insidewink
Encouraging kinder living, revealing silver linings, seeing the world’s perpetual generosity.
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Shari Alyse
03/27/2024
Shari Alyse
Known as America’s Joy Magnet, Shari Alyse is a TV host, dynamic media personality, 2x TEDx speaker, and bestselling author of Love Yourself Happy: A Journey Back to You - who is on a mission to spread joy! With over two decades of experience in the entertainment and wellness industries, Shari is a leading voice in the personal growth and self-love space. --Transcript-- Alison: Hello? Yes. Jean: Oh, yes, you did it. You're so good. Look at you, Alison. Alison: I'm learning this. Um. Hi, Jean. Jean: Hello. Alison: Uh, so today is a very special day for Jean and I. Because Jean is going to try to teach me how to make two desserts. Jean: That's right, I am, and I it's my Christmas gift to you. Alison: Right. Jean: To teach you how to bake. Alison: Right. Teaching me how to bake. So today we're making two desserts. And I guess next time we're sometime we'll tell you how it turned out. Jean: Okay, that sounds like a plan. Alison: And today we are talking to someone whose book is titled, listen to this title... "Love Yourself Happy: A Journey Back to You" by Shari Elise... Jean: Who is also known as the Joy magnet. And it is no doubt why she was named this, right? Alison: She's, she's she's amazing. She's so joyful. Jean: I mean, I'm like trying to think of some other adjective, but joy is really the perfect adjective for this beautiful woman. Alison: And she's had quite an interesting background, um, as a child. And if you get the book, you'll read it. She went through, um, sexual abuse and just the testifying and just a lot. She's gone through a lot. And so her, her coming to a place of joy and wanting to be vulnerable and wanting to be true to her passions is very motivating and very motivating and very inspirational. Right. Jean: She is. She's great. You're gonna love the interview. And you're also going to love, love her book. Alison: Yeah. It's beautiful. So here's, Shari. Alison: So happy we're doing it. We're now uncapped and it's fantastic. Shari Alyse: And you're together. Jean: Yeah. We're together. And you are so worth waiting for because I know our listeners are going to absolutely love you and take away so many, uh, wonderful tips. Alison: Love Yourself Happy: A Journey Back To You. Why did you... Could you just give our listeners an idea why you decided to write this book? What came up for you? Shari Alyse: I think this book has always been in me. I've always, since the time I was a young girl. As I share in the book, um, sharing my truth, I shared it at seven years old, you know, on a witness stand. Uh, and so there's always been this desire to whatever it is that I'm learning or I'm feeling. I've just always wanted to express it. And as time went on, it was this bubbling inside because I knew and I've always instinctively knew that we all go through similar things together. And so if I was learning and I was healing, I knew that my journey would help others. Alison: That's right. That's beautiful. Yeah. Jean: And can you talk about your journey? What happened a little bit? Shari Alyse: Yeah. Of course. It's like when I hear the word journey, it's so big, right? So I'm like, oh, which part? But, um, yes. So at seven years old, uh, this is always for me, you know, where that starting line feels like, uh, there was of course, a lot before that, but that's where the turn for me happened. Um, I was I was left in the care... Basically, my sister was going off with friends for the day, and my mom was like, can your sister tag along? I think my mom was a single mom. I know she was a single mom, and I think she wanted, you know, some time for herself. And so, uh, I went off with my sister's friend's family who were supposed to care for me, and then they left me in the care of somebody else who didn't care for me. Um, and at seven, I was abused. Sexually abused, um, by a stranger. It's interesting because I've had so much time, you know, I've talked about this so much and in depth and so much continues to come up, though, about, you know, how and why. And I shared what happened. So the man who had done it had threatened afterwards, myself and my family, that if I shared that he would hurt them and he would hurt me. But there was, you know, something inside of me that just knew to tell on him. And in that telling I told.. I tried to tell my sister on the drive home, but, you know, she was with her friends, so she of course, at nine, she was only two years older, at nine years old, didn't know what was going on. Shari Alyse: So when we got home, um, I still wanted to tell her. So I remember she was going to the bathroom and I was just in the bathroom with her. And my mom had sensed that there was something wrong with me. And so my mom was actually eavesdropping around the corner, um, listening to me tell my sister that. And in that process, they called the police. Um, and I, we ended up in court. It was 1981, so no one was talking openly about this. And they put me on a witness stand to testify against the abuser. And, you know, we put him in jail. But what happened for me, there was, you know, I ended up, what feels like to this day, having to defend why I didn't do more at that age to stop this person, you know. Um, and so just from that point on, I learned two things. And those two things were that using my voice, telling my truth helped people because they found out he had done this to a lot of girls. And. You know, I was lauded a hero. But I also found out that using my voice also hurt people because there was a part of me that a big part of me that felt guilt for putting him in jail. Um, and for and for putting my parents... what I thought at that time, I thought my dad was ashamed of me. I thought my mom thought she didn't teach me the right things, you know? So it really has been this journey of disconnection from that young girl of not wanting to feel that. Yeah. To finding my way back. Right to that young girl. Jean: You know, I think it's it's so cathartic to to share your story as, as you were saying because it's a part of soul retrieval. You know, that part where we, where we have disconnected from ourselves. And yes, you went through something horrific. But even when you've been yelled at by an adult as a child, I mean, the trauma forces the psyche to sort of split. So I do think that telling your story is medicine for soul retrieval. Um, and we can use different words. But I thank you so much because that, you know, sharing your story, sometimes it gets like, oh my God, but you're doing it and you're helping new ears here. And I thank you, Sherry. Alison: Yeah. And I think to not to be defined by that is really something like, you know, you know, at seven years old, it must have been like, what a brave thing and a brave little, you know, or you know, something. There was a marker, a designation of you. And now how do you feel now? Because you have gone out of your way not to be defined by that. Shari Alyse: Out of my way is a perfect example. I mean, a description of and I knew that. And again, you know, there were two things that I knew at that time for sure. Number one, while it was happening, I remember knowing that I was going to be okay. I there was just something inside that was just almost like, bear it. You're gonna be all right. Um, but I also knew, too. I knew that I didn't do anything wrong. Right. And I knew that I did not want to be a victim. And. That was good and it sent me on a different path as well, which was to not connect to what had happened and to deny what I think will I what I know that I was feeling and pushing that down. So then it was again, that journey to coming back to he feeling it, hearing it, sitting with it, and then still having that thing that I won't be defined by it. Right? Alison: And now you are the joy magnet. Shari Alyse: That's what they say. Jean: You exude this joy and it's contagious. Sherry, can you tell us the difference in your mind between happiness and joy? Shari Alyse: Yes, absolutely. So it's on, on in a basic way. Happiness is external. It's those things that we define ourselves or that happen to us that, you know, we talk about the emotions and the feelings of happiness that makes me happy. Uh, and joy for me and people... What I've learned is that it's internal, that it's a state of being. It's who we are, and it's something that can't be taken away. While it may not be sparked in that moment, for me, it just feels like our soul. It's who we are as children. It's why we relate when we look at them. We can recognize ourselves in that. Um, and I and I always I have this I don't know if it's analogy, but I always say it feels like, um, if life was a dinner table, happiness is what's being served on the table, and joy is what we bring to the table. Alison: That's beautiful. I have to just say to every listener, this book, your book, Love Yourself Happy... what we're talking about, is so great. You know, we read it the first time we were going to interview you, and then we did it again. And I have to tell you, every time I read it, I get something new. And the thing that impresses me the most every time I read it is how you are so much like me. And I'm sure everybody says that you're so vulnerable. How was that to write something that's so you so personal? Shari Alyse: Freeing, uh, and definitely freeing because it felt like it's why I create content actually every day... Videos.... It feels like this part of my soul that needs to be expressed. And once I do, there's a lightness to it. Um, it was hard because there was so much. There was a lot that I blocked out. There was a lot that I had to sit with and really remember and put myself back in that place. But it was fun. Like so much of my book was written by audio. So I would as I was doing my morning hikes, I was just sharing, um, into my phone notes. And so which is always so interesting when people say like, it feels like I'm right in the room. When you were talking to me, I'm like, I literally was. I was just speaking it. Jean: Your book is an easy read in that it's very relatable and, and I do think this should be a required reading for high school seniors because you go through so much already by the time you're 17 or 18. And many of us don't even connect back to ourselves. And we live so much life, sort of disconnected. You use the word connection a lot in this book. Can you talk about? The meaning of connection? Shari Alyse: Yes I mean connection, connection to me is what Joy is. I believe it's why you both have said that I exude and radiate joy is because for me - Joy is connection to five things. Uh, connection to ourselves, connection to each other, to our creativity, our purpose and to nature. I feel like when we connect to each one of those selves, it sparks joy. And I spent many years, as I said, disconnected from myself. Which means, you know, I was using food to not have to feel it, to not connect with myself. I was in relationship. Toxic relationships with men just trying to feel loved. But I was disconnected from myself because if I was, I would have felt love, right? Um, there was just a lot of avoiding that so many of us do, whether it's through scrolling, whether it's through eating, drinking, shopping, binge watching television. It's just that thing to not be still and to feel and to sit with ourselves. And I realized that I had spent a whole lot of my life like that. And I think we do that as like a sense of safety, you know, to not have to feel some of the stuff that we haven't tapped into or dealt with. So the hope for the book really is that what people take away is that they stop and they slow down and they sit with themselves and they're compassionate with themselves, and they realize that whatever it is that they're feeling and going through, number one, it's normal. And number two, it's okay. Alison: So do you recommend that people sit back and stop? I think I do the eating thing, I do the binge watching TV and I know I'll be sitting there watching 5000 episodes of runway, whatever. You know what I mean? Shari Alyse: Project runway? Yeah. I'm a fan too Alison: One more dress. I could lose my mind, but I'm, like, stuck in it. What would you suggest to me? Just to stop? But that's hard sometimes. Shari Alyse: It is hard. But I think what's really hard about it is almost the idea of, of the fear around what will happen. But once we actually stop and slow down. Yeah, there's some challenges in there, but there's so much. There's so much like good and beauty and love. There's life there, and we run from it for so long that we more fear what's there than what's actually there. Um, and so what I would say is, you know, there is healthy, I mean, there's nothing wrong with watching TV. I don't want people to think like, because they're watching multiple episodes. It could just be a really good show, you know? Shari Alyse: I know how to have fun. I binge myself. But it's when, you know, when you're avoiding something, you know, like there comes to a certain point, even for me, like every night at a certain time when things really start to slow down, like, I want to go and get a snack. And I'm not hungry. I just know it's a sense of avoiding. And so. We could start easy. We could just in those moments that we're feeling it, just stop and take a breath. Shari Alyse: One of the most connecting things that I do for myself, and I do it every morning just to make sure that I'm there, is I put my hands on my heart and I just check in and say, how are you doing? Jean: I love that, that's it. Shari Alyse: How are you? And so maybe in those moments at night when you want to watch another episode, maybe it's just taking a breath. What do you need? How are you? And listening Alison: That's beautiful. Thank you. That's what I'm going to do I'll try that and I'm going to email you okay. Shari Alyse: Okay! Then you can watch another episode if you're called to! Alison: Thank you. Also talk about being guided, which I am personally fascinated by because I think there are signs and moments that we all bring to each other. Can you talk a little bit about your thoughts on being guided and being open to it? Shari Alyse: Oh yeah, I think we're consistently and constantly guided. But it's that thing about noticing... Of slowing down enough, and I will never profess that I know it all, or that I do everything perfectly, because I know that there are times that I don't want to listen. There are times like it just seems it's like, oh my God, I know I'm going to be told to do this harder thing or what seems harder. Uh, but I always feel like... An example - when I, when I... it was quite some time ago. I, for the first time, was really dealing with what happened to me at seven years old, I was taking a shower on my way to work, and all of a sudden the flashbacks came back. I'd always thought about what had happened. I never forgot, but it was always from this distant perspective, looking down like it's a movie. But the first time I was in the movie and I broke down and I had to go. I was waitressing at the time and I had to go to work that day, and I remember I called my manager just bawling and was like, I can't come in. Shari Alyse: I'm having these memories. And she said, go take the time off, take whatever you need. And I went, I was driving and I went back home. Anyway, I turned the computer on and there was at the time, you know, pop up signs. There was a pop up ad to go to Sedona for Sedona, Arizona. I wasn't open to signs... Like that was a literal sign for me now, I could have just ignored it and been closed it out. But there was that instant knowing that I needed to go there, and it was about trusting in that. And through that experience, I ended up going to Sedona and having never been there, didn't know what was there except they talked about it was a really spiritual healing place. And in there I met my seven year old self on the top of one of those vortexes on the way out, which is another whole story, you know, in my book. And that changed the trajectory of my healing. Yeah. And if I didn't trust that feeling inside that said go. I would have missed all that. Alison: That gives me chills. Jean: It is so important to trust and lean into those signposts. Shari Alyse: Yeah. And it's a deep knowing. And we can feel when we don't listen like I'm sure we can look back. And there's times where your gut, your intuition told you to follow something and you didn't. And then the times when you do and there's almost like... I, I was not connected to my body, you know, after what had happened, I very much disconnected. And the more that I have spent time with myself and really, you know, the self-awareness journey, I guess I can feel when things are an easy yes, I can feel the expansion. I could feel the openness and I could feel when something's not quite right, a constriction. And I've learned to pay attention to that. Um, those are my physical signs to either do something or not do something. Jean: I think your intuition does increase. It heightens. It gets more fine tuned when you do this healing work that you do. Because like you said, you're coming back into the body that you separated from. So it makes sense that the more you tell your story that you accept it. You talk a lot about acceptance in your beautiful book. You're sort of trusting the place of your body for your soul to be, and you become more your those six senses, the those spiritual gifts become online more. Shari Alyse: Absolutely heightened awareness. I just said it the other day to my partner. I was like, I feel like I have this gift that I could go into a room and immediately know what everybody needs. Shari Alyse: And by needs, I mean, you know, like what kind of energy they need from me where they're at. And I realized that I learned that or became aware of that because of what happened to me at a young age, or the awareness of having to sense how everybody was, what the energy was in the room, a sense of safety. And also, you know, my parents went through a really terrible divorce, and I almost sometimes feel like that was more traumatic than the abuse, to be honest. Um, always my mom was always unhappy and you just never knew what the mood was in the house. And so I was always the entertainer and the peacemaker. So I was very sensitive to energies. Um, and so before it was all just coincidental. Now I use it as a superpower because now I know, like, I know how to make a room feel like that, things that they need. So I guess that's there is that that awareness of our awareness. Alison: You know, we saw we talked to Lorna Byrne and she speaks to angels. And it's very much aligned with what you're saying in that when you have a feeling or an idea...She used the example, give someone flowers. If you get them, do it. And so you're saying it can be as simple as feeling the energy from someone. You don't have to run out and buy something. And that's beautiful because that means we could do that on a checkout line. Shari Alyse: Oh, absolutely. It's one of my favorite things to do is, well, first, to just gift people with a smile, like to just really look at somebody because we're always all just so busy and in our own worlds. And back to waiting tables. I remember when I first moved to LA and I was working in Brentwood, and, uh, I was always just happy and "happy" I use because I didn't understand it was joy at the time, because joy to me is full expression of ourselves. And I was always just me... That came easily to me. Um, but anyway, I walked up to this woman and she was like, what do you have to be so happy about? And from that moment on, there was this feeling of like, wow, not everybody... I knew that people were unhappy, but it became this thing where I really just wanted to take someone who didn't give off the best energy and have them walk away feeling better. And I feel like I can do that. And I...
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David Rosmarin
03/13/2024
David Rosmarin
David H. Rosmarin PhD is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School, a program director at McLean Hospital, and founder of Center for Anxiety, which services over 1,000 patients/year in multiple states. His most recent book is Thriving with Anxiety: 9 Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work for You. --Transcript-- Alison: Hello, Jeannie. Jean: Hi, Alison. Alison: Today we are talking to someone, um, that talks about anxiety in such a different way than I have heard before. Jean: Same with me. He is a champion for not getting rid of anxiety, but actually transforming the way you feel about anxiety and not making it like an enemy, but more as a calling card to empower yourself. Alison: That's right. His name is David Rosmarin and his his book is called,Thriving with Anxiety", which is a great title, "Nine Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work for You." And while I was reading it, I was reading it like, at auditions and in waiting rooms, and I was stopped so many times. Like, what's that book about? Because just the title, Thriving with Anxiety, um, is, I think, really touching people. Jean: Absolutely. And it also kind of lets the air out of the shame around having anxious thoughts or, um, you know, having anxiety. Right? Just he's like, lighten up on yourself. And he gives so many great ways to, to actually transform your anxiety. Alison: And he's very intellectual. He is right? He is the founder of the center for anxiety, and he's also a Harvard associate professor, and he's very intellectual. And yet, he has this very spiritual side and they really complement each other. Jean: Yes. And I also love that he mentions his wife. Yeah. And the emotional connection he has with her... That that was beautiful. Alison: He's great. So here's the interview with David. David: I am so sorry... Oh, I did not mean to make you anxious. Alison: I'm late and I'm driving here like, this is a great way to .... David: I had, I had tech difficulties for the last five minutes. Perfect. Yeah. Alison: I just got here and I'm like, this is a great way to start a talk on anxiety. Jean: 100%. David: I'm honored to meet you. Thank you. Thank you for making the time. I've been really looking forward to this conversation for a while. Jean: Yeah, same. It's great to meet you, David. I'm Jean ... Alison: And I'm Alison. Hi. So how did you deal with your stress with technical difficulties? David: Let me tell you, I definitely got my own anxiety, and I use a lot of the strategies in my book on a regular basis. Alison: That's I think that makes me feel much better. Jean: All of us, I, think it's great to know that people that appear to really have their act together have anxiety. You know, it's like what goes on behind the play...what goes on back stage.. David: Whats's happening in the kitchen? Speaker1: What's happening in the kitchen while Thanksgiving dinner is being prepared. David: All, oh my God, it's all coming out in like beautiful platters and what is happening in the kitchen? haha Alison: Right. What inspired you? Was it was it your work or was it your own anxiety that inspired you to write this? David: All of the above. Speaker1: Yeah. David: All of the above. Um, I learned a lot from my patients and how incredibly high functioning many of them are, how amazingly talented they are. And I was always taught to see to see anxiety as a limitation, as a disorder, as a disease, even at some point, I'm like, you know what? Something's not adding up here. These people are so high functioning. Yes, they have anxiety. And furthermore, when they use it in the right way, it can actually enhance their lives. Like we need a different lens and a different relationship with this ubiquitous emotion that every human being experiences. How many people have you met in the last month who had no anxiety, right? Alison: No one, no one. David: And if you did, if you did, they're either super narcissistic, right? Or they have a drug problem or they are comatose or dead. Jean: You know, especially nowadays, And your book is so relevant for... Right now what everyone is going through. Um, can you start off by telling. Allison and me and our listeners, what's the difference between stress, fear and anxiety? Is there a difference? Are they all cousins? But what's your take? David: Yes, absolutely. Happy to start there. And it's in my book. Um, so, uh, let's start with fear. Fear is a healthy response that the nervous system has, um, in order to deal with an actual tangible threat. So if your body is threatened by something which is really in front of you, uh, an amazing process involving adrenaline. Will, uh, adrenaline, the adrenal glands will fire and release adrenaline into your blood system, and within nanoseconds, your body will transform. Into the fight or flight system. Also known as the fight, flight or freeze system, which can protect you and prevent you from experiencing harm or physical harm as a result of that threat. And that is a healthy, adaptive, positive thing that hopefully you don't have to rely on too much in your life. But the couple of times that you might have to rely on it... it's a gift. I think I think of it as a spiritual gift given my background. I will add. but it's an amazing thing, that's adaptive and healthy and and keeps us preserved and safe. Anxiety is the same thing, the same heart palpitations, the same secretion of adrenaline. In fact, the same, uh, breathing that increases the tachycardia, increased the breathing rate, the same muscle tension, the same stomach upset, all of the same things occur, those physiological changes with the fight or flight. But there's one small difference. Any guesses? Alison: It doesn't go away. David: Wow. That's interesting. It depends on what you do with your anxiety and how you relate to it. Um, anxiety can be perpetual. That's true. Um, but there's a there's a different, there's another difference. Alison: Um. I know, I know it somewhere. I know I read it in the beginning. David: Are you feeling anxious that I'm asking? HAHA Alison: Yes, yes, I feel like. Oh, where are my notes? David: The teacher, you know, calling on the pupil. And he's like, uh, I'm supposed to know this? Alison: Exactly. Right. Jean: Something about a smoke alarm. David: Yeah, that's true actually. Yeah. That's right. Ask you a question like, what's the worst case scenario if you don't know the answer? Like, what's really going to happen to you? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Right. That's anxiety. Fear. If you get it wrong, something's going to happen. Like if you don't step out of the way of that bus which is careening towards you at 60 miles an hour, it's not going to be good. If you unless you activate your flight system, you're, you're you're flat. Now, when it comes to anxiety, there's no real tangible fear. So you have that adrenal response. But actually if you stop and think about it, you're like, whoa, this is a false alarm. There's no real fire in the kitchen. There's just smoke coming up from onions burning. Right? Alison: And stress is also different. David: It's a little different. This is the cousin. So fear and anxiety are actually very close cousins. I would call them siblings. Mhm. But the one is a real alarm and the other is a false alarm. And by the way the false alarm doesn't mean it's bad. It's still intact. It means your neural system is intact. It means you have a fight or flight system. It means you're aware of your surroundings. You're not oblivious. Right, right, right. So there's advantages of having a smoke alarm that goes off too quickly, that what's really deadly is the smoke alarm that doesn't go off at all. Right, exactly. So that's not what we're talking about here. So anxiety and fear are I would call them siblings, to use your analogy from before the cousin is stress. Stress is when your demands are greater than your resources. Right? I have too much money to pay. I don't have enough money. I have too much. Too many things to do. I don't have enough time, emotional resources. That person is coming to my home and I really can't take it right now, right? Yeah. Don't have the wherewithal to do so. We need to reduce the demands and increase the resources right back to a place of equilibrium. Alison: So me being late is really stress. I'm supposed to be somewhere I'm not there. David: Correct. But there could be an anxiety piece as well. Which is oh no, what's this going to do? Like it might also trigger an anxiety response. Alison: Right. And I think that for me is what the heck's wrong with me. Oh no. Now you're speaking with me. Why why couldn't I have this be straight? So I see. So the stress was, you're late. But then my mind goes to this, you know, catastrophe place. I'm. I'm losing my mind. David: Yes. And something's wrong with me is core. That's the anxiety spiral. I mean, that's where when we feel anxious, we start to judge ourselves. We start to go down this tube. I mean, this is why we have an anxiety epidemic today, you know, right. Start to feel anxious and then we upset about it. Alison: I think it's interesting that you also differentiate from worry. David: That's true. Alison: And I thought that was so interesting because I thought worry was just anxiety. But you but you're explaining that it's some it's not really. Even the way I understood it was that it's not really even getting into the weeds. It's just this sort of level. Right? Like you're not really ever dealing with anything, like you're just this constant. Like pebble in your shoe, right? David: When I learned this concept about worry, it blew my mind. It changed my life, and I have shared it with how many hundreds of patients with similar, similar results. So the thing about worry is that it is a cognitive process, which is really a behavior. It's something that we do, to cope with anxiety and actually keep it away. Yeah. Jean: Mhm. Speaker2: When you're feeling anxious the number one thing that people will do is avoid, right? Yeah, I'm anxious about the height. So I'm not going to go in the elevator. I'm not going to fly. I'm uh that person makes me uncomfortable. So I'll block them on my WhatsApp or whatever. Alison: Right, right right right.don't want to think about the fact that I'm not in control. So I worry at a very superficial level about just 1 or 2 things, as opposed to really going into the depths of it. Alison: Right, right. David: Worry is like a. We ask these very superficial what if questions like what if? I run out of money? What if I run out of money? But you don't actually answer that question, right? What would it be like? What would actually happen? Mhm. And embrace the true uncertainty of like. There's not a whole lot. There are certain things we can't control. That's usually what worries stops us from moving into. It's a cognitive process which actually prevents us from experiencing anxiety. Alison: Wow. Yeah, yeah. And that was my that was my mom, you know. And I loved her. And but I know that there was a source of, you know, my father was in a very risky job, and it was a constant like undercurrent. It was very interesting when I read that. David: What did he do? Alison: He was a he was an investigative reporter. So he would go to these countries and you wouldn't hear from him for weeks or months, and it would be dangerous. And he'd leave. And it was just me and my mom. I'm an only child. So it was very interesting to be with that. And then, you know, so when I was reading it, I thought to myself, wow, that is really, you know... David: You've had a lot of uncertainty to embrace with being alone, being terrified about what's going on with her husband, not being having any agency over it because there's nothing she could do. Right. And she's alone with her daughter and or, you know, in different country and... And then having probably having to keep it together... So, the worry is a perfect process to just keep it at a superficial level without actually losing it. But losing it is in some ways a good thing, because once you actually embrace the anxiety and the uncertainty. It just scales us down to become so much more raw and in tune with ourselves, with others. And that's where it poses us for growth. It's not fun, but it's a lot more emotionally, potentially a lot more emotionally healthy. Yeah. Jean: I love that your take on anxiety, David, it really makes you feel... You come away from your book, I came away feeling very empowered. You know, you're really offering... (Oh, sorry. Because we're like. Loosey goosey, loosey goosey. That was my daughter. Sorry.) You're coming away, I came away from from your book feeling empowered. I'm already someone that does a lot of spiritual work. So this just, um, gave more credence to looking at things a different way and not shaming yourself. That's such a big thing. Is, um, shaming ourselves when we feel out of control or, um, and not knowing the answer. And I read this quote the other day that said. We're so conditioned to needing to know the answer, because we've been validated with love. So it makes sense when we're in school and we know the answer, we get praise and feel good. David: Yes, Jean: And when you don't know the answer, you kind of sit there and you're like, mmm, you know? David: Like at the beginning of our conversation. Jean: Right..Can you talk a little bit about um, you talk a lot about connection and I don't want to lose all our time, but talk about connection that you talk about self connection, Other connectio,. Spiritual connection. David: Yeah. That's what it's all about I mean, you know, what are we here to do on this, on this earth with however many, you know, years we're blessed with? We're here to create a life that's meaningful and connected to others, to have a self compassion and connection with ourselves and for those who seek something spiritual, too, I think that can be a great source of meaning and purpose and solace and and wonder and awe and and love and all sorts of other good things. Um, anxiety can help facilitate all of the above. I really believe it. I think it's part of our. You know, ancestral heritage, which is, you know, optimizes our ability if we use it in the right way and if we frame it in the right way. If you run away from anxiety,A- it's going to get worse and B- we'll never find these opportunities. But. When you feel overwhelmed, that's the time to, recalibrate to rebalance. To look at your priorities. To become more self compassionate. To understand that you have your limitations and not to judge yourself, not to get upset about it. You know. And it's usually not what we do. Usually when I feel anxious, I'm like, how can you feel that way? You're so weak. What's wrong with you? I have to push myself harder. I don't want to feel these feelings. I'm going to squeeze them out by working even more, by taking on another project and showing that I'm in control. And like all of those strategies that almost everyone takes, unless you've been taught otherwise, are exactly 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Alison: And so. When you talk about having more compassion because you have experienced anxiety, could you go into that a little bit? Because I thought that was really, really interesting about how you're using it as a, you know, a superpower for good? You know?.. David: I you know, I had some experiences recently, not even recent, the last couple of years of meeting some very well established, well known, um, wealthy, successful business folks, people in industry, people in, um, in entertainment, people in athletics. You know, in my practice, there's some higher profile folks who have come my way and the way of my practice. And, you know, some of them, they literally have the car service waiting outside, you know, on, on, on the street and the, the whole nine yards and the private chef and everything. And going through a mental health crisis for them was so jarring, so shocking, so upsetting, because everything else in their life is going beautifully. Mm. They're flourishing in their careers, but then emotionally, they're really struggling. But through that process, they actually learn to, like, become more accepting of themselves, more accepting of their loved ones, more accepting of their own children. And it softened them. It made them more human. More. Relatable, more connected, literally more connected. It's it's a humbling process to experience the throes of anxiety, the panic. Yeah. The struggle. But that's part of many times what we need to remind us of our limitations, which is good. We need to embrace that and to lean into it as opposed to leaning away. Jean: .. That reminds me of when. My late husband Alex would say, "You know, Jeannie, before I met you and we had the the children, my life was just ordered . I was always in control. It was just me." And he went on to say, "you and the children have introduced a new level of fear in my life that I never knew existed." Except he had a dog. And he said, " A deeper connection. A deeper connection with my mother, to you and the children, with other people." Oh, yeah- when you have children, Oh my God you know, he said it brought a whole new level of connection. Yeah, Having a family will do that. David: Yes, Because it actually means something. Like, what do you get anxious about? You get anxious about stuff that really means something to you. Speaker2: Right? What else do you care? Why else do you feel anxious. Unless it's something you really care about? So part of our anxiety shows that we're actually invested in something other than ourselves- leaning into that, it's hard, but it sounds like that's what you did in your family. Alison: And you talk about converting anxiety into love. David: And oh yeah. Alison: That made me cry a little. We have a family member with OCD. Yeah, very, um, a very interesting journey to to witness that. And just the love that's come from that experience is really, um. So I was hoping you could just talk about that a little bit, because I think you don't really hear that a lot, you know? David: So this is something I did not get from my cognitive and dialectical behavior therapy training. I got this from the exposure and experiences I got with emotionally focused therapy. In terms of couples, it's a couple a way of treating, and it's based on the work of John Bowlby, who was an attachment theory. He actually started attachment theory. The concept of attachment theory is that life is for love, that people are born in order to have connection, in order to have bonds, especially bonds with other people. And those bonds, those love bonds, those connections are what make our life worthwhile. They make us. They make us tick. Um, legend has it that Bowlby was going to call his theory the Theory of love, but he was in he was a British psychiatrist in the first half of the first half of the 20th century. So he thought he would have been laughed out of the Academy, which probably would have happened. So he called it attachment theory instead. And it's stuck ever since. Anyhow, part of attachment theory is that secure attachment is when - I care about you, and I'm anxious when you're not there, but I know that you're there for me, and I can show you that I need you, and you will be there for me. And that occurs both in romantic relationships and also with parent child relationships, also with friends. I mean, there's other ways that. But this is the core of it. Will you be there for me when I need you? In other words, to the extent that I can be vulnerable, show you that I care about you and that I need you, be anxious, actually expose my anxiety, scale back the facade.. as you were talking about right at the beginning, what we were talking about right at the beginning, right? Go into the kitchen, see the mess, and have you accept me and be there for me. That's...
