Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 36: celebrate your soul’s garden, just as it is

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36: celebrate your soul’s garden, just as it is · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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  at this moment in time when we're so focused on what we want to make and create and the habits
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  we want to form. I just want to say, let's celebrate your soul's garden as it is. Okay, I'm in
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  awe. Like, let's take a step back and be like, wow, what are the aspects of your soul's garden that
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  it's easy to overlook, but that you're so proud of yourself for? What are the flowers of love you've
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  planted for your friends or for your family or for yourself? That is such a wonderful thing to experience
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  love in any of its infinite manifestations is such a gift. Hello sunshine and welcome back to
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  paradigm shift with I understood. A place where we reframe what is and reimagine what could be.
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  I hope you enjoy today's episode. Let's paradigm shift together. Hello soul siblings,
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  hello sunshines, hello zalings. Welcome back to another episode with me happy New Year.
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  I am with you, whatever you are doing, whether you're folding your clothes on a walk, not folding
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  your clothes on a walk, whether you're folding your clothes punctuation or on a walk or cooking
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  or driving, drive safely or just experiencing life. You know what I mean? I am so grateful
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  to be experiencing it with you. Okay, that my voice gets to exist in your ears on your speakers
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  is truly one of my greatest honors in this lifetime. So I'm really, really just in awe of the people
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  who I feel like are being called to listen and to stick with this journey. I feel so aligned.
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  And in fact, it makes me afraid because I'm like, well, this is why I want to keep this
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  in the community. And I don't want to put a lot of effort into growing it, but that's really
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  my fear. And it's really as Guasty mindset as they say, where I'm fearful that if I promote
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  this work more, it will attract the wrong people. And I'm like, the vibe is so juicy. I don't want
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  to lose it. And so I think that's been something that's held me back from the word aggressively
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  came to mind promoting my podcast. However, I do feel called to do that just because in order for
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  this to be sustainable, I wanted to find everyone it's meant for. And also, I don't want to hold
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  myself back. If this is really what I believe is important wisdom and understanding and
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  perspective, then why would I not want to share it with anyone who might want to hear it? You
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  know what I mean? That's the vibe. That's the energy. One of my words for 2024 is audacity.
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  Okay, it's this notion of boldness and of not holding myself energetically back from aligning
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  myself to what I say I'm seeking. And so with that being said, however, you know, but whereas
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  I know that this time of year, we are so surrounded by a lot of messaging around actually before I
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  go to that, shout out to South Africa. Shout out to South Africa. And what this represents to me,
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  the case against Israel is, and I'm going to keep this very brief because I want this episode to
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  focus on what I made the title is essentially the spiritual lesson I draw is that we have this
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  collective history and wound of a part date and who better than us to show the world what courage
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  looks like. Okay, I'm really inspired by this. And I think it takes a level of integrity that I am
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  proud that we are demonstrating in this way. Anyways, as I said, I'm keeping that very brief and
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  I'm moving on. And essentially what I want to invite you into because we love an invitation. In
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  fact, I may change the name of this podcast to invitations. It will all unfold as it's meant to. But
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  for now, I changed the cover art to your invitation to paradigm shift. So maybe that's the media.
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  Maybe it's not either or maybe it's a weaving, which by the way, I learned that the word tantra
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  literally means to weave. Who knew that? Oh, my word. So essentially moving on or moving through or
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  moving with what I want to invite you into with this episode is this is a time when you're really
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  being told, okay, let's focus on goals, achievement, what we want to do, what we want to create, what
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  habits we want to get rid of or implement in our lives. And you know, here we're going to come up with
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  something a little bit different. You know what I mean? Something a little bit that goes against the
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  consumers or capitalist viewpoints that goes against the societal conditioning that we've been given.
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  And what I want to invite you into is how many more times is she going to say invite? Sometimes I'm
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  like, why do I assume people are disagreeing with me? Like, do I need to heal that within myself?
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  It's like, I'm even as I listen to myself speak. I'm like, oh, I'm editing myself as I speak. You
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  know? And it's like, is that necessary? Is that necessary? I haven't fully decided yet.
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  So what I want to offer you is the notion, the metaphor, the analogy that your soul is a garden,
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  okay, your being, whatever word resonates with you, soul, spirit, heart, consciousness, okay.
