I had come from the sun.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's interesting.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: To this day I I couldn't tell you what that was all about.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: So how how did you step onto the spiritual path?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: How did that happen for you?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of that was it came from my dad, slowly, slowly.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um he I remember he was always telling me things as a kid, and I remember a lot of times thinking, what is he talking about?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like he would tell me, listen up, you know, all the things that you see and you hear out here that's going on in the world, a lot of it is a lie.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of it the exact opposite is true.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: You have to understand that, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, What what are you talking about?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: How could this be a lot?
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: How could that not be true?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: How could what you know what we're seeing and what we're hearing not be true?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, reality, you know, he was explaining it to me, you know, a lot of things are depending on perception, a lot of things are are are we're told, but but it's not true.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, you he he kind of got me to a place where I would question things that I hear and that I see, and what is truth, and um I guess that's the first little building block that I got for for kind of waking up and thinking and and daring just to ask some questions or to to uh wonder about things.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so then and then you you know when you're a teenager and you don't care about anything except for yourself and how you're gonna have fun with your friends, and that's and that's pretty much your life, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: And school sucks and blah blah blah.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess um the next time I even had time to turn around and think about these things is when I was a young mother.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: I had two kids, my kids were maybe, I don't know, uh three and five, and that was the first time I had a breather again to kind of question some things and think about some things, but also because I had gotten to a point in my life where things seemed so I don't know, so stupid and so so pointless, and so you know, what the hell am I doing here?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: Why why am I here?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is so stupid.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I had to kind of figure it out.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: I had to figure it out because I wasn't gonna life was just too insignificant and boring to to to this being really it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I needed to figure out if this was really it.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was prepared for yeah, this is it, but if it's not, that would be that would be awesome.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's important, just not just this, what I can see here.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's kind of why I went on that on that journey.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_03: Um so where did that take you?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: How did you proceed?
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_03: What did you do?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: I started um going this this weird route of uh I went to I enrolled in culinary school.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, isn't that that that's very uh intuitive, right?
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, weird.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what I did because I went to things that were like tangible and you could feel it, and it was it was there and it was food, so you were eating it.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: It had to do with health, it had to do with uh it went into that Ayurvedic and uh Chinese, uh the five Chinese elements kind of a thing.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I kind of got in touch with um those philosophies, those those Eastern philosophies around food.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I could connect to that because I would love to cook back then.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um that on the other hand, so and then you know, they were talking about how to cut and how to bake and how to fry and the different um the different energies that held, right?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the first time I I came in contact with you know, the way you cut your food, the way you fry it, and and the way you prepare it is going to have a different effect on you on when you eat it.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then from that, from the Ayurveda, I got to the yoga.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and yoga that's that's of course pretty much the the big the big portal for me, or was the big portal for me, because that was the first time I moved my body in a way that uh felt good to me, and I had never had that.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I hated sports.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my god, I hated to move my body, I hated to jog or go to the fitness studio or anything.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I it was like a torture to me.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the but then when I started yoga, the movement and the way that you'd move your body felt so good to me, and I was so relieved that there was something, and then all of the philosophy behind yoga kind of opened up that gate for me.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: And now nine years into it, or ten years into it, I don't I don't agree with all of that philosophy, but and it doesn't mean as much to me as it used to because I've gone, you know, I've branched out my own way, but that was definitely the portal to a different way of thinking and to a to a different worldview, if you will.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: So how do you um so we share a common background in yoga, and um I'm wondering how you see the embodiment or the connection to the body as a spiritual practice?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that took a long time to establish because I come from also like a long background of uh binge eating and overeating disorder.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I um that was kind of when you do that, you disconnect from the body, and but at the same time, your pain manifests.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: In your body.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like a double thing.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Most people say, Oh, well, when you overeat, you have no connection to your body.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't agree with that.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like if you overeat, you have a disconnect and a strong connection at the same time because this is where it manifests physically.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but at the same time, you're trying to get away from your emotions.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: So my body has always been an instrument of all the things going on within me, good and bad.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so um after many years of practice, I was able to slowly, slowly um establish a relationship to myself, to my body that um for me was just it was only accessible through through movement, and in this case, um yoga, because it just happens to be a way that my body loves to move that feels right.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know that other people love to run or love to lift weights and and do uh you know, or play tennis or whatever, and that feels good to them.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: That was my way.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: That was definitely the way my body wanted to move.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And through that, and it's not obviously it doesn't happen overnight, but through that practice, I was definitely opening channels and opening energy pathways or whatever you want to call it.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: This something was happening that I could get closer and closer and closer and closer to myself, and that was something I had as a kid that I got back.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: As a kid, I remember loving myself.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: As a kid, I remember being very kind to myself and thinking very good things about myself.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then I lost that, especially when I was gaining all that weight through my binge eating, you know, loathing and and I always thought, you know, the more I punish myself, the better person I'll be, right?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you punish something bad, then something good will happen.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh done work like that, right?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then I came back to with all the yoga, I came back to speaking very nicely to myself, being kind to myself.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it turns out, you know, that's the way to feel good, not not through punishment.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_03: So can you talk a little bit about how your experience with eating disorders got established and kind of where that journey took you?