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Dr. Norman Rosenthal
02/28/2024
Dr. Norman Rosenthal
In his landmark new book, Defeating SAD, Rosenthal, who first described and is the foremost authority on the subject, offers an up-to-date guide to overcoming the miseries and that millions experience with the changing seasons. In his lively style, Rosenthal offers advice on how to identify, treat and overcome both winter and summer varieties of seasonal affective disorder, as well as the less severe yet bothersome winter blues. --Transcript-- Alison Martin: Jean loves our theme song. Jean Trebek: I do. Alison Martin: You really, really do. Jean Trebek: It's just happy. And speaking about happy... Alison Martin: What? Jean Trebek: We are talking to Doctor Norman Rosenthal about defeating SAD. Alison Martin: And when I saw this book, I thought he just meant, like, sad, like, don't be sad. Jean Trebek: Did you know the acronym of SAD? Alison Martin: I did, but I didn't put it together. Seasonal affective disorder. Jean Trebek: Yeah. Alison Martin: Which is what happens when we don't get enough light, right? Jean Trebek: Right. Alison Martin: Yeah. Which is so interesting because a lot of people really feel the difference in the winter. Jean Trebek: Yeah. I mean, I think that's why there are so many tanning beds and things like that, like up in Seattle, Washington, and up in the, uh, countries that are closer to the north. And this book is so interesting because he talks about this in a very, um, accessible way. Like he'd never become so clinical that you're like, what's he saying? Jean Trebek: No, he was a real delight to talk with. Yes. Well, said Alison, he was not so medical that you were just like, what? And he also gives great tips on how to move through the seasonal affective disorder. Alison Martin: That's right. And he, you know, the use of lamps and exercise and camaraderie and therapy. He just and he is so I loved talking to him. Jean Trebek: Yeah. Alison Martin: He reminded me of people that I love like family members, you know. Jean Trebek: Yes. Alison Martin: And he loves poetry. Jean Trebek: That's the other beautiful thing about this man. Here's this highly intellectual human and he has time for that creative side, that beauty of poetry. And I think he really found his sweet spot. I think poetry really lights him up. Alison Martin: Yeah. Me too. And he talks about it the interview. So. And the end is so special. Listen to the end where he reads a poem to us. It gave me um, I got teary eyed. Jean Trebek: Yeah. Alison Martin: He gave me the chills. All right, here he comes. Thank you. Norman, here you come. Norman Rosenthal: Hello. Jean Trebek: Oh, hi. Doctor Rosenthal. Norman Rosenthal: So great to meet the two of you. Finally. Alison Martin: Yes. How do you feel? Norman Rosenthal: Oh, I am much better. Thank you. Um, you know, these post-Covid colds are, um, quite nasty. Alison Martin: I agree, I think because we've not been outside with other people much. Norman Rosenthal: Exactly. Our immune systems are, like, naive and they're not used. Jean Trebek: Yeah. They're like what? What's that? Yeah. Alison Martin: I'm. Alison. Norman Rosenthal: Hi, Alison. Hi. Jean Trebek: I'm Jean. Norman Rosenthal: Hey, Jean. Nice to meet the two of you. Jean Trebek: Very nice to meet you, doctor..Your your book defeating sad is so interesting. Norman Rosenthal: Oh. Thank you. Alison Martin: Really? We both read the whole thing, and it's very, very. You're such an interesting, um, man, could you tell us how you got involved in in really taking on, uh, so much interest in sad. And could you explain what it is for our listeners? Norman Rosenthal: Absolutely. You know, it's been like a step by step process. It's been a step by step process. I came to this country from South Africa, which is climatically, a lovely country, very sunny, uh, you know, very mild. The seasons are not radical from one to another and came to do my psych residency in New York City. And the first summer was wonderful. The long days. I never had such long days in my life. And then when autumn came, uh, when the daylight savings time change came, I just didn't know what hit me. Mm. I came out of work that first day, and everything was dark, and there was a cold wind coming off the Hudson, and I thought, wow, this is something I have never experienced before. And so it went for three years. I had these wonderful summers and these really difficult winters, and I thought, something is changed here. Something is different compared to what it was in South Africa. So I came to join a research group here at the National Institute of Mental Health and that is, um, Bethesda, Maryland. Norman Rosenthal: And once here, Once here I started working with rhythms, biological rhythms, mood, depression and light and came across an engineer who had experienced these same seasonal problems worse than me. And we took him during one of his winters, expanded his light and out he came from his depression. It was wonderful to to behold. And so I thought, well, you know, we've really got a story here. I have felt it myself. Now I see it in somebody else. And we need to find more people like this. But I checked around and psychiatrists had not seen it. Or at least they had seen it, but they hadn't identified it. And so what I thought was, you've got to go straight to the public and ask them for if they've ever had it and seen it. And at that point, you know, advertising via the media for patients was like chasing ambulances. Yeah. So but nevertheless, we got thousands of people. And from the people who sent back their questionnaires, I pulled together the syndrome that we now known that we now know as Sad or seasonal affective disorder. Alison Martin: Wow. That's. That's amazing. Do you, um, do you use. And in the book, you explain the use of a lightbox. And do you use one? Norman Rosenthal: Yes, I definitely do. Every morning, uh, in this particular season, I come and I look at the news on the, on the computer and do my word games to make sure my brain is still working and, and, um, good news is that it seems to be. And and so, um, I use it every morning and, um, it really makes a difference. And my patients, I recommend it widely. Uh, and there are all kinds of people who can benefit from it, and we can talk more about that. This lightbox is like a computer, maybe a little bigger. And it sits in front of you and emanates a lot of light and much more than you'd get from a regular bedside lamp or a ceiling light. And this is what's making the biological change. But of course, as you've read the book, you'll see there are lots of other things that you can do that make a difference as well. Jean Trebek: Right? Um, can you explain why light has such an impact? Norman Rosenthal: Oh well, you can explain it in different ways. Remember, we evolved with light and dark. Um, you know, the early bird catches the worm. So it's early because there's dawn, there's light around. It's going to see the worm in the light of dawn. Now, of course, not such good news for the worm, but in any event, uh, we evolve with light and dark. And these were the time cues that enabled us to function in a world where light and dark are changing. And so just as they change in the day. So they change across the year. And so, um, maybe in the winter, we needed to be in our caves or in our dark places. Uh, there was very little food around. We needed to, uh, nurture our resources. And so the kind of hibernation that you see in animals happens in a kind of attenuated way, in a sort of weakened way in humans. And so with these, the day, the day and night rhythms of dark and light and the seasonal rhythms of short days and long days, we have evolved to incorporate these rhythms into our biology so that we function as best we can in a changing world. Alison Martin: So that so interesting, because that's what I was thinking when I was reading. If if we've evolved with this, why aren't our contemporary brains used to it? Norman Rosenthal: Well because we evolved over thousands and thousands of years, and our contemporary brains are geared to a society that's only been working in this way for hundreds of years. And so we are still left with our old biology. However, we've tinkered with it, and the arrival of indoor lighting like the electric light has greatly changed how we live our lives. And even if you read reports of letters written in the Civil War time, before there was light all over the house and everywhere, um, you will find that sleep has changed over the time since the Civil War. However, um, for people with Sad, there is a decreased sensitivity to the light so that the ordinary indoor light may not be enough to keep them functioning well all year round. Alison Martin: And did I understand correctly that in this book that there's a difference between, uh, like a blue toned light and a yellow toned light? Did I understand that correctly? And could you explain that to me? Because I'm like, like, is the sun a blue tone? Norman Rosenthal: No, no. Um, the sun generates full spectrum light because our spectrum that we're used to is calibrated around the sunlight. Uh, so you'll know if you go into a store to buy clothes and you want to see what the real color is, you want to see it in full spectrum light, right? Because if you see it in light that's toned with a blue or a pink, it might look like this and that and then you buy this, by the outfits, and you take it out. And this isn't what it looked like at all. So people have to sell it in the, in the full spectrum sunlight. Uh, so it's it's not blue. It's not pink. It's a nice balanced spectrum. In our attempt to replicate that with our ceiling lights and other lights, um, we create lights that are a little shifted this way or that way, but the light that we use for therapeutic purposes is the ordinary full spectrum light, or, um, it's not loaded towards the blue or any particular color. It is just, um, an ordinary white light. Alison Martin: Oh that's interesting. Jean Trebek: And so, doctor, can you also share with our listeners some other tips that help boost your the serotonin and the dopamine in your brain if you don't have a light box readily available? Norman Rosenthal: Definitely, definitely. Well, the one that is easiest is right at your front door and that is exercise. If you go walking...this is something I add in my own program. I add this to, I sit in front of the lights like I told you, and then I, I go walking fast up and down hills and I get a lot of light and an aerobic effect. And that's a potent thing that you can do. Um, I work out and not only is the aerobic exercise helpful, but the strength training is helpful. These have got it now. Turns out very strong antidepressant effects. Mm. So that's another thing you can do that's very easy to do. You can have a room in your house. That's your Florida room or whatever you want to call it that is painted light shades on the wall that's got colored throws and colored scatter cushions and you just want to be there. You put bring a couple of plants in it, a couple of orchids, and wow, you're already feeling better. So these are just a few little tips. And of course we can go all the way from there. There is, um, a special kind of therapy called cognitive behavior therapy or CBT, which is wonderful for Sad. Norman Rosenthal: And and studies have actually shown this. For example, you know, when you're feeling in your winter mode, you feel like a stick in the mud. You don't feel like going out. You don't feel like doing stuff. Um, maybe you even feel a little sorry for yourself. And that's actually not good for you. I mean, I'm not talking in any absolute or moral sense, but it's not good for your well-being. Because if you can maintain your connections with people, your social engagements, your activities, that's much better. So that's the behavioral part. You make lunch arrangements, you go see friends, uh, you go places, you do good things, and that keeps you feeling more cheerful. And then, of course, there is working with your thinking, the cognitive part of cognitive behavior therapy. Because a lot of times people think, uh, thoughts that make them depressed. Um, an example that I like is, let's say I call a friend out and I say, hey, would you like to come to dinner this evening? And they say. Sorry. No, I can't come this evening. And they don't say, well, what about another evening? Or I'd love to, or why don't you join us wherever we're going, they just leave it at that. It's kind of neutral. Norman Rosenthal: It's not bad, but it's not really encouraging. And then if you're in a depressed mode, you can go and say, wait a second. That person doesn't really like me. They don't really want to go to dinner with me. And, you know, come to think of it, I don't think anybody really likes me. And I don't think people are going to want to come to dinner with me, and I'm going to be all alone. You see how you're going off to the races like that with negative thoughts and cognitive therapy says, wait a second, what are the other reasons why this person might not have come or be, you know, maybe they've got another arrangement, maybe they're feeling lousy, maybe something awful has happened in their lives and they just didn't want to tell you about it. So many things could be happening that have got nothing to do with you. And so what do we do about it? Well, try a couple more people, see if somebody might want to come put your hypothesis to the test that nobody wants to come with you. And sure enough, you call a couple of people and somebody says, wow, that's great. I'm sitting miserable here at home and I'd love to come to dinner with. Alison Martin: Um, I was wondering, you talk about females having SAD, a propensity for SAD, more than males, and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that for our listeners. Norman Rosenthal: Yeah, we've seen it and everybody's seen it. Um, quite, uh, commonly is 3 or 4 to 1 females to males. So it's quite a big difference. That is very likely due to the female reproductive cycle because one can speculate that in times gone by, when we didn't have central heating and lights and all kinds of things, people had to be in their dark caves, and maybe the women had to be there when they were pregnant, giving, holding on to their babies. And the men had to be out in the fields. And maybe it evolved in such a way that the women were more inclined to be slowed down and in a more hibernating like mode in the winter, and the men less so. And maybe that's just what was best for the survival of the group. Alison Martin: Right! You know, when I, when I first, when we first came across you and I thought, oh, this will be interesting because I definitely don't have this. That's what I thought. I really look forward to the winter. I look forward to the summer. I love it all. But then when I read your book, I have so many of the symptoms. So is it possible, like I gain weight in the winter. I just want to stay inside. I want to be cozy. I could binge a series and be happy. And I'm wondering, could you have Sad and still be happy at Christmas and still be looking forward to the season? You understand my question? Norman Rosenthal: I do, I do it's a it's a very interesting point because, you know, some people are happier people. There's no doubt about it. They've got friends, they've got activities, they like things, and they may still have some of the vegetative symptoms slowing down, needing more sleep, eating more, gaining weight. And other people may have those plus the mood symptoms. Yeah. Um, so I've seen both kinds. And then what also happens is there's another major factor in the mix and that is stress. Um, because that person who's happy, who's bingeing on the series, if all of a sudden they were settled with a deadline and some very heavy work that they had to do, and they're not really on top form, and they've got things that they're going to be judged and found wanting, you could change and become quite down. Yes. And that's why one of the pieces of advice I give people is don't work on a deadline that expects you to get your product in by the end of the winter. Rather, I gave myself a deadline here at the end of August. I didn't give it the end of December because for various reasons, but a lot of it was I didn't want to be stuck with a serious deadline when I was feeling slowed down. Alison Martin: That's great. Yes. Jean Trebek: That's a great act of love. Alison Martin: Yes. Yeah. Norman Rosenthal: As they say, you've got to be kind to your future self. Jean Trebek: That's so true. That's exactly right. So I just want to switch gears for a moment and leave Sad and move into your love of poetry. Um. You wrote a beautiful book called The RX of Poetry. Did that evolve out of a way for you to be creative and help your your Sad, you know, the feeling of hibernation? Or were you always someone that was interested in in poetry? Norman Rosenthal: Yeah. You know. As I've been talking, um, with people, more and more people have asked questions about my poetry RX book. And to me that is so thrilling. And I'll tell you why. Because that book was roundly rejected by editors, uh, agents. They said there's just no money in poetry and we're not interested in it. And, um. I just had a feeling because I knew that poetry always meant so much to me, and I just had a feeling if I could just write it in the right way, that it would be accessible to people, they could really gain something from this, just as I have. So at that time, Jane Brody was the columnist, very prominent columnist for The New York Times, and she had written some very nice articles on my different books. And I contacted her and she said, poetry doesn't do anything for me. I said, well, would you at least take a look at my manuscript? Well, you can send it, but I can't get to it any time soon. You know, I was getting yes, I know we've done work together, so I'll be polite and I'll just give you the time of day. But don't expect anything from me. So I didn't even have a PDF. I had a Xerox copy of this book and I fedexed it to her. All the old technology coming through, I fedexed it to her and it was within half a day and I got an email back. Change of plans - I want to interview you tomorrow... It's poetry Month and we're going to we're going to do this. And she wrote a column. I've never had anybody write such a loving column. And she said, look, I, I thought poetry meant nothing to me. But then I realized that my late husband was a lyricist and words were his daily diet. And, um. I just want to tell you that I've really, totally changed my mind on this subject, and I mean that to me, to get that from somebody I respected so much. And then I had to figure out a way to do it. So what I did was I divided it up into five sections. Have I sent you a copy of my poetry book? Do you have one? Alison Martin: We got it. We just bought it Norman Rosenthal: Oh my goodness. I'm I'm sorry to incur the - Jean Trebek: No, no, we we just were so interested in it. Norman Rosenthal: But there are five sections. The one is called Loving and losing. The one is a response to nature. It's called that inward eye. Uh, then there's the human experience. Then there is design for living, uh, and, uh, the search for meaning. And the last piece is aging and dying. Mm. And they're 50 poems. And, um, I, I have heard so many people say - this means a lot to me - I keep it at my bedside. I read this, I read that. It's been like one of the great, um, rewards of that I've ever written, because every poem I put out, the poem, I like the poem to be right up front so that nothing is there to distract you. And then I write - this is what I think the poem means. But you may be different. These are the takeaway points that you can get specific takeaway points from this poem. And um, then you know, who was the poet? How did...
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Brad Aronson
02/14/2024
Brad Aronson
Brad Aronson is a husband, dad, teacher and all around great human. He is the author of the national bestseller - , "which is full of true stories about how one small deed can make a world of difference." "Outside of family, Brad loves teaching entrepreneurship in Camden, N.J. He believes in hands-on learning, so everyone in his class starts their own business, which has led to many adventures in entrepreneurship. Brad also loves volunteering on the nonprofit boards of Big Brothers Big Sisters and Hopeworks.” Transcript Alison: Okay. Is this recording? Alison: Oh, it is, it is. Yay, yay! Here we are. Hello, Jean. Hi. It's been some time. Jean: Yes. Alison: We've been on a little break. And, um, you went to New York to see family? Jean: I did, it was beautiful, I loved it, I love going to New York, visiting my son Matthew in Harlem, New York. And, uh, then I hung out with my sister and my mother. So it was a beautiful trip. Alison: That's lovely. And, uh, and I pretty much hung out with my family here, so it was great. I loved it. And today we're talking about someone amazing. Jean: Okay. His name is Brad Aronson, and he really is, uh, a champion for spreading kindness. And look at his book, Human Kind. It's beautiful. Alison: Changing the world, one small act at a time. And that's what it is. Just a, um, a bunch of stories about people doing good in the world, from small to big, right? To like, you know, driving a kid home from school to, like, doing large organizations. Jean: Exactly, and he's so fits our insidewink motto, just sharing the good in the world. And you know what we focus on increases. So this is a great interview. Alison: It is wonderful. And I think, um, I think what I was so impressed by him is that his family had started from a very young age with him to impress upon him the need of kindness and helping others, which I think is great because you can see that now he's carried it through in his life, right? Jean: Absolutely. And he talks about that in the book and in the interview. Alison: So let's listen right now. Speaker2: Hello, Well I'm Jean, I'm Allison. Alison: It's so nice to meet you. Brad: Great to meet you guys as well. Thanks for having me. Jean: Thank you for being with us today, Brad. Alison: What an Amazing book. Brad: Thank you. Alison: Oh, my gosh, it was just. I read it so quickly because your stories are so beautiful. Brad: Well, thanks, I appreciate that. Jean: Yea..and I have a list of people that are going to receive this for the holidays, so, um it's great. Beautiful. So, Brad, we thought we would start out with a question about how you were raised. How was your family life that you became this champion for kindness? Brad: So, you know, I was really fortunate. Uh, my dad is probably the nicest person I know. So when we were kids, I remember going to the supermarket and someone stopped me and being like, are you Joe Aronson's son? And, you know, you're always taught, like, not to talk to strangers. I'm like, hey, uh, he's like, your dad is the nicest guy. And that was all. I have no idea who it was, but like that, that stuck with me from from that supermarket, uh, experience. And I remember, like, one of our neighbors would always come over and give my dad tools, and I had no idea, like, my dad is the least handy person ever. But we had all these tools in the basement. And I asked him, like, dad, why is Mister Shukto bringing over all these tools? And he said, well, you know, I help him out with his taxes because my dad was an accountant and I don't charge him and he wants to do something. So he brings tools. And, you know, I accept them as a gift because he's really happy that I accept them. And I feel like I just learned so much through watching my dad. Uh, and, you know, that was a big part of my upbringing. And then there was a point, I think it was junior high where my mom told my brother and I, she said, you guys have it too good. You have no idea. You both need to start volunteering. And I started volunteering at this program called Buddies. It was for kids who had lost a parent or had some sort of really serious family trauma. And it's when I realized, like, oh my gosh, there's there's all these people who had really bad luck happened to them, and it was so unfair. And that kind of got me passionate about being engaged in service and specifically with mentoring with kids like that. That is my passion. That's what I love doing, and I think so my parents really played a huge role in letting me see the opportunities there. Alison: And is your brother similar to you? Brad: Yes. He's very involved in service. Uh, and a very nice, nice person. Alison: You've done so much and I'm and God bless you and your family and your friends. Your your personal story about your wife's journey is so beautiful because it's so vulnerable. And I think sometime we live in a culture, I think sometimes that is afraid for people to ask for help. And and here in your book, I felt, um, that you allowed that to happen and people offered. And it opened up a whole world for you. Could you describe that a little bit to our listeners? Brad: Absolutely. And I'd say I was really bad at asking for help. Uh, like I'd always been a helper. And that was the first time I felt like in my life where I really needed help. Uh, and people would come and be like, like, let me know what I could do for you. And I was like, yeah, I'll get back to you. And I would never call them, right? Uh, like, I was just felt like I was so drowning. I didn't know what to ask. And I felt a little bit guilty also. Uh, which there was no reason to feel guilty. Like people wanted to help. But I still felt bad. And then people just started stepping up and doing things, and that's when it clicked. It was like, I really need this, right? So, you know, someone called and said, look, I'm picking your kid up from school. I realize you're making the juggle. So Mia (Brad's wife) was in the hospital. She was in the hospital inpatient, uh, for a month. So I would go stay with her in the hospital and then be running to try to pick Jack, my son, up from school and not lose track, you know? And then I taught as well. So I'd be teaching, and, you know, I'd forget what day it was...and you're just like, you're in this like nonstop. And people just reached out and I've talked to a lot of people who are going through really rough times, obviously, because the book is about people who were this small act of kindness changes their lives. So they've been through a rough time. What I hear quite often is that when people just do things, it makes a difference. There's this whole group of people who are like, don't know how to ask for help. And what we also all saw is that, like when we went through our traumas, people just came out of the woodwork. It didn't have to be someone that I was close with, just someone I knew, someone I worked with was like, hey, here's what I'm going to do. And it just changed our lives. And it really made me such a more thoughtful helper. Like, I changed how I help other people because I realized, oh my goodness, like, I've been doing it this way all this time. And I found a better way through, through people's kindness and generosity. Alison: So what is the better way? Like, what would you use to do? And you just said, I found a better way. What is that better way? Brad: So a few things, uh, you know, one thing is a lot of times when people are going through a hard time, we don't reach out to them because we think, like, maybe they don't want to talk about it, or it might be awkward. I don't know what to say. I don't know them that well. And I was always in that boat of like, should I reach out? Should I not reach out? And what I learned is, when you're in that really emotional state, the smallest little contact could give you strength. Like, we got an email from some woman who was a mom and her kid was in Jack's class and she said, you don't know me. I can't remember her daughter's name, but I'm her mom, and I heard what's going on and I just want to let you know I'm in your corner and, like, talking about it now. Like I feel myself tearing up a little bit, like that note from a stranger when you're at a difficult time gives you the strength to keep going. And so I learned that. And when I talk to people for the book, what I heard repeatedly was being seen mattered. And being seen wasn't talking about what they were going through. A lot of people didn't want to talk about it at all, and I definitely fell in that camp. I did not want to talk about it, like I was dealing with it all day and like that's the last thing I want to talk about and sometimes I'd even want to talk to people. But having that reach out where someone sends a text message and they send a joke or, or like they dropped off, like a little magazine. And I remember one of our friends, Mo and Mindy, dropped off like a magazine in the mailbox. Like, thought you'd find this cool to read. And, like, I wasn't going to read it, but they were thinking of me, and that felt awesome. So I think knowing that someone's thinking of you is the first thing. Uh, the second thing, which I, you know, alluded to before, is just doing something. So I was someone who would always tell people like, let me know what I could do for you because I thought, I don't want to make an assumption. I don't know what they need. Like they'll tell me and then I'll do it, otherwise I won't. What I found out is it was just such a blessing when someone like our neighbor stopped by and like, hey, you know what? We baked an extra lasagna here it is, like, awesom like, I don't have to figure out what's for dinner tonight. Uh, and, like, all these people at school signed up to pick up Jack, and it was it was just beautiful. I mean, I just couldn't juggle. And I remember the receptionist at school being like, wow, like, your kid has the biggest pickup list I've ever seen. And I was like, I know we're really lucky. Uh, so also just doing it. Uh, and then one other thing is, is like when you greet people going through a rough time. Like something that we do when we greet people. We're like, hey, how are you? And we don't even expect a response. It's just we expect to hi or I'm doing great. And when you're going through a rough time, someone's like, hi, how are you? What goes on in your head sometime? Well, for me was actually pretty awful. You probably don't want to hear it. I don't want to talk about it. So should I be like, oh, I'm great. And just, like, be lying or say it's awful and instead just saying, hey, it's awesome to see you because it is great to see that person. Uh, and that way we're you know, acknowledging that. And I want to say like, everything helps. Like I don't want to come across like, hey, you have to be really careful, but these are just some things I noticed that I think have made me a better helper. And it's because I went through that. Alison: I love that.... It's awesome to see you. I think that's better than, How are you?, no matter what. Brad: Yeah. Right. Right. Jean: And I absolutely can relate to doing something. When I was, uh, when my husband passed away three years ago. People would say, let me know what I can do for you? Just give me a call. And the best ones were when someone would call and say, we're taking care of dinner Saturday and Sunday night. And like you said, Brad, I was thrilled. Thank you so much. Alison: Exactly. Brad: Yes. Alison: When my mom was in our house and going through hospice and dying. And I'm an only child. And I had two little kids at the time and I never knew what I needed. I was only so in the moment of like, oh, I have to do wound care. Oh, I have to do that like I was. So in the moment I wasn't even thinking, oh, we have to eat later, you know? And so when someone showed up, Sue Pastorius showed up with this big tray of chicken, like, just amount of cooked chicken. And I was like, oh my gosh, like, thank you. And I didn't have to call. And that's the thing, because I don't even think I know what I needed for those months. Brad: I totally did not know what I needed and it's like a chance, like all of us have a chance to be a superhero for someone. And it's not that hard. It's just like taking that little step. Alison: Yeah, and you don't have to do something big... This is going to sound so funny, but I think the story that touched me the most was the teacher who figured how to tie shoes with one hand. Oh, I think his name was Don Clarkson. Brad: Yes. Alison: And I was like, I don't know but that made me cry. Like, all the stories are so beautiful. How did you find everybody? How did you find all these stories? Brad: So it was a mix. I started asking everyone I knew... Was there, like something small that changed your whole life, or that you knew changed someone else's life? And because I do so much work with youth and nonprofits, like I had tons of people to ask and I heard amazing stories. And sometimes it was like a friend of mine, I had no idea. So I was out picking pumpkins with my friend Alex's family, and I had known him since grade school. And I'm asking he and his wife and his wife's like, oh, well, you know, Alex, every day goes jogging with this doctor. And it changed this doctor's life. And I was like, really? And they told me this story. It's in the book. It's the story about Wally the physician and Alex who ran with him. And I was like, Alex, like, you never told me this. He's like, well, you know what? It's not something I do to tell people. And so I found, which is beautiful in and of itself, but I found when I was asking so many people had these stories and then because it's what I was excited about...So the example of Jim Abbott and his teacher, Don Clarkson, who learned how to tie his shoes. I read Jim Abbott's autobiography memoir, which was amazing. It's imperfect, it's a great read. And there's probably like three sentences about, oh yeah, my teacher, like learned how to tie a shoe. And that was really meaningful. And I read the whole book. I was like, I love that. I need to learn more. So I tracked down Don Clarkson's wife and then I, you know, talked to like, Nick Newell, who had been impacted by Jim Abbott and was able to through someone on Jim's team like communicate with Jim and be able to put that story together. So like I do so much reading and then I pick out like that's the part I love and I want to know more about. And then I've also because I was posting it online, amazing people would just be like, you wouldn't believe this story, and they'd be emailing them into me. So there's there's so much out there. It matters what we look for. Alison: Yes. Right. Jean: Uh, Brad, can you please talk about what inspired you to write this book? I think we should have started with that. Brad: So there were a couple inspirations. One was the, uh, high school graduation of a mentee of mine. So she attended Girard College, which even though it's called Girard College, it is a high school in Philadelphia. And at her graduation, like on one side of me was this 70 something year old guy. And he told me, he said, like, I came down from New York, I graduated from Girard, and the school changed my life. So I come back every year to like, say thank you and support the next generation. And then on the other side of me was this mom who was crying, and she told me she thought her daughter would be dead or in jail. But here she was graduating. And there's like a part in the ceremony where you sing the school song and they pass out like the sheets, and the dude next to the guy next to me. He stands up and is like bellowing the song. He's so proud. And and the commencement speaker gets up and talks about how incredible these young people were. They statistically, they were from areas of Philadelphia where their success was not expected. It was expected that many of them would drop out of school, expected that very few would go on to college. And the commencement speaker talked about how every single young person had gotten into college. And then he said, but unfortunately, there are inheriting a world of of negativity where the negative is what is so pervasive. And that's why tomorrow you won't see anything about this graduation in the news. And, I like, I love inspirational movies and hallmark movies and all that type of stuff. And I felt like I was in one. I was alive audience member at this graduation and I so the next day I was thinking, it has to be in the news, like, how could they miss this? So I get online, I look everywhere and there's nothing. So then I get our daily newspaper, which is the Philadelphia Inquirer. Look at every page and there's nothing. So I think, man, like people would be so lifted up by this and they need this type of news... And it's not there. And I thought, if I want it out there, I should put it out there. So I started writing more and more about people and organizations that inspire me. So that was the first inspiration. The second was when Mia was in the hospital. The nurses suggested that we go to this conference for young cancer patients and their caregivers. And, you know, my first reaction was, no way. Like, we're here all day dealing with cancer in my free time, I do not want to be at a cancer conference. Uh, and Mia was like, definitely not. And then we talked about it that the nurses we found, and I've heard this from lots of other people as well. The nurses are just angels. We would not have gotten through that experience without them. They were amazing. And we decided that if they thought this was a good idea, it probably was a good idea. So we went and one of the speakers there had been through the same treatment as Mia, which is basically two and a half years of of chemo and treatment. Uh, so you're in the hospital for about a month, and then after that you have two and a half years of outpatient where almost every day you're going to the hospital to get treatments, but you can live at home. Brad: And one of the speakers who had been through the same treatment said, when you have a treatment that's that long, you need a project. Because a project gives you a focus, it gives you a purpose. And I thought, you know, my project is I'm going to write about, like, all the good stuff that's out there, uh, starting with the amazing people who helped us. And I'm just like, that's what I'm going to write about. So that was kind of like, I didn't realize it would take me so long. Like it took longer than her treatment to actually get the book out. But that was kind of the one of the impetuses that got me writing. And boy, it was amazing therapy for me to just like, think about all the good out there. Yeah, uh, changing the narrative from, you know, why me? I mean, when Mia was first diagnosed, I remember there, like, you know, this is very unusual. She's very healthy, and she's she doesn't have any comorbidities. And she's young, which just adds to, like, what? Why is this happening to me? Right? Like I'm getting cheated, which is not a fair way to look at it. Like this happens to lots of people. But that is what was going through my mind and the whole time, like, you're just feeling awful. And when you read about and then write about and participate in the good, it helped. It helped me. It helped lift me up and have a better perspective on everything. Alison: And now Mia is and your family is doing great? Brad: We're doing great. I'm going to knock on wood because, you know, I'm suspicious. Alison: Uh, I totally agree. And I'm wondering now that you've written this book, how did this book.. Because you seem to be very open and you were always doing volunteer work. So how did writing this book change your life? Like, now? Like, do you understand my question? Like, did it have an impact on your life that you're...
/episode/index/show/9b9d37f3-5027-46a8-8271-f4656cb937bd/id/29495763
info_outline
David Hoffmeister
01/31/2024
David Hoffmeister
David Hoffmeister has touched the lives of thousands with his consistently peaceful state of mind, radiant joy, and dedication to Truth. He is a modern-day mystic and non-dual teacher who has been invited to 44 countries and 49 states to share the message of Love, Oneness, and Freedom. His journey involved the study of many pathways culminating in a deeply committed practical application of A Course in Miracles. David’s life is a living demonstration of the Awakened mind. This is an invitation to join him. -- Transcript -- Alison: Okay. Jean: Are we rolling? Alison: We are. Jean: Are we recording? Alison: Yes. We're recording. I didn't have the microphone in, I blew it, so here we go. We're going to do it now. Jean: We are. Okay. Great. Alison: It's gonna be excellent..we're professionals. Jean: Not. haha Alison: That should be our theme at the very end. Alison: Hi everybody. Here's insideWink podcast. You know what we were just talking about, which I think is great, that we've had the opportunity to talk to so many wonderful people. Jean: We really have...what A blessing... Yeah. Jean: We Just do this podcast as a hobby. And it has been such a benefit to Allison and I to meet and talk with these amazing people. And we really hope our, audience get's some, just get something beautiful and inspiring because you know, your life just gets more elevated, more enriched and more expansive when you just allow love in. Yeah. So, that's the the message here. Alison: Exactly Right. Jean: And speaking about love.... Alison: Oh my gosh, this was such an exciting interview...David Hofmeister. Jean: Who I love. Yeah yeah, I've been reading his books and he's been to my home a couple of times. So he a mystic. He is a fantastic teacher on The Course in Miracles. And I just think he is so dedicated to communicating the truth about love and how love is real. And it's a living vibration that each one of us embodies and how to exude it. And it starts with the mind. It starts with your thoughts. Alison: Right. He's so he's really so powerful. And his books are amazing. And we were just so lucky to be able to talk to him. So here he is, David Hofmeister. David: Hi. Jean: Hi, David. It's so great to see you. David: It's great to see you again. Wonderful to come on your podcast. Jean: Thank you. Alison: Yes. Thank you so much for being here. Jean: This is such a treat. David: Oh, beautiful. Beautiful. Well, it's always a joy to come together. I always have such fond memories of our joinings and. And all the love and joy that we've shared with so many people over the years. So it's it's great to come together. Jean: Yes, I was just. asking Alison. I said, oh, when was the last time David was here, was here in Los Angeles that I remember seeing you and it's it's been some time... David: Yea, it has been. I was doing a lot of world travels and then I've kind of... well, I've formed a Course in Miracles monastery about 2010. So that was like yeah 13 years ago. And then,, I mean, yeah, all six continents and 44 countries and, but it's more just working with a smaller community... You know, how Jesus kind of settled down with the apostles and the Women's Corps and, you know, went way down into the mind to get clear of any debris. That's kind of what I'm I'm doing. So I'm kind of got a devoted community around me that's, you know, kind of a little mystical community now. Alison: Wonderful. Jean: I love that.. I think, um, David, can you talk about for people that don't really know The Course in Miracles.. What is it about the Course in Miracles that really hits it home for you? David: Well, I think it is so direct. I think I've just studied so many spiritualities and many different metaphysics and spiritual pathways, but it's, it's just so direct and focused and it seems to be the, the whole package for we'll call it mind training or coming to that state that Jesus called judge not ..just a state of non-judgment, where you have a, you have a metaphysical system or a theology, and then you have a workbook, which is basically your practical application to practice a lesson a day. And then you have a manual for teachers. And really it is so direct with the practical application and bringing the those metaphysical ideas into a living experience, where you feel consistent peace and you, you laugh a lot, you feel joyful a lot, a lot blissful states of mind, and then they just seem to become more and more consistent as you don't make any exceptions to the the lessons, to the practice of the day. So I would just say it's kind of like a spiritual psychotherapy, that's extremely practical, and it's very metaphysical. And even though it uses like psychological terms and educational terms and Christian terms, it's really points at a direction that that really doesn't fit into the boxes of typical religions. It doesn't fit into typical theologies that would involve sacrifice and suffering, those kind of theologies. It actually is taking us toward a state of pure innocence. So it's I found it very helpful in my lifetime.. Jean: Me too. I have been studying it over over 30 years. And it is my go to. And there is so much, uh, there's a huge spiritual smorgasbord out there, and, I really feel, David, that after Alex passed away three years ago, that I took a deeper dive into The Course In Miracles and like you said so beautifully, that it is about no compromise. You know, I can' judge this, but that I can judge. And I think also, that it is possible to have peace and joy consistently, even though we're in a human and physicality, we can perceive, always choose to perceive with innocence. It's not always easy, but that's where the rubber meets the road. Alison: And could you tell me what your idea is of, no private thoughts? David: Well, I would say, there's a part in the early part of the workbook where Jesus says, you have no private thoughts, and yet that's all that you're aware of. So when we think of the typical stream of consciousness, of the human being, of the average human being, it's a stream of timeline thoughts. Stream of consciousness, and basically the private thoughts, the characteristic of them are those of the ones that that have been judged and have been judged to need to be kept hidden. And that's why they're called private. Um, and yet when we talk to most anybody in Spiritual Journey, they talk about authenticity. They talk about being candid, being open, and particularly in relationships, when you expose these thoughts in a place of reverence and sacredness in a, in a state of, I'm just going to allow them up and, and allow the space to allow them up and give them over to the spirit or the Holy Spirit. Then that's where the the release comes in. So it's not like a strict rule. It's not like. You know, for our communities, we have two guidelines. No private thoughts and no people pleasing. And that's just be aware if you are hiding something or protecting something. Because when we protect it, we will either try to project it and see it in the world instead of our mind, or we'll try to repress it and and push it down in the unconscious mind. David: And both of those dynamics, projection and repression are egoic dynamics at keeping the separation belief system alive. So that's why we we just encourage people to feel safe enough. I mean, use discernment. You know, you don't. It's not about sharing every thought you have with everyone you meet. But but use the dissernment. And when you feel a trusted friend or a someone that you can feel confident in and feel that they're they're sharing the same purpose of, of healing in the mind, then that allows a spaciousness for these thoughts to come up and and really be released. I think for most people, they they can obviously do this directly with their higher self, with the spirit within, but sometimes they feel like the certain thoughts are highly protected and they, they need maybe a mighty companion or a trusted friend to just say, you got a moment? Can I sit down with you and just tell you some of the thoughts that are going on in my mind, and somehow that helps to loosen it to, you know, it helps to take the pressure off of of those thoughts. You're less likely to hide them if you can share them with a trusted friend. Alison: Even if they're about the trusted friend, or especially if they're about the trusted friend. David: Yeah, I think that's what happens in relationships. I think that's the context for healing that The Course in Miracle you know, will call on us to meditate and to still the mind. It actually uses relationships for healing instead of just kind of say, get away from certain people or go live in a cave or, you know, live in a tree house or something. It's saying, no, use those relationships with the spirit to to accelerate your healing. Alison: Love that. Yeah, I get I get stuck in this loop, David, of people pleasing and feeling like it's almost like I feel when I read A Course of Miracles, and I'm very feeling very in tune with it, I think to myself, oh, I'm not even really here. There is no separation. We're all one. And then that leads me to maybe go... So I don't really have needs. I don't really have needs. So my whole goal would be to please somebody else. And yet, when I hear you say no, people pleasing and a lot of the people we talk to really are saying no, be true to yourself. And sometimes that gets a challenging loop for me. Did that make sense? David: Yeah, yeah. I think we're so used to growing up with, with either like a focus on our personality self or a focus on others. And sometimes when we focus on other people, like obsessively, people say, well, you're really like, extroverted and you, you know, you're you're so concerned about approval and what other people think. And then the flip side is when there's such a focus on, we'll say, the personality self. You know, some people would say that's like narcissism and extreme selfishness. And then you get into almost a sense of like isolation and, and who cares about anyone or anything. And I think the course is really calling us to say there's a state of mind where you can feel connected. And it's not really personal, you know, mystical experiences. When we have those little glimpses, we we have a direct experience that, wow, it's so vast. It's so huge. I never knew it was so huge. So I think that's pretty common, those loops. But it's great that you notice them because that's the first step in escaping them. Alison: Uh huh. Thanks. Well, that makes me feel good. Thank you. That's good. Jean: Oh, well, David, can you please shed some light on the difference between the average way of forgiving and what Jesus talks about forgiveness in The Course of Miracles. Because it's beautiful. Very liberating. Not always, what we think, so that would be great. David: Yeah, well, I think typical forgiveness has it's been practiced and talked about throughout the centuries. Is very much focused on there is a behavior that is judged as a wrongdoing. Either it's a it's a behavior of a mission, like you should have done something that you didn't do or that you did something that you shouldn't have done. So it's very personal. It's as if the error is in the behavior, it's in the action, and then you have to acknowledge it. But it's still very much of a personal forgiveness. It's like one person forgiving another person, one person who perceived they've been wronged, another person who seems to be the one who perpetrated the the crime or did something wrong. And so it's a very personal sense. So in that sense, it's acknowledging something wrong has been done. And then an attempt to let that go, to overlook it, to say, I'm going to give you a free pass here, I'm not going to hold it against you. Whereas with A Course in Miracles, it's saying you have to forgive your brother, your sister for what they have not done in Truth. Being a purely spiritual being. Whatever behaviors have been held against them is part of a misperception of their identity. It's like saying, you're not spirit and and you've done something, and I'm interpreting a sense of abuse or victimization. I'm interpreting a mistreatment. David: And the grievance is arising from the interpretation of the grievance. So we look at somebody like Gandhi, you know, who was always on to non-violence. And the truest nonviolent state is a state of forgiveness, where you you come to a higher interpretation of yourself, of your brothers and sisters and of the whole world. And from this higher interpretation, you actually see from above, from above the battleground that there there was no, there was no grievance, there was no trespass. There was it was a misperception. It wasn't something that was actually real and true. It was just a misperception. And then you you let it go. So forgiveness in this sense, a Course in Miracles sense, is always a gift to yourself, meaning to your mind. You're just releasing judgments and misinterpretations from your mind and coming back to this pristine presence. That is how we were created. The I am Presence. And as we move into I-am-ness then of course, Jesus is a good example of that. Before Abraham was I am. Look at the grammar of that sentence, before Abraham was I am. He's he's actually saying that when you forgive you, you go prior to the belief in the offense, you go, you go into this pristine state where all is one, all is connected, all is unified. And of course, that's the ultimate goal is to remember our love, our oneness, our spirit. Jean: That's beautiful. Alison: That is beautiful. I think when you say that some of the people that we've talked to, have the perception that they've experienced something heinous and they've had really, on an egoic sense, some very traumatic experiences of abuse.... One mother's child was in a shooting and didn't survive. So when when I hear you say that, I want to know that is so. And yet, I wonder what they would say? Do you know..?? And what do you do with that sort of thing? Like if a woman's being literally physically abused by something, the challenge there for them to say, I'm rising above it and it's not really happening, I think must be very difficult? David: Yeah. I think the biggest thing that people have to face on the spiritual journey is, is we'll just call it even definitions. Because when we take what our five senses present to us as a fact, then right away, it gets difficult immediately, because Jesus is teaching us in The Course that perception is a mirror, not a fact. It's giving meaning to something like that's the the second lesson in the workbook-- "I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me." So, when you go for healing, you have to start to realize that when I perceive anything-- abuse, neglect, mistreatment in any shape, in any form, could be something that's happening to a child. Could be the Holocaust, could be, you know, any scale. It could be on a global scale like, World War one or World War two...and it could be something like even somebody who frowns at you, you're going through life la la la la, you're having a happy day. And then around the corner and then you get a look and a frown and then that kind of throws you off. Your day is not so happy when you see the frown, but that's a perception, that's an interpretation. So what I work with people on is, is basically saying, don't try to deny the body, don't try to deny what you're perceiving. Your five senses were made up by the ego to keep you asleep, to put a veil of images. You know, like the Bible said, "hold no graven images for the Lord thy God." Well, he wasn't just talking about gold and totem poles. He was talking about the whole cosmic image thing that we're dealing with, you know, the whole cosmos. But but what it is, once you start to see, wow, I'm never reacting to what I'm perceiving with the five senses. I'm reacting to what my mind is interpreting ABOUT what's happening, what what the five senses are showing me. So A Course In Miracles is just saying, you always have a choice of your interpretation. You can always choose to line up with the Holy Spirit, with your higher self and intuition in any moment, no matter what the situation is. You always have that option, and it takes so much mind training to do that. It's not like we're trying to gloss over anything we're saying, wow, this is a lifelong journey of training your mind to that higher perspective to say, help me see it with you, Spirit. Show it to me through your eyes. So we're not trying to deny what we're perceiving, but we are saying that that we want to train ourselves on how to interpret what we're seeing. So for me, it was one thing to read The Course, I read it for like, I read it for like an average of eight hours a day for like two and a half years. And then when I really started traveling and following intuition and guidance and going to all these countries, some of the countries, I didn't even speak the languages... David: It was a walk of trust. I didn't know how I was going to have my next meal or where I was going to sleep, but what it did was, it really helped me focus on my interpretations. What am I judging? Where am I coming up with fearful interpretations and then being willing to release them and just trust that everything was going to work out? And so, it's not about trying to reach people and basically say that your perception or your belief that you've been harmed is the problem. It's really bringing it back to your own mind and, and saying, If I'm not peaceful, then I need to look at at my interpretations and judgments and hand them over. So when I traveled, basically, I kept hearing Jesus telling me over and over, it's your lesson, It's your lesson... I'd say, but but yeah, yeah.. It's your lesson. It was like a broken record. It's your lesson. Is it ever not my lesson? No. It's always your lesson. And that actually helps you speed up with the forgiveness, because then you're not trying to figure out what somebody else should have done or shouldn't have done, or should have said or shouldn't have said you. You're inner directed that way and I think that helps you take responsibility for your state of mind. Alison: It's so funny you brought up that up..the first time I did the workbook, I had such a hard time with that lesson about looking at a picture of my children and thinking like, you know, when it says, look around the room. And I would look everywhere except on the bureau. I'd be like, yeah, that lamp. Okay, that thing. And then, it took the second and third time to be able to look at a picture of something that I thought was so meaningful And let it know that that's just my perception that I remember that that makes me laugh that you brought that up because that was hard. David: Yeah, yeah...the first time doing that lesson, everyone remember that..yea. hah Alison: Looking everywhere else. Oh, shoes. Okay. You know this that, but not you know. Jean: I think David, you gave a great story of a nun, doing A Course In Miracles... And she says, okay, the habit doesn't mean anything, and this bracelet doesn't mean anything, but the statue of Jesus on the table , well that does mean something... hahah David: Yeah, just skip over that one. Jean: Right. David: That's just assume to be real. Alison: Yeah. David, living in your community with these people, that sounds so wonderful... Does conflict ever arise? David: Oh yeah. I think when you start to see the depth of how deep this ego belief system is.... somebody recently asked me that. They said, do you ever have any conflict in the community? I said, oh, it comes up on a daily basis because we have a number of people. I think by the time we all come together into one place, it's maybe around 40 people or so, but...