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  Your soul, that eternal, like, deep part of your being that can't quite be defined,
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  that goes beyond languages ability to express and define. It's something that is almost like
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  between the spaces of words versus in the word itself. You know what I mean? As in, you know,
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  I think you felt, if you, oh, if you felt what I meant, then it proves the case. Okay. Anyways,
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  so your soul can be thought of as this really magnificent garden. And instead of defining your
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  soul by the seeds you have not yet planted or the pests or parasites that you have identified
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  that are draining you of energy or draining you of life force or adding toxicity into your life.
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  Instead of defining your garden by either of those things like what isn't or what you wish
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  wouldn't be, why not take a moment in time and space time to really sit with, acknowledge and
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  celebrate the garden of your soul just as it is. What is the garden of your soul? It's really
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  unpack this little metaphor, okay. So if we think of the soul as a garden, we see that there are
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  plants of love that we've experienced or that we've cultivated or that we've given. There are
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  seeds that have been planted within us not only by ourselves intended to by ourselves, but of course
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  from our communities, from our cultures, from our families, from our ancestors. Some of these seeds,
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  we won't even know the origins of. They just exist within us. And as we know, both the gifts and the
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  love and the wisdom and the value system and also the trauma and the pain and the cycles also
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  live within us and live in these seeds that have been embedded within us. And it is part of our
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  earth experience, I believe, to try and break some of the generational cycles of trauma and of
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  harm and abuse that exist in each of us, but also to nurture and to acknowledge and celebrate
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  the generational cycles of love or of community or togetherness or anything that we've taken from
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  people in our lives and also to form completely new approaches to family. And this is the idea
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  from queer theory and queer community of chosen family. And so we're planting seeds, receiving
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  seeds and creating seeds, but also we are cultivating things within our lives and tending to them.
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  Now what happens in the garden of our soul is that we tend to take for granted, especially those
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  things that have always been there. And that could be a part of your being that you maybe don't take
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  a lot of time to appreciate because it's so normalized in your consciousness. For example,
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  perhaps you are very loving naturally. It's not an effort for you. Perhaps you're a great listener,
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  not an effort for you. Like you put devotion into the practice of listening, but it's always
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  come to you as this like deep inner wisdom and intuition of it's important to listen. This is how
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  you listen and you notice that it's not often mirrored back to you that you often are playing this
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  one-sided role. Maybe you've always been really curious, like deeply, deeply curious. And it's
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  easy to just look past that and be like, Oh, what are my goals for this year? What do I want to learn
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  for this year? How do I want to evolve this year? But I think the things we've already learned,
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  the things we've already read, the things we've already studied, whether that be in theory or also
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  everyone is my teacher. Friends are my teachers. This experiences my teacher. Earth is my teacher.
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  Love is my teacher. I can draw lessons not only from the books in the sense of how this paradigm
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  of knowledge understands knowledge is that it's very much studied and degrees and it is theoretical
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  and it's written in words versus there's of course a much wider realm of studying that exists
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  for us and that we're always experiencing and that's very natural to our being and to our species.
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  And so creating the space to acknowledge that there are already all these leaves of lessons
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  and wisdom and understanding that you've already reached. And if you're listening to this,
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  I would bet you're a seeker. Like you are always seeking. You're seeking more wisdom. You're seeking
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  more insight. You're seeking more understanding. You're seeking more analysis. Like you want to
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  know. You want to know and you want to understand and you want to draw connections and you live
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  for the aha moment and you live for the paradigm shift. But you also live to not just receive
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  information, but to cultivate the kind of consciousness that can help bring a different kind of
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  world into being, more love into being, more healing into being, more wisdom into being, more
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  friendship into being, more community into being and then also removing all the toxicity, all the
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  harm, all the violence in our world. That's something you're also probably deeply curious about
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  how that can actually happen in our lifetimes or life cycles. And I think that's incredible to
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  be a seeker. I'm a seeker. And I also think as seekers, we need to understand we've also sought.