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know that the overeating and the binge eating was definitely a very good way because it works very well.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: That's why people do that a lot.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's very effective.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was definitely a way to process feelings.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had never seen that, and that's a funny thing.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I had never even um entertained the idea of feeling like crap.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like if there was a feeling, bad feeling coming up, and obviously it had to be taken care of, it had to be get gotten rid of.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: You have to get rid of that.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to go, it's not good, and so it's gotta go.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody ever explained to me, no, no, no, no, that's super bad, it's unhealthy.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta feel it, and then it will go because otherwise you're gonna get stuck, or you're gonna do, you know, you're gonna go overeat, or you're gonna have a big, you know, some energy blockage in your body and you're gonna get sick.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody told me that.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, right, bad feeling, gotta get rid of it.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Go eat.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: And eating absolutely did the job.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome, good stuff.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and it was a it was like a twofold, because on the one hand, while you're eating, you're you know, you're getting those good feelings and you're pushing away the bad feelings, and at the same time, you're gaining weight.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in my case, it was it was a great armor, you know.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: I had it all around me, and you couldn't really get to me, you know, though it was a nice padding that I could uh like a safety, like a stability that I could build up, and it was um keeping, it was protecting me at the same time.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: It felt it didn't feel good and I didn't like it, but the pain of being fat is very generic and very unpersonal.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's deflected pain, it's just it's just like, oh, I don't fit in my jeans.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's not that painful, it's just it's just a drag.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: But the pain that the reason why I was eating that pain, right?
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: The real pain, the the first pain, that was personal and maybe even shameful and maybe even hard to handle.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it was not like, oh, I don't fit in my jeans.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was like, you know, here comes a big black ball, and I'm afraid and and and I and I'm ashamed of something, and I so those things were way more personal and extreme than just being overweight.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know how I mean so you take the pain and you deflect, you you transform it into something very generic.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it's still pain, but it's not quite as it's like the food transforms it into something else.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: That's interesting.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_03: So how did you begin to face the real pain?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: How did you get started with that?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along that yoga journey, um, I was introduced to the idea of feeling feelings.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: That was new, uh, of actually just sitting down and feeling them, taking the time to process them.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that was, you know, for a lot of people that that's that's very scary.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it was for me too.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I started that, you know, you have to start slowly, you can't just do it all at once, but you start it, and it it quote, it worked, it felt better afterwards.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: And like they all say, you know, and I didn't die, you know, you think you're gonna die, but you didn't die.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and later, by the way, that transformed into uh feeling your feelings over your body, which is also very, very effective.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: So when you get to that point, you start mastering the feeling emotions, and then you use your body too as a tool, like you can move like all that stuff through your body.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: Who knew?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can move it through your body.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't crazy stuff, love it.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this is awesome stuff.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so uh through that, I um through the yoga and all that philosophy, I I got to that point where I was able to do that, and I um it started to slowly get better because now I have the tools, but then I think I need to I had to take more time because I have like this big egg on my thyroid, right?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's just a cis and it's it's it's benign, but I feel like this is where some stuff got trapped on the way, on the way.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it went too fast, and it's still some stuff got trapped right in here.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_03: So I hope one day I can kind of uh you know, see if I can kind of get rid of that somehow, but um for now that's how did you how did you come to that realization that your feelings or your lack of your inability to express them or whatever was manifested in the physical body?
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I um I was always wondering about this thing, um, and the time that it appeared in my life, and the time that it grew so big, uh that's that's kind of the way I that I understood it doesn't mean it's true, but that's how I understand what this is.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: I you know, a lot of people that I follow in books that I read, people say that these these things that we that that get stuck in our bodies is stuck energy, right?
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: That things where it doesn't the energy does move freely and then and it makes sense to me because during that time I was still winging it and trying to figure it out.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: I was kind of feeling my feelings, but you can't force yourself.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that one of the things that um that prevent people from getting on the journey to feel their feelings is that initially it feels like first it feels like it's going to swallow you whole and kill you.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: And secondly, it almost feels like a bottomless pit because you know you don't know how deep and dark the pit goes.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's a it's an extreme act of courage to to consciously set out on that path.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about how becoming more skilled at that has made that journey more manageable.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_03: Hmm, or has it?