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Lorna Byrne
01/17/2024
Lorna Byrne
Spiritual teacher, international bestselling author and philanthropist Lorna Byrne has dedicated her life to remind humanity of the spiritual potential within us all. She is the author of seven best-selling books, including Angels in My Hair. Her teachings are the result of a remarkable gift, a divine connection providing her with incredible, detailed knowledge of the spiritual side of life. --Transcript-- Alison Martin: Hi, Jean. Jean Trebek: Hi, Alison. Alison Martin: How are you? Alison Martin: I'm great. Oh, great. We saw a movie last night and it was really fun just to. I haven't gone to a movie in, like, an a theater in a while. You go pretty regularly, right? Jean Trebek: I go, like, maybe once a month. Yeah. Alison Martin: Yeah, I love movies. Jean Trebek: Me too. Alison Martin: I just love it. And I loved being in the big theater, and I just loved it. It was really fun. Yeah. Go see a movie. Jean Trebek: Go see a movie. Alison Martin: And that's it for today. Thanks for tuning in today. Actually, no. We even have the most special of guests today, Lorna Byrne. Jean Trebek: Yes, she communicates with angels and she's had this, I want to say gift, but it's just an extension of her, her beingness. She communicates with angels ever since she was a little girl. Alison Martin: She sees them and talks with them. And she's so peaceful and beautiful. And she was talking to us from Ireland. Jean Trebek: Which was fun because I just came back from Ireland and I was on cloud nine. Alison Martin: There you go. And you're wearing your Irish sweater. Jean Trebek: I am. Alison Martin: So she was just so lovely and I had not been familiar with her. And now I love her. Jean Trebek: Yeah, I have been familiar with her. She wrote a book back in 2009 which really put her on the map called Angels in My Hair, and she just gives so many fascinating stories about the truth of angels and their existence and their big desire to help. Alison Martin: Yeah, it really just was, so... It brought me to tears a little bit. Speaking with her, she's so sweet. We know you're going to love her. So here's here's Lorna Byrne. Lorna Byrne: Hi, Alice. And Alison. Is it Alison? Alison Martin: Yes hi, Lorna! Lorna Byrne: And Jean. I'm very bad with names. Alison Martin: That's okay. Jean Trebek: You're in good company. Lorna Byrne: Good, good. So I'm looking forward to chatting with you. So whatever's going to happen. Jean Trebek: Yes. Alison Martin: Well, we're so happy that you're taking this time to talk with us because your books and just you are so, so interesting and fascinating, actually. Jean Trebek: And I want to just say right off in the beginning here. How much, I think the angels, their presence now is being recognized more and more. Do you do you sense that? Lorna Byrne: Yes I do. You know, it's like, more and more people of all ages are recognizing that. Maybe they will say, sometimes, maybe I have a guardian angel. Maybe that's why I got out of that situation with that help, you know. So it's lovely. And I just love the way God uses the angels. Jean Trebek: Yes. Alison Martin: And you've always seen angels. That's always right? Lorna Byrne: Always. Um, I didn't know now they were angels. You have to remember, when I was very tiny, I didn't know it was only when I was older. So I don't know what it's like for you. Like, to me, I couldn't imagine if you were in this room with me not seeing your guardian angel there as well, or any other angel or a soul of a loved one, or something fleeting by in that sense, you know. So it's normal for me. Just like it's normal for you - sitting there with each other and and what you feel and see around you. Alison Martin: So right now, when you're looking at us, are you seeing angels around us? Lorna Byrne: No, no, that seldom happens. That seldom happens on very rare occasions. And that would happen. Um, but sometimes I don't know how they do the communication. But sometimes if you ask something, your guardian angel may answer it. It's passed. I don't know how they do it, how I can, so I can't explain everything, but I try. Alison Martin: That's beautiful. Jean Trebek: You know, personally, I have felt very connected to the angels and have listened to a lot of sound healing from the angelic realms. And can you tell us the difference between an archangel and a guardian angel? Lorna Byrne: It's a lovely question. Um, well, for a start, your guardian angel was appointed to you before your soul even came - before you were conceived, and it can't leave you for one second. You know, and it just loves you unconditionally, no matter what. And I love that personally myself. You know, in that, that there's someone there that loves me unconditionally. You know, no matter what I've done or what I've gone through in my life, they see me as unique and beautiful and that goes for everyone. And it's the gatekeeper of your soul. But an archangel, an archangel can be with hundreds and thousands of people, as far as I can make out, all at the same time. They can be here with me and yet be all over the world at the same time. And I can't explain that. Alison Martin: Right. Could you tell us a little bit about in your book what you call -Unemployed Angels? Lorna Byrne: Oh, I love the Unemployed Angels. I suppose I've never told this before, but, um, you know, one time when I was in Ballymun and we were living in our aunt's house at the time because the roof had fallen in and everything like that, so we became homeless and, um, I was up at the top of the road kind of was like a T junction. And I was standing there and giving out, and then just my guardian angel and angel hostess just said, look up, and I could see these angels tumbling down. And the only way I can describe them, if you can imagine this enormous angel curled up in a ball like. And then just as they come down to the earth, just quite close, they start to straighten up. And it's like they land perfectly, but their feet don't touch the ground. And I call them unemployed angels, because on that particular evening and there was a neighbor, you know, up the road a bit, and he was struggling with, I don't know exactly what he was struggling with, but he was pulling things in and out of his garden, you know, and I just remember saying saying, you know. Angel hostess the man could do with a helping hand. And I was just asked, well, what would you like to call these angels? And because they have nothing to do and I just said unemployed. So they have been called the unemployed angels. Alison Martin: I like that term unemployed angels because it makes me feel there's angels all around just waiting to help. Lorna Byrne: Oh, yeah. Like even your guardian angel. Like even the archangels, you know, so many different angels that are called in to help us all of the time. But the unemployed angels, I love them because I would often see them. You know, I could be walking down, like here in Kilkenny. You know, the back streets are real tiny. So, you know, even if it's not busy, it's busy. And yet, you know, just watching the unemployed angels moving in and out between people. And I would know that they're hoping that someone in their mind or, you know, God could do with a helping hand or this is really heavy because I would often see, you know, the angels, all of a sudden an unemployed angel go straight to a person. And I know that person - something must have gone through their mind and called on them, even if they didn't know. And I love that. Alison Martin: It's beautiful. Jean Trebek: Lorna, so you say several times in your books that one must ask for help. Can you talk about that? Lorna Byrne: I say that because it's like as if - how can I say it? It's like as if the whatever help you ask for, you have empowered your guardian angel and all the angels. You have empowered even the souls of loved ones. The question I haven't really been asked before in the way you've asked it. And that seems to, you know, you've asked for it, so you've given permission. You have to remember no angel can overstep your choice or your free will in any way. And I love that. That's why, you know, ask! Pester them! It doesn't mean you'll get it either. Like I'll say that as well. Jean Trebek: That's true. Lorna Byrne: You know, the most important thing is that if you're striding down an area or a road and you're heading for something and you believe it's for you, at least you're trying, and if it's to be, it will turn out that way, you know? But if it's not to be, they will turn you in another direction for something better. And I love that. Like, you know, I've heard that from so many, especially women, by the way, more so than men and all around the world - They say they were so focused on something and asking God and asking their guardian angel and the archangels, every angel they could call in, you know, for some particular thing to work out for them because they believed it was for them and they could do it and it would be greatly successful. And then say, Lorna, we're so glad we didn't get it. I'm so glad it didn't happen, because look at what I have now is a million times better. And that's the important thing to try and not be so disappointed. And when something doesn't succeed for you because you have learned a lot, you know, and that learning is probably for something else, you need it. You need it. Alison Martin: That's right. Jean Trebek: There's that great quote that says, be careful what you wish for. Alison Martin: Could you just for our listeners - what is an angel? Lorna Byrne: And that's a lovely question. An angel is light. You know, they're like a beam of light. But I think this is the part of the question you're asking. But they give a human appearance within that beam of light not just within it... It's like the whole beam of light takes the human appearance on. And I love the way their clothing can change. And they're neither male nor female either, but their clothing is not like ours. You know, we take off our clothing. Their clothing is part of them. I think that is very beautiful because many a time when I'd be looking at an angel, it's... I have spoken a little bit about the depth of an angel. It's like you could step into them, you could go through one, you know, one fold on the clothing and you're somewhere else in that sense, it's like as if it's never ending. But they are very beautiful. I have never seen an ugly angel as humans say, use that word. And I have never seen an angel be angry or, you know, they're always so kind and so loving. Their love for us is unconditional. Like your guardian angel's love for you and everyone's guardian angel out there, their love for them is unconditional. And to your guardian angel, you are...it's number one and it only has eyes for you. It's not interested in Alice. They're sitting beside you, you know. Or I'm bad with names or Jean's? Your guardian angel is not interested in Alice sitting there beside you. Alison Martin: Alison Lorna Byrne: Alison. Alison. Right. Alison Martin: It's okay. Lorna Byrne: Well, this is part of being dyslexic as well, so... It just happens. Alison Martin: Totally. Doesn't matter. Lorna Byrne: I just love that the way your guardian angel loves you unconditionally. And it's there for you and you're it's number one. And it only has eyes for you. And you're perfect and unique to your guardian angel. And you're absolutely beautiful, you know, and it's the gatekeeper of your soul. So you know that spark of light, your soul is, you know, that spark of light of God. So your guardian angel is in the presence of a human being, but of God as well. And I think that is so powerful. Alison Martin: So, what you just said brings almost tears to my eyes. So it's a part of God. An angel is because we're all really maybe like a part of God. But they are created to solely help us and be present for us. Lorna Byrne: Yeah. And I would agree definitely with that. Um, I'm severely dyslexic, so I don't read... Don't send me off somewhere because, you know, the angels don't help me anymore because I had to learn myself, you know? But if you tell me, you go left and right, I have to figure or that code out before I even head off. Then I'm trying to figure out the code and if a sign changes, forget it - like even if the ladies and gents bathrooms and I'm in another country and I don't recognize the sign. I have so many gone into gents because I was so sure that was the ladies, you know, so sure, so positive in that, in that way. Um, so, you know, it's it's to believe in yourself as well. You know, that's what your guardian angel wants you to do is to believe in you as it as it believes in you. You know, you believe in yourself. And I'm all the time saying to so many people of all ages, men and women and children and teenagers, you know. Do your best to love yourself like your guardian angel loves you. You know, your guardian angel sees you as unique and beautiful. Why not see you yourself that way? Why not believe in yourself as your guardian angel believes in you? And I know it's so important for us to love ourselves so we can love others as well. More. And but I love the way sometimes when I'd see someone sad or down, you know, and the guardian angel holding a light or having other guardian other not guardian angels, other angels, you know, come and hold a light in front of someone that is beautiful to see. Jean Trebek: Lorna, is there a specific way to connect with your guardian angel? But since they're with us all the time, is it just asking them? Lorna Byrne: And I would say there's no specific way, you know, just ask. Just give yourself a chance. If you don't believe, you know, if you're suspicious and all that kind of thing, give yourself a chance. Say to yourself, you know, what have I got to lose? You've actually nothing to lose, only to gain, you know, and ask for that help, you know. And lots of times people will ask for a sign. Now, sometimes people might ask for, you know, a brand new house to come along or a car to come along or, you know, crazy things that won't happen because signs are very hard for the angels to do. But when you get to know your guardian angel, the signs become easier because you start to recognize them. And maybe your guardian angel in the future knows that you know you want this house or this car, and maybe it will happen. And you have to then smile at yourself and say, well, 20 years ago I just laughed at the idea, saying, and now I know I have it, but a lot of things would have had to happen in order for that to happen. But most people will ask for, you know, a feather. Or a phone call. And some some people now are asking just for a smile. Lorna Byrne: Someone to smile at me. And I think that's very, very beautiful. And I often hear the strangest stories of people saying, you know, they never believed when they asked for a feather. They thought it was, you know, crazy. It would never happen. And, you know, they said it didn't happen straight away. You know, it could be six months down the road. And at a time when they were kind of saying, I could do with that sign now because of where I am. And you'd hear people telling you, you know, they picked up the tablecloth and a feather came from under it, or, you know, they opened a drawer and there was never feathers at all. And then or a book, something like that. Or always remember a lady, you know, with her shoe, like she says. But Lorna, there has never been feathers in my home, not even in the pillows, you know, in that, in that way. But the other one is a flower. And a lot of people would ask for a bouquet of flowers or something like that. Um, but I bet now if it came into your head to give someone a bouquet of flowers, you'd probably put it off... Lorna Byrne: So the angels work really, really hard. They put the thought into your head to do something for someone else. That's a sign, because they can't hand them the flowers. But children are very good at listening to their guardian angel. You know, and have often seen witnessed it happening loads of times where a child will pick a wild flower and run over to a stranger and hand it to them. Yes, you know that's your flower or your bouquet of flowers that's it all wrapped up. But sometimes I have seen where someone said thanks to the child, gave them a smile and walked off, and then threw it away. So they threw away their sign in that sense. So I'm always trying to just make people help them to just be aware. It's to be aware to see the good things in your life, the blessings in your life, not to be seen all the time, the negative. Alison Martin: With so much going on in the world right now, and when you describe, your whole presence gives off the love that you're talking about. And there's so much going on in the world right now. And I was wondering when something like a war happens or something like that, do angels cry because they love us so much? Lorna Byrne: Um, I have never seen them cry as in the way we cry, but I have seen and know what's happening even now and millions of angels have, what would you say? Flocks to that area, to those areas. Even to places where you don't know where there's trouble, but you haven't heard about it in that way. And the unemployed angels, I always ask people, you know, you don't have to send an unemployed angel to a friend or someone who believes. How about sending it to a stranger? How about asking for the unemployed angels? More of them, you know, to go to the places where horrific things are happening, you know, and people are doing that. I think that is that's those who are not in a bad area as such in the world. You know, we're sending love, we're caring, we're praying and we're doing anything else we can. Because I did watch a bit of the news just a little while ago, and I was just praying and asking, God, send all the angels there, all the comfort that can be given. And, somehow, peace to come somehow, because it's not simple. You know, we all think it's simple, but it's not simple, you know, and especially when you see a child on the TV, on the news and they say, but I did nothing wrong...That's heart rendering. You know, when a child says something like that. Speaker4: We're really living through a time of where I think faith is so, so important. And it sounds like when you talk about like the feather or they send daily miracles we can see. Lorna Byrne: Yeah. Miracles happen all the time. Like the three of us talking is a miracle, you know? How did it happen? Nothing happens in the sense of I know God and the angels are working very, very hard, you know, to soften our hearts. You know, regardless of the pain and hurt we have gone through and and even our loved ones that have gone ahead of us, they're touching our hearts, as well. And we need our hearts touched. We need our soul touched. We're human beings and we're a spiritual being as well. And that's the spark of light of God. That's the spiritual part. But the human part has great difficulty. If someone says something nasty to you, you will take it personally or if somebody runs somebody else down and that makes them then feel very down and depressed within themselves - that's the human part. But the angels and the souls of loved ones are all the time reaching out to us to get us to have a bigger heart. And one thing the angels always said to me from the time I was very small, Lorna - and they use big words and I could never pronounce the word Lorna - Don't take it personal. They know no better. Give them a hug. And I still do that today. Alison Martin: That's wonderful. What do you think? What do you. What do you think heaven is? Lorna Byrne: Oh, that's a lovely question to be asked as well. Well, heaven is beyond your comprehension...
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Dr. Rebecca Heiss
01/03/2024
Dr. Rebecca Heiss
Dr. Rebecca Heiss is a science-backed leadership and performance expert, driving teams to excel through change and engage ALL-IN. Author of Instinct: Rewire your Brain with Science Backed Solutions to Increase Productivity“ "As a biologist and stress expert, I work with individuals and organizations to transform mindsets from fear (of change, growth, rejection, & failure) to awe and adventure." --Transcript-- Alison Martin: Hi, Jean. Jean Trebek: Hi, Alison. Alison Martin: How are you? Jean Trebek: I'm great. How are you? Alison Martin: I'm pretty good. I had a very, very busy week, and. Jean Trebek: We both did. Today we're going to introduce you to Rebecca Heiss. And we loved her. I thought she was just great. She wrote a book called Instinct: Rewire Your Brain with Science Backed Solutions to Increase Productivity and Achieve Success. And I literally could not put this book down. She shows you a lot of what evolution has left us with, like fear or gender roles or things like this, and how you can overcome that to really benefit yourself, your work environment and your family. It's amazing. Jean Trebek: She she also offers, which I was doing online, this Fear(less) modules. It's a class she gives you every day. She presents new things to consider. And it's about eight minutes every day. And it's brilliant. You know, she talks about that the brain does not know the difference between something that's real and something that's imaginary. Alison Martin: Right... which is so interesting because then you're really in control. You are really in control. Jean Trebek: And staying present...Staying present. She gives tips on a healthy brain and I think everyone we've ever spoken to, everyone that talks about healthy brain always talks about the importance of sleep. Alison Martin: Yes. So I'm going to lay down. You shall finish this interview. Well, here she is. We think you're going to love her. Here's Rebecca. Rebecca Heiss: It's so nice to meet you all. Jean Trebek: It's so great to meet you. Alison Martin: We're chatting about your book and your modules. Rebecca Heiss: Get out of here. Oh, my gosh, that makes me feel so good. Are you enjoying it so far? Alison Martin: I well, I love this book. I read a lot of books. And the way we get through them is, I say 50 pages a day. You know, but I couldn't put this one down. Rebecca Heiss: Oh. Thank you. That means so much. Gosh. Alison Martin: You're exactly my type of person. Because you're based in science. And I find it fascinating that then you talk about your personal things and make it be, from my point of view, a little more spiritual. Rebecca Heiss: I'm with you on that. I'm with you on that. This is my first book. I learned a lot, including sometimes we have some compromises that we need to make when we go with a publisher. Love them. Don't want to speak poorly of them, but yeah, for the next one, think... Think they'll be a little more, as I like to call it, the woo woo is slipping in. Alison Martin: That's good. Jean Trebek: You know, I think, Rebecca, and I'm Jean by the way. Alison Martin: I'm Alison. Hi. Rebecca Heiss: Hi, Jean. Hi, Alison. It's nice to meet you all. Well, I was on at 9:00 this morning because dum dum here could not figure out time zones. And then I was like, no, no, this is this is not right. We got to figure it out. Alison Martin: Where are you? Rebecca Heiss: Well, I was on the West coast yesterday and then flew home today. I'm in Greenville, South Carolina today, so I'm back home with my sleeping dog. Jean Trebek: So cute. Rebecca Heiss: That's goodness. Always at my side. Jean Trebek: Well, what I wanted to say is that I'm noticing that science and spirituality are really showing up more and more together that they're honoring each other. So I love that. Rebecca Heiss: I couldn't agree more. I don't know where you are in the book or don't even remember if I put this in the book, but one of my spiritual awakenings was recognizing, like, how little we see until we start paying attention to it. And, you know, I studied birds and taking the bird under UV light for the first time. And I was like, oh my gosh, there's so many patterns and colors that we just don't see and that doesn't mean that they don't exist or it's not real. It's that we don't have the tools to measure it or the ability to see it as humans. And so often I think, you know, science and spirituality are this are this magical mystery of going, okay, we don't have the tools, but that doesn't mean that it's not happening or that it's not out there. And so as a scientist, like that's part of the fun for me. It's like, that's exciting. Like, can we find a tool? Can we find a way? And if we can't, okay. It still can be real. So yeah. Alison Martin: In your modules online you share about going, I think it was to San Juan and not knowing what to do. And I was like, yes. And I still don't even know if I know what my therapist said, "well, what what's fun for you?" And I'm like, me alone? I don't know. Jean has this thing where she can be doing something in a city alone, and I'm always like, wow, look at that. What do you think? Rebecca Heiss: Yeah. Alison, that's fascinating because my sister and I had this same conversation today. This Is still something I struggle with of like, okay, I, I'm super, super lucky. I've been incredibly lucky in my life and don't have to work. Right. So. Well, what do I want? What do I want to do? Like what brings me joy? And I think for so long, you know, and no fault of our parents or anybody trying to nurture us, but it's like, okay, you need to survive. You need to achieve this. You need to get this. You need to get the house. You need to get the things so that you're secure. But we're never coached on like, then what? Like, well, now I've got the things so....? It is really hard to tap into that self. Alison Martin: How did you how did you solve that for yourself. Have you found your stuff that brings you joy? Rebecca Heiss: Yeah, it's an ongoing journey, honestly. I'll tell you, Alison, I'm still not there. Every day I wake up and I'm like, all right, how does it feel today? And I think so much of it is tapping back into that intuition, not having to be science led, not having to have the exact answer and just going - this feels good. Let me do more of that. And then when it stops feeling good - okay, back off. You don't have to. You know, again, I think, we live in a society where if it's good, then more is obviously better. And, um, and that's not the case. So, less and less and less and less has been my secret. The less stuff I have, the less I travel, the less I do, the more I find peace. That's been and being able to tap back into - Oh right, this is what brings me joy. Right. Yeah. It's hard though I think. Alison Martin: Is it the should? Rebecca Heiss: Those shoulds? Yeah. Alison Martin: I know like for me, I live with a lot of shoulds. Do you? Jean Trebek: I'm really trying not to. Like being aware of when when I say to myself- Am I doing this out of inspiration, obligation or desperation? Rebecca Heiss: Oh, that is so good. Yeah, he says. Wait, inspiration... desperation... Or what was the other one? Jean Trebek: Obligation. Rebecca Heiss: Obligation. I'm writing that down. That's good. Jean Trebek: And if you're doing something out of obligation, just own it. Rebecca Heiss: Yeah.. Jean Trebek: Okay, I'm going to take my mom to the dentist. I'm not wired, but I'm not desperate. Alison Martin: Do you still live by shoulds at all, Rebecca? Rebecca Heiss: Oh, sure. Yeah. Listen, I'd love to say I'm completely free of it, but I'm not. That wouldn't be honest. I hear a lot of shoulds now. I think the difference is I've become very conscious of them. And so now it's more of my choice. And I'm going, you should. Well, should you? Do you have to? Is it obligation? Right? And then it becomes actually I really like this framework. Well it's an obligation. It's an obligation. You know, it's not it's nothing inspired about, you know, having to go to the gym and having to lift weights. But I do feel better and I know that I will. And so tricking my brain into remembering the feeling that I'll have when I'm done. That is kind of the inspiration to do the shoulds that feel like obligations to me. Jean Trebek: Right, yeah. Alison Martin: Otherwise we might just all stay in bed all day. Rebecca Heiss: I mean, honestly, when people say like they don't want any stress in their life, I'm like, well, that's literally what's going to happen because you won't get out of bed, right? And don't think it leads to a very fulfilling life. But. Yeah, that's that's an option. Actually there's really there's been really interesting research that I came across recently about the most purposeful, fulfilled lives. And this was like a massive (you probably have seen this), but it was a massive study across like a large swath of Americans. And the number one correlate to a meaningful, purposeful life was stress. So like stressful events that happened in the past, stressful moments in the present and even like future worry and anxiety were predictors of a fulfilled, purposeful life. And I was like, oh, all right. That's something to keep in mind as I'm in that, you know, distress zone. Jean Trebek: Right. Jean Trebek: That's really interesting. And what I thought was interesting, I have a child who's non-binary. So the gender sex thing was... it's amazing because it's so insidious like the, you know, like women not promoting women or like just the numbers you gave of the amount of women, that's amazing to me. Rebecca Heiss: Yeah. It's funny. So I'm giving a TEDx on Wednesday. Um, oh gosh.But specifically on gender and and power and how culturally we've defined power as achievement. Right? Success is money and finance and politics and power. And we've neglected to cheerlead, I think, men or non-binary people into feminine power, into vulnerability, into connection, into all of these. These, these superpowers of women that don't have monetary value. And so they've not been seen as as powerful. There's a really interesting, uh, approach there. I think we'll see. We'll see how it goes. Alison Martin: Good luck. Jean Trebek: Yeah. Rebecca Heiss: Thanks. You may hear about it, but you probably won't remember. Alison Martin: Remember stress makes you have a better life. You just told us that. So there you go. Rebecca Heiss: That's right. Increases my performance. I got this. Jean Trebek: You know, one of, Rebecca, one of the modules on that amazing course that you've developed. I mean, there's so much packed in there. I was telling Alison, I really think that course should be a mandatory class taken. Rebecca Heiss: Thank you. Alison Martin: Truly, Jean Trebek: It should a required class like as a senior in high school. Rebecca Heiss: Thank you. That means so much. We were just talking when you got up there about purpose and what drives you and the shoulds. And I feel like one of my biggest drivers is trying to get something like this into high schools, because when I'm asked my favorite talk that I've ever given, I'll tell you a very quick story. I was giving a talk in in Charlotte, and this gentleman overheard me and he wasn't part of the talk. He kind of like walked in at the end and he pulled me aside afterwards. He's like, you know, my kid is playing basketball. He's on this elite basketball team for 15 and under, you know, like ranked in the nation. And their team is just sucking. They're just really playing poorly this tournament. Would you give them ten minutes of your time? I was like, yeah, of course. Like I'll go and give a little... listen, it's been a minute since I've talked to 15 year old boys. And I was like, you know, I'm giving a terrible, terrible presentation. They are just completely zoned out. I saved it a little bit at the end, and I gave them a couple little things to try. And the the coaches invited me to the game, and I watched them start to implement these things as they played. And it felt like I was watching Disney movie, like they should have gotten creamed. And then the fourth quarter, you know, they're up by eight points. There's 30s left and this kid comes off the bench who's been playing just he's been lighting it up all night. And he finds me in the stands and he just whispers. He mouths to me. - THANK YOU And I'm just like. Alison Martin: Oh my gosh. Jean Trebek: Yeah. Rebecca Heiss: I'm just like, losing my mind because you think about the power of stuff like this. I wrote this course for the 16 year old me. You know, this is the stuff that I needed at that age. Um, and I'm still teaching it to, you know, 70 year old CEOs.. Jean Trebek: It's amazing and there's just so much that you offer in the online class that you give just one thing that, I mean, there was so much that stood out for me, but one in particular was the difference between being busy and being productive. I thought that was so great. Staying focused and that we're not meant to be multitaskers. Rebecca Heiss: Oh my gosh. And then the society that we live in today, like good luck ping ding ding. You know, you're just like popping everywhere. It's the confetti - time confetti - You know two minutes here, 30s there, and trying to stay focused in a distracted world is... Good luck being productive. Being productive on something that's meaningful and valuable to you rather than I still find myself in days that I have to reset and I have to go back to my own teachings because I spent all morning answering emails and then I'm like, wait, where did the day go? You know, I was supposed to be writing or I was supposed to be doing something productive, and all I did was answer emails all morning. That's how it sucks you in. Alison Martin: When I was reading this, I did not realize, like, the idea that I'm having too much choice is not necessarily positive. And do you think there's hope? Where is your hope lie? When you wrote something like this. Rebecca Heiss: You know, I often describe myself as an optimist and a realist. So it is this constant battle, right? I do think that this stuff is tough, right? You're fighting against 100, thousand, 200,000 years of evolution that is built your brain in this very specific way. And my optimist side says, yeah, but you can drive and you can drive for an hour completely subconsciously, like you're screaming at the kids in the back, you're adjusting your podcast. You remember the first time you drove a car, right? Your hands are tied and you're like, oh my gosh, there's street signs. I got to pay attention to all of this, right? Very different experience. And so if we can train our subconscious brain to do this like complex changing task, like driving, I think it's I think there's a lot of hope when we recognize the changes that we're looking to make. Um, I think there's great power there. And I'll add to that, there was a study. Oh, man, I want to say it 2003. Don't quote me on that. I'll look back,,, On epigenetics. And essentially they took these mice. They sprayed a scent of cherry blossoms and then immediately shocked these these male mice now sounds awful. Sorry, science. I know I'm giving scientists a bad name, but what happened was they developed this basic conditioning response, right? They started to shake and shiver and be fearful every time they smelled cherry blossoms. And then they took these male, these male mice, and they bred them to female mice that had never smelled cherry blossoms, never been exposed to the shock. And the pups, the offspring were then exposed to cherry blossoms. And what happened? They shook as if this fear had been genetically coded and transferred to their offspring. Which is like mind blowing when you think about generational trauma. And it gives me a lot of hope, because that also means that we are our own wizards, right? We have instead of looking for the wizard behind the curtain, right to tell us, oh, you've got the power. You know, we're wearing the ruby slippers. We all have the ability to actually change a lot of this wiring and allow the next generation allow ourselves first, but definitely the next generation to see things differently and to have a different response. So I think that's really, really powerful. Alison Martin: So so from that I remember I remember you talking about that my study, which kind of blew my mind a little bit and frightened me a little bit... Because I'm a parent, right? I have two kids. And first I thought of all the things that I experienced that I think are traumatic. And then, like, I just wanted to hold them. And then think about what the world has been through in terms of Covid and these wars, Does that mean that my kids, having experienced that, that Covid will be affecting us for some for generations? Rebecca Heiss: So it's a yes. And um, I think yeah, absolutely. There's certainly that trauma and they're completely natural to have that fear response of like, oh my gosh, what did I pass along? You know... And our brain is wired to see all the negative things, all the trauma that we're passing on. Think of all the good things that happened to you. Think of your response to go hug your kids like that right there. That makes me tear up, because that's the kind of response that's getting passed along as well. And so just having that mind shift of, okay, yes, there are definitely some traumas that I'm passing along and look at the resiliency that I'm passing along. Did we make it through Covid? Did we have deeper relationships as a result? Did we really discover what's important during Covid? Like there's some really valuable stuff that we get to pass along as well. And I think I think it's easy to skip over that and to miss that. Um, because again, that's how our brain is wired, but it makes me feel better. Yeah, sure. Alison Martin: This is all about my insecurity. So thank you so much. But I think that's right. Like we talk about that... Something will happen and Jean will say you're doing a great job or look at this, or look how you've helped your kids and likewise. And so I think that's right. I was just - you're right - my brain was just looking at the negative stuff when I heard that. Rebecca Heiss: Which is totally natural. Right. That's exactly what you're supposed to do. So thank your brain and then you know, and then say, okay, well what else is there? What else? What else actually actually pass along. That's that's powerful. That's good. Yeah. Alison Martin: Also. You met your husband? Boyfriend? Rebecca Heiss: Husband. Alison Martin: Yeah, on a plane. Rebecca Heiss: And that's the best story. Alison Martin: Okay, but wait. He's the guy that it will have to interview people for a job. And if the first one comes in and is it? I was like, I love this guy. Yeah. Rebecca Heiss: Yeah. I mean he's an all in kind of guy. Right? He's like here's the boxes. This ticks the box I'm not going to maximize I'm not going to look for the the Barbie girl with an IQ of 400 who's going to be out saving the world. You know what, Rebecca ticks the boxes. Let's do this. So thank goodness I got lucky there. I think, um, I got really lucky. He's pretty incredible. I forget exactly how much I told in the book about that story, but met me on the plane, proposed to me on the plane. Um, no, it's pretty special. Alison Martin: That's amazing. Rebecca Heiss: Oh, I didn't tell you that? Alison Martin: No. All you say is, what's his name, Dr. Jovan or...? Rebecca Heiss: Devins. Alison Martin: Now you got to tell us. Rebecca Heiss: All right, I'll tell you because it's a great story. So I give up my seat so a couple can sit together. I was flying to California to give a speech, and he was flying to Kansas City to go to a meeting. So we were both flying out of, out of Greenville, South Carolina, which is where we live. We lived about ten minutes apart at the time, and I'd...