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  We've also sought. We've also learned things like it's important to not be insatiable. I think
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  it's a beautiful trade in one way to be like, whoa, I'm always seeking more and more. But also,
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  I think in this time we can feel this, right? Like I read 100 books this year. I read 90 books this
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  year and next year I want to read 200 books. And with that is kind of a lack of appreciation for
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  things like reflection, revision, reading the same book again or having the same thought again,
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  but from a different angle or also embodied knowledge and understanding how to connect with our
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  bodies as such deeply intelligent beings, whatever you want to say. And so with that, I think even as
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  we seek more seeds of knowledge and to grow the knowledge within us even further, it's also
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  important to know that we already have learned so much. We're already so wise, especially if this
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  is stopping you from starting a project or from starting something where you're like, oh, if I only
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  just researched one more thing, if I only just read one more thing, I've been there. In fact, I'm
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  there almost every other week. But I just want to remind you, if you really look at the garden of
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  your soul, you'll see there are lessons from across the garden that you can draw from because
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  your whole life has prepared you for this moment. So acknowledging all the incredible and diverse
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  and interesting and fascinating and curious and absurd lessons that already live in your current
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  being, as well as all the love that permeates your garden. And I think when I say your garden,
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  of course, we are interconnected and therefore the gardens of our souls are interconnected. So I
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  also invite you to ask what role do you play in other people's soul gardens? Are you a pollinator?
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  Are you a sun being who offers a lot of life force and energy such that other people can grow and
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  feel nurtured? Are you water offering the sense of calming and also nourishment and also opportunity
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  for growth? Are you a puppy that brings a lot of playfulness and fun and has a lot of energy and
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  is always making jokes and entertaining people? Are you the soil? You're able to go to the deep
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  nature of things. You don't shy away from the truth of things. You know that truth is a deep
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  value that we need to usher in your world into being. But truthfulness is actually exceptionally
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  rare and exceptionally difficult because people don't want to hear the truth. So I think the
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  soil is that deep truth because it doesn't shy away from the funk, the mess. It's literally got
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  fecal matter and it's got the broken down bodies of dead species and animals and then it's got worms
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  and it's got insects. We would call it dirty and yet it's literally what enables us to live because
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  it's what allows us to have the food that we grow and then the animals that eat that food and that
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  graze and rely on the soil and the soil is what gives us the trees which gives us oxygen and so
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  we need the soil, the truth or the depth of reality of like looking into the face of things
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  and getting to the root of things is only possible through the soil. So maybe your energy is more like
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  soil energy and even though in our level of consciousness we see that as bad. We associate that with
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  negative things especially in the Western philosophical mind. There is a lot of attribution with
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  light as good and darkness as bad. Enlightenment, glowing, illuminating, bright, sunny,
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  light and then there is the sense that anything dark is bad which I think then of course
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  contributes to or helps metaphorize anti-blackness as a social reality imposed by the colonial
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  imagination and sustained by many systems of oppression today. That as long as we believe that
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  everything dark is bad we get stuck in that thinking and it then permeates into other aspects of
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  our understanding. So things like beauty, things like light skin, bright skin, glowing, it's like
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  equating not only lightness with beauty but also lightness with beauty with the divine. So the
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  lighter you are, the wider you are, the brighter you are, the closer you are basically to being a
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  divine being, to glowing even the language around it right. So I think my episode on spiritual
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  versus industrialized beauty which is an idea by Jessica DeFino will help you if you're
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  interested in learning a little bit more about that idea. But essentially the question was what role
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  do you play in the ecosystems in the sole gardens of other people? If you're a really good listener,
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  I feel like you are fertilizing people, you're also being shared that they can exist under so
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  maybe there's a large tree of love and of safety that you've cultivated in your soul. Maybe it's
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  because you give yourself that. Maybe you really listen to yourself or maybe you didn't feel
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  listened to when you were young so you cultivated the ability to listen as you grew older and you've
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  created this incredible oak tree for people to sit under. And I think that's really profound and
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  special. And yet it's something that you wouldn't always necessarily contemplate or view. And
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  especially when we are living in this linear understanding of time where it's remembering that time
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  isn't linear. So for example, there may be lessons we are seeking to learn now that an earlier
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  version of ourselves actually knew very well and embodied. So maybe we have now become people who
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  minimize our voices and silence ourselves. But maybe when we were like two or three years old,
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  we were loud, we were throwing tantrums, we were screaming, when we felt sad, we were crying. And so
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  we were really in our truth, maybe like some of us, right. And yet we've lost that. So we're trying
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  to learn what it's like to maybe be audacious or take up more space or know that it's okay for us to
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  speak our truth and not hide and minimize ourselves. And we could think, oh, it's all linear.