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of that's kind of uh funny because just when you think it does, it gets harder, right?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just when you think I got this, hey mama's on her way, you know.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Just when you think, you know, you're coasting along, bam, you know, comes this this thing or this feeling or this situation or this this this this vision into into the depths of you know who we are, and you're like, holy crap, I'm still just messing around here on the surface, and this is all going on, and I'm just you know, I I thought I was, you know, I I was I knew how to live life.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know now I know how to live life right, you know.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny to me because it's um I think we that's kind of what we have to accept.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: There is no end, there is no mastery, there is no enlightenment.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: All it is is us winging it, and you can say, you know, you can be touched by I don't care how many angels and guru so-and-so, we're all just winging it and we're all masters and not masters at the same time.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I think when we finally find out what's going on here, you know, and I mean probably not while we're still alive in this situation here, you know, we'll be like, oh, you know, we'll be like, oh.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and I'm fine with that, you know.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: I th that's part of it too, to be like, like, yeah, I don't know what's going on here.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just I'm just here.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna do this.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna I'm gonna figure it out.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna try my best to make this experience what what do we got, 85 years on this planet, maybe?
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it seems way too long.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes it seems Yeah, it's like I'm 45.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh god damn, I know there's 40 years.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: All right, what are we doing now?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, so yeah.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I mean, for for me, the difference is that um I no longer fear the feelings um because I know that they're fleeting and I know how to, I know what my process is for feeling them and letting them move through.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: So it's not like ah, you know, it's like all right.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_02: Come on, yeah, all right.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: Try me, try me, you know.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_03: So um, yeah, that's that's always enough mastery, like that's that's you know, it's mastery and it's also very amateurish, as you say.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: You you're working both ends of it at the same time.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_03: So, how has your spiritual path changed your life, like in terms of how you spend your time and how you work and what your family dynamics are?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's it's very much more peaceful because you got kind of get that um you get that perspective of not completely always being in the story, right?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're not always right immersed in the story.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're you do get a little bit of a couple of steps back watching the stuff happen.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's really cool because you don't react like all whipped up about every little thing anymore.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're not, you know, you stay away from the PTO as everybody should.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um you stay away from from people who cause drama and it and it and you nothing can really shake you as much anymore.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Which is to say, I mean, some things, you know, when things happen to your kids or when when there's you know, when there are difficult things going on, and you want to feel that and you should, and you and you should go through it and let it be and not say, you know, this is all just no, we're I'm still human, I'm still a mom, you know, that stuff hurts me and it and as it should.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm a human being.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it it gets more peaceful, and and a lot of people say, you know, I love coming to your house, it's always so peaceful, it's always so chilled and relaxed.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess people feel that, you know, that that's why our friends from Germany or you know, other places, other states like to come and stay with us because they always feel so relaxed at our home.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm glad that that's a part of it.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um you don't we don't take part in the normal, how do I say this?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: We don't really take part in the normal life as much.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh TV shows that a lot of people really love.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: We I can't watch it, it just doesn't, I don't resonate with that.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you do have a little bit of a disconnect too to like a normal maybe culture.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: I I don't know if it's good or bad.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's just I notice a little bit of um you do get a little quirky, a little different.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's okay.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um oh you're saying you become you become viewed as quirky or a little bit different.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: You're not following the mainstream culture the way everybody else seems to be.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of weird to me because on the one hand, I love people, I live by that, you know, I live by the connection to my friends and to my family, or mostly but my friends.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: My family is my family, those are the people you know I live with, but my friends are my the ones I pick out, so they're really just as important to me, and I love them, and um, and I go when I go out in the world, I feel and I connect to everybody, and so anyway, that's that's why it's so weird to me that shows that people love to watch, and I go on Netflix and I turn it on.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: I can't get I I don't even understand how they could watch 10 minutes of it.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's weird.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, I can't connect to those things.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: I also really stay away from mainstream media, from the news, and from all shows, all entertainment in terms of um celebrities, and um I just don't feel it doesn't feel right to me.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: It feels very scary or I don't know.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_02: Excuse me, heavy.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: Heavy, yeah.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: It feels it's very uncomfortable to watch that stuff.