/episode/index/show/9b9d37f3-5027-46a8-8271-f4656cb937bd/id/28624318
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Jill Renee Feeler
12/20/2023
Jill Renee Feeler
Jill Renee Feeler is a top rated, world recognized psychic, intuitive, medium, channeler and healer, sharing her gifts since 2009. Many individuals find Jill when they are looking for reasonable answers to life’s big questions or trying to make sense of themselves, others and this reality. Jill excels in personal consulting, mediumship, and business advising. --Transcript-- Alison Martin: Hey, I think that's it. Here we go. Alison Martin: Okay. Say what you just said. Jean Trebek: Oh, God. Alison Martin: We want to get a vaccine for inside Wink, because we're going viral. We don't even really know what that means. That's what's so great about us. Jean Trebek: That's funny. I love seeing you laugh. Alison Martin: Really? I feel very happy today. Jean Trebek: Yeah, me too. Do you know why? Because we are interviewing Jill Renee Filler. Alison Martin: It was actually because of Buddy. Oh, yes, buddy. Look, Jean's daughter got a little puppy named Buddy, and we saw it yesterday. And I have to tell you, that little dog is a little piece of piece of work. We called him a little pocket. Jean Trebek: He is the cutest little miniature Australian shepherd. And he is so perfect for Emily because she's perfect. She's just so wonderful. And this dog is wonderful. Alison Martin: So and, you know, it's a big change. Jean Trebek: It is. I mean, sometimes you wonder, how should I have done this? Alison Martin: And then everything changes and it seems to work out. It does. You know? Jean Trebek: I think that's something really good to remember, that things always work out. Alison Martin: And things always change. There's some times when you're stuck in a feeling and you go, Oh, and then you realize, Oh, this is going to change, right? This is going to change. Okay, now who are we interviewing besides Buddy? Jean Trebek: Oh, this beautiful friend of mine, Jill Renee Feller. Alison Martin: Tell me a little bit about her. How did you meet her? Jean Trebek: She was on a web seminar that I was listening to and that I still listen to John Burgos. And I just love Jill. I loved her out of the gate. And she is a really beautiful blend of practicality and owning your own spiritual sovereignty, not giving your power away, and all the while being very kind and respectful and loving. Alison Martin: I actually loved this interview because she has strong ideals and beliefs and she's positive and powerful. And I really I think you guys are going to enjoy this. So she's amazing. Amazing. So so here she is. Jean Trebek: So can you start from how you became interested in spirituality? Jill Renee Feeler: Oh, there are so many ways to tell this story. And I'm guessing everybody that's experiencing this can probably resonate with that. Let me just take a moment and try and describe it. I was and I'm still very right-brained, is the term that's often used, very type-A, very achievement oriented, very competitive with myself type of person. And because of that, I have the ability to get kind of wrapped around the axle a little bit, high strung about things, overthink things. I don't know if anyone here can relate to that. Alison Martin: Not at all. Jill Renee Feeler: There was a particular time, though, where I was very just uncertain about a different choice I wanted to make in my business career, my professional business career, and my sister in law, who's much more open-minded about different ways of looking at things. She's very she's a novice, but very skilled at things like numerology, which I had never, you know, really taken an interest in, I'd never had an astrology reading or anything like that. So she's over. We're my husband and I and our kids were hosting probably like a Father's Day or something like that. And she said, You look more stressed than usual. And I was like, Yeah, I'm trying to decide if I want to, you know, be the CEO of the screen company startup or if I'm going to stay in my perfect, cushy kind of startup corporate gig. And she goes, You should go see my psychic. And I was just thinking, Thanks, Julie. Like I was thinking in my head, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard of, is what I'm thinking. But not saying right. Jill Renee Feeler: I'm polite. Um, but lo and behold, a couple days later, I was thinking, what is the harm? Um, what could I lose by going to hear somebody else's perspective? And it just I just, for whatever reason, became open minded about that idea. So I reached out to my sister in law and got that person's name. I did get a session from that person and it was very good. It was very insightful. She was very wise about things. And her perspective was just really, really spot on. Alison Martin: Um, wow. Jill Renee Feeler: And remember, still some of the words that she said. She, she knew why I was there. She was not trying to guess, like, why I was there. She already knew. And she wasn't pretending, you know, that she, that she was guessing that she said, But we meditated for a while. And remember, that was a very comical experience because I had never done that before. And I thought, what is she doing? I'm just sitting here. I'm supposed to be doing something. Um, and then eventually she started recording. And I have a similar handheld recorder now that I use all these years later. And she said, You know, anyone can be the CEO of that startup company, Jill, but no one else can be the mother to your daughters. And my kids were little. They were like five and two, I think, at the time. And I was just like, Oh, did not expect that answer. And she wasn't being like, you know, anti-feminist or anything like that. She was just telling me what I needed a reminder to hear. Jill Renee Feeler: And I'm still embarrassed that I needed that reminder, but I needed that reminder. So there was so much more that she just was very, um, every all the information she gave me was so relevant and so insightful. So I was already kind of giving her a lot of credibility. And then she said, You're incredibly intuitive, like you're really connected to the Jesus and the Mary Magdalene storyline, and you're not even tapping into that. And I was just thinking, what is she talking about? You know? But it did it. That was kind of like a crack in my doorway of what was possible. And within weeks, I would say paranormal sort of things started to happen. My youngest one was reading my mind, demonstrating telepathy, um, in ways that were completely just obvious. Um, and it really kind of took my world in a lot of ways, but I didn't want to let go of what was before my, my opening to this and to a broader way of looking at myself was not based on hitting rock bottom. It wasn't based on an identity crisis. Right? So and I don't want to discount the relevance of that for other people, but mine wasn't like that. Um, so I don't have that Byron Katie kind of story, right. Um, but I like it that I was sort of intact in a lot of ways, but was also missing out on a lot at the same time. So my journey into this wider version of myself wasn't giving up anything that I was, but it was adding a lot to what I am. And that worked really well for me. Alison Martin: And how did that look for you like? What is in your toolbox now that wasn't there before? Jill Renee Feeler: A lot. I've had so many practitioners you know channelers, mediums, intuitives, readers, healers now consult with me that they are reaching out to me for advice and wisdom and insight and support. Now I can see that my journey is unique, that I, I wanted my brain wanted to get perfect at these things and learn from all these people and read all these books. But it was a small part of me and there was a bigger part of me just really. It's almost like self advising. Do not follow the path of other teachers. Figure this out on your own practice experiment. Be curious. Stay curious about how you are connected in these ways. And I did feel this really strongly and I'm getting goosebumps as I think about it. Be willing to disagree with even the most popular teachings you come across. Alison Martin: Wow. Jill Renee Feeler: Not to be adversarial, but to expand the choices of of how we can feel the connection to source and to God that we are. So that has served me well. Alison Martin: That that must have been a little nerve wracking. Jill Renee Feeler: It was. But yet, I think because I'm such a perfectionist and, you know, follow the, you know, dot the I's and cross the T's in so many other parts of my life... It actually felt fun to do this in a more curious, experimental, you know, color outside the lines sort of framework that I was giving myself freedom to do that in... Not reckless because I'm still a very responsible- my values and integrity and never wanting to steer somebody wrong but also willing to say my piece while respecting other people's opinion to hear me, but also disagree with me. That I'm okay with that and that I actually encourage that if somebody disagrees with me. So that was it was actually fun, Alison, in so many ways because in a way, I felt like I couldn't get it wrong as long as it felt like growth, love and positive intentions and a win win opportunity for everybody. Alison Martin: Oh, that's great. That's great. It sounds like it would be freeing. Jean Trebek: I was just going to mention that I think that is the real nugget - to not go with what everyone else is doing. I mean, if that is true for you. But to go - I don't really feel that that's right for me. And being able to stand on your own two feet and not make anyone else wrong but just honor that place within you that feels that way. Alison Martin: Exactly. Jean. Jill, are you a channeler or are you a psychic? Are you all those things? Do you even put a label on things? Jill Renee Feeler: I do what channelers do. I have always felt it as it's a wider range of me as source that I'm connecting with. So to me it didn't feel like an entity or an energy field that was separate from me. It felt like an extension of me. So I understand that that's a bit unique compared to how some popular channelers do it. Alison Martin: Yes, because I think sometimes at least some people that I've read about or that we've interviewed, it's almost like it has it could have a name or be outside. I don't think they think it's outside, but it feels like a name and almost like a different. So I love that you're saying that it is an extension. Do you do you think everybody or everyone could do this? Jill Renee Feeler: No, sadly, I really wanted that to be true. Because it's clear how many people want to be able to feel as masterful about some of the strengths and abilities that I have demonstrated mastery in. But it's clear to me that, well, guess one evidentiary way of looking at it is if more people had strength in it, they wouldn't be studying for years and years trying to acquire these gifts. It would just be there. So I think there are some people that just have a natural voice, right? They're just a natural vocalist. And then there are other people that are still working with vocal coaches. 20 years on, still not confident enough to sing, even in a church choir, right? So just kind of look at it like that. To me, it's not better than or more evolved than I don't put this on a spiritual evolutionary path, linear path at all. And I'm, I don't want to say frustrated, really disappointed that so many people do because just because they may not have a propensity for some of these strengths does not mean they're any less evolved as soul, as spirit or as they're human. Alison Martin: Right. I love that because I think sometimes you read a lot of websites that say anyone can do this, just tap in, you know, anyone. You're kind of like, no. For instance, I can't sing. I have friends that can sing beautifully and there it is, you know? Jill Renee Feeler: And you probably, to continue this analogy, you probably don't feel less than whole and complete because you don't sing. And yet in spiritual communities and in consciousness communities and self-help communities, that is such an issue. There are so many people that, in my opinion, give channelers or healers or readers way too much credit in terms of, Oh, well, they can do that, so they must be further along, they must have be closer to God. They must. There's a lot of assumptions that are baked into that, to the disadvantage of the sovereignty of that individual. And to me, that's a really big disadvantage. Alison Martin: It's like a specialness that you think we're all special, but we all have different gifts. Speaker4: Yeah, there. Jill Renee Feeler: Yes, I remember teaching a class. It was in San Francisco a long time ago, um, probably ten years ago. And this...we're still friends today... and she said, Well, Jill, we can't all be special. And I remember just saying, why not? Not special doesn't have to mean less than 100% of the population, but special implies value. Oh, I want everyone to feel special. Right? Jean Trebek: There's this great quote that I don't know who said it, but we're either all special or no one's special. Not all of us can be special, right? Jill Renee Feeler: But I get that the human brain is so regularly, um, placing someone else ahead of themselves. There's such an emphasis, and it's that whole grass is always greener, right? So, part of my strength is the ability to see where the brain is deceiving the individual, the client at their disadvantage, right? And holding them back from trusting themselves, from being curious, from expansion, from exploration of more than they are. Alison Martin: Right. And I like on your website where you say you've done this forever and not not been healed...So I love that, that you're just very, very honest. And, you know, you remind me of my niece, who's a kindergarten teacher and all the kids in the classes that she has. From the quirkiest to the quietest to the loudest, you'll say, Hey, what's that kid's name? And she'll tell you and she'll say, Well, the great thing about them and it feels like to her, everybody's special. Like there's no level of - that kid's a little too loud or that kid's a little too quiet. And I love that you're saying that. Jill Renee Feeler: My favorite people do that. My favorite people make everybody feel special, not out of a trick or a con. It's because they actually experience them that way. Right. I think that Jesus was that way. I feel like source energy in its purest essence is that way. Jill Renee Feeler: It's hard here. Right? So for anyone to help you feel like you are unique, like you have inherent value. I love that. And when that's easy and I do feel like it is easy for some of us to give ourselves permission to do our part in offering that experience to other people, that we see them that way, to possibly help them feel that way more themselves if they do need some support in that area, you know, like everybody wins, those humans with insecurities end up being harmful to themselves and to others, whether it's intentional or not, insecurities breed a lot of different kind of subversive thoughts. Subversive energies, subversive actions. Jean Trebek: You have some amazing classes offered on your website. And I've taken, I think, a couple of them. Is there there anything you can share that you were like, oh my goodness, I never thought of of this reality that way? Jill Renee Feeler: There are so many, Jean. Let me try and pick some of my favorites. Um, one that's coming up right here is this idea that there are energies that incarnate without the intention of growth, without the intention of acquiring further consciousness or further evolution or expansion. There are actually energies that incarnate in this reality just to see what will happen without a growth or even positive objective. So that to me is very important for individuals in a beautiful community like yours to be aware of because it helps explain more of the people that we tend to come across in society... It's not that they're aimless, it doesn't have to mean negativity. It just means they're not as purposeful in - what are you doing to work better on yourself? What are you doing to make the world a better place? Right? They're just kind of like, Why are you working so hard? It's kind of how they look at people like us. Like, wow, you could just be chilling here, you know? Right. And that conveys nothing about the knowledge and wisdom and breadth and depth of their soulfulness, the fact that in this incarnation that we may be encountering, they may seem like they're literally like a college kid on vacation perpetually and may never go back to class. Jill Renee Feeler: So that's one thing that was a big aha for me. Another one that comes up is that as incarnated energy, we can be more than one soul. We can be sort of a pantry full of accessible source energy that we may or may not pull from all those items on the pantry. I don't know how many of us are like that, but...What if it is a huge number? But what if it's everybody? And especially in a community like yours, what if almost everybody in this community actually has access to everything that Jesus was? And what if that doesn't offend Jesus? What if that makes Jesus excited? That you could be what I was and more. You could be what I was. Well, to me, Metatron is an incarnate energy. But some people may disagree with that. But let's pick Quan Yin. You could be everything that Leonardo da Vinci was and more. There's such a limitlessness in that whole idea. So that came through for me when I heard somebody say that they were the reincarnation of I think it was like Edgar Casey. And immediately my inner knowing was, Well, that's not true. I mean, they don't own Edgar Casey. You know? Alison Martin: Right. Jill Renee Feeler: And it's just kind of like, how does that work then? And then I realized there's like this funnel sort of energies that we can be. And it's in that original composition of each of us, where we get to kind of play with a lot of sort of known beings and non known non-named sort of energies. Um, and that it's a nice kind of collaborative effect. Jill Renee Feeler: And...No one had to incarnate. No, no energies had to incarnate. There's growth and contentment, there's satisfaction far beyond this reality and far beyond any incarnation. So no one had to incarnate and therefore no one has to reincarnate. And that one was a still a mind blower for me because it's so counter to what the vast majority of spiritual practitioners are involved in. Alison Martin: So. So can you expand on that a little bit for me? So.. Do you think there is a "someone"? First off, do you know what I mean? Jill Renee Feeler: Yeah, I do. I prefer to consider that "the all that is" as source energy is beyond space and time. Right? So it's, it's almost like it's beyond one in a way has a delineation to it in my heart and in my conception of it. So to me "one" even has a space time kind of component to it. Um, but I do believe in, if you will, a higher power, a benevolence that is all energy and that that often doesn't show up that way, doesn't look that way in this reality. Alison Martin: And that we are all a part of that love and benevolence. Jill Renee Feeler: You can't not be a part of that love Alison Martin: Because it's all that is. Jill Renee Feeler: Yeah. Alison Martin: And so do you think yeah. You know, we have a group of women that meet and talk about this sort of stuff, which is really interesting. And we're reading a book on physics and consciousness right now. And it's so interesting because it talks about exactly what you're saying that there is just this creative, constantly creative, as you said, benevolent force that is us, that we're just like, you know, like one facet of the diamond. So I love that you say he does not own Edgar Casey, because I have heard so many people in groups say, you know, I was Cleopatra and I was King Arthur. You know, I was I was...
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Tami Simon
12/06/2023
Tami Simon
Tami Simon founded Sounds True in 1985 as a multimedia publishing house with a mission to disseminate spiritual wisdom. She has dedicated her life to transformational learning and accelerating spiritual awakening in the world. --Transcript-- Alison: Here we are... Hello, Jean. Jean: Hi, Alison. Alison: How are you? Jean: I'm great. Alison: We just spent ten minutes laughing at like, nothing. I just want to say it. Jean: Yeah, that's our natural facial exercise program. Alison: That's right. That's all we do is laugh. And today we have such a treat because we talked to ... Jean: Tammy Simon. Alison: Oh, my gosh. I've been listening to this woman and Sounds True and Insights From The Edge..all of that...I just I love her. Jean: ...for a long time. I think she's one of the pioneers to really expose great teachers of metaphysics, of meditation, of health and wellbeing, mindfulness, etcetera. And she is herself really amazing teacher. Alison: And I couldn't wait to do it because when you listen to her, she's very calming and she's very present. And I was thinking, I wonder if she's like that in life? And she is, right? Jean: Well, she showed up that way on our interview. And she you know, she's one of my favorite people that I go to when I want to find something to calm my mind or expand my consciousness. I do go to Sounds Tue. And she's always been just a champion in that field. Alison: Yeah, she's she's great... And she's a dog lover! Yeah. And, you're going to hear in this interview a lot of noise going on. Jean: That's right. We have my dog Luna talk barking, right? Alison: We have barking, we have gardeners, we have airplanes.... So it's as if you're in an immersive experience. Jean: Exactly. That's right. Alison: It's surround sound. So we hope you enjoy it. Tami: (Dog barking a lot)..... Hi. Hello. Wonderful. Tami: Oh, that's the best part.( Dog continuing to bark) Jean: And we know you wouldn't mind hearing our dog.... Tami: So, Jean, you have to know how much I like dogs. Maybe you know that. And how much, Usually it's my dogs that are barking, so thank you. I don't care at all. I don't care at all. The good news is my dogs can't hear your dogs. So that's the good news. Or we'd have a whole lot of commotion. Jean: Yeah. Jean: Oh, my goodness. Tammy, it's so great to meet you. Tami: It's wonderful to meet you, too. I've been looking forward to this. Jean: Really! Jean: Ive have been a huge admirer of yours for a long, long time. I feel like we went to school together and... Tami: Wonderful. Well, then old friends, Old friends being reunited. Here we are. Alison: And your your voice has calmed me down more times than I can say. Tami: Oh, wonderful. Alison: Thank you so much. You are such an inspiration because you didn't take the normal path, the traditional path. You didn't start on o what would be considered the traditional path. You left college, you came and then were uncertain, got some money. And now, 30 years later, you've talked to the most inspirational minds out there. What washes over you when you think of that? That is, were you divinely guided? Were you..... Tami: Sure.. Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you this. So first of all, it's been 37 years. Just in just in April it was 37 years. And I'm going to tell you this, I'm going to answer this question in an odd way, if you will. I just had breakfast today with someone who's worked with me for 14 years, and she's a very valuable employee, someone I really like. And she said, you know, Tammy, I'm thinking, God, I should probably at some point maybe leave Sounds True. Or otherwise I'll have like, my whole resume will be I lived my whole life at Sounds True, and I'll be unemployable someplace else. And what I said was, why are you buying into this status quo perspective about your job and employment? Forget it... The way that people are... So I think the reason this answer is your question is in general, when you said like bucked convention in general, when I look out at convention in regards to a lot of things, I don't think it's landed us in a particularly good place as a human civilization here in 2022. And we all see the the problems and challenges. So I think part of it for me has always been begin with a fresh sheet of paper, begin fresh, like don't look outside and say let's model ourself after and try to fit into something that's clearly not working for the environment. It's not working for tons of people, for many, many people. Do you know what I'm saying? So that's that I think is part of my it was funny today just having this conversation because I thought this this was in me from when I was young. Tami: From when I started. Sounds true and it's still in me, which is just because it's been done this way doesn't mean we want to do it. How do you want to do it? What's actually important? What's really driving you from the inside out? So as a young person, what was driving me was that I wanted to learn.. That was the biggest thing was I was so interested in talking to wisdom teachers. And the interesting thing, 37 years later, is I still want to learn. There's no end, which I just think is such an interesting part of the spiritual journey. And it's kind of like, you know, when I was very moved by a, long term relationship and intimacy, and I thought, you know, you never reach the end of it. Yeah. Like, it just keeps deepening and you keep discovering new things. And I think that's also true on the spiritual journey, is that at least that's been my experience, is people think there's some end point and it's like, Oh, now I'm a master or something like that. But that's not my experience. My experience is there's always something new to learn, some new way to grow. It's like, Oh, I finally understand that. Or I get the nuance and the complexity that all three of these things are kind of true at once. That's interesting. How can I be big enough to hold that? So what motivated me in the beginning, which really was a path of personal evolution and then sharing that with other people is still what motivates me. Alison: Just your inherent curiosity. Tami: Curiosity and drive to grow. Drive to grow and drive. To optimize. And this is something that I learned from a spiritual teacher, a gentleman named R.H. Olmos, that we have inside us this optimizing function as people. And I feel that like there's something in me that wants to give more, that wants to serve more, that wants to love more, that wants to understand more. So yes, it's curiosity. But the reason that I took it even further than that is curiosity can sound kind of, you know, you can be curious about new tastes and new smells and new countries and and that's part of it is a curiosity, but it's deeper. It's like an inner drive, right? To to grow and serve more. Alison: That's beautiful. Jean: That is so beautiful. And the platform of Sound True- Insights at the Edge. Yeah. What a great platform that your soul created for you to, um. to do all this exploration. And much like, I mean, I wasn't even going to talk about this, but much like my husband, Alex. He loved people's perspectives. Show me what you got. Show me what you got. And he created and with the help of a beautiful team, the show Jeopardy, where he that was his platform to really enjoy have that interaction. Um, and I think that is something that's so satisfying to the soul. It's probably why you and Jeopardy, Sounds True and Jeopardy have been around for 37 years. Yeah, it's it's beautiful and.. Okay, so Sammy was talking to Tammy. I'm so sorry. Tami: People call me that all the time. For whatever reason, I don't know why, but the S and the T because, you know, sounds true. And then it becomes like Sammy, Sammy time. And so it's good. Alison: ha ha ha Jean: So tell us, Bob( laughing),... What exactly... Ha ha ha Jean: Was talking to my daughter this morning and and she says, so mom, what are you doing today? I said, I'm interviewing this, this beautiful person. Tammy Simon from Sounds True. And she said, oh, she does all those spiritual talks and books. And I said yes. And right away I thought, I want to ask you, Tammy, what's the word spiritual mean to you? Tami: And it's a really important it's a really important question. And, There's a big mystery under the word spiritual, which is why I like it. So a lot of times people are like, Well, we want evidence based mindfulness training and that's good and that's valuable. And we can see the science and we can see that we're moving out of the default mode network in our minds. So I get all that and it's very valuable. However, I think there's a dimension of our inner experience that we can't nail down. We can't even fully articulate words for it in a definitive kind of way. Which is why often, like within the Jewish faith, they would go g-d know or the name that can't be named. And there's some dimension. And this is the dimension that's most interesting to me. That's mysterious. Yeah. And yet it's So how could this thing that's mysterious at the same time be of ultimate value? Like that's my experience inside. Like, what's the spiritual? It's this mysterious nature of being, the essence of being, that is the ultimate value because it's the thing I care the most about. When I think of what am I serving, what's expressing through me, what feels like love that keeps growing and growing and growing and growing. That all feels like the spiritual to me. And yet any words you can use for it don't quite do the job right. They don't. It's it's never complete. And so that's so to me the spiritual has all of that mystery in it. And that's why I like the word, even though it means different things to different people. And it can be very confusing. Jean: Yeah. Alison: When I started on this path, I think the most interesting thing early on that I heard was the idea of pointing. You know, I am pointing to it because and that took me a long time to incorporate into myself to understand what that meant for me, because I'm very, you know, let's do it. Here's the paper. You go there, I go there. So the idea of something expressing in such a in such a like I'm going to say the word grand and grand is not the right word. And that the the idea that grand is just a pointer for something that I know. I know and yet we'll never know. Yeah. Was so profound. I think it was, You know Reverend Reverend Mark, it just was amazing. Do you, um. Do you find that for you? Daily you are aware of miracles. Are they, Is it something that, Like I tried to picture what your day is like. How does your spirituality and the idea because you talk a lot about what is the good that can happen today and where is the miracle? Is that consistent for you? Tami: Well, first of all, this moment right now, us meeting. Is that a miracle? It's pretty cool. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. It's celebratory. It's sacred right here. And why is it sacred? Because all three of us are really present for it. We care, right? We all really care. Like our presence is here, participating, and it makes it a sacred moment. Do we have the opportunity for every day to have that quality for every hour? Yes, we do. And it doesn't have to be because we're meeting other people. We can be meeting ourselves and our own experience. And it doesn't have to be because it's fabulous and blissful. It can be disturbing and unnerving, but we can still feel the sacredness of it, the specialness of it. And then in terms of what my actual life is like, you know, I run a company with 150 people. I host a lot of things. So I have a lot of response abilities. And in my home life and I have lists of things that I'm working on and and all of that. And I think my approach is to always turn towards how I'm feeling. So even when it's uncomfortable. So, for example, I woke up this morning and I felt something inside, inside my belly and my chest, and I couldn't quite tell if it was anxiety or kind of like spacious openness or kind of both, But and I just I stayed in bed for a while and I just stayed with it. And I was like, What is this? And it's kind of like the open potential of this moment of time has me feeling kind of unsettled and also really creative and kind of somewhat excited and somewhat terrified. And oh, this is so interesting. And it was like just being with that experience, turning towards it instead of away from it and honoring it. And it's that honoring of the experience that's also what I think creates the sacred moment. So you use this word miracle. And I guess I'd have to know a little bit more what that word means to you to maybe answer it more accurately. Alison: But I think you answered it almost perfectly because I went through a time years ago where I thought miracles were special. I thought miracles were something that happened at some fountain to a little kid that saw Mary. Do you know, like I was very much in that whole Christian mindset. That's where I was raised Catholic, right? And then as we started working on A Course in Miracles, I realized, oh, I, I'm. I'm, I'm it. Yeah. It's not outside myself. And and so when I listen to you interview people, what's interesting to me is because you always bring it back to the intimate and the personal, and that really reinforced that for me. And so this could not be a noisier interview.hahah (sound of planes) Tami: It's fun. It's good. The miracle is like the miracle is the cacophony, the noise. I mean, that I think that actually part of it is in order to recognize the miracle, we have to not want it to be different. Jean: That's right. Jean: And that's like a really beautiful quote. Tami: Yeah. And just to be okay with exactly what is. Because when you're not in resistance to it, suddenly it's kind of interesting, right? The sounds are interesting. Alison: And the idea of judgment. This this was bad news. This was good news. Yeah. Letting go of that has been a huge leap for me. Tami: Yeah, that's a very, that's a very evolved state to be able to see. You know. Alison: Nine times out of ten, I'm not hitting it, but that one time that I'm allowed to really let myself be, you know, it's kind of amazing. Jean: Yeah, Coming from a Course in Miracles, studying that very dedicatedly for maybe ..well I still do it. So, um, I think in The Course it says, that a miracle is a shift in your perception. When the perception goes back, To this holy moment, right here, right now. Tami: Exactly. Jean: This is then. Then it becomes that miracle. I'm sitting with Tammy Simon. I'm sitting with Alison Martin. I'm,.. Here we are. There was you know, here we are right here. Right now. Tami: Yea..Luna's with you. Yeah. And lying down I have this my favorite beverage which is matcha powder with oat milk with a little vanilla and maple syrup. Doesn't that sound good? Jean: Yeah, that sounds good. Tami: So, you know, and I have my favorite pen. I love these precise. But, you know, it's just interesting because a beverage, a pen. Right. Lined paper. Yeah. An Internet that's working. Clearly. That's a good microphone. I mean, I feel so happy with these things. Yes. With these items. And we each have our own little. Little things like that, you know. That's right. Alison: Yeah, that's exactly right. If you had something to choose, one of your attributes 100 years from now, what would you like to be remembered for? Tami: Well, the sentence that comes to me is she was a good hearted person of service. Jean: Oh.Indeed. Alison: That brings tears to me. I find that. Jean: Beautiful. Alison: Yeah. Very moving. Yes. Tami: Yeah. It's not. It's not particularly lofty or anything, but I think it's what's actually. Yeah, true. Deep. I mean, it's not lofty meaning? Like it's not like, you know, I didn't invent the cure for something or whatever, but I do think it's my deepest nature. The truth of my deepest nature. Jean: Yeah. Alison: That's right. Jean: Um, Tammy, I wanted to talk to you a little bit about meditation. And so I've heard, in doing some research on you personally, um, you mentioned that when you learned this specific type of meditation. That was really a turning corner for you. Um, can you just talk about the benefits of meditation and, and what is your practice now? Tami: Well, there are lots of different kinds of meditation, the type of meditation that you're referring to. Jean that was really powerful in my experience was somatic meditation or embodied meditation, working inside the space of the body and really grounding in body based awareness. And when I mentioned to you turning towards experience, what I mean by that is also turning towards the physical dimension of experience. So not abstract philosophy, which is why when you pointed out how, Tammy, you seem to like to ask people what's true in their experience, not what they've read or thought about other people's writings, but that is always what's most interesting to me, what's actually happening in someone's experience. And through somatic meditation. I learned to get really interested in my own experience, my own physicality and turning towards that and being with that and through that, there was a type of capacity that became developed to be with anything. And that includes intense pain and distress and experiential intensity. Of all kinds, and the ability to be with experiential intensity opens us up to be with the heights of joy, pleasure and ecstasy, as well as because we've grown this capacity. So we're not just living any longer in a small kind of contained world. Like I won't feel that much grief, sadness and loss. So therefore I'm, I'm constricted. It's like the whole. Being hood opens up with a welcoming of absolutely all experience, which also gives us this capacity for great joy and pleasure and fulfillment as well as every aspect of the human experience. And so after practicing formally and what I mean by formally is sitting on a meditation cushion, going to long meditation retreats, retreats that month long retreats, week long retreats, I would say I was in meditation retreats for about two months a year for close to 15 years. Tami: And there's a certain point I was teaching meditation as well within this tradition that I'd studied in. And at a certain point I realized I didn't want to teach anymore, that I wanted to put all of my energy into Sounds True that it was too much to try to teach meditation, have a happy married life, and run a growing company and something had to give. And so I put all my chips into Sounds True as a kind of platform for me, as a place for me to put my contributions and bringing the meditative training into action, into language, into leadership, into business. That's what became important to me. And I started not wanting to spend time formally sitting on the cushion. Just be truthful. It started feeling forced, like I was like all that time that I spent two months a year, it never felt forced. I wanted to do it. I was drawn to doing it. I felt called, and then at a certain point it just felt forced and I was like, I'm not going to force myself to do it. And so I started seeing instead the meditative opportunity, if you will, in every part of my day and into the evening. And occasionally I will sit and meditate, but not often in a formal way. Alison: Right, Right. Jean: That's that's beautiful because that part of the the conditioned mind that says, oh, you better do it, you're not a good person if you don't, you you know all of that. I do not think that serves the truest meaning of meditation. And, um, but I was really taken with, because I felt I could really appreciate and relate to getting back into the body.. Because I'm someone that's very thinking. I do think a lot. And to really come back into my body, especially now that I have more time on my own, you know, I'm not a caretaker. I'm not a wife and my children, I'm an empty nester. Both my children are out. So I now...