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  We're just trying to learn the next lesson and the next lesson, whereas we're cycling and spiraling
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  such that some of these lessons we did know before. Or we are returning to in a deeper,
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  more like cultural wisdom sense where maybe we are seeking to learn something that our ancestors
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  already knew. And so in that way, time is also not linear. And that's very important. I think
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  some of the most important lessons that we as a collective need to learn and have been seeking
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  is how to reconnect with indigenous and ancient wisdoms and ways of viewing how we should relate
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  to each other, which is the notion of kinship and community, the fact that we are here to protect
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  each other, we are each other, we are interconnected and interdependent. And also relationship to earth,
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  that earth is mother, earth is home, earth is us, earth is the ultimate Noah and wisdom and earth
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  is the ultimate being of sustainability and circularity. And it has all the lessons we need. And
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  we are here to protect the earth and to not extract from and exploit the earth as the colonizer
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  and capitalism and all these systems embody, but really to live through and with the earth and
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  know that earth consciousness is deep and is something to hold in like a sacred way. The third
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  way I think we're coming back is the the spiritual traditions of all any and all indigenous and
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  black and brown and Asian people who were colonized or who were affected by the colonial paradigm
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  is this notion that each each other people had a deep spiritual have and had a deep spiritual
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  tradition and a lot of colonialism was demonizing those practices demonizing those belief systems
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  because they knew the power of them. And they really wanted to otherwise these spiritual wisdom
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  systems. What are you seeing now? A big return or reclamation of spiritual traditions outside of
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  organized religion. So it's all happening, but what we're doing is it's not linear, it's cyclical.
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  There are things we as a human family used to know that we need to remember, remember, put ourselves
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  back together again. So with that being said, as we are inviting new energies into the year,
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  anything that happens this year didn't only happen this year. Why? Because everything that's come
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  before it has made it possible to be the case, right? So we of course attribute it's like
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  let's say there's a fruit tree and there's a fruit tree and we tend to the tree and the tree is
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  within us. And then five years later it bears fruit. And then we say, oh, this is the year I
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  bore fruit. And it's like wait, like you're attributing the entire life process to a specific moment
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  and when it happened. And yet had it not been for that whole process, it wouldn't have happened.
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  So for me, for my podcast, how do I hold the gratitude I have with the desires I have for it to
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  continue to manifest in more and more ways, right? And I've been holding that balance and I think
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  something that I was called back to is, for example, listening to my own episode because I feel
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  like I really focus on what's next, what's next, what's next, what's next. And it's like I completely
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  ignore what's already happened. So I was like, you know what, I'm going to push myself to do
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  something uncomfortable. And I'm going to invite myself, let's say that. I'm going to invite myself
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  to take the path of most resistance. And one of the things I'm most resistant to is listening to
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  my own voice, especially for like 40 minutes. But anyways, so I was like, okay, I'm going to invite
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  myself to take this path and to listen to my podcast episode again. I was feeling in a really,
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  I'm not good enough type of state. And I just was struggling, honestly, with this episode.
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  And I was like, nothing is ever good enough. All the language that I have and I know in theory,
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  this is why I'll never stop saying this because I know that it's going to take so many
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  spiritual lifetimes or cycles for us to fully let that sink into our being and become our shared
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  reality. Because it's hard to truly feel good enough when so much of what surrounds you makes
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  you feel the complete opposite, whether that be people on social media, culture, movies,
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  beauty standards, comparison, career envy, body envy, self worth challenges based on how the
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  society has treated you, all the isms, all of them, all the forms of hierarchy and oppression
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  that limit our sense of selves. I think when those are so prevalent, it's impossible to truly
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  feel good enough. Like even if you tell yourself, I'm enough, I'm doing amazing. I give myself
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  self-compassion and grace. Sometimes it feels like an affirmation, but it feels so inaccessible that
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  that could become my actual lived reality. There's glimpses of it, but I never feel it's fully
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  permanent, that permanent sense of enoughness. And I seek that, but I wonder if it's just another
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  spiral way. You never arrive. I mean, hopefully, I hope some of you arrive. But I feel that as a result
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  of that wound within me, similar to what I was saying about South Africa, I am meant to help
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  heal that wound because I understand it so deeply. I'm meant to speak into that wound. I'm meant to
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  take that experience and speak to it, you know, tend to it. It's like this part of my soul's
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  garden that's always prevalent. And it may be a weed that I don't want there. But I'm actually
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  going to be like, you know what? I can then use the medicine that I have received from this weed
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  and like help tend to that weed and other people. I don't even know if I want to call it a weed.
