Latest / Becoming Flame: Where Sensuality, Sovereignty, and Sacred Power Ignite / You Can Have an Easeful Life — But It Won't Be Your Life: Maria Magdalena Garzon
Transcript
- Kait Tregenza: Hello and welcome to another episode of Becoming Flame. I am your host, Kate Trigenza, and today's conversation is one of those kinds of conversation that feels incredibly central to this podcast. We are speaking about intimacy, self-intimacy, the intimacy that we hold with ourselves as the primary relationship in our life. We're not talking about intimacy as we've been sold it. It's not intimacy for someone else. It's not intimacy as sexuality or sex or performance or seduction or really something that happens in relation to another person. This is a conversation about intimacy as the capacity to stay with yourself. To feel what is true, to know your desire, to know your boundaries, to know all the different aspects of yourself, to meet the parts of yourself that have been abandoned, performed over, perfected, numbed or hidden. You know, the ones that we contort and make smaller, make less important, make unimportant. And really keep ourselves maybe in this easy life, but one that isn't ours. So this conversation is about how do you come back into the body? Not as this project to fix, not as this thing to transcend, but as a place to live, as a person to be full up of. And To claim your life, to claim your aliveness and to know that your aliveness is the point of life. My guest today is Maria Magdalena Gazon. She's an intimacy guide, coach, body worker, and spaceholder based in Vienna. Maria's work moves through intimacy, sexuality. Relationship communication embodiment, all of these really juicy things, but most importantly about shadow work, about trauma-sensitive bodywork, about meeting yourself, truly, truly meeting yourself. She's interested in the slow, honest human return to self, the places where shame softens, releases. Transforms, alchemizes, where the body starts to begin to not only speak again, but come alive, and where boundaries take on a very different definition where they hold desires and they hold that which is not desired, they hold the Fortification of this is me and this is what I'm claiming. This is who I am. This is my aliveness. This is the the limit to me. This is me claiming what I love, what I want, what I need, because I am a human with needs. I matter. I really, really matter. And in that way, desire and boundaries can actually start to not only exist together but work together. We can stop trying to become more perfect, stop trying to become more curated, more healed, more something, enlightened. And actually start to become more real, to become truer, more coherent. And live in that place of truth, coherence, authenticity, and self-love in a way that actually transforms your entire life around it. Where the truth of you and the intimate connection that you have with yourself becomes the organizing principle, becomes the mechanism that reorganizes your life back into coherence, back into what actually it means to be erotic and alive and empowered to be what you want. In this episode today, Maria and I explore self-intimacy as a lifelong relationship, knowing that you can continue to go deeper and deeper and deeper into your relationship with self, into the inquiry that you have to the depth of yourself, and know that you can hold yourself there. Know that you can back yourself there. We talk about the difference between sexuality and true intimacy. And I really love it when we start talking about why being easygoing, why being fine with everything, by being that girl that just goes with everybody else's flow, can sometimes be a survival strategy, can sometimes be the sign of a woman that's completely outside of her body that might need to think about. Who she actually is, if she reclaimed her desires, reclaimed her boundaries, reclaimed her yes and her no, and actually started to say, I want this, I need that. And so it really takes a deeper investigation into why aliveness matters so deeply in a world that often rewards numbness, dissociation, performance, easy-goingness, and Being low maintenance. And this conversation goes into the body, into shame, into spirituality, into the feminine, sisterhood, parts of ourselves that we judge, and then paints a radical possibility that intimacy is not about being more desirable to others, but about being able to not only meet yourself, but meet every other person in the world. competition, contrast, comparison, lack, war, you know, combating really starts to melt away and Maria paints a picture of what life could look like for all of us if each individual on this planet radically claimed their intimate relationship with self. So if you have ever felt disconnected from your body, unsure of what you want, afraid to need, afraid to ask for help, afraid to feel, maybe you just are tired and exhausted. Of living a life that looks fine but doesn't feel fully alive. If everything is just, yeah, sure, okay, dull, numb, dim, this conversation is for you. So let's welcome Maria, Magdalena, Gazon to Becoming Flame. Welcome to the podcast Maria. like so cautious of my language when I'm speaking in a different language that I'm like, wait, am I still talking about the idea? So I just wanna like c Maria Magdalena Garzon: Hi, welcome, nice to meet you. Kait Tregenza: Nice to meet you I'm so excited about this conversation. It's something that is so important to me. self-intimacy and my intimate relationship with myself has become just the most important relationship that I hold, And what intimacy means to me keeps unraveling and keeps deepening and keeps, Evolving, or devolving and then evolving, and you know, it's it's an ever-changing as if I were in a relationship with another person. It takes time, I need to tend to it, I need to cultivate it, right? And so that's why I really wanted to have this conversation with you. I know that it's a huge passion of yours. It's like you dedicate so much of your time and work to the space. So what is your definition of self-intimacy and why is it important? Maria Magdalena Garzon: I think you already touched on a lot of points already in your short introduction about it and your relationship to self-intimacy. Because I think it is a journey. It's not this one thing. And like you said, it's a whole relationship that you have with yourself. It's like the relationship you have with other people. And it's the one that lasts the longest because from the moment you're born until the moment you're dead, you have the relationship with yourself. And for me to having this openness to constantly discover this human being that you are day by day, moment by moment, who am I today? What is important to me today? What are my needs? What are my desires? It keeps changing and we keep evolving and like really taking the time and making the effort to really look deeply when am I? Kait Tregenza: Hmm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Like when is my behavior attached to the outer world? When is my behavior authentic with my inner world? What is driving me? Why do I behave in certain ways? What do I love about myself? What do I still don't love about myself? And how can I also bring these parts of myself home and start engaging and loving these parts that are still unloved? Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: So self-intimacy for me, I would say it's this deep, deep journey of inquiry of who am I and how can I come closer to myself. Kait Tregenza: I love that word, inquiry. How do you think inquiry and curiosity are different? Or are they the same and it's a just a a different dance between them? Maria Magdalena Garzon: I think that's an interesting question I've never thought about before. But for me, think curiosity has a bit less action in it than inquiry, where it's really about digging deep and taking steps and making it happen. For me, curiosity is like, okay, I'm curious, I'm open, I want to understand, I want to see, but the inquiry has a bit more of action-driven energy. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I would say. What do you think? Kait Tregenza: Yeah, well, the only reason I asked you was because the first thing that came to mind when you said inquiry was that feels like an investigation. Like that feels like a digging exercise, like an archaeologist. Like I'm going to deeply investigate along a particular line this particular aspect of myself to unlock it and move through it. Whereas I felt like the curiosity side of things is like, there's a trigger. I'm gonna approach that with curiosity and openness. why, you know, why does that happen? And maybe you start off curious and then you move into inquiry once you pinpoint, okay, this is this is what it's about. I need to get deeper into that. Where did that come from? Is that mine? Is that, you know, how does that show up in all other areas of my life? I think this the curiosity is the initial opportunity into the inquiry. Just from the way that you yourself opened it, I was like, okay, I think that's that's interesting. Cause I hear a lot of people saying, like, approach yourself with curiosity. And I love that word, like approach yourself and and and this investigation is like with inquiry, with Maria Magdalena Garzon: you Kait Tregenza: Where is this taking you? What is this unlocking for you? Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful what you described and I totally agree. And I feel like you said, or when you asked me this question, I think it is this dance. Sometimes curiosity is enough being open to something. And I feel sometimes when it comes to maybe deeper wounds or trauma, you need a little bit more than curiosity because there are so many guards. Kait Tregenza: Right. Maria Magdalena Garzon: trying to protect you sometimes from the truth that sometimes you need a little bit more than just curiosity to really open and dive into that. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. So I love I wanna like flag the first the first opening like couple of minutes of our conversation. We've already very clearly stepped away from something that most people have in their mind of intimacy as equaling a sexual activity, intercourse, maybe masturbation, maybe like a pleasure-based Maria Magdalena Garzon: No, Kait Tregenza: You know, so p someone someone might hear, like I, you know, I want to open my relationship with my self-intimacy. they might interpret that as I'm gonna start a masturbation practice or I'm gonna, you know, increase my sex life or, you know, focus on my libido or my arousal or whatever it may be. And so I think let's let's just address the elephant in the room like straight up. Why was none of your answer about? Maria Magdalena Garzon: and and Kait Tregenza: That why is that not what you're talking about? Maria Magdalena Garzon: I love that question and whenever I hear it, I'm realizing that for me, it's so clear and so obvious already that I keep forgetting that people still misunderstand these two things or they put them together. And I think this is one of the hardest parts of my work to make people understand what I actually do or what it's actually about. Because, yeah. Kait Tregenza: That you're not a masturbation coach. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Like for me, sexuality is also big part of my work. And yes, it's also about creating an intimate relationship with your body and with your sexuality. For me, this is also a huge part of self-intimacy. But it's as much part of it as any other part, like being intimate with your thoughts and your emotions and knowing what you feel and knowing what you think. is as important for me as having a beautiful relationship with your body and your sexuality is part of who you are. So it's also part of it. But for me, it's not the main thing or the main goal. for me, intimacy in general, not just self intimacy, but intimacy is understood in such a wrong way or misunderstood. I don't want to say wrong, but it's so attached to sexuality because very often this is the only intimacy that we know or that we learn. But all the steps that actually would lead to sexuality that we sometimes we jump over, we just go to what we know, we go to the physical, we want to release the tension. But we miss all these moments of really... meeting another person and that's the same with self-intimacy to really take your time to meet yourself and also not going into masturbation because I know okay I need to push these three parts of my body and then I will have an orgasm and beautiful that's beautiful and I don't want to shame that it's it's great to do that but there is so much more to that There is like, if you really take time to meet your body, to feel your body, to start understanding what is it that my body actually wants if I step away from everything that I learned about it, from everything that I see or that other people tell me or how it's supposed to be, how it's supposed to sound or look like, but really take a moment to be with myself, then I call it self pleasure, not masturbation or. I, there's masturbation, which is more like pushing the buttons. And then there is self pleasure, which is like really taking time for myself. For me, often self pleasure doesn't necessarily end in an orgasm, but it's much more amazing. and for me, intimate. Yeah. Kait Tregenza: Definitely. It's literally the pleasure of self. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, yeah, totally. It's pleasure, pleasure of being myself, the pleasure of feeling myself. And so pleasure for me definitely is a big part of self intimacy, because I start to even understand what gives me pleasure in life, not just sexually, but in general, like, what do I like? What do I like to do? How do I like to express myself? Kait Tregenza: I love it. Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: How do I like to live relationship with myself and with others? So I tried to come back to your initial question is why didn't I mention it? And I think it is because I have this awareness and I want to bring this awareness to people that intimacy is so much more than sexuality and sexuality without even touching the topic becomes so much deeper the moment you start exploring intimacy. So for me it's not often not so necessary to even dive into the topic of sexuality because it anyhow will change your relationship to sexuality and to pleasure the moment you start taking time for yourself and being intimate with yourself in other ways. Kait Tregenza: It's really, it's really fascinating that we even need to have this conversation, isn't it? Like there's a part there's a part of me that feels sad, like a deep grief that this is an important conversation, and that we need this many clarifications, and that we need to explain this is important. And Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah. Hmm. Kait Tregenza: This is necessary. Like there's a It's sometimes so confusing how we got here, right? How how much how much of us has been contained and reduced and limited and dimmed. And I think that this reclamation of intimacy with self is like literally saying, I'm important, like I'm valued, I'm a person and I and I matter as a as a starting point. Maria Magdalena Garzon: All Kait Tregenza: So you can't have intimacy with yourself if you don't matter to yourself. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, that's a beautiful part. I think it's very sad. And I think it's one of the, for me, and I guess everybody thinks that about their own passion or what they bring to the world, but I feel for me, it's really the essence of everything. For me, it is the one thing that changes everything. Kait Tregenza: I mean it's sa it's sad. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Because the moment I started changing my relationship to myself, the moment I met, I started mattering, mattering, is that English? I started to matter to myself. Everything changed. My relationships to other people changed. My relationship to my work changed. My relationship to money changed, to my health changed. Kait Tregenza: Mattering, yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I eat differently, I exercise differently, I have different people in my life, I do different things. And I feel if everybody would learn to have this relationship with themselves, again, because I think we do have it until we lose it, then I think our world would look so differently. It's, yeah, it's just, for me, it's the key to everything. Kait Tregenza: So go into that. Like tell us what exactly like t tell us where you live and what it feels like and looks like in your world. Maria Magdalena Garzon: So yeah, I agree, it's very sad. Do you mean how my relationship with myself looks like? Kait Tregenza: Mm. Mm. When you're saying like f this before and after almost that you're painting this picture of like once I started doing this, this is what it changed for me. Like, how? What how is it that just creating an intimate relationship with yourself changes your entire life? I think that's really important to understand. Maria Magdalena Garzon: and Yeah. Yeah, well, if I think back, my relationship with myself was really horrible. Everybody has a relationship with themselves, but most of the times it's not a most beautiful one. So there was a lot of critical voices in my head. I criticized everything I did, everything I thought. I was always... scared I might do something wrong, I might be criticized by other people. I was a perfectionist, it was horrible for me to make mistakes. I had a bad relationship with my body. When I was a teenager, I was hurting myself. I had a very difficult relationship to food. I was on diets constantly, I was working out way too much. I tried to have the perfect body. I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be attractive to men. I needed the attention from outside. I needed to be loved from outside. I struggled with money. I didn't believe I could charge for anything because I'm not worth anything. So how can other people give me money for what I do because it's not worth anything. I used to be an actress most of my life. And there was also a lot about competition and it was very hard. And it was always about becoming better, becoming better. And even when I was in the, like I was in the spiritual field from very young age, and even there it was to become more spiritual, more aware, more perfect, and to become less human, less human. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: That was, I think, it is the goal for many spiritual bubbles is to not be human, but to transcend and leave all the issues that you have as a human being. And when I started to meet the tantric world that is more about accepting all of life and embracing all of life and death and all of our shadows and the good and the bad. And when I started also, like I also had very toxic relationships. So for me, it was the end of a big relationship that finally I had time for myself. And it was horrible. It was a horrible journey in the beginning. It was very painful. But I started to realize that I'm not gonna find what I'm looking for out there. I'm not gonna be loved. Kait Tregenza: Mm-hmm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: from the outer world, if I'm not even myself, they might love this image that I'm creating. They might love the body that I am creating by starving myself, but they will never really love who I am. They might appreciate something like this character. But it will never end this loop of me trying to be something else than I am. trying to be a version of myself that I'm not and being seen for what I'm not and being loved for what I'm not. So I will never get the love for who I am if I continue this cycle. So it was a lot about forgiving myself, learning who I am, learning like even I didn't have any needs. For me, I was always like, oh, you need something. That's fine for me. You want to go on holidays to Italy? OK, let's go to Italy. Because I don't care. I don't know. You want to eat this? OK, let's eat this. Because I don't even know what I want. I thought I don't have any needs. Until I discovered I just suppressed them so much. And I started to learn. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: what is it that I like and dislike? I started to say no, which for me was one of the biggest teachers to learn to say yes to myself and no to things that don't serve me, that don't work for me, that are not aligned with me. So I, of course, I still have parts of myself that I don't love all the time and Kait Tregenza: Hmm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: not everything is perfect. like I said, it's an inquiry and it's a curiosity about myself. And there is lots that I learned about myself. And at the same time, I don't want to get stuck in this idea. This is me. And because I think human beings are shifting and changing who they are every moment. So for me, was a lot about self compassion. And it's still sometimes I do something or I say something and I'm like, my God, why did I do that? Why did they say that? That was horrible. Or I make a mistake and I'm like, my God. But it's about what happens after it's these moments still will exist. And I don't think they will maybe ever disappear. And that's fine. But for me, it's about, OK, what they do after. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: looking at myself like we look at children. You have a child, Like this. Okay, they make a mistake and maybe we are angry for a moment, but in the end, it's like, okay, they didn't know any better or they tried their best and they just can't do it better right now. And to look at myself like this and say, okay, I didn't know better. I would have... Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I would have done differently. So this is the best I could do. And okay, is there something I want to change? I want to learn out of that, or maybe it was just a funny mistake and being okay with that. Maybe it was embarrassing and just breathing into that. But holding myself like as kind of as my own parent and giving myself the space to grow and allow myself to make mistakes. I think this is a big piece of the whole intimacy work with yourself too. to one, on one side, learn about yourself and also on the other side, be very compassionate with what you figure out about yourself because there is parts that you might not want and that are very hard to accept. And I believe as human beings, we carry everything in ourselves. Like we even carry the archetype of a murderer or a rapist. So how... how do I navigate if suddenly these parts of myself come out? Because it's not just about the beautiful things about yourself and loving all that is great about yourself. Kait Tregenza: It's yeah. Yeah, it's interesting that you just said that because I have a earlier episode where I found out my great grandmother was twelve years old when she birthed my grandfather and he was taken, you know, away from her. She was put into state custodial care and then he was raised by other people. And through that alchemical journey of actually meeting her, the only reason that this all came up was that she came to me via my grandfather in a dream and like just kept coming and coming, coming every morning for like a week until I was like, fine, what do you want? Sat down, did this work, found out about her. And as I was doing that, alchemy on the grief and the violation and all of this kind of stuff that was so easy for me to access as a woman, right? The realization of my biological great grandfather, who was this violator, is held within me too. And the work Of intimately knowing where does that play out in my story? Like, where do I violate or take or victimize other people? Like, where does that not as an archetypal, but as a genuine DNA encoding? Because it's so easy for me, I heard. stories about my grandfather who wasn't great. My father definitely got a lot of those traits. I see that in my brothers. I see that in my uncles. I saw this in my line and I distanced myself. And I had to like really own up to this idea of if this is everywhere and you can see it, you can see it clearly because it exists in you. And it might not be the thing that people know about you. It might not be the way that people describe you. But it exists within your body because you can see it clearly in others. And learning to love the parts of you that violate other people sounds like a really stupid idea at first, right? Like, why would I love this part of me? And I think it's the more deeply intimate you become with your own self, and the more deeply intimate you become with the divinity within you, the contrast. Becomes clearer as well. And so you you you start to become very, very aware that this human experience is actually about how do I hold the complexity of all of these opposing forces that make me who I am. And how do I show up? To almost like to be the sailor of that ship, of that vessel. You know, I you can so easily go one way or the other way. Like, are you going to let the winds steer you or are you going to become the the the master of directional shifts and changes that no matter how the wind is blowing, you get to know how you respond. Because it's a master sailor that goes, Okay, the wind's blowing this way, but we're going the opposite way and I'm gonna get there, you know? And I think that's that's really Yeah, and if you don't have a family history of this specific, because this is not even like ancestors for me. Like this is like two, three generations back. Like this is making up my DNA, my my epigenetics. Like this is carried. And so I think it was really, you know, it was this really beautiful alchemical experience of understanding that the intimate relationship that I have with myself. doesn't need to falter just because I find this aspect of me that's really villainous, that's really terrible. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Thank you for sharing that. I think it's really, really brave to take a look at these parts and to not make it easy for yourself and just be like, somebody in my family did that and that's horrible and I'm going to judge it. And that's usually where it ends for people. It's like they see something they dislike, especially in the family. We have so many things, I guess, in like a lot of judgments of Kait Tregenza: Right. Maria Magdalena Garzon: people in our family. I think it's one of the biggest mirror cabinet that we can have going into a family. Kait Tregenza: And maybe that's why the word inquiry resonated so deeply. It's because if you can make this impersonal and you can detach from these things, but it's like, okay, if you wanna know how to shift your relationship with yourself, even if it's just for personal gain, even if it's just so that you can make more money, do better in your business, like even if it's for purely, purely selfish reasons, right? Maria Magdalena Garzon: and and Kait Tregenza: There's no altruism. There's no like, I want to make the world a better place. I want to like plant flowers in the sea. Like nothing. Like it was all just for money and gain. You would still be doing good work. Even if that was a selfish motive. Like if you could take a completely selfishly powered Inquiry into an aspect of yourself that is keeping you smaller than you know that you are and unlock that and release that and come face to face with some demons and go, wow, that exists within me and remember, okay, but I really want to become a millionaire and this is standing between me and being a millionaire. I've got to like keep going through with that. I don't care how people get there. Like, however, you need to get to your personal development work, like To your deep, intimate self-inquiry, like whatever your motivation is. The problem is it becomes extremely satisfying to have these things shift in your life. That's why I say I don't care how you start, because it's not how you're gonna continue. Because it's not f it's not it's not the kind of work that you want to show up every day and do unless you have the kind of understanding that it really unlocks human potential. It really shifts and it really changes you. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, yeah, that's very true. And I think also it shifts like, there is, I guess for those people who really continue also when it gets really hard, I think... There is no way around shifting your relationships to the outer world at the same time. That's why it's so potent. It's not just what it changes within you and what potential it opens up inside of you, but also how you go out into the world and how you react to people and the relationships that you start having. And with that, you don't only just change yourself, but you start really changing. the world outside yourself and you have an impact also around you. Kait Tregenza: And and how people relate to you too. One of the things you said earlier that I want to come back to because it was so important was this almost like this difference or this confusion of I'm a low maintenance girl, like, no, I don't care what we eat, no, I don't care where we go, no, I don't care what I wear. like I'm easy. And I really, really resonated with that because I used to be the Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah. Kait Tregenza: Easiest going girl in the entire world. I remember having this realization at one point, like kind of way too close to my 30th birthday for it to be comfortable, but realizing, do I know what kind of food I like? Do I know what my style is? Do I know what I like to do on the weekend? Like Do I know what my hobbies and my interests and my like just general value system is? Like, do I know any of these like really important pillars of personhood are about myself? Like, do I know any of the answers to this? Like if I took a friendship test on myself, w would I get any of the answers right? And also would I even know how to correct if the answers are right or not? Like I really want to dig deeper into that. Like how did you realize actually being easygoing is not the flex we think it is? Maria Magdalena Garzon: I think... For me, I didn't even know that, like for me, this was just, I thought, I don't care. I thought this is me, I'm just flexible. And I think for me, the hardest part was to even understand that it's not true that this is me, but it's a behavior I learned to be loved and be safe and. And maybe even there was no space in my childhood for my own needs so much. So my needs were not so important. And even though I'm sure my family did whatever they could under our circumstances, but still there was just not space because other things were more important. So for me, I had to care more about my mom's needs, for example, when I was a child. I thought I had to. I didn't have to, but I thought this is more important. So I was very like, I learned how to tend to other people's needs. And I learned that these needs are my needs, because this is what's going to keep us safe. And this is what's important. And this is what makes me feel good because I'm... Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I'm being appreciated and I'm being loved. And so I feel good about it. So only when I started to... And I think this is very connected with the whole piece of self-intimacy is when I started to learn to feel myself again. And I think this is the key of it all is we're so disconnected from from feeling ourselves. I really had to connect again with my body and my emotions and understand like, OK, how do I feel right now? Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: What do I want right now? And I think it can be very uncomfortable to have an opinion and to want something and to want something else than the other person wants. And it's very easy in some ways to just be okay with everything that's happening around you or being okay with the needs of other people. So I think it's a beautiful mechanism. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: to survive and to be loved and to have an easeful life. But it will never be your own life. And I think the moment you realize I'm not living my life. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Like that for me was this painful moment of like if do I like on my last day passing away looking back at my life this is something I would regret that I didn't live my life Kait Tregenza: Mm. I'm gonna repeat what you said because I think that really like oof you can have an easeful life but it won't be your life. How did you find this out? Like, how did you decode this? I'm so interested. Like, because I think we're talking about things in general terms, but like, what is the detail? Like, what is the nuance on that? So if someone's listening, they're like, Yeah, but I do like any kind of food. Or I I do have so many interests that anywhere I go, I'm gonna enjoy it. Or I'm like such a joyful person that if I go to I don't know, a forest or if I go to a doof festival I'm gonna have like an equally nice time, like So do I have a bad intimate relationship with self? Like what's the How how do you how do you go into that so that someone listening to this can really understand tangibly what you what you meaning here? Cause it's so important. Maria Magdalena Garzon: The first thing that comes to my mind is it doesn't mean you cannot have multiple interests and things cannot give you pleasure, but I think it... I think it rather shows up in... It's more of a neutral feeling. I think it's not so much of, oh, I go here and I really enjoy myself. I go here and I really enjoy myself and I eat this food and I so love it and it doesn't matter which food I eat. Love it, love it, love it. I don't think it shows up like this so much. I think it's more like it feels... It's fine. It feels more... Kait Tregenza: Mm-hmm. It's not like, Yeah, that's fine. I don't care. Maria Magdalena Garzon: numb. feels more, I don't, it doesn't come to my mind the English word for it, but indifferent is I think it's the word in Kait Tregenza: Right. It's like you're just yeah, indifferent, nonchalant. Like it's like if you go to the restaurant, you eat the food, it could taste like cardboard, it could taste great, you're just eating like you're just existing, like it's just Yeah, I ate it. How's your food? Yeah, it's fine. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah. Kait Tregenza: Okay. you go to the shop to buy a dress. H what do you think? It's fine. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah. And for me, that's already very Yeah. And I think, like for me, this is very, close to depression, actually, because depression is suppressing our feelings and its numbness. Like this is the beginning of depression. And for me, it was like going down a bit deeper and deeper into depression when I realized, okay, something here is like really off. And I feel... Kait Tregenza: Mm-hmm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: So I think it's mainly when you feel okay, there must be something more than this. Like my life is not exciting me. I'm not waking up and I'm like enjoying what I'm doing. I have a job that's like, I do it because I make money out of it. I have a relationship that is, yeah, it's okay. Or actually I already know it's not really good for me, but I don't want to be alone. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: It's like this life that is okay. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: It's either okay or it's less than okay. But if your life is not exciting and you're not like full of life, like I don't also don't wake up every day and I'm full of life force and passion every fucking day. Kait Tregenza: You don't have birds getting you dressed? That's so weird. I do. Maria Magdalena Garzon: No, it's... I know, because sometimes... Okay, then maybe you can teach me. Kait Tregenza: No, I don't I can teach it, but I don't actually have the birds. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I'm saying this because I feel sometimes when we listen to podcasts or we listen to teachers or people who have some tools that we might not have yet, then there is this illusion or this fantasy of once I understand it, my life will be perfect. there's something wrong with me because my life is not perfect. And it's not about having the perfect life and waking up every day and every day is great. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Right. Maria Magdalena Garzon: But it's about having those ups and downs and waves and being alive and not being in this state of flat. Everything is flat and it's okay. And it's like, yeah, I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. It's nice. It's good. Why not? Why not? It's more of a feeling of why not than yes, full yes. If you're letting this feeling of yes. Kait Tregenza: Hmm. Yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I want to eat this or yes, this is my favorite dress. I really love this or this event. I can't wait for it or my relationship is really nourishing me. Not just my intimate relationship or not just my love relationship, but I have friends that where I feel really seen and loved and and where we like work on our relationship and like where there is a lifeness. think it's mainly about a lifeness, feeling a lifeness. And for me, it's not about feeling good every day, because also feeling grief can be very alive or feeling anger can make you feel alive. So it's about allowing the full range of your life. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, so what was your initial question? Kait Tregenza: I wanna go deeper into what you said as opposed to repeat the question, I think it's that it is that r it is that aliveness, it is that Maria Magdalena Garzon: Okay. Kait Tregenza: For me, my definition of sensuality has really come so simply into defining you are a person, woman, who lives with full senses, like with full sense duality. Like, so that means that you are alive in the sensations of. the body of the experiences that you have in the world. Like for me, that's Eros. It's just life force energy, vitality. Are you here? And I guess for me especially with AI, especially with All of the changes that are happening in the world, like right now, is like why is this so important? Is because literally our humanity is it it's like there's never been a time in history where humans had to define humanness and what it actually means to be a human and why it's important to be a human. And this If you're not alive and you're living in this monochrome and you're just acting like a machine anyway, but now you do things way worse than any other machine could do, then think that's the call to arms, right? Like if you're an alive being and you understand why you are here and it's not to transcend and it's not to like Leave the body. Because then if you're here to leave the body, then let the AI take over and just let's admit defeat right now. Like we'll all leave our bodies, we'll go to wherever this apparent place that we're all trying to go to is anyway. that's not the hard part. That's called death, by the way. Like we leave, okay? And so Maria Magdalena Garzon: Thanks Kait Tregenza: So if the goal of your aliveness is to die, that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense. And I think it's like what you were saying right at the beginning of the call of like it's been it's been the greatest, in my opinion, it's been the greatest scam of all time, the spirituality space of like, we need to transcend, we need to leave the body, we need to all Come to enlightenment. If that was the goal, we would all be on our own little individual hill somewhere in the world, not talking to anyone, and not engaging in relationships, being abstinent, and then like we'd achieve that by the time we're seven years old. Like it's easy. Like that's not the that's not the goal. That's not the game. The game is like, how do you become Fully alive as a human. And that that's what you're talking about: is this intimate relationship with self that holds every single aspect of humanity, every single aspect of earth consciousness. And then you gotta hold that and learn to love it and be intimate with it and like see yourself fully as both the victim and the victimizer, as the as the witch and the hunter, like you know, as as the black and the white, as the up and the down, and then like come to not numbness, but a sense of I guess equanimity, but I guess it's more than that. It's it's it's probably called love in a different nuanced version of love that we haven't got enough language for. it's probably that our languages, all of them. Every single one doesn't have enough words for it because or maybe ancient languages do that we've wiped out because they knew they knew a lot about this. But yeah, like I think what you're talking about is this intimate connection with your erotic alive humanness and owning that and being that and living that and like, yeah, that's where I'm gonna be. Maria Magdalena Garzon: So interesting. It feels like I'm listening to myself when I listen to you sometimes. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's exactly how I would say that. It's incredible. Yeah, I totally see it the same way. And when you shared what came to my mind was that I think the term enlightenment is, I think we have to ask ourselves, what does it even mean? Because for me it is still enlightenment what I'm not aiming to be enlightened, but for me it's still like this journey of... learning. or this journey towards this love that you're talking about. And for me, this is enlightenment. For me, this is the same thing. But I think this idea of enlightenment will happen if I sit alone in the desert and I meditate all day long to transcend my body and to leave the body because the body is something bad. I think that's a misunderstanding of what it is about. Like you said, it's... this misunderstanding of, something like we came here to live here. But what is the journey? What is the in-between or why are we here? And for me, is this becoming fully present, yes, but becoming fully present with the human experience, with my body, with my emotions, allowing myself to feel all of that. Kait Tregenza: Ha ha ha Maria Magdalena Garzon: stopping to suppress the parts that are not acknowledged or not welcome in our society, to have this curiosity of what does it even mean to be human? What is this life? Like, we just come here, we have a couple of years here and we will die anyway. Like, it's not, this is the, like, No matter if this is your goal to leave your body or not, it will happen at some point. So why not enjoy the ride there? Yes. So I don't have to work with that. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. You will you will get your goal. Guaranteed you will get your goal. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I don't have to do much for that. Kait Tregenza: So here's my working theory. My working theory is that enlightenment is a is a principle of patriarchy. And the the truth, I think, as I step deeper and deeper into my own body and my own I don't know what I want to say, like intimate self-love connection. I think the goal is in darkenment, and then you become your own internal spark from that deepest dark. And the only reason I start to think about this is like, why are there so many men as spiritual leaders insisting? That they only work with women and get them to disconnect from their bodies. That's like that's too many alarm bells. Like that's too weird. and you know, when all of those names got released, like every single woman that's like deep into the space of like being their own voice of clarity and And you know, sovereign understanding of what she needs was not surprised in the least that these kinds of things were happening with these particular leaders that don't need to be named and don't need anyone giving them any more validation. But The if my midwife said to me when I was birthing, just breathe and leave your body, I wouldn't I I would what would have happened? Like that's the kind of stuff that you well, what would happen is you get cut open by a surgeon and you get told that your body doesn't know how to birth. You know what mean? Like the more that I see the enlightenment path, the more that I understand it was made as a very specific technology to keep women very disempowered and out of their bodies. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, I guess to keep humanity, but probably especially women because I feel the feminine, the feminine essence is the body and the liveness and the feeling like this is the feminine energy. And I mean, we live in a world that is a lot about the masculine energy and about not feeling about not needing about work like you need to produce. you are here to work, you're here not to feel anything or to be chaotic or to be alive because it's not supporting the system. So cutting off everything that is feminine supports the patriarchy a lot. So I think it's because the feminine lives in the women, it's even harder on the women. Kait Tregenza: Yeah, they want robots. Maria Magdalena Garzon: But I think it's cutting off everyone from their bodies, also cutting off the men from their feminine aspects, because the feminine is not valuable in a world like this where we live in. Kait Tregenza: And so how did you personally in your journey back to your intimate relationship with yourself and your femininity and your aliveness? I guess firstly, like how did you even approach that? Was that something that you just kept unfolding along the way? Or did you have specific practices? Did you have like a goal? Or was this just like a really natural unfolding? And then, like, as that unfolded, like, what hap yeah, I guess the journey of of that coming back to self and that intimate relationship tell us more about, I guess, the details of it. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Mm. I think it had many pieces and it also, I had to laugh a little bit when you said that when you were 30, like there was this turning point for you when you started questioning yourself if you would be able to answer questions about yourself. It was also for me when I turned 30. Yeah. Kait Tregenza: Yeah, I think it was around then. It was like late. It was late. It was like way too late. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I don't think that's late. I think it's a very common age for humans or maybe it's for women. don't know, especially, but that was also for me when I turned 30, I started to, my life started to fall apart completely. Like I lost my job. lost my relationship. I moved back to Vienna where I'm based now and I grew up. I kind of lost everything that I built until that. point. So it just left me with the nothingness. It left me with this blank page and it left me with a lot of pain and grief and an understanding that I'm not in a life that I want to have. I was very unhappy. And for me it was first about letting go everything that didn't serve me anymore, that was not aligned with me anymore. that suffocated me. then life just took me on this journey for me. I cannot explain it differently, but I feel like it was really meant to happen, kind of, because someone mentioned the training, the International School of Temple Arts, ISTA, where I went. From there on my life really shifted because I suddenly understood, I'm allowed to have boundaries. I even understood what it is to have boundaries. I was like, it's okay. I can have my own desires. I can have needs. I can say no to people. I started to investigate what is my sexuality? How does it feel for me? What is it that I want? How do I want to live it? And it's not for anyone else, but for myself. And I started to, I think for me, the gateway was kind of sexuality. It was a bit of the missing piece and missing link because I was in the spiritual world. I was an actress. was like the psychology of humans and learning about myself, embodiment. was all the pieces were already there, but once it went like deeply into shame. and sexuality and desires and needs and boundaries, was like, whoa, nobody ever taught me this. All the taboos, all the, that nobody wants to look at, especially in the spiritual world, it's like, sexuality? No, we don't have that. We don't do that. We don't look at that because it is quite a... Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, it's a very fine line to work with those energies also. And it needs a lot of integrity. So that for me was really the gateway to jump into that. And also for me, it was the first time I was out of a relationship. So was the first time I had to understand who am I without the relationship? Who am I without someone else that I can like... Kait Tregenza: Mm-hmm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: If you always are okay with what the other one wants, but there is no other one, then you have to suddenly know what do I want if there is no one else I can live on to. So for me, that was such an important and it's still such an important journey for me to just be with myself and learn to be okay, to be with myself. And I had to learn to love myself. And I didn't want to depend on a relationship or depend on someone else. And I still am a relationship person. I love relationships. And also I do have relationships with my friends that are very important to me. And still like really starting to understand that the relationship with myself is another relationship, like a love relationship that I really need to nourish. and that it needs time because you don't go on a date with someone once and you're like, okay, now I know this person and that's it, I don't need more. If you have a relationship, if you marry someone or something, hopefully until the day one of you dies or you separate, it's a curiosity about each other and you learn about each other and you will discover new things about each other. And it's the same with yourself. It doesn't end, it's just a relationship to discover each and every moment. And for me, was, yeah, it was a lot of puzzle pieces, but finding people who I could really feel they have something that I want to have and I don't have it yet, how did they get there? And learning from them. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, because I feel there's also a lot of teachers who tell you this and this and this, but they don't embody it. I don't feel there's a lot of people out there who really embody what they teach. So for me, it was a lot about finding those people who really embody this aliveness, who you look at and you're like, whoa, there is life for us. is juiciness. Kait Tregenza: So many. Not even that you just look at that you can feel like they're so they have this feel and it pulsates out of it, but it also pulls you in, and it's like, that's what they mean by magnetic. It's like until you've been in someone's presence that like you can feel yourself like being pulled into them and being like. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, because I feel, yeah. Yeah. Kait Tregenza: I wanna share with you and I wanna like receive from you and it's like so clean. Yeah, that it's a lot of stickiness and and Yeah, without that embodiment, without that magnetism. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah. And for me, was also what just came to me to stop believing I have to do it all by myself. I have to figure it out by myself. Asking for help, finding people who already have what I'm looking for and also understanding that this journey is a relational journey. Yes, it is the relationship with yourself, but it's also about relating with other people and learning how to relate in a healthy way. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: learning how to relate in a way that I can stay by myself, like stay myself, be authentic with who I am and be in a relationship with someone who does the same thing and deal with that. What does it mean? How do we navigate your needs and my needs and your boundaries and my boundaries and learning that that's possible and that's okay to have your boundaries and have your needs and not be rejected for that. learning all these, like healing for me can only happen in relationship because the pain happened in relation to something or someone so you have to heal it with someone else. So besides this constant relationship investigation with yourself it's a lot about relating with other people for me as well. Kait Tregenza: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: But for me, it's like the moment you start relating with yourself and having better relationship and compassion with yourself and love with yourself, you immediately will open up also more to other people. That's what I believe. Kait Tregenza: I wanna know more about what you discovered about asking for help and receiving help. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Hmm. Yeah, I think this is one of my biggest teachers to ask for help. It's still difficult for me sometimes. I think especially women. yeah. Because we have learned that we have to be able to do everything by ourselves. We're not allowed anymore to lean on a man. We're not... Kait Tregenza: You're not you're not alone. That's why I'm asking about it. I think this is for women. Women generally Maria Magdalena Garzon: So we have to figure out how to make our own money and we have to figure out how to be a mother or most of like there is still this idea of every woman has to like somehow become a mom or want to be a mom or it's very selfish still to decide that you somehow don't I feel. So I feel as a woman we grow up in this society where suddenly you have to be able to do everything. You have to be the masculine and you have to be the feminine at the same time. And we live in a world where we don't want to need each other. We want to pay someone to do something for us. So we need to make the money to pay people to do something for us. But this whole community aspect of supporting each other, especially when you become a mother, like this support of a community, it's so needed. And it's so not there. It's like, okay, if I don't manage to do it myself, then there is something wrong with me. If I can't do it myself, I need to learn how to do it, or I need to pay someone to do it. But this idea that as a human being, I'm not meant to be able to do everything and be perfect in everything. we come into this world with different gifts. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: For a reason. So we can complete each other and we can support each other in that. And for me, it was especially also a piece of sisterhood to learn to ask for support from other women and to learn to be there for other women and to really step out of this whole idea of comparing each other and comparing myself to other women and and this whole competition of who is more beautiful, who is more this, who is more successful, who has more men, who is more sensual. This whole, my God, it's, ugh. And to really step out of that and hold myself also accountable once these thoughts coming and be like, hey, we are here to support each other and to cheer each other up. Kait Tregenza: Mm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: And the more I learned to give that to other women, the easier it also becomes for me to ask for support. So for me, was like first giving because that made it easier for me to receive it and not in a sense of, I always need to give to the others and the others are more important than I am, but really be like, okay, what's the world that I want to live in? How do I want to live sisterhood? How do I? want to live community and then holding myself accountable and move like that and through that allowing myself that I'm part of this community too and I'm part of that world too and so it's okay to for help and to ask for support. Kait Tregenza: There's a lot of personal reflections that came through that mirrored what you were talking about. I think even even like my st my story of like why I came I had a really big satin returns like twenty eight, twenty-nine, but by the time I was thirty, I was like kind of back in myself. I was single, I was in this place of life where was like, Okay, now it's me. Like I've been in this like long relationship in another era, in another generation that I would have had to marry that guy and that would have been Rest of my life, right? And I was in this place of like, I didn't have to get married. I didn't have to do that. I got to leave that relationship. And now at 30, I get to like actually know who I am in this whole different way. Because I don't think that I had a life where I didn't know who I was because I was traveling so much when I was in my twenties. And I was doing like things like hitchhiking and couch surfing, and that really shows you who you are at like this really deep level, and like the level of self-trust that I had in myself. That's like, I don't speak this language. There is no such thing as a smartphone or an internet connection wherever you go at this like point in the world. And so it's like you've really like you build this level of trust in yourself, and yet still I would say. The trust that I built in myself was that I could do anything I needed to do. I could keep myself safe, that I could find where to go, that I could navigate the world, that I could connect with other people, that I could find people to travel, like to do all of these things, that I could set up a business in a new country, that I could find an apartment, like I could do all of