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Patricia Stark
11/22/2023
Patricia Stark
Patricia Stark works on both sides of the camera & stage as a Media Trainer, Public Speaking Trainer, and Certified Body Language Specialist. She appears regularly as a Guest TV Communication Expert & Lifestyle Expert and sought after keynote speaker....author of the book, "Calmfidence: How to Trust Yourself, Tame Your Inner Critic and Shine in Any Spotlight. --Transcript-- Alison: Okay, here we are, Jean...It's going! Jean: Oh, it's going?? Excellent. Okay. Alison: I did it. I did it. Jean: I never know with you.. Because you're sneaky. Alison: Am I sneaky? It's always recording. Jean: well because you love this stuff...you love the chit chat before we really start. Alison: I do, I could chat and talk to you always. Jean: The bloopers. Alison: That's right. The blooper reel. We have a famous one that we're not going to talk about. Um Okay. So today you talked to Patricia Stark. Jean: Yes. And this was the one and only interview that I did without you. Alison: Yes. I think I was shooting or something. Had an audition. Jean: Something fabulous was happening in your life that that you missed it because it had to have been really fabulous because she was amazing. Alison: Yeah, she is. I listened to it after you did it, and it is amazing. So how was it for you to do it alone? Jean: All right, Seriously, Allison, I did not enjoy it. I felt, I felt really self-conscious. And I think I do in general, talking to all these amazing people. I think I'm not schooled like you are as an actress, but I found myself even more self conscious and I didn't enjoy it... Until like towards the end there where I could really relax. And I have to say, I think Patricia was really holding the interview in the beginning, just her being so present and probably feeling, feeling that I was like... I hope I'm okay and maybe trying too hard. And I think she, she just really helped me get softer and open up more to her. So but hands down, this was a very beautiful interview. Alison: Yes. She's she's amazing. And I can't wait to hear it. Are you ready? Jean: I am. Alison: Let's let's do it. Jean: Well, we we're we're going to have a great time together. It's just you and me. My partner in InsideWink is she's actually on an on a, um. She's doing something for a soap opera. So, So it's you and me. And, And I thought that was so interesting because out of the two of us, Allison and myself, she's she's got the more confidence and, and I thought, here I am... with you, ,he beautiful queen of communications and. and what else can I say? I'm just, I actually feel like I invited Julia Child to dinner and it's like, oh, my gosh, I'm cooking for, you know,... Patricia: Well, please don't... You will quickly find that I am really, you know, as vulnerable and have as much baggage and crazy ups and downs and days where I really desperately need to practice everything that's in that book. And one of yesterday was a perfect example of that. I'm juggling. My 88 year old mom has been in out of the hospital. She's not well. My son is in school his first year away at college. You know, business has been weird because of the pandemic. Patricia: So, you know, I like to always tell even my clients and students that, you know, I'm living this every day. It's still a struggle for all of us. And it's what we all have in common as humans is to have this, you know, weaving in and out of sometimes we feel strong and empowered and other times we feel like a failure or we feel like we're just so discouraged or whatever it may be. And it's I think it's a constant evolution throughout our life. Jean: I couldn't agree more. And and I think, Patricia, the first thing out the gate is, when I heard about this book, "Oh, and I love it." I've already owned it because it's all highlighted. And I have to tell you, that I usually start at the end of the book and I read your epilogue and I had tears because I, I felt like your dad. I feel that I'm the one that champions others- My children, even my my late husband. You know, telling them, "you're so great." You can do it, you know, and yet I don't feel all the time confident. I get more nervous within me. I can even feel now, talking, waiting for you,.. I can feel my heart. And I thought, okay, you know... Um, besides eating bananas and celery and, you know, all the beautiful tips you give.. But I think, what I want our conversation to be about is that you can learn this, you can strengthen this confidence muscle. Jean: But going back to your dad, can you talk, And not so much your dad, and I know our readers will enjoy that part because, it's such a special tribute. So share with us a little bit about your childhood. What made you the stunning person you are today? Just I know that's a lot.... Patricia: Okay so, I was the youngest of four kids. We lived in just a regular, you know, middle class or even less family home setting. My father worked in a shoe store. My mom worked in a factory. There wasn't a lot of money. Um, my sister got married and had a family at 18. Very young. She's ten years older than me. My two brothers went into the Navy. My father, you know, had been in the Marines. And when he came back, he went into NYU and he studied, but he never had a lot of confidence. He was married to my mom at a young age, and he ended up, you know, not graduating. I think he was just a few credits shy of not graduating. And she was having a lot of anxiety and OCD issues and things like that. And he wanted to go take care and be with her. And he didn't want to be working during the day and going to school at night. But unfortunately, that always led him to feel less than that. Patricia: He didn't get that college education that he didn't finish, and he just always struggled in jobs because he didn't really speak up for himself. But he was a wonderful father and he would always try to encourage me and build me up. But, you know, it wasn't wasn't it wasn't a tough growing up, but we didn't have like any extra special spangles and bells or anything like that. And, you know, it just I think being the youngest, I went through my own struggles. I was a bedwetter. I wet my bed until I was in the fifth grade and I'd show up at school feeling like everybody was going to know my my situation. And I always felt bad about myself going into middle school. I just was very shy and introverted because of that, I think. And, you know, it just kind of went my way through middle school and high school like that.. Came out of my shell a little bit, but then started dating somebody that I couldn't believe liked me. And then because I had that attitude that, Wow, what does he like about me? He kind of walked all over me and didn't really do much to build up my self esteem and took advantage of the fact that I was somebody that was introverted and didn't have a lot of self esteem. So I think it was really more in college as I started to come out of that shell and look at friends and, you know, nobody told me to go to college. Patricia: Everybody was just like, okay, you know, this end of high school just wasn't a thing. But I saw my friends going. So I went and I applied to a local college where we are and just, you know, worked my way through the four years there and paid off my loans in like ten years, you know, whatever I had to do to make it work. And, you know, when I was in college, I discovered some of the public speaking and media classes and it was like a light bulb went off. It scared the heck out of me. But something about it that I really liked. And by working through all of that and trying to find my voice, even though it might have been badly stumbling through all that, I started to believe in myself and get more confident. And then when I graduated and wanted to work in the media, you know, I had no choice but to start to hear no and not take it personally. And, you know, I'm trying to give you the quick overview here, but it certainly was a very long process of going from very introverted, not wanting to raise my hand, not wanting to walk up to the lunch line or, you know, feeling that way throughout most of school to then really overcompensating and developing a career in communications. Jean: Yeah. And I think it's important for people to know that you were just not blessed with this. Yeah, I've always been confident and, you know, so I think that makes it so relative. And, um, so you wrote this amazing book that I really think this is a book about love because it, it all for me... I mean, yes, you do talk about the outside and that's important as well, but I think it boils down to that trust that you talk about and developing that. And um, okay, so you give the readers so many amazing tips- writing and, and actual practical things and you break up your book into four wonderful segments. So let's jump into to the first, right, Everyday Calmfidence. What does that mean to you? Patricia: Yea well, I wanted to put the book into four separate parts because, I wanted it to be easy to digest, but I also wanted people to realize that it was kind of a hybrid book between personal growth and could be also for professional development. And the baseline of all of that, I felt, was this sense of everyday confidence. How do you find your calm and confidence just on a daily basis? What is your state of confidence when you wake up in the morning? Are we waking up with a sense of dread or are we waking up with anxiety or are we feeling overwhelmed? You know, it's almost like when you wake up after you break up with somebody or you have a bad dream or are we are we waking up in that state in the morning and then going right to our phone and getting inundated by emails and the bad news of the day or whatever it is, or what are we doing to control that state of calm and confidence every morning? Is our day running us or are we running our day? And I talk about this in what are some typical confidence killers and what are some typical confidence boosters that I either experienced myself or that I would hear over and over again from clients and students? And then I outlined certain self care attributes that either contribute or take away. Patricia: And they weren't just your your regular ones that we hear all the time about, oh, you know, eat better and exercise and sleep better. Sure, those are all important. But I wanted to delve even deeper into things like mindfulness and meditation and, you know, what price are we putting on things every day, whether it's a situation or our life in general? Like what price tag are we actually putting on things that could be making us get more anxiety and stress than maybe is even warranted? And where does worry and procrastination and all of those things come into play? So I really wanted to identify right out of the gate what are things that boost our confidence for us on a day to day basis, whether we're dealing with home life or work life? And then what are those typical killers and those pitfalls that we all can fall into? And then again, what were some of those self care? And I felt it was important to have that every day confidence as the base, as as the foundation, because it doesn't matter what we're doing. Patricia: We could be, you know, a stay at home mom. We could be a solopreneur. We could be working for a big company, going out there to the world, whatever it is, that baseline of who we are as a person, when we're by ourselves, in our minds, with ourselves and in our room alone, what are we doing in that common confidence area that's making us show up as a human being no matter what else happens the rest of that day? Jean: Right. Right. And I love your two things. I love when you talked about focus, like what are you focusing on? And also, if you can speak a little bit about being focused in general, because even if you go to the gym and you see someone lifting weights and they're very focused or you see someone kind of distracted looking at another person, you know, right away you're you sort of assess that person that's distracted, isn't as confident as the person that's focused on their work. Yeah, do you notice that? Patricia: Yes. When you know that somebody is very determined, very single, focused, there is a certain sense of determination. You know, they're on a goal, they're on a mission or they're kind of have a certain level of a personal standard to where they're like, you know what.. I'm not going to let anything else get in my way or distract me. I'm going to reach my goal or I'm going to do what I have to do to get the job done so that nothing derails me. And, you know, having a career in media and communications over the years, I mean, I am very, very cognizant of the fact that there is so many things vying for our eyeballs, vying for our attention. Look here. Look at that breaking news. Everything is that nowadays and is trying to fight for our eyeballs because we are inundated now with content between, you know, when when I first grew up, there were a limited number of channels on TV. Now it's endless. And now the Internet is endless. You know, we can we can be distracted all day long on social media, whatever it may be. But most of the things that I've seen that people achieve, it's behind closed doors, in quiet, in in their mind with themselves really tuning out all the noise and saying, what's my priority here? What's really important to me? And what am I going to give my full attention to? And that could be a person, that could be a goal, that could be self care, that could be being kind to yourself and not letting all of those other things that tell us otherwise get in the way. Jean: Right. I think that's why I think of your book as a self love book, you know, because it starts- that all starts with with yourself, you know. Okay. So the second section, Resilient Calmfidence. And I wrote down here because I love this...find your calm during setbacks. Yes. Yeah. I think we so need that now. So can you speak to that? Finding your calm when you have a setback? Patricia: Yeah. I think when we have a setback, whether it is a perceived failure or a disappointment or a tragedy or anything like that, we seem to think that we need to do something to make it better or we should or shouldn't be feeling a certain way. We want to define it based on what we've seen other people go through or what we think we're supposed to be feeling or doing, just based on how we've grown up, how we perceive the world or how we perceive what is strength and what is resilience or grit or things like that. And I think it's so different for everybody. But it comes back to what you just said earlier is, self love and kindness and knowing when you need to just do nothing, when you need to retreat so that you can not even feel like you have to be anyway, just be. Speaker1: And we're all so conditioned to know, I got to do this, I got to move on. Or I got, you know, there's so much everybody wants to give us advice. Everybody wants to try to make it better, fix things and help us through things. And, you know, this is probably even beyond my wheelhouse as far as, you know, a psychologist being able to describe this better. But what I do know, working in positive psychology with all of my clients and even myself over the years, is that to be able to cut ourselves some slack and take a break from anything? I was speaking to a mentor of mine who is a psychologist one time and he said, What makes you think that you have to be happy or sad? Maybe just neutral is okay sometimes just not feeling anything or just taking a break or just going through the motions and just sitting with emotions and letting whatever is going to be, be.. Before you try to take action or try to fix it or make it better. And, you know, I try to give examples of ways that we can pull back and stop thinking what we should be doing and just allow ourselves to take that break, and be kind and not have any preconceived notions of what's right or what's wrong or what we should be or shouldn't be doing. Jean: That is so liberating. And it's really giving ourselves a break and, Okay, so thank you for that. And there's lots more goodness in that in your book. Okay, now Communication Calmfidence, which is great as well..please speak of that. Patricia: Well, this is obviously the, a big part of my work. I work as a public speaking trainer and a coach for media and interview skills and you name it, all kinds of communication skills and body language. And when I set out to write the book, I was like, you know, this is initially I thought it was going to be a book for people that were going to be public speakers or in the media and the public eye. And then I thought to myself, no, I mean, this is this is everybody that all the world's a stage. We're all public speaking. We're all communicating unless we're sitting in a room by ourselves, speaking to ourselves alone. Right? All our interpersonal skills, all speaking is public speaking. And it really all starts from that inner voice of what are we saying to ourselves about any situation? What are we visualizing? What are we, you know, are we thinking, worst case scenario, I'm going to fall on my face and not remember something If I have to give this speech or if I have to appear in front of the camera or on Zoom or am I going to look bad, Am I going to sound bad? I'm not going to get this job or they're not going to like me, am I not enough? There's so much of this inner voice and this inner dialogue that influences all of our interpersonal skills, all of our communication skills. Patricia: And I love that your take on this whole book was self Love, because I didn't even realize that until you just said that from seeing it from your perspective. Because now, once again, I'm going to I see myself going back to it comes down to us speaking to ourselves better. And I talk about in the book we all have the inner critic, but we also have the inner coach. And the inner critic is just a scared child. It's scared. It's us trying to protect us. A primitive place in the back of our mind, thinking what is the worst thing that could happen and how can I protect myself? How can I prevent myself from feeling pain or feeling rejection or feeling less than? But then we also, as we grow with wisdom and into a mature adult, we can and we can even do this as a child if we are taught to do this, is to be our inner coach. How are we going to talk to ourselves the way that we would if we were helping a friend that we really cared about, get through something or believe in themselves or encourage them? And those two voices can't exist simultaneously. Patricia: Your inner critic can't talk to you if you're saying, Nope, you know what? It's time for you to go back in the corner. I'll deal with you later. But right now you can do this. You've got this. You've earned the right to be here. You have as much reason to ask for this as anybody else. And when we talk to ourselves in that way and we start to envision what we want to have happen rather than worrying about all that could go wrong or what we don't want to have happen, then we are now taking charge. We are being the boss of our brain and we're taking action and what we can control. And it really does make a big difference when we realize that we don't... and it goes back to what you're saying is what we focus on. We can focus on what could go wrong, what we what we our lack and limitation is, or we can focus on what can go right here, what could actually what good could really go here? I could really nail this interview. I could really do a great job in...
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Bettina Madini
11/08/2023
Bettina Madini
Bettina Madini is a contemporary European artist and designer who combines luscious color and expressive motion in her paintings and fashion accessories. She was born and raised in Berlin in Germany. --Transcript-- Alison Martin: I have to say, Jean is one of the nicest people ever. That's how we're starting today's podcast. Jean Trebek: Okay. Well... Alison Martin: No, no, that's all that's going to be said right now. We just had a wonderful interview with Bettina Madini. I, I really enjoyed her. Jean Trebek: Yes. She she's so vibrant. And to me, she, like, really embodies the divine feminine, the goddess energy. She's creative. She loves Mother Earth. She loves music. She loves art. She has a gentleness about her. And she's also vivacious. I don't think she has any problem speaking her truth. Alison Martin: No. And if you can while you're while you're listening, go to her website at BettinaMadini.com and look at her art. Jean Trebek: It's gorgeous. Alison Martin: Because you'll really understand what we're talking about when you see her. And we also did an interview where if you want to go to Inside Wink and look up just right, type in Bettina in the search bar that will come up to you. And you can look at her, look at her art. And she's really so thoughtful. I felt like she was really intentional and thoughtful. I really enjoyed the conversation. Jean Trebek: Me too. And I love that she uses so much color. And that color really helps bring forth more joy. And her artwork is just beautiful. And I'm so glad she has this creative expression that she's sharing with the world. Alison Martin: I think you're going to really enjoy this. So here's here's Bettina. Alison Martin: Where are you right now? Bettina Madini: Right now I am in one of our rooms in my house. I'm in my home and I'm surrounded by nature. And I look out into the garden. So this is a room that we built on some years ago, and it is all natural wood. It's the wood from our land here. You know how some trees fell and others we had to take out so that we could have a big garden. And then my art is hanging here, so it's a beautiful room with decks outside. You should see it. Alison Martin: Where are you in the world? Where do you live? Bettina Madini: I live in the Midwest. In Wisconsin. Alison Martin: Oh, okay. That's beautiful there. Yep, yep. Bettina Madini: Yes. See, I don't know whether you... Can I show you quickly? Can you see my flowers there? Alison Martin: Oh, yes. Jean Trebek: So how beautiful. Bettina Madini: Yeah, it's a big garden. And, um, flowers and vegetables. I'm sorry. I have to move this back here, and so it's just gorgeous. And we are surrounded by water. So I have the Fox River on one side of the property. It's one of the few rivers that flows north. And on the other side, is a park and it is John Muir Park. It is actually I'm right next door to where John Muir as a boy came into this country. Jean Trebek: Wow. Wow. Bettina Madini: Before he went out west, everybody knows his California, you know, out west part of life. But no, not a few people. Not many people know about his boyhood place, which is right where I'm at here. Alison Martin: Oh, that's so that's so wonderful. You've had such an interesting life. Bettina Madini: Yes. Alison Martin: When we were reading back over even our interview and some of the other interviews that you've done, um, what what has it been like to go from your upbringing to living now in Wisconsin? It's just so interesting to us? Bettina Madini: Yeah. What I've been doing is big city, small town, big city, small town. I'm like going boom, boom this way. So and the thing is, I grew up in Berlin. It's a big city, and I grew up in my grandmother's garden. So my grandparents had created a garden for my mother so that she, during World War Two, would always have fresh fruit and vegetables. And so I sat underneath these huge apple trees and plum trees and planted strawberries and flowers with my grandmother. And so this is a this was a huge part of my growing up. And I think it it planted in me a a seed. So I will always know where it is for me that I can recharge my batteries. I think it's important for all of us to know what that exactly is because it's different for every one of us, you know, What is it for you that gives you this sense of peace? So I have created this garden here together with Joel, my partner, so that I could have that space where, you know, sometimes it just... When I'm doing a lot of art events and I'm talking to so many people, I just need the space where I'm like, okay, just relax and breathe and reach into the earth, you know, and recharge these batteries and having water close. It's very important. Berlin is Berlin. When you look on the map in Germany, Berlin is surrounded by lakes, and it is actually the greenest city in Europe. We have so many lakes there and several rivers. It is lake country and beautiful sailing also. After the wall fell, you know, everybody was free to go, which, you know, the border line went always through the water. So you had like years where everything stops. But after the wall came down, um, yeah, beautiful possibilities for anybody who has a boat. Alison Martin: That's wonderful. And it's funny because now the three of us have a really deep connection with our grandmothers. Do you know? Bettina Madini: Yeah. Alison Martin: Mine was so special. I know Jeans and now hearing it from you. And what a sense of home and comfort that brings. Just to hear you say that you spent so much time with your grandmother. Bettina Madini: Yes. She taught me so much. Like, you know, all these things that I think only a few kids learn nowadays, like knitting and needle things, like doing things with with my hands, which is also something that carried through. Now, because I create wearable art, I just love making things that were not there before. And I put together different elements and make something that is beautiful, you know, something that I can wear or somebody else can wear. It's so fulfilling. It's so different from buying something where you don't even know the maker, you know, somewhere in the world they did this and they maybe handmade it, maybe with a machine, but it's like so disconnected and being really there and like, it's so funny. Sometimes when I hand knit a piece, I add beads. And so I made one that is in the southern colors like Arizona desert colors. And then I found these beads that looked like skeleton shells, you know, and I added these on. So these finds and I think we women have these finds, right? These little trinkets that we find here and there or somebody gave us. So to create a piece of art with that is is just so much fun for me. Alison Martin: That's as we were commenting on how your your art is so feminine to us. Like it really leans into the feminine and we just we love it. Like the colors just make us so happy. Jean Trebek: Yeah I do think your colors that you consciously choose are very healing because it brings such joy and I think it's a reflection of our soul seeing all those, you know, emerald greens and ruby reds and sapphires. And, for instance, the beautiful shirt you're wearing, you know, it just makes you happy. Yeah. Bettina Madini: Yes, absolutely. And it's so fun that you say that, Jean, because actually, when I paint this green or this here, what I'm wearing, to me, it is emerald green. I use actually the names of semi-precious stones. And I love those also. I love these crystals and stones and to get this intense saturation. And so for me, it is actually a real true, incredible like candy store-Joy Yeah. To mix a new color or come up with something like adding metallic gold to my paints and then to watch how the color of the paint is changing because the gold has the metallic element and, literally changes how the color looks, how the paint looks on the canvas. And I'm like, yes, you know, And I see hummingbirds in these colors. Like when they flare up and you see or the Blue Morpho butterfly in Costa Rica, like it flops like so heavy and so big comes out of the jungle and you see it for a fraction of a second because above the wing on the top is electric blue, and it's like a flash from the jungle, you know, and the underside is brown and so beautiful. And I'm always like, how can I capture this beauty of nature? And these colors that, yes, are so joyful to me. Bettina Madini: You know, to me, it's pure joy. How can I capture this and bring this onto canvas so that it can be everywhere and people can enjoy it? And lately I've been getting incredibly amazing comments about my colors, which, like I want to say 18, 17 years ago here in the Midwest, it was out there in California where you are...it's like no big deal. Color is like, yay! But the Midwest was more like a little monochromatic, you know, more conservative. And so, but now it has changed. Like within these past three years, I would say I'm blown away. It's like people want color. And I'm like, yes, things have changed, you know, because I think it's not for nothing that we are on a planet that has an incredible range of color. Yes. Look at the ocean. Look, I see lakes here in Wisconsin. We have lakes that are like lagoon, blue lagoon, green, incredible colors because there are bottoms. There's a specific sand on the bottom of the lake that gives this reflection of the light. And it's so tropical, It's so beautiful, you know, So I.. I do love color. Alison Martin: That's so fantastic. Do you paint every day? Bettina Madini: I wish I could. Right now I'm in a very intense part of the year. It's a lot of events and we are out and about every weekend. And so I'm gasping for this air and I make sure that I get maybe like four hours within four days that I'm home, that I get four hours of painting because I really need it. And usually I make sure that I paint almost every day, sometimes into the night, long hours, because then I cannot stop. It's just once I start, it's rolling, you know? But, I know that now is the time to be out and about and talking to people and being being out there. And then I'm already looking forward when everything will change again. And we come into the the autumn season and then it's more like the drawing in starts, you know? Alison Martin: Right. Do you have studio there? Bettina Madini: Yeah, I do have a small studio here in the house and then I have my outdoor studio. Sometimes I'm out in the garden and I paint or when I paint silks, I'm out on one of the decks I love then being in the sun because the silk and the silk paint, they need heat setting. And I love playing with the sun for that rather than an iron. Alison Martin: Oh, that's fantastic. I love that. Jean Trebek: Beautiful. Do you ever have a dry season where you're where you don't feel so creative? Bettina Madini: Oh, that's a great question. Yeah. Jean Trebek: What do you do to help, you know, get your self out of a slump or where you're just like, oh, I've really got to...jazz up my creation again. Bettina Madini: Yeah. Asked some other artists, 'Hey, what do you do?' But it is true. There are these moments where there is, and it's sort of an interesting and not very comfortable place. I would say it feels like a void when so much has flown out or then I'm looking at, okay, so what is this actually, have I decided that my last painting was the best painting I've painted so far? And then, oh, like what's next? Or whatever. It could be a point of view that is sitting there. But then I know as well, I actually know this space by now where it's like the ebb. I sometimes feel as if I'm an ocean and there is a flow and there is an ebb and the ebb is as much part of the flow as the flow in the ocean, right? The waves roll in. And then to me, actually, it is a very beautiful thing to go to the ocean somewhere and be with that motion. Look at how the waves are rolling in. And they are so generous. Right? But then look at this sucking motion where the water goes out and it just goes out to make this incredible other new wave. Right? So I learned to embrace both. And it is not comfortable. Sometimes I feel like a pregnant woman, you know, So it's in there and I notice it and it's churning and I feel it changing and growing. Bettina Madini: And it's not yet time to come out. I know very well I'm enough. I'm experienced enough by now to not judge this or not beat myself up for it. What I'm doing then is I go out in the garden. Luckily I have the garden or even in the winter I go out in nature. Being out there is always the best walking, moving. My body is helping a lot or even going other places. Just going out there doing something totally different. Go to a coffee shop, go to a restaurant, meet friends, and then there's always some element that shows up. Somebody says something or I come across this incredible book and I'm reading, and while I'm reading, I have this thing. I see everything that I'm reading, which I always thought everybody has, by the way. But I found out that it's not...I have the movie theater in my head, so I see things. And then that is also inspiring to me. Or I see a color. Sometimes we go travel somewhere. I might be in Brazil and I see a cactus and it's like, Oh my God, the shape, the texture and that gets my creative energies moving again. And so it comes back into the rolling forward rather than the moving backwards inside, you know? Jean Trebek: Right, right. Bettina Madini: And then seeing other art is just... Seeing other art, I personally find art so incredible or listening to music that's as important to me. Jean Trebek: I really love that you said you're aware of it enough that you don't judge yourself anymore or beat yourself up when you're not feeling ready to express something creative. Bettina Madini: Yeah. And you know, Jean and Alison, I even joined an online class with the art students league in New York. Just to be with other artists and to see what they are creating and to, to expose myself to how other people are doing it. And then we talk about something. Or my teacher, Ronnie Landfield, mentioned Odette, the singer who I didn't know. And so things like that, to me, they are so precious, so juicy. Here I have another element. I listen to her music and she was incredible. So I would say for everybody to like just create this sort of a support group around you or other people who could inspire you and make always make sure to not be envious about what they are creating, but to allow their creation to ignite the flame in you again and bring out other things in you that maybe you hadn't explored before, you know? So it's incredible to be with other artists, with other creators. Alison Martin: Yes, definitely. Do you think that the climate in the country, which has changed so radically between in the last even 10 or 15 years, do you think that has affected your art? Do you feel those influences or do you feel that your art is somehow really above that and in a creative space that is untouched by that? Bettina Madini: I think this is a great question. Thank you. That's really a cool question because we cannot be untouched because we are connected with everything we are. We are everything. And so anything can have an influence on us. So maybe it is a bit about what... That's a question that I always ask myself. What did I come here to create? What did I come here to planet Earth to create because I could be totally somewhere else? What is it about the planet? And I deeply care about the earth. I care about the waters. I care about nature. I care about the creature. So it it has, in a way, let's say nature and resources have shaped me because I grew up in Berlin and in the 70s we had the petroleum crisis. And so as a kid, I learned to always turn off the light when I leave the room to be very aware of the resources, not waste resources. So like this, this awareness of being with the resources and not over using them, be mindful about it. That was part of my upbringing. And then climate change. Well, when I see dead birds floating on waters or fish dying, it has a it has a deep effect on me. And so I am someone... I talk with the waters and I talk with the earth. And I'm asking always like- what contribution can I be with my paintings to you, Earth and to nature and to the future and to a sustainable future. And so don't see my art separate from that at all. In contrary, I see my art as a way to contribute, which some people might say, Well, what are you doing with your art? You don't clean water. And I could say, I'm not. What makes you say that, right? So because we as powerful beings can change anything. And I strongly believe in this. So, see, as an artist, am with myself in the studio and I paint what's coming out of the inside, I bring that out, which is a sort of a fragile space because I totally open myself to any judgment that anybody could throw at me. Right? And I remember my first art fairs here in the Midwest. People were like, it was abstract and colorful. The kids were running into my booth and they saw the dolphins, but the adults were sort of like apprehensive. And it's like, whoa, so unusual. What is this? You know? And then to have the strength and be with it and know it and trust this trust element, we we should all get a good training as we grow up in trusting ourselves, trusting our knowing, trusting our being and whatever brings us joy, whatever that is, for all of us to follow that as our true North. You know, that joy element that giggle and to never, ever give that up for anybody. So I see my art as a contribution to the earth and I celebrate the planet and talk with her, him, whatever you want to call it, and talking with the waters and blessing the waters. And I change the consistency of my painting energetically so it will be light and filled for the planet when I empty my bucket and fill it with fresh water. See? So we are we are all powerful healers. We can change anything. And so really, my question is, what did you all come here to create? Jean Trebek: That's such a soulful question. Um, and it's just a teeny shift between- what are you doing versus what are you creating? I feel like your whole life is you've really acknowledged your soul. Using your physical body to bring through the essence of your soul. What else brings you inspiration? Like tell us what you're reading right now. Bettina Madini: What am I reading? Am I reading anything I read? Um hm. Jean Trebek: Or you do you like to cook as well? Bettina Madini: Oh, yeah, I love cooking. I love growing my garden and like going out in the morning and picking a cucumber and, you know, marveling at the tons of tomatoes that I got. And so this inspires me. It's like the little things or when I come and step outside of the house and there's this scent of flowers that is so incredible. It changes everything. Or I just look up and there are these huge sunflowers - almost two and a half times as tall as I am. They are way up there and there are these bobbing heads looking at me. It changes everything. I might be tired from just coming home from an art fair, and I look at them and they smile at me and it changes everything. So this is so inspiring to me. Or beautiful music. I'm listening to Tina Turner's mantra, the Lotus Sutra. It changes everything. And then it can be a piece of classical music or jazz. And I love music so much. And then I start dancing and moving. My body moving. My body is very important, really. Sometimes I just have to drop everything and just like cut everything off and just go outside or just move my body. It can be so it's so easy to just stay in this - I got to do this. I got to do this. I got to finish this. I have to leave tomorrow for a show. It's like, stop. Alison Martin: Right? Bettina Madini: Breathe. Jean Trebek: I love all those little things you've just shared because some people aren't, you know, creative through a...