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  I'm not a gardener. So I'm just hoping that all of these analogies and metaphors make sense. In
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  fact, they do. But let's say there's a plant within me that I'm like, oh, I'm not crazy about
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  this plant. I wish it wasn't there. But what I've gained from it being there is the wisdom of
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  knowing it's there. And so therefore, the wisdom to speak to that place in others. And so that's
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  also why some of our pains and wounds they connect us to each other. That does not glorify or
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  justify them or make them okay or make them something to celebrate. I don't love when people
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  turn the things that happen into the lessons we receive because many of us wish we had less
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  lessons, right? But what I will say is that with that wisdom, I can then alchemize that into
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  really tending to that pain and that wound and others. So as a result, I was listening to my own
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  podcast episode on the myth of proving yourself because I was like, you know, I'm really struggling
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  with this episode. What's happening? And it's like, oh, I must feel like, oh, I do feel like
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  I have something to prove. Like it has to reach a certain standard for it to be okay. So it's like,
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  okay, let me listen to this episode. And I was very moved by it and it did really affect me and
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  help me. And that just makes me feel really aligned because I think for me, I view myself
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  part of my role in other people's souls, gardens. I feel like is to be a son, not the son. There are
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  many people playing son energy in people's lives, but to be a son being to be someone who
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  offers my energy, life force, wisdom, love in a way that rose. What is already within people?
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  And that wants to manifest through them or be expressed through them. So if people already are
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  craving love, then the son will help grow that love, you know, tend to that love, make that love
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  feel like, oh, I just want to bask, you know, as the as the sun flower opens up to the sun,
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  even us when we are in that feeling of embracing the sun, it's like that release. We feel like, oh,
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  I'm ready to receive. I want to feel expanded by this experience. And I feel that the sun is
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  an expander, unless there's too much sun, then it will cause wilting and death. But essentially,
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  there's this feeling within me that I am part of that process of, okay, I'm here to help people
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  expand. I'm here to help people tap into the love that's already within them, the wisdom that's
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  already within them, the creativity that's already within them. But by blazing this life energy
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  onto it, this life force onto it, I'm able to support its blooming and its growth and its
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  strengthening in them, okay, in their souls garden. So with that, I could hear that in that episode,
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  that is what I was doing. I was feeling more possible. I was feeling more alive. I was feeling
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  more like, oh, there's nothing wrong with me. This is just part of the collective consciousness. Okay,
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  let's keep it not moving. But let's, you know, keep moving with love. So I felt that alignment.
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  And I was like, I'm grateful that I get to play this role in people's lives. I also sometimes,
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  of course, feel depleted. So the other thing is all the people who have fed into me that allow me
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  to exist in this way, that I come from a family that deeply loves me and that love flows through me.
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  So I'm able to pour that love into other people because I've received love myself. That has not
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  only come from my parents and siblings, but also the members of my family in general, my cousins,
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  my aunts, just peeing the notes as she didn't say, uncles, uh, lol. And so it's such a interconnected
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  process where we are together, we form this collective forest of being and that is also why we're
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  not okay and this we're all okay. We're not free and this we're all free because we're all part
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  of the same human body, human family, we're all interconnected. And so if the forest is depleted in
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  one way, it's going to then pollute or, you know, poison with its mistreatment, the other forest,
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  and then that's going to cause that area of the forest to feel depleted and toxicified. And so it
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  really spreads and it's really not isolated in any way. So with that, it's important to note that
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  part of tending to our own souls, God, is so that we can show up in a loving way for other people.