these life, like really I would say like I could live life, get things done. Like there was no Problem. I did know myself probably more than the average 20-something year old. But I think it's like when you arrive at your 30s, you're like, I'm not a kid. Like, I'm not a baby anymore. Like Life design. What am I what do I want to do? Who do I want to be? I get to choose all of this. Who do I want as my friends? Who do I want as my my inspiration or my, you know, like who do I want in my corner? Like what what is this life going to look like? And I think those like coming back to that word inquiry, it's like you You have to open a deeper inquiry into like how are you gonna live this life? What are you gonna do? What's it gonna add up to? What's the hypothesis for your existence here? And how are you gonna go about proving that? And I think that was It was it it was it was such a similar story to yours of like finding yourself single in an era where women are allowed to be single. Like we don't even like appreciate that in so many ways of like women are allowed to live alone. They're allowed to be single. They're allowed to be 50 years old, never have lived with a man, never have like been with a man and be Totally, totally happy and self-sufficient and capable. And I'm like, so what are you gonna do with it though? You know, that I think that inquiry that you're talking about is so important. And doing that side, doing that outside of a a relationship, like in relationship with yourself, is so new. It's so privileged. And I think about that in terms of like. How would my grandmother or my great grandmother even my mother? How would they be different if they got the grace and the length of time that we? I really don't think it started any generation earlier than Gen X, of like being allowed to be alone. And I'm not advocating for hyper-independence or women can do it all themselves. Like I think that's too extreme, and I think we're all paying the price and we're finding the. The pendulum, like equilibrium from that, you know, hyper women can all do it by themselves. But the the other extreme was they couldn't do anything by themselves. And if you were an unmarried woman by 25, well, good luck to you. Like, how are you gonna eat? so I think we are finding that middle ground. And I think that we forget how privileged that is. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Hmm. you Kait Tregenza: For the first time in like 5,000 years, that we get to live alone. And that if somebody doesn't choose us and marry us, like we're okay. But coming back to that self-inkoring, coming back to that deeper, intimate relationship with self, your body's not always gonna feel that way because this is like you are the first one in your entire like you're the first one in your genetic line that's been allowed to be okay on your own. That's not in hazardous, like perilous danger. Your survival is not at risk. but that's so new. That's so new. And I think that's why that inquiry, like constant inquiry, is like, why do I feel like I'm not allowed to just take this time for myself? It's like because no one else has ever been allowed to do that. So like Breathe into that and honor your ancestors because you you get to do what they all ha have wanted. Maria Magdalena Garzon: there. Kait Tregenza: And that's why I come back to like it's the endarkenment as opposed to the enlightenment. That is about being deeply in your body and owning your human female experience and all the darkness and all the shadow and finding the light within that, within the body. That's very different to breathe deeply, leave the body and transcend. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, totally. And I feel that this is something the feminine will need to bring in the next years, decades, to bring the darkness and to bring this inquiry of the dark and the body and what does it mean to be in our bodies, to complete the picture and to not just be in the masculine and... being what we have been told for so, so, so many years. And also here, it's not about everything about the masculine is bad or something, but it's about, we need both pieces. And one piece will never bring us, like it will, it can only create pain and suffering if we, if we just look at one piece of who we are, if we just look at the love and the light and the, the masculine, but. We need to look also into the darkness, like you said, and to really land in our bodies and in the mystery and the unknown and bringing our coming back also to our intuition and the connection to the mystical and the connection to source in this form through the body, through feeling ourselves. So. I think maybe this could be a great conversation for next time. Kait Tregenza: Yeah, I mean that's the thing, right? You start to go deep into these kinds of conversations, and then you're like, and this, and this, and this, and then and it's never ending. And that's the whole point, is that it's it really truly is never-ending. And the connection that you have with yourself shouldn't be ever-ending. It is about this spending the rest of your life Getting to know yourself in this way, like you would a lover. Like, would you marry someone on your twenty-first birthday and go, okay, well. We're done. Like I've already know everything I need to know about you. Let's just sit in the other room from each other. I mean, don't get me wrong, people do that. But how much more interesting is it to actually assume that somebody is going to show up and evolve every single day and you get to learn more about that person? And the only reason you wouldn't assume that somebody has depth and value in getting to know them is because you don't think that about yourself. And so if vice versa, if you're dating someone or if you're in a relationship, whatever kind of relationship with someone where they don't find you deeply fascinating, it's not really about you. It's that they don't even know that they're that they are deeply fascinating. And I think that's another thing that you touched on earlier is like once you find yourself to be the most fascinating, you know investigation topic of your life and you show up with that like level of enthusiasm to know more about yourself and develop your intimate relationship with yourself. Anyone who doesn't think the same about you is very clearly not gonna last because it's gonna be such a stark contrast between like, are you serious? I'm amazing. How do you not know that and not in this egotistical way but in the way of like I am amazing and therefore I can show up and see how amazing you are but you're not you don't see the same about me nor about yourself like we're just like naturally not a fit anymore. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah, would be great if we were all, if we would all be able to see that and to voice that in relationships. There are so many relationships out there. Just keep going and keep moving and people are suffering. And if we would just acknowledge that and yeah, we'll be, yeah, we'll be an amazing world. Kait Tregenza: So what's your vision for how this world could shift into this different way of relating to ourselves. Like what what would that come what would that create as a as a world externally? If every single person in this world had the same level of s intimate relationship that you have with yourself, if they had the same level of intimacy with themselves as you as you have, what would change? Like what would it look like? What's your dream, your vision? Maria Magdalena Garzon: I think my dream and my vision is that first of all everybody would... Like it's giving you so much to change your relationship with yourself. This already in itself is such a gift to stop hating yourself, to stop judging yourself, to stop trying to be someone else. It takes so much energy and it's such a hard life if you wake up every day and you're trying to be someone else, trying to be something that you're not. And just this... Kait Tregenza: Mm-hmm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: this exhalation of I'm allowed to be myself and it's beautiful to be myself. That in itself I feel would shift so, so, so, so much. And at this point when you start allowing yourself to be who you are, you will be able to start allowing other people to be who they are. So we will... Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: slowly move into a world where everybody is just who they are and you don't need to question if anybody is authentic or if what they say is true or if somebody's talking behind your back about you or something. All these things would just fall away because people can just be authentic and honest and truthful and the world will be very, very juicy and very colorful because We are all so unique and the moment we would allow ourselves to be in this uniqueness, the world would just become very, very colorful and fun. And all these, you wouldn't compare yourself anymore. You wouldn't need to prove anything to yourself or the world anymore so much. So this whole Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Maria Magdalena Garzon: power game that we have in our world, the whole money game that we have in our world, it will all crumble and fall apart. And all the wars that we have, if you stop the war inside yourself, there is no need to have a war with the outer world. If you don't need to prove yourself, if you don't need to fight against anyone because you cannot look at your own shadows, all these things would just fall away. So it doesn't mean we would run around and be happy all the time. I don't see that and I don't see this as a great outcome. I see the world just being alive and figuring things out together and being curious about yourself, being curious about each other. And that means you don't have to get along with everyone, but you will find your own people and people would just gather with those people that they love and... not spend time with all the people that they hate. So there is no need to fight against anyone because it's very simple once you know your truth and you know you act on your truth things become very simple. Kait Tregenza: Definitely. Do you think this vision really this this technology that you're talking about coherence and of the mechanisms that exist when large groups of people or the entire population is coherent, is truthful, is authentic, is alive. Do you think that's gonna change the trajectory of like artificial intelligence or other kinds of intelligence? Like do you think this is like do you think it's worth fighting for this humanity? Or do you think you just come into your truth and you just allow whatever happens and if it's that humans no longer stay here, then that's what it is. Like how do how You seem to have a lot of peace around it. So I'm interested how you feel about the future being positive. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I'm not so attached to the idea that humans need to survive on this planet. I think we take ourselves way too serious. I think if it comes to the point that we just disappear, that's okay. I mean, there's other species that have disappeared and the world will keep turning without us. maybe we are... you know, maybe it's okay. Like maybe we have done our part and maybe it's time to move on and maybe there is something, I'm sure that whatever will come next, it's impossible for us to see what it will be with or without us. So either we will figure out a way to stay on this earth in a more peaceful way because otherwise we will anyway just kill each other and that's the end, I think. Or yeah, or I think right now, I feel it's about finding a way to use things like AI in a healthy way, that it's a support for us, that it's supporting us in our growth. And it's not. Yeah, and still like you touched on it today, like staying human and AI will never be able to be human. So it's about being even more human and feeling even more what does it mean to be human? Not with the attachment of that's the most important thing and humans are the best thing that could have ever happened to this planet. I don't know if that's true. But all we can do, all we can be is being human. So this is our job. This is what we are here for. So this is what we can bring, bringing humanity. And I think... That's all we can do right now. Kait Tregenza: Yeah, it's it's interesting actually because when I was younger I was very rebellious. I I had a lot of like anarchy energy, a lot of rebellion energy, a lot of like protest energy, like we've got to save the world energy. And It's interesting as I s especially when I was in like a s more spiritual sphere, there's a lot of emphasis on we need to save everybody or we need to like and you can see that in like a religious realm as well. Like we have to save everyone's souls or like in the spiritual world is like we need to lift the consciousness so that others can see themselves, you know, how we see them and all of that. And you're like, like as I've come Maria Magdalena Garzon: and Kait Tregenza: You know, I went into that, I was like, this is so weird. But there was a part of me that it obviously spoke to. And like in healing that part that needed to save other people was like, you don't need to save anybody. Like, what are you even talking about? And as this sort of like solidifies deeper and deeper into my body, and like I am not anybody else's savior, I'm not anybody else's mommy, you know. Well, and some people's mommy, like you know, in a global sense. the idea of this all just whatever happens, happens has been like I don't know that it's nihilism. I think it's just this acceptance of it is exactly what it is. And that doesn't mean that I do nothing. It's but my work is exactly what you just said, fixing the wars that are inside of me, fixing the competition that exists within me, looking at the demons that are within me that are playing out on the world scale. It's not going to the streets and protesting. It's going inside and being honest and developing that intimate connection with the truth of every aspect that I am. And I think you've said it so beautifully. And that translates to we either all evolve and we come into this h like whole new way of being and existing. Where being human isn't about what you do for a living. It isn't about what you do for eight hours a day for someone else. Because that is not the definition of being human. We've just forgotten for so long that our definitions and our minds are so contracted and so narrow that when we think of AI and the comparison of AI versus humanness, we're like. It's all about work and what the AI can do. I'm so excited that AI can do everything that I do. Cause I don't want to do. I don't want to do it all. And that's what's exciting. It's like, well, maybe we have this opportunity to actually reclaim beingness. And the only people that can lead that charge are women. Cause that's our native state. Like that's what we're here for. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Mm. Kait Tregenza: But if we're not in our truth of who we are, and we can't be with ourselves, we can't sit with ourselves, we can't be silent and still and comfortable and embodied and magnetic and full. How are we gonna be human? We're gonna continue to compare ourselves with AI. I'm not a machine. So it's I love I love your vision. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Luckily. Thank you. Let's see where the higher intelligence is taking us. Kait Tregenza: Yeah, I love it. I love it. All right, Maria, well, thank you so much for this talk. I could talk we could go into like we could do so many rabbit holes and we could sit here for the next like five hours. but we've got to be elsewhere. We've got to be ourselves somewhere else. Tell people how they can connect with you, how they can find you, how they can work with you, what are you doing? Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah. Yeah. Kait Tregenza: guiding them into if they s heard what you have and what you're claiming for your own self and they want to taste that, how could they get it? Maria Magdalena Garzon: So I work in different ways. I work one-on-one with people online but also in person. I give bodywork. I'm just bringing out an online course that is really focused on this theme that we talked about today. Like really it's called how to get intimate with yourself. So it's all about creating this intimacy with yourself. I give retreats and workshops all over the world. mainly in Austria but also in the world. And all of my work, like there is this thread going through everything that I do and I bring it in different colors and I bring it in more relational fields in the retreats and I bring it more in like relation with yourself in my one-on-one work. So the easiest is to go on my website because there you can find everything that I do and everything that I offer. Yeah, and I keep changing my offers. have also I love to work with women. So sometimes I bring offerings that are only for women. But I also really love this relational piece of men and women because there's so much healing potential there. The sexuality piece like I love to bring these different pieces because they're all important. But it all comes down to this. Who am I? Who am I? Kait Tregenza: Mm-hmm. Maria Magdalena Garzon: in the end. Kait Tregenza: I love it. We'll link everything below and including your Instagram, your website, everything as well. So leave us with your parting thoughts on developing an intimate relationship with self. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Yeah. I think what I want to... live with for people is Just allow yourself to... to create the small. pocket in your life, in your everyday life, every day, at least create those five minutes to ask yourself questions and to see who am I and what do I need and what do I want and how do I feel. even like starting with five minutes, if you, know we're all busy and it's hard to bring something new into our world, but starting with just this question of is my life the way I want it to be? Or is there something that like, am I in my truth? And from there, like really just taking moments, small moments for yourself to feel yourself, start to create this connection with yourself and everything else will fall into place. Kait Tregenza: Yeah. Again that inquiry you're the inquiry queen. Hello. I love it. It's been such a pleasure. I am so, so grateful to you. I love your energy, I love your presence, I love how you talk, I love how clear you become and how you light up when you talk about this work. It's so inspiring and it's so refreshing and it's so beautiful to witness you. Maria Magdalena Garzon: I really enjoyed this conversation. Kait Tregenza: And to know you and to be in your company. So thank you so much for the privilege of this conversation. But most importantly, thank you for the work that you do in the world. Thank you for showing up each and every day to be the truth of who you are, because the truth of who you are is beautiful and divine and gorgeous. And I've been so privileged to know you. So thank you so much for coming. Maria Magdalena Garzon: Thank you, it was such a pleasure. Kait Tregenza: That was fun.