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Lee Harris
10/25/2023
Lee Harris
The extraordinary multi-faceted channeler Lee Harris talks with Jean and Alison about his life, his sensitive, intuitive communications with the Z’s and his book The Energetics of the New Human Soul (book 1 of his book series). --Transcript-- Jean: Hi, Alison. Alison: Hi,Jean. Alison: How are you? Jean: I'm great. Alison: Jean and I went to an event last night, and we were shocked because we won little door prizes, and we're living on that high today.. Jean: We are. Also, I'm feeling a little tired today. Alison: I do, too, because of the thrilling excitement of winning a Simpsons basket and a blood pressure monitor. It was excellent. Jean: It was. It was fun. It's so interesting now what makes us happy? Alison: That's right. The most basic things. That's right. And this, But I know this interview is going to make me happy, you know... Jean: This interview, I think back to when Emma, who you know, helps us set up all these wonderful podcasts and she said to me," Jean, Lee Harris, accepted our request and I was just like, Wow, that is so great!" He's just someone that I've tuned into and I love his message and he's just he's the real deal. He is so down to earth and easy to talk with you. You know, you feel like he's the the guy next door. Alison: Right, Right. And I, I was not as familiar with him. But when you look him up, you go, oh, my gosh, this guy is, he's been doing this 18 years and he's got it going on. Jean: We get to interview Lee Harris and definitely we GET to, as It was a big deal. Lovely. Yeah. People were all like, Oh, I know Lee and I've been listening to him and, and so on.. Alison: He's a channeler, right? Jean: Right.... of the Z's, Alison: Which is amazing to me. Like that is just something that, even he says it at one point, you know, "I thought it was kind of fringe", you know what I mean? Like, but he really is, the message he brings forth are amazing. So this interview was,was so, so much fun for us. Right? Jean: Right. Also one of the other things I love about Lee is that he, like all of us, we're all multi-dimensional. And he is not only a channeler, he's an amazing musician, singer, teacher, actor. Right. He is an intuitive healer, he's an author. So he's just such a well rounded and he's funny. Alison: And he's funny! And he's got a great laugh and he lets you tease him, which is, you know, what we like! We do! We do like that. All right. So listen to Lee Harris and we'll be back after. Jean: Hello! Oh, my goodness. It's so great to see you. Lee: Oh, thank you. It's so nice to meet both of you. I've heard lovely things about both of you. It's very nice to meet you. Jean: Well, we've heard very nice things about you! That's right. Lee: Maybe we all paid the same person. Alison: What person likes us all? Lee: Yeah. Thank God. Hey. Alison: This is wonderful. Lee: Oh, I'm so glad. Alison: (Holding book) is just such a wonderful manuel (book).Jean is further along on the spiritual train, so for me, this was so, um. I gleaned so much from this. Lee: Oh, I'm so glad. Thank you. You know, and it's so funny because my only concern about book one was originally, it should have been at least one and a half times the size it is. And the publisher opted to take some out. And my big concern was, is this too small? You know, book two is going to be almost double the length. But actually it seems like it was. You know, the universe has a way. Right. So thank you. I'm happy to hear that. Jean: You know, my son came to visit me and he said, can I take that book home on the plane? Wow. I was like, Well, Matthew, sure. And I think it's a perfect size, Lee, I think it's great. It's so full of wisdom and support. I was sharing with Allison that I felt this book was was a love letter from spirit to our soul and to our human self. And and it's easy to read. It's not like, I'm going to wait till I'm more evolved. Yeah, yeah. Lee: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, thank you. That. That means the world. So thank you. Alison: And Diana is lovely. Lee: She's fantastic. Yeah. Alison: Yeah. Alison: So we have some questions that were offered to us from someone, but we would love to just know, Talk to you, actually, about you. Lee: Okay. All good with me. Alison: Because you're very, very peaceful. So I'm wondering, can you just tell me a little bit like about a day for you and do you ever, like, get angry when you don't get a parking space or something? Lee: Oh, well, no. haha Lee: Parking spaces don't bother me, but I have a bit of a thing. Like I have opinions on the road and it usually, it usually revolves around me having to remember to slow down. So I and, you know, because it's always interesting to look at your triggers, right. And to see how they show up in your life. And I'm I never love it when I get stuck behind someone who's doing 30 miles an hour on a 50 road. But then I always go, and it happened to me this morning, actually. And today was a really busy day for me. I have my family coming in tonight. My mom and my sister are arriving in a couple of hours, so I'm really excited. But I'm also getting lots ready in the house and you know how it goes when you run a business and you have a big team. There are lots of things that come up that you're not expecting. So I was definitely rushing and this brilliant driver came out in front of me and my first instinct is, Oh, I need to get to the office. And then my second instinct is, okay, I get it. Yeah, you're right. I should slow down and enjoy the hills. So. So, yeah, I hear that a lot from people that either the work I do or being around me makes them feel calm. But I'm very human. And like everybody, I have my stressful, you know, stress days and days where I think I've got better at catching it now. And part of my work in the last few years has been balancing, um, holding big energy and then really working to bring myself back to the small and the domestic and the grounded. And that's still something I'm working on. But that that's where my evolutionary path lies the integration of, of our higher self and our human personality and I think that the words that came through the Z's were so supportive of being human and. . De power of and, and at the same time, Really knowing that there's something operating bigger, more expansive, more benevolent than than we and we really can put our finger on. And so, Lee, I was curious, I know that the Z's came in while you're riding a subway. And did you, were you already like a, someone interested in the metaphysical world? Will you already.. I know you're a sensitive, young man when you heard them, speak about that. Lee: So, y Lee: So I got very, I first really got introduced to intuition and metaphysics in a more overt way, when I was 16. I remember going to a tarot reader and I remember taking my mum to that tarot reader because I didn't I don't even know why I knew to do it. I'm not quite sure. Someone came across our radar. I heard about it and I was all in. And my mum, who is actually very intuitive but unlike me, has never had, um, I would say, you know, the time of her life and, and her situation did not necessarily afford or allow her the desire or the opportunity to go and study it the way I did. So we now talk about that, which is beautiful because I think her seeing what my work has done in the world, has allowed perhaps her to believe her intuition a bit more. But even then, when I took my mum to this tarot reading, she was nervous and scared about it. But I just loved it, you know? I couldn't get enough of it and I didn't know why at the time, but there was something that would happen in the tarot reading room and there would be an energy shift that I would feel. And now that is the same energy shift I feel when I channel the Zs, but cranked up to about a ten. So what I understand now, is I felt very at home in spiritual energy and I think like many sensitive or empathic people and any of us who've grown up in the cultural conditioning that we've grown up in, in our generations, you can feel very ill at ease in the traditional human world or in the way that we as a society are told to show up and behave. Lee: So from the age of 16 to 17, I got very into metaphysical books. And but I was never that into I certainly wasn't into channeling. If anything, I that for me was a little too fringe. I was more interested in self growth and personal development and I would take myself off to these workshops. But it was 23 when I first heard the Zs. And honestly, the weirdest thing about it was. If there was one thing I thought I knew, it was that no way were you going to become a channeler on the subway. You know, it was like, no way. Like I should surely be a really pure person or I should surely. And they appeared to me when I was in the middle of negative self thoughts, which was, you know, kind of normal for me in my early 20s --blaming myself for everything, attacking myself for things, occasionally blaming someone outside me. But it wasn't, you know, it wasn't high consciousness thoughts, but that was how I knew they were different. I was like, What is this voice that comes in and tells me that these thoughts are wrong and explains why? And as they explain why, I see the logic in their answer, even though I couldn't see it. But more importantly, my body relaxes and I start to open up. And that's the effect I notice that they have on me. So after, you know, a few days of going, is this multiple personality disorder? Is this what it's like? I don't know. But I have to say, I remember thinking, well, if it is, I don't want it to go away. Lee: This is way more useful and way less problematic than I hear multiple personality disorder can be for some people, or perhaps the way it's portrayed by society. I've never met anybody who's who's experiencing it, so I'd have to really ask them how they feel about it. But so it was very clear, very quickly because I asked them questions and they were like, We are your guides... You haven't been able to hear us since you were six, but I don't consciously remember hearing them before six, but I don't have a ton of memories before that time anyway. So that was the moment and it was a series of months and months and months of me coming home excited to get home from work, to sit down and write more questions and get answers that started to change the way I was seeing the world, change, the way I was seeing my life- didn't didn't give me an immediate enlightened personality or anything like that, But it started to shift me in the way that I could see things, in the way that I could perceive things. And then I confided to a few spiritual friends, and then I would give them readings. And that was kind of how it began. Alison: You know, I love in your book because I get the sense like even with you talking now, that actually we're all enlightened, but some of us are under a pillow or or like something, and if you can just sort of allow yourself like you, you could have shut that off, You could have been like oh..... Lee: You Know, I could have. And the one question that people have asked me is they go, Were you scared? And I my answer was very telling. And it told me something. I was never scared of them. I was terrified of what society was going to think. They felt like home and I was like, Oh, God, this is going to be very inconvenient to the point that, when I started doing readings, which was about 4 or 5 years afterwards and I was pushed by a friend and I could have again said no, but I thought, Oh, no one's probably going to come anyway, so okay, yes,.. You can send me out to your newsletter of 300 people and probably no one will come. But I did 60 readings in 60 days. Now, to be fair, I was doing it for a donation, a minimum of £10 or $15. That would have been back then. So it wasn't risky to people. So I think that was part of it. But people would start sending me to their friends, they'd have a reading and they'd tell 3 or 4 friends. So it took me, I think after about a year, I decided to tell my family what I was doing and I'd never told them that I was a channeler. But it was getting to the point where if I would go home to visit family, why is Lee is running off with his laptop at the weekend? You know, because I because I had a job as well and I had to try and get it all done, because for two years, I, I kept my part time job and I did the readings part time. And then after two years, it just got to the point that and I had raised my prices according with my experience and how many people were coming. Lee: So after two years and that was 2006, it was like, oh, you can let go of the part time job that you're holding on to just in case. And you can do this full time. But I didn't tell my family for the first year. And yeah, I mean, and I lost some friends too, which was tough. I lost some really close friends who I liked, who suddenly either thought that I was the channel which I never claimed to be, or they were triggered by it. So, you know, it was it was it was an interesting time and it was a time that taught me a lot about if you want to Do this, one of the lessons you're going to receive is it's going to really make you trust who you are and what you believe. And I had been raised in a family where what the neighbors think, is like of utmost importance. So that programming I was holding got really grappl with with this process. But just just to your point, you know, the Z's say that we we all incarnate as these extraordinary souls and the human conditioning that we are born into kind of clamps our potential. But even within that, they say it's extraordinary to be alive, even within some of the gravity and the limitation. They say it's hard for you to believe that, especially on a day when you're suffering or when you're struggling with being on the planet. But they they say it's true. And the more I've heard them say that now for 24 years and the more they've explained why, the more I know it's true. Alison: You know, we interviewed Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor. Alison: You know who that is? Lee: I do. I saw her speak once. Fabulous. Alison: And I feel like when we do these interviews, you realize that God, the universe, spirit says is telling us this is reinforcing the same thing over and over. And that is that the human experience is one of magnificence, even in moments of grief or high emotionality or and and it feels like just the time that we're in the people that are being authentic to their true selves like you were actually, I consider brave, you know, to be your truest self. And my child is experiencing something now and coming to their truest self that that is enlightenment. You know, living an authentic life. So when you talk about your family, sometimes when you meet somebody like you, you forget that you were raised in a family. Like it seems like you just like you came from a light beam.. Lee: And again, I think that's kind of the tricky. I think part of that is because we well, a couple of things. This is the same issue I had with some people in my life. All of a sudden it was like they couldn't allow me to still be the me that they knew and that could laugh with them and that loved movies and music and all of those grounded things. And then I'm doing this other thing over here, like they couldn't allow me to be all of those things, but this weird thing superseded everything else, and they needed to reject me because of this one thing. So I think that is an issue that we have in society. You know, if there's one thing we don't like about somebody, we want to discount them completely. But I think more to the point, what I've come to notice, having done this work now publicly for 18 years, I didn't get this until I've seen it time and time again. We have been so conditioned, certainly in the West, to be afraid of and separate from spirituality and the risk of this and this is a thing we've seen time and time again. The problem is, there is a kind of heartbreak that we as human beings go through around our spiritual teachers or our gurus or the people that we pedestal. Lee: And the reason we pedestal them is we think, well, they know everything and they know more than me. And that's because we've been told we know nothing about spirit and we can't connect to them. And actually all those people are doing is reminding you we're all a bridge to spirit. And maybe their job at this moment is to shine that brightly, because that's the thing they can offer society. Like, I'm really grateful to all the people who can do all the things I can't do that I benefit from. But I think that's where Guru culture comes from. This separation and worship culture that's very dangerous, both for the worshipper and for the one who's worshipped. If they've got, you know, ego imbalances that they inflate themselves and fall from a mighty height. We've seen that play out so many times. But what I came to realize is, oh, when you look at the history of mysticism on Earth and the witch trials and, you know, we know that powerful, intuitive women were burned not necessarily because they were witches, but it was convenient for the men running the society at the time to get rid of those powerful women. I mean, we've seen we've seen women get, you know, cut short for thousands and thousands of years. But we've also seen certain rules around how we're allowed to interact with spirit. Like, I'll tell you how you can meet God and this interesting control hierarchy that we have as human beings, which thankfully, in some ways we're going through a big healing shift around. And in other ways we're seeing it rear its ugly head in response to the rise in consciousness. So I often look at it as that kind of energy template that we're dealing with. And so for me personally, it's, you know, it's very sweet what you just said, but I'm like, Oh, no, no, no, trust me, hang out with me for a day. And yeah, the Zs have absolutely influenced me. But at the same time, I think that spirit's influencing all of us all of the time. And yeah, it's to me, it's dangerous for us to pedestal or Guru I's any one person, and it's dangerous to allow someone else to do it to you. Because I've been up close and personal and I've seen that happen a lot of times. And I also was definitely someone who guru ized in my early 20s because I thought Spirit was so separate from me and I don't blame anyone. I think we do it because culturally it's the way we've been trained, but it really harms everyone involved. Jean: Yes, it's so true and I can absolutely relate to what you just said personally, just putting people on a pedestal. And I saw it all around me here. You know, we live in Los Angeles. You know, celebrities get, you know, oh, my God, whatever they do... And and again, I think this beautiful book reminds us of our sovereignty as a human being. And I think, This book is like a blending of the right and left hemispheres of the brain, the spiritual and the analytical it or the the, you know, being in the world with with the contrast and, and not making the contrast wrong, but just embracing it in a more less judgmental and Beautiful way. Lee: Yeah. And I love I think that was one of the gifts of doing it with Diana because originally we were just going to do some recordings and she had interviewed the Zs several times. In fact, she first came to me for a private session back when I was still doing them, and she said, I don't ever go for these, but something told me to come to you. And of course...
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Roger Burnley
10/11/2023
Roger Burnley
Roger Burnley, author of “Overcoming Fear - A Guide to Freedom” is an intuitive life purpose coach. He has studied every aspect of personal and mindset development, while moving through every imaginable hardship and difficulty, turning that knowledge into a life-changing and transformational program -
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Jennifer Hough
09/27/2023
Jennifer Hough
The Wide Awakening was founded in 2007 by JENNIFER HOUGH: Nutritionist, Certified Master Trainer with the EBC, Expert in the Science of Flow, Speaker and Author -- Begin Transcript -- Alison: We love our theme. Jean: Yeah, we love that theme song. We love it. What is it called? Alison: Chipper chaps. Jean: Chaps. Alison: Which is us. Yeah. Jean: That is true. Alison: We are chipper chaps, and I love when it's playing. And you do that moving...side to side Move. Right? Jean: I also snap my fingers. Alison: Yeah, you're in it. Da da ba da ba da. Okay. Oh, wait, is this on? I got to put my automatic level control on. Okay, Excellent. Who are we talking to today? Jean: We have the amazing Jennifer Hough. Alison: And you know her as, like, a friend, right? Jean: I do. I met her, I'm going to say, like over ten years ago. Wow. We met in Arkansas and I knew right away she was someone that was exceptionally fabulous. Alison: Do you remember it? Was it like a retreat? Jean: We went on a retreat. She was one of the guest speakers. And yeah, we were in Arkansas. We were digging for crystals. Alison: I remember that You brought back crystals for us. Jean: I did, Yes, I remember that retreat. Alison: Oh, that's great, right? Oh, that's excellent. But you have you have a piece of paper you're holding. Jean: Yeah. Because I want to share with our listeners, this is what Jennifer wrote in one of her email blasts that she offers. Okay, she writes, "Sometimes we become myopic about life, focusing on problems with laser like precision. The other day, inspiration hit and I decided to go for a walk with the intention of reminding myself that the miraculous abounds. This is what life gave me back as evidence. Absolutely stunning. Just thought I'd share. What evidence have you had of the miraculous lately? What are you being vigilant for?" Alison: I love that. Jean: What are you being vigilant for? Because whatever you seek, you'll find. Alison: That's right. Well, let's listen to her and then we'll come back and talk more. Great. You did a great job. Alison: Okay, here we go. Jean: Let's jump in. Jennifer, I want to talk to you just quickly about what the word awakening means to you, because we're hearing that more and more and I know the name of your company is Wide Awakening, but what does the word awakening really mean to you? Jennifer: You know what's really funny is lately I've been head first into definitions like, what does that mean? So for me, what Awakening means and to our body of work, is this idea that, you know, most people are running around surviving their life. They've got their blinders on. They're sort of funneled in there... How do I make my next buck? How do I make sure that my rent is paid? How do I make sure my mortgage is paid? The kids, the this, the that? I mean, we're we've been so busy in a lot of first world countries. Very, very busy. So for me, awakening means, somewhat like the movie...did you guys see the movie Tomorrowland? Alison: Yes. Jennifer: Yeah, I love-- oh my gosh... I love that movie so much. So Tomorrowland is this movie... That's there's a part of it that I had a dream of once, I actually had a dream before the movie came out. And what I saw was, I saw these people poking their heads above, in this case clouds in the movie it's a field, and they poke their heads up and they see each other as if they've been down in the forest up until that point. And then all of a sudden they see the reality of what's really going on and how powerful they are and that they can make change, and that it's possible to have fulfillment and meaning and do something that actually matters. Jennifer: And in that movie, when I saw that, I bawled... I still bawl everytime I see it... it's near the end of the frigging movie. I had to wait all that time. So anyways,for me, what awakening is, is that coming from the fog of survival mode where you're go, go -- do do, you're living according to what society says you should, must and have to do in order to get by. But awakening is when you, when one, when I, when we, actually come above the fray and notice that above the clouds there's actually sunshine and you start to understand your superpowers, you start to understand that you don't have to go from survival and Maslow's hierarchy of needs. You don't have to go from survival and work your way up. You could actually go from survival, just to jump to this place where you understand that you can be this agent of of making a difference in the world, no matter what your financial, love life, anything status is. And when we realize we can be actualized no matter what, um, for me, that's really awakening and it just takes a shift in operating systems. It doesn't take 20 years of being in a cave with a guru. Yeah. So, yeah, to me, that's what awakening is. Alison: Yeah, that's beautiful. I mean, I think what you're saying is so interesting because I think people feel mired in and oppressed. Jennifer: Yeah. Alison: And and that my eldest kid says, I think part of the problem in the world is that people don't feel taken care of by each other. Jennifer: Yeah, Alison: I think you're right that if we could just elevate the thought a little. So how would you, what do you say to someone that feels like, Oh, easy for you to say. I have a 9 to 5 job I don't like. How do I pop my head up out of the field? How do I do that? Like, is there a step? Jennifer: It's a great question, Alison. I think it's different. Every single person has a different approach to that, you know. So I think for different people, because of what they've been through in the past, um, there's a bridge. So my mastery is around building bridges to have that experience, right? So for each person, um, they have a different past. Something happened to them from their father or their mother or in school or something hard, you know, is some experience they had at work or at school. And and so there are bridges that need to be built. And for me, it's not like a one size fits all. It really is about building a bridge from where they've been and where they've been operating to try to stay safe. For me, like, there are three basic ways that people are doing that keep them in the mire of survival, that density. One is they're trying to stay safe. And from a recurring illusion that the past is going to happen again. Right? So they put the past in the future and then they act like it might happen again. And then they're vigilant for where that might happen again instead of actually being vigilant for thriving or being fulfilled. Their blinders are only to make sure that that thing, that thing or those things don't happen again. The next thing is they're trying to stay in control because whenever we have volatility, we're like trying to stay in control so that that volatility doesn't happen again. But what that takes you, us, all away from when we're trying to prevent that volatility by staying in control... Which I don't know about you, but I've never had that issue. Jean: Oh, no. Jennifer: Much? Jean: Here's my calendar. Jennifer: Right, exactly. Jennifer: No Control going here. (laughing) Jennifer: Exactly. So, so the funny thing is the laws of physics say that through every contrast that we've ever had, Life is actually responding equally and oppositely with opportunity and openings and blessings. I mean, that's the way physics works. It's not some woo woo concept. It's actually a scientific concept. And so since that's just a scientific fact. When we stay focused on everything that we need to protect against by staying in control , again, our vigilance our experiences to look for ways that things are going to go out of control. The problem is that takes our vigilance away for from those blessings and from the miracles and from what life is providing us based on the laws of physics, which is all of these things that get created every time we go through contrast. And the third thing that we do is it's like protection. So then we don these personality traits. Again, don't know what I'm talking about because I've never done this, (haha) but we don these personality traits, right? And for me, it might have been like being a know it all. Like I remember you know, in my 20s especially just brutal and then being fiercely independent... Which that's like a disease in North America, it's like this fierce that I could do it all myself. Which is why I love that the two of you have this podcast. It just makes me happy. So there's this fierce independent, I call it independence disease, and it's another way of manifesting that third, that third way of being and all of those ways of being, all of those ways of being are not very productive when it comes to being able to flourish, have a fulfilling life, or have meaning in your life, i.e. being in the process of awakening. Right? Alison: Yeah. That just hit home. Jennifer: Yeah. Well, we all do it, right? Jean: So, so true. And so, Jennifer, in your book, "Unstuck", you talk about the magic zone? Jennifer: Mm hmm. Jean: How do you describe the magic zone? Jennifer: It's the miracle zone, actually. I just want you to know, it is also the magic zone. (laughing) It doesn't really matter. They both start with M. So, so that zone is a place where if you can imagine everything...... Hmm. Let me use an analogy. So usually when I would go to the airport, it, you know, it's like and I go to a lot of airports. I was in Albany this time that I remember. So and this is in the book, actually. Jean So I'm in Albany. I'm like about to get on a plane and I'm so frustrated because stuff isn't working for me and I'm just having to work so hard and I'm hopping on a plane. And then what happens is I get this little voice while I'm riding in the cab and a little voice says, Listen, this is what we want you to do. And I'm like, First of all, who is we? But this is what we want you to do. Just give this a shot. No matter what happens, don't judge it and be vigilant. Like actually put your radar on for the miraculous. And they said and this little feeling was no matter what. Okay, I'm game. Whatever. Okay, let's do it. So get into the little tiny, teeny, tiny Albany airport and ( Oh, and my dog is visiting me because there's a thunderstorm, )So we're getting the little teeny, tiny Albany airport. Speaker1: And what happens is the first thing that happens is, I notice that I'm in row 20 something, which A- is not good. Then I'm in the middle seat and I'm five foot ten, which B - is even worse. And I don't know why I didn't do my seats because I always do my seats and I'm going to Dallas, so it's not a short flight, and I'm thinking, Oh my God, okay. And I notice myself judging and they're like okay, nope, that the instruction was no judgment. So I didn't say anything. I go up to the counter, This is after this really nice guy in a really expensive suit, just left the counter. And I go up and I say, Are there any first class seats? And she goes, No, that man over there just got the last one. And I look over at him and he's there and I stick my tongue out at him and he, he laughs his butt off. Right? And then I go back and I go, Well, you know, I'm thinking in my head, so far this is going swimmingly, right? So then going on the plane on the left hand side, there's this lady with an empty seat, first class who has a doggy on her on her lap. And I thought, oh my God, I love to fly with a dog on my lap. And then I notice at least I noticed that the whole rest of the plane was full. Jennifer: So and I had a carry on. And while the flight attendant wasn't looking, I put the bag up in first class and I went, okay, well, there's that. That was good. So I go to sit down in my little freaking seat. There's another good looking guy on my left. He's on the window seat. And he's, he's just, you know, and all of a sudden, they're they're making the announcement and I make sure he's sitting down, put all the stuff away, blah, blah. And the guy came comes back to my row and I thought he was going to come and talk to me. No, he talks to the good looking guy with the other suit. So the two suits are talking and the suit guy says to him, listen, we won't be able to get done what we need to get done. So clearly, they are lawyers, right? And he looks at me and he goes, Oh, it's you. And he said, Weren't you the one that wanted a first class seat? And I said, Yeah. And he said, you know what? I can't sit in my first class seat that I just got because I have to do work with this guy. So what I was intending to do is who's ever sitting next to him can have my first class seat. Jean: Love that. Jennifer: Oh, no, no, no. It gets way better than that. So then I get up, he sits down and, you know, whatever, and I go and sit and I get the seat next to the lady with the dog, and the dog jumps on my lap and I fly with the dog the entire time for the first time I've ever had a dog on my lap on a flight. Not only that, but my expertise at the time was around migraines. The woman had the dog because her anxiety caused her to have migraines on the plane. I gave her my expertise and showed her how to not have migraines on the plane and showed her the laws of epigenetics and the laws of physics. I got her doing the exercises and she thought it was a total miracle. She says, I'm going to a conference. This is the punch line. I'm going to a conference about migraines in Dallas, and they need another speaker. It's $10,000. Do you want to speak at the conference? And I'm like, okay, this is under the category of you can't make this stuff up. Right? So I say this all because that's what's available. That's the level of flow that's available in people's lives. And scientifically, like from that incident, it was probably the beginning of an evolution of all the work that we did, because I wanted to understand the science of how that happened, right? So for me, this is like but for myself, right, right. But then I realized, like, everyone could do it. Everyone could do what happened there. Like that could just be the way you are. Speaker1: So the miracle zone is THAT...that's the miracle zone, is like where the "or better" (I call them or betters) just kind of come to you, right? Like it's you don't know what you wanted until it actually comes. It transcends the idea of intention and manifesting things like, like law of attraction because you are the attraction, so everything is coming to you. But when you let go of the idea that you have to be the one with the mental intention, understanding that your entire beingness is an intention, that beingness trumps the very confined, history based mental intention. So when you actually let go of needing to manifest what you envision and you just live in the land of vigilance for the Or better, you hear me use the word vigilance a lot because literally that's how people live. They live looking out for what's what's going to hurt them, what you need to be in control. Imagine that you could just actually Be vigilant in an entirely different way about your life and that that's the way it starts to show up now. It takes some embodiment. It takes some practice. It takes some experience. I mean, we teach huge courses on it. This is the thing, that's the miracle zone.. That's it. But those miracles really are destined to become our normals, right? Like like my my goal is to get the idea of miracles out of our head. That it's not miraculous. It's actually the way we're supposed to live. We're just so indoctrinated. Jean: Right. It's like that quote from Einstein. I think it's Albert Einstein that says either everything's a miracle or it's not, right? So you're just like living in that zone, that paradigm that you talk about, Right? I notice for myself, some days I'll wake up and I'll start a little on a low vibe. I'll think, what's wrong? what do I have to take care of, my mother? Whatever is on my mind and I quickly notice what I'm thinking of and I go... Nope, nope, change it, change it up. And then I'll just say something simple like, Show me how great this day can be. Or, you know, I'll just notice that I'll be thinking of heavier problems, not huge problems, and then intentionally handing it over and allowing...hmmm...God to operate through me more. Jennifer: Yeah, yes, yes. So one of the things that is coming to mind right now in the conversation is one of the things I needed. Oh, geez. that was a that was thunder and lightning. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. Yeah, that was. Isn't that crazy? Clearly, we're on to something here. Alison: Um, where do you live? Jennifer: I live in the mountains of North Carolina. Alison: Oh, wow. That's great. We have relatives in Asheville, so I wonder if they're... Speaker1: I live in Asheville. Alison: You do? Jennifer: Yeah. Alison: Think we're going to Asheville in a couple of months? Speaker1: Oh, my God. Come on over. Alison: Don't say it because I will. Jennifer: No it's happening. No, it's done. It's done. We'll take you to our favorite restaurant. So it is done. So. So where were we? We were on. Yeah. So when all that stuff happens. Right, Right. Jean: And then you wake up feeling heavy and kind of, Oh, I got to worry about that person. Jennifer: So there are two approaches. I'm very focused on the long term changing your entire way of operating, such that when you feel something that feels down or low or hard or yucky. Or maybe you feel a bit powerless about it. That the instant you go there (and when I say the instant, you know, maybe within a few minutes), your understanding of the law of physics has you be able to almost turn around to (this is going to seem like pie in the sky)... But imagine that when, you know, my favorite words is embodiment, when you actually embody that operating system, you understand the laws of physics so deeply, that you understand the instant there's contrast or a low feeling, there's already solutions. A solutions and a, and a whole new day, you know, with with the resources of consciousness having orchestrated themselves to make the equal and opposite most expansive solution bridge and new reality available. So it's already there in the field. You know, we're only made of. We're less than 1% physical, so we're, we're 99.39% not physical. So in that not physical universe, in the, in metaphysics in the field already exists, knowing the laws of physics, this reality that, you know, we can't see yet because we're at a frequency that isn't where those solutions are. Jennifer: But imagine being able to automatically just be so adept at knowing that that already exists, that your need to analyze and focus on that which appears to be wrong (Not that you don't do anything about it, you do do something about it,) but the energy with which you do something about it is with the already knowing that you're on the path of building the bridge to the evolution of that situation. It takes a little bit of work to get there. So that's the long term goal. The long term goal is a state of embodiment where literally none of that gets you, if you can imagine that None of that gets you. Imagine how much more quickly you get to that place where you just catch up, catch up to what's waiting for you. If nothing took you out, imagine how much more quickly you'd come to the solutions, right? So, however, one of the tools, it's a little thing seemingly, but it's a big thing, is...
/episode/index/show/9b9d37f3-5027-46a8-8271-f4656cb937bd/id/27638790
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Carla Hall
09/13/2023
Carla Hall
Carla shared that she takes full responsibility for the negative which means she also takes responsibility for all her positives. Carla looks forward to truly celebrating her 60th birthday! ---Transcript--- Jean Trebek: She wouldn't mind. Alison Martin: No, we were just saying that maybe for this next introduction, we should be eating while we tell you who we spoke to. Jean Trebek: Because we had the great joy and it was a joy, a real joy to to talk with Carla Hall. Alison Martin: Carla Hall. Jean Trebek: Love saying her name. Alison Martin: I know. And I love her. I love her. I love her.Okay. Carla Hall has just she's a, I don't know, a culinary influence. Right. But more than that, she's like a huge, wonderful, curious personality. When I've seen her on so many shows, you know, Top Chef, The Chew, a lot of shows where she's hosting and she just loves people. Jean Trebek: And she has such a generous heart because she says, yes, I feel, to a lot of life experiences, you know, she just she exudes like, what's that French phrase. Alison Martin: Joie de vie. Jean Trebek: Joie de vie. She's just that and she's just beautiful inside and out. Alison Martin: And we I loved speaking to her not so much about because she's done so many things. Jean Trebek: We tried not to talk to her so much about her food so much. But her but really her heart. Jean Trebek: Because she has done she's been an actress, a model, an accountant, an animator. Right? She's written cookbooks. Right? Right. She's been a host, a TV personality. She I don't I don't even know. We thought we were going to tune in and she would be like, you know, on a loom or something, knitting, doing something amazing. You know, she's just great. Jean Trebek: And you know what? She has her own cookware line right now. Oh, right, right, right, right. Alison Martin: Which I can't wait. Jean Trebek: I actually ordered something. Did something for you, too. Oh, thank you. I love Jeannie. All right, so here's Carla Hall. Jean Trebek: So awesome yesterday.What a what a great person you are all around you just. Alison Martin: And we've watched so much of your interviews and stuff and you're just so funny. Carla Hall: Well, I'm present. And honestly, my friends are like, I can't believe you said that. I'm like.Don't even know what I'm going to say. And every time I say something like, That was so ten minutes ago, and I'm on to the next thing. I don't hold it. I'm like, No, that was so like 30 minutes ago. So here we go right now. Alison Martin: So you guys, you two know each other from Helen Keller International? Jean Trebek: Yeah, we do. Alison Martin: And you're both on the board. Carla Hall: Yes. Right, right. Alison Martin: So do you see each other on Zoom or do you see each other in person? Carla Hall: Well, haven't even been to an in-person meeting for a while because I'm totally out of New York. And so the last few times I've been online. Have you been in person, Jean? Alison Martin: I have been in person. I saw your great beautiful face there just a couple of weeks ago. Yeah, I go to New York fairly often because my mom lives there and my son lives in New York. My sister's there. So on this particular trip, I got to go to the board meeting and I looked up and I was like... Carla! Carla Hall: I was in a box. Alison Martin: Carla, what? What interested you about the Helen Keller International? I'm just curious. Speaker4: So at this point in my career, well, I moved when I went up to New York to do "The Chew". I left a lot of my foundation work and nonprofits that I was working with in D.C. So I was like, Well, gosh, what am I going to do with all this time? I have, you know, that was in the beginning of "The Chew", not realizing that the time would be gone.I was doing another foundation while I was doing the Pajama program, but then I realized I was getting hit by so many organizations. And I'm like, wait a minute, I have to figure out what my checklist is to say yes to an organization. And I said, okay, kids, Yes. Something with with work done in Africa, I'm like, I wear glasses. So glasses, you know, like eyesight. And I was going through this list. And then someone from Helen Keller? No, it was actually. It was.... This is menopausal..... It the president. Kathy. Kathy? Oh, my God. It's real. I'm like, I don't even remember my mother's name sometime. And I call her mama. So this is where we are. So just like, I'm like, what? Um, so Kathy reached out to ask me for to dinner, and I was like I said, sure. And I went to a child site facility first because she said they did all this work. And I loved it. And I was there telling the kids, okay, no, not those glasses. Those really aren't good on you. What about these? These? I said, what about this? And I felt it was a moment that I could relate. And because my glasses are face art and I said, this is going to be a part of who you are. So you may as well pick something that's cool and nice and something that you like. And so that was really my first intro to Helen Keller. And then I went on to go out to dinner with Kathy, and then and then I went to Vietnam with them and then all the whole thing. And I just I love that organization. Alison Martin: Yeah, they're just it's just so amazing.You know, the thing about you that I think is so wonderful is how you are just you. Not just, but totally you. Carla Hall: Yeah. Alison Martin: There's no agenda. It looks like. It looks like you got no hidden thing... Carla Hall: You know, it's so funny that you say that because I tell people I don't I don't really like people. I think my superpower is that I genuinely like people. I don't pretend to like people. I really like people. And I'm interested in people. Even when I see homeless people, that's not the right term. Now it's unhoused. When I see unhoused people on the street and they're like, you know, you know, may I have some money? And I look at them in the eye and I said, Oh, no, thank you, because no thank you. Do I want to participate at this time? But I see you as a person. I will always see you as a person, but I don't want to participate in the exchange. But my gift to them in that moment is to see them and I will see every single person, no matter who you are or where you are, you know? Jean Trebek: Yeah, yeah. I love that. That's so important, you know? And I think every time we see someone, we just actually open them up and we open ourselves up. Carla Hall: Mhm. Yes. Yes. Even when you're kind of scared. Um, it's funny, I, you know, I can be out in the world and I'm a borderline introvert/extrovert, and people would probably assume that I'm an extrovert, but I still have that, you know, that shy person who has to sort of recharge at home. Um, but I went to a class reunion at Howard University and it was with my girlfriend was in a sorority. I didn't pledge a sorority. So I was in with all of these other girls and I felt myself shut down. And I was like, What? I mean, I was like, oh, my God. I felt that same person who was in college. Like, that person jumped on me so quickly and I had to just talk myself off the ledge. I'm like, What is going on? I wanted to leave the room. I felt like I didn't belong there. And I and this was like after"The Chew", I was in "The Chew" at the time. But in that moment I was just like, Oh my God, I feel like I just want to, like, go concave and through the floorboards. How that moment, like, took me right back in an instant to college. Alison Martin: So what did you do? Carla Hall: Oh, I'd say I talked myself out of it. I'm like, okay, through it. You can talk to somebody. Like meet them where you are. And I feel like I think I remember saying to one of the girls, I said, Oh my God, I feel so awkward right now. I feel I feel like I did at 17. You know, and it was just to be honest in the moment with my feelings. And that got me through because I didn't have to pretend like I was anything but what I was in the moment, you know? Jean Trebek: Yeah. I think that's so true. I mean, you look at someone like yourself, very well-spoken, out in the public eye, and then to go, You know what? Wow. I felt really awkward there. Yeah. And it happens to all of us... that part of us.... Alison and I were just talking about it. How some days you feel like you're on your game and some days you're just like, I don't even have a game. I don't want a game. Carla Hall: Right. Jean Trebek: I just want a TV Tuner. Carla Hall: Right! You know, a bouncy ball. My claim right now is bouncy ball. Okay. That's all I got. That's all I got right now. I can do a bouncy ball. But then there are times when, you know, I'll have an interview and somebody will say, You're really good at what you do. And I'm like, Yes, I am. Alison Martin: Yeah. Carla Hall: I am. Alison Martin: Yeah. Carla Hall: And I'm going to tell you the fact that I can say I am shows where I am in this moment and I feel very confident and I know what I know. And this that you're talking about. I know, you know. And so there's that side of me, too. And I'm so proud of her. And I'm so proud that she will show up and speak her truth and say, yes, I don't play coy. Again, I don't have an agenda. If I'm feeling awkward, I will tell you, if I'm feeling really high on my game and you ask about it, I will tell you it's how I'm feeling in the moment. And I think that sense of being vulnerable and sort of sharing with people that moment, I think that's why I connect with people, because I'm going to tell you exactly how I feel in the moment, even if it's awkward and weird. Alison Martin: Because we've all been there. But I think it's interesting when you said, Oh, and I was even on "The Chew" when I went to this reunion, and even though, like you think, well, of course you're on "The Chew", but then is there a little bit of like like you think people are expecting you to be on or something like you have any of that? Carla Hall: 100%! Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think people think that they will see me on television and they think that I'm that way all the time, like on and like this and sassy and laughing and joking. But when I'm tired, I am very much inside of myself and sometimes I have to travel tired and, um, and so I remember getting on social media and somebody had said, Oh, I met you in person and I knew something was off, but you just weren't the same person that you are, you know, on television. And I wrote back and said, I'm a person. I have my highs and lows and I was tired. And but I said, if you had come up to me, I would have told you that. So you, you know, you also made it. I mean, yes, I was tired, but you put a lot of yeast into it that, you know, I mean, if people come up to me. How are you feeling? Oh, my God, girl, I am so tired. I really am tired. And I also remember one time when I was on "The Chew" and I had to go, I was in New York and it must have been on a Saturday or Sunday whenever they have the street fairs. And I was exhausted. I mean, but I had to go. Maybe I went out to grab something to eat and I was so tired. And I remember thinking, I said, I don't I don't even have the energy to smile. And I was like, but I have to smile because I'm out. And people expect me to smile. And I remember just going through this, you know, like this, this twitch in my mouth. And I was like, Oh my God, I feel like I have to smile. Like, no, you don't have to smile. And I have this this dialogue and I don't know what I look like to whoever, whomever was looking at me. But I feel like I was kind of like, you know, like. Like this twitch, you know, like smile. No, no, smile. Yeah, but it was so crazy. But I felt like I had to live up to this thing. And then eventually, when I finally got used to this, I guess being on "The Chew" and having people come up to me said, That is not sustainable. So being what people expect me to be is not sustainable. I can only be who I am. Right? And that helped me not only in life, it helped me on television, it helped me in interviews. It you're going to get the person I am right now if you want it, the person yesterday, then you should have called yesterday because this person right here is going to be the person you get. Jean Trebek: I love that. Alison Martin: And I think all of us have that, like, you know. Mothers, office workers, anything. There are these expectations that women feel. I can only speak from being a 65 year old woman. You know that there are these expectations that we feel that, oh, I've got to be this now... And maybe we can put that down. You know, I think that's important for our listeners to hear because I think sometimes we get caught in that, you know? Carla Hall: I think so and I think so I'll be 60 next year and I'm so excited about it. I can't tell you how excited I am. I mean, I'm going to celebrate every woman who turns 60 next year, the entire year. If you were born in...64 Jean Trebek: That's my same birth year. Carla Hall: Wait, are you 64? Stop it. Jean Trebek: Yes 64 is my Birthday year. Carla Hall: Your birth. Your birth year is 1964. Jean Trebek: Yeah. Carla Hall: Oh, my God. I'm adding you to the list. I am making a list. I am making a list of people. Michelle Obama, Kamala Harris. Vanessa Williams. Yardley Smith. Sherry Yard. Now Jane Trebek. Oh, I'm seriously. I'm making a list of all the women who are turning 60. And and there are all these people that we don't know who are turning 60. And the idea is to celebrate this new station that we are still lively enough to create a new chapter, to have a new adventure, to really step into our wisdom and not step into a place that others think that we are and and whatever. If you want to celebrate your wrinkles, you celebrate your wrinkles, your gray hair, whatever it is. But you get to choose. That's am I the entire year of 2024. That's what I'm doing. Jean Trebek: I love that. You know, I too, have no. Maybe not as like, yay 60, but just like, hey, 60 is fine, 60 is cool. You know, I had more - UGH - when I was turning 40. And now, you know what? Every woman that I love, that's late. 50s. 60s. 70s. 80s. They are my rock stars. And so we'll sail into that year together. Carla Hall: Yes. So happy. Alison Martin: I'm curious, though, like you were shy as a child? And did you have any of this out there or were you really just that child that was like in the sitting down in the back? Carla Hall: Yes. I was super, super shy. I mean, I was really shy. I had a lot of boisterous friends. And I had what I felt like a shield of friends around me because I would be behind them. And they're like, we're coming through. And I'm like, I'm coming with them. So I'm like, I'm here, too. And I played basketball. I was terrible. But because I was tall, they were like, okay, you get to play. But no, you get to be on the team, but we're only going to put you in if we're 50 points ahead and there's 60 seconds left, so you don't mess it up. I mean, so that was, you know, I was that person. But then I saw my first play at 12 on Broadway. It was Bubbling Brown Sugar. Alison Martin: Yes, I saw that on Broadway. It changed my life. Carla Hall: Yes. I mean, that song, "Nobody" and I don't remember the words. All I remember is he's like, Who wants to die? Na na na, Nobody. And who wants to do this? Nobody. Oh, my gosh. My mother was probably regretting the day that she took me to that play because she was like, Carla, clean up your room. But I'm like, who wants to clean up their room? Nobody! If you ask about the room, the trash, I mean, I did that for a month. My sister wanted to pull my hair out. And so my mother said, okay, we're going to put this girl into theater. And so I feel like theater saved me. Theater saved me from feeling like this. I mean, that play like instantly opened my eyes and I was like, Wow, look at these characters. They are amazing. And the singing and the dancing and just this outward expression of themselves. And so when I did theater, I mean, there was no turning back. And then people were calling me weird. I thought it was a compliment. I'm like, Oh my God, thank you so much. I appreciate it. Did you just call me weird? I love it so much. Alison Martin: Weird award. Carla Hall: Right. Got the weird award. Yeah. So I think theater saved me. And then so I did theater from 12 to 17. And I thought that I was going to go on to a conservatory. Boston was the only one I wanted to go to because that's the one that my acting teacher, Ruth Sweet, talked about. And her her oldest daughter went there and a couple of my friends went there. I was like, That's the only school for me. And then they were going to defer my admissions. Later on I heard that they were deferring the admissions and hoping that actors would have more life. And so, you know, life experiences and go to undergrad and then go to, you know, get your graduate degree. And so but I saw it as a rejection. So I felt like theater saved me. Then it rejected me. So I turned completely away from it and then did accounting. I'm like, What? Who does that? But like the accounting teacher. Alison Martin: We were laughing because it was like, wait a minute. She discovered a new species at the ocean depths. She's a brain surgeon. She's an accountant. She's a model. She wanted to be animate. She's on Top Chef. Else has she done? She'll be in an operating room while we're talking Carla Hall: Doogie Howser. I know, right? I mean, and the funny thing is, I think when I look back at my life and I remember having this conversation with Michael Simon, so we were we were on the set of "The Chew", and he said, Carla, you have done so many things up to this point, so you are probably not afraid of doing lots of different things. Whereas like, for instance, he had done out of high school, it was food, he did food, whereas I did a lot of other things. So, you know, Madonna Girl, you don't have anything on me. I can recreate myself. Okay. Okay, girl? We go do this again. Um, so that's what was. I think I saw that as a plus and an asset, whereas my mother saw it as Girl, can you settle down on one thing? You know what I mean? Because it worried her that she had paid for this education and then I got my accounting degree and then I went on to get my to pass the CPA exam, and that's hanging up in our house. And so, you know, she would look at this. She's like, why aren't you doing this? I'm like, Child, I don't like that. I hate it. I only did it for you. I finished it, I checked the box and now I'm on to, you know, to find my happiness. I didn't want to be 40 and hate my job. That was my biggest thing. So 40 was a marker for me. And so when I was on "Top Chef", it was, um, I was 42? I was 44 when I did Top Chef. And I think a lot of people forget that someone came up to me the other day and said, I've seen you from the beginning on Top Chef. I'm like, Well, I was 44. That if that's the beginning, well, where's the end? So, you know, um, but yeah. Jean Trebek: Nice. So. Okay. Carla. I know that you talk a lot about love in your Cooking with Love and all of that. Can you talk a little bit about your spirituality? Carla Hall: For me, it's everything. I mean, so I had a really bad breakup when I was 30, 31 or so. It was it was it felt like two of my friends had died because my really good friend started dating the guy that I thought I was dating. But you hear me? That I thought I was dating. Apparently I wasn't... But, I...