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  And at this moment in time, when we're so focused on what we want to make and create and the habits
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  we want to form, I just want to say, let's celebrate your soul's garden as it is. Okay, I'm in
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  awe. Like let's take a step back and be like, wow, look at the wisdom that exists within me. You know,
• 25:10
  look at the advice I've given people, look at the questions I've asked people, look at the ways
• 25:14
  that I've listened to myself or to others. And you turn this into your own version of that. What
• 25:19
  are the aspects of your soul's garden that it's easy to overlook, but that you're so proud of
• 25:24
  yourself for what have you allowed yourself to become that you were always told you couldn't be.
• 25:30
  That's something to so celebrate because that's this idea of from the concrete who knew a flower
• 25:35
  could grow like this idea of something being able to grow and have life even in conditions that
• 25:41
  weren't set up for it to thrive. And so I would ask you, what is that represent for you? And just
• 25:48
  what are the aspects of your being that if you just view yourself from a different perspective,
• 25:52
  you are in love with and in awe of and you're like, wow, I am really at peace in a certain way
• 25:59
  with this garden. What are the flowers of love you've planted for your friends or for your family
• 26:03
  or for yourself or for a certain hobby or practice that you love? That is such a wonderful thing to
• 26:10
  experience love in any of its infinite manifestations is such a gift. What are the seeds you've planted in
• 26:16
  other people? What are the seeds you've tended to in other people and nurtured and helped grow?
• 26:23
  Maybe you're in all the sibling and you've supported your younger siblings in a certain way or
• 26:27
  you have someone younger in your life or someone older in your life who you've supported in any given
• 26:32
  way and you feel like, wow, I really have nourished and supported them and in turn what is the support
• 26:38
  that I've received? And also in our souls garden is also the support we've lacked. The ways people
• 26:43
  have failed to show up for us, the wounds we carry, the trauma we carry as I was saying.
• 26:48
  Also in our souls garden is the decay that's happened, the wilting, the death that is part of nature,
• 26:55
  that is part of the experience of being alive, whether that be people in our lives that we grieve
• 27:02
  or it could be friendships and relationships on a different scale that we've lost or that we've
• 27:08
  broken up with, the pain of that, the healing of that, that's also part of the souls garden is
• 27:13
  because that process of those things decaying, wilting and or dying, the decomposition lives in us,
• 27:21
  you know, broke down and affected the soil and the nutrients of the soil and the chemical
• 27:26
  composition of our soil and of our life force and of our energy, sometimes in ways that are very
• 27:32
  depleting, other times in ways that then later we were able to fortify and then nourish and then
• 27:39
  actually build a whole new type of ecosystem and soil within us because for example when we've
• 27:45
  experienced a love that we felt was below our standards, we typically alchemize that into okay,
• 27:51
  next time I'll never accept that, next time I'll have highest standards, next time I will not
• 27:56
  allow myself to be in that position, not to blame myself but just to acknowledge that I play
• 28:01
  a role in who gets to be in my life and next time I'm going to be a lot more circumspect,
• 28:05
  I know that with each relationship I've been in, I've learned so many lessons that I know will
• 28:10
  make me and have already made me a better friend, a better daughter even, a better like sibling,
• 28:17
  a better lover because you learn things about communication and boundaries and honoring yourself
• 28:23
  and also honoring someone else's truth and compromise but also knowing what the boundaries are
• 28:29
  and all of those things, so all those lessons then transfer to all your other relationships and
• 28:33
  you learn so much about yourself. What also comes to my mind is the notion of generosity,
• 28:38
  so the thing about a garden, the thing about nature is it's very generous, I remember putting
• 28:43
  a Jay Shetty quote in one of my episodes where he says that nature is always in service,
• 28:49
  nature is always providing the sun shines and it provides the flowers blossom and they provide,
• 28:54
  they provide beauty for our souls, they provide things for the bees and the birds to be rubbing
• 29:00
  against and getting pollen from, it provides water for us to be replenished by you know,
• 29:05
  it's always serving and providing, so we also need to know that that same spirit of generosity is
• 29:11
  in each of us, there's moments when we've maybe gone out of our way to support someone in our life,
• 29:16
  there's moments when we have wrote a really thoughtful thank you note or letter to someone or
• 29:22
  tried to just get them the perfect gift or make them the perfect gift or create the,
• 29:26
  create a drawing for them, it doesn't have to be perfect but essentially you know what I mean
• 29:29
  and we've said here here it is like here's your birthday gift or here's the the text I wrote you
• 29:34
  after meeting you because you were so amazing and I really wanted to tell you how you made me feel
• 29:39
  or here's the email I sent you after our conversation because I felt so alive and aligned and
• 29:43
  grateful to experience you. So we have that generosity in our spirit just like the sun,
• 29:48
  just like the birds, just like the water, we are also naturally we have that within us,
• 29:53
  that generosity. There's also the generosity of listening to someone holding space for them,
• 29:58
  giving them love, giving them support, so that generosity is in each of us and that is magical,
• 30:04
  that is divine, that's something to celebrate all the ways that you have served, given,
• 30:08
  supported people. So as we wrap up this understanding, this metaphor, I want to say that nature is
• 30:15
  always complete. Nature isn't defined by what isn't. You don't look at the ocean and say oh,
• 30:21
  if only it had more waves or look at the sunset and say oh no, like if that cloud, that cloud doesn't
• 30:26
  belong there, it's too much or like why is it not more to the left, it just doesn't make sense.