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of weird because on the one hand, like I said, I love people, and on the other hand, I I there's something not quite right.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it does definitely uh change you in in uh really obvious ways.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: I know in my family, um my my I have four kids, and if they're talking about some kind of show that they're watching or a movie that they've seen, and they'll like audit their automatic response is oh mom, you're not gonna be able to watch that.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_03: And so they know that I can't, I just I physically can't.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: I will, it will, it's just like clanging, sitting, putting your head inside a clanging bell, you know, it's just so discordant and uncomfortable to and what it is basically is a vibration, like those shows exist at a very low vibration, and when you've been cultivating a higher vibration, then there's like a clash, you just it just is uncomfortable to be drawn down um like that.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, maybe, yeah.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so I I always I think that one of the um the things about being uh on a dedicated spiritual path, like I know you are and I am, is that you have to be sort of um loose with your attachments to people and um experiences.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_03: Like I can't, you know, there I went through a period where I couldn't go to concerts because it was just too much energy.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: I was just too open to all those the people who were there.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_03: I've since like that's changed a little bit for me.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but there are certain things that I can't, I just can't do anymore, or certain things that I have to do more of.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_03: Or so my attachments to people and places and things and ways of being had just has to be a little bit more loose.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: Loose.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: In what way loose?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_03: Like maybe more fluid, um, you know, that I sometimes have to let people go who I care about because we're just not in resonance anymore.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um that could change, or yeah, or that I know that I'm going to have to be more loose with my who I am to to be with them, you know what I mean?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: Like I have to adapt to where they are.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's the story of my life, more consciously, yeah.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_03: So how does um what would you say are your methods of being a conscious parent?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: How does that come into your parenting?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's a lot.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so um an in the different places we've lived um in the US, we've lived in South Carolina, we've lived in Houston, Texas, we've lived in outside of Chicago, that's where we are now.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we've been to these different um schools and and and environments and communities.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing I've noticed that a lot of the parents, uh, whether it be the typical American families or the expat families like they were in um in uh Houston, there were a lot of expats where we lived.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's this very under, there's a strong underlying fear um around school and academics.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's something that I definitely like kind of like you what I don't remember in this 80s as a kid, nobody really was interested in my school, but now people seem to be very interested in their kids' school so that they could go to college because you know people have to go to college now.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um not, but that's kind of what what is thought, and so you know, get your kid in a good college, and there's that fear.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something I really had to back away from uh for my kids.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: I had to totally explain to them that I don't care about their grades, which is really weird and not done.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it was even freaking my kids out.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it it um worked for me in the sense that um my kids have a I I think a healthy relationship to, you know, in some things I get an A or a B, and in some things I suck like anybody.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do you know anybody who speaks five languages and is a math voice?
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_00: No, we have our strengths, you know.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: Some people are good at this, and other people are good.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: that anyway so I try to um not buy into that that underlying fear if you you know if you don't do well in school you're not gonna get in a good college and we're all gonna die um so I try to and you know a lot of people I think would say that that's irresponsible of me um I just try to do things in a way that makes sense to me for example when I was a kid my mom used to scream at me to do chores I had to you know wash the dishes and I had to uh clean the house with her on Saturdays and stuff like that which is fine there's nothing wrong with that but I remember being screamed at for it so that kind of is like a bit of a trauma in my life and so I never asked my kids to ever do anything because of that trap that trauma that I had and um it worked 50% of the time it worked.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: So with my son it didn't work you couldn't care less about helping anybody out in the house but my daughter who never had to do anything just does it because she doesn't know that housework sucks.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: She never nobody ever told her nobody screamed at her she just sees people doing it.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: So she assumes it's fine it's normal it's part of life you do you know you do the dishes and you do the laundry and then you clean up and this and that so I kept it secret from her that it sucks.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so she just does it you know so stuff like that.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to turn things around and that that the that my the my life view the way I see life and the way I'm kind of like just like floating through all of this translates in into how I'm a mother stepping away from making sure we step away from fear as much as we can right also in this whole COVID thing you know that I explained to my kids you know caution's one thing but fear is another and let's figure out from where we're coming okay and that's something that that I definitely try to try to um to give them on their way is to think with your own mind and your own body to understand the importance of your health spiritually and physically what you put in your body how you move your body if you move your body and then the third one is fear-based living versus open heart and you know understanding you don't have it all figured out and that's fine but don't be afraid yeah don't be afraid oh that's beautiful I love that so that seems like a good place to take a little break and maybe um start our lightning round are you ready for that yeah sure all right what do you need to be happy I need to feel good in my own skin.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_03: Do you prefer to text or talk on the phone?