/episode/index/show/9b9d37f3-5027-46a8-8271-f4656cb937bd/id/27452046
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William Linville
08/30/2023
William Linville
William Linville works beyond space and time and is presented with your light-realms. His events are tools to assist humanity in its awakening, remembering and arising within and throughout its divine, benevolence of Creator Incarnate. Please Note: While we're happy to provide the below transcript for those that'd prefer to read than listen, listening to this episode will provide the best experience. The text transcript alone may not capture exactly what our interviewee intended to say. ---Begin Transcript--- Jean: All right. Alison: There we are. Yeah, we did it. Okay. Your voice is very good. Jean: Oh, I don't. I don't love my voice. Alison: Really? Alison: It's very peaceful. Jean: I know, everyone says that. I feel like I'm lulling people to sleep. Alison: Okay, Wake up, we have to wake up. Come on, Energy. You do you. All right, so now we're talking to someone today who you actually have known for a long time. Jean: William Linville. Love this man. Alison: Tell me. Jean: Yeah. So I've known William... I've known I met William probably back in 2012, 2013, and I heard him on another podcast, if you will. And I just thought what he had to say was... It just moved me and I felt it was the truth for me. And he has really been a huge champion in my life. He's really helped me overcome a lot of fear and I love him. Alison: Oh, that's beautiful. Jean: And I love his wife. Alison: Oh, that's excellent. I love that. So I was not as familiar with William. I had I had heard of him through you, but he is fascinating to me. Yeah, I think he really is right. So let's listen and then we'll we'll come back and talk. Jean: Great. William: Hello, everyone. How's it going? Alison: Hi. Hi. William: How are you doing, Miss Allison? Alison: Hello, William. William: Are you having a blast? Alison: Yeah. William: Awesome. Awesome, awesome. Alison: I am. It's so good to meet you in person, because I've heard so much about you for so many years. William: Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. And likewise. And you too. What are you ladies been up to? Jean: Well, I'm getting over Covid, William. William: Oh, really? Well, that sounds like fun. You're having a good long time. Jean: Just a lot of alone time and getting caught up on things that you know, I maybe pushed aside for a while, but now my closets are super clean, and I've caught up on calling everyone that I've ever known and...hahah William: Counting the cracks in the in the fingernails and toenails. haha Alison: Exactly. William: Counting the pours in the body, you know, all the fun stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Or you feel better now? Jean: I am. I'm feeling much better. Much better. And this is such a treat to have you with us, because I know, you know, you and I have known each other for-- I was thinking about this William, for probably over ten years. William: Yeah. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been great... On one hand, it seems like eternity, On the other, it's like a blink of an eye. Yeah. Jean: It really has. And Allison has heard me many times speak about you, William, And so now we get to introduce you to our listeners from Inside Wink World. And um Allison, do you have anything to say? Alison: I'm just so happy to meet you. And you're one of the more interesting humans I've ever heard about or read about. William: Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. It's been quite the interesting journey. Alison: I bet. I bet. And how did you two meet? William: Well, Jean came out to our place in Vegas where we were living, and we did a an interview. That's how we met in the physical. But how did we meet Jean, was it a referral, right? Jean: Yeah, I think. William, You were on a show,not Beyond the Ordinary, but a, you know, a show where they interview spiritual healers or, you know, just people that are helping humanity awaken. And you are on a show, and I just thought your interview was amazing and something that that we can start off with-- William, if you wouldn't mind, You talk a lot about your vibratory levels. William: Yes. Jean: And you talk a lot about marrying your lower and higher vibratory levels. Can you say why that's so important now more than ever? William: Like right now. haha Jean: Like, in this time of of planet Earth, I mean, I guess it's always been important, but, um. Do you sense that we are bringing in and allowing more of our God self to emanate through us? William: Absolutely. And what's going on is there's so much going on, especially internally and then externally. So internally, you know, it's kind of a dance. I call it a Divine romance. Romance with you and the whole universe as a whole. So what happens is like ,there's all this unveiling moment going on within you. So you look at this, we can call it-- To me, it's all dimensional, but for the sake of understanding, what the linear context You know, we call it incarnational realms. So, times and spaces that you've had many different experiences and as a soul. So you've been the queen of France, you've been kings, you've been coal miners, you've been natives, you've lived in the jungles, you've lived on the islands. You've lived in the Midwest, far west, far East, um, all over the planet. You as creator have picked up a form being that of humanity or human. Hu being ancient frequency and tone of creator through the mammalian species which is expanding and embodying and expanding through creator man. That's not meant as a gender. It's meant as creator through the mammalian species. Hence his hue man-- hue, being the ancient frequencies and tones originally of creator from first separation to now, really, except the paradigm shifted, which means dear ones have, through the evolutionary cycle of things, became denser and denser as you go through.-- You know, the Times of Aquarius, You go through the Dark Ages, you go through the freezing and the ice ages on imam, which would call it more like the absence of you. William: So when you started identifying that and perceiving that you were no more than a mind and a body on a planet. Now what's happened is humanity got stuck from the solar plexus down. The solar plexus is your levels of carnality. So it's where you go into fear. You go into sink or swim, fight and flight. You go into survival. It's the instinctual levels of surviving. It could be surviving the physical flesh, like when you would be hightailing it away from dinosaurs or danger or running away from the cliff rather than running off the cliff, you know, being chased, by more villagers are coming after you or whatever it may be from standing out. And that has created, you know, from the Crusades to the hunting down the witches, warlocks on and on. Now, what's happening is all of those incarnational states, which once again I call dimensional, that's how you're able to take a breath, go through past incarnational clearings, is that you're bringing that stuff up. You're asking it to unveil itself. The things that are still affecting you now in this body, on this planet, in this life. I call it phobias, anxieties, like recently, like every dear one and their brothers, dogs, chickens and cats have had anxiety attacks. It's coming up in waves. And what that is, it's all those fight and flight responses. Kicking up to the influx of you as your higher levels, which is still you open and as creator vibrating and waking up within its incarnation, but as higher vibratory levels that are coming up as you but then as coming up through the soul level, it's coming through the emotional calibration latiswork, through the sub psyche, all the way through the psyche and the soul level journeyers are waking up as well William: even going beyond the Trinity State as spirit and soul in form. So it's like the lights are coming on, but all these hidden away, call it secrets, call it hidden away... Um, I call it misperceptions of yourself, misunderstandings of yourself, misperceptions that you made all these decisions just like you as creator said, let there be light. And there was light. Well, you said, let there be danger. Let there be fear. And this is unsafe. This is safe. I love everyone except my family or everyone's wonderful , they're all creator except my mother in law, I know she's demonic. haha William: So from here, you know, all this stuff is rising up before you to look at it right in the eyes, to say enough. To look at it and I'll call it resolve it, come to terms with it, to where it just no longer holds, nor has that power over you. And didn't we get into the old paradigm stuff, you know, like, what is fear? What is darkness? It's interesting. William: They're both, as far as I'm concerned, major umbrella phrases...that doesn't really say anything except to me, it says the absence of You. So you're going into these areas within your cells, your atoms, your molecules, sub molecules to the human genome through the master cell, the DNA, the RNA through each and every charkra level vortex, from the crown, the third eye, front mental and back, through the throat from the lower back heart front, middle and back. It's starting to merge down through the solar plexus front, middle and back through the creator chakra level vortex, front, middle and back, all the way thru your root chuckled Vortex, and you're reopening them... But you're not there to try to relive anything. You're there to see it for what it is. Ideally, I would have you find the benefit because it's got you to where you're at now, which is- that's where, that's part of the healing up process.. Is when you can actually look at it now, not rehashing the same judgment, not rehashing the same issue that --yep there's my dad. Yep. Still hate him. Okay. And it's more like, it's now-- where I walk dear ones through is- understanding where the dear one was coming from, understanding him, waking up to, you know, honestly, I don't care who it is, what it is, or even the extreme. It truly was not personal about you as a personal being. Does that better clarify that, Jean? Jean: Yeah. That's so great,because that is exactly how you've helped me over many years, is actually showing me someone's intention so that I wouldn't take it personally...I think that is one of the things you really helped me with, William was to differentiate between what was mine and what was someone else's stuff. So thank you, thank you for that. Alison: Could you explain just a little bit-- I saw on your website, you just said it just now... Fear is the absence of You. And am I am I correct in understanding that to mean the absence of the baggage that I'm carrying or these personal judgments? Is that the You that it's the absence of? William: No, that's all the stuff that is not you.. You know, like when you look in the mirror and it's a fun game to play with yourself, but it's also-- you know, I always look for the truth serum in everything. Show me the truth. Not what I want to think. Not what I want to hear. Not what I think others want to hear or think. Show me the truth. So when you stand in front of the mirror, like a physical mirror, you know-- In massage school, when I was going to massage school to learn about anatomy, learning about how my own body works, you know, much less facilitating. One of the exercises was to sit in front of the mirror totally naked, like up on the vanity. Or you can be just with a whole body mirror or whatever, you know, sit there totally naked, do your best for a moment just to become more clear to where you can just sit there. Ideally, you're going to hear it first-- All the criticisms. Secondly, that over there is definitely picking up on gravity. And over there,.. Yeah, A couple of months from now with those who, you know, who needs a mammogram, you know? And all of that stuff-- and where I was wondering what I was hitting when I was walking... Oh, it's my buttocks, you know, so where we get past all the criticizes. Yep, shouldn't have had that donut, you know that's just all the conscious mind thoughts. Jean: Mhm. William: So for a minute we just take another breath. We let that go, because it will pass.... I gotta get the hair done, and then all that stuff's gonna pass. (thoughts like) The ears are too high. They're too low. They're too big. Too small. And it's like, Yeah, I knew there was something about taxi cabs with these ears--- we just let all that stuff pass now. Then we just still sit there. We still stare. We don't get a book. We don't try to become preoccupied. We really just be right there. The criticizers gonna pass, that's all of 20% of the mind, the conscious mind and all the emotions that like, it's like all that harshness starts to come up and you start to realize and feel, or I'd say more so than feel experience the emotions starting to die off with it. And then, it'll be quiet for a few moments. Maybe three. Maybe five. It's different for everyone. But then, you're going to start having these memories now. Memories are an interesting thing because many perceive it linearly. Like yesterday, the day before, when I was three years old, when I was in the womb... Blah, blah, blah. Well, in reality, it's not about way back when, linearly. It's still dimensionally, still going on. The way you always know, is that you sit there, you watch. If it was not dimensional, you would not be able to still experience the energy around it. Because right now, when I say, all right Allison-- let's you and I just go back to relive dinner last night. And what's the first glimpse? And as you go to the first glimps, how much is your mouth salivating and how is your body responding? Alison: I'm hungry. I'm hungry for more pasta. Speaker3: Yeah, exactly. And now, if you look at that for a minute, you really follow that to its source, you'll be given, you'll be shown from yourself, the first time you when you first had pasta and then when you first decided you liked it. And the interesting thing is, it's really not about the pasta. It was about the ambience going on when you first had pasta. Alison: Well, it makes me say, I wanted to say-- being with my grandmother. William: That's exactly what I was about to bring up, that connection that made the pasta so wonderful. Okay. Now that's dimensional. That's not Grandma 20 years ago. Okay. That's why you're able to still feel her presence around one of the billions of reasons, but including that her presence is around you. But from here, it you go beyond that for a moment, as you're sitting in front of the mirror, then you start looking, hearing, experiencing all these conversations. To me, I call it like-- Doors that are still open that have never really fully been closed nor resolved. Doesn't mean they're all derogatory. It just means it's just different parts of yourself (And this is where I do call it at times soul fragmentations), depending on it's areas of yourself that got fragmented, scattered. It's a lot like PTSD or dear ones are still stuck in that moment where the soul's been fragmented. So, it's like constantly running and running and repeat. Haven't been able to yet, at that moment be able to welcome back of the the rest of themselves to where they're at now. Now, you go beyond that in front of the mirror and you start listening to all these dialogues and then you start to become, you start to recognize... eventually, that you're no longer that little child. You're the third person here. You're observing what's going on. You're watching. To now we can take that part of you, pick them up, embrace them, and now welcome them back to you cleared and purified. William: Or, we can welcome forth the ascended host, the angelic, the arc-angelic realms. Whatever presents for you at that moment to take them by the hand and walk them home. Because that's also when we get into, you know, the different emotional age of decisions where all the decisions you made in that circumstance, how that circumstance is still affecting you, even though your body is older, you made all these judgments about how the world works, about your value, about what you deserve, what you don't deserve, about whatever, however-- worthy, not worthy, lovable, not lovable because of x, y, z. So where now, we get to look at it clearer as a third person. Now we have the brilliant opportunity to undecide what those decisions that were made to either re-decide or just undecided. (acknowledge to yourself) You know what? Ijust don't require any more stuff in my cellar, being that of the sub-psych, because it just doesn't benefit me anymore. And now, depending on the extremes, you can walk out of the back of your shoes, step into the back, of it's a perpetrator or whatever, and then looking through at their eyes back at you and what you're going to find.. You do a scan, where you can really see how they really felt about you. You'll find more often than not they were jealous. They were envious. They wanted what you had. William: They wanted their purity back. They wanted their innocence back. They saw that you had it, and they they were just so enraged and they wanted it back. And they're really crying inside. They're sobbing inside and they're acting out in all these different ways. But it's more out of fear, tournament, not even about you. And you can go through their emotional age capacity when they decided those same decisions, they weren't lovable and everyone's against them. Which will also have you eventually, you know, understand them further to where now-- What's been fear, what's been hatred, resentment, terror that's been running your life ..now transcends into compassion. And you're also assisting them to heal up to current age. And then you step back, in the back of your shoes with now that clarity to where that's no longer keeping you held hostage anymore. And I'm not saying for a minute that we're going to sit here and try to justify rationalize that their behavior was okay. Right. It wasn't okay. But for resolution, maybe that situation made you more independent. Maybe it had pushed you to become more powerful. It pushed you into waking up sooner, quicker. It pushed you to know to put your foot down,to say no more. And it accelerated your journey into waking up to who you really are-- But rather than continuing the hamster wheel of "Leave it to Beaver" and "The Brady Bunch" and pretending. Alison: Right. Can I ask ask another another question about the idea of souls, and the idea of if we are all that is then then how are we also individuated souls? Like you had said that there were so many experiences that we've had. Is that me as an individual soul or is that like there's this huge energy soul and I'm dipped in and mixed up with that? Does that make is that does that make sense as a question to you? William: Yeah, it does. So getting back to first separation. You as Source decided to split itself off. It goes beyond that.wWhen you decided to create the heavens and the earth and all the planets, you decided to create something that you could create to where you could expand upon yourself as creator as a whole.. which once again is genderless. Now, you decided, okay, you created the mountains, the lands, the oceanic realms, the plant kingdom, mineral kingdom, and, you know, the animal kingdom, plant, kingdom, on and on and on. And at first, you would split yourself off, you would experience what it was like to step into the form of a gazelle or a deer. You would hop around. You would...
/episode/index/show/9b9d37f3-5027-46a8-8271-f4656cb937bd/id/27863406
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Brad Koepenick
08/16/2023
Brad Koepenick
Brad talks about the importance of taking the time to really see someone. Brad is the Co-founder and CIO of SparkRise, a game changing solution where non-profits can garner support from businesses and activists. A proud Advisor for B Generous (2023 Fast Company "World Changing Ideas" Honoree), he is an active Arts Education Advocate and supporter of organizations such as Get Lit, the Educational Theatre Foundation and Inner City Shakespeare. Brad is also an Educator and proud recipient of the Hart Vision Award, given to him for being named California Charter Teacher of the Year. Brad was a founding teacher at the first Charter schools in the SF Valley through PUCSchools. He's a Co-Founder of VIP High School, a successful charter school in the San Fernando Valley with an impressive track record in College/University, Speech and Debate, Mock Trial, Poetry and Spoken Word, Music and the Arts. Koepenick has served as a corporate spokesman for several companies (Pioneer, Symantech, Amgen, Soba) and is a working actor, having appeared in an array of stage, television and film productions, as well as dozens of national commercials. He's also a film producer, whose titles include Cinema Twain, Shakespeare High and the A24 Film, V A L (Winner of the Hollywood Critics Choice Award and premiering at Cannes Film Festival 2022). Brad was also the subject of Alex Rotaru's Award winning film, Autistic Kids With Cameras, which highlighted the work he’s done with youth on the spectrum. -- Begin Transcript -- Alison Martin: Wee wee! Okay, go ahead.Hi. Jean Trebek: Hi. Here we are in our little studio. Alison Martin: That's right. Which is really just like a corner in my little back house. Brad Koepenick: Well, today we have the amazing Brad Koepenick. That's right. Alison Martin: I've known Brad for a bunch of years. He's a real force here in the San Fernando Valley of California. I met him because he was doing an animation camp years ago when I also knew his wife, Carol Koepenick. She was a wonderful teacher at the elementary school near me, Carpenter Elementary, and my kids went there and loved it. And Brad is like the Pied Piper. He can get anyone to sort of like jump on board, right? He's infectious to be with in a in a very joyful way. Jean Trebek: You cannot be sad if you're in Brad's company. Alison Martin: That's right. That's exactly right. Jean Trebek: And he has a whole wonderful new platform that brings together donors and influencers and charitable organizations. And it's called Spark Rise. And it's amazing. And that's just coming out. Alison Martin: And he helped start a Valley International Prep High School out in out in Chatsworth. Would that be Chatsworth, right? Where where the Hope of the Valley is? Jean Trebek: Northridge. Alison Martin: Northridge, right. Exactly. Sorry. Chatsworth was the old campus. And then he also works with Val Kilmer and does Cinema Twain. Mainly we talked with Brad about his heart... Jean Trebek: Right. He shares a lot of just beautiful things that he is and that he has to embrace about himself. And I love him. Alison Martin: Me, too. He's very sweet. So here he is, Brad Koepenick. Brad Koepenick: All my beautiful friends. Alison Martin: Hi, Brad. Jean Trebek: I've got Brad on the brain because I've watched so many Brad things. Brad Koepenick: Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I don't care what we talk about. I really can't even tell you the timing on this. The fact that you said today in particular is really weird. And by the way, do you believe in... I already know you do... synchronicity? Alison Martin: Yes, of course. Brad Koepenick: Love, magic, God, synchronicity, spirituality, cosmic leanings. Alison Martin: Yes. Brad Koepenick: Good. We have now won. We've won awards from four different chambers. Alison Martin: Really? Brad Koepenick: Yeah. Originally, the Steve Allen Award came from the United Chambers. That was for Ian - Spark Regional Award. We did a thing with West Valley Warner Center, but via Northridge Chamber, gave Michael the principal of the year and then a Chatsworth Porter Ranch gave Chuck the Unforgettable Educator Award this year. Jean Trebek: Wow. Brad Koepenick: So I'm a person who truly believes, and I really do, that my community is real. Yeah, I'm having a blast. I'm living my best life right now. I must have bumped into... And I'm not exaggerating 20 students last night and current students really... Because they sit in a canopy at the Northridge Mall but I'll tell you one thing. It's magical there. Alison Martin: That's amazing. Brad Koepenick: That's my life now. Alison Martin: Now Spark Rise brings together donors, brands, influencers through social media. Brad Koepenick: Spark Rise is a premier digital platform that - I call it Disneyland for activists. But we were a little ahead of the trend, and we have solutions for brands and nonprofit celebrities and activists, and we found ways to support them, that quite frankly, increase brands bottom lines. And so we've been doing it in various stages in various ways. We spoke in 30 states now and we spoke about Spark Rise at the United Nations. We spoke at Google headquarters. We did radio like Steve Jones from the Sex Pistols. We talked about Spark Horizon Close. We were part of stories of social impact for Capital One cafe. So it's something that's been going on, but it's go time! The pandemic proved an interesting opportunity, so I merged the companies with really significant brand, uh, brand ambassadors, philanthropists and a tech company out of Seattle. So I have an extraordinary team, great governance and structure. And as you know, Brad needs governance and structure. Alison Martin: Well, we want to talk about all your projects, but we want to talk more about you and how you are. You said at one point you are the guy with the most energy in the room. Brad Koepenick: Okay. So I make a joke and I say, I'm BrAD. Why do I say this? Because I was a literal poster child for AD at one point. They made a film called Autistic Kids With Cameras. It was about my work with students on the spectrum. This was in 2006. The last thing I wanted ever. That particular year, my mother was passing away and there were a lot of things going on and I was working 14 hours a day, seven days a week, teaching. The last thing I wanted was a camera following me. But I was with actors for autism. On Saturdays, I taught students on the spectrum animation, filmmaking, storytelling, theater, improvisation. These are the things that, as a young man, this is what saved my life. I've been thinking as of late, my parents had a place down on Balboa Peninsula. My dad was a working man. He worked up here at Rockwell Atomics International. I don't think he never took a day off. But when my dad got home, he put on a tool belt. He had a beer, we had dinner, and then he would go to some property that his uncles helped him buy. But at one point it turned into he bought a duplex at Balboa Island. The only reason I'm at Balboa Peninsula. Why am I telling you this? I spent the bulk of my time alone making films. And I was, you know, nine, ten, eleven when my science teacher told me that we had were having a science fair in sixth grade, I simply wrote the song Pollution and had it in a film. You did not do that in those days. This was not part of the approved curriculum.I didn't know any better. Brad Koepenick: And I bring up Balboa because those were the days when I took my speedboat out and would just head out. Yeah. I had a Boston whaler and that meant I get to go out as far as I could till I scared myself and dream. And I saw whales and I saw crazy stuff. I got to live in that world where actually theatre and animation and filmmaking gave me a storytelling pathway that I use now. So. I don't apologize for my energy because, quite frankly, it's a superpower. Yeah. And it's what saved me as a teacher because I didn't care if you paced in the back of the room. I had a circle outside the door. If you needed to take a few seconds or a few minutes or even the hour to get yourself together. I'm extremely compassionate about all of us, if you if don't mind me saying so, that are somewhere on the spectrum and it enabled my teaching. So this energy and it is a lot of energy - served me really well as a young actor. I found my way to Chatsworth High School where I met my very best of friends and they all went on to storied careers in the industry and I still work with all of them. I'll tell you this. Brad Koepenick: What I said for 30 years, teaching was the ability to create, nurture and maintain meaningful lifelong relationships. It's the single skill that will propel you in the 21st century...And here's what I love about that's conflict resolution. That's forgiveness. Those are listening skills. These are persuasive speaking techniques. That's precision listening, active listening, listening for entertainment. I always said as an actor, you find the character in the other actor's eyes. You find your character, that means you're connecting. So my teaching led to a rather obscene amount of beautiful relationships. I was afforded the opportunity to not only teach one class in a school, I was at 150 schools, right? This is not an overexaggeration. I was just a guy at the Country School... Jean's child was was there. She didn't know me then, but I was right there. I remember standing next to you a thousand times, and the gentleman at this very progressive school allowed me to do what nobody was doing then, which was animation with young people. I, I, I lucked into animation early on. I found a camera when my son was going to be born and I ran over to Bullocks to buy a camera to film the birth. What do you know? There was a little button that said Anim. I was like, Does that mean animation? The guy goes, I don't even know what you're talking about. I said, If that means that that camera takes a frame a second, you can push a button and it goes like that and if it's got some options. He goes, Nobody's ever asked this. I said, I'm asking. So sure enough, it had a quarter frame. Half frame, one second frame. I said, I'll take five of them. Wow. My wife said, What are you doing? We can't afford five cameras. And I said, This would be amazing. So I started an animation program at the Country School that grew into after-school programs that... name a private school because I was at every one of them in Studio City, Sherman Oaks, Woodland Hills, all the way through Calabasas and Agoura, all the way to Malibu. And then the thing just grew and grew and grew. We became Celluloid Heroes movie camp that's named, of course, after my favorite band of all time. That's The Kinks. Uh huh. I was obsessed with The Kinks, but it started as after-school programs, and it turned into camps. Once it turned into camps, we exploded. So my partners, John and Greg Kenseth, and I would do this in firehouses and temples, and we just did it wherever students wanted it, and we did it nonstop. So we would have 30, 40, 50 kids in a camp once a week, but then we'd be down in Newport, we'd be in Orange County, we'd be in LA, we'd be in Agoura, we'd be over at NoHo. Brad Koepenick: My home was Lankershim and Magnolia over the what used to be Pitfire Pizza. Oh, yeah. And my buddy, who I had founded the Whitefire Theatre with, we were a founding theater company there and did some plays there that became movies. And it's really fun because honestly and this is true, the movies and plays that we did, they sort of echoed Tennessee Williams, echoed Mark Twain and echoed Sam Shepard. And now I've literally made movies about Mark Twain. I'm making one about Tennessee Williams. And Sam Shepard is my favorite playwright. And so I'm living it all now. It's manifested. It's manifested because I'm the luckiest man in the world. I have 10,000 foot soldiers that are media literate. They're creatives. They're loving. They know all my faults. These are my students, right? And now they say, Hey, coach, I want to make a movie. Well, okay, I'm making one. This weekend, I started acting again after 25 years and I'm producing with my students. They're tech geniuses. They're innovators. And they invite me in. And I say, no, I don't have time. I don't have time because I was teaching. And now I'm like, Yes, that's right. That's right. The answer is yes. Right? Alison Martin: Tell me tell me a little bit about your idea of forgiveness. So you said that forgiveness is an important human skill. Why? Brad Koepenick: I loved when I taught because I taught communications and that gave me the opportunity to break a million rules. You know, you've got that personality. I'm, like, follow me. Let's go. I was wild. But when it. I'm really working with underserved kids in a meaningful way. You're talking about family situations. And when you're in the trenches every day, that can overwhelm you. So, my students, I really devised our own curriculum. Based on creating a sacred space where we could communicate, including me... my most personal fears. Obstacles, maybe. Life story. And finding a way that was appropriate without doing that thing where you cross into psychology. I never did that. I had a psychologist the best in the world, by the way. I had her right here. So we had a safe, sacred space where we would discuss things openly. Tears flowed. It was incredible. And I watched students from incredibly difficult situations confront, express themselves and use that sacred space to come to a place of healing. Brad Koepenick: Over the years, I learned to come to a place of healing because I'd done so many community circles with my students and so many activities and exercises where I can't ask you to do something if I'm not going to model it, right? So, teaching media literacy led to conflict resolution that's negotiate, compromise, compromise, avoid, delay. Surrender. Get help. That I would I would go through those. I'd say we're going to have a big year this year. We're going to learn a million things. But honestly, I want to speak to you about the fact that all I really care about, is that you understand that there's help. If it's not me, it's someone in the lobby. If it's not someone in the lobby, it's a parent who's standing over there. It's not a parent, it's over in that person's office over there and there's a therapist over there. But the ability to take care of yourself. Practice self care. And then eventually, which has changed my life, mindfulness and meditation on a daily basis. Um, will lead to having the kinds of skills, forgiveness that will provide you with a better life for yourself. Alison Martin: That's beautiful. I agree. Jean Trebek: So, Brad, what do you think mindfulness is? What is it about mindfulness? Because you hear that a lot. Brad Koepenick: Okay, so I'm running around. We called it the Willy Wonka tour. Alison was there. We're in an old brick building. I have two months to open a school. So I'm giving the Willy Wonka tour. By the way, it was magical. And it was the Willy Wonka tour because I know how to build teams. And in that case, we had one of those extraordinarily cool teams where it was like, I believed every word I was saying. I've never actually had to sell anything I don't believe in. But in this case, it was like, we're going to be speech and debate champions. Why? We had the national speech and debate champion- the best teacher in the in the country. Oh, by the way, every kid's going to go to college of their choice. Why? Anne's the best at what she does. She's a partner and she will get you into the college of your choice. That is what she does. Oh, don't talk to me about our parent body. I happen to have one of the strongest leaders I've met in 30 years, and she doesn't even know I know her. My wife dealt with her. So that's Alison. But my point was, I'm running around giving this tour, and at the very, very end, I would say... This is a school of mindfulness and meditation, and the parents would look at me. I was a little bit talking out of my- You know what? Because, yes, I knew of the David Lynch Foundation they provide in public schools around the country. And my friends were with the David Lynch Foundation. Yes, I knew of the Mindup Foundation because Goldie Hawn is awesome. And she gave Mind Up to my teachers. So I knew we had people that were going to bring us meditation and mindfulness and they knew what they were doing, so we did it. But the real beauty was one night when a couple moved in. I'd wanted to bring some people in from up north, from Silicon Valley, San Francisco, etcetera. This couple walks in and I gave them a Willy Wonka tour and he says, Shut the door. And he says, You need to know based on what you just did, I'm going to sell my home and move to Los Angeles with my two daughters. By the way, we teach mindfulness and meditation around the world. And I said Thursday night, 7 p.m., four nights later, I walked into the space. A man with AD who had to lie his whole life right during theater exercise. Jean Trebek: And how was it? Brad Koepenick: Oh, it was great. I'm relaxed. No, no, no. He whispered something in my ear that night. A mantra. And it changed my entire life. Wow. And he and his beautiful wife not only left their daughters in our school, by the way, they're incredibly special. And they just graduated university and are doing social impact work and business at a level that I'll never understand. But he came in with the students for four years, and we had a mindfulness and meditation class that was not a joke. So the woman that we had teaching Natalie was just really, really good at it. I took my first sound bath in that class and now I go to the creative visions in Malibu and do it over the beach. So I learned my meditation practice. With my students and in some cases, some of my students even taught me to go deeper and deeper and deeper. And that's real. It changed my life. And everywhere you look around the globe and I know you know this because you interviewed global leaders and thought leaders, it is the conversation we're way past. Is it good for you? Do you need it? It is the conversation in leadership and especially in the tech world and startup world. Alison Martin: Brad, what's the first thing you do in the morning? Brad Koepenick: Meditate. I have a practice where I, uh. Well, I'll just...I'll get specific. But I'll tell you this. There are certain things I say out loud. I'm a gratitude list guy. I'm a big gratitude list. I say mine out loud because I'm a kinesthetic learner. So I like to move and I like to do things. So I sometimes, as I'm driving in the morning, scream mine out. I'm grateful for Jean. I'm grateful for Alison, I'm grateful for Val. I'm grateful. And I just go down my investors, my advisors, my best friend, of course, my wife is at the top, right? My wife's at the top. Um, uh, 40, 40 years together. Um, and she learned to meditate. It's been really important, especially during those extremely trying times. The last several years, my morning practice is a practice of writing. I write. I speak my gratitude list. I attend programs, seminars, and other such things that promote wellness. And it's funny. I used to ramp up. I'd listen to Radiohead Muse I'm a rock n roll guy, but put it on loud. Get to work so that everyone can follow you to the next blah blah. Nuh-uh. 8 a.m.. Get in the car and I wind DOWN. Yeah. And get to a place of quiet head. Quiet mind. And usually it's going to be Stevie Wonder, right? Little Cat Stevens thrown in with some few musical theater songs and been big on Godspell lately....