• 30:31
  When we do do that, it's our human consciousness imposing these rigid standards onto nature but
• 30:36
  nature in and of itself is already complete and is already abundant. So what does this mean?
• 30:41
  How can we translate that? Even as you think of seeds you want to tend to or again parasites in
• 30:47
  our lives that you may want to remove, I know that's quite a brutal analogy, but essentially anything
• 30:52
  that's using you as a host and taking more from you than it's giving or like taking things from
• 30:56
  you that are depleting you in some way, drains on our energy or things that leave us feeling worse.
• 31:01
  So the points of this God in metaphors to say you're not defined by what isn't, you're not defined by
• 31:07
  the parasites or the pests or the weeds, the things you would want to remove. You are already
• 31:11
  magical, you're already divine, you're already complete and if you can do this eternal dance
• 31:17
  between being and becoming where yes, you're seeking to become but you're honoring your being,
• 31:22
  you're taking moments and time and periods of your life to be like wow, like I'm already complete,
• 31:28
  I'm already whole, I'm already what I was dreaming of in some way you're what you were dreaming of.
• 31:34
  Maybe you show up for yourself in a way that you used to find unimaginable, maybe you're the
• 31:38
  kind of friend that you always longed to have, maybe you're the kind of listener that you always
• 31:43
  longed to have. So in some way you are completing a cycle through you of healing and so in a way we
• 31:50
  also need to honor what we already have manifested as in what we already have brought into reality,
• 31:55
  brought from our consciousness into the world and brought through our consciousness into the world
• 32:00
  as well. If you want to create this year, you've already created whether you've created space,
• 32:06
  created standards for relating to people, created art, created life like you have created,
• 32:11
  you are a creator, you've already created. So can you bring in the wisdom of already so that
• 32:17
  you're honoring the art of who you already are even as you seek to become things, you feel you
• 32:22
  haven't fully expressed within you and it's the greatest paradox and really my thing is how can I
• 32:28
  create soil of self-compassion like how can everything I bloom or create or plant be so rooted in
• 32:35
  love and compassion for both myself and for other people so that from that can stem the most
• 32:41
  loving God in possible and I really do struggle with self-compassion even as I feel like I have
• 32:46
  the language for it I often struggle to fully embody the reality that I am being compassionate to
• 32:52
  I am being loving to myself I'm not waiting to reward myself only when the episode is done or
• 32:58
  only when the essay is written or only when I get to this place or that place I'm saying you are
• 33:03
  already worthy you're already here I know you feel like there's still so much that needs to happen
• 33:09
  for you to feel a sense of security and like this has worked in the way that you're thinking or the
• 33:14
  way that you're manifesting but also at the same time honoring what you've already created honoring
• 33:19
  who you've already become honoring the lessons you've already learned honoring the wisdom you've
• 33:23
  already developed and cultivated within you like wow it's so majestical it's so divine and I'm in
• 33:30
  all of us I'm in awe of the garden of our souls I hope that this episode resonated with you
• 33:36
  also taking a little bit of time to reflect or to let something seep into your soul's garden
• 33:42
  so that it can become true for you in its own way in the way that it's meant to for you
• 33:46
  what am I going to be doing with this wisdom and with this insights I think for me the part
• 33:51
  around the leaves of the things we've already learned and read I'm obsessed with reading more
• 33:57
  and learning more and seeking more and sometimes I think I completely minimize what I've already
• 34:02
  learned and the fact that there's also wisdom in revisiting that in contemplating that in saying
• 34:07
  you know even if I never read another book again I've learned so much and I can go back to those
• 34:12
  texts and I will receive so much wisdom from them as they are and also I can contemplate I can
• 34:18
  look at the stars I can look at the water and I'll learn something I've been doing this and you
• 34:22