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_03: I prefer to text I'm one of those people like staring at my phone when somebody's calling me like why not and then I answer you know hello I've gotten to where I actually prefer to if I haven't spoken with someone for a while I want to see their face so I prefer I mean text is easy but it's it's different you know but I enjoy hey John I uh enjoy like seeing face to face it's nice I like that okay what age for you did you find to be most enlightening the older I get the more every year more with every passing year the age I am now and the age I will be next year and the year after that.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah the present so the present awesome how well do you sleep at night pretty good um I used to have problems with insomnia definitely um but these days I I fall asleep I actually fall asleep what do you attribute that to I think it definitely has to do with the the uh that that uh the life I'm leading the the mind space I'm in the way I see life the the fear that's gone the anxiety is gone all of all of these underlying insecurities are are starting to dissipate and so sleep nice sleep wonderful and dream and dreams yeah oh we didn't talk about your work with dreams but for another time another time another time is it easy for you to cry uh yes and um and also uh cry over my body which is new for me that's the the uh where I use my complete body and my face to cry oh consciously this is a you like get everything into it I get everything into it I need privacy for it but if I use my whole body um it's very effective very cleansing is a great way to to process it's awesome yeah yeah I prefer to cry when laying on the hardwood floor okay there I don't need like pillows or you know like eh no I need like just like a hard surface good stuff okay what is your ideal outside temp my ideal outside what temperature oh um 70s 80s that's uh comfortable I don't really care I just don't like when the um when the air hurts yeah yeah and if you live in the Midwest you know what that's like yeah go out and your nose just like kind of like falls off and your eyes start freezing no no yeah all right so that's um my questions for you did you bring a question for me I'd like to know how you are um it might be a little too a too big of a question but I'd like to know how you're handling this uh this whole uh weirdness going on right now like you're saying you're feeling good and you're feeling stable and comfortable yeah right and I like that yeah so um what we're talking about is that we're actually meeting in the middle of our COVID-19 lockdown and um so as I mentioned earlier to you I of course had some initial fears of um in the beginning my fears mostly centered on like how how big is this gonna get how um how far is it gonna go what what exactly is going on here like you know just like inability to get any sort of reliable factual information given that I also um do not buy into whatever the mainstream media is feeding me um and there was there's so much information from coming at me from all different directions and I was you know of course like everybody wanting to stay on top of it um so now I you know we're a few weeks into it and um I have I have the tools to quiet my mind and to go into the peacefulness of my true nature and so like I can I can stay there for a long time.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_03: And um now it almost feels like I'm watching a movie play out and I understand many dimensions of what's occurring.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_03: I can see the higher timeline I can see the lower timeline I can see the benefits I can see the bigger picture I can see also why people are fearful and have compassion for each's individual path through it but I also think it's incredible that everyone on the globe is experiencing the same thing at the same time and we're all aware of that.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_03: And that to me is like the magical gift in some way that there's no denying that we as humans all experience the same things in completely different ways.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so I am hoping that I know that that will be that it will have a lasting effect on us as the human family.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_03: And it's I find myself frequently or or almost all the time existing at that level of like the big picture for all of humanity you know like I don't get too hung up in individual stories because there's some there's seven billion stories.
• 53:56
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm able to see like the one overarching story of what we're of what we're going through.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think that's probably why I've been able to keep my inner peace about the whole thing.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I also believe that our journey through this has great purpose and so of course um that keeps me feeling hopeful and excited and excited for the future.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and for you it's definitely after all is said and done a positive movement.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_00: Things are going to shift in in a in a good way and I um I want to latch on to that I'm not quite there yet um maybe because I'm still inside of all of the um going ons not of course obviously not the mainstream media but um kind of um what what's trying to be orchestrated uh in the background by by a few um powerful people and that is also just a story and at the end of the day um it it it that's even scarier than the real narrative you know what so and I shouldn't go there you know because that it's uh it's it's uh it that's a dark place that's a dark and scary place to go well I think that you I think there is a way to observe what's going on like on the I mean some of the things that we're talking about are our personal feelings about mass vaccination and about human trafficking and um darker agendas all this stuff that that we're that is coming to the surface there you you do develop the ability to witness that and to also maintain your view two steps back just the way that you've learned to do it in your own life not to be drawn into any one particular story but to raise the perspective and see the ultimate um benefit of all of that coming to light as hard as it is to see it and as heartbreaking as it is to see it you can you can do both you know so that's kind of where I'm at and I'm feeling pretty stable there.
• 56:30
  SPEAKER_03: So thank you for the question.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_03: So Diana I just want to thank you for being with me today.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's been wonderful.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_03: I love your bright beautiful presence and I'm super grateful for it in my life.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_00: Me too I'm grateful for you too Kay thank you I hope I can see you soon yeah that would be nice