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Angela Montano
08/02/2023
Angela Montano
Angela Montano is a sought after key-note speaker and workshop facilitator as well as the host of the popular podcast The Angela Montano Hour/Prayer On The Air. Her podcast has listeners from over 32 countries, whose purpose is to lift one another and the world in prayer. Begin Transcript Alison : I have no memory anymore. Right now, I don’t know whether my head is jammed with files. Are you, Jean? I think you look like Jean. I don’t remember anything. Okay. I do know that we’re going to do an interview, right? Jean: Yes. This is with Angela Montano. And I actually reached out to her because, I saw something in my inbox and it was all about prayer. And as a spiritual practitioner, that really piqued my interest. So I opened it up and I saw that this woman, Angela, offers an hour of prayer on the air with Angela Montano, and it’s absolutely gorgeous. She uses the power of prayer to help shift consciousness. People just sign up and you can type in or speak to her directly and tell her what your challenge is and she prays for you. Her prayers are not the typical type of prayer, which most of us think. Well, I’ll speak for myself, that I grew up in thinking prayer was more like a beseeching request, but this is a like a quantum, very expansive prayer. And it’s beautiful. What do you think? Alison : Well, I felt like for me, prayer has changed so much, like when, you know, raised by Catholicism and having going to church and a Catholic school. It felt like it was like the Our Father, the Hail Mary, more like something outside of myself could help me. And then we learned, when I was at the church with you, Jean, a more positive, reaffirming type of prayer. And what I love about Angela is she’s accepting of it all. She accepts all prayer as a way of helping yourself, helping others and connecting with our True Consciousness or True Being, right? Jean: Angela has a beautiful website and she talks about “rethink prayer.” So many of us, including myself have been schooled in in affirmative prayer, and I forget that when I’m in a challenging situation, I can stop and pray. And whether it’s just, oh, help me God or Universe… please figure this out for me, whatever that is. You know, it’s really tapping into a power that is greater than ourselves, beyond the little thinking mind that is constantly analyzing and trying to figure it out on its own will. Alison : And what I love too is Angela’s voice. She’s like – okay, so just sit back, listen, and really like, just let it wash over you – because She’s amazing. Jean: She is such a delight. Alison : It is such a treat because I want to just say that I think that what you Angela, bring to the table is a renewed passion and a new awareness around prayer. Angela: Thank you. Jean: I love that. And, just a little side note, I went to North Hollywood Church of Religious Science, and I’ve taken a few classes, also at the Agape Church with Dr. Michael Beckwith. So I know that’s where you studied, yes? Angela: Yes, that’s right. Alison : That’s beautiful.. And you’re a practitioner? Angela: I am a practitioner,licensed through Agape, licensed through the Centers of Spiritual Living. But really what I do with prayer for me has gone beyond the affirmative prayer method, which is beautiful and wonderful and a revelation. And I’m so grateful I was trained in it. And there’s just so many portals to enter into prayer. I’m just so grateful to be available to prayer and entering into it in so many ways. Like, if you’re terribly depressed, to pray affirmatively is very, very hard. There has to be another way. Alison : Could you explain that a little bit more? So you said you go beyond affirmative prayer, right? So for the listeners, can you just give a little snippet of what affirmative prayer is and then how you’ve moved sort of beyond that? Angela: Right. Okay. Jean: And one little thing, start with a prayer of supplication then a prayer of affirmation. Angela: I’m going to start with affirmative prayer. Then speak to what you’re saying, Jean, and then go on to the beyond. So what’s amazing and revelation like a revelation about affirmative prayer for those who’ve studied it and know it, it’s got a technique to it. So many people I work with who have even grown up in religion so often I hear no one really ever taught me how to pray. You know, it’s like, bow your head and guess we’re doing it, you know, and we don’t really know what we’re doing. And so one of my big things I really want people to know is prayer has existed for centuries before the first religion was ever formed. So a lot of times we think like, Prayer is a product of religion. You know, prayer comes out of religion. That’s not true. And I’m not against any religion at all. And in truth, religion has contributed greatly to prayer. And yet prayer is this instinct to reach beyond whatever current mindset you’re in, out of which suffering is occurring. And I really do believe that is an instinct. Like we have the instinct to breathe, the instinct to eat, the instinct to sleep. Prayer is a spiritual instinct that I think we’ve lost contact with in a in a felt sense. And so I hope in my work with Rethink Prayer, I’m helping people rethink prayer to then enter into some kind of intimate, authentic experience of that reaching beyond. And even when I say reaching beyond, it sounds like I’m meaning like reaching beyond out there. Angela: Where is God out there? I don’t mean that, I mean the Beyond…that is… I don’t know what kind of direction to tell you? I could say the beyond that is within? But within where? Do I mean behind my belly button, in my spine, like where is the within? So within our consciousness,you know, a metaphysical perspective is where we are a consciousness appearing as a body, like our body is within our consciousness. You know, that’s really extraordinary to think that. So when we talk about reaching beyond, I just mean beyond the limited way I’m thinking about something that is making me think there’s no way out, something will never get better from here, right? So what’s so beautiful about affirmative prayer is it solves a problem for a lot of people where they don’t feel connected to any kind of higher power, whether we call that higher power the existence of a kind of divine grace, whether we call that higher power God, spirit, love, beauty. How do I connect to it? So in affirmative prayer, there’s actually a technique. When I learned it, there were five steps. Now they actually have a six steps. But how I learned it is you just begin with God is. So God is, means Love is. Peace is and joy is. So you would use these verities of God. We would think of the qualities of God being love, peace, joy, forgiveness, compassion, prosperity and plentitude. Angela: And so you just begin, no matter what with, God is these qualities of God, these qualities of Love exist. And then you do something that’s very radical in step two, which is I am one with this Presence of God. So I may not feel joyful at all. So I’m saying joy is and I am the Presence of joy. So I don’t have any contact maybe in this moment with joy, but I’m declaring it in prayer. And then step three is realization, where you realize not only is God, God is and I am one with this Presence, number three is whatever is concerning me… whatever it is, it can’t pay my rent, boyfriend broke up with me, I don’t know where my child is, we’ve gotten a really frightening diagnosis in my family that you then realize this presence is in the midst of whatever concerns you. At the center and circumference of this thing, that’s scaring you. So you bring your awareness to infinite possibility related to something that maybe has you quaking in fear. And then from there you say thank you. You release the prayer and you let go. So what’s so amazing about affirmative prayer and just catch that word affirmative. I am affirming that I am one with this greater, higher power than I am currently aware of. And I’ve seen amazing things happen for people through affirmative prayer. Now, prayer of supplication, I love that prayer too. When I originally learned, affirmative prayer, affirmative prayer was considered to be like for more conscious people, you know, like we’ve evolved beyond needing help, you know, because we know God isn’t outside of us. Angela: We’re one with God. So, you know, we’re not begging and beseeching. That’s praying amiss. But I don’t believe that. I actually believe help is a beautiful prayer. And I believe it’s a prayer of high self esteem, because if anybody can just say help, they’re declaring they’re worthy of help. And even Michael Beckwith, who you mentioned, Jean, he told a story once about he was, I think in Costa Rica, he was swimming and he got pulled out by a tidal wave, like no, I don’t know, by a riptide, you know, And he was trying to swim back, He was getting super tired and he was really beginning to doubt he was going to make it back, And he even began to think. I didn’t think I would go this way, but this could really be it for me. And he said spontaneously, with no thought, something deep, deep, deep down within him moved through him, and it was just the word, “help.” And he said right after that, this huge wave came and pushed him into the shore. So, I mean, I love help. It’s one of my favorite prayers. And I probably do it every day. You know, I think of we need a toolbox of prayer perspectives and modalities. Because there’s just not one way to pray. Just like you don’t get dressed in the exact same thing every single day. I practically do. But I mean, normally you know, you might, you know, different seasons, different clothes. It’s kind of different seasons, different portals into I like to call it the prayer field. I didn’t coin that term, I heard that from Reverend Coco Stewart, who is also of Agape. And I was part of the pastoral care ministry there for about ten years. And it’s just like delivering things to the prayer field. It’s like delivering. Where we would be very constricted in our perspective to a possibility greater than we can imagine. You know, Emily Dickinson says dwell in possibility. I think that’s another great word for higher powers is just possibility. Alison : And when you say your prayer has moved beyond that, could you give us an idea of what that might look like? Angela: And maybe I’m not being perfectly accurate in saying beyond, it includes that and more. So when when I think of other ways that I pray, that I think is very good…. I did create a kind of prayer method called the vulnerability prayer. And it just starts with like, you know, I need and everything I think I need, I want everything I think I want. And then I offer all these needs and wants to the deep reality of peace that we all are and let go. And I feel very cleansed by that prayer. I mean, vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness. And sometimes I’ve taught affirmative prayer for decades, and a lot of times students like, am I doing it right? Am I doing it right? It’s almost like you’ve got to be so convicted and declaring God is, I am and right in the midst of this, God is. And sometimes, you know, it’s like, well, I can’t be vulnerable. And so I love the vulnerability prayer. Um popular, oh I don’t know how many years ago, maybe 7 or 8 years ago it became I think pretty well known, his Hawaiian method of prayer – Ho’oponopono, Are you aware of that one? Alison : Yes. Yes. Angela: So that is an interesting method of prayer. And I’ve seen many people, you know, do different versions of that. I don’t know if you would like me to speak about that. Alison : Sure. Jean: Yeah. Angela: Well, Ho’oponopono is this prayer that the story goes… That this man worked in a psychiatric ward where there were psychiatric patients who were criminals and they were imprisoned and instead of meeting with them, he sat with their files, and he did a prayer where he said, “I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, and I love you.” And so, when he’s saying I’m sorry, that’s a deep, mystical perspective on prayer. He’s saying, I’m sorry that whatever happened to you has happened to you. He’s taking even responsibility for what happened to them. Like somehow on my watch, this is happening. He’s saying I’m sorry for my perspective of you and society’s perspective of you. We’ve perceived you as other, as bad, as criminal. So it’s a deep Compassion in I’m sorry. And then the please forgive me, it’s offering all that one must go through in being so utterly misunderstood to end up with a mental illness and a record, you know, like like how many moments were missed for that person? So it’s like, please forgive me. Please forgive our world. You know, please forgive everyone…When I’m saying please forgive me, please forgive every teacher, every parent, you know, every one that may have held you that that didn’t… So I’m sorry. Please forgive me. And then thank you. Is the assumption that the gratitude is filling the space. And then I love you is the healing infusion of love. And as the story goes, there was that ward people got well and moved on to better situations in their life. Alison : That’s gives me chills. Angela: Yeah, I actually do that one practically every night. And what I often say I’m sorry to, at this point in my life, is just I say I’m sorry to the day, because I know every day is utterly miraculous. Like I bit into a blue actually a BlackBerry earlier. And it’s like, how do I describe that alone was amazing. And yet, how many moments do I miss? You know, when am I critical and damning something rather than blessing it? You know, when am I not seeing what’s really being offered to me in the day? How much love and joy and peace and prosperity am I missing? Because I’m caught in a loop in the divided mind where I’m going to name this good, this bad. You know, the outside of my house needs to be repainted right now. So now that’s bad, you know? And then, you know, I’ll go in and what else needs to be improved? Or so I, of course, do my best to live in praise and I fail every day. So I love that prayer because I like to ask the day for forgiveness, like all the things I missed. I don’t know. It cleanses me. Alison : I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Angela: I told my girlfriend I did that. She goes, Oh, Angela, I think you’re like a martyr. But I don’t feel that way about it. I feel, you know. Jean: It suits you and thank you for sharing that, because those of us that are on a, I mean we’re all on a spiritual path, but those of us that it looks more obvious, Um you know, when we say we’re sorry and we’re consciously really choosing our words in that moment, it doesn’t mean… We know our intention behind saying it. I love what you said, Angela about the moments we miss, because if we can really hold on to the perception that everything is a miracle…who is it? Albert Einstein that said everything’s a miracle or not? Angela: I don’t know who said that. I think he might. I don’t know. I want to say Walt Whitman. Everything is a miracle or nothing is. Jean: But it wasn’t me…haha Angela: Do not quote me. Do not quote me. Jean: The other thing I wanted to bring up and thank you, you’ve already given our listeners so much beauty from what you just said, on your Monday Rethink Prayer, I love when you say, “I am more interested in love.” You know, you say that sometimes to whomever you’re holding space for and praying. Can you just talk about that? Like how or what advice or what tips can you help all of us that are listening to you be more interested in love? Because that is so healing. Angela: You know being interested in love, Is being interested in ourselves. It’s being interested in our own true nature. And there is love and there’s the experience of fear. And in a way, every moment is a choice between love or fear. The Course in Miracles teaches us love or judgment, but judgment and fear are you simultaneously in that or use synonymous synonymously in that text. And so fear, if we think of it as an acronym- false evidence appearing real. So. I don’t know why I mentioned the thing about, you know, and I know it’s a very superficial could not be more superficial example, but my house needs to be painted on the outside, right? So I look at it and there’s a place where the paint is chipping. And when I’m critical of it, it’s because with that chip, I’m moving into fear. So anytime we’re feeling we need to rank, we’re in fear. Any time we think we, you know, any kind of survival mentality is fear based. You know, we’ve got to get higher, we’ve got to get better. Even self esteem is like, we’ve got to get high self esteem. And how do we get high self esteem? Well, I’ll compare myself to other people. I think I’m doing better than them. I’m not doing as well as those like we’re trying to rank ourselves. That is fear and it grips most of us. I think unless we’re completely in a communion with our own true nature, most of us are susceptible to this feeling of less than, you know, worried about our survival. Angela: How are we measuring up? So when I say I’m more interested in love, I really am more interested in love. But for me, I have to turn back to love because fear grabs me right? The minute I’m critical of a house that’s keeping me warm, keeping me safe… I mean, who cares that the paint is chipping, You know? I will get it painted at some point or something else done. But I, In my deepest authenticity, I really love my house and I’m more interested in loving it, in praising it, in appreciating it and being grateful for it than in being critical. So when I say on my podcast Prayer on the Air, I’m more interested in love, I’m saying that to myself and all of us like, can we together as a prayer collective be more interested in love? Now what’s so interesting to me is loving feels so much more natural. Fearing does not feel natural. It feels like something’s off. You know, it feels like a pretty, you know, common habit. I’m used to this, but it doesn’t feel natural. I sometimes say it’s like kind of like wearing shoes that are too small and you’re like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, But you keep wearing them. You stand in love..you ground in love. And it’s like, oh, these are the most comfortable shoes. Like we’re all equipped to be loving and to love what is. And prayer is always about bringing whatever is, into alignment with that broader, you know, energy within us and in the world of love. Alison : You know, it’s interesting. I was reading or listening about you and it sounded like in your maybe it was high school years, you had a lot of things happen. And it made me think, I wonder whether that sort of fear or trauma helps crack open this desire for awakening? Do you know … And do you think that, You know, because you can’t really turn on the news without that, do you think, what do you think, that’s indicative of something going on with humanity? Or it’s just those two things sometimes rub up against each other for me. Do you know? Angela: Yes, I do. So, number one, I suspect that is what happened to me. You know, in high school, I broke a bone in my neck and was close to being paralyzed as a gymnast. My boyfriend and friend were killed in a car accident right after going to the mall to get my Christmas present. And something happened to a family member, that was quite...
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Rhiannon Menn
07/19/2023
Rhiannon Menn
The Lasagna Love founder started this grassroots movement of helping neighbors by delivering food during the pandemic. Three years later, Rhiannon is still passionate about kindness and Lasagna Love is now a nationwide force with over 35000 volunteers helping over 1 million individuals. BEGIN TRANSCRIPT: Alison: Hi, Jean. Jean: Hi Alison… You’re so funny. Alison: Am I? Jean: Yeah, you are. I love doing these with you. Alison: I love doing them with you too. And today speaks to my heart because today we’re talking about lasagna. Jean: Yes. I love lasagna. I love it. Alison: And it’s got all those A’s in it. It’s perfect. Jean: We get to speak with Rhiannon Menn. Alison: She is the founder of the Lasagna Love Initiative. She just started making a tray of lasagna with her little daughter and giving it to neighbors. And it has become a huge national movement. Jean: Yeah, she’s been on shows like Good Morning America, Kelly Clarkson… Alison: Right. I think The Today show, too, everything. It’s been amazing how this has taken off and she is the most down to earth person. Jean: She’s beautiful inside and out. And I just want to give a shout out to my friend Lynn Hirsch, who is one of the Lasagna Love volunteers over in Atlanta. Alison: She’s yummy. Jean: She’s totally yummy. So I love learning about these wonderful humans that are thinking and doing things outside the norm… that support other people. Alison: Exactly. And anything to do with lasagna has got to be good, right? Let’s just admit it. And so this interview was so wonderful because she’s so down to earth and she makes us laugh. At one point she says, well, before that, I wasn’t doing anything except raising kids in a trailer while she’s pregnant, which just makes me laugh. Like, I think she’s a superhuman or something. Jean: I do think that phrase, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. Alison: Yeah, it’s true. Jean: That’s you. Alison: That’s you too. Jean: Is it? Alison: Absolutely. Well, all right. I think you’re going to love her and love this talk. So we’ll be back after. Jean: Hi! Thank you for doing this. Rhiannon Menn: Oh, my gosh. Thank you. I’m so grateful. Alison: I’m Alison. Jean: And I’m Jean. Rhiannon Menn: Nice to put a face to your names on Zoom. Jean: Thank you. Well, we are so impressed with your idea, your brilliant light bulb idea that has had such a wonderful rippling effect. Rhiannon Menn: Thank you. I mean, on the one hand, yes, I started making lasagnas in my kitchen. So I think technically it’s my idea. But on the other hand, I like to say this was a giant accident fueled by the passion and generosity of just thousands of people. They were feeling helpless like I was and wanted to do anything they could to support families in their community. So this is really about their passion. Alison: It’s amazing. Could you tell us a little bit how it started or how like what you just said, this discovery that you could actually do this and pass it out? Rhiannon Menn: Absolutely. I think back and I remember this all started at the beginning of the pandemic. And I was standing in my very small kitchen in our apartment in San Diego. And I just I remember feeling helpless, like there were no volunteer opportunities. I was hearing stories from friends and people I didn’t know very well. You know, we all went to social media, right? So we’re all scrolling. And I’m hearing, you know, people have lost jobs. People are, you know, scared to travel. Grocery stores are out of toilet paper and food. And I just remember thinking, oh, my gosh, you know, this is, what’s happening and what can I do? And there was nowhere that would take volunteers because you couldn’t do anything in person. And I remember even looking for a blood drive and it was hard to find one in the area. I remember there was a blood shortage early on and I just I looked at my husband and I said, I’m going to start making meals. I’m going to find people that need them. You tell me when our grocery budget has run out. And we we were lucky enough that we got a giant Costco delivery through Instacart and we wiped everything down with alcohol. And I made anything that I could get my hands on. And I still remember posting for the first time in a couple of San Diego moms groups. And just the outpouring of love and the women who messaged me privately saying, you know, I didn’t want to say anything publicly in the group, but like, we could really use this now and they would share their story. Rhiannon Menn: And and some of them were heartbreaking even in those early days. And I think naively, I thought, okay, I’ll make some lasagnas, I’ll make some chicken and rice. This will all pass in a couple of weeks and we’ll be back to normal. And then it didn’t. And somewhere around four weeks, I started getting messages from people saying, hey, I don’t I don’t need a meal, but are there enough families to go around? And I thought, what a question. You know, are there enough families who need help? Absolutely. I don’t know how to find them, but I will. And I just remember, you know, trying to get into all these different groups, you know, buy nothing groups and community neighbor support groups anywhere where I thought there might be people who needed help. And I started setting up Google sheets for these women who were kind enough to want to cook as well. And one thing turned into another and their friends saw them posting and their friends saw them posting. And I started getting emails from Florida and Iowa and Georgia. And I just kept saying, yes, I’ll I’ll figure it out. I’ll figure it out. And we did. And now here we are three years later. We fed almost 1.5 million people. And it’s just mind blowing to think of the impact that we’ve had. Alison: Wow! Are you serious? Rhiannon Menn: I am. Yeah. We’ll hit actually, you know, probably this week or next we’ll hit 1.5 million people who’ve been impacted by this. Alison: That’s amazing. Really. Jean: Wow. And your daughter helped you? Rhiannon Menn: She did. And she still does. Jean: How old is your daughter now? Because, you know, I looked you up a little bit. A little bit of Facebook. Your website. Rhiannon Menn: We post about her less but yeah. So she just turned six. Alison: So she was three. Rhiannon Menn: Yeah, she was three when the pandemic started and my son was one. And so he didn’t really understand what was going on, but she, she knew things had changed, right? She could no longer have playdates. The parks were closed. And we wanted to let her we wanted her to be aware that there were families who who were walking through hard times. And what did that mean? And so she was there for the very first lasagnas, and she used to come with me on deliveries. And I still remember, um, and we see this a lot now, but one of the first families that requested she was a mom and she had a son who was immunocompromised and she was she was scared to go to the grocery store and it was his birthday. And she was just like, Hey, if you could just bring a lasagna, at least he’ll have something special to eat for dinner. And I told my daughter, you know, Hey, there’s a little boy and it’s his birthday. Like, what do you think? And she’s like, I think we should make him a card. And she made him a card and she made him cookies. And so we were able to deliver. And that’s, I think, the beauty of lasagna love is that we’re not just bringing a meal. You create a personal connection with these families. And that has an impact beyond what they’re putting in their stomachs. And sometimes we’re inspired by a story that, like, I just feel called that I’m supposed to do something extra. And it’s great that she could that she felt that, too. And she could be a part of that. And we made this little boy birthday something more than than it would have been otherwise. Alison: First, I think it’s amazing when I think back what all of us went through during the pandemic. Rhiannon Menn: Yeah. Alison: And the strength and the courage for so many people to get through it. And the amount of grief and hope. And on a soul level for the world, it’s amazing. And the fact that you were participating in such a beautiful way. Were you always a volunteer? Was this something that was very common for you to do? Rhiannon Menn: Yes and no. Alison: So be a hero? Rhiannon Menn: I do not know. I’m honored. I do not consider myself a hero by any means. I like to cook for people, and I’ve found a happy place doing that. But, you know, from a very young age, I remember volunteering with my mom and I’ve talked about this with her since then. And I think she in a very different way than me, spent a lot of time like, you know, feeding people and making sure that she could show that love and that sustenance through food. And so I would cook with her. You know, I remember being, you know, what, seven, eight, nine and cooking for the library bake sale or I would sing at nursing homes during the holidays for people who didn’t have family. And I think it was she just raised me that this was what you do. You put goodness out because that’s that’s part of being human. And I think that continued on through my high school and college and post years but always as sort of a, you know something I did on the side or something when I had time. Rhiannon Menn: But I think it was always a driving force. And then it’s actually interesting because right before Covid hit, you know, my husband and I did a lot of personal reflection on where we were in our lives and what we wanted to do and sort of rewrote what our lives mission was. And I really, truly felt that mine was to serve others in some way, that that was my life’s purpose. And I just I didn’t know how that was going to happen. And it felt like to some degree, I manifested. What happened at the beginning of Covid, that it was, you know, because people felt, you know, you can remember back to how you felt. Some people, you know, were really driven to get out there and do what they could. But, you know, other people, they’re their primary emotion was fear. And they turned inward or they turned to social media or they hid. And all of those are natural responses. But how you handle those emotions, I think isreally it was interesting to watch people take different paths. Jean: It is really it’s amazing what you were able to accomplish. And I think that’s the power of love. I mean, talk about love in action. You’re really a demonstration of that. Can you tell us now where lasagna love is at? Like, how is the organization? How many volunteers do you have? Is it still very active? Rhiannon Menn: I’ve been surprised that -Yes,! I think a lot of us thought, okay, you know, we will do this during the pandemic and then you want to consider the end of it. Right? It’s become just part of of our everyday lives now. And people are back to work and kids are back in school. And so will there be a need? And absolutely. I think we still see a need. The need has shifted right before we were delivering to a lot of families who were maybe homebound with Covid or had lost somebody to Covid or had lost their job or had lost child care. And those things are still happening. They’re just not in the news. And they’re there from a different reason. Right? We’re you know, we’re walking through inflation and other sort of global events, refugees coming over. And so the people that we help might be coming to us for different reasons, but they still need a home cooked meal. And more than that, they need the kindness and connection from someone in their communities. And so we have 40,000 volunteers who have made or delivered lasagna at some point in the last three years. About anywhere between 10 and 15,000 of those are active at any one time. And so we’re still feeding about, I would say, 10,000 people a week. And it goes in peaks and valleys. It’s, you know, sometimes people have more money to spend on ingredients and sometimes they have less. And during the holiday season, everyone gets out to to bake. And so there’s definitely a pattern to it. But we’re still you know, we’re still getting a few hundred new volunteers every week. So there are still people who are inspired to become a part of this, even though it’s not for Covid. Alison: Right. Right. Jean: And how does someone become a volunteer? And that’s how I how I met you is through a volunteer. Rhiannon Menn: Lynn. Jean: Lynn. Yeah. And she kept saying, this is the kindest person and I’m so happy part of this. Rhiannon Menn: Well, I think Lynn’s the kindest person in the world. She’s one of our she’s basically a full time volunteer. She delivers. Not only does she deliver lasagna, she helps us find the families who need help on a global level. And she decorates. Have you seen her decorated lasagna? Jean: No. So? Rhiannon Menn: So she doesn’t just make lasagna. She’ll make flowers out of red, red and orange peppers. She’ll cook cookie cutters now and she’ll decorate them with mozzarella hearts. She’s done lasagna decorating classes. She takes it to another level. Rhiannon Menn: I mean, I think part of why it’s grown so quickly is it’s so easy. You know, you go to the website, you sign up as a volunteer, you pick your own schedule. You can say, I want to help one family every month or I’d like to help for a week or I just want to try it once and see how it goes. And we do all the back end matching and I won’t go into the technology, but there’s a lot of it and we try and match people with someone nearby in their community. And so, if I sign up, I’ll get a match and I’ll be able to log in and say, okay, I’m delivering to, you know, Kathy down the street. She has three kids. She’s a single mom. She’s working two jobs, is just exhausted and doesn’t have time to make a meal and would love to be able to treat her kids to a home cooked meal and have a break for a night. And I’ll reach out to Kathy and say, hey, I’m your lasagna, chef. You know, do you make vegetarian? Is that okay? Are there things your kids don’t eat? And so you’re creating that. To your point about love, we’re not just delivering that meal. We’re we’re delivering something that’s made specifically for you. And I think that to me, I wanted to deliver love in a pan. I wanted to deliver kindness. I wanted to bring somebody that hope. And that’s what our volunteers do now. Jean: I owned a flower shop for about 18 years and one of my favorite jobs was to deliver the arrangement. You know. Jean: It would be late in the afternoon, early in the evening. And I’d be like, okay, well, I’ll deliver these arrangements because you do get that. It is that giving and receiving are one. It’s so interconnected and we don’t know it because our eyes tell us that, you know, Alison’s here and you’re there and you’re there, but energetically, you know, when I would bring a flower arrangement to someone. I just felt so happy I’d get back in my car and be like, Oh, that was really nice. And they loved it. And there’s no downside! Rhiannon Menn: I’ve had so much lasagna sauce on my car. No, it’s true. A friend of mine says, you know, the quality of your energy is your intention, right? It’s the intention behind it. If you’re delivering something with love and care, you know, like you are with flowers or like I am with lasagna, the person on the other end feels that. Yeah, but then you also benefit. I think a lot of people feel like, oh, like, you know, volunteering is for the receiver. And I hear day in and day out, you know, people who they’re like, I feel guilty because I get more out of this than the recipients do. And we’ve had people come to us who you would read their story and you would assume they’re a recipient because they’ve walked through some trauma or they’ve lost somebody or they’re struggling with mental health and they’re doing this as a way to heal. They’re giving as a way to heal because there’s so much there’s science that explains why that happens and the science of gratitude and what passing something forward actually does for your mind and your body and your spirit. But it’s true that, you know, as a person who’s given many lasagnas, like, I feel stronger and happier and healthier and like it’s just it’s a beautiful thing that both parties are getting something out of it. And then, of course, there’s you know, there’s the pay it forward. There are recipients go on to do things beyond, you know, they receive a lasagna and then they they either share it or they go. And we hear stories all the time of what our recipients have gone on and done in their community. And I think that’s, you know, that’s a lot of the power. And I think that comes when you have that person to person connection where it doesn’t necessarily come if you stop at a food bank or, you know, it’s which is also critically important, but it inspires a different emotion. Alison: And how many hours would you say a week that you do this or in involved or a month… Does it take up a lot of your time? Rhiannon Menn: Me personally.This is all I do. I mean, I have three little kids And a husband and a house And we travel and family and. And a garden. Yeah. No, So. So this is. This is all I get. I had to give up my putting air quotes, my career right. To do this. This is now all I do. And I don’t want to count the hours because I would be embarrassed to say them out loud. Alison: I think we can get you a badge! That’s what women say. This is all I do. And you have three children. We find that a lot when we talk to women, right? Rhiannon Menn: Absolutely. Alison: That you’re like, this is all I do except I’m raising other human beings. Rhiannon Menn: Which is a full time job, right? Alison: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that’s fantastic. How was that for you to make a shift from a career to this? Was that challenging? Did you did you feel like sometimes I feel with careers there is societal norms or was there anything like that for you? Rhiannon Menn: It’s an interesting conversation because there was definitely tension, but it came in a few different ways. So there was tension between my husband and I, right? Because we were business partners. And so I’m leaving the business, which definitely was a thing that, like, we should not work together. We learned that in working together. But it’s still hard to separate because now all the things I was doing, who takes those on, right? I think the bigger challenge was, you know lasagna love in the early days it was me as a full time volunteer. How do we navigate that? Right as sort of a startup gets off the ground. And I think that can be true when you start a nonprofit or in any kind of entrepreneurship, but especially as a woman, I think we put pressure on ourselves that we have to compensate them. And so how do I compensate for having a job that doesn’t pay me by taking on more things in the house? But then there’s the you know, then there’s the cycle of the burnout and how do you take care of yourself? And. Right. I do think that that’s something that women walk through more often. Rhiannon Menn: Um, and I don’t I think some of that is society putting pressure on it. But I think a lot of it is us interpreting that what we see and saying I have to. And so I think one...
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Greta Muller
07/06/2023
Greta Muller
Greta Muller presentation coach, author and speaker talks about the book Opening Your Presence - Presenting the YOU& You want Others to See. She offers many tips to accessing your authenticity and self-acceptance.
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Dr. Gail Parker
06/21/2023
Dr. Gail Parker
When Jean and Alison interviewed Dr. Gail Parker, they learned that Gail has a Ph.D., is an author, psychologist and a yoga therapist educator. She has authored two book: Restorative Yoga for Ethnic and Race-Based Stress and Trauma and Transforming Ethnic and Race-Based Traumatic Stress With Yoga. She is also the current president of the Black Yoga Teachers Alliance (BYTA) Board of Directors. Gail's strength, sense of humor and calm confidence was evident when they spoke. Her passion, curiosity and dedication to her mission is truly moving.
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Cheryl Rice
06/07/2023
Cheryl Rice
Speaker, Coach, Author, Cheryl Rice is the heart and passion behind the YOU MATTER MARATHON - No Running Required Movement. She has coined the phrase “mattering”, to spotlight the importance of feeling loved and being acknowledged.
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Dr. Eben Alexander & Karen Newell
05/24/2023
Dr. Eben Alexander & Karen Newell
Dr. Eben Alexander (author of the international phenomenon - Proof Of Heaven) has co-authored with Karen Newell on Living in a Mindful Universe, which sheds light on the true nature of consciousness and how to cultivate a state of harmony with the universe and our higher purpose.
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Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
05/10/2023
Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor
This incredible woman talks with Jean and Alison about the stroke on the left side of her brain which gave Dr. Jill deep insights into the workings of the brain's functions along with the complexity of the human personality.
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Sarah Dubbeldam
04/26/2023
Sarah Dubbeldam
When Jean and Alison saw the online magazine, Darling, they immediately wanted to share it. Founded in 2012, by Sarah Dubbeldam, Darling magazine truly highlights “the art of being a woman”. Sara has expanded DARLING to a multi media corporation that includes a fantastic clothing line. Huge kudos go out to them for expanding the ideals of beauty. How refreshing! We are so happy that we were able to speak with Sarah about what inspired her to start Darling. She’s completely approachable and down to earth while at the same time has continued to create products that really honors all facets of the feminine.
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Nataly Kogan
04/12/2023
Nataly Kogan
Bright and bubbly, Nataly shares with Jean and Alison her recipe for living a happier life which includes acceptance of all emotions. Her history as a refugee from Russia affords us glimpse into the power of her happier living.
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Scarlett Lewis
03/29/2023
Scarlett Lewis
This heartfelt conversation between Scarlett, Jean and Alison expresses the power of love to shine through deep grief. Scarlett’s Choose Love movement is in response to her son’s murder at Sandy Hook and her mission to relate the practical tools of teaching compassion is infectious.
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Nick Ortner
03/15/2023
Nick Ortner
Nick shares with Jean and Alison the powerful emotional release technique known as tapping. The practice is easy and can be life changing.
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Mariel Hemingway
03/01/2023
Mariel Hemingway
Known for her acting and famous last name, Mariel shines on her own by opening up to Jean and Alison about her mission to help transform the stigma surrounding mental health.
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Anita Moorjani
02/15/2023
Anita Moorjani
After her near death experience, Anita joyfully and authentically shares the message that loving yourself as you are is of vital importance. She also talks with Jean and Alison about her new book "Sensitive is the New Strong”.
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