  really can learn from everyday objects in a way that's quite profound and magical so I'm
• 34:27
  grateful for that ability and that experience and so that's one way I'm going to be using this
• 34:32
  episode another way is I needed this episode to create this episode because I've been stuck in a
• 34:37
  sense of perfectionism especially the first episode of the year and so this idea of you've already
• 34:42
  given your love people have already shown you they want you to just show up as you are and do
• 34:47
  what you do because that aligns with their spirit as it is so you don't need to think of oh what's
• 34:53
  a brand new innovative thing I can do you just need to show up in the way that already is aligned to
• 34:59
  your spirit and hit send you know and and speak and hit send and trust that it's going to find who
• 35:04
  it's meant for and that people want to support you they want to pour into you that's the other thing
• 35:08
  the human spirit we also we want to love people I think there's so much emphasis on how much
• 35:13
  hate there is online and that is so true but something I've been reminding myself is there's
• 35:17
  also so much love online there's so much love there's people like you listening to this and
• 35:22
  people who are leaving these amazing thoughtful lovely comments and telling me how much this
• 35:26
  means to them who am I to not support that circularity of like I pour into you and you either by
• 35:32
  just listening or by commenting or whatever are also pouring into me so we're linking our
• 35:38
  soul's garden in a certain way and I love that it's so precious to me and then the other way I'm
• 35:43
  going to use this episode is to continue to see what I'm cultivating in my life and how I can
• 35:49
  match that to the wisdom of nature so if I'm feeling a little bit of chaos thinking okay what are
• 35:55
  the parts of my soul's garden that are feeling out of alignment or undernourished or in too much
• 36:01
  shade and hidden and invisible and made to seem unworthy of being seen and so on and so forth so
• 36:06
  I think I'm just going to be playing with this metaphor the word play is also really front of
• 36:10
  heart for me at this time is I'm such a thinker I just want to find more play this year I want to
• 36:15
  dance more I want to have fun conversations I want to find fun while I'm working that's especially
• 36:20
  it because I feel like I view fun and release as a reward rather than something that I get to
• 36:26
  experience while creating and I know that there are times when I've experienced fun while creating
• 36:31
  especially with TikTok I want to make sure that I'm showing up on that platform in a way that
• 36:35
  is fun for me you know and is that I'm really thoughtful of my own experience and the things
• 36:41
  that I'm creating and that's why I have headphones in my ears I'm listening to soundbath music
• 36:47
  because it just feels pleasurable to me it feels much better for me rather than saying okay I'm
• 36:52
  going to give in this episode and then once it's done then I'm going to receive pleasure then I'm
• 36:56
  going to receive ease like no what if you found little interventions to make the creative process
• 37:01
  itself have a little bit more pleasure have a little bit more fun so that is something I'm going
• 37:06
  to use in my soul's garden is like how can I plant more playful seeds and receive more butterfly
• 37:12
  energy from the things that I'm doing and make sure that I know that it's always possible to
• 37:17
  to find the butterflies and to chase them and that they're worth it I hope this serves you I love
• 37:22
  you so dearly thank you for allowing me to offer you this invitation into my consciousness I hope
• 37:28
  that you were able to through this episode expand in a certain way I would love to hear from you if
• 37:33
  you resonated with this if this was something that you enjoyed please let me know I love reading
• 37:38
  all of your comments on Spotify on Apple I'm always so grateful and I'm sending you all the love
• 37:44
  all the vibes all the wisdom you are so divine and magical as you are okay I love you so dearly
• 37:49
  and I'm so grateful okay truly I love you bye I hope some paradigms have been shifted for you
• 37:56
  in today's conversation as always if you can please leave a five star rating on Apple and Spotify
• 38:01
  like comment subscribe I love you so so much okay I love you join me on my subslag links in the
• 38:08
  comment section go there okay love you so much love you bye